Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories

by Alex Shvartsman

He was right under the porch now, listening to the beeps and buzzes of the video game as he smelled the boy’s life energy; more than enough to satiate his hunger. Gart kept finding himself drawn back to his father’s lessons. “It is taboo for our people to succumb to hunger. The transformation it brings might not be a physical death, but our best thinkers have equated it to the death of the spirit. Still, one may never feed on a self-aware being, for that is surely an action worse than the transformation itself.” The pacifist philosophy did little good for his father. Yet, the words rang true in his mind, even after everything that had happened.

  Gart began a careful retreat back to the edge of the forest. He would have to find another meal elsewhere, and soon. Hunger distracted him and he made a misstep, a dry twig crunching loudly under his foot. The boy looked up and screamed. Gart dashed for the trees, just as the front door of the house flung open and an adult human rushed out, holding a shotgun. The man took aim and fired. Blinding pain shot through Gart, but he kept moving despite it.

  A few minutes later Gart allowed himself the luxury to stop and examine the wound. His entire left side was covered in blood, his fur concealing the true extent of his injury. He heard the sounds of pursuit originating from the village. Worse yet, he began to feel the onset of transformation. He contemplated walking toward the villagers and allowing their bullets to end his life. It was preferable to becoming a monster. Yet, a glimmer of hope remained, and would not allow him to give up. He still had a chance, however small. There was no way he could get very far wounded, so he would just have to outsmart his enemies. With the last of his strength Gart did what his pursuers would likely not expect; he doubled back toward the settlement.

  The house he recently approached stood empty, the door ajar. Its inhabitants either fled in fear or joined in the hunt. Gart stumbled through the house and into one of the bedrooms. He ripped the linens covering the bed and wrapped the makeshift bandage around his torso to stop the flow of blood.

  Hunger was a top priority again, the transformation almost upon him. He would have to find a farm animal, a house pet, anything at all he could catch. He just needed a minute or two to gather his strength. Gart rested awkwardly atop the bed. At some point, without quite realizing when, he slipped into oblivion.

  Consciousness returned slowly. It felt like swimming up after a very deep dive, so deep that at times you could not be sure of ever reaching the surface again. The first waking emotion he felt was hunger. It was still there, but it felt different somehow, gnawing at him in a way it never had before. He craved a different kind of sustenance and it was wrong, so very wrong.

  With a grunt, Gart pushed himself to a sitting position. A cascade of hair fell from the bed. He touched his arm and a clump of his fur came off as it might from a shedding dog. The transformation was complete.

  With trepidation Gart looked at the mirror by the bed, only to find a human face staring back at him.

  This story was published in Title Goes Here Magazine, and remains (I think) my only yeti story to date. Clearly I need to write more yeti stories soon, or I’m doing this speculative thing wrong.

  A TEAR IN THE WEB

  The old man seemed perfectly normal, until he opened his mouth.

  He shuffled in at about half past five, pausing by the door to survey the mostly empty rows of computer desks in my Internet Café. There were only a few folks around, checking e-mail. The school kids were already gone for the day, having dropped by for an hour or two to play video games after class. The regulars, who were going to fill up the place until the wee hours of the morning, were just now in the process of escaping from their day jobs. I lounged behind the counter, reading.

  The customer looked to be in his late fifties, dressed in slacks and a tweed jacket with elbow patches, the sort an actor playing a college professor in a movie might put on. His outfit was well-worn, but clean and tidy. He purchased an hour’s worth of computer time and was about to sit at one of the available terminals, but turned around, and walked back to the counter instead.

  “Excuse me,” he said, looking around to see that we weren’t overheard, “who handles your servers for you?”

  Our “servers” consisted of a single computer that acted as a gateway between user terminals and the Internet. It was at least two years out of date, but it still worked. In a small business you don’t replace stuff until it breaks down. I wasn’t going to explain the facts of life to the old guy though, especially since I had no idea why he cared, anyway.

  “I do,” I said, looking up from the paperback. In my experience, if you don’t want the conversation to continue, brevity is the way to go. It was going to get busy soon, and I hoped to finish the chapter before then.

  “And are your servers located on the premises, or somewhere else?” he asked.

  “They are located here.” For the purpose of this exercise, our server PC was going to be referred to in plural.

  “Does anyone else have access to them?” he continued to prod.

  “No,” I said. “No one touches them but our staff.”

  “I see,” said the old man. “And who is the owner of this place?”

  “I am.” My policy of brevity was failing miserably at ending this conversation, but I did not have a better plan.

  “And what’s your name?”

  Whoever coined the cliché about customers always being right clearly did not spend any time working behind the counter.

  “Ted,” I said.

  “Ted what?”

  This was getting kind of ridiculous. “Ted Ingardi,” I said, the last vestiges of my patience fleeing like rats from a sinking ship.

  “And you are really the owner?”

  I was trying to be polite. In this economy, every customer counts. Still, there are limits.

  “No,” I said with as much sarcasm as my tone would convey. “I am lying to you. I am actually the janitor.”

  He got the hint, this time. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to insult you. It’s just that you’re so young. I was a bit surprised, that’s all.”

  I looked at him, saying nothing. Maybe silence would work better than brevity, I thought. Unfortunately, it had an opposite effect. The old man decided to tell me his life story.

  “I have a computer at home,” he told me. “But I can’t use it for anything important. They broke in to the web on my home connection and are pouring misinformation through the tear .”

  Oh, boy. He is one of those.

  “I just can’t trust my computer anymore, yet there is so much important research to be done. I’ve taken to coming here instead. Hiding in the crowd, so to speak. I asked about your servers because I think they might be compromised. Last time I was here doing a web search, I am pretty sure they put in the results they wanted me to see.”

  Internet Cafes see more than a fair share of strange characters, so my tolerance for weird is pretty high. There is the guy who constantly tries to convince me to uninstall Windows from all of our computers, and replace it with an operating system he wrote. Then there is the homeless dude that comes in once a month, like clockwork, with several large garbage bags that contain all his worldly possessions. He hands me some change to print out the latest issue of Modern Philosophy magazine. And don’t get me started on the pornography creeps who come in asking if we have “private booths”. I just point at a Family Fun Center sign I have posted above the register, and send them on their way.

  I wish I could say this was the first time a delusional paranoid person came in here, but sadly that wouldn’t be true. You see all kinds, over the years. I am no psychologist, but in my experience the worst thing you can do is to contradict them directly.

  “You know,” I said carefully, “the search engines these days are designed to provide you with suggested results that appear as you type. Perhaps that’s what you experienced here last time.”

  The old man looked at me, incredulous,

  “In any case,” I pressed on, “our servers are en
tirely secure. No one has access to them, but us,” I said with as much conviction as I could.

  “Just remember,” said the old man, “if anyone asks to access your servers, you should not let them do it. Not without a warrant.”

  I nodded.

  “You seem like a nice guy,” he said. “You don’t want to get involved in any of this.”

  “No, sir,” I said, “I definitely don’t.” I sure meant that.

  This attitude placated him, and he finally went off to use a terminal. I got some peace and quiet for better part of an hour, until the evening crowd began to trickle in. They kept me busy enough not to pay him any mind. Not until he rushed past me, in a huff.

  “They got to me here,” he said, a mixture of sadness and accusation in his voice. “They are replacing the search results again.” Before I could reply, the old man stormed past me, and out the door.

  I shrugged, and walked over to pick up the chair he shoved out of the way getting up from the terminal. He was still logged on, and as I was about to end his session, a headline on the screen caught my eye. “President Geertsen to Address Angola Crisis,” it said. Confused, I began reading the article about U.S. troop deployments in Angola. I haven’t heard anything in the news about American soldiers being sent to Angola, but that was not the strange part. Geertsen ran for president two years ago, and got crushed by the other guy. Yet here he was in the article, a photo of him standing behind a podium with the presidential seal.

  I checked the web address, but it was just a raw IP – a string of numbers. I scanned through the rest of the article. It seemed pretty elaborate for a hoax. At the bottom, there were links to more news stories. “Can Patriots Win Two Years Straight?” said one headline, even though they did not win last year. “Court Battle to Keep Terri Schiavo Alive Continues.” Except that they had pulled the plug in 2005. What the hell was this?

  At the very bottom of the page, there was a search window. I sat there, staring blankly at the screen for a good minute. On a whim, I clicked in the search box and typed in “Ted Ingardi.”

  A page loaded, with a photo of me that I do not remember posing for. I grinned stupidly on the screen, with the Golden Gate Bridge clearly visible in the background. I had to admit that it was a pretty good shot, considering that I’ve never been to San Francisco.

  There were just a few lines of text under the photo. Date of birth, college degree and other biographical details were accurate. It ended with: “Ted Ingardi is currently the owner of The At Sign Internet Café.” I thought there was nothing else, but the screen blinked; the web page refreshed on its own, and there was just one more line of text in small font, at the very bottom of the page:

  “It is strongly recommended that Mr. Ingardi mind his own business.”

  I looked at it, dumbfounded. Then the computer beeped, and shut down the browser window, returning to the main screen. The hour of time that the old man had purchased just ran out, and his session automatically ended. I typed in the administrator password, unlocking the terminal. The browser window displayed the familiar Google screen. I checked the browsing history, but there was no record of the strange news site.

  Perhaps I should have chased after the old man. Demanded some answers, if he even had any. In an adventure story, the hero would do just that. Instead, I sat there, an image of the old man warning “You don’t want to get involved in any of this” playing on repeat in my mind, until an impatient group of World of Warcraft players demanded my attention so they could log on. I finished out the evening shift on autopilot, still trying to figure out what in the world happened. By the end of the night I decided that the best thing I could do was close up and go home, to try and get a good night’s sleep.

  I planned to come back early in the morning and reformat the server computer. Just in case.

  In addition to writing, I have a day job: I own and operate Kings Games, an Internet Café and Game Center in Brooklyn, NY. The initial conversation about the servers and our security actually happened to me. I wish I could tell you that was the weirdest experience I’ve had working the evening shift, but any of our evening shift employees could probably top that story on a weekly basis.

  THE TRAVELING FAIR

  “Absolutely not.” Lord Protector of Raethe shifted on an oversized metal throne, located at the center of Petition Hall. He wondered again if his father found the ugly seat as uncomfortable as he had. “I will not allow the Fair, or any general merriment in Raethe, not so soon after…”

  Courtiers waited politely for him to finish the thought.

  “My father hasn’t been dead two moon cycles. There will be no public spectacles during the time of mourning. Application denied.” He motioned to the clerk, who stamped the parchment with red wax and reached for the next scroll.

  “A difficult day, Elan?”

  Trey was ancient, already an advisor when Elan’s father inherited the title. He alone still called the new Lord Protector by his given name.

  “It’s the accursed throne. An afternoon of holding court and my body feels as though I’ve been trampled by horses.”

  “Ah, but your ancestors were wise.” Trey smiled. “A Lord needs be both attentive and expeditious when presiding over the fate of his subjects.”

  “One of many things my father never told me.”

  “Your father’s sudden passing was tragic,” said Trey. “There was much he hadn’t taught you, many secrets he never got the chance to reveal. For instance, he wouldn’t dream of canceling the Fair.”

  “And why not?” Elan asked. “A bunch of nomadic charlatans descend upon us every few years. They dazzle the townsfolk with cheap parlor tricks to relieve them of their coin. I’d barely tolerate them elsewhen. To have them ply their trade in a time of mourning is outrageous.”

  “Your father would disagree. He would say that a young, unproven Lord Protector shouldn’t risk denying his people a popular diversion. But that isn’t the true reason to invite them into town. This is one of the secrets your father never got the chance to pass along. The Fair isn’t what it appears to be.”

  “Oh? What is it, then?”

  “The Fair guards our kingdom against the Cloud Dragon.”

  “Cloud Dragon is a myth, a fairy tale women use to scare their children into behaving.”

  “I assure you, it’s real; an enormous beast that hides above clouds to mask its approach. I once visited a town devastated by the Cloud Dragon – it lay in ruins and there were no survivors. The Fair didn’t make it there in time, delayed by heavy rains and a flooded river.”

  “You believe that a band of performers have the power to defeat a dragon?”

  “They have weapons enough to drive it off. Their clairvoyants track the Cloud Dragon, to see where it might strike next. This is why their visits are erratic – they come when they’re needed and perform their duty under the cover of a traveling show. Please, Elan, allow them to protect Raethe.”

  “I studied at the finest schools of the capital. I may be young, but I know better than to fear a ridiculous superstition. My edict stands. Oh, and Trey? In the future you will address me properly, as Lord Protector. You may go now.”

  Elan watched with some satisfaction as the clerk pulled one of the last remaining petition scrolls. His new throne, soft and comfortable, was no deterrent at all from getting things done. He replaced Trey and several more of his father’s geriatric advisors with young capital-educated men of modern thinking and sharp wit. Government meetings became far more tolerable since then. They were already planning a slew of reforms to make Raethe stand out among the kingdom’s many towns.

  A messenger rushed into Petition Hall, interrupting the clerk’s monotonous recital of the next case.

  “It’s the Fair,” he reported. “They’re setting up fairgrounds at the edge of town. Already many of your subjects are making their way over there.”

  “How dare they challenge the Lord Protector’s authority,” said one of the young advisors. It was not e
ntirely clear if he meant the Fair or the townsfolk.

  “Summon the constables,” ordered the Lord Protector.

  Elan and his men arrived at the Fair by dusk. Stalls were set up and doing brisk business. A large crowd of gawkers gathered at the edge of a field, waiting for the Fair’s main and free attraction—a fireworks display.

  “Who is in charge?” Elan demanded of the first nomad he could find. He was directed to a large tent at the center of the encampment.

  “You’re not welcome here.” Elan sneered at the Fair Master. “Shut everything down, or I will have you all in chains.”

  “We are outside the town limits, and outside your authority,” the nomad responded, nonplussed. “This is the king’s land, and I have his decree, allowing us to set up anywhere on it. Do you wish to challenge your king?” He produced a fancy parchment with an elaborate seal that could not be mistaken. “It is beginning now. You should stay and watch, and perhaps gain some wisdom.” The nomad turned and walked away from the seething Lord Protector.

  As if on cue, the first fireworks were shot into the air. The crowd cheered as they watched bright flowers of flame color the evening sky. Elan saw grim men fiddle with mortar-like devices set up well behind the garishly dressed nomads launching the fireworks. The men aimed their cannons at the clouds and fired repeatedly, the booms almost—but not quite—drowning out the sound of the fireworks. The clouds were being shredded, one after another, by the missiles. Elan could almost swear he saw a giant shadow shift directions above the clouds. He could faintly hear a bellow of rage lost in the cacophony of charges, music and cheer.

  “Come,” he told the constables, “we ride back to Raethe. When we return, find Trey and tell him that he is reinstated as an advisor. It appears he may still have much to teach me.”

  As they prepared to leave, a few heavy raindrops began to fall from the torn clouds. In the evening light the water seemed tinged with streaks of red.