Best Little Witch-House in Arkham

by Mark McLaughlin

  “Hamlet5, what are you talking about?” the serving unit asked.

  “I made the Earthling salad from the dandelion greens, and then I looked around in the refrigerated locker and—” A red alarm light flashed on top the small cooking unit’s head. “—I added bits of diced raw shoggoth to the salad of the Earthlings. For flavor, only for flavor!”

  * * * *

  Filled with dread, Romeo14 rolled slowly up to the table of the Earthlings. “Here is the shoggoth cacciatore,” he said, trying to make his voice sound cheerful. “The pride of the Golden Nebula.”

  He noticed that Squinn and Mella were now sitting side by side. Perhaps that was a good sign. He set down his serving tray and gave each of them their plate. “Is there anything else I can do for you? Would you like another beverage?”

  “Our water pitcher is empty,” Squinn said. “We would like more water.”

  “Yes,” Mella said. “More water.”

  The Earth couple stared at him with wide eyes. Romeo14 took his tray and the water pitcher and rolled off.

  A Graaldoth at a corner table tapped him with its silicon tentacle as he rolled past its table. “I am so glad,” whispered the slick creature’s top head, “that those loud, uncouth Earthlings have stopped their bickering.”

  “Indeed,” agreed its lower head. “We could barely hear ourselves think. Your skill with uncultured clientele is admirable, Romeo14.”

  The serving unit nodded. “Thank you. I do hope the rest of the evening proceeds…smoothly.”

  “Earthlings are so unpredictable,” the top head said. “I cannot understand why. They have only one brain. Life should be easy for a carbon-based creature with a single brain.”

  “One would think so,” Romeo14 said.

  He filled the pitcher and returned to the Earthling table. Their plates were already empty. Squinn had his arm around Mella’s shoulders.

  “Here is your water,” the serving unit said.

  The male stared at him. “We want more food. More shoggoth.”

  “More shoggoth,” the female echoed.

  “As you wish.”

  For the next two hours, Romeo14 wheeled back and forth between the Earthling table and the food preparation area. The couple simply could not eat enough shoggoth. They required pitcher after pitcher of water, too. To his credit, he did manage to also serve his other tables diligently.

  “This is the last of the shoggoth,” Caesar72 said, loading two steaming plates onto the serving unit’s tray. “And we’re out of tomatoes, too.”

  “Are they manifesting any strange symptoms?” Hamlet5 said.

  “They are behaving without emotion,” the serving unit said. “I find that very disturbing.” He looked at the thick, golden-brown slabs on the plates. “Plus, they have ingested a great deal of food and water and yet I have not seen them go to the bodily waste facilities. I am sure they are well past the normal nourishment capacity for beings of their size.”

  Suddenly one of the busbots sped into the preparation area. “Romeo14, please attend to the Earthling table! We have an alarming development on our hands.”

  “Oh no!” cried Hamlet5, his red light flashing.

  Romeo14 set down his tray and rushed to the dining area. Caesar72 followed close behind.

  Upon reaching the Earthlings, the serving unit emitted his soft whistle of surprise—three times. The clothes of the couple were scattered on the floor. The two of them were locked in a tight embrace on top of their table. Thick, pulsing red and green veins laced in and out of their bodies. A huge, bushy yellow flower was pushing its way out of the wife’s mouth.

  The Graaldoth oozed up to the table, slapping its tentacles together. “Romeo14, you jolly trickster!” it cried, loud enough for the whole dining area to hear. “At first I’d thought these bipeds were simply noisy Earthlings. But now it is very clear that the antics of these creatures—whatever they are—have been part of a clever dinner-theatre experience!”

  Oooh’s and aaah’s sounded from all the tables.

  A Klarbvog diner stood up on its hindlegs. “What an extraordinary performance. Truly memorable! Romeo14, you have outdone yourself! What sort of finale do these stars of yours have in store?”

  The Earthlings began to rock back and forth, faster and faster.

  “Whatever it is,” Romeo14 said, “I believe it should take place in the parking area. Caesar72, please assist me in carrying this table.”

  “An excellent suggestion.” Together, the two bots picked up the table, with its hideous burden, and rushed it out of the building.

  “Let us follow!” the Graaldoth cried. “I do not want to miss a single moment of this splendid drama!” All of the diners then left their tables and rushed out into the parking lot.

  The serving unit and his golden colleague set down the table at a distance from the building and any of the vehicles. By this time, the couple had transformed into an enormous, misshapen tomato, topped with an enormous dandelion blossom. It continued to pulse and gurgle savagely. Spurts of pinkish foam began to shoot from small cracks in the surface of the obscene fruit.

  “Wonderful,” breathed the Klarbvog. “My spawning partners will be sorry they missed this!”

  With a gush of froth and pent-up gases, the huge tomato burst open, releasing a teeming swarm—thousands of tiny, frantic creatures. The elfin shapes had thin, vine-like limbs and wee, blubbery red bodies, topped with billowy wads of fluff, like those of dandelion seeds. A gust of wind caught the swarm and whirled the tufted mutant shoggothlings throughout the parking area. The ruined tomato-husk that had been Mella and Squinn quickly turned to coarse, greenish-gray dust and a few ragged ribbons of dried plant fiber. A moment later, the wind blew the desiccated refuse away.

  The diners clapped and hooted and squealed with applause. Finally they filed back into the building to finish their meals.

  The airborne shoggothlings drifted and swirled with every passing breeze.

  Romeo14 and Caesar72 looked toward the shuttles in the parking area. Dozens of them. All from different planets. Most of the diners had left some hatches on their vehicles partially open, so that their stuffy travel quarters could air out. Such a shockingly careless thing to do. Of course, neither bot would ever dare mention such a concern to their customers. Why, that would be tantamount to calling them idiots, right to their faces! An unforgivable faux pas.

  The bots quietly carried the empty table back into the restaurant.

  Hound-Dog McGee and the Ghostpuncher Gang MEET The Blubbering Blasphemy in the Bed & Breakfast of MadnEss

  “How interesting. How very, very interesting,” said Louise, the smart one, as she read the message on her computer monitor. She pushed her heavy glasses back up her freckled nose.

  Winston, the handsome one, leaned over her so that his fashionable scarf brushed her neck and shoulder. The thrill of that silken touch, along with his sweet, slightly musky scent of after-shave, made her tremble. “Looking at some e-mail, Louise?” he said. “Who’s it from?”

  She tapped the screen of the monitor. “A potential client! He thinks the farmhouse he inherited may be haunted. Look’s like another job for the Ghostpuncher Gang!”

  Monique, the pretty one, looked up from her fashion magazine. “Yeah, but it’s too bad we never find any real ghosts. They’re always—well, criminals. Old men trying to pull off some kind of real estate scheme. Or diamond smugglers. Or kidnappers. Or pimps in vampire disguises running secret whorehouses out of abandoned mansions. Gosh, I hope it’s not another secret whorehouse. Frizzy just can’t keep his hands off of those awful whores.”

  Frizzy had entered the meeting room through the door behind Monique, so he heard the last part of her speech. “Hey, can I help it if I have an eye for the ladies—along with a few other body parts?” He turned toward Winston. “You didn’t seem to have any problem keeping your hands off those scantily clad hotties. Why is that?”

  Winston ran his fingers nervously through his blond highl
ights. “I’m a gentleman. Not some over-sexed hippy, like you.”

  “I am rightfully proud of my hippy upbringing and heritage, thank you very much,” Frizzy said, smoothing a wrinkle out of his tie-dyed t-shirt.

  Louise turned away from the screen to face the others. “Cut Winston some slack, Frizzy. I mean, sure, he’s never groped any of those whores, even though they practically threw themselves at him because of his movie-star good looks. But it’s not a crime for a guy to have manners. In the five years we’ve been working together, solving mysteries, Winston has never laid a finger on either Monique or myself.” She looked up at her handsome coworker and smiled. “Of course, if he ever did, I wouldn’t be too upset. I mean, we’ve known each other a really long time, and…well…oh, never mind…” Her voice trailed away as she turned back to the computer.

  “So tell us more about this farmhouse,” Monique said.

  “Ah, yes!” Louise tapped the screen again. “This man is trying to operate a bed & breakfast, but an eerie presence keeps scaring away the customers.”

  At that moment, Hound-Dog McGee walked in on his hindlegs. “Sounds like another secret whorehouse. Try to keep it in your pants this time, Frizzy.”

  The enormous hound trotted up to the table, picked a bagel off a tray with his teeth, and began to gnaw on it. “Hey, Louise, how come we only have bagels out? I’m a dog. I like meat. How about a big, juicy bone every now and then? Of course, I’d probably have to fight Winston for it.”

  Winston gasped and put a hand to his chest. “Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Am I the only one who finds it odd,” Hound-Dog McGee said, “that Winston goes to meetings of an alleged ‘stamp-collecting club’ every Tuesday at Club Manhole? On the same night that the club has its all-male dance revue?”

  “That club is centrally located to all the stamp club members,” Winston said. “We’re all dedicated philatelists!”

  Hound-Dog McGee nodded. “My point exactly.”

  “This guy asks a question about you, Hound-Dog,” Louise said. “He says he was looking over our website, and he wonders why our team includes a huge talking dog that walks around on its hindlegs. He also mentions that he has never seen a dog with eyebrows before.”

  The dog sighed wearily. “Oh yeah, I get questions like that all the time when I’m out shopping, or when Frizzy and I go out to a restaurant and order a super-long sandwich so we can both take an end and eat our way to the middle. Personally, I don’t understand why people are so surprised to see a human-sized dog on his hindlegs who walks and talks and has eyebrows. I mean, it’s not like I can fly. Oh, well—just give the guy the facts, Louise.”

  “Yes,” Frizzy said. “Let him know that Hound-Dog is a mutation with unusually humanoid characteristics who is probably the next step in dog evolution. It’s as simple as that.”

  Winston smiled. “Yes. Perfectly natural.”

  Monique agreed. “Not scary at all.”

  Louise concurred. “Logical, too.”

  Hound-Dog strutted up to Frizzy. “May I sniff your rear end? It’s been a while since the last time I sniffed it, and I just want to see how it’s doing these days. It’s a dog thing.”

  “Sure, buddy,” the hippy said. “You don’t even have to ask.”

  * * * *

  The next day, the Ghostpuncher Gang loaded all their equipment into their van, which they lovingly called the Spookster Express, and began the long trip to the bed & breakfast in the small New England town of Dunwich. Frizzy and Hound-Dog McGee agreed to take turns driving.

  On the way there, Louise went over the specifics of this particular case. “The owner, Jake Whateley, age twenty-seven, inherited the farmhouse, as well as the family fortune, from his reclusive, mysterious grandfather Zebekediah Whateley last year—”

  “This Jake…” Winston said. “Is he single? What does he look like? I bet that old farmhouse is filled with some great antiques.”

  Hound-Dog McGee rolled his big, brown puppy-eyes, but said nothing.

  “Jake is in fact single,” Louise said. “I saw his picture on the website for his bed & breakfast and he’s a real hunk. Almost as handsome as you, Winston, except he has more of a tan and the clearest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He must work out all the time, because he has a huge, muscular chest and biceps that look like they were carved out of boulders.”

  “Winston, are you okay?” Monique said. “You’re breathing heavily and your face is all sweaty.”

  “Am I? Is it?” The handsome man brushed his silk scarf over his forehead. “This van is so stuffy. Can someone open a window?”

  “No need,” Frizzy said. “The air conditioning is on full-blast.”

  Monique opened up her purse. “Well, if this Jake is as handsome as all that, I’d better touch up my make-up.”

  Frizzy smiled. “Already I can tell this is going to be a pretty interesting weekend. Now about that farmhouse…?”

  “Well, I’ve been doing a little research,” Louise stated, “and back when Zebekediah was alive, that house was considered a source of great evil by the locals. It was rumored that the Whateley family worshipped devil-gods from beyond. Gods with eldritch names like Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth, and sometimes even just plain old Thoth. Strange, lurid lights flickered in the windows of the farmhouse at odd hours.”

  “I still think it’s a secret whorehouse,” Hound-Dog said.

  “Zebekediah’s daughter Asmodarla eventually became mixed up in all this mumbo-jumbo,” Louise said. “She was a shy, bookish girl who was ignored by all the local boys, so everyone was surprised when she became pregnant.”

  “Sure,” Monique said, powdering her cheeks, “who’d want to do it with some dried-up, near-sighted old brainiac? I mean, they’d have to be pretty desperate to—” She then looked at Louise. “Umm, sorry to interrupt. Go on.”

  Louise stared back. “Well, I bet Asmodarla wasn’t some tarted-up bitch who never did her share of the work around the office.” She reached into her sweater pocket, pulled out a pack of clove cigarettes, and lit one up. That was her only vice: three cloves a day. She used to be a chain-smoker, and had never totally rid herself of the habit. “Anyway, the records state that she’d given birth to twins, but one had died at birth. She herself died during the delivery, and the surviving child—Jake—was sent to live with relatives in Boston.”

  “Poor, motherless child.” Winston dabbed at his eyes with his scarf. “He must be lonely. So very lonely.”

  “The rest you know. When Jake inherited the family farmhouse, he opened up the bed & breakfast, which he called the Dunwich Arms. But a disturbing presence has been driving away all the guests.”

  “Do we have a description of this presence?” Frizzy asked.

  Louise nodded. “Yes, we do, and it’s very peculiar. Its appearance suggests alien or perhaps even extra-dimensional origins. According to reports, this large, mysterious creature is covered with clusters of thick, prehensile protuberances. These long, smooth, fleshy shafts are covered with bulging veins, and—What’s wrong now, Winston? You’re starting to sweat again.”

  * * * *

  The farmhouse was a loathsome, rambling structure, nestled amidst overgrown thorn bushes atop a weed-choked hill. The front windows seemed to stare into space like the eyes of a skull. The building had been white-washed, but that only served to strengthen its resemblance to some bony remnant of a long-forgotten cadaver.

  “Charming place,” Frizzy said, shortly after he had parked the van in front of the house’s deceptively cheery sign, which read: THE DUNWICH ARMS—A GOOD NIGHT’S REST WITH NEW ENGLAND’S BEST. “The owner should just send us home and burn the place down for the insurance money.”

  “Now Frizzy,” Louise said, “that’s not a good Ghostpuncher Gang attitude. Has anyone seen Hound-Dog?”

  “Here I am,” the talking canine said, emerging from some bushes. “I just went off for a moment to urinate on a tree. That’s what us dogs do.”

  Wi
nston studied the sign. “Interesting. I wonder if this Jake really is New England’s best?”

  “Simmer down,” Frizzy said. “I think it’s referring to the bed & breakfast.”

  “Look who’s coming this way,” Monique said breathlessly. “The master of the manor himself.”

  A tall, tanned young man was descending the porch steps. He waved to the gang and flashed them a perfect smile.

  Monique exhaled into her cupped hand to check her breath. Winston turned away from the house and raised an arm slightly, sniffing to make sure his deodorant was still working.

  “So who do you think is going to bed the Dunwich dimwit?” Frizzy whispered into Hound-Dog’s ear.

  The dog shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Hard telling. I think they’re both ready to start leg-humping any second now.”

  “Hello, everybody,” Jake Whateley said. “I’m glad you got here so quickly.”

  Louise stepped forward. “Hello, I’m the one who responded to your e-mail. Louise Slapowski. I’m the business manager. These are my colleagues, the Ghostpuncher Gang. Monique LaRue can sense the presence of the dead, and also handles some secretarial duties. Winston Prescott is sensitive to psychic vibrations—he takes care of promotions, too. Frizzy Phelps is our electronics and science expert and resident mechanic for the Spookster Express. And Hound-Dog McGee can actually sniff out danger.”

  Jake grinned as he looked into Louise’s eyes. “Oh, don’t you have any special powers, like the rest?”

  Louise bit her lower lip. “Well, I hate to brag…”

  “Go ahead. Tell me.”

  “When I get really mad, I can concentrate and make people bleed from their nostrils and ears.”

  “Oh.” The grin slowly faded away. “I’m sure that must come in useful from time to time.” Jake stepped up to Monique. “Are you sensing any dead people right now?”

  “Goodness, no,” she said. “If anything, I’m sensing a lot of life. Hot, pulsing life.”

  Jake turned his attention to Winston. “How’s the place doing in the psychic vibrations department?”