Unidentified Funny Objects 2

by Silverberg, Robert

  I struggled against them, but there were too many, and in my panic I couldn’t turn into a bat before they washed me over the threshold. I screamed. But I did not catch fire. I looked down at my cold, pale hands.

  Richard squealed and flew around my head shouting, “Call the fire department!” until he realized I was unharmed. He settled glumly beside me. “Never mind.”

  I sighed. “I expect you to be pleased by my death, Richard, but gloating is beneath you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You never really knew me, did you?”

  The church looked much like any other church. A small stage near the front with a podium and the black maw of a baptismal font behind it. A neat row of pews lined up like ribs. One thing seemed to be missing. No crosses anywhere. Not over the door posts, not on the stage, not on the hymnals or in the brick work. I hadn’t caught on fire because this was not consecrated ground. A tingling sensation traveled across my scalp. The crowd lined into their seats, still beating on pots and pans, blowing trumpets, having loud conversations on their cell phones. I gripped a pew. If Katie Lou could not be on consecrated ground, she was more than just some woman with mind control powers.

  A man in a white suit came jogging from the side of the church and onto the stage. “Good evening, everyone!” They all cheered. “Ten years ago I got a woman pregnant and when Katie Lou saw our daughter, well, she decided that this was the sort of baby she would like to eat. Katie Lou said to serve the baby up on her ninth birthday. That’s today! Happy birthday.” More cheering! He gestured to the side stage and three men brought up a small girl in a white robe, bound tightly with ropes.

  My blood started to boil. Well, technically not my blood, but I was the one who had it last, so, finders keepers. No one hurts kids, not when I am around. I became a vampire when I was only eighteen, helping my father in the family vampire hunting business. And there was no way that an insane town mayor was going to eat a little girl while I watched.

  “Never!” I shouted.

  Everyone stopped. The man in the white suit looked at his assistants, as if they might know the answer to his questions. “Who is this, now?”

  “I’m Isaac Van Helsing,” I said, my voice trembling with emotion. “And I’m a vampire!” I dropped my jaw and did my best impression of a rattlesnake. I was pleased to hear gasps from the crowd.

  The next thing I knew, I was bound to a long wooden plank by heavy metal chains. Richard floated nearby, his head propped on his hand. My head throbbed intensely when I moved it. “What happened?”

  Richard grinned. “Someone shot you with a tranquilizer gun.”

  I frowned. “That works? On vampires?”

  “Just kidding. You went into a trance and walked onto the stage and they tied you up. I guess Katie Lou is going to eat you, too.” He pointed at White Suit, who was riling up the crowd. “That guy says she likes you.”

  I shook the chains. I didn’t have enough leverage to break them. The little girl was five feet away from me, her face battling between resignation and mild terror. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m going to get you out of here. What’s your name, young lady?”

  She looked at me uncertainly. Her bangs were cut unevenly, and she looked tiny and helpless in her white robe. “The Sacrifice.”

  “No, dear, your name.”

  “That is my name.”

  I growled. “That is not okay.” A growing sense of dread washed over the church. I looked back at the baptismal font. Cold, clammy air came from it. I tasted salt water on my tongue. “If I only knew who Katie Lou is,” I said. “Maybe we would have a chance.” I turned my attention to White Suit. He was holding a ream of paper over his head with one hand, the other holding a bottle of Elmer’s glue.

  “Now is the time to wake her from her slumber,” he shouted. “Pen and glue!”

  The crowd echoed him with fervent delight. A black light came on, and people’s clothes started to glow. I could feel a presence, itching at the back of my mind. Richard shimmered, the beginnings of a psychic storm picking at the edges of his existence. “I’m glowin’ off Katie Lou Riley!” White Suit shouted.

  Wait. Pen and glue. I’m glowin’ off Katie Lou Riley. Why did that sound so… familiar? It was like hearing someone speak with a heavy accent. I knew I should understand, but I couldn’t quite figure it out.

  The Sacrifice gave a little scream. “I can feel her coming! If you’re gonna do something, it’s got to be quick!”

  White Suit laughed and held his hands over his head. “We’re going to get fat again!”

  I swallowed, hard. Those last few words, I thought I knew them. And now they were saying the whole thing, over and over: “Pen and glue! I’m glowin’ off Katie Lou Riley! We’re going to get fat again.”

  A horrific nausea gripped me. I knew what they were saying. I screamed for Richard. He looked over at me, unconcerned. “Richard, you have to get us out of here. Untie the girl, get the key and get me out. Right now, Richard, right now, right now!”

  Richard looked down at his fingernails. “Why so worried, boss? You can handle anything. Ha ha ha.”

  I tried not to scream. I could feel her now, rising toward us. My brain started a primal keening, like a monkey alarm clock inside my head. The chanting echoed around the room.

  The Sacrifice started rocking back and forth. “She’s awake!”

  I took a deep breath. “Richard, these idiots aren’t pronouncing it correctly. Her name isn’t Katie Lou Riley. And stop looking at your fingernails, you’re a ghost, we all know you don’t have dirt under there.”

  Richard stuck out his tongue. “Being insufferable is not likely to get you much help. Besides, I can barely move a curtain, I certainly can’t break the girl’s ropes.” He nodded apologetically to the girl. “I would if I could. No one likes to see a young girl eaten, even for a good cause.”

  I ground my teeth. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but it’s entirely likely that you can possess human hosts. Lots of ghosts can.”

  “I can… what now?”

  “Steal their bodies.”

  Richard cackled with glee and immediately disappeared. The girl had gone rigid with terror. I reminded myself to take deep breaths. I thought I could see the first tentative bit of Katie Lou pushing its way onto the stage. The White Suit loomed over me, a knife in one hand and a wooden stake in the other. “You were right about the bodies,” he said with Richard’s voice. “Tell me what’s going on and I’ll cut the girl free.”

  “Richard, Katie Lou’s sheer psychic backwash could cause you to cease to exist. If you’re not going to save me and the girl, save yourself!”

  Richard laughed. “You’re actually scared.” He looked back at the townspeople, chanting and moving into a religious frenzy. “I thought we came here to get rid of a prank caller.”

  I struggled against my chains. They didn’t budge. Richard White Suit dangled a key over me, laughing. I tried to turn into a mist, or a bat, or anything. A rabbit would be fine! But the psychic trauma of Katie Lou’s arrival had effectively neutered me. “It’s not Katie Lou. Put the pieces together, Richard. I don’t want to say her actual name. But she sleeps a lot.”

  Richard snorted. “Narcoleptic, I know.”

  “She’s really terrifying.”

  “That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

  “She enjoys blood sacrifice.”

  Richard shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “Imagine the name… Katie Lou… sound like anything else?”

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  I screamed in frustration. “They’re not saying ‘Katie Lou Riley’ they’re saying ‘Cthulhu R’lyeh.’ They’re trying to say Ph’nglui Mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

  Richard White Suit’s jaw dropped. “Cthulhu? The ‘elder god’ of terror who will one day rise up and wreak havoc on the universe?”

  “So they say.”

  Richard grabbed the sacrificial knife, his hands trembling, and sliced th
e ropes off the girl. She jumped up and rubbed her wrists. She didn’t hug him or move near him, probably evidence of the troubled relationship between her and her father, who had raised her as an appetizer for the elder god. Richard turned to me, the stake in his hand. “I’ll make this quick.”

  I scowled at him. “Take your time, Richard. Might as well enjoy yourself.”

  “I’m in a bit of a hurry. I don’t want to be here when Cthulhu arrives.”

  “He’s not going to stop until he gets his bloody sacrifice to lull him back to sleep!”

  “I thought ‘Katie Lou’ was a she?”

  “It is an ancient alien god who hibernates beneath the ocean. We haven’t had a good look at the reproductive organs yet.”

  Horrific squid-like tentacles burst through the floor, knocking Richard to the side and grabbing me around the chest. The Sacrifice tried to run, but the tentacles grabbed her legs, and then Richard, and dragged us deep below the church building. I fell through darkness and slammed into a wide slate platform hard enough to break the chains on my arms. Richard landed on me next, followed by the girl.

  The tentacles recoiled into the black water below us. “Somehow they’ve moved Cthulhu here beneath their town! What a terrible idea.”

  “Your phone is ringing,” Richard said.

  The girl was holding onto my leg, panting. I pulled my phone out and saw a series of horizontal marks with something like letters hanging off of them. “It’s Cthulhu.” I put one hand on the girl’s head and held the phone to my ear.

  A feminine, but guttural, voice said, “Cthulhu… is bored. And hungry.”

  “I see. Um. Is there any chance we could entertain you with something other than constant blood letting?”

  There was a long silence. “No.”

  “Cthulhu, look into my mind and search for something called ‘HBO.’”

  I felt the dirty water of the elder god’s mind wash through my head. “Yes. Bring Cthulhu this… HBO. Also. An ‘easy chair.’” I felt its attention turn to the Sacrifice. “And bring also… marshmallow Peeps. An abundant supply. MAY THE WATERS BENEATH THIS TOWN BE COVERED IN PEEPS!”

  “Release us and all of this will be yours.”

  “Very well.”

  “Also you have to stop prank calling Mayor Rigby.”

  “No. He must live with… the call… of Cthulhu!”

  “He’s an ordinary man who can’t handle your great presence.”

  Cthulhu laughed, and the horrific psychic backlash caused all three of us to fall to our knees. “He is no ordinary man. Cthulhu must remind him that his refrigerator is running and that he must catch it.”

  “The thing is, he’s paying me six hundred bucks to get your calls to stop.”

  “Cthulhu has reasons for the suffering inflicted on this Rigby.”

  Bargaining with an elder god is dangerous business. I didn’t want to find myself inside a tentacled maw, but then again I needed that six hundred bucks to pay rent. “Why, O Great Tentacled Monstrosity, must you torture this poor soul?”

  “Rigby is his last name. His first name is… Zog-Yesseriyal!”

  “Soggy cereal?”

  “Zog-Yesseriyal! Brother of Cthulhu! The crusher of dreams! The serpent-skirted shouter on the hill! The churner of stomachs!”

  I put my hand on my head. “You mean to say that Rigby is one of the elder gods?”

  “The horror of lower southeast Burbank! He-who-wakes-me! Devourer of my leftovers! The crosser of the invisible territorial line in the back seat of the family car!”

  “I take it you have a grudge against your brother?”

  “He-who-makes-tortilla-chips-go-stale!”

  “Enough already. I get it.”

  “There are more names.”

  I paced the slate platform. Richard and the girl still stood frozen, pushed against the back wall. “There must be some way to get you to stop harassing Mayor Rigby.”

  There was a long pause, and then Cthulhu inserted a bargain into my mind. She would never call Rigby again if I agreed to it. I considered carefully. Stepping between warring interstellar creatures was dangerous. I reluctantly agreed, and the elder god showed me a narrow stone stairway. I pointed it out to the girl, and she went up first, her legs shaking. I followed, Richard at my back. I was surprised that the elder god had agreed to my bargain without demanding actual blood from anyone.

  We walked much of the way in silence. As we neared the top, Richard said, “I saved us by making a mental bargain with Cthulhu.”

  I narrowed my eyes and turned toward him. “I made a bargain, too.”

  “What was your bargain?” Richard asked.

  “Richard, you shouldn’t make deals with creatures like that unless you’re extremely careful,” I said.

  We came up into the church. All of the cult members were lying on the floor, as if they were marionettes without strings. Richard grinned and moved close to me, the stake raised in his hand as he lunged for my heart. “I promised him the blood of all the cult members! And I will give him yours as a bonus!”

  Richard knocked me backward and I fell to my back. I could have thrown him off easily, but the girl had fallen beneath me, and I was struggling not to harm her. The stake touched the skin of my chest, the full weight of Richard’s body pushing it in. My muscles strained to hold him back. “There won’t be any Peeps!” I shouted. “Imagine a Peepless existence!”

  Richard’s face twisted into a scowl. “At least respect me enough to shout final words that make sense.”

  I smiled at Richard. “This should make sense to you: the body you’re in belongs to one of the cult members you promised to Katie Lou.”

  Richard’s face fell. “And the girl!”

  The girl shook her head. “Having grown up as a sacrifice I was never a fan of Katie Lou. I’m Presbyterian.”

  “Me too!” Richard shouted. “I’m not part of the cult!” The building shook, and tentacles wrapped around Richard’s torso, yanking him back toward the abyss. “Nooooooo! I’ll be back, Van Helsing! I will be avenged!”

  I snatched the Sacrifice into my arms and sprinted outside. Enormous, unwholesome appendages smashed into the perverse church, eventually drawing the entire building down into the hole. The girl wept, her head against my chest, and I stroked her hair gently. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

  She put her hand in mine. “Now you’re my father,” she said.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I imagined that Mother Holmes would be glad to have another boarder, and perhaps she would adopt the girl. She didn’t have a mother, or any possessions to speak of, but we did go by her house and I wrangled her father’s easy chair into the back of the van for a later delivery.

  We arrived at Mother Holmes’s house almost an hour before sunrise. She made the appropriate clucking sounds and gathered the Sacrifice to her ample bosom. “What’s your name, child?”

  She cuddled in close and said, “My name is Safe.”

  Mother Holmes hustled her toward a washroom, a comforting stream of verbiage surrounding them like a cloud. I made sure the blinds in my room were closed tight and lay on my bed, still in my clothes, on top of the quilt, too tired to turn off the light. It had been a long day. After some time I could hear Mother Holmes and the girl in the kitchen, the latter gladly slurping up stew. Mother Holmes said, “You’re nothing like your father!”

  I felt something strange… a small warmth in my chest, the corners of my lips tugging upward. I reached for my cell phone and put the caller ID blocker on before dialing Mayor Rigby. He answered on the third ring.

  “Mayor Rigby,” I said, muffling my voice. “Your goat is eating everything in my garden.”

  Rigby, still struggling toward wakefulness, said, “I don’t have a goat.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t have a garden.” I hung up quickly. Now I just had to short-sheet Rigby’s bed, booby trap his office with Dixie cups full of water and write CTHULHU RULES on hi
s windshield with whipped cream, and my bargain with Katie Lou would be finished. No doubt she would eventually get more followers and send them to harass Rigby another way, but I had earned my six hundred bucks. That was the last prank call. And if Katie Lou tried to back out of our deal I could always cut off her HBO and Peeps.

  My phone buzzed. Caller ID made it clear which terrible deity was on the phone. I was tired, and I debated sending it to voice mail, but picked up at the last second. “Hello?”

  “Where are Cthulhu’s Peeps? Cthulhu has eaten all of her minions and is hungry.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said, yawning. “I’ll bring them tomorrow.”

  A satisfied rumbling came over the phone. “Van Helsing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is your refrigerator running?”

  I sighed. “No. It’s standing in the kitchen. Go to sleep.” I clicked off the phone, turned it to silent and closed my eyes.

  Sometime just before I drifted off, Mother Holmes came and pulled my quilt up to my chin.

  Half awake I asked, “The girl?”

  “She’s clean, with a full stomach and a smile on her face, sleeping in the room down the hall.”

  “That’s a good thing,” I said, and slipped Mother Holmes the three hundred dollars for the girl’s rent. I felt her warm lips on my forehead. She turned out the light and closed the door behind her, and I slept and dreamed and did not wake, not until night came again.

  Story notes:

  When the first Unidentified Funny Objects anthology called for submissions they specifically said that vampires and zombies would be a tough sell, so I wrote a story about both (“The Working Stiff”). I enjoyed the characters so much, I wanted to write about them again even though two of them were dead. This story came about after reflecting on how difficult it must be for centuries-old creatures to deal with the enormous culture shift around them. Also, phones were a lot more fun before caller ID. And, let’s be honest, the idea of aliens coming to earth and setting themselves up as cult leaders might have been scary once upon a time, but it’s pretty hilarious in the 21st century.