All anatomy study jokes aside, we silently consented to forego the small talk and get down to vocation. Our mouths were soon occupied in a more physical form of communication, while our hands were employed in the undertaking of uncloaking each other. I was suddenly thrust into the role of jobseeker.

  Her unclothed female body parts were a source of arousal for me, and I explored these areas with great vigor, including her mammary glands and vaginal region. The playful foreplay maneuvers allowed both of our bodies to prepare for coital activity, specifically the rigidity of my genitals and the lubrication of hers. I then inserted my male member into her female fragment and proceeded to produce the friction that would eventually culminate in our mutual fulfillment.

  After Lulu completed her post-coital cleansing, I took my turn in the bathroom. As I showered her scent from my skin, I laughed to myself over how silly I had been to get worked up over the meaningless meanderings of that mean-spirited missive. My level of contentment at that particular moment was not even curtailed by the realization that Lulu had selfishly used both towels to dry her petite body, leaving me to use a couple of small wash clothes to remove the steamy dampness from my body.

  When I opened the bathroom door and walked back into the room where Lulu was waiting, I was shocked to see her sitting on the bed reading The Necronomicon. Did our sexual intercourse cause the book to become dislodged from underneath the mattress?

  She looked up at me with a face of bewilderment that went far beyond what my mere nakedness should have provoked.

  “Did you write this sick stuff?” she demanded. “Are you some kind of psycho or something?”

  I was suddenly blinded by rage—but not blind enough that my hands could not find the tender flesh of her exposed throat. The weight of my body knocked her flat upon the bed, and I watched unblindly as her frightened face turned redder and redder while I squeezed the breath from her trachea. Her blood-streaked eyes jutted out comically from her slanted lids, like hundred-year-old eggs emerging from a bucket of horse urine.

  “You won’t steal my secrets!” I proclaimed.

  Only when my clenched hands could no longer feel the pounding pulse in her neck did I realize what I had done. I slowly peeled my white-knuckled fingers from around her throttled throat and looked down solemnly at my hands. “Did these hands do this? Did I do this?” I mumbled to myself.

  I jumped from the bed, almost tripping over the discarded book. “What am I going to do now?” I asked while pacing the floor.

  Even if I could find a way to remove Lulu from my room, how would I dispose of her body? People had seen us together that evening. People knew we were friends. Were we friends? What kind of friend strangles you to death? I was a terrible friend. I was a terrible person. I was a strangler. I was an unfriendly, terrible, strangler...

  Then I saw that damned book on the floor. If that damned book knew everything about me, everything that I’d done, and everything that I am going to do, then I thought maybe it could also tell me how to get out of this sinister situation.

  I fell onto the floor and grabbed the book. I rifled through the remaining pages, trying to find an answer to my affliction. But the rest of the book was blank; completely empty, all-white pages of absolute nothingness. I was a fool to think that anything in that baneful book could in any way be helpful.

  When I turned the final page, I saw a small round seal stuck in the center of the inner back cover. The words on the label read: Olaus “Book” Wormius – All Sales Are Final!

  I began cursing the old man who sold me the book and I pledged to myself, right then and there, that even if I get sent to prison for the rest of my life, I will first get the satisfaction of returning this book back to the old man and receiving a complete and unconditional refund of the full purchase price, including tax.

  ***

  I stormed from the dormitory, thunder booming beneath my skull cap. My shadowy soul and muddled mind became instantly acclimated to the darkened wind-swept streets of Arkham. I cannot say that I remember each step, each thoroughfare or each block traversed on that fateful cross-town journey, but I do recall the feeling of fright and dread that rained over me as I approached the edifice of lost editions.

  I found that the windows were darker than on my previous visit, and there was no “Open” sign on the door. But the door was unlocked. I decided that the door would also remain unknocked.

  I remembered to pull open the door and did so as quietly as I could, but I was met with an unexpected shock as something scampered betwixt my boots. I gasped at the brief encounter, and then realized that it must have been that caterwauling feline. If that beast wanted its freedom, who was I to stand in its way?

  I proceeded through the doorway, feeling around on the inside wall for a light switch. It didn’t take me long to locate the switch and illuminate the room full of books. “Old man, are you here?!” I called out.

  All remained quiet as I glanced around the room, but then I sensed a low buzz, which seemed to intensify as I walked closer to the counter. It was as if all the words in all the books on all the shelves were murmuring to me simultaneously. I felt the book in my hand become warm to the touch and I looked down at it, suddenly hearing it speak to me: “Is there something I can help you with?”

  I quickly dropped The Necronomicon to floor, but continued hearing the voices from the other books ramble on inside my head, like I was stuck within some large cafeteria for the criminally insane and I had forgotten to take my sedatives. “Old man, are you here??!!” I cried out over the menacing muttering.

  I noticed that the small door behind the counter was open, which was where the old man had temporarily disappeared during my earlier visit. I walked slowly around the counter and yelled into the darkened void, “Old man, are you in there???!!!”

  I hesitantly walked into the pitch-black room, suddenly getting hit in the face with a cold metal chain. I instinctively pulled down on the chain, causing a bare bulb to click on and bathe the room in yellowish light. I was in a bathroom—an empty bathroom. “Where are you, old man,” I whispered to myself.

  I was preparing to leave when I caught a glimpse of an odd reflection in the mirror above the sink. I walked closer to the mirror, unable to take my eyes off the reflection, and realized once and for all my fate. Staring back at me in the reflection was my face, but I barely recognized myself behind the world-weary eyes, aged wrinkles and thick gray beard.

  I rehearsed, “Is there something I can help you with?”

  Eat Shit and Die

  Frank J. Edler

  On the outskirts of the New England town of Innsmouth stood a dingy brick building, encrusted with soot and algae, set in an alcove of trees. A cracked and warped oak door provided the only visible ingress to the building. Slits in the brick not wide enough to fit an arm through served as windows. The square building was only one story tall, but from the center of the building, a spire shot out to the sky; it had no architectural reason for being there and gave the building a sense of uneasiness about it. There were no markings on the building to indicate the nature of the business that took place inside, but most townsfolk understood the building to be called The Innsmouth Inn. No light could be seen emanating from the slits in the early twilight.

  A figure cloaked in red velvet and trimmed in gold approached the building. The robed figure rapped on the door in a manner to indicate they were tapping out a code. After a moment the mysterious person put an ear to the door, then knelt down and retrieved a scroll from within their cloak and slid it under the threshold. The robed figure stood up and the door opened to allow his entry . It was pitch black inside and no one could be seen opening the door from within. The robed figure entered, and the door creaked shut behind them.

  Over the next hour, five other people approached the building. All of them wore the same exact red velvet cloak, and all of them gained entrance in the same manner. When the final person had entered, candlelight began to slither out the window slits of the building. In the forest surrounding the rear of the building, the screech of an owl echoed.

  ***

  The first robed figure to enter stood in the pitch black room. They sensed the presence of the others as they came in. They could not see the others in the darkness, nor could they hear their footsteps. The first robed figure was not expecting the others.

  The fifth person entered the room. A candle lit seemingly on its own, then another and another. Soon the room was bathed in the warm flickering glow of a ring of candles. The candles encircled an elevated altar in the center of the room, upon which was a plain wooden chair. Sitting phlegmatically was a very obese woman clad in a white toga. She was situated directly under the unorthodox spire of The Innsmouth Inn.

  Outside the altar and ring of candles were six chairs also encircling the altar. The first robed figure and his new cohorts all took a seat. They did this quietly and without hesitation, as if they had rehearsed this moment before. They all sat patiently with their hands folded in their lap and waited. The woman did not look at them nor acknowledge their presence.

  From the shadows entered a prophet dressed in a gray suit adorned with a shocking red string tie. The robed figures all knew who he was: he was the one who invited them here. He was holding an odd looking wooden box small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. The lid was domed with many facets, like the crown of a diamond. Each facet displayed an odd symbol, and each symbol glowed an eerie green. As he came closer to the others, they could hear a faint sound coming from the box; it sounded like Gregorian Monks humming a single sustained note.

  The prophet stepped between the robed figures and the ring of candles and began to walk around the circle of the altar. He looked at each robed figure as he walked past them, but said nothing until he had made a complete circuit. With the box palmed in his right hand, he covered the top of it with is left, and the humming ceased. He began walking around the circle in the opposite direction.

  “You are here because you wish to be here. No one has forced any of you to come here this evening. We make no judgments as to your need to be here. You have received your instructions for the ceremony, and they must be followed to the letter. Now, if you all are prepared with your offering, we can begin.”

  The first robed figure reached into his cloak and felt for the warm mass encased in a zip lock bag to be certain it was there. The others appeared to make the same sort of gesture. The first robed figure hoped to the gods that he was the only one with the type of offering he brought.

  Six midgets dressed only in red velvet loin cloths paraded into the room from the same shadows that had veiled the prophet's entrance. They chanted ‘hut-hut-hut-hut-hut’ and they marched in on the double. Each held a plain white roll of toilet paper. They placed the rolls of toilet paper under each robed figure’s seat, then marched out empty-handed, still repeating their cadence of ‘hut-hut-hut-hut’.

  The prophet nodded and faced the altar. The obese woman had begun to breathe more heavily. Her chest rose and fell more quickly. She looked eager, hungry for something. The prophet placed the box down on the altar and unscrewed the lid off the top. The eerie green glow that illuminated the symbols inlaid on the lid now bathed the obese woman in a green hue. She threw her head back in what appeared to be ecstasy. Slowly, her face oriented itself back on the box; the room was filled with her deep cackling. The prophet bowed to her and walked off back into the shadows.

  The obese woman stood. She belched, and a brown fog erupted from her mouth. The putrid brown burp cloud floated up into the darkness of the spire above her. The dark was so black in the spire it nearly had texture. The burp cloud disappeared into the black soup, and the darkness actually rippled. A sound that could barely be categorized as a voice belched out, “Iä... ngai... ygg...” from somewhere and nowhere up inside the spire.

  The obese woman smiled and looked upon the robed figures at last. She turned to face the last robed figure to have entered the building. She tore off the white toga she was draped in, revealing a black leather bikini. It covered only where it had to, and barely that much. The rolls of fat that enveloped the straps and strings of the bikini made it look like even less than it already was.

  “What have you brought as an offering, you insignificant piece of filth?!” she sneered.

  The robed figure stood and removed his hood. He was a very old man, wrinkled and bald. Liver spots populated his face like a brood of bugs. He held out his zip lock bag with his right hand. It was overfilled with doughnuts. The bag was bulging with doughnuts so tightly packed that the jelly and cream filling of some had squeezed out and oozed around them. It nearly looked like a bag of digestive organs.

  The leather-clad obese woman’s eyes lit up. She let out an orgasmic moan, her mouth opening wide. Her tongue slithered out like it was an arm of an octopus, making a sickly wet sound as it unfurled. Her thick, meaty tongue reached out over the eight-foot span between them and snatched the bag of doughnuts from the elderly man’s hand like an elephant snatching a peanut.

  Her oral appendage reeled the bag of doughnuts back in. She took them directly into her mouth without opening the bag and chewed, like a cow with a giant wad of cud. She swallowed with a bit of visible effort, then she started hacking something up. She spit out the bile-coated zip lock bag back at the elderly man, strands of mucus and bile splattering his face. His skin began to smolder and the wicked fluids burned into his skin. The elderly man stood stoic and fought off tears of pain as his skin burned. He wanted to reach for the roll of toilet paper placed under his chair, but understood that action would disrupt the ceremony.

  The obese lady ignored the elderly man’s suffering and turned to the next robed figure. She commanded the person to rise and remove their hood. They did as commanded and revealed herself to be a middle-aged woman, her long straight auburn hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail. The obese woman demanded her offering. The woman reached into her cloak and produced a bag of what appeared to be some sort of food wrapped in bacon.

  The obese woman looked pleased. “Mmm, bacon. I love bacon. What have you wrapped with it, woman?”

  “It’s bacon-wrapped bacon, if you please. Double fried in its own fat,” she said meekly.

  The obese woman’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened and her tentacle-like tongue slithered out of her mouth once again to retrieve the bag of bacon-wrapped bacon. Rapidly, she fetched her next offering and devoured it bag and all once again. She swallowed and her body quivered in pleasure as she once again proclaimed her love of bacon. The obese woman then started to grunt until she projected both the plastic bag and vomit back onto the the middle-aged woman.

  The woman stood unmoving just as the elderly man had. She was covered in the malodorous cocktail of the obese woman’s vomit. Though it did not burn, it was the foulest odor the woman had ever smelled in her life. She tried her best not to wrinkle her nose in disgust and forced her nostrils to become accustomed to the smell as quickly as possible.

  The obese woman moved her attentions to the robed figure sitting next to the middle-aged woman. She was about to command the person to rise and remove their hood when a snicker escaped from another robed figure on the other side of the circular altar. The obese woman spun around in a dramatic ballerina's pirouette. “Did you dare speak out of turn?!” she boomed. “Do you understand the penalty for disrupting the ceremony, puny mortal?! Rise and remove your cloak, you corruptible sot!”

  The figure rose and threw off their cloak; it was a clown. The clown stood there snickering in his baggy blue polka dotted pants, oversized yellow tie with what appeared to be ketchup stains all over it, and of course a painted on grand smile and cliche bulbous red nose. The green curly hair wiggled in time with his shoulders and his giggles became more animated. The obese woman scowled at the clown.

  “Lä... ngai... ygg...” she shouted up into the spire. She repeated the phrase over and over, each time a little louder than the last. With each successive repetition of the phrase, the thick darkness contained within the spire began to twist and churn. It worked itself into a cyclone of twisting darkness when the obese woman’s voice rose to its crescendo.

  Several black tentacular arms similar to the obese woman’s tongue swirled down from the spire. Ungodly moaning spat forth from the twisting dark maelstrom. The arms reached down to the clown as he continued his giggles uncontrollably. The jet black tentacles wrapped around his waist then pulled his ridiculous pants down around his absurdly large red clown shoes. The clown wasn’t wearing underwear. Another dark tentacle lowered from the spire and snaked up the clown's sleeve. It produced a pair of shit-stained red polka dotted boxers. The tentacle whipped the clown in the face with his own skidmarked underpants and retreated back into the spire.

  The remaining tentacles started to envelop the clown's limbs and torso. His giggles began to cease as the tentacles constricted. Suddenly the clown's laughter stopped dead in its tracks as he made a face that looked like he just sucked on the world’s most sour lemon. The obese woman began to mock the clown's giggles from the altar.

  “What’s the matter, clown? You don’t like to get fucked in the ass?” Her giggles progressed into downright maniacal laughter.

  The tentacles picked the clown up off the floor and hovered him just above the obese woman situated in the center of the altar. The clown was exposed for all to witness the sleek black tentacles raping the clown’s hairy ass. The sight resembled a swarm of eels fighting their way into the guts of a tiny crevice. The clown was screaming from the torture. Blood began to sputter out of the tangles of arms battling over entrance into the clowns anus. Then the tentacles swiftly rose up into the black spire, taking the clown with it. The clown disappeared entirely when he entered the mouth of the spire, and the dark storm within it ended abruptly.