***

  “Thomas F. Malone. Agent Thomas F. Malone. Do you mind if I sit?” he says and sits in the chair next to Fred’s hospital bed.

  “You from New York?” Fred asks and turns down the volume on the television.

  “Formerly, but now I’m here in Chicago,” Malone says and smoothes out the front of his suit.

  “Oh yeah? I bet you’re a Yankees fan.”

  “I’m not into sports, actually,” Malone replies and clicks open the latches of his briefcase.

  “So, what brings you to the Windy City?” Fred shifts underneath the thin hospital blankets.

  “At this very moment…you, Mr. Stanfield. So, let’s cut to the chase. Why is Detroit burning to the ground?”

  ***

  Fred stops speaking, waiting for Malone to reply.

  “And that’s how the Chicago Cubs won the World Series?”

  “That’s how the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.”

  Never Name He Who Is Not To Be Named

  Tim J. Finn

  Julie wiped the sweat from her face before it solidified into an icicle. She muttered and sawed through the stringy muscles in the naked man's arm.

  "Ever-sharp knife that cuts through anything, my fucking freezing ass!"

  The sooner Yeogurath allowed her use of the instrument the better. Julie scowled as the youth's scalp dislodged and dropped on her elbow. She shrugged it into his lap. Julie grinned when she looked at his crotch and recalled that his junk appeared shriveled even before Yeogurath drained most of the fluid from his body. He left just the required liquid in the pain in the ass arm.

  Julie stared into the gaping skull. She marveled at Yeogurath's dexterous use of his mixed appendages. She hoped her own hands performed even half as skillful when she gained operating privileges. Julie growled while she cleaved through bone.

  "Give it up already, Marty. Wasn't your golden voice your big deal anyway?"

  His convoluted retelling of his Maine-bound trip for a chance to audition to be the backup PA announcer for the Portland Sea Dogs dragged out his check-in for a near-intolerable ten minutes.

  The stupid turd thought his bragging impressed her into making her late night visit. Even her hasty disrobing act failed to halt the constant renditions of his practice speech. Julie considered explaining the true origin and nature of a sea dog. She knew those revelations carried the threat of crumbling his puny mind. The Migo interrogators needed cognizant human brains.

  Julie twisted Marty's arm and yanked. Mangled sinew snapped. Julie tugged the arm through the Hyundai Excel's window. Blood dripped from Marty's frayed shoulder and stained the car's upholstery. Julie frowned at the memories of the frenzied cleanup duties required of her before Yeogurath ingested sufficient fluid needed to rejuvenate a portion of his celestial powers. Evidence tampering and fabricated eyewitness testimony taxed the skills she acquired as a runaway. She even used some of her near-forgotten hooker tricks to soldier through the especially disgusting jobs. A few of the missings’ families persisted in being annoyances, even after the authorities filed the disappearances in cold storage. A round trip journey to Yuggoth silenced any continued protests.

  Julie turned as a window on the hotel's third floor slid open. The inside lights silhouetted a crouched shape as it gradually unfolded and stood erect on the ledge. Two spindly arms that ended in oversized claws sprouted from its upper body. The creature's elongated neck drooped under the weight of its elliptical head. A thicket of stubbly antennae undulated in concert across the curved oval. Hulking wings of textured membrane poked through slits in the crusted shell that encased its pliant body. The creature tucked its fantail between its legs and jumped from the windowsill. Julie raised Marty's thumb and waved the severed arm. The creature circled for several passes before it alighted in front of her. He stood poised on two dissimilar limbs. His crusted right leg ended in a clawed foot; his human left sported a wooly cover of matted hair. The creature relaxed his tail and let it thump on the pavement. Julie inhaled his pungent mold stench with glee.

  “Rock Lobster,” she greeted him. “You got the high-flyers working.”

  The creature’s head oscillated as he replied to her in a droned buzz.

  “They work only fitfully. I viewed the video recording you brought, so I am familiar with your reference now. Most amusing, if not altogether accurate.”

  He unbuckled the limbs tucked under his shell. A black human arm wiggled between the two clawed ones that sprouted from his right flank and tapered into tiny pincers. Two congenital arms grew from his left side. A hand supplanted the natural claw on the bottom appendage.

  “I know,” Julie said. “That fucking shithead Yellow Clan.”

  She patted the back of his shell.

  “They have been a hindrance for far too long. So many Migo killed and others driven into a permanent stasis. When we rule, they will be the most abused of our slaves. And their canine companions will become their food!”

  “Serenity now, baby. You get too hissy-fussy, it makes the assimilation more of a bitch.”

  Julie caressed the Migo’s ridged abdomen. He cooed in response to her gentle touch.

  “I am fortunate you found me when this building’s renovations roused me. The injuries I sustained during the Vermont attack and the subsequent battles left me with insufficient strength to achieve a meaningful recovery on my own.”

  “Shit, you did more than right by me. I loved how you offed that dickhead pimp that dragged me up here. I keep a picture of what you left of him under my pillow. I have sweet dreams every night with it there.”

  Julie pointed Marty’s index finger at his desiccated corpse.

  “His brain on its way to Yuggoth?”

  The Migo bobbed his ponderous head.

  “The steady diet of fresh hominid blood has improved both my recall of and my ability to utilize the formulas for interdimensional manipulation. Constant reference to the Necronomicon is no longer required.”

  “You showed me a few spells. When do I get another peek at the holy holy? I want to see what all the fuss is about.”

  “Unwise action,” Yeogurath replied. “Exposure to it must be doled with care. The original author’s existing madness shielded him from corruption. Your acute cerebrum affords no such protection. Your cunning intelligence requires we proceed with cautious unction. The Migo need allies of your caliber, now and after we have nullified the Old Ones.”

  “Oh, you’re a honeybun, Rock Lobster.”

  Julie nuzzled Yeogurath and goosed his fantail. The Migo nudged her with his claw.

  “Yeah, I know, baby; business first.”

  Julie stepped back and Yeogurath shuffled to the Excel. He crossed his claws over the car in an exaggerated X. The Migo chimed an atonal chant ending with reverent repetition of a skirled phrase.

  “Yuggoth. Yuggoth. Yuggoth!”

  A mini black hole swirled around the Excel. Yeogurath separated his claws. The wormhole collapsed and vanished in a twinkle.

  “Sayonara, Marty,” Julie said. “Nobody knows you ever even existed now. I bet you wish you drove straight through, and not stopped here in goofy old Arkham.”

  She jiggled the detached arm.

  “Need to get this on pronto, baby. Even this bum-freezing cold won’t keep it fresh for too long.”

  “You learned the lessons well, sweet one. Although these temperatures are negligible compared to the voids of space.”

  “I just want to get on with the what after. Not that human hands do anything for me now, with my fricking fucking past. When you use your stuff, that’s what horns me up all wet and mushy.”

  “The Old Ones have indiscriminately mated with your kind, with inevitable inferior results. The Migo are more discerning with the fruits of your planet. Is that not an apt metaphor for your sexual reproduction organs?”

  “Well, it ain’t called my cherry for nothing, yuck, yuck, yuck.”

  Yeogurath brayed and embraced Julie with his ebony replacement arm. Julie tugged the replacement limb from her waist and wrapped his crusted natural one around her hips. Yeogurath nipped her butt with its pincer as they strolled across the parking lot.

  Bill Tivton glared at the brown leaves that clung to the trees lining Arkham’s outer access road.

  “It’s the damn Winter,” he grumbled. “Fall and disintegrate already.”

  The tires squealed when he spun around the corner at the end of the street. Tivton jerked the steering wheel to right himself as the tires bounced off the caved curbing.

  “Christ, first I cuss out the dead foliage, and then almost wrap myself around it. I’ll be doing that Neanderthal’s work for him.”

  The stupid dill weed probably thought his pitiful display qualified him for an award as an avenging knight on a quest to redeem a wronged maiden’s honor. Alicia recognized their coupling constituted simple no-strings carnal encounters, an enthusiastic exploration of the ideas expressed by the assigned authors in his Literature of the Libertines curriculum. Her muscle-head brother heard about their after-class research and charged up from East Bumfuck, Rhode Island to confront him. Tivton received Alicia’s text mere seconds before her sibling’s rampage through Miskatonic’s faculty housing brought the buttwipe to his complex. Tivton heard the hog head breaking down his apartment door as he scurried down the fire escape with his hastily-packed gym bag. He needed a temporary and inexpensive sanctuary while Alicia calmed the meatball down with whatever convincing lies her always-inventive mind devised.

  “Just what the doctor ordered.”

  Tivton pulled into the freshly-tarred parking lot that fronted a three-story chalet-shaped building. A canvas tent flapped on the moorings securing it around the rear half of the structure. Tivton remembered it as a charmless bed and breakfast prior to the lodge’s acquisition by the ever-expanding Bell Weather Inn chain. He planned to exit long before the next day’s renovation work commenced. Tivton noticed a pair of sawhorses barred access to the newly added rear parking section. He sneered at the implied assumption that modernizing an Arkham hotel might spark an upswing in its business.

  Tivton passed a temporary Welcome sign and entered the Bell Weather. A flat screen TV dominated a lobby the chain’s advertising might charitably describe as cozy. A Duraflame-powered fire crackled in its screened center niche. Several couches and a couple of recliners circled the enclosed blaze. A carrel tucked in one corner housed an all-in-one PC and wireless printer. Dust covered the sparse snacks and personal care products stacked in the sagging metal bookcase jammed against the front desk. The willowy clerk smiled at Tivton as he entered.

  “Welcome to the Arkham Bell Weather Inn. I’m Julie, your cruise director, and every other damn thing at this time of night. Do you have a reservation?”

  Julie giggled before Tivton replied.

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “The management thinks I should always ask that. Like anybody would come here if they thought about it first.”

  “I need a room,” Tivton said. “For, God willing, one night.”

  “I don’t hear too many God references around Arkham. What name would you like to be known under?”

  Julie poised her fingers over the keyboard attached to a blinking monitor.

  “Bill, ah, William, or…look, I’m paying cash. No need to create a paper—or paperless—trail.”

  “Customer is always right, especially when it saves me some work. Anonymity costs the same as regular, Bill William. A nice, even one hundred dollars; a bargain for any place but here.”

  Tivton slid five twenties across the desk. Julie handed him a key card.

  “Last guest left in a hurry, so it’s still active under him. Room 222, up periscope and to the rear. Sleep tight, it won’t be the bed bugs that bite.”

  Tivton grabbed the card and rode a creaking elevator to the second floor. He emptied the gym bag into the half-dresser that supported the room’s television. Tivton snagged the Essex County Yellow Pages from the nightstand and sat on the queen-sized bed as he thumbed through it. He punched a number into his Smartphone.

  “University Pizza, the area’s freshest and finest. Steve speaking.”

  “I’d like to make a delivery order.”

  “And I’d like to fill it for you. What’s your easing pleasure tonight?”

  “A personal pizza, hamburger and mushrooms. A small order of breadsticks, and a couple of bottles of chocolate milk.”

  Steve repeated Tivton’s order.

  “To whom and where am I sending it?”

  “Bill, at room 222, the Arkham Bell Weather Inn.”

  “It’ll be there in twenty minutes, road conditions allowing. Total plus delivery, tip not included, comes to… Un-huh, mas problemo. A big red flag just popped up on my trusty screen that says, direct quote, absolutely under no possible circumstance can we deliver to where you’re at. It’s countersigned by the company district manager, no less. We can get it set real quickly for pick up.”

  “Forget it,” Tivton told Steve. “And yes, I know it’s not your fault.”

  Tivton scanned the phonebook until he spied a half page color ad.

  “Chinese, instead of Italian. Maybe there’ll be a good fortune in the goddamn cookie, at least.”

  Tivton ended his long sigh when an Asian male answered his call halfway through the third ring.

  “Panda Chef, delivery or will we be seeing you here?”

  “Delivery, for the Bell Weather Inn, room…”

  “I am sorry, sir, we do not deliver there.”

  “It’s inside the service grid in your Yellow Pages ad. You do understand, don’t you, the Yellow Pages.”

  “We do not deliver there.”

  “That’s false advertising, number one, son. You want me to call the Better Business Bureau, Fu Man?”

  The man replied in an unaccented growl.

  “We don’t fucking deliver there! If you’re smart you’ll get your ass out of there while you still have it.”

  Tivton flinched and scowled as the man punctuated his comment with a thumped hang-up. He grabbed the room telephone.

  “Why the hell did I ever agree to come teach in this squat diddly shit town? Jesus Christ. Front desk?”

  “Need fresh towels already, Bill William?” Julie answered. “You must be doing some real heavy up and down action.”

  “I need somebody who delivers food. No one seems to want to come here, they act like it’s haunted or something. I, ah, can’t really go out to look for somewhere.”

  “You wouldn’t want to go out,” Julie said. “Your nice tight bum might freeze and break in that cold. We want your stay at the Bell Weather Inn to be nice and comfy, and yada , yada, blah, blah, bullshit. I’ll fix you up with some grub, bub.”

  “You know some place that’s not in the damn phonebook?”

  “That certainly ain’t my book of choice when I want something. Julie is going to work her magic. As a way of making things up to you, I’ll even unscramble the naughty channel in your room. Sit back and, well, maybe not relax everything.”

  Tivton lay back on the fluffed pillows and switched on the TV. Two naked women kissed and licked a third girl’s breast while she fondled their buttocks. Tivton pressed the mute button.

  “I’ll supply my own soundtrack, thank you very much. I hope they don’t spoil the moment and bring in any male costars.”

  Tivton half-dozed as he watched the female trio engage in a frenzied mutual tongue bath. He started at the five knock rap on his room’s door. Julie called from the hallway.

  “Room service, coming in. Don’t bother getting decent.”

  The door swung open and banged against the wall. Julie paraded in with a steaming pepperoni pizza balanced on her upturned palm. She kicked the door shut and stuffed her master key card in the pouch sewn into her flowered skirt. She displayed the pizza with a curling flourish.

  “You found someone that delivered?”

  “Silly, it’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno.”

  Julie giggled and set the pizza on the corner of the writing desk. She blew on her hands.

  “Hot stuff. The pizza, too. I got what will cool them off, though.”

  Julie tugged a bottle of Nestle’s chocolate milk from her pouch. She cupped its cold plastic and sighed.

  “Much better. And a little appetizer.”

  She pulled out a half-empty bag of Fritos corn chips.

  “You can eat them as is, or, my favorite, all crushed up on the pizza.”

  “Either way sounds good,” Tivton said.

  “Wishy-washy, wishy-washy, Bill William. Scoot up a little.”

  Julie lifted a rounded portable desk from the dresser’s bottom drawer. She sashayed it to the bed and hummed while she fitted it over Tivton’s lap. Her hands brushed his crotch during the adjustment. She leered at Tivton and retrieved the food.

  “Which way, Billay Willay? I like rhyming sometimes, in case you didn’t notice. I’m not trying to sway you, but I really feel like pulverizing the little fuckers.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Tivton told her. “Them, too, I guess. And it’s just Bill.”

  Julie sat on the bag of chips and ground it with her clenched butt cheeks. She dusted the pizza with Frito crumbs.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t fart on them or anything.”

  Julie fed Tivton a pizza slice. She watched his reaction with her blue-mascaraed wide eyes.

  “Perfect,” Tivton said. “You should go on Top Chef.”

  “Yes, I rock.”

  Julie raised her arms and formed the touchdown sign.

  “Where did you rustle this up? That miserable excuse for a pantry shelf didn’t have anything that looked even vaguely edible.”

  “I raided the employee refrigerator,” Julie answered. “Nobody will raise a fuss, they all think I’m scary. I know you’re hungrier than that, Bill.”