First, I am not attacking people who enjoy Dungeons and Dragons. It is simply an excellent example to illustrate my point.
There are a zillion pencil and paper RPG systems–of various genres and degrees of high and low genre. Personally, I love and prefer low regardless of genre.
That, my love of the Cthulhu Mythos, and my being introduced to it the year it was first published, is why I love Call of Cthulhu.
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Did you all like the Fiction Advent Calendar we ran in December? Well all that art was done by our very own John Donald Carlucci. Unfortunately, he does not have medical insurance and has been in the ER lately more than a Boston Trade Unionist goes to Dunkin Donuts for coffee. He needs your help to get back on his feet, and back to making horrible things for us to enjoy. Check out his GoFundMe here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/jdcs-had-a-health-crisis-while-being-uninsured
All around awesome person Mike Davis of The Lovecraft Ezine & Podcast has helped set up a GoFundMe to help with the medical costs for Laird Barron. If you’re a fan (and you should be) you should consider pitching in! Every bit helps!!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/laird-barron-hospital-costs-medication-costs
The civilian cart nearest me lurched to a halt; the driver, his wife, and daughter were arguing. “Move!” I yelled without breaking stride. “We have to get to cover! The next wave is coming, and we have to get indoors!”
They stopped at my harsh words and stood there for a moment. Then a distant screeching echoed off the ruined buildings. They dropped everything and ran, the parents half dragging their young child who was sobbing. Urgent yelps of concern rang out down the line of people as everyone abandoned their wagons and freed as many of the mules as they could but time was running out. “Leave everything, including the pack animals!”, Rick yelled from the back. “The streets here are too full of debris and ruin, going on foot is the only way forward. Move!”
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“He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
A Visit from St. Nicholas, Clement Clark Moore.
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.”
Alternative names: Berchtold, Bokkenrijder, Nikamund the Red.
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Everyone knows about shoggoths. Everyone knows how dangerous one can be – and is! — let alone an army of them. And all those grotesque, wet eyes. Bubbly, shiny, like blisters waiting to be popped.
They’re hard to kill but Hildy Allbright took out plenty during the Unspeakable War when she still belonged to a team with a purpose.
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I abruptly awoke into darkness. Screaming, someone was screaming.
“No, NOOOO!!!”, a male voice from beyond the darkness pleaded. That voice: it was so full of terror, so soaked in fear, and with the pitch of one who is about to…a deep snapping squelch cut across the darkness with finality. The screaming stopped.
I held my breath and listened, not moving a muscle. My awareness grew and my heartbeat was deafening in my ears. Surely it could be heard for miles around it was so loud. I had to get control of myself. My thoughts were a jumble but some of them cut through the panic and chaos; what had killed the screaming man? Was I next? What the hell is going on?
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“Good morning. I’ve brought you your breakfast.”
Reluctantly, I awakened. I’d been having the loveliest dream—something about warmth and sunshine, and some gleaming object in the palm of my hand. I fought to hold onto the images, but they slipped away from me.
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It never leaves me. Wherever I go, it follows me. Always watching. Always staring. At the office. At the park. Standing over my bed at night, those giant black eyes just inches from my face. I scream at it to do something, to kill me. It does nothing. I put my hands around its throat, trying to pull its bulbous head from its scrawny, skeletal body. It doesn’t even fight back. Just dies, staring me in the eyes the whole time. But it’s not over. It’s never over. I kill it, and there are two more a couple of days later.
Alternative names: Those That Watch.
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Dear Journal,
It’s Christmas Eve again, and it’s been the worst year of my whole life. I snuck you and this pen out of the trash, so I have to be careful. I’m hiding under my covers with a light right now so I can write everything down before I start forgetting even more about what happened last Christmas.
The others are all asleep, and if she catches me up past bedtime . . . I don’t even want to think about what she’ll do to me. None of the others that she took away have ever come back. But I don’t want to forget my life from before, and it’s getting harder and harder to remember. After I write everything down, I’ll hide you in the secret hole I made in my bed.
I can already hear that thing outside in the sky again. Like it’s calling to me with that deep groan that echoes in my brain and makes my heart beat weirdly. I have to hurry now before I run out of time.
***
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