Best Little Witch-House in Arkham. Mark McLaughlin

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СКАЧАТЬ Yes, the way.

      MM: So Kugappa is a god of cannibalism? Just out of curiosity, are you all eating human flesh right now?

      Gregor: Is the Catholic deity the god of drunks, just because wine is a part of the religion?

      Hekuuna: Yes, we are eating human flesh.

      Mongo: It’s not that bad, really. It’s saltier than you’d expect. I suppose that’s because people have too much salt in their diets. The taste is somewhere between turkey and fish.

      MM: Laura, surely cannibalism doesn’t set well with you. You’re obviously not happy with life on Pokaluhu. Why do you stay here?

      Laura: I love my Popo more than life itself. I would do anything for him. I did—what I did—so I could stay by his side. I’m a good wife—not some vicious island whore. I’ll stay by my man through—through thick and thin—

      Gregor: Hekuuna told us how we might achieve godship through Kugappa, and so we…um…

      Jones: We climbed onboard. And lost weight in the process. Pretty much a win-win sort of deal. Hekuuna had me convinced long before the others agreed.

      MM: What does Kugappa look like?

      Hekuuna: A mighty octopus. A beautiful sea-god of knowledge and power.

      MM: Oh, I saw a lot of octopus statues today. Were those Kugappa?

      Hekuuna: What a ridiculous question! Those were merely images of our god.

      Gregor: Kugappa is from the same realm beyond the stars as the being known as Cthulhu, daemon-master of madness and dreams, who sleeps in his silent temple on the sunken island of R’lyeh.

      Mongo: That’s just a few miles from here.

      Hekuuna: According to ancient texts, when Kugappa examined this world, he found it to be most pleasing. So much water! So much meat!

      Gregor: Now here’s the really interesting part. There are actually two of Kugappa. One is the great soul that exists beyond time and space, and other is the physical manifestation, the body here on Earth—

      Popo: Should you be telling him all that?

      Gregor: I don’t see the harm in talking about it.

      Hekuuna: Yes, the whole world will know soon enough. We have much information to share with this writer-man.

      MM: Hey, are you talking ‘comeback’? Is that why you granted this interview?

      Hekuuna: Ah, you are perceptive—not so stupid after all. Yes, The Vittles have been in rehearsal for the past several months. My sisters and I have written some sacred songs for them. Soon The Vittles will be topping the charts again.

      MM: You and your sisters wrote the songs?

      Yilla: Pretty songs.

      M’namma: Sacred songs.

      Hekuuna: Songs to enhance, to multiply the power of Kugappa. Soon the sacred music will play in every land. The whole world will tremble and kneel before Kugappa. For Kugappa is the great god, the all-embracing god, and he is ravenous. Soon the world will be his for the taking!

      Laura: Not if I can help it!

      Hekuuna: Dog-woman! Blonde bitch! Shut your mouth! I should have killed you the moment you set foot on Pokaluhu. But the men, they told me you would change. Why do you not succumb to the power of Kugappa? I command you—surrender your soul!

      Laura: Never!

      Mongo: Here we go again!

      MM: It would appear that Hekuuna has lunged toward Laura, and the two woman are wrestling. And yet…It seems like all the figures behind the screen are somehow being pulled into the fight—even the dogs, or trunk, or whatever that big lump beneath the table is. The blind servant, Ko, is trying to break up the fight—that’s a mistake! I should warn him. Yo, Ko! Oh, no!

      Somebody just punched the poor guy—so now he’s trying to get away—now one of the boys, I can’t tell which one, just—well, roared—then reached out to grab Ko. But whoever it was who reached out…I didn’t see any legs. Just a long, long body. How—? Oh, now they’re really going at it—the servant is screaming and—are they pulling stuff out of him?—he’s kicking at the screen—it’s falling over and—No!—Oh, my God!—

      * * * *

      At that point, I had grabbed the tape recorder and stepped back away from the table. But in doing so, I’d accidentally switched off the machine.

      The Vittles and their wives stood before me. Ko was dead—torn apart, with bite-marks all over his body. Loops of his intestines were strewn about within the gazebo. His head was practically severed, attached to his neck by only a few shreds of skin.

      The eight living people in the gazebo did not have any legs. Below the arms, each one of them was simply a muscular, sinuous tentacle—and the eight tentacles were rooted in the rounded shape under the table. I now saw that the shape was in fact the body of a huge black octopus, which glared at me with bulbous eyes, alight with reddish-orange fire. In a moment, that fierce glow sprang up in the eyes of seven of its people-limbs.

      The eighth one, Laura, fought the horrid power of Kugappa. I watched as she writhed in agony, clutching helplessly at Popo’s arm. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets as she screamed—and when they rolled back, the fire was blazing within them. The creature had won at last. And what Laura did then…I had to look away, because I knew I would vomit if I watched for even a second more.

      Hekuuna stared at me with her flaming, almond-shaped eyes. Jones was right: she was a beautiful woman. She had all the cold-blooded beauty of hooded cobra. “Be our messenger,” she whispered. Her snow-white teeth were long and pointed. “Tell the world that the hour of Kugappa is near. Go, writer-man, before I gouge out your filthy mortal eyes!”

      “Yes,” said Jones. “Leave us now.” I took a quick look at his blood-streaked face. He had worn dark glasses at the end of his career, so I figured that perhaps there had been some scars from that shooting. But no, the plastic surgeons had taken care of all that years ago. The flesh around his eyes was fine. So he had worn the glasses for another reason. Perhaps his eyes had taken on that glow before the others.

      I turned, but I didn’t run, despite Hekuuna’s threat to blind me. I’ve seen cats chase mice—predators just love to pounce upon scurrying prey. I simply walked. One foot in front of the other, slowly, so slowly, I walked out of the shade, out of the garden of the octopus, all the way back to the mansion.

      I asked the blind woman to call the hotel and tell them to send their driver. She did so.

      She accompanied me to the car when it arrived. As I loaded my bags into the back seat, I said, “Do you want to come with me?”

      “To America?” she said with a laugh. “Why would I want to go there? A mother’s place is with her children.”

      So the old woman was Hekuuna’s mother—the island’s actual ruler. “You don’t mind what your daughters are doing?” I asked.

      “Oh, I don’t judge СКАЧАТЬ