Excerpt No. 1 -- from the story, "The Embrace of Kugappa," one of the 25 horror tales in the Mythos-inspired collection, BEST LITTLE WITCH-HOUSE IN ARKHAM:


Jasper always knew when he was dreaming, and yet the realization never woke him up, like it did most people.

He dreamed that he was on the beach of an island with bone-white sand, and before him stretched a horizon of dark green sea.

Sinuous – vines? – stretched up out of the water, huge vines overgrown with many smaller vines, and all those vines held an abundance of small, squirming things.

One of the vines swirled up out of the water close to shore, and he saw that it wasn’t a vine after all – how silly, how stupid, vines didn’t grow in oceans. It was a huge tentacle, overgrown with smaller tentacles, and those had even smaller tentacles on them, and so on in a sort of bio-fractal progression.

He knew he should be afraid, but he wasn’t. Not really. Because.

Because they.

They wanted.

Wanted him to be happy. Yes, the Great Old Ones wanted him to be happy, and Kugappa was one of the Great Old Ones, and the best way to be happy was to be like them.

Be.

Like.

Them.

Who’d told him that? Who’d told him about the Great Old Ones? He giggled – the initials of that spelled ‘goo.’ Why, that was who had told him. The goo had told him.

Before he knew it he was swimming in the dark green sea, even though he didn't know how to swim, and tentacles and tentacles-upon-tentacles were handling him, exploring him, sliding into every part of him, even into his pores, infiltrating his cells, embracing his soul...


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Excerpt No. 2 -- from the story, "Squidd, Inc.":

Henderson snapped one day in the department head meeting and began speaking in tongues: "Ulala pizani! Y'kha Shub-Niggurath ghakala! Azagga pupago ma'azu!"

Henderson's seat is right under the huge chrome Squidd, Inc. logo mounted on the wall, and his outburst was more than a little blasphemous – an affront to our disciplined business world. Or so I thought. We all looked to bulbous-eyed Old Man Squidd, our flabby corporate pooh-bah, to watch the fireworks.

The Old Man sat up in his chair (a formidable task for one so huge) and said, "By God, Henderson, I like a man with Spunk."

———

Spunk. Spunk. Spunk with a capital S became our watchword, our password, our office shibboleth.

At that time, Squidd, Inc. specialized in the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals, with interests in medical equipment and biochemical research. I was Director of Sales, and I longed for Spunk like the cartoon coyote longs for roadrunner meat.

I'd been with the company for twenty years; my hair had turned grey and my skin had grown spotty in the service of Squidd. My chair at the meeting table was choice: only three seats down from the Old Man. But did the younger Directors have any respect for my years of experience? Sorry, no. Whenever they deigned to speak with me, their smug expressions told the story too well. They saw me as nothing more than a corporate leftover – a dried-up old piece of sushi.

I wasn't about to let the matter of Spunk, and my lack thereof, cripple my standing with the company. I prayed at my desk: Gods of Commerce, I need more than just daily bread. Lead me deep into temptation and give me a magnum of champagne, a midnight-blue BMW, a penthouse office, a stock portfolio to die for, and most of all, a generous helping of high-energy, high-octane, high-and-mighty Spunk....


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Excerpt No. 3 -- from the story, "Cthulhu Royale":

Part I. Her Majesty’s Secret Shoggoth

“Bondcraft,” said the tall, lean, dark-haired, lantern-jawed man in the tuxedo. Black, of course: a tuxedo of any other color was madness, a veritable mountain of madness. “H.P. Bondcraft.”

“Dash it all!” ejaculated W., the Minister of Arcane Defense, a balding, heavyset man. “I know your name! Why, we’ve known each other since we roomed together at the London Academy for Young Espionage Gentlemen.”

Miss Tuppenceworth, W.’s pretty blonde secretary, looked out the window of her office, which served as antechamber to her superior’s sanctum sanctorum. “Why is it that whenever H.P. shows up, the sky is suddenly filled with multi-colored silhouettes of shapely women flying about? One can see outlines of guns among the female forms, and hear music filled with saxophones and trumpets. And there’s this sort of swirly gun-barrel shifting to and fro... Decidedly odd.”

“Not at all,” W. said. “It’s that private club down the road – the Society for the Advancement of Musical, Gun-Collecting Lady Gymnasts. Their ostentatious laser lightshows happen to coincide with Bondcraft’s visits.”

Miss Tuppenceworth fluttered her lashes at the spy. “So you went to school with W.? What was he like as a young lad?”

H.P. puffed thoughtfully at his cheroot. “Though Z. is the Ministry’s resident expert on curious devices, W. also showed signs of great mechanical aptitude back then. I remember one summer, he bought one of those jolly vibrating massage chairs, and added parts from a milking machine and an automatic taffy-puller, and we took turns–”

“Now, now,” W. chided, “Miss Tuppenceworth doesn’t have time to stroll down memory lane.”

H.P. smiled. “Oh, and once, W. played the part of Juliet in our espionage school production of—”

“Come with me, Bondcraft!” W. led the spy into his office and then locked the door behind them. H.P. headed straight to the liquor cabinet, where he made himself a tequila sunrise. Swizzled, not agitated.

“Drinking on the job!” W. scolded. “And tuxedos, always tuxedos. Why? Explain yourself!”

“Why?” Bondcraft smirked. “Why not?”

“You’re a spy! You’re supposed to blend in with the common rabble.”

“Or so one would think!” H.P. drained his glass. “But because I’m usually a little drunk and stand out so, no enemy would ever suspect that I am in fact a secret agent. They’d be expecting someone sober and utterly nondescript.”

“I say! I never thought of it that way. Ingenious!” W. sat down behind his enormous mahogany desk, which was littered with stacks of papers and several anatomically correct primitive fetish dolls.

“So what’s new in the Ministry of Arcane Defense?” the spy asked.

“Some good news from our research base on Antarctica.” W. flashed a merry grin. “We’ve found and captured a shoggoth! All very hush-hush, of course – top secret! We’re still trying to figure out what to do with the blasted thing... It’s so big and squishy. It eats quite a lot ... it can change its shape ... perhaps the awful thing has some potential as a biological weapon.”

“You could always drop it on an enemy camp,” Bondcraft said, “and let it eat everybody.”

“Not a bad idea, but afterward, recapturing it would be a problem. Right now it’s very sluggish, since it’s down at that research base. The thing can’t move very fast in that frigid climate. If we let it loose in a warmer spot, we might never be able to pen it up again. We’re trying to figure out how to control the beast ... perhaps even communicate with it. Maybe we’ll find some more – the research chaps say Antarctica used to be crawling with them, back when it was less chilly down there. Anyway, let me tell you about your assignment.”

Bondcraft smiled. “Is there an international casino involved? And a sexy double-agent?”

“Silly boy,” W. said. “There’s always an international casino involved. Master-criminals cluster around those casinos like flies around a dead street urchin. And yes, naturally here’s a sexy double-agent. Vadda Fookenhottie.”

Bondcraft smirked. “Such language!”

W. rolled his eyes. “That’s her name: Vadda Fookenhottie. We have no pictures of her on file, but it wouldn’t matter anyway because she is a master of disguise. Or should I say mistress of disguise...? Anyway, in addition to Miss Fookenhottie, you will be dealing with – not one, not two, not four, but three arch-villains.”

H.P. allowed himself a small gasp. “Not ... the 3D Cult? Dagon’s Deadly Disciples...?”


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To find out what happens next in any of those stories, read BEST LITTLE WITCH-HOUSE IN ARKHAM. Available on Kindle or as a trade paperback.

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