LITMIR.BIZ

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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 them. I only want them to be happy.” Then she smiled. A radiant, crazy smile. “All they need is love.”

      Yes, I suppose that is all they need: the love of millions of devoted fans worldwide, all clamoring to buy the new CD by The Vittles.

      Rest assured, I won’t be purchasing a copy.

      Sometimes at night, I cry when I think for too long about Laura. Kind-hearted, loving Laura, who detested the thought of eating anything with a face.…

      She was a strong woman, but in the end, she was no match for the power of Kugappa. I will never forget her expression, right after she fell under the sea-god’s spell—that look of bestial hunger as she reached out, tore Ko’s head free of his neck, and bit into his plump cheek with carnivorous gusto.

      The Groveler in the Grotto

      Assuredly I am not a trembling leaf of a man—not the sort who chirps with terror and befouls his dungarees when some weensy, breeze-tossed speck of pollen tickles the inside of his nose on a golden summer’s day. No, I am not the sort who waves crucifixes at kittens or calls out the National Guard just because a cricket is nibbling on the crust of his sandwich. And yet I remember a day back in 197-ought, when I did run as fast as my legs could carry me out of the house of my childhood friend Reginald Blathingsmythe. I wore a mysterious black leisure suit, and I ran and ran until I collapsed, and then I got up, ran some more, stopped at a coffee shop for some cappuccino, and then ran for another five minutes.

      By then, I was home.

      But the next day, while doing the dishes, I thought about what had happened in that accursed house of mind-shattering doom—and the water from the tap suddenly ran cold.

      My name is Wintergreen Fortescue St. Valentine, and at that time, I was renting a house in the peaceful town of Dunwich—the sort of laid-back little village where nothing ever happened and people felt free to leave their back doors unlatched at night.

      At that time, I was writing a bestselling series of thrillers with the words ‘portfolio’ and ‘death’ in the title. Dr. Portfolio and Mr. Death. Death of a Portfolio Salesman. Ring Around The Rosie, A Portfolio Full of Death.

      I was working on my latest epic, and I needed a new place where I could really think. I was having difficulty coming up with a new title. The best I could think up was Portfolio, Portfolio, Portfolio, Death, Death, Death. Not bad, but I felt that I could do better. I found I could no longer concentrate in my lavish Manhattan penthouse. The little cherrywood table next to the bidet had once given me a nasty splinter. Cherrywood. Feh!

      My old pal Reginald Blathingsmythe had always spoken well of Dunwich, so when my publisher tapped his wristwatch in reference to my deadline, I decided it was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work in the peace and quiet of Smalltown, USA.

      Lars, my live-in butler, secretary, and disco-dancing instructor, took care of finding a house for me. He arranged for some of my clothes and belongings to be transported there. He made sure the utilities were turned on, all the bills were paid in advance, the lawn was mowed, and he even put a chocolate on my pillow (on a doily, of course, so it didn’t leave a mark on the fabric).

      “This whole moving business has been a terrible ordeal,” I said to Reginald on my first day in Dunwich. We were seated in his living room, eating cucumber sandwiches. “But I think I will find the strength to pull through.”

      “And how does your Lars, your lover, like the town?” Reginald asked, handing me a steaming cup of oolong tea. Reggie was a plain-looking, chubby fellow with thick black hair and eyes of different colors—one green, one orange.

      “Lover?” I chuckled dismissively. “You mean ‘butler.’ Lars is my hired man.”

      “But he lives with you. Yes?”

      “Of course,” I replied. “That is what butlers do.”

      “And he makes your meals. Yes?”

      “He is my disco-dancing instructor as well. He keeps track of every calorie I ingest, since a potbelly would ruin the classic lines of a leisure suit.”

      “And he goes to bed with you?”

      “All part of a very specific exercise regimen. He says it loosens up the hips, and I am inclined to believe him.”

      Reginald choked on his tea and began to blink furiously, so that for a moment I thought he was conveying a message in Morse code.

      Reginald’s furnishings, I noted, were solid oak. Oak! Now there was a wood you could trust. I noticed something odd about his bookcase—something that caused a small but sharp bell of warning to ring in my mind. Most of the volumes on its shelves were quite old, and bound in rotting human skin. Finally I noticed the thing that had set off my inner alarm: the bookends were mismatched. One was a human skull and the other was a kitschy little plastic owl. Certainly plastic has no place in the decor of a gentleman’s study.

      Then I saw something else rather unusual. “So tell me, Reginald. That door in the corner—the one marked with that blood-red symbol of unholy dread. Where does that lead?”

      The bland, cheery face of my host then underwent a marked change. His plain, dreary features—too boring to be considered ugly, really—suddenly twisted into the spasm-ridden, demon-haunted visage of a doomed soul being relentlessly pricked by the flaming pitchforks of the demons of Tartarus.

      “The doorway to the secret grotto—I mean, spare bedroom?” he whispered hoarsely. “Nothing hideous or diabolical about a spare bedroom, I assure you.” He laughed nervously. ‘This relentless questioning of yours is uncalled-for! It really is too much!”

      What an interesting response, I thought.

      “So the door really leads to a secret grotto, eh?”

      “Dash it all!” he cried. “Who told you? The shocking legacy of my accursed family has been kept hidden in shadow for well over three-hundred years! And now it seems that everyone with an unusually intimate butler named Lars knows about it!”

      I found Reginald’s behavior to be disturbing and inexplicable—not ‘cool,’ to borrow a term from the young people of the time. “So are you going to tell me what’s in this grotto of yours or not?”

      “No! Never! It is forbidden!” His cuckoo clock then warbled the hour. “My mood-ring discussion group will be here at any moment,” he said. “Do stop by tomorrow—so long as you do not mention the black door of the Blathingsmythe family secret, or dance-cults that worship primordial devil-gods!”

      “Now why in the world would I mention—” But I cut myself off in mid-sentence. No sense in throwing poor addled Reginald into another tizzy. But I saw he was looking at me curiously, so I thought of a cunning finish to my sentence. “—puppies?”

      He smiled pleasantly. “Puppies are fine. Puppies are cute. You may mention puppies as often as you like. Just not devil-gods or ancient scrolls.”

      “Very well then. Puppies! See you tomorrow, Reggie.”

      * * * *

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