The Call of Cthulhu

Mr. Robert Jones sat alone in his vast but poorly-lit mansion in Spookysburg, R.I., reading the Prominent Citizen Gazette, when the telephone rang.


“Will you accept a collect call from Cthulhu?” said the speaker on the other end. The voice was mechanical and recorded-sounding, except for the last word, which sounded like a monkey choking to death on a human baby that was choking to death on the same monkey when the monkey was a baby (via time travel). Robert Jones was aghast: he had not become a prominent citizen by accepting a bunch of collect calls, not even from his kidnapped son. He answered, “No,” and hung up.


The phone immediately rang again. “Come on, bro,” said the cold, emotionless voice. “Accept the charges. You don’t know what it will be. It could turn out to be a live sex chat for all you know.”


“Everyone knows those chat lines are full of nothing but dudes,” Jones responded, and hung up again.


Hours later, the phone rang once more. “All right, you win,” said the speaker. “We can’t trick you into taking the call. You have to accept the call through your own free will—that’s how the rules of this thing work. And you’re clearly just too smart to fall for something like that. Would you agree that this is true?”


“Yes,” answered Mr. Jones. This response automatically caused the charges to be accepted, and upon hearing the call, Jones was driven instantly, permanently mad.


Word of Mr. Jones’s condition spread rapidly through the town. The news raised in the minds of many townspeople a fearful question: Had Jones been driven so mad that he pooped himself? It had been known to happen. When it arrived a few days later, the terse headlines in the local weekly paper—

ROB’T JONES DRIVEN

MAD, POOPS SELF

_____________________

Creepy Phone Call

To Blame.

___________________

DID WE MENTION

THE POOP

—simply raised more troubling questions: Why were madmen the only ones allowed to sit around in their own poop all day? Think of all the time and effort that would save. It probably wouldn't be as bad as everybody made it sound. But, no, that sort of thing wasn't for the likes of Joe Sane: it was a luxury strictly reserved for the 1% (lunatics). What a rip. And people's faith in the basic underpinnings of society slowly began to disintegrate, which had been Cthulhu's plan all along.


But a further shock was still to come. When the police traced the calls to Jones's house, they discovered that TELEPHONES HAD NOT BEEN INVENTED YET.

The Johnnys, and Their Methods

The following has been compiled from a series of interviews with "enforcers" for a sub-branch of the New York City Mafia.

Subject A, age 42: My gimmick, f'r instance, is fireworks. Y'know, like, puttin' guys' eyes out with sparklers, taping cherry bombs inside their mouths--let me tell you, word got around pretty quick that nobody had better fuck with Johnny Fireworks.

Why fireworks? Hey, yo, a guy’s gotta have a gimmick, am I right? Unless you’re like Johnny No-Gimmick over here. Yo, that guy’s the craziest one of all, ‘cause there ain’t no predictin’ what he’ll do. He never does the same thing twice. That’s his gimmick.

I mean, just the other day, I had t’ listen to complaints from Johnny Chainsaw and Johnny Nunchucks and Irish Johnny Chainsaw about how Johnny No-Gimmick was rippin’ off their gimmicks. And I had t’ tell them, ‘Look, this is just how he operates. But he’ll only do it once. By next week, he’ll be on to some other gimmick, and then I’ll probably have to be hearin’ this same thing from Johnny Deadly Nightshade.’ And then there’s Johnny Peanut Allergy: every week, when we get a new contract to kill some squealer, we’re at the weekly status meeting, looking over the guy’s medical records, like always, and Johnny Peanut Allergy’s like, ‘Yo, does dis guy got a peanut allergy?’ ‘No, Johnny Peanut Allergy, sorry.’ And then the next week, we got another target: ‘What about dis guy? Does dis guy got a peanut allergy?’ ‘No, Johnny Peanut Allergy, just penicillin and strawberries.’ ‘You’d tell me if any of dese guys had peanut allergies, right?’ ‘Yes, Johnny Peanut Allergy, I promise! You don’t even have to be here all the time—we’ll call you!’ (sighs) But he don’t listen.

Subject B, age 25: D’you know dat one out of every two hundred and fifty Americans has a severe peanut allergy? And dat number is growing every day. So statistically, one o’ dese guys is eventually gonna take money from da wrong people, or see somethin’ he shouldn’t have, and when dat day comes, I’m gonna be like, (taps chest proudly) ‘Yo. I got dis.’

Subject A: An’ t’ tell you the truth, even dealin’ wit’ these mooks is better than talkin’ to Johnny Radon Exposure. That guy…

Subject C, age 76: Look, I don’t wanna say nothin’ bad about this generation, but…people these days ain’t got no patience. It seems like, when they put out a hit on a guy, nobody’s willing to wait thirty-five years for him to develop lung cancer from radon exposure anymore. I mean, every week somebody’s asking me about some contract of mine or another: ‘Is he dead yet? Is he dead yet?’ (frustrated) No! All right, no! Not yet! But do you have any idea of the damage that’s being done to his mitochondrial DNA? You can’t put a price tag on that! (shakes head sadly) I tell you, this business just hasn’t been the same since Johnny Gunshot showed up.