The Confession of Sarai Mocksley and other tales

[Wicht]

The strange Case of Walter Poindexter III

The strange case of Walter Poindexter III
By Jonathan McAnulty

Oh, Wow! Light! Thank the stars above! I can see again!

Oh, No! Please! Ma’am! Don’t Scream! Please! It’s all right! Really! Don’t faint….please… ouch, that had to hurt…

You do know that you are supposed to catch them when they do that? Women like that sort of thing you know. Gets you points, wins you kisses later on. Wink, wink.

Sorry, about that though. It’s part of my curse. Women swoon when they see me. It’s happened for years. Can’t help it really. Though it is of course, to be perfectly honest, all my own fault.

Before you ask, let me assure you that I cannot grant wishes, foretell the future nor can I read minds. About all I can do is talk and remember. I have a good memory in case you are interested. And I talk real well. To be honest, it’s about all I can do anymore. My singing voice is shot, for obvious reasons. Reading books is straight out unless someone volunteers to turn the pages and most people think they have better things to do than stand around turning pages for me. At least that’s what the last guy said.

It wasn’t always this way you know. I was at one time a brilliant, albeit, and I can be honest here, eccentric academic. I have always, if you wanted to know the truth, blamed my parents for the way I turned out. What would you have done if you had been named Walter Poindexter III? There’s not much that you can do with a name like that is there? Well I know what I did with it. I turned to books! I studied history, math, social sciences, archeology and, of course, you can see this coming can’t you, the black arts. That’s of course where I got in trouble. I sold my soul but in the heat of the moment I forgot all about being careful about what you wish for, or in my case, how you word your wish. Let me give you a word of advice. Never, no matter how tempted you are, try to sell your soul. It leads to nothing but trouble. And yes I do know what I…

Hey, is she coming around? Oh, good. Hi Ma’am!

Oops. There she goes again. Sorry about that.

Anyway, what I wished for, in case its not obvious, was eternal life as one of the undead, making women swoon and men tremble. Boy, that was a mistake! I think, at the time, I was envisioning myself as a vampire. You know, living eternally as a dread creature of the night. I had always been wanted to be taken seriously, and despite the fact I had plenty of money, nobody takes you seriously when you have a name like Walter Poindexter III. Vampires on the other hand, are always taken seriously. Unfortunately for me, the dark powers, it seems, have a sense of humor. I should have been more specific, but that’s life for you, funny thing really.

No sooner had I finished my wish then I could tell I wasn’t alive anymore. There was not, you understand, any immediate emotional or intellectual change that I could tell. No taste for flesh, no hunger for blood, nothing like that. I was still my normal chipper self. But, then on the other hand, I could tell my heart wasn’t beating and my temperature was dropping to room temperature. I was dead. One of the undead.

At first I was pleased at punch but the drawbacks to all this hit me real quick when my flesh started rotting a few days later. I was dead you see. Technically I guess I was what most students of the subject would call a zombie. That was about when women started really swooning. I think, looking back, it might have been the smell.

I tried to be intelligent about the whole thing and I read up real quick on embalming and did a little number on myself, but it was really too late. Quite a bit of damage had been done to my skin before I halted the process of degeneration. My social life was a complete wreck. Zombies, you understand do not get invited to all the best parties. And they attract flies like, well, like dead meat. But I tried to keep cheerful about the whole thing. If I kept myself in good shape, I reasoned I would be around for a long, long time, and that meant I could catch up on all that reading I had been putting off. I really had no needs as a zombie. I didn’t need to eat. I wasn’t going to die of exposure. And that was good considering I was evicted from my apartment after my landlord’s wife saw me and swooned. I tried to explain to the guy that it was a rare form of leprosy, but as his wife had swooned at the top of three flights of steps, he wasn’t really in a mood to listen.

Things went downhill from there and I knew I might need to do something with my existence when they wouldn’t let me in the library anymore. I tried contacting the dark powers again but as I did not have another soul to bargain with they refused to answer my calls. I was stuck as a zombie, like it or not, and I was not wanted by society at large. If I hung around my hometown much longer I could tell people would soon be after me with pitchforks and torches. I did know, you see, what to expect, having done a good amount of reading on the subject. So I thought to myself. Self, I said, you have all the time in the world so why don’t you… see the world! I had the money socked away, so finances weren’t a real problem. I decided on Egypt.

That was about when I lost all the fingers on my left hand. My nerves were dead and I did not really have any feeling left in my hands, which made some things difficult as you can imagine, but it also meant that I didn’t notice it when I accidentally slammed my hand in a car door at the pier. The silly thing wouldn’t close. It was only after trying to get the door shut I realized hat it had been my own fingers in the way and that I had smashed them to a pulp through my own efforts. I would say a bloody pulp, but as I was filled with embalming fluid, it wasn’t technically all that bloody. The practical effect was that not only did I miss the first boat but I ended up just cutting off the whole hand and replacing it with a hook. More practical that way and easier to explain, I thought. Besides which, people take a man with a hook more seriously and despite the fact I was a walking dead, I still felt like people weren’t really taking Walter Poindexter III all that seriously yet.

I went to Egypt and it was there that I hit on the idea of bandages. Bandages, mummies, pyramids, you know. For one bandages helped keep the flies off. Flies are after all attracted to zombies like to…. Oh. I said that already. Sorry. Anyway the bandages helped keep the flies off and it made some social interactions easier. I just bundled up in heavy clothes and explained I had an allergy to the sun. A surprising number of people bought that and for a time women even stopped swooning. That was nice, but I really harbored no great expectations of developing a romantic life. I was after all, dead, if you, um…. Well, to cut a long story short, filled with a new confidence from the bandages I decided to explore the heart of Africa. I thought I could see all those places I had read about that others were afraid to visit. What did I have to be afraid of? I was dead!

I decided I did not need to hire help. I had no food or supplies to carry. Nor did I think I needed a guide. I had all the time in the world, right? So, I just set off, and with the tireless energy of the undead I startedt on a walking tour of the Dark Continent. Looking back it wasn’t actually the greatest idea in the world.

For one thing Vultures could smell me for miles and I had about twenty of them circling over my head at any given moment. They were waiting for me to drop I think. And then there was the lion. She tore off my right leg before the smell hit her and she ran away. The hyenas were no picnic either. I fought them off with my hook but they ended up dragging off my severed leg in the end, though I doubt they really relished the taste of the embalming fluid.

The loss of my leg also meant the loss of a lot of fluid. Added to this, it was a real chore trying to learn to walk with a piece of wood stabbed up into my stump in place of the leg. You try it sometime. Hack off your leg and see how well you do. But I hobbled along as best as I could, trying to be my normal cheerful self. I must have looked a sorry wreck though. And there really wasn’t, to be honest, a whole lot interesting, other than the wildlife, to see. And after the first hundred giraffes, the excitement wears off a bit you know…

To be honest it was almost a relief when I was attacked by the natives. Even if they were headhunters. It was no great loss. I had already lost my hand and my leg. A little bit more wasn’t going to hurt. They turned me over to their local witchdoctor and he polished up what was left and stuck me in a box.

That lasted for a while and he used me to impress his tibe at special parties. But then a passing Englishman stole me, put me in this box and carted me back up to Egypt. That lasted a while and then one day he never came back. He was killed I always assumed. And then for a long while I have just sat here, in the dark, waiting. But now there is you, the new and proud owner of a genuine talking skull!

 

[alsih2o]

bump to wicht!

 

[Rune]

Heh heh heh. No one would take a genuine talking skull named Walter Poindexter III seriously!

Silly skull...

 

[DM with a vengence]

I know HP Lovecraft, and you sir, are no HP Lovecraft!

You're better.

The Elusive Mr. Teaholt is one of the scariest things I've ever read, you know how its going to end, but yet you're (un)pleasantly anyway.

 

[Sodalis]

for some reason, while I was reding through it, the voicef woody allen kept popping into my head. Afetra while- he was the one narrating the story for me- and his face became representative of poindexter.

go figure...

awesome story

 

[Chimera]

Ok, Wicht/Jonathon, just which nefarious grimoire have YOU been reading lately? Did you just 'get inspired' and write these three stories lately?

They're good. See about publishing them, if you haven't.

 

[Maldur]

Short, to the point, and utterly disturbing.

Very nice!

please tell us you have more

 

[Wicht]

The Turning of the Worm
By Jonathan McAnulty

“Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws…” The Necronomicon

The worm tunneled slowly through the decomposing brain, and as it did so awareness grew. Whether it was the brain or the worm which was special it was hard to say, but, to those who observe such things, it was certain that the worm was growing ever more intelligent.

The intelligence began with cognitive thought, a rarity among earthworms, even earthworms as large and resplendent as this one. The worm for the first time in its life really noticed its surroundings. It felt the coolness of the soil and tasted the flavor of the dirt. It wiggled and it jiggled and it felt alive as it had never felt alive before. “Peachy Keen!” thought the worm and then, with awe, the worm realized that it knew words!

Indeed words had began to spring full blown into its psyche and the worm trying to keep up with its own growing mental faculties began to give the proper names to things. It named the dirt and then it named the root it had just brushed. It named a stone and then curling up into itself for a moment it felt its own lubricating secretions and squished. It named the feeling of squishing.

“Squish, squish, squish,” thought the worm to itself happily. If it had possessed hands it would have clapped at its cleverness. If it had possessed vocal cords it would have sang with glee. But it possessed neither and so it squished again, just to be doing it.

The worm realized with a start that it did not have a name for itself. This could not do and so it cast about in its head for a proper name. “Wormius Rex,” it thought, and then discarded that grandiose title for the more suitable “Arthur,” which, if it had known, had been the name of the man whose brain it had just recently passed through.

Arthur the worm wiggled delightedly at its new name and went on for another five minutes just naming things. Arthur stopped naming things only when he realized that he had begun to think in sentences. He was streaming words together. “This is language,” the worm thought proudly, “I am a master of grammar and communication!” and then just to prove to himself that he could, he composed a rhyme. “The dirt cannot hurt!” This was followed by, “The seed grows into a weed!”

Arthur was momentarily beside himself with delight. But then, feeling the need for a bit more maturity about the whole thing he forced himself to stop and relax. “Grammar is mere child’s play,” thought Arthur and decided he needed to challenge himself a bit more. “I shall take up mathematics,” thought Arthur. He began by doing simple arithmetic in his head and then followed this up with multiplication.
“This is hot stuff,” thought Arthur to himself as he calculated pi out to 24 decimal places. He ran through a host of Algebraic equations, proving them all to himself and then set to with geometry. He followed this up with statistical analysis but soon found that he grew bored with math.

“Is this all there is to life,” thought Arthur. “Numbers and Names? There must be more. There must be a reason, a purpose. But what is that purpose? This is a deep question for a small worm, I must give it thought.” The worm, wiggling along, chewing on a bit of dirt just to have something to do, turned his full attention to philosophy. He proved to himself that he did exist and that he was a worm. He had already decided that mere knowledge for the sake of knowledge was not enough and so began to give consideration to the stoic philosophies. He contemplated whether or not he would be happier without feelings and then gave equal consideration to the Epicurean school, deciding that perhaps it was better to eat dirt, drink dew and be happy. This was followed by the serious consideration that there might actually be more to life than just this life and Arthur briefly considered whether he had a soul. Perhaps the answer lay not in philosophy but in religion. He cast about in his deepest most parts to decide whether he was good or evil.

The worm decided on evil. “I am after all a worm,” he thought rationally, “That which crawls and gnaws and waxes fat on the flesh of the dead.” He wasn’t sure how he knew that but he knew he knew it and furthermore he decided he liked who and what he was.

“I am a worm! And sooner or later all must bow before me for even a king will pass through the belly of a worm! There is none who can stand before me for I am power incarnate.”

“I have discovered my philosophy…,” realized the worm, “Knowledge should be used! It should be used to bring me ever greater and darker powers!” Mentally, for he still had not the ability to speak, Arthur laughed evilly.

Arthur reflected on his growing knowledge and realized that he knew quite a lot about certain arcane principles. He knew the names of demons and devils. He knew the angles by which to travel to other places. He knew the rites that would bring up the dead. He even began to have a faint understanding of where his knowledge came from and in a moment of pure genius realized that if he continued to feast on the brains of men he would gain knowledge and power unparalleled! With a little patience he could, and would, muster forth dark energies, summon dread powers and then make a place for himself in the world! “People shall tremble at Arthur as he crushes them!” thought the worm in a moment of maniacal egomania.

But even as he began making plans for the domination of all life, the ground he crawled through trembled and he felt the earth move. The earth fell away from about him and he cognitively saw for the first time the sky and the sun and knew the feel of the breeze for what it was. But his excitement at the new experiences was short lived for it was then that he saw the giant, who, stooping down gathered him up with thick fingers.

For the first time Arthur the worm heard another sentient being speak and knew what the words meant.

“Will you look at this one! He’s huge! C’mon, Dad, put him on the hook!”

 

[Rune]

Wow. It's like Douglas Adams writing Mythos stories.

shudder

...so good...

 

[Wicht]

I wrote that last one, the basics anyway, way back in high school and though i don't remember the inspiration I suspect it was more Gary Larson then Douglas Adams

but thanks Rune, glad you liked it