Here we are at the brink of February and Dunwich looks like early December. There’s no snow cover and the ground is soggy with all the rainfall. There are serious consequences from this warm weather. Mange has broken out among various species. Werewolves, zombies and the Mi-Go (those winged fungoid crustacean creatures) have all been observed uncontrollably scratching themselves against tree trunks to relieve the itching. And the smell from these festering wounds has made the forested areas around the swamps almost unendurable for residents there. First Selectman Cthulhu complains that tourism is way off and he blames it on this blight. I don’t know. I think it could be a result of the new advertising slogan they came up with. I mean, “Dunwich, smell the history” might need some work.
Luckily for me I took the precaution of planting the perimeter of my property with wolfsbane a year or two back and the only local inhabitant that hasn’t fled is a shoggoth that lives under the rock overhang at the edge of the swamp. He’s a really old and decrepit example of the species and he probably would have already succumbed to the infection if Camera Girl hadn’t started putting out scraps for it to subsist on.
As is her habit, she has sort of adopted it and calls it by a pet name, shoggy, which I find annoying. I’ve explained many times that it is a loathsome man-eating nightmare, the very sight of which can shatter the sanity of any human being. She claims it just needs scratching under the chin (wherever that is), some warm blankets and leftover fried chicken to make it a “boopa.” Women are mostly insane. I’ve resorted to poisoning the chicken but all that accomplished was to make it thirsty. It drank down the pond and swelled up to a hundred times its original size. It’s about the size of a city block and about three hundred feet tall. It seems to have either the hiccups or some kind of rhythmic flatulence.
Next Friday is supposed to be a quick freeze. Forecasts call for nighttime temperatures dipping down to minus fifteen Fahrenheit. I believe that after absorbing that much water the shoggoth will freeze solid overnight. My plan is to rent one of those construction vehicles with the industrial strength jack hammer attached to a robotic arm and use it to chop up the shoggoth into bite size chunks. I figure I can probably transport them to a fishing port and sell it as chum to the commercial fishermen. Anyway, that’s the plan.
With the cold weather coming I expect the more traditional winter activities to resume. Once Lake Bishop freezes the annual ice fishing derby will be announced and all experienced fishermen will partake in the night before drinking binge to shore up their nerve for the event. And whoever draws the short straw that morning will need every bit of that alcohol to get the nerve to make the run across the ice. After all, running across a half mile of open ice dressed as a giant “kivver” with the First Selectman coming after you from under the ice with only a ten second head start is pretty heady stuff.
Last year Tanner Featherstone came within twenty feet of the shore and maybe three seconds of winning the contest and the $100 Amazon gift card. Not to mention keeping his life. It’s this kind of town-spirit and bone-headed stupidity that keeps this amazing tradition going despite the unbroken history of failure and the terrifying sight of a man being eaten alive by a one-hundred-foot-tall squid-headed flying dragon. The screams and the sound of the crunching bones really makes you think.
Well anyway. I’ve got to do some research on that whole jack hammer rental thing. Busy, busy, busy. I hope your winter is going well and I’ll be back soon to describe what looks like an early spring and the return of the “colour out of space” to the local foliage. Ah those unearthly colors. They make Dunwich the garden spot it is.