Halloween special featuring bitter karella's Hugo-nominated microfiction The Midnight Pals
Halloween special featuring bitter karella's Hugo-nominated microfiction The Midnight Pals!
In a quest to resurrect a Morlock, Orwell and Wells find themselves in a weird metaphysical forest inhabited by historical horror writers, and attempt to impress Mary Shelley, H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe around the campfire.
The Midnight Pals is created by bitter karella. You can follow their antics on Twitter at https://twitter.com/midnight_pals. They are currently crowdfunding for their third book! More details at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/submitted-for-the-approval-of-the-midnight-pals-3
CAST
WITH SPECIAL GUEST MIDNIGHT PALS
I'm Cthulhu goes to (something like) the tune of Flanders and Swann's The Gnu.
A transcript of this episode is available at https://untrue-stories.simplecast.com/episodes/midnight-pals-halloween-crossover/transcript.
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Robin can be contacted at robindouglasjohnson@gmail.com. Share and Enjoy!
LE GUIN: All right everyone, this is your final boarding call for the flight to Mars. You coming, Wells? Orwell?
ORWELL: Er—I think we're supposed to stay here and save the world, or something.
LE GUIN: Can't you just... not take it over in the first place?
WELLS: I don't think that'll work. There's too much damage to the fabric of time. It's getting brittle. In ten years or so, a George Orwell will lead a junta of dystopians to overthrow western democracy.
ORWELL: Is that... is that really that bad? I mean, maybe I can do it better this time?
WELLS: It doesn't go well for you, George. Not in any timeline I've seen.
LE GUIN: Julia? Fancy seeing another planet?
JULIA: I'd love to, but apparently I'm destined to end up as some sort of a bag lady in the far future of this one.
LE GUIN: All right. [Calling] Go for takeoff! [Talking normally] You guys might wanna clear the launchpad.
MRS WATCHETT: It's not a launchpad, it's my garden!
[FX: Hatch closes. UFO takes off.]
MRS WATCHETT: How are you two going to sort out this mess?
WELLS: I don't know. I suppose we have to restore the timeline to—
MRS WATCHETT: I couldn't give a fig about the timeline, I meant my house. I rent the two of you a couple of rooms for a month, it's barely been a week and I come back to a pile of burning wreckage!
WELLS: Look, once we've got history back into the right shape I'm sure your house will never have fallen down in the first place.
MRS WATCHETT: That's all well and good, but where am I supposed to kip?
[FX: Garden gate swinging]
OLD JULIA: You can stop at mine, Mrs Watchett.
MRS WATCHETT: That's good of you, Mrs Finnegan.
WELLS: Mrs Finnegan?
MRS WATCHETT: And you pair o' numpties. If my house isn't standing by the time your lease is up there will be a reckoning, do you hear me?
WELLS: That's not Mrs Finnegan.
MRS WATCHETT: [Irritably] Well, who is it then?
JULIA: It's me.
OLD JULIA: Rumbled. You're going to live to be a very old and somewhat pissed off lady, Julia, and one day you'll be back here. Got to keep an eye on these idiots. Wells, did you bring it?
WELLS: Bring what?
OLD JULIA: The thing what I told you to bring, of course. The Morlock. Where is it?
WELLS: Oh. Er. Yes. He came with me. But then there was a bit of a mishap with a heat ray, and—
OLD JULIA: Where—is—it?
ORWELL: Under the, er, under the rubble.
OLD JULIA: What? Then give us a hand moving these masonry blocks. We need it.
[FX: Scrabbling in rubble. Fades out.
Fades back in. Blocks being stacked]
ORWELL: Look. I've made a bit of wall over here.
MRS WATCHETT: Brilliant. In another three years I'll have half a scullery.
WELLS: I see something blue... it's a hand. Found him!
[FX: Scrabbling]
OLD JULIA: It's bloody dead! What d'you have to go and drop a house on it for? It's a Morlock, not the Wizard of bloody Oz.
MRS WATCHETT: He did eat me.
OLD JULIA: So what? It's no use to us dead, is it? Well? What are you gonna do about it?
WELLS: [Unenthusiastically] I suppose we could... go back to the far future and try again...
OLD JULIA: Oh yeah, 'cause it went so well last time. Killed my robot and nearly got the both of us eaten. No, no. We're gonna have to bring it back from the dead.
ORWELL: Is that possible?
OLD JULIA: It bloody well better be.
WELLS: In the future where you lived, Julia, were there any other humans besides the Morlocks?
OLD JULIA: The Morlocks ain't human, they're just related to us. Sure, they've got some human traits. Cunning. Cruelty. But they've no imagination, no creativity. There were others. The Eloi. Pleasant enough people. But they were dying out. Partly 'cause they wasn't in tune with their natural environment. But mainly 'cause these blue bastards kept eatin' 'em.
ORWELL: Did they tell stories? The Eloi?
OLD JULIA: Yeah, I guess so. Did a sort of outdoor theatre. I went to see them sometimes. Lots of ancient legends about spaceships. They liked the stars. Slept out in the open. It's warm enough then, thanks to you lot.
ORWELL: So when the Eloi die out, so will science fiction. This Morlock's from the very end of the genre. Wells—I think we have to go back to the beginning.
WELLS: I am the beginning of science fiction.
ORWELL: No, you're not. Neither am I. We're respectable. Practically literature. Science fiction gets its power from being the underdog. Ghettoised to pulp magazines and torches under the blankets. Appealing to people who need to change the world, not us. The person we have to see—
WELLS: [With an unpleasant realisation] Oh, no.
OLD JULIA: No time travel.
ORWELL: Well, we can't raise the dead by ourselves, so we're going to have to go back.
OLD JULIA: All right. Twenty years, tops.
ORWELL: That's not far enough.
WELLS: I may know a way. I'll go.
OLD JULIA: You'll both go. Keep an eye on each other.
[FX: Ambience out.
Street ambience in: 1920s American city. Streetcars, construction, crowd noise, ragtime piano music playing somewhere.]
NEWSPAPER KID: [Fading in] Extra! Extra! Zelda Fitzgerald creams Babe Ruth in Mahjong tournament at Speakeasy!
[FX: Time travel arrival wibble]
ORWELL/WELLS: Aaaah!
[FX: Bicycle crashing into railings]
ORWELL: Ow. You're right. The bicycle isn't supposed to carry two.
WELLS: At least Julia attached those extra bits for you to stand on. What did she call them?
ORWELL: Stunt pegs. And if you like them so much, you can stand on them on the ride back. I'll steer.
WELLS: You don't know how to steer. And we only get one shot. She preprogrammed the itinerary. She doesn't trust us.
ORWELL: To be fair, we don't trust each other either.
WELLS: Anyway. Looks like we're in the right place.
ORWELL: I didn't know the bicycle could jump through space as well as time.
WELLS: Oh, it can't. But you can time it so that when you rematerialise, the earth has rotated by exactly the right amount.
ORWELL: Wouldn't that mean you end up in space?
WELLS: [Cheerily] Haven't yet. So, are we in the right time?
NEWSKID: Extra! Extra! Zelda Fitzgerald creams Babe Ruth in mahjong tournament at speakeasy! Read all about it!
WELLS: Newsboy! Let me see your paper.
NEWSKID: Three cents, mister. [Pause] What, ain't you got any money?
[FX: Rummaging in pockets]
WELLS: Let's see. I've got... a handkerchief, a slide rule, an empty bottle of bicycle oil, and a lump of putty. Have any money, George?
ORWELL: Er... I've got a used ferry ticket, a pencil, half a wasp, a piece of butterscotch with some moustache hair stuck to it... and—ah! One farthing.
NEWSKID: What's a farthing?
WELLS: It's a quarter of a penny.
NEWSKID: A British penny? Yeah, let's have a look at the foreign exchange rates here...
[FX: Rustle of newspaper]
NEWSKID: This morning a British pound was four dollars eighty-six point six, so... borrow your slide rule, mister?
WELLS: All right, but be careful with it. It's not a toy.
[FX: Clicking of slide rule]
NEWSKID: I make that... point five zero seven of a cent. Then there's gonna be exchange fees, expenses...
WELLS: Fine. How much newspaper can we get for a farthing? I only want to see the date.
[FX: More slide rule clicking. Newspaper ripping]
WELLS: October 31st, 1928. We're here. Boy, would you mind watching our bicycle for a few minutes?
NEWSKID: Can I keep the slide rule?
WELLS: That slide rule cost—
ORWELL: Yes.
WELLS: All right. Come on.
[FX: Ambience fades out]
NEWSKID: [Fading with the scene] Extra, extra! Read all about it...
[FX: Quiet spooky house ambience fades in: wooden creaks, wind, muffled piano playing a different rag badly out of tune.
Footsteps on creaky wood.
WELLS: This is the house.
[FX: Doorknocker]
ORWELL: Gives me the creeps.
WELLS: Wait till you see the owner.
[Long pause.
FX: Doorknocker again.]
ORWELL: Nobody's in.
[FX: Doorknocker again.]
ORWELL: This was a bad idea. We'll find some less unpleasant way to raise the dead—
[FX: Door creaks open. House ambience gets louder and clearer]
ORWELL: You just know that creak's been tuned.
SERVANT: [Male English accent; slow, reverberant voice] Can I help you?
WELLS: Hello. We're here to see—
SERVANT: The master is not at home to visitors.
WELLS: Oh, it's all right. We're time-travelling science fiction writers. He'll want to—
[FX: Door slamming on a foot]
ORWELL: Ow!!
SERVANT: Oh dear. Sir appears to have accidentally placed sir's surprisingly large foot in the doorway. If sir would care to withdraw it, in order to better facilitate my slamming the door in sir's face.
[FX: Repeated door/foot slams]
ORWELL: [Painfully] I'm afraid [slam] I am suffering [slam] temporarily [slam] paralysis of that [slam] particular foot. [slam] Old war wound, you know.
SERVANT: In that case, if sir would care to wait a moment, [Fading] while I fetch an axe...
[FX: Door creaking open again, slowly]
ORWELL: [Whispering] Come on.
[FX: House ambience gets louder]
WELLS: [Whispering] Look at you, Mr Breaking-and-Entering.
ORWELL: I didn't break anything. Except my foot, maybe. What are we looking for?
WELLS: The library.
ORWELL: Er. Well, we'll start in the direction the angry foot-squasher didn't go to fetch an axe from.
[FX: Internal doors opening and closing]
WELLS: Drawing room with one bare wooden chair.
ORWELL: Dining room with one place laid.
WELLS: Pantry full of nothing but cat food and tinned beans.
ORWELL: Well stocked library.
WELLS: Right. See anything about how to talk to the dead?
ORWELL: There's a telephone directory over here. Shall I check under 'D'?
WELLS: I'm serious. See anything... grimoiry?
ORWELL: Actually... yes. Here.
[FX: Heavy book being hefted]
WELLS: It's got a lock on it.
ORWELL: I didn't know that was a real thing.
WELLS: Where would the key be?
ORWELL: Wells, what is this book? Why are we in this house?
WELLS: We're looking for Mary Shelley, aren't we?
ORWELL: Yes, I got that much. You wrote a story about time travel and it turned out you'd actually invented it. I wrote a dystopia and it turns out I'm going to take over the world. It figures the author of Frankenstein should know how to raise the dead. But she's not here. We're eighty years too late and on the wrong side of the planet. Who lives here?
WELLS: Oh, just—someone.
ORWELL: Who?
WELLS: [Slowly] H. P. Lovecraft.
ORWELL: Oh, Jesus. Here I draw the line, Wells.
WELLS: If anyone can talk to the dead, it's him. Or summon a demon who can talk to the dead, or something. Anything eldritch, he's your man. Surely you can see that.
ORWELL: But he was a disgusting person. A fascist, anti-democratic racist—
WELLS: He was a man of his time.
ORWELL: He wasn't even a man of your time, Wells. I went to Spain to shoot people like him.
[FX: Stomping]
WELLS: You're making too much noise.
ORWELL: The man called his cat—
[FX: Stomp. Cat yowls. Scratch]
ORWELL: —ow!!
[FX: Cat hiss]
ORWELL: There's a key on its collar.
[FX: Meow. Scrabble of a cat climbing up a bookcase. Metal jingling]
WELLS: It must be for the book. Here, cat!
[FX: Playful cat chirruping. Soft jumping. Jingling]
WELLS: Get down here.
ORWELL: Climb after it.
WELLS: Get the wheely ladder thing.
[FX: Wheely ladder thing. Climbing of metal steps. Cat chirrups]
ORWELL: [Slightly distant] I still can't reach it.
WELLS: Who makes a wheely library ladder thing that's not tall enough to reach the top of the shelves?
ORWELL: I can reach the top shelf, I just can't reach the cat.
[FX: Cat chirrups and pads. Jingling]
ORWELL: It keeps moving.
WELLS: Then call it down.
ORWELL: Cat! Kitty. Puss-puss. Come on.
WELLS: Call its name.
[Long pause. Cat meows]
ORWELL: You call its name.
WELLS: I don't want to.
ORWELL: I don't want to either.
WELLS: We'll call it together.
[FX: Climbing down ladder]
ORWELL: All right. But we never tell anyone about this.
WELLS: Not a living soul.
ORWELL: Take it to our graves.
WELLS: Lips are sealed.
ORWELL: Mum's the word.
WELLS: Not a peep.
ORWELL: On three. One. Two. Three.
ORWELL/WELLS: Heeeeere—
[FX: Door opens]
ORWELL: Oh, thank god, it's the mad butler with an axe.
SERVANT: [Angrily] The master [FX: axe hitting books, walls, clutter] is not [chop] at home [chop] to visitors!
[FX: Cat yowls and runs away]
WELLS: Run!
ORWELL: I can't run, my foot's buggered.
WELLS: Hop, then!
[FX: Running, hopping, doors, chopping, chaos]
SERVANT: Perhaps [chop] you would care [chop] to call again [chop] in another life!
ORWELL: This way!
WELLS: That way!
ORWELL: That way!
WELLS: This way! [Pause] Aah, actually not this way, it's a dead end!
ORWELL: Who has a dead end in their house?
SERVANT: [Fading in] The master is not at home to visitors!
WELLS: Now look here, Mr—
ORWELL: Wells—
WELLS: Mr Axe-Brandishing Butler—
ORWELL: This wall has panels.
[FX: Wall panels being pushed]
WELLS: —what's your name?
SERVANT: [More reverb on voice] Nwarla-shub-c'thoggorath.
WELLS: Oh. Is that Irish?
[FX: Tentacles being extended. Squishy slimy noises]
SERVANT: NO.
WELLS: ...oh, you're actually an eldritch abomination. That makes sense.
SERVANT: [Demonic effect] I'm afraid I must show—you—gentlemen—out!
ORWELL: Wells! This wall has panels. Press them.
WELLS: Which ones?
ORWELL: You take that half—
[FX: Panels being pushed. Click. Stone grinding. Magic portal noise (sounds like a popping cork.)
House ambience stops abruptly and is immediately replaced by forest ambience: wind in leaves, birdsong, crickets.]
WELLS: This is different.
ORWELL: I was expecting a secret lab or something.
WELLS: I was expecting to be still inside the house. Or at least to be able to see the house.
ORWELL: I don't think we're in Rhode Island any more.
[FX: Approaching footsteps on grass and dry leaves]
H. P. LOVECRAFT: [High-pitched, quavering New England accent] Aah! Who are you?
WELLS: Mr Lovecraft! Hello! I'm—
LOVECRAFT: Why did you get here through my portal? [Horrified] W-were you in my house?
ORWELL: Well, there was a bit of a misunderstanding—
LOVECRAFT: D-did you touch my things?
WELLS: We just—
LOVECRAFT: Did you walk on my floor?
WELLS: What else would we walk on?
ORWELL: Look, we came to ask you about a book, and your weird axe-murdering space squid butler chased us and we ended up here.
LOVECRAFT: [Giggling nervously] Oh, yeah. That's Nwarla-shub-c'thoggorath. He's tried to m-murder me a few times too. He's a, he's a bit of a card.
WELLS: Why did you hire him?
LOVECRAFT: All the other applicants were foreign. Uh. [Calling] Edgar!
[More footsteps approaching]
EDGAR ALLAN POE: What now?
LOVECRAFT: There are people arriving here...
POE: Howard, we're not having this conservation again. A healthy flow of immigration is essential to—
LOVECRAFT: No, here!
WELLS: Hullo!
POE: Oh. Edgar Allan Poe. Haven't had the pleasure.
ORWELL: I'm George Orwell. This is my—[grudgingly] friend, H. G. Wells.
POE: Ah. Look, I don't mean to be a genre snob, but—this is a club for horror writers. It's sort of a safe space for us, you know?
LOVECRAFT: You never told me it was a safe space.
POE: Because I know you find the idea of a safe space terrifying, Howard.
WELLS: Oh, er, we're definitely horror writers. Aren't we, George?
ORWELL: Absolutely. Kings of horror.
WELLS: Masters of suspense.
ORWELL: Lords of the, er, screaming.
WELLS: Wooooo!
[FX: A third set of footsteps approaching]
MARY SHELLEY: [London accent] Sup, nerds.
ORWELL: Is that Mary Shelley?
SHELLEY: Who's asking?
LOVECRAFT: They said they were horror writers.
SHELLEY: [Amused] Really?
POE: I don't think they are.
SHELLEY: Nah, I know who they are. The communist animals guy, and the self-proclaimed inventor of science fiction.
ORWELL: And Wells.
POE: I'm gonna send you back through the portal.
LOVECRAFT: Don't put them back in my house!
ORWELL: Yes, don't. We'll get dismembered by his eldritch butler.
LOVECRAFT: Oh, in that case it's fine. He cleans up pretty good.
SHELLEY: No, let 'em join us. I insist. You know if it's your first night here, you have to tell a horror story.
POE: [Reproachfully] Mary.
SHELLEY: And I can't wait to hear that shit.
[FX: Ambience out and back in. Campfire. Banjo music cue, continuing through scene]
POE: We're called the Midnight Society.
[FX: Owl hoots]
POE: Separately, we're very different. We like different things, we live in different centuries, but one thing draws us together—
[FX: Thunder]
POE: —the dark. Howard, put down the banjo.
[Music stops]
LOVECRAFT: Oh, I think I'm making progr—hey!
[FX: Sudden dischord]
LOVECRAFT: Mary, give it back!
SHELLEY: Cocking twangy bastard.
[FX: Movement, banjo smashing in background]
LOVECRAFT: Edgar, make Mary give it back!
POE: [Over LOVECRAFT and SHELLEY's voices] Each week, we gather round this campfire to share our strange and scary tales.
SHELLEY: [Fading] Cocking—twangy—bastard!
[FX: Ambience fades out.
Then back in]
ORWELL: For the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story—
WELLS: [Whispering] Throw the powder.
[FX: Powder being thrown into fire. Sparkle]
ORWELL: —the tale of the communist pigs.
LOVECRAFT: Yeah! Show those commie pigs!
ORWELL: Right. So, there's these communist pigs—
LOVECRAFT: [Enthusiastically] Boo!
ORWELL: And they get all the sheep and the cows and horses and the other animals together in the barn—
LOVECRAFT: [Trying to interrupt] —w-wait—
ORWELL: —and tell them that they can run the farm themselves without the human farmer.
LOVECRAFT: —hang on, they're—
ORWELL: So one night, when the farmer's out, the animals—
LOVECRAFT: —they're, like, literal pigs? Like, the animal?
ORWELL: Yes.
LOVECRAFT: Ewww!
[FX: Ambience in and out]
WELLS: For the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this... the tale of the mad scientist.
SHELLEY: Oh. How original.
WELLS: [Missing the sarcasm] Thank you. So this mad scientist creates an artificial form of life.
SHELLEY: You don't say.
WELLS: But the life he creates gets out of his control, and turns against him.
SHELLEY: Hah!
WELLS: And the mad scientist ends up fighting his creation—
[FX: Switchblade]
WELLS: —to their mutual destruction.
POE: Mary... put away the switchblade.
SHELLEY: Just sharpening my marshmallow stick.
[FX: Wood being whittled.
Music starts: a fast version of the Untrues Stories theme on xylophone and marimba.
Ambience repeatedly fades out and in between the following story snippets, to create a montage effect.]
ORWELL: I call this—
[FX: Sparkle]
ORWELL: —the tale of the angry man who walks around London.
SHELLEY: Real scary.
LOVECRAFT: I dunno. I hear there are some parts of London where there's a lot of—
ORWELL: Uurgh. You know what? I'll tell another one.
[FX: Sparkle]
WELLS: The tale of the man who made himself invisible.
SHELLEY: Cool. Can he also make himself shut the fu—[Fade]
[FX: Sparkle]
ORWELL: The tale of the angry woman who walks around London.
SHELLEY: She shiv anyone?
ORWELL: She does not.
[FX: Sparkle]
WELLS: The tale of the Martians who burn a lot of people and then die of an infection.
POE: Oh, another idea you stole from Mary.
[FX: Sparkle]
ORWELL: The tale of the white guy—
LOVECRAFT: Oh, this could be good.
ORWELL: —in India—
LOVECRAFT: Ooh, that's kinda scary.
ORWELL: —who feels bad about colonialism.
LOVECRAFT: Ugh! That challenges my preconceptions.
POE: I think we've heard enough.
[Music starts to fade]
WELLS: [Desperately] The tale of the funny bicycle riders—
ORWELL: The tale of the working-class women with monstrous forearms—
SHELLEY: Guys. You're embarrassing yourselves.
POE: And us.
ORWELL: The tale of the rich kid who goes abroad and pretends to be poor. And doesn't burn down any hotels.
POE: It's not happening.
[Music stops]
ORWELL: [Sighs] All right. Wells, if I distract the chthonic butler, maybe you can make it back to the front door, if the newsboy hasn't pinched the bicycle...
POE: Oh, we're not sending you back through the portal. That's not what happens to people who fail at this stage.
WELLS: What does happen?
[FX: Switchblade opening]
LOVECRAFT: Usually, Mary stabs them.
[Music starts again]
WELLS/ORWELL: Aaaah!
[FX: Running through woods, accompanied by hopping. Music and all sound fade. Forest ambience, running and hopping fade back in]
WELLS: I bring you along... on one time trip... and we've been chased... by maniacs with... some sort of edged weapon... twice in half an hour.
SHELLEY: [Distant] Get back here, nerds...
ORWELL: Wells! You're 82 and she's in her twenties. You can't outrun her.
WELLS: I don't need to outrun her. I need to out-hop you.
ORWELL: Look, we can hide in this—oh, it's another portal. Come on.
[FX: Portal noise.
Quiet mad science lab ambience. Candles flickering, ticking clock, electrical buzz, chemical bubbles]
ORWELL: I don't think we're in the strange metaphysical forest any more.
WELLS: Now this is what stairs to a secret lab look like.
ORWELL: That must have been Shelley's portal.
[FX: Footsteps on stone stairs. Door creaking open. Lab ambience gets louder]
WELLS: Ah yes. One monster-size slab. One surprisingly portable piece of weird science apparatus. She's even written decent documentation. "Attach electrodes A and B to neck of monster. Unreel kite during thunderstorm. No liability accepted for mobs of villagers with pitchforks." [With exertion, as picking up a heavy object] Give me a hand with this.
[FX: Metal being dragged]
ORWELL: So we need to lug this heavy equipment back through the forest while avoiding the knife-wielding mother of goths, then back through Lovecraft's house while avoiding the unspeakable horror from the realms of madness and the racistly named cat.
[FX: Creaky door opens and slams shut. Heavy footsteps on stairs]
WELLS: To me.
ORWELL: To you.
[FX: Portal noise. Landing on grass and dry leaves. Forest ambience. Pause]
ORWELL: Maybe she gave up.
[FX: Several sets of footsteps, approaching]
SHELLEY: Hello again, nerds!
WELLS: Aaaah!
ORWELL: Please don't stab us.
SHELLEY: Well...
[FX: Switchblade closing]
SHELLEY: I wanted to. But Howard had one of his funny turns and saw some dumbarse elderly god—
LOVECRAFT: —Elder God—
SHELLEY —whatever. Who says you two have to go resurrect a marmot—
WELLS: —Morlock—
SHELLEY: —to do some stupid nerd shit to save the world or whatever. Take the machine, I can make another one if I want.
POE: Howard has graciously allowed you to return through his house. We'll escort you back to his portal.
[FX: Footsteps, fading. Ambience out and back in.]
ORWELL: Well, it was interesting meeting you all. Thanks for the Frankenstein machine. And for not shivving us.
SHELLEY: Use it on the marmot, then throw it in the sea. Don't try and use it to bring back your loved ones. Doesn't go well. Does it, Percy?
PERCY SHELLEY: [Ghostly, whimpering voice] Aaah... no!
WELLS: Er—Howard, what about your butler?
LOVECRAFT: It's all right. He's been banished to the interdimensional void for the evening. Oh, uh, while you're in the house, would you mind feeding—
WELLS/ORWELL: Bye!
[FX: Magic portal. All sound stops.
Pause.
Jura ambience fades in: rain, house fire.
Two squidgy stabby noises]
JULIA: Right, the electrodes are in its neck.
WELLS: Start flying the kite, Orwell.
[FX: Kite being caught on wind]
ORWELL: This is rather fun.
OLD JULIA: Now we just have to wait for a bolt of lightning.
WELLS: Unfortunately, we don't know when or where one's ever going to—
MRS WATCHETT: Not spent much time in Scotland, have you? Orwell, I'd let go of that string if I were you.
[FX: Thunderclap. Electric buzz]
MORLOCK: Urgh... where am I? Why am I in a burning ruin? Am I in hell?
OLD JULIA: You're gonna bloody well wish you were.
[Untrue Stories theme music fades in, playing under credits.]
VOICEOVER: Untrue Stories was written and produced by Robin Johnson, and starred Robin Johnson as George Orwell, Patrick Spragg as H. G. Wells, Tara Court as Julia, Joanna Lawrie as Mrs Watchett, and Rachel Pulliam as Ursula Le Guin, with Rebecca Thibodeaux as the newspaper seller, Alex Walsh as Nwarla-shub-c'thoggorath, and Canavan Connolly as the Morlock. Special guests the Midnight Pals were voiced by Robin Johnson as H. P. Lovecraft, Canavan Connolly as Edgar Allan Poe, and Rebecca D'Souza as Mary Shelley. The Midnight Pals is the creation of bitter karella and can be found on twitter at midnight_pals. If you have enjoyed Untrue Stories, please consider leaving us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast site or all. Find all episodes of Untrue Stories wherever you find podcasts.
[Music fades.
Campfire ambience fades in. Twangs of a banjo inexpertly playing the intro to Flanders & Swann's "I'm a Gnu"]
LOVECRAFT: [Accompanying himself on banjo] A year ago last Thursday I was with an eldritch cult
That was headed by a demoniacal priest;
He performed an incantation, and the blasphemous result
Was a tentacled and Cyclopean beast!
I asked him, "What's that thing?" "It's a shoggoth" is what he said;
I might have gone on thinking that was true,
If the character in question hadn't bitten off his head,
And remarked, "Shoggoth? Schmoggoth! I'm Cthulhu..."
[Sings] I'm Cthulhu! I'm Cthulhu!
A c-thing that's un-c-thinkable to you!
I'm Cthulhu! How do you do?
I'm c-thunderous and blood-c-thirsty too!
I'm Cthulhu! Nobody knew,
I've been waiting for a c-thousand years or two;
You've c-thoughlessly annoyed this chthonic octopoid;
Oh, c-thump, c-thump, c-thump! I'm Cthulhu!
Oh, c-thump, c-thump, c-thump! I'm Cthulh—
[FX: Sudden dischord]
LOVECRAFT: Hey!
[FX: Banjo being utterly destroyed]
SHELLEY: Cocking twangy bastard.
[FX: Object being thrown on fire. A few strings break as the fire crackles. Noise fades]
Copyright (c) 2022 Robin Johnson. No reproduction without permission.