Timothy sat in the farthest most corner of the library and read H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu." He was excited by this book, the way it stirred and stimulated his imagination. It was funny how a little intelligence and the graphic gothic style of Lovecraft's writing could turn a bunch of octopus people into something frightening and macabre. Timothy's ideas were fresh and like bad oatmeal clumped and ran thin in some places. His mind was always wandering so much that it was hard to solidify anything into a menacing recipe to scare an old lady even. Death was funny, it was like a boy's first orgasm into his own palm. When one discovered they could give themselves pleasure, it was as addictive as the first time one delighted in the fact that they could give themselves pain too.

Life was beautiful and of course, worth living. However the darkness was enticing also and not without its own rewards. Most everyone was blind and unable to see the darkness or the light. They lived in gray. Children knew. The young knew things. If only adults listened to babies and not old rotting bitter things. Tim was 13, in the 9th grade and had recently discovered the joy of masturbation and his love of deadly things. So naturally he came to Lovecraft, King, Koontz and Bradbury for inspiration. Tim hadn't a girlfriend yet and, truth be told, he wasn't all that interested in the female persuasion. He usually thought about boys when he masturbated, but he had yet to understand what that meant. While fishing through books, he found a small paperback called the Necronomicon. It wasn't the real book, of course, but a creation formed from the fictional work of Lovecraft's literature. Timothy began looking through the text, mildly amused by the strange writings, surreal drawings and mysterious passages until he found one referring to the Cthulhu.

So he decided to read it, aloud, out of morbid curiosity. The lunch bell had rang now and the other kids were off to their classes while Timothy stood and read a passage of text.

"Cthulhu awakes from the watery crypt of the Netherworld,
One of its many mouths opens and it flails a single tentacle in rage,
All hail to the Ancient Gods of the Deep,
Curse Atlantis and the Surface World alike,
I call the true rulers of this earth to the surface again,
Cthulhu, I welcome you. . . ."

Nothing happened.

Dead silence.

Timothy sighed and waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

Finally he gave up and decided to go to class defeated. On the way he saw Principal Tyrant who reprimanded Timothy and gave him a detention referral.

Timothy ran down the hall angry, clutching the referral in his hand.

Principal Tyrant smiled, he loved making students angry.

From behind him, a tentacle wrapped around his throat.

"Timothy Higgins, what on earth do you think your doing showing up late to my class?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Parnell," he said.

Thirty beady eyes of his peers stared him down in contempt.

"I'm afraid sorry won't suffice, stay after class."

Tim nodded grimly and took his seat. Mrs. Parnell resumed her long boring lecture, delighting in the manic boredom and controlled fear of her students.

Timothy began scrawling a picture of Cthulhu. Not until a hand clamped over his shoulder did he notice all eyes were focused on him again and Mrs. Parnell towered above him with cruel pride.

"First you interrupt my lecture, now you ignore me and diddle in your notebook. Young man, you are rude -- what's this? A monster --"

"Don't --," he began.

Too late, she was showing it to the whole class now in an attempt to humiliate him. She was succeeding wonderfully.

The whole class laughed hysterically.

"What's this . . . an octopus man?" she laughed. The dirty old crone had fire in her eyes."

"No, it's Cthu --"

"Chu-what?"

"KATHU-LOO!" he shouted.

"That's it, young man, I'm taking you to detention. Where you can hopefully work some of this nonsense out of your head!"

She dragged him by the arm as the kids pointed and laughed at him. A boy flung a spitball at him.

Timothy was happy in detention. At least he didn't have to deal with the judgment of his peers and he was away from that bitch Mrs. Parnell. So he sat and continued drawing his picture of Cthulhu.

Mrs. Parnell stopped in the rest room to take a pee. Good, she had gotten rid of that little brat Timothy Higgins, who she despised. God, she hated children. There was no telling what those little brats were doing in her classroom right now. In the stall Mrs. Parnell sat on the toilet with her panties around her ankles. She heard a strange moaning sound in the stall next to hers. An arm fell underneath the shared divider.

A female hand wearing a small heart bracelet. Just like the one Mrs. Simon wore.

"Mrs. Simon?"

Mrs. Parnell dressed quickly and flushed the toilet, then pushed open the creaking stall next to her. She screamed as she saw the dead body of Mrs. Simon mangled and mutilated beyond recognition.

"Oh god, who? Who? What did this to you?" she asked the corpse.

The answer came from behind her, splitting her in two.

The kids grew restless in the classroom and continued making jokes about that "queer Timothy" and his octopus man. Then they heard a strange shuffling in the hall, it grew louder and louder until they all ran towards the door. They saw their janitor being devoured by an inhuman being beyond human comprehension. Its slimy tentacles could tear a human body apart with little or no effort.

Some girls screamed but most of them just waited as the thing rushed towards them.

One of the boys' last thoughts was:

I thought monsters couldn't come out in daylight.

This one did.

Slurp! They were gone.

The desk shook and Timothy's first thought was: Earthquake! Then he heard the screams.

The sun was shining bright outside the window, birds were chirping and up and down the halls of Chesington High students and staff were being mutilated.

Then Timothy . . . knew.

The study hall teacher got up from his seat and ran into the hall. Three minutes later his head was thrown through the window of the door as it was knocked off its frame.

The huge behemoth monstrosity hovered, nine feet high, a mass of yellow eyes, ears, mouths and slick green tentacles. It looked like a huge spider crossed with an octopus.

"You summoned me," it said, with a dry low guttural voice.

"Yes, we have lots of work to do. My parents get home at five, then we have a town to destroy."

"As you wish, master," it said and bowed.

Chaos had a master after all, and he was it. He jumped on the back of the creature and stroked it's head. It purred the sound of a thousand chain saws.

Timothy rode his new pet down the hallways and through the doors of the school into the world. It was going to be a wonderful day.

Created: August 17, 1999; Updated: August 9, 2004