The Other McCain

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The remaining eight were frozen to their chairs in their filth, except me. None made a sound. Deep gloom swallowed Lake Totenkopf.
A longitudinal crack appeared in the table, right down the middle. Athwart that, connecting the vertices marking the head of the table, appeared a second crack, so that the table was quartered like a Swedish flag.
I pulled back the pad, and kept scribbling in my lap. The four quarters of the tabletop fell inward, hinged at the edge.
The speaker exited the room, while the eight living attendees sat frozen in their chairs, more or less literally.
Tentacles emerged from the darkness within the table. They ended in a mouth full of parallel rows of teeth, below which was an eye, below which began the suction cups. Water was dripping in all directions. Cold water. Barely above freezing.
Some of the tentacles struck quickly, punching through a head or torso, painting the walls and window with gore. Grinding and bone crunching sounds filled the air, plus the occasional snap of a tendon.
There were no screams, rhyme, or reason to the mayhem. The victims stared, in a combination of shock, hypothermia, and disbelief. Some tentacles caressed or wrapped a victim. These seemed to meet their demise and consumption with something resembling pleasure.
Except for me. I can’t move. I have the attention of four tentacles. One devoures the left leg, the other the right, the third his left arm, while the fourth tentacle holds the pad steady.
The three devouring tentacles reach my torso more or less at the same time. The suddenness of it all on cold flesh had delayed the effects of shock and blood loss, flesh cannot take this, and, at last, I feel myself give

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• Head: Intro
• Prev: XXIII. Wrenching Change

by Smitty (INTRODUCTION)

The speaker’s points unfolded, and the audience began to panic. In a resigned, fearful, anti-climactic sort of way. There were no actual breaks in the delivery. Eventually, more than one odor began to waft. Yet the audience stared forward.

An older woman to my left cried out, clutched at her heart, and slumped. Evidence of puddling beneath her chair indicated that she’d enjoyed a shockingly traditional trip to the void.
She had been an entertainment, fashion and publishing magnate, but I wouldn’t have ever suspected her of having enough pull to have been invited to this. I knew my own banking background, a cheap pack of lies in the light of this horrid days’ revelations, probably made me more important than her.
More important. Hahahahahaha. How those rating scales had been quickly rendered meaningless. Speaking of meaning, what of the thumps and screams growing louder and more frequent?

“That the peoples may become accustomed to obedience it is necessary to inculcate lessons in humility and therefore to reduce the production of articles of luxury.
By this we shall improve morals which have been debased by emulation in the sphere of luxury. We shall re-establish small master production which will mean laying a mine under the private capital of manufacturers.
This is indispensable also for the reason that manufacturers on the grand scale often move, though not always consciously, the thought of the masses in directions against the government.
A people of small masters knows nothing of unemployment and this binds him closely with existing order, and consequently with the firmness of authority.
Unemployment is a most perilous thing for a government.

Re-establishing patronage and master craftsmen for access to practical training is yet another success story for us on the economic front.
Our excessive crusades in the areas of environmentalism and trade, and against sane energy policy have been quite effective in producing a crop of economically illiterate swine who will welcome the Second Dark Age they engender with satisfaction.
They crave government dependency.”

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• Prev: XXII. Full Circle
• Next: XXIV. The Trimphal Arrival (Conclusion)