originally published Singers of Strange Songs, Chaosium, 1997
Alec Lang is the big cheese of a high-priced architectural firm, and he's hired by Dr. Willard Vickers to design and building a student housing facility at tiny Beckham College. Alec thinks this is a little strange, since he charges big-ass prices for such things, but so be it. Even if he thinks Doc Vickers' designs (including a very deep moat and a lot of five-pointed stars - dah DAH!!) are weird.
But it's not long after the digging has started that Alec finds a neighbor kid poking at something he calls a "direful wirrum" - cuz, yeah, American kids talk like that all the time. The "direful wirrum" is sorta like a Cthonian, but it has lots of legs, and mandibles. And eyes! It definitely has the Cthonian telepathic ability. The neighbor kid hears the words "shudder meal" being screamed in his head. Alec captures the worm and takes it to Beckham college. Soon after, he catches another of the little fuckers in his office.
Meanwhile down at the college, hot prof Alicia Sykes spills her whole guts to Alec about Cthonians, the fact that her institute is dedicated to fighting the Cthulhu baddies, etc. And she shows him the worm he captured, which is now very much bigger and all kindsa pissed off.
Eventually it tries to break free, and a free-for-all results in (a) hot Prof. Sykes being killed along with several others (b) the cthonian get watered to death, along with several other such baddies that are making their way up and (c) Alec making some upgrades to his house, including a five-pointed start terrace and a deep moat.
This is a well-written and entertaining tale but nothing special. Like many of the stories I've come across in themed Cthulhu collections, I find myself thinking its merely a rehash of ideas that were better executed elsewhere. On the big debit side, I've always found the concept of organizations devoted to battling the minions of Cthu a bad idea. But what really aggravates me about this one is the author's pointless reimagining of the Cthonians. It's obvious he's familiar with these beasties, and thus it can be assumed he's read Lumley's treatment of them or, failing that, at least the entry in the Call of Cthulhu rules, which makes his complete alteration of them even more baffling. This isn't just nerdly demand for consistency/canon/continuity on my part (that's not to say it isn't, only that it isn't just) - the Cthonians are far and away the most interesting and best-realized alien race in the Mythosa that weren't invented by HPL, and they were quite unsettling in their appearance. The addition of beaks, eyes and legs makes them visually silly, more than it does creepy - but presumably the author would not agree. Anyway, he shoulda left well enough alone. PS - yes, hot Prof. Sykes does at some point make a vague statement that these are only "one variety" of Cthonian, but fails to elucidate in any meaningful way, so I'm not letting this subject off the hook on that one.
Also, no kid anywhere in the United States ever described anything as a "direful wirrum", no matter how weird or nerdy he was! Not even me!
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