The Pseudopod That Rocks the Cradle

By Tim Mendees

Prepare yourself to enter the twisted mind of Tim Mendees.

In these pages, you will find eighteen tales of sanity-shredding horror. Join a cast of uncanny offspring, randy butlers, disturbed poets, and other colourful characters as they face off against eldritch abominations and the insidious machinations of the Great Old Ones. You will face parasitic computer code, murderous toads, trees that are malevolent gods, and many more despicable creations.

Told with the trademark playfulness Tim Mendees has become known for, these monstrous stories are all at once terrifying, disturbing, clever, and often irreverent. "The Pseudopod That Rocks the Cradle" by Tim Mendees is a cosmic horror short story collection published by Mannison Press, LLC.

CONTENT WARNING: The stories in this collection contain cosmic horror-style violence, gore, murder, strong language, sexual situations, and implied sexual assault. Discretion is advised.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mannison Press, LLC
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005285722

Book preview

The Pseudopod That Rocks the Cradle

Eighteen Tales of Cosmic Horror

By Tim Mendees

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2021 Tim Mendees

Published by Mannison Press, LLC at Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

CONTENT WARNING:

The stories in this collection contain cosmic horror-style violence, gore, murder, strong language, sexual situations, and implied sexual assault. Discretion is advised.

For my partner and beta reader, Linda. All of my readers and publishers.

And for H.P. Lovecraft, without whom…

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

~ H. P. Lovecraft

Contents

Foreword

Preface

1 – Rouse Them Not

2 – What the Butler Saw

3 – The Pseudopod That Rocks the Cradle

4 – A Matter of Recycling

5 – Pickles

6 – I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside

7 – A Mother's Love

8 – The Hollow Hills

9 – Insecure Tenancy

10 – Afterimage

11 – Romanticising Sleep

12 – The Toad and the Princess

13 – Mr. Mannequin

14 – The Metamorphosis Cube

15 – The Face in The Fabric

16 – The Parasite Code

17 – Blood & Luminol

18 – Monster in the House

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Foreword

David Green

"The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind."

~H. P. Lovecraft

The quote above, from Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself, is the perfect way to sum up the man, the legend, the myth that is Tim Mendees.

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

I first came across Mr. Mendees at the beginning of the year seared into the collective memories of the world: 2020. Being in similar writing groups meant we drifted into chatting, mainly, at that point, about a shared love of the Cthulhu Mythos and both being English. More on that later.

Soon, I became aware of his writing. Inundated would be a better word. There's prolific, and there's Tim Mendees. From his Brighton Tower, the man pumped out words left, right, and bloody centre at, quite frankly, an alarming pace. Rumours circulated he wasn't just one man. How could he be? So what was he? A machine? A Lovecraftian, tentacled writing abomination, with each slithery appendage capable of wielding a pen? A collection of other writers, perhaps personalities, from the middle of a bleak wilderness, all writing under the moniker Timote of Clan Mendees, shortened to just Tim Mendees for marketing purposes?

Sadly, the answer is both more mundane, but no less impressive. He's a writer with an incredible work ethic and a passion for creating new characters and worlds for us to enjoy.

In April 2020, I had the pleasure of first sampling his work in Eerie River Publishing's It Calls From the Forest, and both stonking stories appear in this collection: Rouse Them Not, and A Matter Of Recycling. I think you'll enjoy them.

Since then, I believe I've read everything Mr. Mendees has had published, and a few things still to see the light of day. I've also enjoyed the good fortune of working with him on various projects; these are always imaginative, involving, and, most of all, fun.

I could have met the man in question a long time before I eventually did in those halcyon days of March 2020. After chatting for the first time, we noticed, as you would, that we have similar accents. After further digging, it turned out we'd been in many of the same places at the exact same time in and around Manchester, only never to darken each other's doorsteps. For the best. Even Cthulhu himself would tremble at the idea.

If you're picking up Mr. Mendees' work for the first time, here are a few things to expect.

Number one: tentacles. Especially when you least suspect them, but definitely when you do.

Number two: startling imagination and expansive characters, some loosely based on people Mr. Mendees has met and, I suspect, murdered.

Number three: Cornwall. Lovecraft had his county, Mr. Mendees has the sleepy British peninsula of Cornwall, the land of pastys, surfing, King Arthur, and finally, tentacle-based terror.

Number four: a wink, a nod, and a tongue firmly in cheek. There's horror, there are disturbing scenes of violence, but there's always humour. Carry On Mendees, indeed.

Number five: quality. Mr. Mendees is not only someone I consider a friend, but an author I respect and admire, and one I enjoy. Whenever I see a new story of his cross my path, everything else is forgotten about. I hope, dear reader, and I suspect, you will feel the same way.

Enough of the nice things: when I heard Mr. Mendees had a short-story collection on the way, I did laugh. Specifically, at the word short. This author is a man who once asked for an extension on a piece of flash-fiction. The conversation went like this:

How much more do you need? the publisher asked, anxious.

Well… replied Tim, twirling his moustache, I'm already at 2,500 words…

Tim, our nervous and quite perplexed publisher replied, the maximum word limit is 250 words.

That, dear reader, is Tim Mendees. And let me tell you, every one of the words that make up this sizable, value-for-money tome, is quality.

Enjoy, and embrace the madness. Your life will be all the better for it.

David Green

Preface

A Suitcase Full of Photographs

I'm going to start with a statement that may shock you to your very core. I am a bit of a fan of cosmic horror. Okay, I admit, this is probably an understatement on the scale of saying that Jack the Ripper was a bit of a naughty boy. My obsession with all things weird and Lovecraftian is very easy for me to admit. What isn't easy, however, is finding an answer to the question: Why?

In my relatively short career as a writer, this question has been asked of me more than any other, and it is one that I am going to try and finally address. So, bear with me, Dear Reader, while I try to explain why cosmic horror, of all the myriad genres, is the one that floats my barnacle-encrusted boat.

In an attempt to get to the root of my fascination, I must first tell you a story.

As a boy of four or five, I discovered something in an old suitcase that scared the bejesus out of me. It wasn't human remains or anything tangible like that. It was something that, on the surface, was utterly innocuous. My grandmother had a battered blue suitcase full of photographs. These snaps went back decades, but it was a relatively recent one that did it. Something about it chilled my blood. It still does to this very day.

My Uncle Robert had a farm just outside of Bridgenorth in Shropshire. It was tucked away in the rolling landscape with a patch of woodland to its rear. This picture, taken sometime in the mid-1970s, was of Uncle Robert standing next to his battered tractor in a flat cap, puffing on a Player's Navy Cut. Behind the tractor is the broken trunk of a tree that had recently been struck by lightning. I have no idea what kind of tree it was, but it had been tall, thin, and old. The strike had split the tree. The top had fallen and hung at a diagonal to the remaining stump. Behind it, the sun was sinking, casting it in a dark silhouette.

It could have been something to do with the diminishing light or the washed-out Agfa colour print, but I was convinced that the tree was looking at me. Ridiculous, I know, but it seemed to possess a lurking quality that made me shudder. The way it had splintered imbued it with a jagged, almost owl-like appearance. The fact that my uncle was standing there wearing a dopy grin while it loomed menacingly up behind him just added to my unease. It was shortly after the discovery of this unsettling snap that I first read The Willows by Algernon Blackwood.

To say that it scarred me for life would be complete melodrama, but it certainly creeped me the hell out. The narrator's increasingly hysterical description of the drooping trees on that isolated stretch of the Danube resonated with my own terror of the lightning tree on Robert's farm. I visited the tree shortly after this, and it was just an old splintered lump of wood covered in moss and fungi. There was absolutely nothing sinister about it in the slightest, but that picture continued to terrify me. To this day, I can't think of it without the spider-legs of fear running up the back of my neck.

Lovecraft himself summed up this sensation with his famous quote:

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

To me, this encapsulates the diseased heart of cosmic horror. It's that rush of fear-induced adrenaline one experiences when you catch movement out of the corner of your eye or hear a furtive rustle in the bushes when you are walking alone. It's the thing that brushes against your toes when you are in the sea or the crawling sensation when you try to sleep at night. Cosmic horror is helplessness in the face of a vast and carnivorous universe. It is the fear of the unknown.

I spent a great deal of time during my formative years with my grandparents, and as an only child, I often had to find things to amuse myself. As many of their generation were, they had signed up to pretty much every book club under the sun. This gave me access to a lot of the classics of horror literature. But, while the ghost stories of Wilkie Collins and Henry James would give me a superficial thrill, it was the cosmic horror of Blackwood, Machen, and Lovecraft that stuck with me.

The single most important book in my life has to be a battered copy of the Ballantine Books' Lovecraft collection, The Lurking Fear and Others. My gran had bought it for me after I spotted it in a box of books on a stall at the market in Macclesfield where I grew up. Stories such as Dagon and From Beyond already had me hooked, but it was The Shadow Over Innsmouth that sealed it. I didn't care that the spine was held together with sticky tape. That book was my most treasured possession for many years and opened my eyes to a whole host of authors. It also had a comedy misprint that still makes me smile. In one of the stories, the phrase gibbous moon was erroneously replaced with "gibbons moon." Man, that gave me funny mental images.

From there, I would pick up anything even vaguely related to Lovecraft's work. If I saw the word Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth on the back of a book, I had to read it. Through this, I discovered Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Graham Masterton, Robert E Howard, August Derleth…the list is endless. This obsession continues to this day. I have entire bookcases dedicated to the Cthulhu mythos and cosmic horror in general.

When I finally decided to give writing a go, it was for the sake of my sanity. I'd developed a condition called transverse myelitis which affected my spinal cord. I have a shadow the size of a pistachio nut between my second and third cervical vertebrae. When it first manifested, I was paralysed down my right-hand side. Needless to say, my career as a chef was over. As I'd done this since leaving school, this was something of a blow. This had me going out of my mind with frustration. I was literally climbing the walls…or would have been if my sodding body would have worked properly.

As I have done for most of my adult life, I turned to books to cheer myself up and lose myself for a while. It was an escape from the pain and mounting anger. As is often the case in these situations, I turned to HPL. While reading The Color Out of Space, I remembered an idea I'd had years ago for a book. Now I had nothing but time on my hands. I finally got around to writing it. My early attempts were an unmitigated disaster. I hadn't written for over two decades, so it was clunky, to say the least. Still, it got me going, and the story was good. I fully intend on giving it a rewrite at some point this year.

When I decided to give short stories a shot, I remembered Uncle Robert and the Lightning Tree. This became the nucleus for the story that eventually became "Rouse Them Not," which opens this collection. It was initially a story called The Twins and was my attempt at a children's story—reading it now, I can see why it was rejected. Even the toned-down, gore-free version is not suitable for kiddies in any way, shape, or form. Thinking of that photograph, I could believe that an eldritch abomination was trapped inside that twisted mess of wood and bark, hungry for a way to escape. I had only one goal: to create the sort of stories that creeped the hell out of me as a kid. If I have made one person feel the way I felt when I first read The Willows or The Shadow over Innsmouth, then I have succeeded.

As a sullen teenager lurking in graveyards, wearing thick eyeliner, and listening to The Sisters of Mercy on my Walkman, I used to think about the tentacle-faced things that might be lurking below the surface. I would picture the ravenous ghouls scuttling between the headstones. Cosmic horror makes you feel small. It reminds you of your insignificance in the face of an unfeeling universe. It's the same feeling you get when you wade out into the ocean and feel seaweed tickle your toes or coil around your leg. You are not important in the grand scheme of things. You're not even at the top of the food chain. And, that…is bloody terrifying.

As a sullen man lurking in graveyards, wearing eyeliner, and listening to The Sisters of Mercy on my mp3 player, I still think of those things. The things that scare you in your formative years never leave you. These are scars that will never heal, and this is cosmic horror for me. It is the uncanny and the unsettling, the furtive things lurking just out of sight. Cosmic horror is the fear of the unknown. Therefore, cosmic horror is fear itself.

My work isn't all indifference and nihilism, though. I was also raised on a steady diet of P.G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, and Carry On…movies. I ended up assimilating these things and mingling them with the weird. My favourite description of my output that I have ever heard is when someone called it the lovechild of Lovecraft and Wodehouse. I'm more than happy with that comparison.

I often like to include humour in my dark tales. I feel that comedy acts as a counterpoint to the more horrific and disturbing elements. I enjoy yanking the rug out from under the reader by having them chuckling one minute and being scared or repulsed the next. The stories, What the Butler Saw, and Romanticising Sleep are two examples of my mixing the Wodehouse and Lovecraft elements.

Another influence in my writing is classic fairytales. I'm not talking about the sanitised Disney versions neither. I mean the original Grimm's Tales. The ones where the Ugly Sisters tried to fit in the glass slipper by hacking off their toes. As a child, I had a cassette of Christopher Lee reading a selection of these stories. It was absolutely terrifying, and I bloody loved it, even though it gave me nightmares. I still have the tape somewhere. The Toad and the Princess, Rouse Them Not, and A Mother's Love are my attempt to tap into those nightmares.

What you now hold in your grubby mitts is a snapshot of my first two years as a writer. It includes my earliest work and some of my most recent. The Metamorphosis Cube is the first story I managed to get published and it opened many doors for me. I will forever be grateful to Natalie Brown for breaking the cycle of rejections and giving an incredibly green writer a shot. Several of the stories are exclusive to this volume and were specially written for it.

It would take another book for me to tell you the story behind each of them, so I'm going to stop waffling now and let you dive on in. I sincerely hope that, like that battered blue suitcase, there are artefacts within these pages that will stick in your head and give you chills for many sleepless nights to come.

Tim Mendees

21/07/2021

~1~

Rouse Them Not

"Wassaile the trees, that they may beare

You many a Plum and many a Peare:

For more or lesse fruits they will bring,

As you do give them Wassailing."

~Traditional Wassailing Song

It was January the seventeenth, and snow covered the ground at the Angove orchard in High Bend. It was a particularly bitter Twelfth Night eve that year, though spirits were riding high. The annual wassailing was in full swing, and the cider was flowing freely. The sympathetic magic of hundreds of revelers flowed around the frigid apple trees, carried on the raised voices and the jangling bells of the local morris men. Before the ceremony was through each tree would be blessed and would have spiced toast secured in its boughs. All except two, that is. Some said they were planted on the graves of two vicious killers. Some said they housed the trapped spirits of witches, others said they were gods. But, whatever the blight, all were convinced that those trees were evil.

The Twins stood over a narrow dirt track that led to the rear entrance of the graveyard like guards of the dead. Their bloated and warped limbs reached over the path and touched, entwining like fingers on two gigantic hands. They loomed over the path, ready to snatch away unwary mourners. The trees rarely bore fruit, and what fruit they did produce was rancid. On more than one occasion a foolish child had plucked a ripe looking apple and taken a bite, only to suffer from savage stomach cramps.

Daniel and Jonah Green looked upon the ceremony as nothing more, nor less, than a thinly veiled excuse for a drinking session. The two brothers had taken root on a hay bale and had been steadily getting more and more hammered as the evening progressed. As was usual, on these occasions, their conversation had run the gamut from pretty wenches to masculine prowess, then to foolish dares in no time at all.

How about we wake up the Twins? Daniel slurred.

What the Hell for? Jonah grinned with bemusement. They are just trees. Or do you believe that god crap? He gulped strong cider and sniggered.

No, Daniel said, rather too defensively. I just think it would be a laugh.

It would irritate the Hell out of the druids, Jonah mused.

Exactly. Daniel smiled. Just look at that daft lot. He pointed to where the revelers were singing a song to an old pear tree. They seriously think all this malarkey will give them a better harvest next year. Ruddy saps, the lot of them.

Heh, yeah, Jonah chuckled and downed more fermented apple juice.

So, are you in? Daniel asked, a boozy grin plastered across his young face.

Jonah thought for a second. A nagging doubt was trying to take hold of his brain, but it was swiftly drowned in alcohol. Yeah, why not?

Okay, we can finish a couple of more drinks first. You know, to keep out the cold. Both men erupted into raucous laughter.

As the two men imbibed, Mr. Edwards, the head druid and village squire, had led the procession away to the far corner of the orchard. They were far enough away not to put a halt to the mischievous plan. Neither man believed the folk tales of evil trees, but just enough doubt lingered to make wassailing the Twins a good test of their mettle.

Once another flagon of cider was downed, the two young brothers started to wend unsteadily along the path to the small graveyard. They were rosy-cheeked and full of bravado on account of all the booze, but even that warm glow was suddenly chilled by the sight of the sinister apple trees.

The moon hung low between the twisted branches, casting ghostly shadows on the path. Daniel halted and put his hand on Jonah's chest. The elder brother stopped, looking at his sibling with bemusement.

Jonah smirked. You aren't getting chicken, are you?

No, Daniel grumbled. Look. He pointed to the low stone wall behind the trees. There was a bent figure sitting there, arms aloft in supplication.

It's old Mrs. Fowles, Jonah chuckled. What the Devil is the crazy old bat doing?

I dunno. Daniel shrugged. Listen. The old woman was crooning a gentle song. I think she's singing it some weird lullaby.

Both men burst into fits of laughter, which alerted Mrs. Fowles to their presence. She stood and fixed them with the kind of stare that could turn a man to salt at fifteen paces.

Quiet, you pair of buffoons! she snarled, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. Mrs. Fowles had long, straggly hair that, along with her aquiline nose and bent posture, gave her the look of a malevolent old crone. She was, in fact, a kindly octogenarian who made the best cream buns in the village. "You will wake them." She gestured at the Twins with a bent finger.

Jonah sniggered in derision. Oh, come off it. They are just trees. He chuckled.

You know nothing, Mrs. Fowles hissed. "These trees contain the imprisoned souls of exiled gods. Those idiots have made enough noise to raise the dead as it is, so I implore you to keep your blasted voices down."

Hah! Daniel snorted, deliberately loud. Gods? What utter cobblers!

Idiot! Mrs. Fowles snarled. I warn ye to rouse them not! She hitched up her skirt and started to hurry away from the brothers, and the Twins. Her face had turned as white as the snow underfoot, and fear danced in her rheumy eyes. You will pay the price for rousing Nug and Yeb, mark my words! We will all pay the price! With her final warning hanging in the air, she scurried away towards the church.

Daniel laughed. Silly old fool.

Yeah, Jonah agreed. But… His pregnant 'but' left hanging, he grabbed his brother's arm. Maybe we should leave it alone. The old bat might have a seizure if we go on.

What? Daniel blurted. Now who is getting chicken?

Jonah huffed. I am no chicken! He held out his hand. Gimmie the toast, and I can show you.

Daniel did as requested and watched his brother stalk over to the larger of the Twins. He scrabbled around and finally found a foothold. The nearest hollow that he could deposit the spiced toast into was about twenty feet from the ground, but Jonah was strong and agile so it took no time at all for him to reach it. He stuffed the toast, which was soaked in mulled cider, inside, then gave Daniel the thumbs-up.

Go on then! he goaded. Your turn!

Daniel strutted over to the adjacent tree and grabbed an overhanging branch. As he strained to pull himself aloft, a voice came to him on the wind.

Tasty

What did you say? Daniel shouted across to his brother.

I didn't say anything, Jonah replied.

Daniel reached the V-shape in the branches, fishing in his pocket for the spiced toast. Jonah had climbed down and now stood at the foot of the second tree.

You alright up there? Do you need me to come up and hold your hand? he shouted up.

Hungry

What was that? Jonah asked his brother.

I did not say a word, Daniel replied.

Yeah, you did, Jonah said.

I really did not.