Shutter your doors and say your prayers because now we are joining
Doctor Herbert West for….
ARKHAM BY NIGHT
Brought to you in part by the Arkham World News in association with some interns from Miskatonic University we lashed together to pull me around from bar to bar in a rickshaw.
And people who can’t use the Internet.
I don’t leave my dirigible house very often these days. The amount of baths it requires to make me feel clean again after doing so seems to increase every time. As you can understand that’s all quite time consuming. I deliver my articles via an elaborate system of carrier pigeons. I diagnose my patients via a satellite feed to a robot.
The robot enters my patient’s room when they least expect it in the middle of the night. Roused from sleep the first thing they see is my face stretched over a crackling LCD screen. Its illumination is blinding. It casts an eerie futuristic glow like an alien abduction. Its one tire spins with impatience and leaves scorch marks on the linoleum.
The insane, elderly, and dying all find it quite soothing really.
Especially now accidental strangulations have gone down by ten percent with the latest firmware patch. The goal is to reduce these occurrences by twenty percent before the end of the fourth quarter. However, that’s an optimistic prediction.
But I’m getting off topic. The reason I cannot go out any more is because I fear that I will be shot. This fear seems to be directly proportional to the amount of money that I make. It just seems that I can’t turn on the Wireless without hearing about the latest ninja and pirate violence.
Almost every day there is another gated community sacked by a pirate’s schooner. Or a politician discreetly crushed under a giant toad. The police zip up bodies every morning riddled with musket balls or kunai.
This is a hazard of living in a fictional city. Before writing this article my editor has kindly reminded me that I am required to add more lists to these. Apparently the average reader does not have time to read anything without bullets.
So while I am rambling on the subject of Pirates vs. Ninjas. Let us not forget that there are many other rivalries that innocent bystanders can get caught up in. Here are the top five literary rivalries that will most likely get you killed.
5. The Amish versus Hobos
We’ve gone over in length the repeated in’s and out’s of the Hobo Romance genre. But were you aware that the Amish also get it on? I know I was not. How could they get out of their drab clothing without zippers? Apparently, this is how they make more Amish people. I had always thought that being Amish was something the State ordered like community service.
Now the Amish have lowered their standards considerably. There are Amish dating sites. Let me give you a moment so that can sink in. Yes, there are websites that hook you up with the Amish. For dates. Why the sudden change? Well, the Amish are in desperate need for more recruits. Their numbers are dwindling. Probably, because their beards are terrible for cunnilingus.
The actual reason: the Amish are losing more and more of their numbers to their secret wars with the Hobos. The Amish’s magnet powered war machines are simply no match for the Hobo’s steampunk-fu. The Amish have delayed their extinction for now by moving their settlements deep under the Earth’s crust.
But day by the day the Hobo’s drills dig deeper into the Earth inching closer and closer to the Amish capital of Zion. The white steam blots out the sun over Pittsburgh. The Amish wait day after day for the One to appear. Even if it requires dating outside the community.
Why all the hate? Just hop into your local Borders’ Romance pavilion. All the books with Hobos buying school girls Zima on the cover are being muscled from the shelves by the covers of women unzipping their latex catsuits in front of a cowering Amish man. While the Amish were unaware of this baffling genre, the Hobos did not take this lying down.
Of course we all know now that the Amish romance genre is a backlash of youth getting back at their mothers for taking over the Hobo romance genre.
4. Capulets vs. Montagues
We remember them from the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet. Where two star crossed lovers could not be together due to their membership in rival gangs. They marry in secret, but are still caught up when the Capulets and Montagues rumble.
We all know the story. The Capulets brought stones. Then the Montagues brought knifes. Then the Capulets pulled their machetes. Then followed the Montagues’ katanas. Then sonic screwdrivers then spring guns. Then rail guns, ray guns, Scanners, and Antimatter.
Romeo and Juliet hatched their famous scheme to fake their deaths, but their planning was for naught when the Montagues’ antimatter destroyed Florence and all that dwelled within. Queen Elizabeth would eventually cut her patronage of this play for the expenses Shakespeare would incur from dropping antimatter on Florence each night.
That terrible death scene song haunts the streets from the Dicaprio movie every night.
3. Ohioans vs. West Virginians
Personally, I’ve always been fascinated as to how two very similar groups just hate each other. Like how people from Seattle thinks everyone from Portland are just a bunch of sword swallowers and pagans, while people in Portland believe that everyone from Seattle are fisherman software engineers. Yet all along an observer from the outside like myself just see them all as some fucking hipsters from the Pacific Northwest.
West Virginians are our fellow Appalachians, but we all know they can hold a grudge. Remember the Hatfields and McCoys feud? The museum of television will always herald it as the bloodiest episode of the Family Feud. It’s the reason why all guests must now succumb to a full body cavity search, and all hosts must pass a course on enduring torture.
Of course, the West Virginians hate us for our sushi bars and musical performers. And we hate them for their delicious pepperoni rolls and redneck reservation casinos. These battles are mostly acted out on the freeways.
2. Pirates vs. Ninjas
I’m not sure if this conflict has ever played out in literature outside of a thought exercise. Of course, that has never stopped anything from walking the streets of Arkham. The biggest casualty of this conflict: the Internet.
1. Reanimators vs. Necromancers
I regret my own involvement in this literary rivalry.
It is a rivalry as old as science vs. magic. Our rivalry is far more specialized. It is science vs. magic in the field of creating minions from corpses. Oh, sure both say that our goal is everlasting life. But the reality speaks otherwise…perhaps I am older now and far more jaded.
However, since science and magic nullify each other this conflict mostly plays out on the letters to the editor section of the penny saver. Occasionally, an unsporting sorcerer may wipe out a grad student or an engineer a novice. But conflicts between equals are nonexistent.
It is my own bias that puts it to the front of the list.
Now you may be wondering just where the werewolf vs. vampire rivalry sits on my list. Well, it doesn’t. The worst thing you can get caught up in when these two groups throw down is a love triangle. Centuries ago this may have been a bloody conflict, but its not just a handful of re-enactors on Halloween. The snapping of their fingers drowned in the drunken revelry.
An Update: It has come to my attention after writing this article that the first battalion of Hobo drills has pierced the outer walls of the Amish capital Zion. A plucky, young kid has kept their attackers at bay by letting off an EMP within the city. Unfortunately, this gambit has left the Amish completely defenseless. They shudder together waiting for aid. Personally, I’m just going to pretend that the last two movies didn’t happen.
About the author: Dr. Herbert West is a graduate of Miskatonic University and resident physician of the Arkham Asylum and Teaching Hospital. He currently has four notches in his stethoscope.
