“They always thought that pathetic bigot of a horror writer was talking about Egypt whenever he mentioned Memphis,” he says, stooping down on the muddy shore of the pond.

Dipping his fingers into the brown water, he begins to trace patterns; horrible, maddening patterns of eldritch things that should never exist in our world.

He hums softly to himself. And then the surface of the pond begins to hum along with him.

“But, we know the truth, don’t we? He wasn’t talking about that Memphis at all.” He smiles a gleeful, evil smile, “And won’t we give them such a shock when they see just how wrong they were?”

A lone tentacle, putrid in color, rough in texture and entirely wrong in its very nature, rises out of the water. It pushes upward, as far up from the water as a man is tall, suckers pulling at the air, foulness permeating everything around it. Then it comes for him, wrapping itself around his arm, spiraling up past his shoulder.

It pauses there for a moment, hanging menacingly in the air next to his exposed neck, before reaching over, and gently stroking his face.

“Yes, we will,” he coos to it.

Memphis Note
HP Lovecraft is a 20th century horror writer that is credited with bringing the genre into maturity. If Poe birthed the genre, Lovecraft was its experimental, drunken college years. He wrote a lot about ancient evils and horrors out of time and space that would consume your sanity. And everything had tentacles for some reason. He liked to reference obscure places from antiquity in nefarious was, and mentioned “a dark thing” under Memphis on more than one occasion. I just thought it might be fun to make that our Memphis.

Chuck stumbled out to Beale after me. He lurched to the side, looked like he was going to fall, then extended his arm, beer in hand, and managed to stay up right.

“Last one in the bucket!” He grinned drunkenly at me.

I shook my head at him, then instantly regretted it. I was just as drunk as he was, and the world swam before my eyes for a moment.

“Hey! Hey! Watch this!” Chuck slurred at me. He had his lighter out in his hand, and the beer angled oddly in the other. Slashing out with the lighter, he knocked the cap off the beer, spilling a good portion of it in the process. “Lighter sabrage!”

“Was a twist off, you dink!” I waved dismissively at him, turned and walked smack into someone.

I took a step back, excused myself and tried not to vomit on their shoes. Then my vision focused a little bit.

Lifeless eyes milky-colored eyes stared up at me from sunken sockets and rotting, sloughing skin.

“Braaaaiiinnnssss,” the thing said.

I looked at the thing for a moment, then poked it in the shoulder.

“You don’t want mine. I’ve done bad things to them.”

Memphis Note
Late every spring, downtown Memphis is swarmed by the Memphis Zombie Walk. Thousands of people, all dressed up in their finest zombie gore taking over the streets for a few surreal hours of fun.

It was almost too easy.

They’d swoop into town at dusk. Renfield, their emaciated roadie, would unpack the gear. Then, after the sun had vanished beyond the horizon, he’d unpack them.

The places they played were always small, dark, and thick with smoke. Sometimes they were booked, sometimes they weren’t. But, they could always talk their way onto the bill.

Tonight they were playing the Buccaneer. One of the smallest, darkest, smokiest places in Memphis. And one of their favorite places to…play.

It didn’t matter that they sounded absolutely terrible, they transfixed the audience. As they’d play, they’d single out one person from the audience. Boy or girl, either would do. That person would feel like the band was playing just for them, and in a very dangerous way, they were.

Afterwords, the fan would seek out the band at the bar. The band would buy them round after round, slowly coaxing them back to their van, where it was the band’s turn to drink.

Jokes would be made about the rock and roll lifestyle.

And just like that, they’d disappear into the morning sun, Renfield driving them on to the next city, the next gig, the next meal.

Memphis Note
The Bucc is a tiny little place in a weird no-man’s land of Memphis neighborhoods. I think it is bordered on three sides by empty lots. But if I was a vampire, that’s the sort of place I’d go looking for a meal.