Bones of Aneth-Ka in Witch House # 2

 

a cornucopia of alarming tales, including my own Weird Urban Western, Bones of Aneth-Ka.

Get it here: 

https://witchhousemag.blogspot.com/2022/08/witch-house-issue-2-is-now-available.html

Party Time at Psi Iota House

My first semester as head of the biology department at Sizemore University was passing smoothly and quite pleasantly. It was a small, secluded campus, sequestered in the scenic hills near Riceville, Tennessee. It was certainly not on the leading edge of scientific advancement, but it provided me with the placid atmosphere I sorely needed. The facilities were adequate; the campus’s original life sciences department had been destroyed in an explosion the year before. A tragic accident in the chemistry lab that so severely injured my predecessor, a professor Leland Dudley, that he was forced to retire. It pained me to benefit from such unfortunate events, but the job was so agreeable to me that I soon forgot my qualms. I was provided with an area in the vocational building that had been an auto repair facility, small, but large enough for the few students I had, outfitted with full lab facilities.

Peanut Lovingood’s Last BBQ

The night my life went to shit, I was on a one lane back road winding around north of Riceville. I knew where I was goin’. I used to take the back way to Knoxville when I’d haul weed back and forth during the 70’s. I glanced over and made sure the book was still safe in the passenger seat. A musty old green thing with gold-embossed letters on the cover: The Excruciations of Khons. It was one of the books Abigail Butler had me move into the vault when she took over as head librarian at Sizemore University. We had both started there about a year ago, but I’m sure she made a hell of a lot more money than I did as a maintenance man. She had some kinda problem with those "occult" books. I figured her for one of them bible thumpers, what with the slicked back long hair. Long denim skirts and horned rim glasses. Anyways, her aversion to those books presented me with an opportunity to make some cash. Them books was hard to get, so I let be known I could help a man out getting em’ for the right price. Wasn’t long ‘for I got a call from some fruitcake from Seattle. He wanted the copy of Excruciations, said it’d "open doorways" and make him stronger as the moon got full or some other such bullshit. I didn’t care though. ‘cos he was meetin me at the Knoxville airport with enough money to keep me drunk in Mexico until my liver gave out.