The Underpants Of Fury
“Another day in Cthulu’s country,” Mr. Santa Claus sighed. He swung his legs over the edge of a low stone wall. He unwrapped his peanut butter and herring sandwich and as he chewed, he let himself go to the solitude of the moment. A mist rose over green fields. Through it, a sinewy road wound its way through rolling pastures on to Uttoxeter. A soft breeze ruffled his beard. A Kodak morning. The silence was broken by the distant mournful wail of a train.
From down the gravel road, the crunch of Ted Bittersly’s bicycle broke the old elf’s reverie. A tall gingerish man came pedaling around the bend.
“Mornin’, Nick.” Ted skidded to a halt next to Mr. Santa Claus.
“Morning, Ted. What’s new?”
“Just headed into town, need to pick up a few things from the grocer’s. Goin’ to butter the lawn this afternoon.”
“Oh yeah? How’s the wife?”
“Oh, just fine, just fine. Eaten by a shark the other day.” Bittersly said. He squinted at the rising sun. “Well, dreadful sorry to interrupt your breakfast. Talk to you some other time?”
“Righto! Have a good day, Ted. Hope your wife feels better soon! Bye!” The rosy-cheeked old man waved goodbye to his neighbor, as Bittersly kicked off down the road.
Mr. Santa Claus resumed his meal, and was just thinking about taking a jaunt through the woods, when something altogether out of the ordinary juxed itself upon him.
By all appearances, and having no one to argue otherwise, a hammerhead shark came waddling down the road, growling and buzzing, and generally being what Armenians would call a “jerkwad.”
It stopped in front of Mr. Santa Claus. Both stayed very still, each eyeing other. Suddenly, the shark began to hiss and whine and its legs grew, and grew, and grew, until the shark stood as tall as a midget plagued by gigantism. Arms sprouted from its chest, and once it had finished its transformation, it stood back. For a long moment, each regarded the other. Neither made a sound. Neither made a move. Nobody breathed.
Then, carefully, deliberately, the hammerhead extended an arm, and pushed Mr. Santa Claus off the wall.
Finding himself sprawled in the grass with chunks of what he presumed had been slug spackled in his hair, Mr. Santa Claus peered up at the wall, into the face of the shark. It said nothing. He hunted for a witty response to try and grasp back some semblance of dignity, and settled on something he’d heard in a Schwarzenegger movie.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I go by many names, Nicolas Santa Claus. Many, many names. Many names indeed. Of names, I have many. The names I have are multitudinous.” It took a deep breath. “Really, you wouldn’t believe how many epithets I’m known by.”
“And they are?”
“Roboshark.” The robot caught itself. “Do I contradict myself?” It paused to reflect for a moment. “Yes. Yes. I am large. I am full of them.” Roboshark shifted uncomfortably. It didn’t care much for discussing philosophy at the dinner table.
“So, you’re, Roboshark?” Silence. Mr. Santa Claus waited, expecting more. Nothing came. He fumbled for a bit, searching for something else witty to say. “How did you know my name?” That would suffice, he thought.
“I have internets inside my head, Mr. Santa Claus. All things that are things that can be known, I know. And things that are not known, I will know, because internets is get updated a lots, and I have many internets inside my head for the updating of such.”
Nick turned this around in his head a few times, passed it on to his subconscious to make sense of, and when it spat it back undigested, he gave up. “I guess you’re going to eat me then?” Roboshark shook its head. “You ate Bittersly’s wife, didn’t you?”
“Was that her name? I’m never terribly good with the names of, what do you call those, those little finger foods you serve at parties. The ones with the French names.”
“Hors d'oeuvres?”
“Yes, yes, that’s it. Thank you.” It cleared its throat, and smiled, though it didn’t manage a terribly good job of it. Sharks are not particularly expressive, and this one appeared to be made of plastic and tin, so it was less so. “And no, I never learn the names of my food. Makes it too personal. Would be like naming your cat Betsy, and building him a backstory before carving him up for flank steaks. It complicates digestion.”
“I s’pose it would,” Nick wheezed, hauling himself out of the wet grass. “You’re not going to eat me then?”
“Oh my, no,” Roboshark clucked, winking coyly at the right jolly old elf. “Quite the contrary! You’re going to be the only person in the world who will know who I am, and what I do.”
“And that is what, exactly?” There was a pause. And another pause. The first and the second pause met over drinks, hit it off very nicely, went back to the first’s house, made little suspense babies, and lived happily ever after.
The tension was palpable.
“I’m going to eat the world, one piece at a time,” Roboshark said. It seemed as though a great weight had been lifted from its shoulders.
“I see.” Mr. Santa Claus stood up, and brushed himself off. “Any particular reason why?” The chunks in his hair were in fact, bits of slug.
“My creator, a Sir Matthew Matheson, woke up one morning, and decided that rather than pay his taxes like a red-blooded Englishman, he would design and build a robot shark for keeping tax collectors and government agents away.”
“And?”
“He built it.” Roboshark glowered at him. “Though, being a man with substandard income, he made do with whatever was lying around his basement. Odd bits of tin and plastic from beer cans and turkey basters, an old IBM motherboard, the hard drive from an iPod his mother gave him, and wires that populated a VCR his neighbor ‘loaned’ him. However, having dropped out of college before he finished his engineering degree, he didn’t manage to finish the job. See?” The robot pointed to his legs. “My limbs are meant to retract and extend so I can travel underwater and on land. But because of a wiring flaw, they randomly pop in and out, making it hard to –oop! Pardon!” His left leg shot up into his torso, and he toppled ceremoniously into the dust.
“As you can see, mine is a sad, sad existence. My hard drive is not especially large, so my ability to express the full gamut of emotions is poor. I haven’t got the space for it. So, unable to show things like ‘compassion,’ reason,’ and ‘gibble,’ I have decided that everyone must feel my pain.”
“So to make the world understand your problems, you’re going to eat it?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Santa Claus considered this.
“Just so long as we’re clear.” His brows knitted in consternation. “So then why haven’t you eaten me?” His shirt had begun to stick to his back. It was unpleasantly clammy.
“You were the first person I hadn’t eaten today, so I thought it might be nice to have someone left when I’m done, to chronicle my exploits.”
“But if everyone else is—”
“Roboshark away!” Roboshark convulsed feebly, and retracted all its legs. Wheels popped out of its torso, and with a mighty roar, sped off.
“First stop, Manchester!” The voice of Roboshark receded into the distance. Mr. Santa Claus regarded the road for a moment, then picked his sandwich off the ground. Before he could take a bite, he felt another presence.
“Howdy, Mistuh Santa Claus!” A voice exploded from behind him. Nick found himself face to face with the hulking form of a black bear. It regarded him though a monocle it wore over its left eye, and sat back on its haunches. Neither said a word. The bear coughed.
“Can I help you?” Mr. Santa Claus inquired, taking in mouthfuls of sandwich. The bear pondered this for a moment. It wasn’t accustomed to this sort of questioning.
“Naw sah, Mistuh Santa Claus, I’m heah ta help ya’ll wid dis ‘ere fingfangle ya’ll’ve gotten yoself inta.” Satisfied with its answer, the bear relaxed. It had done rather well, it thought.
“Okay? And how’re you going do that?”
“Well sah,” the bear intoned, “Ya’ll’s gon’ need somebody ta help ya’ll find tha two keys to get ta tha Octabahg, sah.” Mr. Santa Claus swatted at the flies crawling over his sandwich and took another bite.
“And who,” He sighed, “By the Elder Gods, is Octoborg?” On second thought, the flies added a pleasant crunchy texture to the sandwich. The bear blinked, and considered this.
“Why sah, tha Octabahg is da mightiest creechah on Ahth. He’s paht Ahctapus, paht machine, an’ he’s tha only one who kin stop tha Roboshahk!” The bear sniffed at Mr. Santa Claus’ sandwich. “Is thaht peanut buttah an’ herrin’?”
“Yeah.”
“Ya’ll mahnd if ah have a bite? Am pow’rful hungreh.”
“Go for it.” Nick proffered the sandwich to the bear. “So,” Mr. Santa Claus asked, “What’s your name?” Once the bear finished licking and smacking all the peanut butter from the roof of his mouth, he answered.
“Sah Reginald Eggswahth tha Third, sah. At yo service.” The bear donned the monocle with a flourish, and clambered atop the wall. “Sah, foller me. We gotta go. Now.”
“Where’re we going, Reggie?” Mr. Santa Claus scrambled up the wall, and dropped over the other side, onto the road. The bear waited for him, and turned around.
“McDonalds in Stockpaht, sah.” Nick stopped a moment. He knew every McDonalds in the United Kingdom –he was on the Weight Watchers Repeat Offenders List. He’d been banned from ever entering Brazil again because of it.
“Which one? There’s at least three there.” He wanted some chips. Savoury, fresh-from-the-fryer chips.
“Tha one on Mersey Way, sah.”
“Why that one?” His stomach growled. Nick hungered.
“To see an Aboriginal man abaht a Big Mac.”
“Come again?”
And with a whiff, a poof, and a zizzle, they vanished.
