HOW TO RUIN A WEDDING IN ONE, LONG NIGHT

I knew Shub-Niggurath with a weird stripper name, but I didn’t have much of a chance to look for anything else or anywhere elsewhere. I had kinda been thrown into the whole “Best Man” thing by a coworker who apparently had zero real friends. I mean, seriously, the most contact I had ever had with the guy was brief water-cooler conversations and irritating chain e-mails of “funny” pictures and shit. After forgetting about it for months, I had had been gently reminded via an inquisitive e-mail from said coworker that I was supposed to be setting up a bachelor party – a party that he apparently expected soon and anticipated very much. Totally put a cramp on my weekend plans.

So I called around, found a little titty-bar roadside on the highway out of town, and just told them it would be booked for the night. I didn’t have any idea who else was supposed to be a part of these “festivities.” Hell, I didn’t even know the bride.

When Friday rolled around, I casually dropped by the guy’s cubicle. “Hey, Johnny, how’s about we grab a drink tonight?”

“It’s uh… Jeremy,” he stuttered, “and… uh… sure. Just you and me, or?”

“Bring the whole groom’s crew!”

When the realization that it was the party he had wanted that I was inviting him to hit, he practically leapt out of his chair. “All right! What time?”

“Uh…” An unforeseen decision. I had pictured nighttime, but I didn’t want to waste the whole evening on it. “How about we say, eight to eleven?”

I was feeling the heat now; this shit was awkward. Just as he started to hoot in agreement, drumming his desk and laughing out loud, drawing the attention of the whole damned office, I bowed away and sunk back into my own cubicle. I prayed that he wouldn’t hunt me down again and that, after that night, I would be able to just get this over with and continue on with my life. I didn’t even know why I agreed in the first place. Probably pity.

… Definitely pity.

---

As I climbed out of my car, I noted how dark it was. I had figured it would be one of those Nicholas Sparks-esque nights – bright moon, glittering stars, a haze of purple-blue in the firmament to paint the darkness as welcoming and wish-fulfilling. Instead, a matted mass of grayish clouds obscured almost everything and, even where there were patches, no light leaked through. My eyes slowly dropped downward, drinking in the neon sign of the club and the largely vacant parking lot. Next to a cluster of cars in the corner of the parking lot, I could see Johnny and his other, pasty pals.

I waved them over. There was the man of the evening, a more gangly version of him with crazy acne and thick-rimmed glasses, a shorter guy with a portly stomach and a bristly beard, and then some guy who struck me as being distinctly out of place. He looked like some Bella Lagosi wanna-be – really pale, really tall, really frail, hair slicked back and eyes shadowed with what looked like dark make-up. I shrugged. I hadn’t expected much different. I said some words, Johnny corrected me about his name, and then we dove inside.

The place was… well, it was a pile. The wooden floors were splintered and stained, which was incredibly noticeable in the constantly shifting neon lights. There were tons of empty, circular tables all around. There was the stage – oddly devoid of any dancers – with an almost rusty-looking pole centered on it and, at its edge, there was a row of chairs and a bar-like countertop. Apparently far too excited and not wanting to miss any titties, Johnny and his pals coagulated right in the center. I tried to distance myself by ordering drinks at the bar.

The bartender was a short guy, really pale. His eyes were really big too – as if he were in some sort of constant state of crazy realization – and his breathing was labored. He sounded like he’d smoked a carton a day for years. As I approached, the dude’s bulbous eyes locked on me, and I swear to God he croaked. Like, not died, but, like, a friggin’ ribbit.

I nodded in response. “How’s about a pitcher of beer and a Jack and Coke for me?”

“Ain’t got Jack,” the bartender hissed, “Kessler alright?” The way he talked seemed… difficult, like his tongue was glued to the bottom of his mouth or he’d had a stroke or something. Kessler wasn’t all right, but I just nodded in response.

As the bartender turned toward the tap, I glanced at the bar proper. It was just as empty as the rest of the place, except for two guys to my left and one to my right. The two to the left were just like the bartender. Their bulging eyes were locked on me, their mouths hanging open and shining in purple dark-light of the bar. I thought about nodding to them, but I didn’t want to make their acquaintance. Their skin looked slimy in the neon. I turned to the right.

The guy at the end of the bar was really tall – probably seven feet, if I’d had to guess. He was wearing some sort robe-like coat that looked brownish under the black-light. He tipped his glass back and turned slowly in my direction. His face was shiny – like he’d had way too much work on it. I was going to say something to him – maybe pick his brain about the wonders of Botox – but I decided it was better to focus on the drinks coming. Between the frogs and Michael Jackson, I wasn’t feeling too good about this.

The music was pulsating still, the lights flashing, but there was still no dancer. The bartender turned and planted the pitcher and my mixie in front of me. When he pulled his hand off of the glass, I had the distinct feeling that it was kind of a labor for him. In fact, a sweaty splotch remained where it had been, simply drying into a sort of salty residue.

“Where’s the dancer at?”

“Oh, she’s on her way,” the bartender burbled, “she’s kind of on her own schedule.”

“All right. It’s just that it’s this dude’s bachelor party and, well, I’m afraid that if this dude doesn’t get to see some tits tonight, he’s going to go postal or something.” I glanced over toward the motley crew, all still laughing and high-fiving. They looked so strange, set apart in their suits from the three other patrons and the bartender. Hell, even I’d just worn a button-down shirt, a tie, and some jeans.

“You can’t rush perfection.” The bartender struggled to wink at me, his eyelid not fully closing over his eye. I just turned and walked back to the group.

I spent the next half an hour waiting, praying, for the stripper to show up. As the others carried on, sharing stories about events that sounded all too mundane but somehow, to them, had become special moments, I knocked back drink after drink. I stopped talking to the bartender altogether. No longer did I venture to peer left or right. I was starting to grow warm, the room carouseling slowly. It must’ve been my seventh drink when I realized that the club had actually filled up.

At each circular table, there were three chairs, and all of the triplets of chairs, which had been void upon our arrival, now cradled somewhere around fifty black-cloaked figures. The crazy dance-techno juxtaposed with their hilariously strange appearance made me laugh. I stumbled back to the stage bar.

Just as I crashed back into my chair, interrupting the conversation of Johnny and his friends, the doors of the strip club erupted open. A trifecta of figures entered, cloaks pulled tight around their bodies, the two flanking the center carrying bright torches in their hands, the center figure carrying something obscured in the evanescent shadows.

The figures at all of the tables rose to their feet, slowly and gracefully. Suddenly, I felt incredibly underdressed. I snapped to my feet as well. Johnny and his friends remained sitting like the schlubs they were.

The three figures slowly made their way through the tables, weaving in and out of view expertly, and then climbed up onto the stage. They stood in front of the pole and the entire host of cloaked figures began to chant in unison: “Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! Ia! Ia! The Black Goat of the Woods!”

There were a lot of theatrics in their show. I was actually impressed. Finally, it seemed there was some sort of reason as to the incredibly long wait. I couldn’t help but wondering where they’d managed to hire all of these people. What’s more – it sounded like there were going to be two strippers at once! I howled out in the crowd, whistling loud and high.

The chanting began to rise and the rest of the guys stood up, laughing and joining in, slugging back beer when they felt like it. I drained my mixie. I really had to pee.

I turned, ducking a little as to not obscure the show. “Pardon me.” “Excuse me.” “Sorry, bathroom.” When I finally made it, I slumped up against the wall and planted my feet firmly on both sides of the urinal. Sweet, sweet relief. I closed my eyes – the seal was broken.

The music seemed to increase ten-fold from the other room. Wild cheers were sounding, and this deep, thumping base was keeping irregular time with the song. I shook and zipped up. I was missing the show! I tore the door open and bounded down the hall.

The atrium of the club looked like a bomb had gone off. The music was still pounding, the light still darting back and forth, but now they leaked out into the night through massive holes that had been shattered in the ceiling. The bar was missing now, the mass of cloaked figures churning and churning in frenzy. One screamed as a thick, black tendril slithered through the air, almost too fast to keep track of, wrapping around him, reeling back, and pitching him out through a hole. Suddenly, I felt like the bartender – my eyes were getting dry.

The stage was no longer a stage. Some thick, shiny, black mass sloughed off it in heaps. Hundreds of thousands of tentacles were writhing like serpents, darting back and forth, tearing across the floor and through the air. Nubby, smaller protrusions were clacking against any surface possible, struggling wildly to move the heap of alien flesh. It seemed, at once, amorphous and monstrous! Where a body should have been, there was nothing but these tendrils, these “legs,” these gnashing and gnawing teeth howling and screeching and jutting out to feed! The deep, irregular base pulsated and I could feel it in my feet here! Was it the wanton destruction? No. It was the heartbeat.

Johnny was stumbling back and forth, mouth agape, his eyes peeled back. Here he dodged a tentacle, there, a cloaked man being hurled. The scrawnier version of him lay bisected only a few feet from him, the bearded man was nowhere to be seen. The weird guy, the one that seemed entirely out of place earlier, stood on the table, laughing and throwing his fists into the air triumphantly – at least until a tendril whipped by and slashed him into two, spraying across Johnny.

I waved and screamed for him, trying to plow through the crowd, but it surged at once and it seemed like hundreds of hands stretched out, cupping Johnny and hurling him up onto the stage – onto the black mass. Their chant shifted, something even more arcane and difficult now. Johnny was screaming. I leapt through the crowd, clambering over their bodies, grasping for cloaks to pull myself forward: “Johnny!”

“It’s JEREMY!”

A mouth careened toward him and the color drained from his face. As a wail escaped his lips and the aperture enclosed him, the sea of churning cultists stopped.

I’m not gonna lie, here. I peed myself right then and there, despite having already gone in the bathroom. Doesn’t make me any less of a man.

The black thing reeled and all of its tentacles stood on end. Its trunk – whatever you could call the centerpiece of its body – began to undulate wildly, and this horrible grinding noise started to come back. The mouth that had devoured Johnny… uh, Jeremy… slithered down to the floor and opened wide, gyrating. A bulb formed at the end that connected to the body and, with each grind, it moved closer to the open end, until the final hurk launched a greenish-yellow, phlegmy figure into view.

Its suit was eroded, its lower body coated in fur. Strange antler-esque protrusions spiraled from its head at awkward angles. Quivering, like a newborn calf, the figure struggled to rise. The cultists leaped to help it up.

When it rose to its feet and steadied itself, it howled in a voice entirely familiar: “Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! Ia! Ia! Our Mother!” The cultists threw their fists into the air, their victory shouts joining together. The antlered Johnny turned toward me and smiled.

I knew I had to get out of there. I lurched for the door but was blocked off by a mass of cultists. As I turned around to run back to the bathroom, they closed in from behind. Finally, I turned to hurdle through a nearby window, when a sudden flash of something translucent sang through the air and the pain in my skull dragged me into darkness…

---

I groaned as I pulled myself up from the floor. My head was pounding, both from the blue-purple welt that had formed and the hangover. There was dried blood on the side of my head and on the splintered glass on the floor. The sky above was bright blue, the birds chirping outside.

The strip club was in shambles. There were broken boards, shattered windows, caved tables and chairs strewn everywhere. There were no bodies, and there was nobody. I stretched my back and sighed uneasily – the floor hadn’t been a good place to sleep.

As I made my way to the door, I passed the dried green splotch near the stage and paused to vomit. The stench was horrific. When I had finished retching, I wiped my mouth and limped out the front door.

I crossed the parking lot, climbed in my car, and sped off.

---

Now I’m here, sitting in my cubicle, and my phone won’t stop ringing. I’m almost positive it’s Johnny’s fiancé – the girl I don’t know. And you know what the worst part about this whole fiasco is?

I just don’t have the heart to tell her that he eloped with the stripper.