I tell you, I am not mad. I'm not. Anyone would have caved in the skulls of their closest friends and eaten their brains in my situation. It was the only rational thing to do. I can tell you don't believe me. If you ate MY brain, you'd know the truth. Not that I'm volunteering, mind you. Instead, I'll just tell you of the strange case of the Insects from Shaggy and how doom came to the Mystery Machine. ************** The Insects from Shaggy or The Last Testament of Daphne Pickman or The Doom that came to the Mystery Machine by John Biles *************** My name is Daphne Pickman. Perhaps you've seen some of the fictionalized versions of our adventures. Don't believe them. The truth is far more horrible. Yes, we have exposed a fair number of frauds, but there were cases we covered up. We had to. The feeble minds of the masses, laden in sitcom tripe, could not bear the lonely burdens we have borne. Perhaps some day, I'll write down how we battled the band ‘God's Lost Children' or how we proved that Rush Limbaugh was a Deep One, his show an elaborate rite for unleashing Cthulhu upon the world. I laughed for relief when we successfully turned a shoggoth loose during one of his broadcasts and it ate him, then choked to death in the process. But that is a story for another time, and assumes your sanity survives reading this tale intact. Indeed, when I look back on the horrors we have faced, it is hard for me to understand how I have kept my sanity. Perhaps it is not so surprising that the dark knowledge which alone suffices to defeat the forces of the Mythos finally consumed the hearts and souls of my companions, thus forcing me to kill them and eat their brains. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our careers began in the late sixties and early seventies when one of Fred's fraternity brothers tried to sacrifice the entire fraternity and its guests to Shub-Niggurath during a fraternity party. The four of us were forced to lock the doors and burn down the building. It killed a few frat boys, but even Fred agreed that frat boys were easily replacable. There were five of us in those days, six if you counted Scooby. You look surprised. You've never heard of the fifth human in our band. Well, Johnny Quest didn't stay with us for very long. His dog, Bandit, and Scooby kept fighting all the time, and he was younger than us, anyway. But for about six months, he had to stay with my folks after his father's compound blew up for the eighteenth time in three weeks, and I got stuck babysitting him. We were better off when he left; our orgies worked better with an even number of males and females. After that disaster, we started investigating supernatural events. At first, we mostly exposed frauds in our spare time. Gradually it became more serious, and about the time that Johnny split, we had our first really serious clash with the forces of the Mythos, not counting burning frat boys to death back at Miskatonic University. (I did mention we all went there, right?) We were all heavily into drugs at the time, but so was everyone else our age in the late sixties. Shaggy likes to claim he invented crack, but I don't believe him. Still, he was the worst. He and Velma would shoot up a mixture of heroin, speed, cocaine, tumbleweed, Pepsi, lettuce, and sixteen secret spices and listen to Ethel Merman backwards, trying to find the hidden messages in it. One day, however, they tried it with Pat Boone, and were shocked to find the message ‘Sacrifice the local Democratic Party Headquarters to Hastur. Do it now, with an axe. And get a haircut, you bum.'. Velma had heard her mother mutter about Hastur in her final delirium when insectoid bat winged monstrosities had stalked through the house, slaying everyone in Velma's family except for Velma and the cat. She had blanked all this out from sheer horror, but hearing this brought back the memories. Even worse, she remembered her mother's last words to one of the Byakhee: "Take the family rifle, go to the grassy knoll in Dallas, and shoot the President". And I bet you thought Oliver Stone shot JFK. Anyway, Velma had been in a coma for years after that awful night, only reviving when she heard the song ‘Baby, Won't You Light My Fire?'. She had risen in a frenzy and destroyed the radio, and soon made a full recovery, going to Miskatonic at the same time as us, but having forgotten that her parents had been baby-sacrificing Hastur worshippers. Until now. So, we went to her family reunion in Kingsport. The stuff upstairs was fairly mild, but the stuff down in the basement...I never did learn if that was really Sonny Bono, and I don't think you could stand it if I told you what he was doing. We locked the doors and used an ancient rite that Velma found in her mother's diary to summon Cthugha, who resembles a huge ball of flame. The entire house went up like a torch and Velma's family was burnt to a crisp. When I think about it, I suspect that Sonny Bono must be a sorceror; he couldn't have survived that. And the skiing accident? Clearly a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath REALLY killed him. But I digress. From that point, our investigations became serious. We bought, borrowed, and stole occult tomes. We learned how to summon and dismiss Cthulhu, Nylarhotep, Elvis, Zoth-Hotdog, Hastur, Hamstur, Hamburg, Yig, Nodens, Tsathoggua, Alf, and Benny Goodman. We learned how the music of Ethel Merman could banish Cthulhu's servants who remembered their master's messy marriage to her, but tended to draw down Dimensional Shamblers, on whom it has an effect like heroin. We covered the Mystery Machine with Voorish Signs, Elder Signs, Yellow Signs, Stop Signs, The Sigil of Baruk Kaah, ‘I visited Hali and all I got was this lousy bumper sticker' stickers, an Eye of Light and Darkness, the Barrier of Reef, the Seal of Ry'leh, a painting by my great-uncle, Richard Upton Pickman, and those odd swirlies Shaggy drew after he tried injecting pure nicotine into his veins to see what would happen. We read the Necronomicon, Unausprelichten Kulten, Cultes des Goules, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the Piltdown Shards, both of Reagan's campaign platforms, the Unauthorized Biography of Abdul Alhazred, the B'harne Fragments, the Book of Eibon, the Little Big Book of Cthulhu, everything ever written by Laban Shrewsbury, I was Cthulhu's Lover, and the Weekly World News. Our studies paid off. Ever wonder how Scooby could talk? Shaggy used a spell from the Book of Eibon to turn Scooby into his familiar, making Scooby more intelligent and capable of speech. Ever wonder how we got money? Velma summoned Byakhee to rob banks for us in the first few years, then later, we used the secrets of the Time Gate we got from the B'harne fragments to plunder the past of its treasures and sell them. Hey, we needed the money! We also used certain alchemical formulae from De Vermis Mysteris to lengthen our lifespans so we would have more time to hunt the forces of the Mythos. Our usual method was to investigate and try to discover if the threat was real or bogus. If it was bogus, we exposed it. If it was real, we locked the doors and summoned Cthugha, then emptied shotguns into anything that tried to escape. Sure, we slaughtered a few hostages, but their minds would have been destroyed by their experiences, anyway, so we viewed it as a mercy killing. Too many ex-victims later became servants of the Mythos anyway. So did a lot of investigators we encountered over the years. We thought that could never happen to us. Looking back at it, I can see now that the crucial moment came with the day that we acquired Scrappy. This twisted chiuahua had been the familiar of a sorceror we killed, whose family had degenerated into rat things. We summoned Cthugha, then used a mind-control spell on an Air Force captain we had met, and got him to nuke the site as well. Before we left, though, Fred bit off one of the man's fingers in personal combat with him, and that finger had a magic ring. When Fred put it on, Scrappy showed up, and announced he was Fred's magic servant. He also claimed to be related to Scooby, and for some reason, we believed him, despite the fact that over a decade, he never got any bigger. It was at that moment that things went down hill. In the early nineties, we had to take a six month break, because Velma and Shaggy had to go into drug rehab. I went to stay with my cousins in Samson, California. Fred's mother was dying, so he went to visit her, up in Massachusetts. Velma got better, mostly. She was rational for the first time in years and she'd finally gotten rid of those fits where she would try to put Scooby in the oven and eat him. She'd also furthered her occult studies and learned a ritual that her psychiatrist had tried to use on her; basically, you gain someone's skills by eating their brain and you can shapechange into their form. He'd tried to do that to her, so she had summoned Yog- Sothoth and designated him as the human sacrifice. However, she now obsessively watched Full House, and I was somewhat worried for her. Shaggy never recovered from therapy. Due to multiple overdoses on Liao, he now had to stay drugged constantly, or he kept finding himself staring at Daoloth constantly. He and Scooby had summoned Cthugha during a group therapy session, and then laughed as everyone burned. I was worried about him, as he was becoming obsessed with fire. He also stopped bathing, believing that Deep Ones were living in all water faucets, and started to attract insects. Fred was the worst. His mother hadn't died; she'd simply run off to the ocean to go live with the Deep Ones, passing on her copy of the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan to him, and giving him a few bottles of homebrew Space Mead she'd made. Fred had translated them with Scrappy's help and was beginning to talk wildly of summoning up Bholes to eat the Democratic party. Fred had gone Republican on us during the eighties, you see. I would have, but I was quite sure from my interpretation of the Ponape Scriptures that Reagan was Nylarhotep. Fred's family heritage was beginning to show, as his hair receded, his forehead and eyes bulged, and he began to take on a greenish look. Scrappy kept egging him on to summon more and more of the Great Old Ones, ‘just to let them know who is boss', and the sight of them was eating at his mind. I, on the other hand, was in perfect mental health after six months of living in Samson with my relatives, the Adams family. The life of a high class prostitute and sorceress was good to me; I hadn't realized how much I had been missing, only sleeping with the same two guys, one woman, and one dog over the years. My studies of the Revelations of Glaaki came in handy, along with my translation of the original, Aklo version of the Kama Sutra. Anyone who didn't measure up to my standards got a special prize, a braided runic strip that summoned the Dark Demon to eat them once they left my working quarters. And no, President Clinton was NOT one of my clients. I also finally got to eat something besides hamburgers and Scooby Snacks (Scooby Snacks do not contain Marujuana, as some people insinuate. They're made only from the finest Shantak flesh by New World Industries, although you can get the ‘spicy' version, which has PCP and MSG. The spicy version gives Shaggy gas, though, and so we never bought it). I developed quite a taste for Tcho-Tcho cuisine, and after a while the waiters even stopped looking at me like I ought to be the main dish. No, I did not acquire a taste for human flesh from eating in cannibalistic Tcho-Tcho feasts! The Tcho-Tchos are not cannibals; they would never eat each other, and they're not really human, so it doesn't count as cannibalism if they eat humans. Anyway, the FDA forced them to substitute Pork for human flesh in their recipes, and the ACLU's suit to overthrow that ban failed. As you SHOULD know. IF you're REALLY an officer of the law. I only ate human flesh three times in those six months. My great- uncle came to visit with some of his ghoul friends, and you know how it goes. They bring their own food, you all get drunk, you have mad passionate sex with twisted inhuman monsters, and then you can't think clearly and eat some of the human flesh they brought to snack on. I only ate it raw the first time, anyway. After that, I forced them to cook all the human flesh they brought over so it wouldn't stink up the house. I think I probably caused a minor cultural revolution in ghoul society by introducing them to the glory of barbeque sauce. At least I now know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. I never realized how tough a teamster can be, no matter how long you leave them in the oven. Anyway, so after the six months were over, we rendevoused to plan our next operation. It was a mess. Velma and Shaggy had missed each other so much they had sex on the table in the middle of the cafe we met at. Then Scooby tried to get in on the action and Animal Control sent in a tank. So we had to call a Cthonian and get it to cause an earthquake as a distraction to escape. It got a little overenthusiastic and the entire city sank into the ocean. Fred wanted to stay, and we had to drag him out. Luckily, my relatives' house survived, and they had plenty of spare rooms. I had mad passionate sex with Shaggy when we got back, as watching him and Velma get it on had really turned me on, but I have too much class to do it on a table in public view. However, I was woken up by whispering. Scrappy was whispering into Shaggy's ear that I was going to kill him before he woke up, and that if he didn't sacrifice me to Nyogtha, Scooby might steal Velma away from him. You can understand how I got mad, right? I mean, any rational person would have pissed off that some annoying puppy was trying to get one of my friends to kill me, right? Especially sacrificing me to a loser like Nyogtha. About the only Great Old One more pathetic than him is Rhan- Tegoth, who we saw at a museum in Toronto. We spray-painted him blue and put up a sign that said ‘Mutant Smurf'. So I used the Curse of Azathoth on Scrappy. He was stunned. I tried to wake Shaggy, but he was too crashed; probably all his uppers had worn off. All the insects buzzing around him began to annoy me. I could almost hear them talking to me. ‘Eat his flesh before he can kill you. He'd be good with A-1'. I ignored them. No insects could talk ME into eating an old friend, even if he looked like he'd go well with mashed potatoes and corn. Then Scrappy got up and began to laugh. "It's too late! Fred's sacrificing Velma in the basement! He will open the Great Door with the aid of Yog-Sothoth, and then pass through it to free Hastur, and release Pac from his maze, and unleash Y'golonac and..." Now I was pissed. I pulled my shotgun off the floor and levelled it at him. "You bastard! I bet you killed Kenny too!" He blinked in confusion, and I shot him. Scrappy flew across the room with a hole in his chest. I reloaded the shotgun and advanced on him. "You little beast!" "Actually, this form is known as the ‘Perky Puppy of Evil'. I think. With 1,001 forms, I get confused." He started to crawl towards Shaggy. "I'll just have to bite out his eyes before I die." "Too late." I didn't think about what he had said. I simply shot him again, this time, splattering his head. His body split apart, and swirling darkness boiled out of it. I realized too late what Scrappy really was. The Crawling Chaos, the Lurker in Darkness, the Cosmic Beavis, Nylarhotep, herald of the Outer Gods. He erupted from the puppy form, assuming one of his most dreaded forms, The Clown of Chaos. It was then that I understood the awful truth about how McDonalds can have such low prices, and the true meaning of the Arch Deluxe. No one had understood; it was actually the ‘Arch d'Lux', which holds the dread Gidget, grand- niece three times removed of Cthulhu, and second cousin to Zoth-Hotdog, bound in the great chasm of Lethe on the planet Fiftie. Everytime someone ate one, it symbolically weakened the Arch itself, through the law of sympathy, thus bringing the return of the Great Old Ones that much closer. I could not bear the laughter of the Clown of Chaos, nor his offer of a Happy Meal. I looked into the Abyss and saw the truth of that as well. I will spare you, you could not bear it without snapping. For a time, I wandered mindlessly through the house, shooting everything that moved. Then I tried to have sex with the vacuum cleaner. When I came out of the haze, I was standing over Scooby with an axe buried in his head and...I cannot bear to think of it. I wasn't the one who had put the axe in his head, it was the Dimensional Hamburglar that the Clown had sent after me that had done the dirty deed. I used the Seventh Satthala upon the Dimensional Hamburglar, casting it screaming through the dimensions into the dread eighty fifth dimension, inhabited only by Barbie dolls. Sometimes, I can still hear him scream. Falling to my knees, I tried to save Scooby's life, but I was too late. With his final words, he told me of how Scrappy had tricked him into taking Eihort's bargain and how Eihort's brood, or possibly just the bad Mexican food he had to live on while Shaggy was in the hospital, was slowly eating him alive. He begged me to kill him, so I did. Naturally, he chose that moment to remember that he HAD to tell me something before he died, but died before he told me. So I ate his brain, using the rite Velma had taught us during our nightly ritual of summoning up Elder Gods and mooning them. All the wisdom of Scooby flooded my mind. It was a rush like I'd never had before. Scooby had seen the rite in the basement, which I'd forgotten about; that was what he had tried to come tell me about. So I went to the basement, where Velma was tied to a table, being forced to have sex with Mel Gibson while Fred summoned Yog-Sothoth. Okay, she wasn't exactly being forced. Fred's rite had one fatal flaw; you need a stone tower to summon Yog-Sothoth, and making one with Legos and an Erector set just doesn't cut it. I would have made the same mistake; only Scooby knew better. And maybe Velma, but she was too busy with Mel to notice. Massive footsteps were coming; the Clown of Chaos was about to find me. Fred was laughing as he chanted. I had lost my gun, and he was inside a drawn seal of solomon, etched into the floor. It repelled my first effort to slay him with magic, so I had to try method two. I stripped. Fred never could resist me. But neither could I. We had mad passionate sex on the floor, then I switched off, and FINALLY got to see what Mel was really like in bed. He'd kept putting me off with excuses about being married and how his co-stars would get jealous. Unfortunately, Velma is faster than me, so now Fred was back to his rite while I was still busy with Mel. Velma had passed out, in fact. Fred stabbed down with a knife to kill me, so I had to roll over and let Mel take the knife for me. He's such a hero. The ritual went haywire, of course, and the phrase ‘telekeli' began to echo through the air. Ubbo-Sathala began to ooze up out of the hot water heater. I could sense that annoying tinny noise Daoloth makes all the time. The tower of legos and tinker toys exploded, damaging the sign of solomon. Fred began to rant and began summoning Azathoth. So I had no choice. I could sense about twenty or so Great Old Ones, Mediocre Old Ones, Elderly Gods, and Senior Citizen Gods about to break through. Having once been fondled by Ithiqua, I had no desire to repeat this. So I grabbed Fred's knife, stabbed him to death, and ate his brain to get all of his arcane knowlege; he and Velma were the real experts of our group. When Velma woke up, she wouldn't listen to my explanation. She used the dread curse of Eddie Murphy on me, and I had to retaliate with a shrivelling spell. Eating her shrivelled brain was pretty disgusting, I have to tell you. The only reason I was able to beat the summoned beings of cosmic power was that they all tried to come through the portal at once and got stuck. One by one, I ran through the banishment spells, and sent them all back to their home dimensions, except for Valentino, who I kept because I needed some R&R after that. Sure, he can only put out once, and then his manifestation body crumbles to a dessicated corpse, but that one time is WORTH it. I passed out from exhaustion; wouldn't you after all this? So that's why they found me in the wrecked house with a dessicated corpse on top of me, and my friends scattered through the house with their brains eaten. Yes, I did eat their brains, but I had a good reason! I am not mad! I'm not! I'm NOT MAD! Whatever. Send me to the Asylum. Can I bum a cigarette and a light off you before I have to go? Thank you, officer. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ --The above document was found at the Samson County Sheriff's Department HQ after it mysteriously burned down two days after the Samson Earthquake. It was on official letterhead, and seems to have been a transcription of the ramblings of one ‘Daphne Pickman'. No record of her existence outside this document have been found, however. Nor were any female bodies found on the site. The investigation is still in progress.