It is said that the Old Ones sleep and dream.

The Old Ones usually did something a lot more exciting than that, but for the sake of appearances and the fun of spooking the humans, they’d spread the rumor that they would only awaken to end the world. It was kind of funny, really. Snickers abounded when they heard one of their own tales come back to them, twisted by the many tellings.

Cthulhu, for his part, generally only slept about five to six hours a night, pretty normal, really. The rest of his time was spent in books and old B movies. And bridge with the others with a potluck every Thursday. He might have liked to get out more, but everybody had their own things to do, and so he occupied himself the best he could. Of course, he grew bored occasionally, and that’s when he’d find somebody like H.P. Lovecraft to bother.

This day, however, he was plenty content with his easy chair, bowls of snacks, and stacks of films. These were really the easy days. When he didn’t have to be “clean” or “scary” for any reason, and he could wear the socks with holes in them. Not that he didn’t enough gussying up in full glory. Just some days you wanted to just be.

Cthulhu popped a large helping of extra-butter-popcorn into his mouth and chewed loudly while tapping the play button on the remote. It had taken a little while for him to be able to work the thing when it had been invented. His claws were long and sharp, and the buttons were small and rubber. They’d worn out often before he’d figured out he should file down one for the express purpose of remote usage.

And DVDs. How many of those had he ruined before he’d even thought to handle them with a glove on? Not to mention how easily they snapped right in half.

There was something he found lacking in DVD quality. Oh, sure, they hardly ever wore out if you could keep yourself from ruining them physically and the clarity was lifelike. But the video tape… that had a certain way about it. You knew a well loved video tape by the graininess of the picture and the worry that it might just stop working halfway through a viewing.

Not watching his own movements, he picked up a large fist full of Sourpatch Kids and was chewing them before he realized they were mingling with the remaining popcorn. There was horror at first and he very nearly spit the concoction out. His taste buds stopped him before that happened, though. So with a grunt of satisfaction he poured one bowl into the other, arbitrarily mixing the two together. His evil was genius.

The picture on his television finally stopped on the the title screen of the movie, though briefly. One of the best things about VHS was that you had a couple of previews to go through first so you could really get settled in. He was always tempted with DVDs to skip to the menu, then often found himself having to reverse what had gone on because he hadn’t been paying attention.

Not that he really had to pay attention with these B movies. He’d watched them all so many times he knew them by heart. But the others, the “better” films held almost no interest to him. It was the B films that had the personality and creativity. They were the ones where you could see somebody had really loved the idea despite not being able to pull it off very well.

A giant lizard bumbled across the screen. Cthulhu threw a handful of Sourpatch popcorn in the direction of the screen. A ritual he couldn’t quite help.

“Boo! Eat them! No! Ignore the buildings, you fool! Eat the people! The tasty humans are just ripe for the… no, don’t! Why are you so dumb? The buildings and cars will be there after the humans! Humans first! Inanimate objects later! Oh… damn stupid lizard.”

To an outsider, it might have seemed that the Great Old One wasn’t enjoying his movie. But the truth was that he rather liked watching the rampage. Sometimes he’d even daydream about working side by side with Godzilla and imagine what kind of carnage they could arrange.