The Porcellian Club of Distinguished Undead Gentlemen

The next leg of Ninten and Lloyd’s journey leads to Youngtown, but before they can even set foot in the strange town full of children, the hostile neighborhood watch gives them an ultimatum: find one of their own who went missing in the nearby town of Spookane, or suffer a faceful of slingshot-pebbles. 

Far easier said than done, once the boys discover the true nature of Spookane: the town is a huge cemetery, and its residents are all undead! Worst of all, there appears to be a sinister mastermind lurking in the shadows, inciting a group of rather nasty ghouls into various criminal activities. Zombies are bad enough, but a zombie mafia?!

Will Ninten’s fledgling telepathy be enough to locate the plucky leader of the Youngtown neighborhood watch? Will it be safe to drink the fruit punch at the world-renowned Spookane monster mash? And will they put a stop to the dastardly machinations of the Porcellian Club, and its mysterious and especially-rotten founder?

Find out on this week’s episode of… The Podcast Against Giygas! No crying till the ending. 

Transcript

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You’re listening to… The Podcast Against Giygas!

Episode three: The Porcellian Club of Distinguished Undead Gentlemen

*

Ninten and Lloyd followed the local signposts along the spooky woods all the way to Spookane, which appeared more slapdash and rundown as they came closer to the place. Dangling off hinges, or made of hastily cut slabs of wood with spray paint, with inaccurate mile counts and even some misspellings. The sun had finally set, and on cue an owl hooted above them, at the exact moment the boys took their first step after the last sign that bore ENTERING SPOOKANN. ABANDIN ALL HOPE. The letter E at the end of that sign was only barely legible, a scribble you had to squint to recognize as a letter, as if the painter ran off in a fright before it could be completed.  

If Youngtown was a village full of children, of citizens not yet old enough to let the ravages of time wear down their body and spirit, then Spookane was its polar opposite. It was a town of old folks. Frightfully old folks, you see. 

For indeed, the entire town of Spookane was a gigantic cemetery, with empty fields of headstones as far as the eye could see. The spooky graveyard, the setting sun, the bats and owls flitting overhead, the full yellow moon above them with wispy black clouds coasting across, none of those things actually frightened Ninten, however. In fact, it was the sheer size of the place that only made him more annoyed at the mad errand than before. This was going to be a needle in a haystack, he sighed to himself. 

 They walked on, silent as the graves all around them. Ninten passed the time by reading names off the headstones. They were normal names as they entered, Bob Smithson, Michael Jeffries, Jennifer Adams, but as they advanced deeper into the wide empty field they became more outlandish, Yolandaleese Blankenforth, Archieboo Rumplecheaser, Wilberforce Mountebacken-Schmitzer Junior. All these names, hundreds of people who had their chance to live and die as well as anyone, and they were the only living saps out there, looking for someone alive like them. Ninten had already given up hope before Lloyd said it out loud, crushing his spirits into even more of a gooey pulp.

—This place is huge! And it’s starting to get dark outside. What do we do?

There was nothing anyone could reasonably do. It was safe to say, in fact, that the grumpy leader of the Youngtown neighborhood watch only agreed to such a deal because he counted on it being impossible for an average person to accomplish. But Ninten wasn’t an average person, was he? He reached into his pocket and produced the old journal, flipping around a few pages. 

—Oh, you think there might be something in there that-

Ninten shushed Lloyd and kept reading. It took him a while just to find something legible in the whole thing, let alone anything useful to the current situation. But after a minute or so of reading a tidbit caught his eye: the mind is a muscle, and like any muscle it needs to be trained to keep strong. Some extraordinary psionic talents are second nature to certain adepts, while others require constant repetition and practice, lest they atrophy into flabby and ineffectual appendages.

The death rays that shot out of his hands and through his bat, they were second nature to Ninten by now. But there was one other thing he could technically do, though it took a lot of effort to produce not a particularly impressive result. He did, after all, get into this mess into the first place by having a telepathic conversation with his dog. 

Without really knowing what he was doing, he shut his eyes and concentrated. He tried to shut out everything around him, the cool misty air of Spookane, the hooting and cawing birds, the faint little whimpers of uncertainty from his companion. And then, he heard something. So quiet that even if you thought too loud you could miss it, but it was there all the same. 

A breath.

Ninten snapped his eyes open and followed the sound, and Lloyd giddied up and followed close behind. The boys eventually reached a glum mausoleum, and Ninten entered without hesitation. Passing by the large array of caskets inside, he made a beeline to a door that led to a lower floor. The staircase was long, dark, and creaky, easily a couple floors deep, if not three or four. Lloyd, who previously followed his friend with gusto on the way, was now keeping up close behind on apprehensive tiptoes. 

They finally reached the basement of the mausoleum, if it was indeed the basement of a building and not an inadvertent door to the underworld. It was a wide, dank, empty room, with nary a light switch or burning torch to be found, though thankfully by now the boys’ eyes were adequately adjusted to the dark around them. And before them were four large caskets, painted jet-black and sporting a glossy lacquer, four fine pieces of craftsmanship which were quite out of place among the half-decayed building that surrounded them. Lloyd  temporarily overcame his fear and inspected one of the fancy caskets.

—So… you used your mind powers to get here? You think she’s somewhere down here, then?

—Yes, and yes.

—You don’t think she’s in… eesh. The survival rate for getting locked in an enclosed space drops each hour after the first by five percent… You don’t have a crowbar, do you? 

—Lloyd, don’t!

The casket rattled and a moan erupted from inside. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t a little girl. Lloyd gasped and staggered back.

—But, but… that’s impossible! Medical advances have brought the chances of being buried alive down to zero point zero zero two three-

He was interrupted by a loud clicking sound from within the casket, like a latch unlocking on a door. And then, the lid slowly creaked open. Wider and wider, until a set of rotten grasping fingers could be seen, then a desiccated hand, and finally, a decayed person in a moth-eaten fancy tuxedo.

A zombie!

The monster trained its black sunken eyes on Lloyd and lumbered out of its box. Grasping and clutching toward the terrified boy, the slime of decay dripping from its eyes and nose, its drooling jaw half-dangling off its face emitting a deep and low groan. Lloyd stood frozen to the floor, until Ninten stepped between him and the zombie, blasting it across the room with a death ray from his hands. As the thing struggled to rise and attack again, Ninten approached it with more confidence, imbued his bat with his glowing yellow power and smashed the thing’s head. It slumped to the floor and stayed down. 

Figuring it was still once a live person and it deserved to lie in that box, no matter what kind of horrible undead beast it had become, Ninten forced Lloyd to grab the corpse by its feet while he hoisted it by the shoulders and they heave-ho’ed it back into its coffin, slamming the lid shut.

—Well, let’s not do that again. Can you use your mind powers and see which one she might be in?

Ninten tried to concentrate, but unlike before, the faint breathing he heard was drowned out by the moans and groans of two others, shrill and raspy like the zombie they had just encountered. There was nothing to try now, except trial and error. 

Unfortunately, the next casket they opened was that of another undead freak, but now that they had bested one it didn’t take much effort for Ninten to subdue this one the same way and return it to the grave from whence it came. Now, there were only two caskets left…

And wouldn’t you know it, the next one had a zombie too! It was terrifying the first time the boys saw one, something they thought only existed in spooky old black and white horror films, but by the third zombie even Lloyd was getting a little annoyed. 

The last coffin was now before them. All they had to do was open it, and rescue the little girl supposedly, hopefully, trapped inside, and return her to her hometown, and they could leave this place forever and never think about or speak of it again. So why did they both hesitate? What if Ninten was wrong? What if he heard something that only sounded like a human girl breathing, but was in fact an animal of some kind, or maybe… eesh, a zombie girl? Did Ninten have it in him to unleash his destructive psionic power on a child, undead though it may be? And even if he did, then what? They’d be right back where they started, stuck in a giant cemetery for acres around, with no leads, and the whole long spooky night ahead of them.

But there was nothing left to do but open the thing and see. Ninten stepped ahead of his companion, put his hand on the coffin, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and raised the lid.

*

Ninten and Lloyd had opened so many caskets and disturbed the sleep of so many horrible half-decayed zombies that it positively shocked them to open the last one and encounter, not the undead, but rather just the good old-fashioned alive. They screamed and staggered back from the sight as good as if they had first met one of the monsters from before, which also caused the child before them to give a shout of momentary terror. A girl, actually, wearing a pink shirt, a khaki overalls skirt with one strap along her shoulder, and red shoes with long socks, pale with red freckles and even redder hair neatly braided into two thick pigtails on each side. In other words, the girl who matched exactly the photo that the Youngtown neighborhood watch had given them to try and locate.

—…Pippi?

—That’s my name, don’t wear it out! Who are you?

The girl climbed out of the casket and dusted herself off, adjusting to the darkness of the cellar, and frowned at the two boys before her, apparently not nearly as pleased to meet a couple fellow children still quick with life, as it were.

—…I’m Lloyd. 

—Hello, Lloyd.

She seemed wholly disinterested in Ninten’s companion and waited with pursed lips and folded arms for the older boy’s reply, as if she determined, correctly, that he was the main reason for their meeting together.

—My name is ah… Ninten.

—What the heck kind of a name is Ninten?

—Well, my mom… it’s Japanese, I think-

—Never mind that, just what are you two knuckleheads doing way out here anyway? You new recruits? Mikey brought you on, didn’t he? Man, he can’t vet a candidate to save his life. 

—We’re not in the neighborhood watch. We’re trying to get into Youngtown, and they wouldn’t let us in unless we rescued you first.

A look of utter disgust washed over Pippi, and she stomped her way toward Ninten and got right in his face. Or did the best she could anyway, given she was a good five years or so younger than him and a little shorter than Lloyd.

—RESCUE me?! Now just who in the spit ever said I needed to be RESCUED?!

—Well, I guess you were gone for a few days...

—I was deep undercover! I’m in the middle of a sting operation I’ve been planning for weeks! There’s an unsavory element of Spookane making incursions into Youngtown and I’ve finally narrowed it down to a criminal organization of zombies, they call themselves the Porcellian Club of Distinguished Undead Gentlemen. I was this close to infiltrating their inner sanctum.

—But… you were locked in a casket when we found you.

—Exactly! I pretended to turn myself in! These stiffs were gonna present me to their leader, before you dunderheads barged in and made them all, well, stiffer. Hmph… boys!

With a huff, Pippi headed toward the cellar door and up the creaky staircase to the Mausoleum and out to the fresh night air, and Ninten and Lloyd sheepishly followed close behind.

—So what now? Do we head back to Youngtown?

—Well, I'm sure you’d just love that, but unfortunately some of us have responsibilities. I’m staying here until I find these zombie jerks and make them give back what they stole. Though I gotta say, thanks to you mucking it all up, it’s gonna be a real needle in a haystack finding their HQ-

—Wait, what do you mean, “what they stole?” 

Pippi’s brusque demeanor suddenly faded away at this question, and now she was the one among them apprehensive and shifty, as they stood under the deep light of the full moon with owls hooting and bats flitting overhead.

—Um… there’s a sensitive package, that is my mission to retrieve. 

—What is it? 

—…that’s classified!

Ninten grumbled and stepped toward Pippi, finally asserting himself against the indomitable will of this minuscule girl.

—Look, I can’t explain how right now, but if you give me a little more to work with, I can maybe find it, and then find whoever you’re looking for. It’s the same way I found you, if you really want to talk about needles and haystacks. Now the way I see it, we’re not going back without you either, so if you’re not going back without this thing, we’re gonna work together until we both get what we want. Got it? 

Pippi hemmed and hawed, turned her head this way and that, really mulled it over. Then, she grumbled and pulled out a paper from her pocket. It was a newspaper clipping, a puff piece on the aviary in the Youngtown zoo. In the foreground of the photo were three people, a man and a woman, each one holding a bird, a lush myna on the man’s arm and a blue macaw on the woman’s finger, and a small girl, maybe six or so, holding on her little finger a bright yellow canary. She wasn’t too far off from Pippi herself, in fact. She also wore a frilly pink dress and wore her hair in two pigtails, only these were blond, and upon that blond hair was an elegant pink wide-brimmed hat.

—Who’s this, your sister?

—No. Another upstanding citizen of Youngtown.

—I don’t understand. Is she, missing too?

—No, it’s um…

Pippi grumbled and pointed to her head in the photo, or more specifically, the pink bonnet upon that head.

—…her hat?

—A zombie snuck into town one day, and among many other acts of vandalism and mischief, absconded with, ahm…

—You went all the way out here just to get a stupid hat?!

—It’s her favorite hat! Don’t tell anyone, please! If they find out I appropriated resources for this mission, I’ll cost me my position in the neighborhood watch!

Ninten grumbled, then closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. The power was still weak, but true to his ancestor’s word he could tell it was a little stronger than before. He figured it would be silly to search for the breath or voice of a pink hat, so instead he tried to listen, to anything at all, and then anything out of the ordinary. After a tense five minutes, he finally heard some raspy voices laughing. It’s an improvement on you, and better not get any slime on that, the boss asked for it personally. 

—Follow me.

Ninten led Pippi and Lloyd deeper in the massive graveyard, toward the raspy chuckling schoolboy banter he could hear only as a whisper. The voices grew ever so slightly louder and louder in Ninten’s head, until they reached another grand and gloomy mausoleum, even bigger than the last. The chatter of zombies inside reverberated in his mind like a room full of crickets or cicadas.

—This is it. Now let’s figure out a strategy. Maybe there’s a window we can jimmy open? 

Pippi rolled up her sleeves, spit into both palms and rubbed them together. Then, she let out the fiercest war cry a ten year old girl could muster and barged toward the closed doors. 

—Wait! Are you crazy, you’re gonna-

Ignoring Ninten, she jumped and dropkicked the doors, instantly breaking the lock and swinging them open. Not waiting even a second to admire her handiwork, Pippi rushed into the imposing building, and Ninten and Lloyd, after giving each other a look of shock and awe, dumbly followed her inside. 

The boys saw Pippi holding her own one to fifteen. She let her fists and feet fly against the zombies, who all things considered were not the best fighters, their own blows as slow and lumbering as a zombie’s usual gait. She was like a toughened barroom brawler, or the hero of a kung-fu flick, no match for even fifty other brave fighters like them. It was as if she was born in the wrong century, and would have been much more at home on the battlefield defending Rome against Carthage, going toe-to-toe against hoplite or mounted elephant alike. 

Ninten and Lloyd just watched the proceedings in bewilderment for a while, lacking only the popcorn, before a handful of zombies caught on and attacked the remaining two boys. Ninten could of course easily hold his own against his attackers, his death rays and bat making short work of them (and if Pippi’s performance was any indication, now was no time to hide the full extent of his own abilities from anyone either). Lloyd was a different story, however, he would have been a woeful warrior no matter the century. He could do little more than scramble away from the mob of undead as they lunged and swiped for him, as useless as he was in a brawl he was at least more nimble than his assailants. 

Finally, in desperation Lloyd reached in his pocket, and just before his enemies could grasp at him with their slimy decayed hands, he brandished in one hand a lighter, and in the other a red and white cylindrical thing, with a grey string dangling at its end. 

—Stand back! This bottle rocket is packed tight with elements on the periodic table you don’t even want to know! And I’m not afraid to use it!

The zombies giggled to each other and ignored his threat, ambling closer to Lloyd, who duly gritted his teeth and lit the fuse. He let the thing burn off a bit before throwing it in midair, which then sparked and zipped and careened… well away from the intended targets. The rocket made little whirls and loop-the loops, going every which way except the zombies. 

The undead attackers gleaned even more amusement from the toy zipping around them, disregarding it completely. This gave the rocket time to zip up and over and right into a weak rafter, causing a heavy beam of old wood to crack and crumble and topple right down on the two zombies. Lloyd looked over his handiwork and dusted his hands off with a smirk. 

—Enough!

A raspy shout stunned the children out of their fisticuffs, and looking toward its direction they found a zombie holding before him exactly the thing they were after. In its grubby and dried-out bony hands was a pink bonnet. 

—Alright, now be good little boys and girls and drop your weapons, or the hat gets it!

Pippi looked on in horror, hands up in surrender, and they were deadlocked in a stalemate, before Ninten sighed and gave Pippi a look that said are you kidding me?, lifted a hand, and blasted the zombie right where he stood, leaving little more than a torso with a tattered half of a tuxedo. Ninten went to the fallen zombie, picked the hat off the floor, and after vigorously beating any dust or grime off the thing handed it back to Pippi.

—…erm, thank you, citizen! You’ve done Youngtown a great service for which we can never repay.

—Whatever, lets get out of here. I hate this place.

—Hold it right there!

*

The children froze in place at the sound of this voice. It was zombie-like, sure, but worse than any zombie they had met thus far. He spoke with an ocean of gunk in his throat, and sounded like he had smoked every cigarette in the universe. 

—Over here. You’re not going anywhere until I’ve had my say. 

Through the shadows in the corner of the room the voice came from, Ninten could see a withered and gangrenous hand motion for the remaining zombies to stand at the ready, and some even headed toward the open doors and blocked the way out. Pippi grumbled and stood down.

—Are you the leader of the Porcellian Club?

—Sure, whatever you say. Now be a good little girl and pipe down while there’s grown-ups talking.

Ninten again saw the hand slowly extend a rotten index finger toward him.

—That’s right, bucko. I’m talking to you. 

The live children in the room waited for the mysterious zombie to finish the most awful hacking cough any of them had ever heard. He shrugged off the occurrence, as if it happened all the time and was merely some other thing to deal with. 

—What do you want with me?

—Oh, just making sure this little movie is going exactly the way it’s supposed to. I’m waiting for the ending, when I have a very important role to play. And that ending depends on this particular boy, giving that particular hat, back to a very particular girl. The fate of the entire universe depends on it. 

—I don’t understand, are you a zombie or not?

—Well, let’s see… am I a half-rotten monster several millions of years old, just barely clinging to life by pure malicious will and a sheer refusal to die? Sure. But am I zombie? Well, not quite.

Ninten could see through the shadows the strange figure rise from his seat, as if straightening a tie and buttoning up a jacket. He was short, not any bigger than any of the living children gathered there.

—I thought about it, you know. It’d be interesting, if I just killed you now. Lured you here, set off a time bomb, buried you under the rubble, the works. It would sure solve a lot of problems. But then I thought, what’s the fun in that? No, I need you to win. I need you to create my worst enemy… Well, take care, now. I hear the Tazmily Islands are beautiful this time of… fifty years from now.

Before Ninten could say another word, he could tell, even with his faint telepathic powers, that the horrible stranger was gone, not just out of the mausoleum, but completely elsewhere without a trace. The zombies in his employ backed down in kind, and no one stopped the living children from exiting the grim building. Who on earth was that? There was no one else in his entire life he had so utterly loathed upon first sight like that, and he was thankful to banish him from his mind in favor of more pressing issues. 

That pressing issue was a mob of about fifty zombies, all gathered outside the mausoleum, staring the children down. Pippi put up her dukes and Ninten raised his bat. No one said a word or made a move for a long while, until a zombie, the apparent leader of the bunch, pumped both fists in the air and let out a gurgling cheer.

—Hip hip, hooray!

The other zombies cheered the same greeting two more times, then broke out in an out of tune, minor-key dirge-like rendition of “For They’re Some Jolly Good Fellows.” Bewildered, but figuring they were more or less out of danger, the kids dropped their guard and allowed the monsters to approach.

It turns out that the Porcellian Club of Distinguished Undead Gentlemen was indeed a sinister criminal underbelly that menaced Spookane as much as it did Youngtown. All its undead citizens wished to do was not-live out their un-lives in peace, but ever since the Club’s strange and charismatic leader arrived, it had been involved in all sorts of unsavory organized crimes: extortion and theft of choice burial plots, incursions into living towns, heck, they’d even steal the tattered tux off your back if given half the chance. And thanks to the brave living children before them, the Porcellian Club was gone forever. 

They celebrated the occasion with a party, and what a party it was to be. Spookane, after all, was world-renowned for their “monster mashes.” It turned out that all the novelty songs from twenty years ago about monsters from all walks of life getting together at a cemetery at midnight for a party setting were based in fact. Everybody was invited, or should we say, every-bloody was in-frighted. Not just every zombie from Spookane, but also some very upstanding wolfmen, mummies, Frankenstein’s monsters and their lovely wives, and Draculas from out of town. And, of course, for the first time in so many years, the living heroes of Spookane were invited as well. There were plenty of snacks and cake, there was bobbing for apples, and the Draculas made sure there was plenty of fruit punch on tap, or at least the children sure hoped it was fruit punch. 

Pippi and Lloyd had a ball, stuffing themselves with monster treats and dancing along to the old-sounding rock music warbling from the turntables, but Ninten held back from the proceedings, sitting against the stump of a gloomy tree under the full moon with a red plastic cup of fruit punch in hand. He had rescued the girl, and the girl had her hat. All he wanted to do was head back to Youngtown and check into a hotel. 

He scanned a few of the headstones before him. So everyone here was dead, but also not. What is a zombie, anyway? How do you become one? Do you accidentally catch zombieness when you’re getting buried, like a cold? Is it something you sign up for, do you arrange for it in your will beforehand? Or is it as simple as waking up one day in your coffin and just declaring to yourself, no, not right now. Would his mother have wanted to live out her days in Spookane, instead of at home with him and his dad? He tried to imagine her limboing with a Wolfman to minor-key surf rock on a scratchy record. The funny thing was, he could imagine it very well, but imagine was all he could do. For better or worse, she was resting on the mantel back home. 

The monster mash, as all things do, eventually came to an end, and the townsfolk offered to put the children up in some empty caskets, left over from some of the nasty mobster zombies that the children had already pulverized into dust. But Ninten would have none of it. They tried to explain, it’s prime real estate, really some of the best plots available, not nearly as dank and slimy and cobweb-ridden as they can be, and of course they were going to leave the lid open, all things considered, until Ninten let out the frustration welling up in him since the start of the party, and snapped. 

—I’m NOT sleeping in a coffin!

Without letting anyone reply, he sharply turned his back to his hosts and companions and headed toward that same tree he spent the party. He had packed a sleeping bag for the journey just in case, and now was the perfect time to use it. He stuffed himself inside, laid his head on his backpack, and steeled himself for the coldest and most uncomfortable sleep of his life. 

Ninten was up at the crack of dawn, and at his insistence the other children were as well. They waved goodbye and said thanks very much to the zombie-folk, as the latter shut themselves inside their caskets for the day, and then made the long trek back to Youngtown. 

Like clockwork, the neighborhood watch met them with slingshots at the ready, but immediately stood down at the sight of their leader. After enduring a good fawning-over from her companions, some reassurances that yes, she was fine and yes, those no-good zombies from the town over won’t be a problem anymore, they left her to lead Ninten and Lloyd around town. 

—You’ll have to excuse us for the tight security around here. There’s always a grown-up or two trying to come in and take things over.

—I see… Well, I guess now’s a good time to ask, about ah…

—Why there are only kids allowed? We used to be a normal town. There used to be us and our moms and dads. But then, one day, they all disappeared. Up and vanished. Empty beds, no one to take us to school, and no one even in school.

—So all of the adults, just…

—Yup. We were sad the first week or so, but then, when we figured they weren’t coming back for a while, we thought, well, why let some other grown-ups come in and muck things up? We can run a city as well as any big-britches out there. And ever since, that’s what we do. If not our parents, then no one but us. Well, here we are. The Youngtown zoo, and its world-famous aviary. 

Pippi pointed to a big marble placard before the gates. It read in engraved capital letters BEQUEATHED TO THE PEOPLE OF YOUNGTOWN IN LOVING MEMORY OF GERALD AND IDA CHERRYCOKE YEAR OF OUR LORD MCMXXIX. She then cleared her throat, dusted off the pink hat, and stuffed it into Ninten’s hands. 

—Here. It’s best that you ah… for political reasons. Well, thanks again, don’t be a stranger. 

Pippi nervously shifted her gaze around, and then ran off to who knows where deep in the Youngtown streets. The boys shrugged and proceeded through the gates to the aviary. 

*

You’ve been listening to The Podcast Against Giygas. The Podcast Against Giygas is an audiobook written and performed by me, Garrett McMahon, based on Mother, the 1989 video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System directed by Shigesato Itoi. With production by William Pawlowski, thumbnail design and art direction by David Peters, and musical selections from the recent Earthbound Beginnings remake hack, with arrangements by livvy94, Snyderman, Bluestone, Pinci, and Mary Strawberry.

This podcast is a guaranteed masterpiece! It is also a fan-made project affiliated in no way whatsoever with the Nintendo Corporation or Mr. Itoi. This podcast is free to listen to, ad-free, and always will be. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode, and if you did, a rating and review on your podcast service of choice is always appreciated. Well, I’ll see you back next Monday, but until then, no crying till the ending!