Club Penguin (Part I)
(1,500 words)
Years ago I was a writer for a small paranormal magazine in New York City, The Cryptid. Unlike some of the more dedicated, for the lack of a better word, members of the staff, I wasn’t any conspiracy nut, a truther, or anything like the sort you’d expect to find there. Sure, I wanted to believe, but I didn’t. Not until the case of Club Penguin.
I know everyone thinks such magazines just print whatever they make up over a few at the nearby watering hole or anonymous tips without any corroboration, but at The Cryptid we actually did investigate. Not that we ever found anything, but it was all in good fun and it did allow you to meet interesting people and give character to your articles. One of those infamous anonymous tips was about a high class joint, Club Penguin. Everyone knew about the place, but few had actually been in there. According to the tip, several people who had disappeared had last been seen entering Club Penguin.
The editor assigned the case to me, which did not seem particularly fascinating, but now I would give anything to erase from my mind what I’ve learned.
The clientele of Club Penguin was crème de la crème of the city, and probably the globe, and I could easily imagine such decadent swines to be involved in some Eyes Wide Shut style orgies, but as far as anything more sinister went, I was sceptical, to say the least. The missing bastards probably just moved to some island paradise without telling anyone. Oh, how I now wish that were true.
Nevertheless, I was on the case. My first task was to gain entrance to the notoriously exclusive establishment. Platinum Penguin Cards were the status symbol in the city. However, my endeavor proved easier than expected. My editor knew some tycoon and had managed to cajole him into borrowing his membership card. My suspicions about the prestige of the place were raised; there was no picture, name or even a number on the card. Seemingly anyone could enter the establishment with one of them. Indeed, the security barely gave the card a glance.
On September 28th, 2008, I entered the club. The place was posh, sure, but nothing struck me special enough to warrant the place’s prestige. Movies must have spoiled me. The waiters were, appropriately enough, all wearing tuxedos. I came to a great hall, which had tables, a stage with lowered red curtains and very few people. I wandered over to the bar.
I sat down and ordered a whiskey. That’s what a reporter does in a bar, I’m told. Now I drink to forget, but they only work to add deliriousness to my nightmares.
As I scanned the the room, I noticed there was one other person sitting at the bar. I recognized him, it was Rudolph Langford, the famous director. I had written an article about the mysterious death of his wife, making it even more mysterious in the process. At that moment I regretted writing it. Not that anyone actually read it. Since her death, he’d been a total mess. He was wasted out of his mind, drooling on the counter. No one cared.
While pondering should I go ask the crestfallen director some questions about the club, I heard a steady clacking behind me on the hard wood floor of the bar. I turned, and saw a pair of black high heels making their way toward me. Connected to them were two legs that seemed to go on forever, their calves deliciously toned by the heels, finally meeting the vulgar hemline of her red dress. She sat next to me, despite there being plenty of space, and through my mind’s eye I could see that voluptuous rear spread tenderly on the seat. What I wouldn’t have given to be that stool. Crossing her legs, closing a gate to paradise, she ordered a Cosmopolitan, loudly. I’ve watched Sex and the City, too. I bet she wanted me to pay for it. Why not, thought I.
”The lady’s drink is on me, Sam,” I said. I didn’t know his name.
”Much appreciated,” she said with a brilliant smile. I forgot why I was there. I went through every suave conversation opener in my mind, and this is what I came up with:
”Come here often?”
”As often as I can.”
”So, you must have seen a lot of celebs coming here, like that guy,” I said, pointing quickly behind me.
”What guy would that be?”
I looked around, breaking eye contact with her chest. She had really poured herself in that dress. I saw Langford had left, leaving a generous puddle of saliva as a tip.
”Nevermind,” I said. ”Will you marry me?”
Well, no, I didn’t say that. But I wanted to. I couldn’t understand how such a woman was even talking to me. She must have thought I was rich.
”How do you like the place, Mr...?”
”Lewton, ” I lied. ”Joseph Lewton. I don’t like it,” I honestied. ”It’s tawdry.”
She kept smiling and with her right hand she flicked her raven hair. I felt something move in my pants.
”Anything strike you as odd about the place? ” I asked awkwardly.
”Like what?” she asked. I didn’t know what to answer.
”Well, nothing really.”
”Tell me,” she said abruptly. ”Do you like penguins?”
”I, what?” I said. ”I guess they’re alright.”
”I love penguins.”
”Me too.”
”There is nothing so graceful on this planet as the movement of penguins.”
”Don’t they just, you know, slide on their bellies?”
”They also waddle.”
”Ah, of course.”
This was getting strange, I thought. I had always thought Club Penguin was just some playground for people with too much money and too little sense, that it was prestigious because of exclusivity, rather than vice versa, but could there also be some kind of penguin groupies? Could she be into yiffying? I’m no furry, but with that woman, I would have yiffed until the last drop.
As I was about to explore where this new development would lead, hoping to experience new realms of carnal pleasure, an enormous tux-clad man appeared behind her. He whispered something, and she was gone as suddenly as she arrived, leaving me staring her gently swaying bottom until she disappeared from my sight.
After she vanished, I decided to get some work done. The crowd did not pay me any attention. I made my way to the back rooms of the club, and was unsettled by the lack of people. While it allowed me to investigate without being kicked out, it also created an eerie atmosphere; the back rooms of such a club should have been swarming with activity. I found many doors, some were locked, but mostly they were open and contained nothing but storage, offices, private rooms, all deserted. About to give up, I turned one final corner, and was faced with a double door, strong oak with golden handles. It was exactly the kind of door you’d expect to be locked, but conveniently wasn’t. What I found there disturbed me more than it should have, not yet being in possession of the perverted truth.
It was a gloomy oblong room, with a thick red carpet from the door to the opposite wall. The carpet was lined with silver candelabra, the only light in the grim room. The walls were covered with paintings, in medieval style, baroque perhaps. They were all penguins, in human clothes. Some even had beards. The faint light of the candles gave the grotesque paintings a sinister air, making the small dark eyes of the penguins as cold and emotionless as the sea at night. On the far wall hung a single enormous painting, above a golden altar, of an emperor penguin in its snowy wasteland home.
”You’re not supposed to be here.”
I recognized the sultry voice of the woman in the red dress. Through my years of experience, I had a clever excuse ready before even turning around.
”I was just looking for the bathroom.”
”I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but I suggest you forget everything you saw.”
”The creepy paintings? Already forgot.”
She walked up to me, putting a finger over my lips.
”Perhaps you need some convincing,” she said with an enticing smile.
A moment later, with a black eye and bruised ribs, I was tossed in a pile of garbage on the alley by her tux-clad gorilla.
Having thus being assured Club Penguin was just another treehouse for the well-to-dos, and it would not be prudent to think otherwise, I told the editor the story was a canard and put the whole sordid affair out of my mind. After all, it was no concern of mine if some lunatics wanted to worship poultry, at least if they were going to be violent about it. A few days later, however, things took an unexpected turn. The news were everywhere: Rudolph Langford had disappeared.
To be continued
