Walking with a Ghost by Nick Mamatoss

recorded for Clarks World magazine issue number 33

and narrated by Kate Baker.

Schakravarti spent at least three months making the same joke

about how the AI was going to start spouting.

Thin glooey McLunoff, cathulu, Rilea, Wagonag,

Lef Fathagin. And then all hell would break loose, a singularity with tentacles.

Sometimes he'd even run to the bank of light switches and flick the lights on and off.

It was funny for the first time to Melanie,

and she squeezed a bit more mirth out of Chakravarti's inability to pronounce the prayer

to Kathulu the same way twice.

Making the Lovecraft AI had been Melanie's idea, but it was Chakravarti who tried to keep the mood whimsical.

Both worried that Lovecraft would just wake up screaming.

And he does scream occasionally,

Melanie explained.

Her advisor and a few other grad students were at the presentation,

in the front rows, but as these presentations were theoretically open to the public,

the Lovecraftians had come out in four,

squeezing themselves in the tiny desk chairs. They looked a lot like grad students

themselves, but even paler and more poorly dressed in ill-fitting t-shirts and unusual garments.

One even wore Fadora.

Plus, they kept interrupting.

...