Payback is a Bitch

"Payback is a Bitch" is a short Cthulhu Mythos story by American author Ron Shiflet. It was published in his collection Looking for Darla: Stories of Mythos Noir by Elder Signs Press in September 2008, and later by Tenoka Press in 2017.
==Synopsis==
Small-time hoodlum Morris Hodge, having had his illicit gambling winning stolen, decides to enact revenge on the man he believes to be responsible: the well-connected criminal Wendell Hawthorne. After murdering Hawthorne then burying him in a shallow grave, Hodge comes to believe that the ghost of the dead man is haunting him, following his every move in preparation for its vengeance.
In an effort to reassure himself that what he is seeing is simply a combination of paranoia and a guilty conscience, he revisits the gravesite, and is confronted by Hawthorne's twin brother Richard, the man who has been following him for days. A chance encounter with a copperhead snake gives Hodge the opportunity to kill Hawthorne, but then suddenly his dead brother rises from the grave and enacts his revenge on Hodge.
==Behind the Mythos==
Despite containing little in the way of direct connections to the Cthulhu Mythos, "Payback is a Bitch" is loosely connected to the greater Mythos by way of Wendell Hawthorne's nickname: he is called The Professor by those who know him, due to having attended Miskatonic University before embarking on his criminal career. Hawthorne was rumoured to have been thrown out after stealing and copying some very ancient and valuable texts, possibly explaining how he was able to return from the dead.
Category:Ron Shiflet works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works