Jasper Pagan
Copyright 2011 by Jasper Pagan
Smashwords Edition
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This book is dedicated to my delusions of persecution.
[1]
Fixdale’s Duty
Fixdale was a strong and evil man, and he had been fighting beside Gilligan when Gilligan got laserbeamed in the larynx. Gilligan had been one of the Magic-Blooded Princes, and their limbs and body parts were sought-after when they died, for a feast from their fine blood gave the eater devastating powers. So it was Fixdale’s duty as a friend and ally to protect Gilligan’s body from scavengers until the coroner arrived to return the body to the Earth, so his powers could go back to the Dark Lord, Satan, who is so powerful and generous.
It was a disgusting sight, this Satan-worshiping killer standing in full battle gear on the street corner, with the mangled body of his deceased ally propped up against the apartment building in a pool of its own blood, waiting for the coroner in his fine and exquisite coronation vehicle.
A young street-urchin with an electric light-saber leg prosthesis hobbled over to the corpse in a hurry and tried to take a bite out of its face.
“Get outta here, kid!” Fixdale shouted at the hungry youth.
“I just want a little taste!” the boy cried out. “I’m so weak without my leg!”
“I’ll give you a leg, thief!” Fixdale said, kicking the boy onto the street with his huge, rippling, warrior’s foot.
A parade of ducks was crossing the road, and cars politely waited for the cute little ones to catch up to their mother. When they caught the scent of the corpse, with its life-giving blood, they scurried over and started eating it. Fixdale slaughtered them all, his eyes and smiling teeth shining with crazy glee.
Up the road came a man in a fine, red suit, carrying a briefcase. He walked over to Fixdale and said, “Well, you look like a man who knows a thing or two about blades.”
“Of course I know about blades!” Fixdale shouted. “May Satan in His wisdom implode my eyeballs if I didn’t!”
The man opened his briefcase, displaying a sparkling set of stainless steel steak knives. “Then perhaps you’d be interested in these top-of the line blades, which easily slice through even the heartiest of steaks!”
Fixdale stared with respect at the sharp edges. “These are indeed much finer than any of the silverware in my kitchen. Say, do you sell rubber spatulas?”
But then he heard a noise, and realized that the salesman had been distracting him from his duty. As he turned around, he saw an old woman eating the corpse of his late friend. She had devoured the entire head.
“Vile bitch!” He cried. He slew the salesman, with great passion, then raised his weapon towards the cannibal woman. But as he watched, her size grew by ten, and fire issued forth from her eyes, cooking Fixdale instantly. Then she ate the rest of the corpse, and terrorized the city with her powers.
End
[2]
Vorstacklemain
I was walking down a path in the city surrounded by trees, listening to some music, when I saw three guys in the ditch rolling around and holding their guts. I stopped and kind of stood there awkwardly for a minute wondering if it was any of my business, then thought, fuck it, and called out, "Hey, you guys alright?" They completely ignored me, so I called out again, "Hey fucktards! Are you fucking retarded? Answer me!" But they just kept rolling. So I frowned, because it was weird, and kept on walking.
Further on, the trees on the left side of the path fell away and were replaced by houses and lawns. One old decrepit and abandoned house with peeling paint got my attention. It looked cool. I don't know why old abandoned houses look cool, but they do. Today, up in the top window, someone was looking at me. They were spooked, as if I was a spooky-looking person. But, I'm not spooky-looking. They gasped and retreated as soon as they saw me noticing them. I frowned a bit more and kept on walking, until I saw that the path was blocked and barricaded by a small group of warriors with axes and spiky, shining armor. The lead guy raised his axe and charged with a scream that thundered, and I could feel it in my chest. He was a towering nightmare.
"Wait, hold on!" I said. "Maybe we can bargain, make a deal! "
"What does a puny boy have that Vorstacklemain could want?" Vorstacklemain asked with a laugh. His golden armor sparkled in the sun, and he looked very grand indeed!
"Don't fucking laugh!" I snapped. "I'm more powerful than you could ever know!" I took out my wallet and started pawing through it. "I have coupons, and credit cards! You want a free session at the downtown gym? I can provide, my friend. You want free movie tickets? Well I've got a bunch of air miles I haven’t used. You can trade those in for movie tickets."
Vorstacklemain was distracted by a pretty bird.
"Hey. Hey!" I shouted, waving my hands. "Pay attention. I'm taking the time to tell you something; the least you could do is listen! Look: I've got a library card, so you can go to the library and get books, and use the internet. I've got a credit card. It's maxed out, but look at the cool hologram on it." I got up close and moved the card around, making the hologram sparkle. "Just look at it!"
"Wow, that is cool." Vorstacklemain admitted, taking the card.
"And I've got comic books at home, too." I said. "You can come and read them, but you can't keep them. My brother gave them to me before he died."
Vorstacklemain put his war-scarred slab of a hand on my shoulder and said, "It is hard to lose a brother! Did he die well?"
"He died in a shoot-out with the police." I said. "It was brutal. He strapped himself with dynamite and just fucking charged."
"Brave!" Vorstacklemain said.
"No, crazy." I amended with a laugh. Me and Vorstacklemain were now friends, and we went on adventures.
End
[3]
Archibald McCready
Archibald McCready, Ricki, Jhonen, Matt, Lisa Frederick, Thomas J. Frederick and Elaine were all sitting at the mouth of the bridge, throwing coins from a big bag of loonies into the river. Archibald, who was called Chirp, was trying to skip the dollar coins, but couldn’t quite do it. They had lots of money, though, and he kept trying.
Jhonen was saying, “I don’t think there’s any point in even returning those movies. Derrick’s already dead, and his kids don’t even like science fiction movies.”
Everybody agreed.
Chirp kept trying to skip those loonies.
“You’re no good at skipping loonies.” Lisa said scornfully, and she flipped one skillfully into the river, and it skipped several times before knocking out a fish.
“Fuck that!” Chirp cried. “I’m fantastic!” And he tried to skip one, but instead he fell over on his face, killing a cute baby bird who was trying to learn to fly.
“Awe, you bastard!” Thomas said, disgusted. “That poor bird! He never even had a chance!”
“One more chickadee in bird purgatory.” Jhonen sighed.
Lisa stood up. She held out a hand and counted off fingers. “First, you killed my dog. Then you beat up my little brother. Now, you crush an innocent little bird?”
“It was an accident!” Chirp was getting emotional. He pointed his finger at Lisa. “You were antagonizing me! You’re always antagonizing me! You stole my parents’ lawn ornaments. You put ketchup in my hair in grade six. You told my mother that I do drugs.”
The hatred was growing between them. Everybody watched intently, wondering how far they’d go.
“I’ve always hated you.” Lisa rasped, staring and frowning like a weirdo. “And your mother doesn’t care if you do drugs. She’s a tired old hag!”
Chirp trembled with rage. Then, like a streak of lightening, he punched Lisa right in the face. She went down, blood trickling from her wounded nose and whining.
“You bitch!” Chirp screamed. He went to kick her, but his friends held him back.
“Cool it, dude!” Someone yelled.
“Awe, he killed a bird and he punched a girl!” Someone else yelled.
Ten years later, in the autumn after a massive nuclear hurricane wiped out ten percent of the Earth’s population, Chirp and Lisa were happily married with no children and very little debt. They had a violent relationship, incorporating punching and bruising into their lovemaking. Each of them was constantly injured somehow. Lisa’s friends, when they saw her black eyes, when they saw her limping, they thought, “her damn husband is doing that to her!” And they’d go to the house when she wasn’t there, planning to pound the hell out of her abusive husband. But then they’d see that he was in as bad or worse shape than she was, and things would get awkward.
“Um,” they would fidget in the doorway, their courage lost. “Mr. McCready. Ah, do you beat your wife?”
Chirp would sigh. “Yes. But she likes it.” He had to explain this all the time. He supposed that he should be grateful that there were so many people concerned with the welfare of his beloved wife, but all this explaining was an embarrassing nuisance.
“I see.” The visitor would become even more fidgety.
“Would you like some coffee?” Chirp would ask. “Or cognac?”
“Ooh, cognac.” The visitor would brighten up. “Sure. Thanks.”
One day Chirp came home from the office, ready for some marital horseplay. “Get ready for the beating of a lifetime, bitch!” He screamed as he kicked open the door.
Standing beside the kitchen table was a lieutenant colonel in full uniform, reading a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. “The key to a good chocolate chip cookie,” the lieutenant colonel said, “is simply to add a lot of butter.”
Lisa, Chirp’s wife, was floating above the kitchen table in a blue stasis field. Her blonde hair floated slowly and dreamily around her.
“What the hell is going on here?” Chirp asked, his feelings of lust flying out the window.
The lieutenant colonel dropped the recipe and tapped the table with a pointing stick. “I’ve come a long way. Farther than you can imagine. I’ve come for your soul, and for the body of your wife!”
Chirp leaned back against the wall, worried for his beloved. “This is weird.” He muttered.
“You don’t know the half of it!” The lieutenant colonel remarked. “You don’t know the quarter of it! Come. Sit. Enjoy some coffee that I’ve prepared. I added lots of butter, and wholesome grains.”
Chirp sat and drank the coffee while the lieutenant colonel began to speak.
“You see...” the man began, but Chirp’s mind drifted. He thought of Halloween when he was a child, and how happy that time always made him. Beating up smaller children. Stealing their candy. Vandalizing property. Kicking. Punching. Screaming.
Then Chirp woke up and realized that the lieutenant colonel was gone... and so was his wife! He looked at the empty coffee cup. “I’ve been drugged!”
Then he noticed that the stasis field had left an electro-magnetic trail that was clearly detectable by the human eye. He put on his sneaky detective shoes and followed it.
It led outside to the vegetable garden, where the lieutenant colonel was picking weeds. Lisa hovered in electromagnetic stasis above the tomatoes.
“There you are!” The lieutenant colonel stood and dusted off his hands with a smile. “As I was saying before you passed out in the kitchen, I’m a priest from Kansas. I’ve come for your soul, to lead it to salvation, through the glory of God. I’m also a doctor. The stasis field is a regenerative field, to make your wife’s body stronger, and more resistant to bacteria, and viruses.”
Chirp snapped his fingers. “Of course! It all makes sense now!”
But did it?
End
[4]
Unicef Blunder (Ending 1)
Sir Walliam Quilt was out on Hallowe’en, stealing Unicef boxes from children. One child he cornered behind the Patterson place, pinning him up against the Patterson wall. “Gimme yer Unicef box, kid!”
The kid tried to run away, but Walliam had him tightly held. He looked through his trick-or-treat bag, but there was no Unicef box. The child wasn’t carryin’. So he took his trick or treats, and shoved the kid away. The kid ran away crying.
Eating the candy from the crying kids’ bag, Walliam found a brass lamp. The kind from Alladin.
“Some ol’ fogey gave a kid a motherfuckin’ lamp.” He said, with a heavy punk accent. It was heavy, full of something, and the lid was off slightly. So Walliam curiously lifted the top off and, lo and behold, it was filled with white powder.
“Dude!” He exclaimed, “some motherfuckin’ coke!” and began to sniff it right out of the lamp.
Alas, my dear friend Walliam, that is not the cocaine that makes your dreams come true. It is the kind of cocaine that has been mixed with anthrax by an old man, and you are soon to die.
And that’s exactly what he did.
End
[5]
Unicef Blunder (Ending 2)
Sir Walliam Quilt was out on Hallowe’en, stealing Unicef boxes from children. He cornered one child behind the Patterson place, pinning him up against the Patterson wall. “Gimme yer Unicef box, kid.!”
The kid tried to run away, but Walliam had him tightly held. He looked through his trick-or-treat bag, but there was no unicef box. The child wasn’t carryin’. So he took his trick or treats, and shoved the kid away. The boy then ran away crying.
Eating the candy from the crying kids’ bag, Walliam found a brass lamp among the candy. The kind from Alladin.
“Some ol’ fogey gave a kid a motherfuckin’ lamp.” He said in a heavy and tough voice. Then he saw a kid in a devil suit, and it reminded him of his favorite heavy metal song, and he started singing it and using the lamp as a pretend guitar.
The tickling of his fingers against the side rubbed some of the dust off, and the lamp started to shake. “What the fuck?” Walliam asked. It began shaking harder, and a tiny glow started coming from the crack between the lamp and its lid.
Walliam dropped it on the ground, where it bounced around clatteringly, and glowed even brighter. Finally a very bright ray of light came from it, and the lid burst off. It went up into the air, and then back down to the ground as a cloud of smoke puffed out from the open lamp. As he watched, it formed into a genie, dressed in Arabian clothes.
“Sir Walliam Quilt!” It proclaimed, “I am the genie of the lamp!”
Walliam’s jaw dropped. “No fuckin’ way! So, I get three motherfuckin’ wishes?”
“No!” The genie proclaimed, “I am going to take you to Hell for the wrongs you have been doing to the children of Hallowe’en!”
“I’m getting the fuck outta here!” Walliam cursed, and began to run, but the genie was too magical for him, and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him down through the pavement and into Hell.
Satan was working out beside the pile of money he had stolen from childrens’ Unicef boxes when the genie knocked on his office door.
“Come in, lest a thousand cockroaches feast on your brains!” he boomed, and the genie came in, dragging Walliam by the arm.
“This child has untrap’d me from my lamp! Thus, I am free to go, free from the lamp and free from Hell!”
“I’m not a child!” Walliam said. “I’m a badass motherfucker.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it!” Satan agreed. “Genie, you’re free to go. Sir Walliam, come with me. You won’t be free to go for a long, long time.”
“How long?” he whined as the genie exited Hell.
“Oh, only for.. ETERNITY!!!!!” The Devil laughed, and it was a hideous voice that penetrated the heart that Walliam had never considered he might have.
He fell to his knees, looked up at Hell’s ceiling, and cried “Noooo!” He understood that this was to be his forever, and that he had earned it with years of selfish, Christless cruelty. And now, when it was too late, he could listen and appreciate the terror which he was.
End
[6]
The Golden Eggs
Genardo the chef had a chicken which laid golden eggs. He was ignorant to this fact when he purchased the animal at the market; he had only realized that it had a single golden feather on its wing.
Upon his return home with the chicken, he intended to reap eatable eggs from it. It laid golden eggs instead. He was surprised, but found that it was most profitable not to question it. He decided to melt the eggs, and then form them into common bars that would arouse no suspicion beyond the fact that they were gold at all. The chicken was a gold-mine, and soon Genardo became the richest chef around. He still cooked and lived the life of a chef, because cooking food for the people of his town was Genardo’s passion, but he decorated his house with fine things, and he was promiscuous.
A series of events then occurred at distant intervals. First, Genardo decided that he wanted to get into the rooster-fighting business. So he went to the game cock house with all his riches and purchased the vilest, most vicious rooster they had to offer. It was a horrible monster. He put it in fights against other game-cocks. This rooster never lost Genardo a fight, and earned him much in the way of dollars. This, combined with his golden egg supply, made him even richer.
The chef, after a time, decided to take a break. He left his rooster and chicken with an ample supply of nourishment, and took a concubine to Germany to escape from his dreadful daily routine, for a week-long vacation.
He expected to return to a week’s worth of golden eggs, and a rooster even viler than before because of its week of semi-solitary confinement while his master was gone. It should be obvious that he found something else.
The rooster and the chicken had produced many eggs while Genardo was absent, but the chef was not there to melt them. So, the chicken sat on her golden eggs, as all chickens sit on their eggs, until they hatched. The hatchlings were a gross combination of the chicken’s gold and the rooster’s vileness.
The wicked things escaped, and ate all the town children. Genardo returned to find empty, golden shells. He cussed, and melted those for currency.
One night, he saw one of the small abominations hiding under a porch, and recognized it intuitively. He went to his coop immediately, and plucked the golden feather from the chicken’s wing so it would lay gold no more. He melted the feather for its cash value, and killed the vile rooster.
But, it was too late. When the hatchlings grew big enough, they returned and ate Genardo.
End
[7]
Mysterious Protector
He worked in secrecy and in darkness, underneath a mountain in caves dug out by long extinct, unknown and forgotten, animals. Sometimes he dug into the soft dirt of the cave’s walls (to bury things, usually) and when he did he often found strange old bones.
Different rooms in the cave were used for different things. There could be found shelves with food, weapons, books, etc. Some rooms held tools and benches for working on. In some, he kept animals, or parts of animals, or corpses (some human). And it was all kept dark. The only light was the torch he carried around with him.
He rarely showed up in town, always haggard and tired, never friendly or talkative. Nobody knew him at all, and no-one wanted to. Nobody knew what was in his cave, or how he lived. They knew about his magic; they saw the lights, and sometimes he was forced to perform outdoors, depending on the nature of the undertaking. But they didn’t know exactly what he did. Or why.
The ancient ones who’d made his cave-home had dug a hole directly into Hell. It went down for miles (hours and hours of a descending labyrinth), through total darkness, before a red light slowly began to bathe the walls. Daemons and fire oozed out into the world through this portal, with plans to infest and corrupt. This mysterious man stopped the daemons however he could. He sold his soul to the deepest level of Hell, and fought with the constant knowledge that he looked forward to no light, ever in the rest of his existence. He bargained with devils, made sacrifices and prayers. He fought and defeated daemons with weapons, magic and charms. He knew from personal experience the great harm and suffering that these beings could do out in the world, and he felt compelled to protect people from this enemy.
But he knew that Satan only toyed with him, and that he could pluck this man out of his cave and down into Hell any time he pleased. It made his sacrifice look foolish. But it was no less necessary, though he would never be rewarded. And nobody knows his name.
End
[8]
Cherfda’s Friend
Cherfda held his battered (yet gleaming) broadsword low as he padded through the corridor. He was alert, and in search of his friend. In the darkness behind his massive body lay the corpses of all the creatures that had tried to eat him.
These underground tunnels and halls had been abandoned by civilization centuries ago. Now all that lived here was dirty and evil. Moss and mold covered parts of the floor and the cobblestone walls. Cold water dripped constantly from the ceiling, maintaining ancient puddles. Mushrooms grew in the corners of the warmer rooms.
Monsters and animals prowled around down here, too, and each one of them was different. There wasn’t a definable race of monsters, just the constant presence of a wide array of variably twisted forms. But all of them were hungry, even the small ones that hid fearfully in the shadows.
As Cherfda went through a doorway into a small room with a warm draft, a wretchedly thin and bony figure appeared out of the shadows, scratching claws across the air as it stood up on its three legs. The head was just a mouth with teeth and an eyeball on top. A third arm stuck out of its chest, and each arm had one long claw.
Cherfda leapt back, bringing his sword up in the same motion. A claw caught him in the chest, slicing his pectoral muscles, and he felt the poison seeping in instantly, like tar in his wound. But as he grunted and swung again he removed two of the monster’s arms. Its shriek was a high-pitched monotone wail that deteriorated slowly into a gargle. Cherfda cut the monster’s torso in half and stepped over the corpse into the next room.
The warm draft grew stronger and moved the somber warrior’s black hair. The draft came from a doorway inside the new room, in the wall on the right. Cherfda went there, and stepped into another small chamber.
On the floor was Cherfda’s friend. His arms had been twisted off, and his shoulder bones were mangled and broken. One leg was cut off above the knee. Fingers lay scattered about. His severed limbs were in a pile, all in a pool of spreading blood, and covered in the same substance.
His face was cut to shreds, and one eye was busted and bloody. His jaw had been ripped horribly off, and his tongue hung out below his upper teeth. His ears were also gone, and he’d been scalped. The jaw lay with the ears and the limbs, in a pile and covered with blood. He was barely recognizable, and he was still alive, writhing and twitching.
Cherfda was overcome with compassion and a sickening, shocked pity for his friend’s fate. He stood there, horrified; unable to move; staring. In this moment of stunned weakness a creature with no head and its torso covered with eyeballs snuck up behind him and struck Cherfda down with its sharp claws.
End
[9]
Gigantic-Headed Latteus
Gigantic-headed Latteus threw his coffee on the ground and complained to his concubine, “Esther, jive with me to the café on the corner and we’ll buy something much better!” But Esther was in no mood, and would not take his simpering whining nonsense.
“You may have a Gigantic Head, but your taste in the finer gourmets is comparable to the smallest-headed little baby-eaten moth-faces in the slums, you spoiled bastard!”
Gigantic-headed Latteus knew she was right, and his mind searched for an appropriate answer; a dignity-maintaining response to her insubordinate outburst. His head! His huge fucking head should have the answer somewhere! But, maybe it was too big, and the answer was lost inside it.
“Could someone go in and get it?” He muttered to himself.
“What did you say?” The concubine queried with frowning black brows.
“Nothing, bitch! Shut up! Shut up! You’re the most horrible and dis-honorable concubine I’ve ever employed, and I should throw you in the goddamn water for your insolence! Aargh! You should be goddamn honored that I chose you to accompany me on my trip to France, and that I allowed you to be seen alongside my huge monstrosity of a cranium, so full of ripe knowledge and amazing ideas! Brain-busting thoughts ooze like pus out of my ears and leave a trail of genius behind me, and people watch and scoop it up because it’s delicious, and here you are admonishing me (Me!) for thinking, and saying, that the café on the corner serves something much better when you know FULL WELL, that it’s TRUE!”
“Throw me in the water?” The concubines’ bosom heaved like a fleshy earthquake, rippling so exotically, and her eyes whirled in anger. “Throw ME in the water?” She put up her dukes and prepared to brawl. “I goddamn DARE you!”
A third eye popped open on Latteus’ chin, the anger-eye, the one that only opened when he meant to kick the ass of some uppity little concubine who’d, according to Him, overstepp’d her place. With his big, big head and tiny, skinny little body, Latteus started hopping around from foot to foot, waving his flimsy fists in a menacing gesture. But the concubine was lithe and limber, like a goddamn tiger, and she kicked him into the water and robbed his wallet.
And the spilled coffee, it poured from the fine porcelain mug (which was smashed by the hand of the big-headed man), and collected in a little pool, and ants drank it and got wired and listened to weird music and slapped each others’ faces, laughing.
“Oh my God, that one really hurt!” One ant said, crying with strung-out glee. “Oh Jesus, let me slap you!”
Bam!
The other ant went whirling, smacking its head on the ground. One ant was vomiting because it drank too much from the collected pool, beside the broken porcelain.
“We must bring it to the Queen!” One patriotic little insect announced.
“Fuck the Queen!” Boomed a baritone voice. “Let’s keep it for ourselves!”
“Yeah, fuck the Queen!” some little adolescent ants agreed. And the ant-society descended into chaos and anarchy.
End
[10]
Kid and Businessman
I was entranced by the heavenly kindness of the gentleman who helped the kid get his ball back from the ditch. The kid had been playing soccer, and his friend kicked the ball past him and into the muddy ditch. A businessman emerged from the bushes with a briefcase and a smile, emanating good posture and confident strides. He picked up the soccer ball, half covered in muddy goo, and climbed up out of the ditch to hand the ball to the dirty-faced child. Then he knelt down and gave the kid twenty dollars from his breast-pocket.
The kid said, “Thanks mister! What were you doing in the woods? This is a highway! Where is your car?”
The man, still kneeling, pulled a handkerchief out of his sleeve and wiped the mud off his leather shoes. Then he stuffed the dirty rag back up his other sleeve. He said, “I went into the forest to help an injured bird, which I saw hobbling across this highway! My chauffeur is waiting for me just over that hill.” And he pointed towards the hill.
Then the gentleman said, “Now that I've found your ball and given you some spending money, can you do a favour for me?”
“Sure mister! What do you need?”
“I need you to find a safer place to play ball. A highway isn't where children belong. You could get hurt! So, can you do that for me?”
“Yeah, that's what my Mom says,” the boy admitted. “Okay, we'll play somewhere else.”
The man said, “Oh, by the way... do you know who Satan is?”
“Yeah, Satan's evil right? He's down in Hell.”
“That's right,” said the kind man in the suit. “He's down in Hell, and he's evil. But evil is fun, isn't it? You like action movies, where people get beat up? You like winning soccer games, and disciplining your energetic puppy into an obedient and happy slave? These are all evil and wonderful things. Making losers, beating and winning, being a winner! Jesus on the cross is just a big loser, a comfort for the dying and the weak. Don't you want to be strong? Don't you want to be a winner?”
The kid said, “Yeah, I guess. I always win my soccer games!”
The man smiled broader, looking very proud indeed! He took a card out of his shoe and gave it to the kid. He said, “Give your heart to Satan, child! Will you take the card? Will you give your soul to the dark prince in return for power over others?”
The kid smiled and took the card. He said, “Yeah! Thanks mister!”
Then the business-gentleman turned around and walked back into the forest.
And the kid lived a long and wonderful life of success, domination and pleasure.
End