They said peace and love, and they offered me a flower.
I looked to Billy, who was standing behind the peacenik.
We do this a lot: I confront a stranger, Billy scouts behind them, and reports if they’re safe.
I can read lips.
“He’s holding a gun behind his back,” he said.
So, I shot the guy.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” shouted Billy. “I said he was holding nothing behind his back!”
“I thought you said ‘gun,'” I said. “Oops. Sorry.”
We dragged the stranger to the dumpster and threw him in.
I kept the flower.
“You need glasses,” said Billy.
Tag: horror
Basher
Blood River High School’s football team is a championship factory, led by Coach Bart Basher for forty years.
PLAY THROUGH THE PAIN! shouts Coach Basher.
PLAY THROUGH THE PAIN! shouts the kid on the ground, and he struggles up to his feet to rejoin the huddle.
It’s Thursday’s workout drill, and a kid takes a savage hit and goes down.
What was the kid’s name?
Who knows?
Every kid wears jerseys without numbers.
Nobody’s limping or lollygagging, despite the blood and gore and…
PLAY THROUGH THE PAIN! shouts Basher.
Every kid shouts it back.
Except the kid without a head.
Alarms
All of the alarms went off at once.
Fire.
Intrusion.
Radiation.
Chemical leak.
Everybody panicked.
Except for me.
“The alarm system is malfunctioning,” I said, and I crawled into the access hatch.
Sometimes the organic components in the alarm systems get out of whack.
I pulled out two aspirin, crushed them up, and dropped the powder into the brain tank.
After a minute, the alarms stopped.
Then I checked the biofilters in the nutrient tanks.
Clogged.
I exchanged them with some fresh filters and put the clogged ones in the cleaning system.
“Just like changing diapers,” I grumbled, climbing out.
Acting Crazy
Small. Thin.
Forget Captain of the Football Team, I was King of the Drama Club.
I had the lead in every production.
Tom Thumb.
Hamlet.
Peter Pan.
The spotlight was mine… MINE!
Until… puberty.
I got tall, clumsy, and… other things.
This year, instead of Peter, I’m “a” pirate.
Not even Captain Hook? OUTRAGEOUS!
That little shrimp, Marty Finkelstein, stole my role and my Tinkerbell, Cindy Van Hooten!
You know when Tinkerbell saves Peter by drinking poison?
Clap all you want. She’s not getting up.
And this isn’t a rubber sword.
Meet me and your doom at center stage, Peter.
My New Phone
The online store said that it would take 2 weeks to ship my new phone, but it arrived the next day, wrapped in butcher’s paper and bearing a hastily-scribbled label.
Inside the box, the phone was almost perfect, even if the cables and headset were sloppily wound-up.
There was also a note from my Secret Admirer, telling me I deserved the phone more than the guy she’d killed and taken it from.
Her number was in the address book.
“Call me.”
Instead, I called the police.
What if she admires someone else who wants a phone even more than me?
Gremlins
The nurse told me that I can’t eat anything after midnight because I am having surgery early tomorrow.
But the truth is that I am a gremlin.
Feeding a gremlin after midnight turns them into an evil scaly predator that causes havoc and mayhem.
And getting a gremlin wet causes them to pop out warped clones.
I smile, close my eyes, and say “wet or dry, a sponge bath is a sponge bath.”
It’s certainly better than the food, which explains why there aren’t any evil scaly gremlins walking around causing havoc.
Or is it because visiting hours are over?
Drink Me Baby
Sometimes, Trixie likes to trade bodies with me.
So, I got out the soulstones, handed her one, and swallowed the other.
And then we went to sleep.
The next morning, everything was grey, and I felt strange and awkward.
I tried to feel myself, but I didn’t have Trixie’s hands or body to feel with.
I was in the dog.
She’d covered her soulstone with peanut butter and fed it to the dog!
I’m in the goddamned dog now!
I barked a few times, and that’s when the smell hit me.
A bowl. Filled with anti-freeze.
I… just… can’t… resist!
Regicide
Prince Alfred was the only heir, and from the day he was born, he was never a well child.
The King wanted another son, because it was obvious that Alfred would never rule. So, he hired assassins to kidnap and kill the queen so he could marry again.
Alfred knew that his father had his mother killed, so he had to kill his father’s mistresses.
He poisoned the first four before his father had the cook replaced.
When Alfred stabbed the fifth mistress himself, The King smiled.
“I believe you’re well enough to rule,” he said.
Then Albert stabbed him.
The Wolves
I am being chased by wolves.
How many wolves, I’m not sure, because I am running from them as fast as I can, and I haven’t yet had the opportunity to turn around and count them.
I could try to run backwards, but I wouldn’t be able to dodge any oncoming obstacles.
I tried to snap a photograph of them to count the wolves, but despite the image stabilizing feature on this smartphone, the picture is too blurry to count the wolves.
However, based on several photographs, I can tell that they are gaining on me.
I must run faster.
Down For The Count
Van Helsing was leaving Dracula’s castle when the police arrived.
“I tried to stop him!” he claimed. “But The Count was too strong for me! He got into a coffin and pounded a stake through his own chest!”
He took them down into the crypt and showed them the corpse.
A mallet was in Dracula’s hand, right where Van Helsing had placed it.
His left hand.
“Wasn’t he right-handed?” said one of the police.
Van Helsing pulled out his wallet and gave them each twenty gold crowns. “No, he was a lefty.”
The men all smiled and agreed.
Case closed.