I drive a fullsize '83 Jimmy I call James, and there is something relaxing about the distant burble of my exhaust. Or maybe it's the carbon monoxide seeping through the floorboards. At any rate, I wasn't the brightest bulb on the block that night. That is why I pulled over when a pretty girl waved me down, out on a lonely stretch of route 38. I didn't have any idea what I would do when she got in, and it was just as well.
"Need a ride?" I said as she hopped in. She just smiled at me. She was kind of pretty in a nerdish way. Then she said "Take me to the Fredricks Research Center". I shrugged. It was all the same to me. I made a u turn, and headed off the way I came, towards the lab. It was not far away, and this all sounded interesting to me. I wasn't quite as tired as I was before. "Ya start work late there?" I said. "Kind of," was all she said. I took my eyes from the road for a second and looked at her real hard. She looked nervous. That made me nervous too.
"It must be a drag to work late like this." I said. This provoked no response from her. I had a bad feeling about all of this, and I suddenly wanted to get to the bottom of it. "Boss giving you hassle at work?" I asked. "I'm gonna kill him." she whispered. I nodded my head. I knew the feeling.
We wheeled into the main entrance, and I pulled up to the guard house. The guard walked up as I rolled down the window. The girl looked real nervous now. She handed me her ID card, which I handed to the guard. He glanced at it, and looked at me.
"You know that visitors are not allowed after five, Mindy." the guard said. I didn't like that at all. By now, I was quite ready to be done with all of this, and go home.
"Oh, Sam, this is my boyfriend." she said, and the guard looked at me. I shook my head to the negative, and smiled at him. He reached inside the guardhouse towards a phone on the wall. I could tell it was time to leave.
"Aww, too bad Mindy...You can show me the office some other time," I said as I turned towards her. A deafening BOOOMM filled my truck, and I saw the guard knocked inside the shack. I felt paralyzed, and turned towards this Mindy creature. She held a Glock 9mm. I looked back at the fallen guard, who was groaning and crawling into the guard shack. The passenger side door slammed, and I saw her run around the back of the truck. I felt like events had long since left me behind, and so I just jammed the truck into gear, and started pulling away. Then my new friend Mindy grapped at me thru the window. I opened the door into her, hard. She fell down, and I swung the truck around the guard shack. CRASH went the vent window next to me, and then I couldn't see. I pointed the truck where I thought the road was, and hit the gas. That lasted about 3 seconds, and I felt it hit something. The engine stalled. I wiped my own blood from my eyes, and saw that I had run up against a row of saplings. I started the engine again, and put it in reverse. Then I felt the door open, and I was suddenly on my side in the grass. Mindy was climbing in my truck. No way! I jumped at the door, but she had locked it. I slid open the side window in back, and was reaching for the door lock, when the door opened. Mindy removed herself, and pointed the gun at my chest. I stopped moving.
"Drive. I, uh... can't drive a manual." I just stared at her. I felt a laugh coming on. She waved the gun at me, and instead I climbed in. She got in the other side, and we started down the service road.
I accelerated, and as we rounded a bend in the road, I saw a small bunker shaped building. I pointed the truck towards it, and at the same time, I reached over and hit the release button on her seatbelt. She saw what I did, and she dropped the gun. Now she was trying to get the belt into the hole, and I hit the side of the bunker. The truck smashed through the wall, and she hit the dashboard. The front of the truck fell about 3 feet, and the whole thing came to a grinding halt. I saw a maze of conduit and pipe over my crumpled hood. A klaxon was blaring somewhere. The girl was on the floor of the truck, and all I wanted to do was open the door and get out. Then something shifted, and I felt the truck slide foreward. I would have liked to yell, but I just looked on in stunned silence as the truck started to fall. Then there was a loud noise, a lot of light, and the smell of ozone. Then black.
I felt for the flashlight I keep in the center console. Found it. I flipped it on. The truck was more or less level, and the girl was still on the floor. I reached over, and retrieved the pistol. Then I climbed out. The James was pretty messed up in front. It looked like it had busted the radiator open. Fluid poured out over the bumper. The flashlight revealed a grove of trees, and beyond, a moonlit field.
I stumbled over some bushes, and out into the open. I'd say the field was at least a couple miles wide, but there was a building of some kind in the distance.
I walked back to the James, and forced the mangled hood open. It wasn't as bad as I thought. The fenders and hood were all bent up, but my homemade grill guard had done a good job of keeping the vitals safe. I had been leaking only windshield washer fluid. I opened the passenger door with difficulty, and checked on my passenger. It looked as if she was just knocked out, but I figured I better take her to the hospital. Or maybe the police. I started the truck, put it in four wheel drive, and bounced through the brush into the clearing. All the lights were broken in front but for a single fog light. I drove across the field slowly, not wanting to puncture a tire on an old box spring in the weeds, or something. After a couple minutes, I arrived at the building, which actually was a way station of some kind along the railroad tracks. I left the truck running, and ran to the front door. It was locked, and I couldn't see a payphone or anything. I stood on the platform by the tracks, and looked, but I couldn't see any buildings in the distance. I had no idea where I was. Figured I had been in some kind explosion, but where was the research center?
I saw a light way down the track. Good, I thought, I'll have the engineer radio for a cop or something. I headed back to the truck, and waited. The light drew closer. And closer. When the train was within half a mile or so, I jumped out. i ran to the tracks, and waved my flaslight around, hoping he'd stop. Then I saw that it was an old steam locomotive. Bogus. No radio in that. It drew to a screeching halt, steam blasting everywhere, and the engineer climbed down onto the platform I was on. I recalled that Railroad Days, which was just an excuse to show off antique trains, and have a parade, was just around the corner. I walked to meet the engineer.
"Morning," I said. "Is there a phone here? I have a girl in my truck, and she's hurt. She's hurt. I was wondering if you could call for an ambulance, or something."
The man just stared at me. "Can you call a doctor for me?" I reiterated. He nodded, and shooed me towards the door. He kept looking at the jimmy. He unlocked the door, and we entered. He pointed at a telegraph setup on a counter. "Is thet there what yer lookin fer, son?" I started laughing, and looked around. This guy didn't seem to appreciate the growing urgency of this situation. I spied a calender on the desk. It said September of 1870. I felt a little faint. The man was talking at me. "...thang you got outside? One of those new John Deere's? How'd they git a steam engine in that li'l thang?" I jumped up, and started looking at the things in the room. It couldn't be. Impossible. I saw a scedule on the wall. I looked at a wind up clock, and saw that my wrist watch was correct. It was about 3 in the morning. I looked outside. A flickering gaslight illuminated the steaming locomotive's ID numbers. 1157. I looked at the schedule, and found that if today was indeed the 6th, then train 1157 was on time. I asked the guy point blank. "What's the date?"
"Well, like yer calender sez, it's the 6th of september." he said. "What year?" I asked, breathlessly.
"1870." he said, looking at me funny.
The author comments, "More later."
Go home she's not, Rick,her long lost friend appeared in boxer shorts..Beverly unable to make something out of it, started to scream.
It was a dark and somewhat languid, just perfect for the exchange, John Loundes, formally of Florida, and currently residing in Philadelphia, thought. The tires on the automobiles passing made a shoosh-shoosh-pshssss sound as they navigated the tarmack. John was waiting by the drop point,
a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer rolled under his arm, a baloney sandwich with mustard, lettuce and cous-cous in the other. His favorite. He had to eat sometime and he knew the timing of the drop was critical. The document he would pass to his contact was rolled carefully in the cous-cous. How ingenious, he thought.
He allowed himself to daydream, briefly. It was late, too late to call his old sometimes-on sometimes-off flame, Mitzi. Quite a package, he thought, squeezing the sandwich with a deep longing. Ah Mitzi. Few men know the pleasure of a professional clown's company; fewer still, he mused, ever enjoyed
the physical nature of their relationship; the seltzer bottle spray in the face, the red rubber honking nose, the big feet. And there was Mitzi's contributions as well.
Beverly was kicked off the cheerleading squad! OH MY GOD WHAT A HORROR! Once she was the most popular girl in school and now she was kicked off the squad. Now what will she do. She was already kicked out of the fashion club for buying pink lipstick. Beverly coulndn't go. She walked everywhere with her head hung in shame. Tears fell from her face thinking of the cheers she would never shot, the pyramids she would never top. HOW COULD SHE LIVE!?
One night when no one was around poor lil Beverly put on her Ra Ra uniform and walked over and hung herself with her Pom Poms. Such a pity she had to die. Since minutes after she killed herself, someone called askng her back on the squad!
The author comments, "I wrote a dumb story"
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," Clem thought as she toked
another hit from the clove cigarette that dangled between the second two
fingers of her left hand like some long cylindrical thing between two other
cylindrical things. A tremendous wind suddenly blew open the latticed bay
windows, sending the torn lace curtains fluttering like the voice of a
schoolboy on his first trip to the whorehouse.Physically, she was an average woman. I later learned that she was a genius, a champion chess player who smoked 32 Camel Lights per day. But her mathematical acumen did nothing for her flattened features, nor did they sooth the timber of her speaking voice. She had the grace of a screeching hare-lipped chicken whose face had been repeatedly beaten by the farmer's sadistic, pesticide-poisoned child, and a series of personalities to match. A rare disorder of the sebaceous gland gave her a pungent, mildewy odor that she could not detect through the damage that her incessant smoking wreaked upon her sinuses.
The author comments, "i'll have to finish this one at a later date."
I suppose I should be thankful to be alive, but how would I explain the
capsized yacht to Reginald? And the missing crewmen who had most
probably been eaten by the sharks that were circling the yacht prior to
the storm? If Reginald said it once, he said it a hundred times, “Good
help is so hard to find these days.” Now he’d divorce me for sure — or at
least cut off my allowance, which means I’d have to divorce him — and I’d
be free again, as free as the gulls flying overhead — one of whom, in
passing, crapped on my head which still continued to ache, and I somehow
knew that on this God-forsaken beach there was probably not an
Alka-Seltzer to be had for love or money.
"Yes, simply everyone is after English Princes these days, couldn't she have been more original and picked someone who is not grossly inbred"?? scoffed Lady Zinnia.
"Hey, those Heroin Addict freakish type models are in vogue this year, maybe Roger will be accepted!" Bartholomew stammered.
Lady Zinnia contemplated the wisdom of Bartholomew's words and found them rather spellbinding. Suddenly, she had a vision she and Bartholomew would be able to increase their already disgustingly large fortunes. She and Bartholomew would have Prince Roger model for .....
The author comments, "Have more of those cheesy Romance Novels shpeels, those books and their writers are so mockable ( I like to make up words) "
I had seen broads like Gia Gondola before - Miami's full of 'em. But
when a broad constructed of nothing but legs, attitude and a wide-brimmed
hat stalks into your office unannounced and drops a baby alligator on
your desk, you sit up and take notice."Are you Mr. Dick?" she purred at me in a voice made of equal parts velvet and vodka. "No, ma'am," I growled back at her. "The name's Trowel. Sam Trowel. Like the sign on the door says, I'm a private dick."
"I need help, Mr. Trowel," she cooed, perching herself on the edge of my desk. I had a view of her right leg that went all the way to San Fran and back. "What can I do for you," I barked, testily. The shoe-in-training started lunching on my Luger, and I flipped him into the trash can for safekeeping.
"I'm in a tight place, Mr. Trowel," she trilled. "That alligator is my ticket to the big time, but someone's been trying to steal him. I need you to keep him safe."
"I'm no zookeeper," I snarled, as the incipient purse started a racket in the trash can. I kicked the can just to shut the little wallet up.
"Oh please, Mr. Trowel, she whined. "If I lose that 'gator, I'm sunk."
I looked at the future belt in the trash can. The thing looked up at me with beady eyes the color of a bad tequila hangover.
"I'll take the case," I grunted.
What few klopz knew was that Emperor Zog was really interstellar super sleuth Glotschki Gzo on a secret mission to find hidden colonies of joerltl. The original joertls had been flown in by Interspace Airlines meny xillions ago to mine the few remaining mikles in the universe. This rare material was needed for a variety of uses by the joerltls for both quasi-military aswell as home useage. Zog assumed his alias willingly since he had little use for the joerltls but a job is a job- eh? Time was running out - only a few millenia left to accomplish his task!!
Suddenly - from out of the stellar mists came a noise - then a flash and then a whole herd of nibnuks covered the planetscape. Zog tried to flee - but the herd was too quick for him. Zog was absorbed by the head nibnuk who assumed his identity... Who knows what horrors are to follow?
The football game would soon be over, and she would have to face her parents, sisters, neighbors! It wasn't fair that Coach Vicki kicked her off the squad after she'd punched the cheerleading captain, Staci, in the mouth, clawed her eyeballs and had her sent to the emergency room. Beverli's boyfriend, Dave, had the nerve to ask Staci to the Labor Day Dance. That morning, Beverli had snuck into Dave's locker and put laxatives in Dave's lunch. She got some satisfaction when she learned he couldn't play in the football game due to violent diarrhea.
But, oh, the humiliation of losing a spot on the squad!! Beverli could feel herself getting less and less physically desirable. As if her luck couldn't get any worse, Horton Yeltsin, the most popular boy at Lake Plaza Shopping Center High School, approached her as she tried to conceal her red, puffy, de-mascaraed eyes.
"Hey, Bev," said Dave in his dreamy voice. "Have you seen my lunch money? I think I dropped it here."
The author comments, "Beverli Bimpkins may have lost her spot on the cheerleading squad, but with determination, good looks, and a semiautomatic, she'll soon get her position back!! "
The Twins frolicked for the duration of their Sock Hop, all the while
brimming with eagerness to race back to the Official Parkey Twin Mystery
Solving Nerve Center to eavesdrop on the activities of the sinister
stranger.
Meanwhile, though, Pansy got to show Patsy a few dance moves she learned when her mother lived in New York for a short duration and was an understudy for "A Chorus Line." Pretty soon, Patsy was Shagging with the best of them, and even doing a little Breakdancing.
Patsy, for her part, enjoyed showing Pansy a few of her own moves when Pansy found herself cornered by resident oaf, bully, and hormonal wild-child, Egbert -- known as "the Cruncher" to his victims and those that lived in fear of him. Cruncher threatened to stick his hand up Pansy's summer angora sweater, but was quickly felled by Patsy's swift blows to his kidney, groin, and neck.
"Wow, Patsy!" cried Pansy joyously, "You're the best twin a sister could have! Teach me how to do that, oh, please?"
"Aww, Pansy, it's nothing. I only wish I could moonwalk as well as you," she replied, somewhat miffed when she realized she had caught a small thread from Sir Frou-Frou on her nail. "Remind me to show you how to kill a masher with a pencil sometime."
The rest of the party carried on without incident.
The twins finally got back to their crime-fighting headquarters and flicked on their Official Parkey Twins Crimefighting and Espionage Radio Snooper. They were mildly disappointed to hear silence, broken only occasionally by the shuffling of some papers.
"He must be alone," said Pansy, disappointed. "In an office, or something." Her corn-curls drooped ever so slightly.
"Patience, Pans! We can still pick up clues; we just hafta be extra-smart." replied Pats.
They listened in silence for about a half hour. Patsy sharpened her dirk knife she cleverly kept concealed under her lace socks. Pansy looked through the Children's Encyclopaedia Brittanicish, reading intently. They were about to give up (seeing as how they were already 15 minutes past their bedtimes), when they heard a phone ring in the sinister stranger's office.
"Hello," said the stranger. A pause, and then, "Yes, they arrived this afternoon...No, no reported problems...Yes, the anaconda is safe...What?...Oh, no, I don't think the typhoons will give us any problem this year...Another shipment? Look, Rufus, I'm trying to unload all of these Official stinkin P--...But it's....Look, alls I'm trying to say is that I can't do it all at once like that. We're still working with the distributors and paying off the quality control people and it's been [expletive deleted] trying to get past the royalties people...OK, I understand...Right...bye."
Patsy's eyes widened in excitement, threatening to pop right out of her face, and only partially from the deleted expletive her shell-pink ears couldn't possibly have heard in a young adult's story. "Oh, I wish we could have heard the other side to the conversation," she wheedled.
Pansy looked up and was about to comment, when they heard a yawn coming through the radio, a loud bang that generated a flash of feedback, an odd sound rather like and Official Parkey Twins Bug being aspirated by a sinister stranger's throat, and then spasmodic choking noises and wheezing, taxed breath. At last a sloppy "GULP" sound emerged, and something that may have sounded like a "plop" if it hadn't been abruptly cut off; empty static crackled through the speaker.
Patsy's mouth opened in a cute little horrified "O." "Pansy, I think he ate our bug!"
"That's nothing," Pansy said and held up the Q volume she'd been perusing. "I was looking for that tattoo design in the encyclopedia where I KNOW I'd seen it before, and look what I found...!"
"We needs yous ta do a job for us, Dixie." She said as she sat down on the corner of my desk, crossed those legs that seemed to go on forever, and whipped out a cigarette. She let it and handed it to the alligator.
"Thanks." The alligator said standing up on it's hind legs.
Something wasn't right here. I could feel it in my bones. A dame and a talking alligator, sure, I've seen lots of them, but I ain't never seen an alligator that smokes before. I opened the top left drawer of my desk and pulled out a bottle of rum.
"Want some?" I asked Gia. She grabbed the bottle from my hands and held it up to the alligator's lips. Didn't look like I'd be gettin'' drunk before this case...
As Jasphont entered a clearing, he saw the smoke coming from a chimney of a little house that was bulit beside the trail. He knew that this was the home of the old man that he was looking for. It was just as King Herphin described it to him. Jasphont also remembered what the King told him before he left. Do not let your guard down, the old man is more dangerous than you think. Get the job done quickly. Do not trust appearances.
Jasphont stopped his horse in front of the house. He yelled out, "Is anyone home". No one answered. It had become very quiet now. He could smell the wood burning, that was coming out of the chimney. He felt a uneasy feeling in his stomach. The smoke from the chimney started to have a sweet smell to it. He started to feel faint. He clutched at his reigns, but suddenly he lost his balance and fell off of his horse. He had trouble breathing now. It seemed like the smoke from the house was dancing all around him. He felt the smoke inside of him and it was heavy as a brick. He could not breathe. He started to drift off into oblivion. As he lay on the ground, next to his head a pair of sandles with two very old feet appeared. As the appartion started to take more form, a very old man appeared out of the smoke and looked down at Jasphont........
"Damm it", thought Zog, where in the hell was Stumpy, when he needed him. The one legged sorcerer for the court was never around when he needed him. (Little did Zog realize that Stumpy at this particular moment in time was trapped in another bad story, somewhere on this page)
If Stumpy doesn't show up soon, I'll cut his other leg off, thought Emperor Zog. For now, I'll deal with these Chingadera bitches from hell. Who do they think they are, marching on my city.
Zog looked at his cleric, Danielle and thought, "Once I dispatch of these annoying Chingadera's, I think I'll take Danielle up to the tower and show her my family jewels. If her mouth taste as good as it looks, I might even let her ride the sacred steel rod of Valthanus.
A large rumble just went up form outside the Kings audience room. Danielle yelled, "Sire, the chingaderas are here, what are we going to do". Zog looked up from the floor he had been staring at and yelled to his Captain of the Guards, "Summon the Red Guard, it's time to burn some Chingadera rump. And bring Danielle up to my tower".
Suddenly everything started to go into slow motion for Zog. He looked out into his throne room and everything started to look like a sandy grained picture. Everthing was coming to a stand still. There was smoke coming from everywhere. He smelt a disgusting smell, like rotten egg and fishhead sandwiches. Zog started to close his eyes.
When he opened them he was in a small room looking at the ceiling. The smell was still there and stronger than before. Suddenly he heard a badda rumpf, badda rumpt, badddda rumptta. He turned and saw an extremely fat obese woman laying by his side passing gas. The smell was enough to make you toenails curl. Zog yelled, "What sorcery is this"!
The fat women turned to Zog and yelled, "Jack, get up you drunken bastard, your late for your garbage truck run." "OH, shit", yelled the fat woman at Zog, "You masterbated all over me again, you disgusting creep."
"Jack, Who's Jack", thought Zog. Something is not right here............
I looked this alligator square in the eyes. I knew how to handle swamp rats like him - I used to wrestle them for a living, but that's not important. Anyway the alligator was about to snap at me, I think the dame was too. But the room suddenly became dark - a shot rang out - a dull thud. The lights came back on as I wiped " Legs'" blood offa my face. Then I looked for the alligator... gone. Not a trace of it, no way to find it. Ahh well, no sweat offa my balls, looked like trouble anyway....
I decided to take the rest of the day off and go back to my place. I opened the door to my place to find a mess of scattered papers, tipped over furniture, a broken t.v., and two naked bodies sprawled out on the floor. Damn, wrong room again. All thes damn doors look the same to me, no numbers - very confusing. Hmm, I hope this is my door. Yup my room all right, only one I ever seen like this. No major furniture, no t.v., no scattered papers. Nothing at all, really. Except for a lawn chair surrounded by empty cartons of P.I. Reds cigarettes and a tall reading lamp standing beside it. Don't like a lot of clutter in my place. Can't afford it actually, but I could really care less.
A knock at the door - I get my gun and peer through that little glass circle to find no one there. As soon as I sit down the knocking is back... still no one. I decide it's pranksters and sit next to the door to wrench the door open and shove a gun down their throat (heh heh). A knock - I swing the door open - the alligator makes a surprising reappearance.
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