Never Trust a Dame

(NOTE: The following is a parody. The author is not a sexist, racist, or homophobe. Honest.)


The broad that walked in my door was positively mouth-watering. She had legs up to the ceiling, blond hair to her shoulders, and was wearing a red dress that left nothing to the imagination. And bursting out of her chest was a pair that put my jaw on the floor. If I were a lesser man, I would have dropped to my knee and proposed right then and there, you can bet your life. But I'm Nick Sharp, Private Eye--best in all of Boiler Town, and since P.I. is almost the only job available in Boiler Town, that's no small statement.


I finished rolling my cigarette, lit it, and poured myself my ninth shot of Bourbon since Breakfast (It was a bit of a slow drinking day).

“Are you Nick Sharp?” she asked.

I grunted. “Who wants to know?” I asked. I took a deep drag on my cigarette, blew out a cloud that obscured her from my view, then deposited the leftover bits of tobacco and paper in the ashtray and began rolling another one. Can't smoke too many of the things, you ask me.

The woman smiled. “I got a case for you, big boy, and it's a nasty one too. It'll take a real man to solve it. Just like you, Mister Sharp. I've asked around, and I hear you're the best in town. I imagine that must take quite the,” she rested her hip on my desk, leaned over, and took my unfinished cigarette. She slid her tongue along the sticky side of the paper, rolled it over, and stuck it in my mouth. “Keen eye for detail, if you know what I mean.”

I hardened my face and glared at her. She was clearly manipulating me using her feminine wiles. Just trying to get me under her thumb so I'd marry her and giving her the babies she so craved. But obvious she still wanted what all women want—a strong man to protect her while she does dishes and other such housework, so I relaxed, and downed my bourbon. “Listen here,” I said. “I don't come cheap, you know. I've got a one dollar a day retainer plus expenses. Sometimes my fee can get all the way up to four dollars by the end of a case, and I imagine you'd have a lot of trouble borrowing that kind of money from your husband, doll face. Detective like him can't pull down more than eighteen cases a week, I'm sure. So why don't you get out of here and quit wasting my time already?”

She tut-tutted me. “I'm not married, tiger.”

That did it. I shot out of my chair and backhanded her across the face. Then I followed it up with a punch in the eye, and a crack across the jaw that set her right. Then she rubbed her jaw, and gave me those baby-doll eyes, and it looked like I would have to take pity on her. I suppose something about her low-cut dress and large breasts was luring me in anyway. Couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. Maybe some kind of hypnosis, or she-devil voodoo.

“Okay sister,” I said, pouring myself a tenth bourbon. “Tell you what, I'm gonna hear you out this one time. But you gotta make it quick, before I change my mind. Out with it."

She got off my desk and took a seat in the chair across from me. “Alright,” she said. “The other night I was working at a private party at the Boiler Hotel, not having such a good day. I had barely sold any cigarettes, and my butt was turning black on one cheek from all the pinching. Still I tried staying positive, you know. Can't let things like that get your goat and all. But just when I finished gathering up my nerve, a Chinaman walked in with what looked like a homosexual and they started shooting up the place!”

“No!” I shouted. "That can't be!"

“Yes!" She said. "There must have been fifteen of us dead, including my poor husband! Then, once the Chinaman's done shooting, the fairy starts going all around to all the men left alive and starts rubbing himself on them, with his dress all riding up and everything. Then he walks over to me and starts doing it, but then he sees that I'm a lady, and he shrieks his head off and runs out with the Chinaman behind him!”

I crossed my legs and shook my head. I could hardly believe it. A chinaman and a fairy. No doubt theirs was the evilest of all the pairings there were. Surely there must have been a negro or two conspiring with them just to bring it home. By God the whole affair made me sick.

I downed my tenth bourbon. Driving to the scene of the crime was going to be tricky.

“Mister Sharp,” she said. “You just have to help me! I could have gone anywhere. I passed three Private Eyes on the way up the stairs, even, and they all looked ready to go. But I hear you always get your man, and that's the kind of talent I need right now. Can you please find it in your heart to help me?”

I puzzled it over. How many cases had I solved this year? Nine hundred? Nine hundred-and-ten? Even I, the best in the business, couldn't be too sure.

My bottle of bourbon was dry, so I opened up my desk drawer and dug through the pile of .38 snub noses to check on my liquor supply. To my dismay, I found that I only had three bottles of whiskey, three bottles of gin, and five flasks of rye left over. Hardly enough to finish a case, to be sure. But with that fat one dollar a day I could pay for fifteen bottles of rye, a ride on the ferry, two more .38 snub noses, a down payment on a car, a month's rent, a movie, a bag of popcorn, and maybe a nice new fedora.

I nodded. “All right, sister," I said. "So you want me to find these two degenerate swine, right?”

She nodded. “That's right, that's right. The both of them, and soon. They have to pay for what they did to my poor husband. They just...have to...”

Her lower lip began trembling, and it looked like the waterworks were about to begin. I sighed and rolled my eyes, then got to my feet and put on one of my trench coats, gray, evening category. I grabbed my hat and stuck a .38 in my pocket, and turned around to check on her. Sure enough, big, round tears were spilling down her cheeks.

“Alright, alright,” I said. “Relax. Mister Nicky will take care of the big, bad meany-heads." I actually meant it this time, even. Maybe after the whole thing had settled down I could marry her so she could wait on me hand and foot for the rest of my days. Or at least until the next gorgeous broad walked in my door. Although that wouldn't take long. Five minutes, maybe. That's how it usually goes.

I turned my back to her and I was halfway to the door when I felt hot lead tear through my guts. I stumbled and pitched forward, turned around at the last second and saw her there, holding a gun, grinning like the Cheshire cat. Then she tucked the .38 into her purse, and walked over to my side. She looked pleased with herself. I tried standing up to clock her another one, but I slipped on the blood and crashed down again.

“You idiot,” she said. “There was no Chinaman, or fairy! I knew you were too dumb to see it coming. Now with
you out of the way, my husband, Jack Brick will be the best Private Eye in this city, no competition at all! I figured you were an ignoramus from the start, but geez, I had no idea you could be that gullible.”

Brick? He was the worst Detective in town! Surely there was no way any client of mine would ever go over to his side. How could I be so stupid? Chinamen, fairies, negroes, all crafty and maniacal beasts, but none so dastardly as the so-called fairer sex! If I could only go back and slap myself for not seeing it sooner.

“Well,” she said. “That's it for me. So long Detective, it was nice knowing you. Maybe I'll see you again--on the obituary page, that is!" Then she laughed, and clacked out on her black high heels, never to be seen again.

Just goes to show you, I thought. Never trust a dame. Not even in a million years.


End

Trapped

(In the vein of John Gardener's Grendel, and Peter Watts's The Things, I decided also to write a story from the perspective of a classic antagonist. Enjoy.)

The sinister minds that surround me are cackling now, menacing each other with insults. Restless, they are swirling and swarming, snapping at each other, laughing. They are shouting and screaming, boasting about their misdeeds.

I'd do it again if I had the chance, one says.

Yeah, well, let’s see you get out of here first, another retorts. Then I’ll be impressed.

Sometimes these minds swap stories about the men who locked us in here. The ones who vacuumed us away, and imprisoned us in this scientific hell. Those prison guards in tan jumpsuits. The ones whose nametags read STANTZ, and VENKMAN. SPENGLER, and ZEDDEMORE.

I remember my life. I remember the meals my parents made me eat. How big they were. On an average night, we could each go through a whole steak, followed by two chicken wings and a lobster, then eat two slices of cheesecake and a piece of pie before it was time for bed. And of course, if I didn’t finish it all, My Mother, The Tyrant, would beat me and make me stand in the corner. This was every night until I moved out at 19--and at 350 pounds.

Twenty-five years later, as I climbed the stairs to my hotel room on the twelfth floor, my arm went numb and I crashed to the ground.

After that I was sent back, and it quickly became obvious that I had been sent back to suffer. My body had been transformed into a grotesque mass of ectoplasm. I’d been fairly handsome in life, despite my weight, but now I was a greasy, legless, bloated monster. I had chins and folds all over my body, and I sweated a viscous, green substance that dripped off me like slime. I smelled atrocious, and when I looked down at myself I could practically see the stench boiling off of me, rising like heat from desert sands. My teeth were huge and yellow, and I couldn’t speak--not that I had anything to say, or anyone to say it to.

What’s worse, I was almost completely intangible. I could move some things if I concentrated, but food passed right through me like I wasn’t there. If I tried eating an apple, it would fall through my mouth and onto the floor. If I drank a bottle of wine, it would pour onto the carpet as if nothing were in its way. And of course, despite feeling more desperate to eat than I ever felt in life, I couldn’t taste a single thing.

I had to eat, but I couldn’t. It made perfect sense, I suppose. Being shackled again to this human realm, twisted to resemble my sins, and forced to live out the actions that led to my death, all the while receiving no pleasure from it. In a way it was poetic. And anyway, it’s not like I didn’t know why I was there.

The first attempt by the men to contain me had been startling. It was while I was at a food cart that had been abandoned by room service when they saw me coming. I was grabbing and pawing at the food, attempting to taste something, throwing aside plates, desperately trying to satisfy a need that couldn’t be satisfied. Then the one whose nametag read STANTZ crept up beside me. I was too focused on the food to acknowledge him, but I never suspected that he could hurt me, now that I was almost as unsubstantial as air. Then I heard a snap, followed by a slow, building whine, and a terrible burst of light lashed out at me. Terrified, I turned tail and fled.

It was the first pain I felt since the one in my chest, those years before.

The actual capture was even worse.

I might understand why they did it, though. I had assaulted one of them. After the one named STANTZ attacked me, I escaped through a wall and wound up looking at another man in the same clothes, carrying the same equipment. I froze. As I watched, he raised a walkie-talkie to his lips, and began to speak. That was when I knew for sure that they were actively seeking me out.

I was never a violent person, but now I knew that these men, with their guns that fired burning orange light, had the power to hurt me. So I defended myself. I roared and flew at VENKMAN, and left him incapacitated, covered in slime. I knew it wouldn’t kill him, but maybe it would scare them away, make them give up.

But less than an hour later, I was lashed across the back by whips made of pure energy, and a metal solitary confinement cell opened beneath me. I was stretched, morphed, shrunk as I was dragged down, into blackness.

And now here I am, sharing that blackness with these criminals and monsters.

They arrive angry, but I only remember being sad.

In here, in the unit, there is nothing to see. Only blackness. The only sensory input is the thoughts of the other prisoners. They are the rapists, murderers, they are thieves and arsonists and felons, gunned down by police to wind up in prison--again. Mostly I keep quiet and avoid their attention. Let them bicker and shout at each other, not at me. It’s just better that way.

Ghosts do exist. And yes, they are frightening. Even to each other.

Lately there have been whispers of a soul that is stronger than all of us. And among these minds, there have been whispers of a plan. My cellmates are suggesting that this soul may be powerful enough to defeat even our captors, and that once the human world is overthrown, beings like us will rule, and bring about a new age in the history of the earth. This has put difficult questions in my head.

If our evil captors are defeated by a soul more powerful than my cellmates, is that a good thing?

If our evil captors put us in here, are they actually evil?

The thought panics me, because I may already know the answer.

Because heart disease is hereditary.

It was after college graduation that I found her on the floor. My Mother, The Tyrant. 500 pounds if she was an ounce. As I walked in, she looked up at me, eyes full of pain, and said, help me, Morris. You have to call an ambulance. I'm having a heart attack!

I did call an ambulance, in the end. But first I pulled up a chair, cracked open a soda, watched until she stopped breathing. The pain in her eyes turned to confusion, then to panic, then to anger, and then she died, cursing me, denouncing me as a mistake. I can’t really argue with her.

It’s not like she didn’t deserve it, though. And I don’t consider myself a bad person. But I guess whatever powers that be thought differently.

So as I’m stuck here, in this metal prison, with all of these monsters, horrible spirits birthed from the husks of horrible men, I can’t help but wonder, out of school, work, family, my entire life, did I fit in anywhere else as well as I do here?

And why is everything vibrating?

Our confines are shaking. There is a terrible noise--a long, explosive shriek. Among us, there is confusion, swearing, and panic. Then light enters the unit above us, and we are blasted out of the machine, into the sky. Among us, there is a swelling of elation, and a last-second consensus: The stronger one is coming.

And all I want is to go back inside.

End

Cracked.com, The Guy

It was eleven AM, and my day was turning out to be just awful. First my boss yelled at me for coming in late when I was ten minute early, then I found out Wendy in HR is telling people that I have syphilis. And what's worse, the new guy at the desk one over looks looks exactly like the composite sketches of  that serial rapist that are all over the news. So you can bet that when my break came, I was ready to do anything to take my mind off of everything.

That's when I felt something splash against the back of my neck.

I whirled around in my seat, and standing behind me was a man in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, with a wife beater underneath that had BONER written across it in sharpie. He was wearing an upside-down green visor that was turned sideways, and pumping a super soaker.

“Dude, got you,” he said. “That's freaking awesome. And you didn't even see it coming!”

Irritated, I rubbed the back of my neck. “Is this urine?”

He laughed. “Hey man,” he said. “You look really bored . How about a funny list or two? Nobody's watching.”

I shrugged. “Meh.”

“Oh come on,” he said. “It won't take too long. Just real quick, while nobody's looking?”

I thought about it for a second, weighing the pros and cons. It had been a while, so I gave it a shot. “Alright, yeah,” I said. “Whatever. But make it fast.”

Cracked.com took a deep breath, and stood up straight. “Okay,” he said. “Check this out. The other day I heard about these six guys who cheated death right in its douchebag face, and kicked its freaking ass. Want to hear about that? It's pretty funny.”

I thought about it, then shook my head. “Eh, no. I don't think so. What else you got?”

He scratched his chin for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “Alright,” he said. “I got it. Five birds with insane mating calls that will blow your freaking mind. Interested?”

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess I'll do that one. Wait, are you just a list site now?”

Cracked.com cleared his throat, stood up straight, and held up a picture of a bird.

“This one is the New Zealand Wysteria Jay. Its mating call sounds like the guitar solo from 'Sunshine of Your Love,' by Eric Clapton.”

“So?”

“So? Think about it. Isn't that freaking crazy?”

I shrugged apathetically. “I don't know, kinda, I suppose. What else you got?”

He dropped the picture on the ground and held up another one. “Okay, this is a brown Connecticut Swallow. The sonic vibrations from its mating call can help treat long-term depression in termites, and some breeds of possum.”

“Okay, and?”

"Think about it. Isn't that freaking crazy?”

That's when I noticed the little black text beneath the picture. I looked at the stack of other pictures underneath his arm. Each one had the same captions. “Wait, what's that?” I pointed.

“Oh, that's one of the captions I put on my pictures. Little black text, beneath each picture.”

“You use the same style of captions over and over for every picture?” I asked.

“Eventually you might think it's funny again.”

I groaned and pinched between my eyes. This was not going well. I was considering just doodling penises in MSPAINT, and making that my whole break. But I was bored enough to continue. “Okay," I said. "So what does the next bird do?”

“Alright, listen to this: it hypnotizes you into buying it bird seed.”

I crossed my arms. “Alright.”

His grin widened. “Think about it, isn't that freaking crazy?”

I held up my hand. “Alright, hold it right there. Before the next one, tell me. Is this all of your lists? Just a bunch of facts, then explanations of what my reaction should be with the word 'freaking' a lot?"

“Yep.”

“Well, are these written by a computer or something?”

He shook his head. “No, people actually write them. But listen, I've got a list of six video game fan theories that will change your opinion of Nazi Germany. It's insane.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Jesus Christ!” I shouted. “This is all the same shit over and over again! Alright, I'm done with this. Never again. Go away please.”

“Want to see a video? It's six minutes long.”

I fumed. “Get the hell out of here, and don't come back! I'll just stick to my other websites from now on. Go on, get lost!”

But as Cracked.com walked away, I heard an audible chuckle. “What?” he said. “All three of them? You'll be back.”

End