Lick Your Neighbor (13 page)

In front of the car, the ninja with the daggers was finishing up a remarkable spin sequence.

A few yards away, in a chestnut tree in front of the Ferdue building, a purple finch fluttered its wings and took flight. Without a single wasted move, the ninja swung out its arm and stuck a dagger right through the bird, turning the poor creature into a shish kabob.

The ninja took a big bite out the bird’s breast, gnashing the flesh and feathers in his pointy beak.

“I take that back,” Dale said, “They’re definitely going to kill us. Get us out here.” He grabbed Randy and shook him violently. “Drive! Drive, you fool!”

Randy looked out the window. The man with the daggers was now pointing the dead bird at them. Randy looked deep into the ninja’s beady black eyes and saw the one thing he feared most in people: nothing. He saw the empty abyss of indifference. There was only one way to deal with people like that. Swiftly, and violently.

The beak men began to slowly advance on the wagon.

“Tell Andie to sit tight,” Randy said, “The cavalry’s comin’.”

Dale put the phone to his ear again. “Andie, hello?”

“What the hell are you doing? I tell you there’s a dead body in our yard and you put me on hold?”

“Listen. Don’t do anything yet. Just stay in the house and lock the doors. We’re coming.”

Dale hung up just as Randy said, “Let’s see how you cold-hearted murdering bastards deal with an American classic.”

He hit the gas and the Oldsmobile shot forward. The four men sprang into the air, twisting and twirling their bodies out of the way. As the car passed by them, each airborne ninja made multiple blows in on the wagon, creating huge gashes on the doors and trunk. A sword sliced through the Oldsmobile, nearly impaling Dale. As he flipped away from the car, the beakman let go of the sword, leaving it lodged through the roof, just slightly touching Dale’s trembling cheek.

Randy ignored it all and kept driving, his eyes locked on the exit and his foot to the floor. The car clipped a few curbs, and nearly tipped twice, but they made it to the gate. The wagon hit the lowered gate arm at full speed, and burst through easily.

Speeding away from the lot, still pushing the wagon to its limit, Randy looked in the rearview mirror and saw the four beak men standing just behind the destroyed gate, their little black eyes blinking away.

Randy glanced to his right. “Are you OK?”

Dale leaned forward past the sword blade to see Randy. “Not really. You?”

“Not one bit.”

A man asks God, Why?

Why all this poppycock?

God replies, hee haw!

13
Hello, Fishy

Excerpt from the diary of John Alden

D
ECEMBER 9, 1620

Something quite astounding happened today. It began with an encounter with the Savages…

As we sailed up the shore in our small shallop boat, we saw ten or twelve of the Savages, very busy about a black object on the beach. It was my first good look at these Savages, and my impression of them is that they are all very tall, well-proportioned, have orange skin, and are most likely very much addicted to wild promiscuous sex. At least I would be if myself and everyone I knew had such stunning bodies as they do. Compared to them, everyone on the Shiteflower looks like a race of diseased mole people.

When the Savages saw us coming they all started jumping up and down and pointing at us. Then they started running back and forth into the Wilderness, as if they were carrying something to and fro. We decided to be safe and land some distance away from them, for if the Savages ever wanted to overtake us I see no reason why they couldn’t. They are the Devil’s wolves, and we are God’s sheep. Sheep with muskets, praise be to God, but with the Wilderness nearby there was no telling how many more of them were in the area. Sometimes it seems as if the Forest itself is filled with eyes, all of them watching us closely.

Once we were sure that the Savages had left the beach, we made our approach. There we found that the black thing we saw them with was a large fishlike Creature. Captain Standish said it was called a Grampus, a small black whale. The Savages had been cutting it up and taking the flesh.

As the rest of our group moved on down the beach, I stayed back and hunched down to get a better look at the Grampus. Only its head and tail were intact. Between them lay a mess of bones and chopped, rotting flesh. Surely this creature was dead. But just as I was about to get up, the Grampus opened its eyes, struggled to lift its head up toward me, coughed, and said, “John? Is that you, old friend?”

I looked around. No one else was near enough to have heard the Grampus speak, so I couldn’t confirm if I was hearing things or not. So I looked down at the Grampus and said, “Pardon?”

“John, it’s me. It’s William,” said the Whale. “William Button.”

After a good chuckle, I informed the Whale that he was grossly mistaken. “William Button was a man,” I said. “You, sir, are a fish. Furthermore, William Button jumped Ship last month. I saw him go under with my own eyes. He’s dead.”

“But I don’t feel dead,” said the Whale. “I feel pretty good actually. Top notch!”

The Grampus looked up at me with these precious little black eyes, bright like a child’s. Then he somehow wiggled his tail, which wasn’t even attached to the rest of his body.

“Watch me swim, John!”

“Listen here, Whale. You are dead. D-e-a-d. Dead. Is that clear? What would God think if he saw you carrying on like this when by all rights your body should be still and cold? And dead or alive you shouldn’t be talking. You’re a Whale, you fool. Are you perchance possessed by a demon? Because if you are I will have no choice but to say good day to you, Sir.”

The Grampus looked hurt and confused by this. He blinked away tears and said, “But I’m not dead, John. I made it ashore. I told you dewberries I would. It was much further than I first thought, and at one point I thought I would surely drown. But then something wonderful happened. Just before I sank, a bird landed in the water in front of me. This bird was unlike any I have ever seen. It was about the size of a seagull, only it had long blue and silver feathers instead of white ones. It also had the head of Mr. Ely.”

“Pardon?”

“The bird’s head, John. It looked like a tiny Mr. Ely head, only with a yellow beak instead of a nose.”

I kindly informed the Whale that Mr. Ely was a dear friend of mine, and that he’d better watch what he says about him unless he’d like a swift slap across his blubbery cheek.

“I tell you it was him!,” shouted the Whale. “I know that you didn’t see the Mr. Ely Bird with your own eyes as I did, but you must have faith, John. All is lost without faith! The Bird asked me if I wanted to live, to live like I’ve never lived before, and I said yes of course I do. Instantly I felt like I could swim faster and deeper than I ever dreamed. So I went under the sea, John. And let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve been a fish. There’s no land down there, no property, just endless open waters. And there are no laws, just the Fishy Five Formula for Fortitude. Eat, swim, fight, procreate, and sing!”

The Grampus rocked his head back and forth and sang.

With a jingle, bang jingle, bang jingle, bang jingle

With a jingle, bang jingle, bang jingle, hi ho!

“I’m leaving,” I said.

The Grampus suddenly became angry. With one blink his eyes went from bright and innocent to dark and deranged.

“John, do you know what happens to those who deny the Wonder of Disorder?”

I was quite terrified by the Evil look in the Whale’s eyes, so I replied.

“No I don’t. What happens to them?”

“They are reincarnated as lightly soiled undergarments and distributed to poor people in Wales!”

Just then a boot came smashing down on the Whale’s head, squishing it to bits and silencing forever the Grampus who thought he was William Button. I looked up, and there was Mr. Ely, with a most grave look on his face.

“The sun can do spongy things to a man’s mind,” he said as he shook whale guts off his boot. Then Mr. Ely slowly turned and walked off back toward the rest of the group.

I don’t know what to make of this. Was the sun playing tricks on my mind? I hope I’m not becoming beetle-headed from the stress of living on this Ship. Later I asked Mr. Ely if he too saw the Grampus speaking. With a grin he said he only saw me speaking to it. Perhaps I need more rest.

—John Alden

14
The Perseverance of the Twinkie

A
FIREMAN STEPPED CAREFULLY THROUGH THE
wet, flame-scarred rubble that was the Duxbury Times building. A bit of yellow color peeking out underneath a pile of black rubble caught his attention. He reached down, picked it up, and saw that it was an unwrapped Twinkie. In mint condition.

“Holy Mary Mother of God. Jimmy! Get over here and take a look at this! It’s a miracle!”

Jimmy stopped winding the hose and sulkily wandered over. “What is it, Tony? What’s your goddamn problem?”

“Hey, cool it. I just wanted to show you this Twinkie. It must have been over a thousand goddamn degrees in here. Everything’s completely toasted. Except for this fucking thing. It doesn’t even have a smudge on it. How’s that possible?”

“Let me see that.”

Jimmy appraised the Twinkie with an eye that had seen countless snack cakes over the years. He squeezed the spongy cake, and it bounced right back. He smelled it, taking its sugary sweet chemical aroma deep into his nostrils. It certainly seemed to be in perfect condition, but there was only one way to know for sure.

Jimmy broke the cake in two and gave half to Tony. They toasted each other and stuffed the cake into their mouths. As they chewed, Jimmy’s gaze went distant, focused on something far beyond the here and now.

“You know what I think?” Jimmy asked, as a glob of white cream popped out of the corner of his mouth.

“What’s that?”

“I was thinkin’ maybe we should cover ourselves in Twinkies before we go into a fire.”

“You mean like glue them all over our bodies?” Tony asked. “From head to toe?”

“Yeah.”

Tony popped the last bit of Twinkie into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

“You know what,” he said, “that’s a damn good idea.”

Jimmy wiped the gob of cream from the corner of his mouth and stared at it. “I’m also thinkin’ that maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t be eating something that can survive a raging inferno.”

Tony stopped chewing.

“Yeah maybe you’re right.”

“Yeah.”

Jimmy and Tony stared at each other. Tony with a wad of cake mush in his mouth and Jimmy with a glob of white cream on his outstretched finger. In the silence that ensued one could almost hear the faint sounds of two stomachs whimpering as the first few chunks of Twinkie reached the end of their respective esophagi.

Jimmy licked the cream off his finger. “Na fuck that, these things are delicious.”

Officer Ainsworth passed by the high-fiving Jimmy and Tony, toward Truax and Gilly who were standing a few feet away. They were crouched down around something that looked like a huge burnt loaf of bread. Truax was poking the object with his baton. Ainsworth stepped over a pile of rubble and made his way over to join them.

“Whatcha got there, boys?”

“More like who we got here,” Gilly said.

“That’s a body?”

Truax used his baton to turn Margaret’s charred head toward Ainsworth.

“Must be the editor,” Ainsworth said. “Margaret. This was her office.”

“How do you think she died?” Truax asked.

“I’m going to go with death by fire,” Ainsworth said. “Judging from the fact that she looks like my wife’s meatloaf.”

“Hey I like your wife’s meatloaf.”

“That so, Truax? Want me to get you a fork and bib so you can go to town on this charred loaf here? I’m sure there are plenty of crunchy bits in there, just like my wife’s.”

Truax swallowed. “No thanks.”

“So what do you think, Ainsworth?” Gilly asked. “Foul play?”

Ainsworth rubbed a finger in some ash and sniffed it. “The fire chief says he thinks the place was doused with gas. If that’s true, then you can bet it was someone she knew. It always is in cases like this. Perhaps even someone who works for the paper. Gilly, see if you can get a staff list for the Times, including any freelance writers. Let’s see if any names ring a bell.”

PART II:
TURKEY IN THE HEY!

1
A Chill in My Loins

Excerpt from the diary of John Alden
Rendered into modern English by
Dr. Theodore “Mayflower” Jenkins

January 30, 1621

It has been many weeks since I have had time to write, and for good reason. We have been terribly busy building a Village so that we could leave the damp, filthy Shiteflower once and for all. During this time a villainous Darkness has fallen upon me, and I fear that I have become cursed. The bitter Winter has set in, freezing our wet clothes so solid that they feel more like armor than cloth. And after many days in tight quarters, with meager provisions, sickness is everywhere. Not even Governor Bradford has been spared. Only six of our member are strong enough to leave their beds and care for the sick. And here is the curse part…I am one of the healthy ones!

Oh I’d give my right arse cheek to fart around in bed all day and have some other dewberry fulfill my every wish and desire. All day long it’s nothing but…

“John, my throat is terrible sore. Bring me a cup of beer.”

“John, get me ready for bed. Remember, I prefer to slumber in the same manner as the good Lord brought me into this world. Nude, with my arse in the air.”

“John, do you need something to do? Well, I saw you sitting there with your head in your hands and I thought you might need something to pass the time. I thought, well, what better way to pass the time than helping a chap change his soiled undergarments.”

“John, we’re bored. Terribly so. Sing us song and give us a jig.”

At least I have Mr. Ely to keep my spirits up. He too remains healthy, and often he will tend to the sick, even when it is my name those dewberries call out. Just this morning, William White cried out, “John, come quick! The Devil is sitting on my chest! He’s taken the form of a snickering rat! And he has a tiny mustache, John!” I got up to see what the feverish fool was going on about, but Mr. Ely put his hand on my shoulder and said that he would handle it. Friends! That’s what we are.

So thanks to Ely I was able to get some much needed rest. I fell asleep, and when I awoke Mr. Ely was standing over me, staring at my face, like an angel. How friendly! I asked him how William White was doing, and Mr. Ely said that he was doing much better.

“How so?” I asked.

“He died.”

Oh well! White was a bit of a pribbling rump blossom anyway.

That brings the number of deaths this month to eight, with many more close to joining them. If this keeps up, by winter’s end I will have nothing but Mr. Ely and a pile of corpses to keep me company. With the way these people plod around, with their pinched mouths and mean eyes, whether they are healthy or ill, I’m not sure if that would be a bad thing after all.

We have settled on high ground by the bay, where there is a great deal of land cleared and hath been planted with corn no more than two years ago. There were some empty Indian huts on this land, which Captain Standish promptly ordered to be burned down. If the Indian occupants return, asking what happened to their huts, Standish devised a plan to tell them that we never saw any huts here, and that perhaps they have the wrong hill? Then we’ll whistle and ignore them until they go away.

When I am not tending to the sick, the rest of my days are spent in backbreaking labor with the other healthy men (including Captain Standish, Reverend Brewster, Mr. Ely, and two others who I prefer not to name because they are a couple of fat-kidneyed canker-blossoms, and I don’t want to waste any ink putting their names down on paper. So instead I shall call them Ratsbane and Giglet).

We spend our days chopping down trees, dragging them back to the Village, and then building houses. So far we have one large common house and a separate house for the sick. The building of the Village would go much quicker if Standish would let me build my beaversaw invention. I even drew out a finely detailed diagram that clearly shows how perfect the idea is, and yet he still insists on us exerting ourselves to the point of exhaustion with crude axes and saws.

I don’t see how anyone could look at this diagram, for even a second, and then go back to using a normal saw.

—John Alden