 
## **Contents**

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Untitled Quarantine Story: A Short Story by Aaron C. Cross

Home At Last by Quenby Olson

The Strange Little Life of Adrian Pancake by G.M. Nair

The Brown Note: A Cord & Nenn Short by Clayton Snyder

Klondaeg vs The Plague by Steve Thomas

Plagued by Management: Rats, Chips, Soda, Socks by Martin S. A. Realboy

ILL HUMORS

The SFF Fools Guild
@2020 by The SFF Fools Guild

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Ill Humors: An Anthology Presented by the SFF Fools Guild

SFF Guild Logo Illustration by ridho_saras

Masks added by Marine Crist

Cover Design by Steve Thomas

First Edition: 2020

"Untitled Quarantine Story: A Short Story" @2020 Aaron C. Cross

"Home At Last" @2020 Quenby Olson

"The Strange Little Life of Adrian Pancake" @2020 G.M. Nair

"The Brown Note: A Cord and Nenn Short" @2020 Clayton Snyder

"Klondaeg vs The Plague" @2020 Steve Thomas

"Plagued by Management: Rats, Chips, Soda, Socks" @2020 A.C. Cross and Steve Thomas

Introduction

The year 2020 has no chill. Zero chill. It didn't even snow that much where I live and spring came early. This year has felt so long that trying to come up with a list was like dredging up old childhood traumas. An entire continent was on fire. We came closer to World War III than we have in decades. Politics. Celebrity deaths.

And then COVID-19 became a global pandemic.

What can we, a loose affiliation of humorous speculative fictions authors, do to help? Stay home and social distance? We were already doing that, but I will admit I'm closer with my cats than ever. Write poignant works of fiction that help the world refocus on its hope, empathy, and shared human experience? Ha. Please, let us handle the jokes.

Seriously, we decided on jokes.

To help lift spirits, The SFF Fools Guild quickly assembled this anthology. Inside, you'll find comedic tales of disease, medicine, quarantine, and just plain sickness. We hope you find a few laughs inside, and we can provide a brief respite from the bleak dystopia that is Earth in 2020.

The SFF Fools Guild Presents: Ill Humors.

Steve Thomas

April 2020

Untitled Quarantine Story: A Short Story by Aaron C. Cross

Day 1

Will Texas yawned, stretched, and felt his joints pop in that way that it hurts a little bit but also feels pretty good and like you're getting ready for the day instead of just sitting at home, waiting for the end to –

Wait, no. Too early for that. Okay, mulligan!

*ahem*

Will Texas yawned and scratched at his beard as he woke up from a nice, deep sleep. It had been so long since he had been able to sleep in that he scarcely even remembered what it was like to not be ripped out of a complete slumber by the sound of what was essentially a cross between a nuclear silo opening and a toaster being thrown into a running washing machine. Damn iPhones. He rolled over, expecting to touch his girlfriend's face and/or chest and/or butt, but found only an empty side of the bed that was already cold. Curiouser and curiouser. He was used to seeing her short black hair on the pillow. It was normally a comforting awakening. Will had lucked out when he found the only person that liked being warm and cozy in bed more than he did, so the fact that she was not only up and about but had clearly been so for a while now was...anomalous to say the least. As Will climbed out of bed, he congratulated himself on being able to remember the word 'anomalous' so soon after waking up. Considering it was a crapshoot on any given day that he even remembered who or where he was right after emerging from sleeping, he felt pretty good about the day.

Standing for a moment to let the chill of the room wash over him as he shook out his long, brown hair, Will heard clanking and voices coming from the kitchen. Damn it. Paisley must have invited people over. Now he couldn't go walking out there, crotch akimbo (was that even possible?), to surprise her with a 'Good Morning, Madam President', a 'Heavens to Betsy, is that early-onset priapism?', or even just your bog-standard 'Hey, I think I have the juice to make something happen right now if you're interested' Hail Mary love-making attempt. No, now he had to put on pants. Not just boxers or his branded Sisqo thong. Not even his sleep pants which were so worn that the crotch looked like it had been attacked by a rabid lawnmower. Actual human pants.

He was beginning to feel less positive about the day.

As he finally finished dressing in jeans and his favorite black shirt and grumpily left the room, he was greeted by three things. First, the unmistakable smell of caramelizing onions. Okay, weird breakfast flex but he wasn't going to complain. Second, he saw his brother Brock – big, burly, and reddish-brown beard and all – and his girlfriend Anika – a stunning blonde that Will could never quite desexualize in his mind, regardless of her dating-his-brother status – standing by the counter. In their hands, they had glasses filled with some kind of orangey liquid, which he assumed was orange juice, but he couldn't really tell. Could have been Anika being on one of her 'We're all unhealthy so time to drink vegetable juice' kicks. He hoped not. Three days of Brock on one of those and windows were getting broken. The third thing, however, was the most surprising. One wall of his apartment was now completely covered with stacks and stacks of toilet paper rolls and what appeared to be a claymore mine rigged up in front of them.

Claymores in the morning? Today was going to suck.

"Uh...morning?" he said hesitantly.

"Guess again," the voice of his girlfriend said from the kitchen as she didn't even turn away from grilling the onions.

"What?"

"It's 1 PM, brosef," Brock said.

"No, that can't be –"

"I tried for twenty minutes to wake you up," Paisley said, "but every time I did, you would swat at me and roll over. So, you missed breakfast and are right about on time for lunch. Hope you're in the mood for patty melts."

"Ah, the patty melt. The first time I supped on a patty melt, I was six years old. My father had just come home from –"

"Brock, if he keeps going with his bad mockery of Epicurious-style douchebag preambles, I want you to punch him right in that spot that will make him pass out."

"The dick?" Brock asked.

"...yeah, that works too."

"Fine," Will said with a grumble, "I'll be good. What brings you guys here?"

Anika and Brock looked at Will with concern.

"Did...how long did you sleep?" Anika asked.

"Twelve hours!"

"Three days," Paisley corrected.

"How?" Anika asked.

"When I sleep, I sleep hard," Will said with a shrug.

"Yeah, you do," Paisley said, this time with a smile in her voice. Will grinned as Anika groaned.

"I'd high-five you if I could, babe," he said.

"Better not. I know where that hand's been."

"That is enough from the person cooking our food, thanks!" Anika said as a shiver ran down her back, "Seriously, though, you have not heard, Will?"

"Heard what?"

"Whole city's under quarantine, bro," Brock said.

"For what? Did the mayor finally realize that the spread of squirrel-based breakfast sausages was making a not-insignificant portion of the populace go feral and start trying to climb trees? Remember when the marathon runners got a hold of some of those and we had to send the National Guard into the park with rubber bullets to get them down? That was a fun Mother's Day."

Brock sighed and rubbed his face.

"You've been awake five minutes and I already want you to be unconscious again. No, dude. It's something called COVID-19."

"CORVID-19? That sounds like a such a badass sci-fi metal band."

"No. COVID."

"That's what I said. Corvid. As pertaining to birds known as stout-billed passerines, which includes the noble crows, bastardly jays, shiny-obsessed magpies, and the Baltimore Ravens. I don't see how Lamar Jackson has anything to do with quarantine though."

"I can't tell if you're willfully stupid or some kind of broken genius sometimes. And I grew up with you. We're related. I'm related to your dumb ass. That in and of itself is proof that life is a cosmic joke with humanity as the punchline."

Anika patted Brock on the shoulder, and he went and slumped down on the couch.

"Setting aside existential crises for the moment, Will, it is a very serious thing. It is a highly infectious and contagious disease that is showing a troubling mortality rate amongst those who have contracted it. The world is shutting down. Several countries are in complete lockdown. Sports are dead. Even Las Vegas has completely closed."

Will wasn't laughing anymore.

"Well...shit. So, we're all in quarantine because –"

"Because we cannot risk acquiring it and then spreading it to others. In fact, we all did a massive grocery run and have stocked up supplies for a month or more. It was good timing too, as we got in here to drop things off and were put under total lockdown. So, for good or for ill, we are your roommates for the next while."

"And the toilet paper?"

Anika looked a bit ashamed, but Paisley came over with the food and ushered them to the table. They all sat down and she dished out the sandwiches, some chips, and some carrots.

"The toilet paper," Paisley said as she distributed the food, "my dear boyfriend, is because shopping and the open market have essentially devolved into an anarcho-primitivist shitshow of a society. Roving bands of soccer moms divvy up Whole Foods and Costcos into tribal territories. Rival clans of PTA members, anti-vaxxers, and gung-ho preppers have formed militias and conduct siege warfare on Panera Breads. Hell, Brenda from down the street ripped the head off a pigeon that strayed too close to the Sovereign Nation of Chase Bank."

"It's true, I saw it," Brock chimed in, "It was gruesome. Popped the head off the bird like she was opening a bottle of champagne."

"My point is," Paisley continued, "that toilet paper has become a commodity unlike any other and will serve as currency in the new world order that will emerge from the ashes of what once was a culture that valued language and avoiding cannibalism."

"And the claymore?"

"I spent a thousand bucks on our hoard, my love. If any blood-drunk and diarrheic Karen wants to break in and steal a few sheets, she's gonna detonate and we will be absolved of our sins when society reforms. All hail Quilted Northern – it's all in the quilting."

"...I don't why your nigh-religious doomsday cultishness is such a turn-on, but it so is. It's like if David Koresh was a hot, aggressive woman as opposed to a mentally-disturbed polygamist freak."

"David Koresh?" Brock asked, "Wasn't he the dude in The Santa Clause 2? You know, Bernard the Elf?"

"You're thinking David Krumholtz. For some damn reason."

"Why do you know that?"

"Why don't you since you're the Santa Clause expert, you fu-"

Day 2

The mood around the table was tense, to say the least. All four looked at one another, then down at their card hands. Nobody wanted to make the first move and, seeing as it was going on Hour 3 of no movement, tensions were starting to run high.

"Fine," Anika said, "if nobody else will go, I will."

She slapped a card down on the table and pointed at it.

"Two of clubs!"

"Go fish!" Will yelled. Brock tossed his cards in disgust.

"We're playing poker and you know that, Will," Paisley said.

"Yeah, but now I'm in your head. Mind games. And why are you mad at me? Be mad at Miss I've Never Played Poker over there just dropping cards left and right!"

"Hey, lay off of her," Brock warned.

"I do not need you to defend me!" Anika snapped at Brock.

"Excuse me for being on your side!"

"You were not on my side when you threw that blue shell at me in Mario Kart!"

"Mario Kart is for keeps, my little Valkyrie. There is no honor there. At least we didn't play Mario Party. I'm pretty sure we'd get a divorce and we're not even married."

"So, I've been meaning to ask..." Will started before he got a glare from the other three people in the room.

"Before you continue, let me remind you that we've been together for less than thirty-six hours and we already want to kill each other," Paisley said, "Is this a question that is going to dampen that feeling or enhance it? Think carefully, love. Is what you're about to ask worth going zero-for-quarantine in terms of sex at-bats?"

"Well, I won't know until I ask, will I? And what's that about sex bats? I vant to suck your...well, you know. Amirite?"

He looked around the table and was met with no recognition of the fun he had with that. Every possible sign of body language from everyone else was telling him to stop, but he was either on a roll and didn't want to or was too oblivious to care. Either way, he chugged onward.

"Like I was asking," he continued, "I don't get how this whole bird flu thing started."

"It is not a bird flu, Will," Anika said.

"Then why do they call it CORVID-19?"

"It's not CORVID-19, you asshole!" Brock yelled.

"I'm not an asshole! I just don't get why they call it a bird thing when it's not a damn bird thing!"

"They don't...you can't..."

Brock had become so angry due to the close proximity and the absolute ridiculousness of his brother that he found himself literally without the ability to create speech. All he could do was sputter, growl, and try to ignore the throbbing behind his right eye that was starting to make the muscles in his face twitch uncontrollably. Anika got up from the table, walked to the couch, grabbed one of the pillows off of it, placed it on her face, and screamed so loud that it shook a couple paintings on the wall. Even Paisley, who had grown accustomed to Will's style of living after several months together, was finding herself unable to tolerate this conversation. When she spoke, she tried to keep her voice as even as possible.

"Babe, I want you to make this very clear for us. Do you legitimately believe that this is called CORVID and that it is related to bird flu or are you just doing a bit? You did not think your question through, but this is vitally important. We are on our second day of quarantine and you've already nearly given your brother a stroke. Brock, do you smell toast?"

"Taste ...blood..." Brock spat out.

Will rolled his eyes.

"He's always been such a baby about stuff like this and always got our parents on his side. Will, stop kicking your brother in the butt – it'll leave one cheek malformed. Will, stop pushing your brother down the stairs – he's only two and luck does run out. Will, stop breaking your brother's concept of reality – you'll give him a complex. He's not having a stroke. It's just his standard operating procedure when I get too real for him."

"You are the one that did that to his bum?!" Anika yelled as she sprang from the couch, "He is always complaining about having to sit differently because one of his buttocks is shaped slightly incorrectly!"

"It's an overreaction. Texas men notoriously have no ass on which to sit, regardless of whether cheeks have or have not been damaged in childhood."

"Wait, you seriously broke Brock's butt?" Paisley asked.

"No! I mean, sure, he may have minor misshaping in his right glute, but he also played baseball when he was younger and got pegged during a charity game when Randy Johnson – who was serving as celebrity pitcher – got too locked in to 'game mode' and whipped the ball at him on a check to first base. He took an 85-mile an hour baseball directly to the right half of his ass. It bruised so bad doctors were discussing amputation. He could never watch Mariners games after that point because of PTSD."

"There is no way that is true."

"Hand to God. You can't even say the words 'Big Unit' without him crying and limping."

True to his word, as soon as Will said that nickname, Brock started leaking tears and grabbing at his backside. Paisley and Anika looked at each other, concerned.

"You two had a strange childhood," Anika said.

"Oh, it wasn't all that strange," Will protested, "Just normal kid stuff. I mean, sure, we would have fights with frying pans every so often and, sure, Dad would have his pals over to bet on those fights and, sure, the winner would get one of those chocolate-dipped ice cream cones from Dairy Queen, but the important thing is that those cones are awesome and I got so many of those over the years. We had to stop those when we hit puberty, though. It was all fun and games until I scored a solid hit on Brock and he had to go to the hospital for a few weeks. Even back then, he couldn't handle his iron."

"Hey now!" Brock said, finally regaining his ability to speak after being stun-locked by rage and then repressed MLB Hall-of-Famer-inflicted trauma, "Don't make it out like you weren't broken either. Did you forget your whole phase of wanting to be a gargoyle? Why Mom and Dad gave you that upstairs room, I have no idea."

"I never wanted to be a gargoyle."

"You absolutely did. You would crawl out of your window and perch your nine-year-old butt on the corner of the roof and throw crabapples and shriek at people walking by. You don't recall that?"

"I do not."

"I mean, that makes sense. That whole phase ended when you stepped wrong and dropped two stories onto Mom's holly bushes. You looked like you had gotten caught in a paper shredder."

"Wait, hold on," Paisley said, "You said those scars on your back were from getting scourged when you got caught by militants in Uzbekistan. You told me that whole story about getting caught and having to fight a monkey-god in some kind of hallucination! It's one of my favorite stories of yours."

"I...things can be two things."

Paisley threw up her hands and walked away from the table and into the kitchen. Will didn't even have to look to know she was looking around for a corkscrew for the inevitable bottle of wine she was going to need because of this conversation. He knew something she didn't, however.

"Where the shit is the corkscrew?!" she screamed. Will laughed. In a flash, she was over by Will and had pulled his hair back so she could look him directly in the face.

"Can I help you, darling?" he asked.

"Do not screw with me, Texas. I will end you and you know I have the means and motive at any given time. Don't forget – I know where you sleep and that you sleep much deeper than I do. Where. Is. The. Corkscrew."

In response, he grabbed her hand and placed it on his crotch. She had not broken eye contact with him, but this move made her normally green eyes nearly burst into glowing eyes of pure, red rage.

"Is that really the play you want to make right now, little man?"

"Just rummage around down there. You'll find what you're looking for."

At this point, both Anika and Brock retreated to Will's office-slash-the guest room. They were in no way interested in watching foreplay happen. Again. They knew how this went down and it ended with, well, going down and frankly they needed the time away from the others desperately by now. Not looking away, Paisley made a couple small grabs until she found where Will had stashed the corkscrew. Her eyes narrowed as she was forced to unzip his jeans, open the crotch, and pull out the disturbingly warm corkscrew.

"You're lucky I don't use this on you."

"That's because you know how good I am with screwing with my own cork."

She sighed, let his hair go, and went back to the kitchen to finally open the damn wine. All in all, reasonably successful game of cards, Will thought. He had had a two and a seven and wasn't going to come out of the game unscathed. Lose the battle, win the war.

Day 5

Will woke up and, for a moment, could not get his bearings. All he knew was that his stomach was roiling, his head was being stabbed by a thousand furious pixie warriors, his shoulder was pulsing with pain, and he was wearing an as-of-yet undetermined number of clothes. Opening his eyes, he noticed that the world was upside-down. That was likely a bad sign. Where was he? Had he left the apartment? He flicked his eyes to his legs and was relieved to see that he was still wearing pants. That means they hadn't been stolen, which in turn meant that he had not fallen asleep outside. Thank goodness for that at least. He liked these pants.

Okay, next step: get upright. Slowly, carefully, he pulled himself up and shifted his weight around so he could sit down. His gut lurched and he slammed a fist against his mouth to hold back a potential 'banshee scream', as it were, but it settled to a manageable queasiness relatively quickly. As it calmed down, he finally put together that he was on the couch in the living room. Worse places to be, he supposed, though he was displeased to see the state of his (admittedly cheap) coffee table. Specifically, he was not a fan of how it was shattered into multiple pieces and strewn about the room. He also did not want to deal with it right now. He leaned his head back on the couch and sighed. He wasn't sure if this bird virus was worse than this hangover, but he couldn't conceive of a world where that was possible.

"Good morning, Captain Morgan," he heard Paisley say in a sing-songy voice. He winced as the voice sliced into his eardrums and deep into his head.

"I assume that means something..." he muttered, and she laughed.

"It should, although that would mean you remember anything. Do you?"

"Let's see..."

Will closed his eyes, partially to redirect his thoughts to what scattershot memories he had and partially to just block out the yellow demon pouring in through the open windows. Looking back, there was...not much to go on.

He remembered getting angry, going to their liquor closet – although closet was a bit of a misnomer; it was really more of a liquor storage locker in their house, slamming three bottles of rum down on the table, and telling the group that they were going to drink until they could tolerate each other again.

The next thing he recalled was being quite drunk, playing some kind of board game, and whipping the dice across the room.

Next up was a brief conversational snippet between himself and Brock.

...he was absolutely in Boston Legal, you waste of a dicksack!

He was not! You're thinking Numb3rs!

There was no show called Numbers!

I didn't say Numbers! I said Numb3rs, with a three!

With three what?

With a three in the name!

Look. Prick. He was not in...

He...uh...didn't know which side of that argument he was making at that point in time. When he and Brock got really drunk, they tended to sound very similar in their voices.

The only other thing he could recover was seeing a flash of red underwear and feeling his heart pound.

"Okay, was that your –"

"Yes, it was," Paisley interrupted, "You were bound and determined to get some last night, regardless of your critically-inebriated state."

"Did we –"

"You certainly tried. I'll even admit that it was a valiant effort."

"Really?"

"Are you kidding? No. I had only pulled my pants down to my knees before you claimed you were finished and stumbled back out into the living room, passed out, and smashed the table to bits by falling on it. I assume that at some point in the night, you maneuvered yourself into whatever position you woke up in. You drunk asshole."

Will didn't respond to that. Instead, he stumbled to his feet, excused himself, made a quick walk to the bathroom, shut the door quietly, and proceeded to loudly call the dinosaurs for about ten minutes before walking back out - pale and sweating - and requested peanut butter toast and some milk.

***

A few hours later, he was feeling marginally more human. He was even able to take a shower and only throw up twice, which was a personal record with feeling this hungover. Ever since the mescal hallucinations, his tolerance had rapidly decreased. That could also come with being older, but he refused to acknowledge that as a biological possibility, even though he had been noticing some silver hairs in his beard and hair. As he left the bathroom, he noticed Paisley watching TV with a look of concern on her face.

"What's up, pussycat?" he asked. When she didn't respond with 'whoooooa whoa whoaaa whoa,' he knew that something serious was going on. Without another word, he sat down next to her. On the TV, words and numbers were flashing up and they were ugly. Thousands of people infected. A shortage on critical supplies. Closed borders.

"Well...shit," he said but she shook her head.

"That's not what I'm worried about. I mean, I am of course worried about it, but it's not the pressing issue."

"Which is?"

She flipped the channel and Will instinctively reared back in the couch. On-screen, what looked like a medieval battlefield was engulfed in flames and the crash of metal. In the middle of the screen was a Walmart, but surrounding it was a surge of people wielding primitive weaponry. Blood was everywhere and the screams of the wounded and the enraged provided a soundtrack both bone-chilling and haunting.

"What the absolute hell?"

"The breakdown of society, apparently. Do you have the weapons stocked and loaded?"

He looked at her, honestly somewhat offended.

"Do I have the weapons stocked and loaded? Seriously? Who do you take me for, some sort of free-range chicken farmer, content to let the wolves and foxes of the world take a chicken or two for their own needs so I can feel better about contributing to the food production industry?"

"Oddly specific comparison..."

"Shit, son...I mean, lady. Sweetheart. You know we're loaded for bear. Hell, we're loaded for bears who walk upright, wear clothes, and have developed the power of speech."

"Are...are you saying we're equipped to kill Yogi Bear?"

"I...hm. I...wasn't, but we are, I'm sure. Is that something we should be worried about?"

"Should we be worried about a cartoon bear from 1960s Hanna-Barbera somehow coming to life, hunting specifically us down, and trying to break into the apartment like some sort of rabid bastardization of the concept of media effects brought to life in a horrible mishmash of growls and a matte color palette?"

"Yyyyyyes?"

"No, I don't think that should be on the top of our list of worries, my dear. I meant more if we are properly prepared for the more human type of home invaders."

"Oh. In that case, still absolutely yes."

"Good," she said with a smile, "but just for my own peace of mind, could you run through what and where they are again?"

"Sure!" Will said, always glad to get a chance to show off the fancy hidden compartments where his absolutely illegal stashes were kept.

For the next half-hour, he led Paisley through the apartment and triggered the different weapons spaces. The pistols underneath the kitchen counter. The shotguns in the pantry. The assault rifles behind the sliding door in the room with the washer and dryer. He was especially proud of the flamethrower he had managed to store in the bedframe, which was certainly dangerous, but he felt it added an extra layer of excitement to their bang sessions. The mood could only ramp up when, at any time, a tank of gas could rupture and explode the apartment. Paisley did not see it that way and was now very insistent that he relocate the weapon as soon as he possibly could which, of course, meant right the hell away. He acquiesced and stored it in the nearest bathroom. He wasn't about to get into a fight about that and especially not when she was actually holding the flamethrower. Brock had told him about the bar fight in Havana and how she knifed that dude with a broken bottle. The less fire aimed in his direction, the better.

As they settled back on the couch in the living room, Will could tell that she was much more comfortable with the knowledge of their vast arsenal. She was even snuggling with him and that made him happy. They'd be able to weather this, no problem.

Day 6

"I swear on the graves of every single ancestor in your family history all the way back to the Stone Age that I will cut out each and every vital organ you have – starting with your balls – if you don't turn off that damned electro-swing, William!"

Paisley screamed and waved a kitchen knife at him menacingly.

Will looked at her, narrowed his eyes, and without breaking her gaze, reached over and turned up the speakers blaring 'Lone Digger' by Caravan Palace.

Day 8

Will grimaced as Paisley peeled back the bandage on his left arm and began to clean and medicate the slash in his arm. The cut from the blade she had hurled at Will had fortunately missed any vital components that could have damaged functionality, but it still hurt like hell. At least she had been genuinely apologetic about the throw. He would never tell her, but he was secretly glad that she had been out of softball for as long as she had been. Even five years ago, she would have pegged him right in the chest with that throw. She was that mad.

"Hey, do you think we should check on Anika and Brock?" he asked, "It's been a few days and they've been holed up in the guest room pretty much – damn it – non-stop. At the very least, we should have them – shit – open the door so we can air the room out a bit. I bet it smells like some kind of spring barnyard after this long. The stink's probably in the carpet at this point. We'll never get our security – ow! – deposit back."

"Quit squirming. And we lost that deposit as soon as you hollowed out the counter to store your .45s."

"Our .45s. And I'll quit squirming when it stops hurting!"

"That's what she said. Anyway, I already said I was sorry, but I did warn you to turn the music off."

"I didn't know you hated it that much."

"I don't. What I hated was you banging that as loud as possible for two hours in an endless playlist."

"I was working!"

"On what? Our work is basically no paperwork, especially not in your case. What could you possibly be working on?"

"Don't worry about it."

"You know that every time you say that, it just compounds my worry, right?"

"Don't worry about it."

Paisley frowned and fastened a fresh bandage on the cut. She had just wanted to scare him into turning the music off, but he had leaned into it. He deserved what he got. Still, he wasn't wrong about needing to check on their guests. Their presence had been sporadic at best and she didn't relish the idea of having to set up control burns in that room to get things clean. She supposed she could get an exorcist if needed, but the city was under quarantine and she imagined that they had more pressing matters to attend to, like the last rites of an entire city block after a pack of roving fratbros had wandered too close to a Pinkberry and had set off the failsafe left there by the sorority sisters who had taken up occupancy. The resulting blast had leveled that building, a nearby American Eagle, and three separate kombucha shops.

Nobody of any real consequence had been killed, but the molten pseudo-yogurt mixed with gallons of Axe (or Lynx if you're British) body spray and slightly-alcoholic mold drinks had turned the entire area into a landscape only slightly less toxic than Chernobyl. People didn't take the contamination seriously until a peripatetic squirrel stepped foot into the ooze and promptly metamorphosed into a terrifying ball of teeth, fur, and venom spray. The authorities locked that shit down right quick after that and anyone who went within fifty feet of the dead zone now would be subject to two consecutive warnings and then a bullet. Well, they said 'bullet', but 'unceasing hail of super-heated, explosive death' was technically more accurate.

Regardless of the presence of a priest or not, though, there was likely something unholy lurking within the confines of the guest bedroom. First things first, though.

"Okay, you big baby," she said as she placed the last piece of tape in place, "You're all patched up. Do you want to disturb the naked dead or should I?"

"Considering you stabbed me..."

"Cut you, thank you. Get it right."

"Inflicted damage upon my person in either case. You should have to face that hellscape first. It's only fair."

She rolled her eyes but stood up anyway and made her way to the guest room door. As she approached the door, she winced. There was no smell that she could tell but there was an unmistakable sort of dread looming from the room.

"Babe, can you get one of the shotguns?" she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

"Why?"

"I have one of those feelings."

"What kind? Is it like that meal in Thailand where you refused to eat that fish head, which was a good call because that whole thing was poisoned with that paralytic agent or is it more like –"

"Something feels wrong."

"Yeah, it's probably what they've been doing in there. I bet we have to repaint. Probably looks like a fire extinguisher went off."

Paisley audibly gagged and shook her head.

"That is...vile, babe. It's less a premonition and more a sense that we need weaponry at hand, just in case."

"Don't have to tell me twice," he said as he got off the couch and went into the pantry.

"Could have fooled me," she muttered but took the gun from Will as he got to her. As she did, he held up his hands in confused indignation.

"Why can't I have the gun?"

"Do we really need to talk about Wichita again?"

He shrugged, annoyed but keenly aware he wasn't going to win that battle.

"I guess not."

"That's the correct answer. And since I can tell you're trigger-happy right now, we're going to keep you away from weaponry – especially that which would be aimed at your brother. I absolutely know where your trigger discipline is at right now and I'm trying to avoid you getting spooked and blowing a hole in something or someone."

"Yeah, yeah."

With trepidation, she knocked a few times. No response.

"Well, they're dead," Will said and she shot him a look.

Another set of knocking and the sound of muffled yells and panicked scrambling erupted in response.

"Just a second!" they could hear Brock say as something crashed to the floor, drawing a line of Swedish curses from Anika.

"That sounded expensive," Will said.

"Will."

"What? It did. Cheap shit doesn't make that kind of crash. It was probably the TV."

Exasperated, Paisley turned to Will, who was grinning because he knew he was being annoying in the most amusing possible way for him.

"If they broke something worth more than two hundred bucks, I will do that thing you like but only get on special occasions, but only if you shut up right now."

He slapped his hand over his mouth so quickly, Paisley was surprised that he didn't knock himself over. Blessed silence at last. That is, of course, until the door opened just a crack and Brock peered his head out.

"What is it?"

"Hi Brock! It's been, like, three days since we've seen the two of you and we wanted to check and make sure that you hadn't died."

"Because that would wreck our rental contract!" Will said before covering his mouth again quickly.

"Because we were worried about you."

"We're fine. Thanks for checking in."

"Ask them if they have barbeque sauce!" Anika said in the background.

"Oh! Right. Do you guys have barbeque sauce out there?"

"...why?"

"No...reason. We just thought it might be fun to have."

Both Paisley and Will were suspicious now. Will made his way past Paisley and pushed on the door. Brock was bracing it with his shoulder and apparently putting as much weight as he could on it.

"Bro," Will asked, "what is going on in there?"

"Uh...uh..."

"Say sex things!" Anika yelled.

"Right!" Brock said, "It's sex stuff. Really kinky too. That's why we want the sauce, you see. So we can involve it in our lovemaking. As...uh..."

"Lube?" Will suggested.

"Yeah, lube."

"Like hell we are using that for lube!" Anika screamed and at a pitch and volume so high that Will assumed the people on the bottom floor could hear it. Will pushed harder on the door, but Brock stayed firm.

"Okay," said Paisley, "now that we've defined what you're not doing in there, which is possibly never having sex again in your natural life, why don't you tell us what is really going on here, Brock?"

"It's...sex. It really is. Just the, the, the kinkiest stuff imaginable. We're trying to reach new depths of pleasure. Kinda like in Hellraiser. Speaking of Hellraiser..."

"I swear that if you say David Krumholtz was in that movie, I will personally shatter this door into so many pieces that it will be molecularly impossible to piece it back together," Will warned.

Brock sighed and the look on his face was resigned.

"I knew we couldn't keep it up forever. The jig is up, baby. In a way, it's almost a relief."

"Step aside, Brock."

Brock's head disappeared and the door creaked open. Inside, Anika was running around, leaping over the shattered remains of the television, and trying desperately to shoo something out the window. It would not cooperate, however, and it landed on the top of the nightstand. Paisley was suddenly extremely glad she had the gun because when she saw the dark feathers and heard the unmistakable 'caw' from the bird, she saw Will's eyes go glassy and black like a shark's and the muscles in his neck bulged with fury. Brock held up his hands in a defensive gesture as Anika sank to the ground behind him.

"It's not what it looks like, Will."

"I can't believe you," Will said, his voice choked with rage, "We have been quarantining ourselves for over a week now and you brought that, that, thing into our home?"

"You have to let me explain..."

"Why even bother being in quarantine when you just go off and bring the sonofabitching CORVID-19 into the apartment like some shitty takeout? Why even bother keeping ourselves here and safe when you just decide to bird flu the lot of us, Brock? You selfish prick."

There have been only three sighs in history that have rattled the very nature of reality itself. The first was when Anne Boleyn had another daughter and Henry VIII found out about it. The second was during the Renaissance when Pope Julius II realized that Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in such a way as to specifically piss him off. The third was now, when Paisley made the decision to not correct her boyfriend because a) it clearly wouldn't matter and b) she was also pissed off about the fact that there was a wild bird in their apartment. When she spoke, she made her voice as measured as possible, so as not to cause another screaming match.

"You need to explain the crow. Now."

"Look, it's like this. Edgar Allen Crow there is an oracle and he's been –"

That's when anger won out over discretion and the screaming started.

Day 9

Paisley and Will sat across the table from Brock and Anika. Everyone looked tired and haggard, but Brock and Anika looked particularly pale and worn out. Will kicked back another shot of whiskey, set the glass down, and clapped his hands together.

"Okay. Run us through the sequence of events just one more time. I want to make sure I've adequately prepared the order in which I yell at you."

Brock leaned back in his chair and sighed, but Anika closed her eyes and ran through what had happened in as calm a tone as she could manage.

"Alright, Will. It is like this. After the drinking marathon several nights ago, Brock and I determined that we would perhaps better weather this quarantine in even more isolated isolation."

"Why? Partied too hard for you?"

"Will, you opened the window and threw a half-full bottle of Kahlua out of it in order to, in your words, feed the deers. Not the deer. The deers. We had only been stuck in here for a couple days and your decision-making was becoming dramatically impaired. In lieu of falling to your madness, as is your brother's wont, we decided to adjourn to the guest room to try to wait out the storm, so to speak."

"Insulted but keep going."

Brock chimed in at this point, wanting to get through this as quickly as possible.

"The problem was that we needed some fresh air after a little while for reasons you can likely assume."

"We did."

"Of course you did. Well, we opened the door and Edgar Al-"

"Brock."

"...that bird flew in and landed on the dresser. Naturally, we freaked out a bit, but over time, it started to speak to us and tell us great tidings of the world that was to come."

"I really hate to even ask, but..."

"We...may have been pretty drunk. Like, we found your emergency stash of gin."

"What? Hold on, no. No, that took two years to put together! Babe, take over. I have to fact-check this. If it's true, I'm punching you in the mouth."

Will jumped out of his chair and bolted into the other room. The howl of agony from the room was unmistakable and Will ran back into the living room like a bat out of Hell.

"You drank all of it, you monsters! We're settling this shit here and now. Draw your weapon, Brock!"

"What weapon would that be, Will? I'm not doing this with firearms."

"Uh...I think we have a couple baseball bats for home defense. Don't we, babe?"

Paisley didn't look at him because she was not going to encourage this. After a minute or so, he went off with Brock to search for the bats. Anika met eyes with Paisley and forced a smile.

"So..."

"Yes, please, keep going with the story. I'd somehow rather know what sort of unholiness took place in our guest room than think about what kind of destruction is coming our way once they find where I hid those things."

"I will make it quick regardless. With the mix of gin, an uncertain future, isolation, and the bird, we perhaps may have started a minor religion. In the light of an expanded living space, it seems silly, but..."

"You don't have to apologize. I get it. This one time, Will and I were on location in this tiny little town in Iceland hunting down this dickhead who had gotten his hands on, like, three pounds of straight fentanyl and was threatening to pour it into some town's water supply and kill everyone. He failed, obviously, since the guy was just about the worst criminal we'd seen. A paper trail that we could track within something like seven hours and he was holed up in the basement of some illegal brothel there. We just went in, paid off the madam, went downstairs, Will did his whole 'throw the guy headfirst through a brick wall' thing, dragged him up the stairs by his crappy combover, and beat him until the dude was deaf in one ear. I won't lie, it was pretty hot. Something about those Texas boys when they get all violent is...well, you know."

"I do know," Anika said with a smile.

"Anyway, since it was done so quickly, we were able to wrangle a few days in Reykjavik as a sort of bonus. Well, we just got absolutely wrecked on brennivín and Fjallagrasa. I'm talking a shot of one, then a shot of the other, back and forth until we moved on to the next bar. Real hardcore stuff. So, we come to with murderous hangovers a couple days later and we find out that we're in the middle of this nature cult somewhere up north of the capital and they wanted us to take on the roles of, we think, Mother Nature and Father Time. We couldn't tell since our Icelandic was basic at best. Long story short, we set their whole death temple on fire and beat like seventeen people with crowbars that we found until they let us go."

"What does that have to do with our experience?"

Paisley shrugged.

"Not much, really, but we're about to see a recreation of Highlander in the living room in a minute or two, so I figured a nice story would help to ease what's about to happen."

"What is about to happen?"

"I don't want to ruin the surprise for you, but this is not the first bat fight between the brothers that I've seen, and it probably won't be the last."

Almost as if on cue, Brock came tumbling down the hallway to the guest room and scrambled to his feet, breathing hard, his bat heaving in his hand as his shoulders moved. He already had a red welt growing near his hairline and he looked angry. Will slowly walked out into the living room as well, though he was twirling his bat carelessly.

"That was a cheap-shit shot, Will!" Brock shouted.

"Always be prepared! That was Lesson One that Dad taught us! How did you forget it?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it was from the multiple brainings I took from the frying pans when we were younger? I probably have CTE."

"You big baby. You gonna whine or are you gonna fight?"

Brock readied himself in a fighting stance and the brawl looked about ready to start, but it was interrupted by the crow bursting from the guest room and swooping down to peck at Will's face. Will screamed, dropped his bat, and began to flail around the room as the bird attacked him without mercy or retreat.

"Edgar! No!" Brock yelled at the bird, to no avail. The avian menace was protecting either his master or his subject, depending on whether one wished to categorize the crow as a bet or as the focus of a burgeoning religious movement.

"I'm done for!" Will shrieked as he slapped at the furious bird. "It's the CORVID-19! It's got me! Save yourselves!"

"I'll protect you!" Brock said loudly as he began to swing the bat haphazardly at where his bird and his brother were joined in combat. Anika looked at this scene in horror, then back to Paisley, who had placed her face in her hands and was slowly shaking her head.

"Every damn time," Paisley murmured disconsolately as the battle raged on.

Day 12

Sirens blared outside as the nightly riot began again. Supplies of basic necessities, such as olive oil, artificial egg substitute, and Nintendo Switches were dwindling or entirely depleted, and consumers had grown antsy and afraid. The chief prized item, however, was toilet paper. Having burned through their supply in a matter of days, the populace at large had been forced to resort to utilizing other material for their hopefully-only-daily ablutions. Kleenex was the next to go, followed by baby wipes and paper towels, then more abstractly appropriate items such as regular towels, washcloths, and dirty socks. Finally, in one horrible night, the nearby park had been raided and bushes and trees were stripped clean of leaves because it was either that or use sandpaper and only the most foolhardy or brave rioters dared travel that road. Now, on a nightly basis, combatants would enter the barren park to engage in bloodsport to gain access to precious paper supplies. A cabal of wise and just bandits, controlled by a man known only as Sir Anthony of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, the Second of his Name, led these nightly gladiatorial battles to entertain the public and provide all comers with the opportunity to clean themselves effectively. A nearby Office Max had been raided and, now, printer paper was the prize for survival. It wasn't soft and the prevalence of paper cuts in sensitive areas had skyrocketed, but it was workable.

Unfortunately related to those battles, word had also somehow gotten out recently that Will and Paisley had managed to acquire a king's ransom in toilet paper and were hoarding it in their apartment. At first, the entreaties had been gentle. Neighbors knocking on the door, offering to trade homemade breads or pies for a roll or even sheets. Knowing the wealth they now held, the apartment refused all enquiries. Soon, fawning obsequiousness turned into stern requests, then angry demands, then furious commands for the four inside to turn over their supplies. Still they held firm and unyielding. However, upon the fall of night, a loud banging started on their door. Angry voices clamored for entry. Will and Brock looked at each other with concern. The door would not hold forever. It was time. Without a word, the four went around the apartment and optimized their loadouts. They were prepared.

At the stroke of midnight, Brock unlatched and opened the door and into the apartment poured a baker's dozen of their neighbors. All the expected subjects were present - the family of four from two floors above with the loud dog, the gay couple next door, the retired military vet and his granddaughter that lived on the ground floor, the single mom with her two teenage sons that blasted Nine Inch Nails at 2 AM as she was passed out on chardonnay, and, of course, the entire legion was headed up by Myrtle and Melvin, the elderly pair from the apartment directly below. The gray-haired dictators that ruled the apartment complex with iron fists and hair-trigger phone calls to the front office marched through the door and Myrtle pointed her bony finger in Paisley's face as she spoke.

"You have no right to that toilet paper. You owe it to the community to portion it out equitably. We will be taking our rightful shares now, Miss Canada."

Suddenly, there was movement at her side. Her eyes flicked over to see the barrel of a shotgun pressed almost directly against her orbital bone. Will sniffed as he thoughtfully stroked the trigger.

"That TP worth dying over, Myrtle?" he asked.

"Clever boy," she grumbled. She lowered her finger and turned to the group for support. All, save her husband, had left with great haste and he had only remained because Brock had put him in a headlock and was gently twisting his head back and forth in a meaningful fashion. Melvin whimpered and wet himself.

"I..." she tried to say before Paisley shushed her with a finger to her lips.

"No, no, no. There is no bargaining here. You and your husband who clearly needs to wear diapers are going to leave this place and never return. I don't mean our apartment. I mean the city. Move to Boca Raton or someplace and live out the rest of your days playing shuffleboard in self-isolation and drinking pre-mixed mojitos. Either do that or stay shut up permanently. Neither we nor anyone else are going to suffer your relentless policing of human lives anymore. Are we clear?"

"You...you can't do this!" Myrtle sputtered.

"And yet, we are. Take your piss-soaked hubby and leave, you creaking harridan. Now, before I let Will go all Night of the Living Dead on you."

"I'll do it too," he growled into Myrtle's ear, "My bloodlust has been on fire lately."

Myrtle backed up, grabbed the sobbing Melvin's arm, and made her way to the door.

"This isn't over!" she shrieked, but all present knew that she had lost her power. She slammed the door behind her and howled in rage as she reached the hall. As her noises disappeared into the distance, the four people in the room breathed a sigh of relief. Will looked at Paisley, amorousness in his eyes.

"That was so hot, baby. You tore her a new colostomy hole."

"You should talk. The way you were playing with that trigger...mmm."

Brock and Anika immediately took the hint that they should retreat to their sleep hole and get some rest. This was going to turn ugly.

And they were right.

Day 14

Will woke up and dashed out of bed, a song in his heart. It had been two weeks! They had survived the full two weeks with only a few scratches and now they were going to be free to walk around, go to the movies, get a drink at the bars, and enjoy life outside. They'd go to Vegas! And Milan! They would dance at nightclubs, get tired immediately, get angry with the young folks still dancing, get into a fight, get kicked out, and then come home and binge-watch Sherlock for the eighth time, but that would be their choice! He went into the living room and spun around, happy to be free and expecting cheers of joy from his family. Instead, the other three sat on the couch, watching TV.

"What? Why are you watching TV?" he asked, "It's freedom day!"

"Yeah, no," Brock said, his voice defeated, "They just extended quarantine another six weeks to be safe."

"What?"

Will's heart fell into his stomach as he heard that. No. It couldn't be. They had already survived two weeks – more would be asking too much!

"Yeah. Apparently it's getting worse. Now even birds can get it. It's literally a crow flu at this point."

The irony did not escape Will and he began to cry. Paisley came over and placed a hand on Will's back.

"It's worse than you think, baby. More celebrities are getting it by the day. Even David Krumholtz has it."

"Who?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Brock yelled as he went to retrieve his bat.

And so the circle continued to turn for six weeks until the coronavirus was cured by a combination of malaria drugs, hard work, and a mutation in the virus that killed off every dipshit Spring Breaker that ignored all warnings and went to party on the beach because they were so solipsistic that they couldn't fathom a world where they would suffer consequences.

Wait, that's too dark a not-really-joke to go out on. Uh...hold on. Let me come up with something better.

Here we go. Did you know that if the author of American Splendor had adapted and written a version of Don Quixote, that would technically have been a Harvey picaresque novel? See, because his name was Harvey Pekar so...Pekaresque, picaresque. Get it?

Oh, fine. Screw you too then.

Whatever. Stay safe. Love you.

About the Author

According to family lore, AC learned how to read (or knew, actually) at the ripe age of two years old and proceeded to devour every book he could get his hands on like a literary toddler-aged Galactus. He writes reasonable-quality work that seeks to entertain, with his first book, Robocopter Ski Patrol, blending Doctor Who-style time manipulation with Archer-style humor, his second book, Untitled Spy Story: A Novel, creating a world where roundhouse-kicking the Secretary of State on top of the White House is possible, and his third book, Ruben's Cube Alaska: Bullet Point 2: Judgment Day: This Time It's Real, bringing into the world a possibly-immortal Russian with a pet dire wolf and a search for an artifact that could change the nature of time itself. AC is now a full-fledged PhD so now he gets to call himself a doctor, even though he can't save lives. Shouldn't save lives. Whatever. You can find him online at @daneatscatfood or at his website, www.aaronccross.com.

Home At Last by Quenby Olson

The house and its walls, the windows still smudged at the corners, no matter how much she wiped at them. The floor that was swept, the table and the counters scrubbed and scrubbed until she'd taken a layer of stain from the wood. All of it clean and hers and warm and home. Her home, where she would stay. Finally.

The silence was a kind of gift. Not true silence, of course. There was the clock, ticking its life away. The wind, the leaves scraping against the roof. The creak of stairs and floors. The thump of Cat as she leaped down from where she shouldn't have been and sauntered from room to room. Her own heart beating in her chest. Blood rushing in her ears.

And the groan of her chair as she sat, as she tipped it onto its back legs and stretched her own feet towards the fire that crackled merrily, as if knowing it only had to keep the space warm enough for one.

She sat, and she worked, the needle between her fingers, the thread threatening to twist as she pulled it through the fabric. Buttons to sew on, seams to repair, all the fixes and things she had put off for so long. She had time for them now. The house and the clock and Cat would keep her company, her work would keep her busy, and the hours would slip away, a comforting thing like the waves drawing back from the shore.

TWO MONTHS LATER:

The smoke writhed upwards, tendrils of white drifting up towards the sky. Cat gazed at the smoking hole in the ground, one ear twitching before she swiped at it with her paw. A blink of amber eyes, a flick of a tail, and she turned and walked away, the leaves of the forest floor clinging to her underbelly as the ash floated down like snow.

About the Author

Quenby Olson lives in Central Pennsylvania where she spends most of her time writing, glaring at baskets of unfolded laundry, and chasing the cat off the kitchen counters. She lives with her husband and three children, who do nothing to dampen her love of classical ballet, geeky crochet, and staying up late to watch old episodes of Doctor Who. Facebook: www.facebook.com/QuenbyOlson

The Strange Little Life of Adrian Pancake by G.M. Nair

Adrian Pancake had no idea what happened.

One moment, he was setting up some clever chalkboard art outside his bar, and the next, he was in a hospital bed, in a full body cast with his arms and legs strung up in a complicated pulley system. The two doctors hovering over him tried to catch him up on things, but Adrian couldn't really follow. There was something about The Future Group and a giant monster – or something. What Adrian did understand is that he had been directly in the path of a piece of falling debris and was "very lucky to be alive". Of course, the doctors didn't hesitate to tell him he'd pretty much been flattened.

Like a pancake.

Adrian tried to sigh, but his ribs hurt so much it just came out as a half-snort half-wheeze. After recommending an intensive regimen of physical therapy and a frightening abundance of painkillers, the doctors assured Adrian that they were the best that City Presbyterian Hospital had to offer, then left him to his limited devices. But since he didn't have anything better to do, Adrian decided to lapse into unconsciousness.

He awoke a short while later. Or a long while later. Adrian could hear the ticking of a clock on his bedside table, but couldn't move his neck – or much of anything – to see. But it was dark now. Nighttime. Although Adrian didn't know if he was days, weeks, or months into the future. He couldn't rule out having slipped into a coma. His condition hadn't improved, though, so it couldn't have been that long.

In order to maintain his sanity, Adrian scanned the room, locking onto objects he could make out in the dim light and saying their names in his head.

Door.

Plant. Fern.

Chair.

Chairs.

TV. Television.

Shadow Demon.

Window.

IV Drip Stand.

Wait. What was that last one?

Oh, yeah. Window.

***

The next time Adrian awoke, it was still night. But this time, he was sure it was a different night. For one, the cast that covered his chest had been removed and it no longer hurt to breathe. His ribs had somehow healed, but his arms and legs were still stiff and suspended above him. How long had he been asleep? Adrian tried to look at his bedside clock, but found his head securely bandaged and a thick plastic brace preventing him from moving his neck.

Knock knock

Adrian's eyes darted to the hospital room door. He could see the distorted shadow of a man through the glass, but couldn't place the silhouette.

Knock knock, again the man rapped on the door.

"Uh. . . come in?" Adrian managed a croak. It was nice to hear his own voice again, rough-hewn as it was.

"Good evening, Mr. Pancake. How are we feeling tonight?" Thedoor creaked open and a rich voice full of glee lilted its way through, followed by a man so tall and slender that he looked like the victim of a surprise taffy pull.

"I'm doing. . . just fine, I think." Adrian couldn't make heads or tails of who this person was. A doctor, clearly. But not one of his doctors. He was bald and pale with a slight hunch to his back.

"Good, good!" With a smile as sharp as the rest of his features, the man hiked up the sleeves of his white coat. "That's what I like to hear."

"Excuse me, but who are you?"

"I'm Dr. Keene." As if to prove this, the man materialized a stethoscope in his hand and pressed it to Adrian's newly freed chest, nodding along to the lubs and the dubs. "Oh, fantastic. Fantastic!"

"I'm sorry, but I thought Dr. Lee and Dr. Perrins were going to be taking care of me."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about them. They have a large caseload, and asked me to fill in on your situation. I am a total body reconstruction specialist, and I just happened to be doing a visiting residency. You're quite lucky, you see. I'm the reason your ribcage is no longer shattered."

"Uh. . . huh," Adrian squinted as Dr. Keene shone a small penlight into his eyes. "So what should I expect in terms of physical therapy?"

"You are doing fantastic without it, I'd say!" Doctor Keene grinned.

"No PT?" Adrian looked at his arms and legs, still encased in plaster.

"Yes! Barring any. . . unfortunate circumstances, You'd just need a few more weeks bedrest. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Well, yeah," Adrian wouldn't have to miss more work than needed, and PT would've been hell on his wallet. He wasn't sure his insurance covered it. He wasn't even sure if he had insurance anymore. Had anyone called his bar? "Uh, Dr. Keene?"

"Oh, no more out of you. It's settled. Rest up, and we'll see you through this yet!" The smile never left Dr. Keene's face as he waltzed out the door from whence he came. Adrian hoped the ticking of his clock would help put him back to sleep, but realized he couldn't hear it anymore.

The batteries must've run out.

***

"Wow, you seem to be making a speedy recovery!" the large nurse beamed as she opened the curtains, letting a torrent of afternoon sunlight into the room. "I remember when you came in. It was like you'd been flattened like –"

"A pancake, yes," Adrian squinted in the new light, raising his one healed hand in front of his eyes to shield them. A few days ago he had awoken to a cast-less left arm, though the rest of him was still immobilized. He hadn't remembered Dr. Keene taking him into surgery, but he must have.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the nurse covered a giggle with her hand. A dark birthmark on her thumb gave her a temporary Hitler mustache. "'Flattened like a pancake'. You must get that a lot. Annoying, right?"

"Well, it's not every day that I get my body crushed, so luckily I've only had to deal with it for two weeks," Adrian lied. He had his share of middle and high school bullies who'd put that insult into very good practice.

"Hahaha. I suppose so," the nurse winked as she began to make her exit. "Well, if you don't need anything further, I've got a few other patients to check on before my shift ends."

"Oh," Adrian said. "If you see Dr. Keene around, tell him I'm feeling much better already! He hasn't stopped by in a while."

The nurse froze in the doorway.

"Dr. Keene?" she cocked her head.

"Yeah. Tall guy? Rail thin? Bald?"

"I don't know a Dr. Keene. Does he work on this floor?"

"I think so. I saw him last Tuesday night."

"Oh, he might be on the night shift. I don't usually mess with this place after 6 pm." She offered him a sweet smile. Kinda gets spooky, y'know?"

"I'm sure it does."

"You enjoy your nap, now!"

And she was gone.

Adrian placed his one working arm behind his head, while the other remained strung up. It wasn't the most comfortable position, especially with his head and neck still forcibly secured, but he had to hand it to Dr. Keene, he felt much better than he used to be. Before Adrian drifted off to sleep, off to dreams of getting back to normal, he realized he should have asked the nurse what day it was.

***

The rapid beat of frantic footsteps woke Adrian up. It wasn't quite night, but the afternoon had passed Adrian by, leaving the red and purple fire of sundown to stream in through his window. He could hear the footsteps – running – pattering down the hall outside. They increased in volume and frequency as they drew closer to his door.

Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't his problem, so Adrian shut his eyes and pretended to go back to sleep. The footsteps stopped outside his room, replaced by the heaving breaths of two very tired people.

SLAM.

Whoever they were, they were now in the room with him.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," the first one – a man – repeated his anxious mantra as his shoes scuffed back and forth across the tiled floor.

"Take a breather, man. We're alright." The second – a woman, or girl – spoke. Adrian heard the soft slaps of her hand patting the man's back.

After catching his breath, the man continued, his words a torrent of fear, "That room was full of dismembered corpses, Steph! That is so far from good it's not funny. All the blood? Did you see all the blood? Even thinking about it is giving me dry heaves."

"Good point." The girl – Steph – paused. "You think he's building a Frankenstein?"

"A Frankenstein?" The mere suggestion seemed to offend him. "You think this guy is building a Frankenstein."

"Yeah, yeah, I know! It's 'Frankenstein's monster', you big friggin' nerd. But it's the only logical explanation."

"I can think of a hundred other logical explanations."

"Name two."

"I. . . uh. . ."

"Thought so." Steph clucked her tongue. "Now why were all the body parts old and wrinkly. Who wants to build an old Frankenstein?" Adrian could hear the clicks of the girls' steps approach the foot of his bed. He resisted the urge to peek. "Hey, Mike. Lookit this guy's name. A. Pancake. Haha!"

"That's," the man – Mike – snorted, covering a laugh, "that's not funny."

"You love it."

"Alright, maybe it's a little funny."

"You know I can hear you guys, right?" Adrian broke his façade, scowling and opening his eyes. He'd had just about enough.

"Agh!" Mike – timid, lanky, and drenched in slop sweat – looked like he was going to jump into the girl's arms, which were drowning in a raggedy green jacket. Neither of them looked much older than he was.

"Oh, hey, uh. . . Mr. Pancake." Steph tugged on her ear, tucked behind a thick fringe of floppy hair. "You're awake."

"Sorry about that," Mike regained his composure and apologized. "Mr. Pancake."

"It's Adrian. Just – just don't worry about it." Adrian shook his head. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my hospital room?"

"We're, uh," Mike cleared his throat. "Duckett and Dyer."

Steph jumped in front of him in a dance-like flourish and finished with, "Dicks for Hire."

"No!" Mike barked at Steph before turning back to Adrian with a pleading look in his eyes. "Don't call us that. It's not our name and I hate it. We're. . . we're detectives. P.I.s."

Adrian felt his eyebrow arch involuntarily. "You're detectives?"

"That's right!" Steph jerked a thumb toward her chest. "You might've heard of us. We helped save the city."

"Uh. . . no. Not familiar."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Steph, leave him alone." Mike put his hand on Steph's shoulder.

"No, I'm sorry. We had to defeat a giant rampaging monster. I was hoping for more respect!"

"Sorry. She gets like this."

"Aw," Steph's mood shifted from upset to enamored so rapidly, she should have suffered whiplash. "How could I stay mad at this handsome boy?" She grabbed and squished Adrian's cheeks and he was powerless to stop her. "Look at this punim."

"Steph, stop that."

She relented. "Sorry, you're just so cute."

"Wait, back up." Steph's rapid jostling of Adrian's head had shook something loose. A vague memory surfaced from somewhere in the back of his brain. Something unsettling he couldn't quite place. A shadow. "Did you say 'monster'?"

"Yeah," Mike sighed. "It was a whole thing. The less said about it the better."

"He's trying not to relive it," Steph whispered. "He got fired."

"I think I saw a monster."

"You saw a monster?"

"Yeah, I dunno. It was like. . . some sort of shadow, the night I first woke up. After my doctors saw me."

"Those doctors wouldn't happen to be Albert Lee and Richard Perrins, would they?"

"Uh. . ." Adrian blinked. "Yeah, actually."

"Well that's convenient." Steph smirked. "We were hired to find them. They disappeared a few weeks ago. Any idea what might've happened to them?"

"Not really." Adrian bit his lip. "Unless. . ."

"Unless what?" Mike asked.

"My new doctor. Dr. Keene. He replaced them. Said that they had a full caseload. He's a specialist."

"Keene, huh?" Steph rubbed her chin. "This guy a creepy son of a bitch?"

"I mean, I've only met him once that I can remember." Adrian said. Now that Stephanie mentioned it, "creepy" was exactly the adjective he'd use. "But he's a miracle worker. When I got here I was completely busted, and in just a few weeks, he's fixed up my chest and arm!"

"Uh-huh," Mike nodded. "You said Keene was a specialist. What kind of specialist is he?"

"Body Reconstruction."

Steph broke out into a wide grin and she pointed two fingers at Mike. "Frankenstein."

Mike didn't have time to process a reaction as the night nurse, a stout, heavy set woman with fire in her eyes burst into the room. The light she turned on momentarily blinded all of them.

"Excuse me, but who the hell are you?"

Steph, in the midst of rubbing her eyes, attempted to jump again to the forefront, "We're Duckett & Dyer: Dic –"

"Visiting hours have been over since 5. Get the hell out!"

"They weren't actually bothering me." Adrian's objection fell on deaf ears, or at least ears too enamored with the power of their job to listen.

"Wait, we just need to–" Mike attempted to dig something out of his shirt pocket. He fumbled as the nurse began to shove the two of them out, and a small card fluttered to the floor.

"Go on! Get! Mr. Pancake needs his rest!"

Mike made a call me gesture on the way out, while Steph simply smiled and pointed a gun finger. "See you soon, my beautiful boy!"

The door swung shut behind them and the nurse – her arms akimbo – stood guard to ensure the two dicks would not return.

She turned back to Adrian.

"Sorry about that, sweetie. I won't let it happen again."

"Well, uh, thanks. But it wasn't any trouble, really."

"Nonsense," the nurse tutted, wiping some sweat off her brow with her arm. A tattoo of a misshapen tiger peeked out from beneath her shirt sleeve. "Can I get you anything? A blanket? Maybe some jell-o?"

"No, that's alright. I'm good." Adrian bit his lip. "But could you maybe tell me when the doctor's gonna be in to see me?"

"Sure. Who's your doctor again, sweetie?"

"Uh, Dr. Keene?"

"Doctor. . . Keene?" The nurse's small face scrunched even smaller.

"Yeah. The Body Reconstruction Specialist. The day nurse says he probably only works nights?"

"I don't know any Dr. Keene off the top of my head. But I'll check at the desk and get back to you." She nodded to him and made her way out the door.

"Oh, and if you could just –" Adrian reached out with his good hand as the business card was swept into the hallway, too far out of reach.

***

The next week felt interminable, as Adrian lay immobile on his bed. He had seen neither hide nor hair of Dr. Keene, nor the night nurse who had promised to get back to him. All the while, his condition remained disappointingly stagnant. Sure, Adrian's arm and chest were fine – better than ever, really – but he was expecting the rest of him to be fixed just as quickly so he could get back to normal. That is, if Dr. Keene was who he said he was.

That was the problem with Adrian's empty days, they could only be filled with thinking. So he was assaulted by a barrage of questions from the back of his own head. Dr. Keene couldn't be some sort of mass murdering psycho, could he? He'd saved his life through some sort of miracle cure. But what if he was a mad scientist? A real Frankenstein. The doctor. Not the monster, of course.

Adrian blamed those two goofball P.I.s for putting that nonsense in his head. What did they know? They didn't even look like detectives. They looked like some of the out of work hipsters he used to sling drinks to. God damn, he never thought he'd miss working at that bar. But now he'd give anything for things to go back to the way they were. To go back to his normal life.

Adrian's train of thought stalled in this station. A torrent of things he had somehow forgotten about got on board.

His friends. His parents. Surely they missed him? They should have been here or at least called and asked after him! Hell, why hadn't Adrian called them? It must have slipped his mind while he was wrapping it around the possibility of being a paraplegic. But now that he had an arm back, the ability to call them was quite literally within reach.

Still peripherally blind due to his braced neck, Adrian felt around his bedside table for a phone. Finding what felt like an old touch-tone phone, he moved the entire set over to his lap, and began dialing his parents. Bringing the handset up to his bandaged ear, Adrian was greeted with a piercing tone.

"No outgoing calls are allowed from this phone. Please hang up."

Adrian barely had time to raise an eyebrow ear before the handset cracked in two in his grip.

"Stupid cheap hospital crap," he grumbled, smacking the plastic debris off his blanket. "What the hell kind of –"

A dark spot caught Adrian's eye and stayed his tongue. It was a large dark discoloration just below the thumbnail on his left hand. Maybe a scar as a result of Keene's surgery? It had to be that.

Didn't it?

Adrian shoved the pieces of his phone into the drawer in the table beside him and tried not to think about it. He failed.

***

That night, Dr. Keene graced Adrian with his presence. He flowed in the door as usual, opting to limit the room's light to the pale moon through the curtains. But even the thin slashes of moon cutting across his face were enough to show the doctor's weariness. His severe features were saggy. His skin paler than usual.

"Wow, doc. You look like shit. Where have you been?" Adrian didn't want to make it sound like he was grilling him. He'd get to the more pressing questions in due time. And he had a lot of them.

"Oh, Mr. Pancake. I do appreciate your concern. I've been feeling under the weather lately and opted not to come in, lest I infect you or any other patients."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense." Adrian cleared his throat. "But I was hoping to get out of this bed pretty soon."

"Yes, I did make a promise to you and I intend to fulfill it." Keene tented his hands and grinned. "Thus, tonight I'll be performing an emergency surgical procedure that will leave much more of your body mended by the morning."

"Uh. . ." Adrian glanced around the room, wary. "What kind of procedure?"

"An emergency surgical one. Come now, there's no time to waste!"

In one swift motion, all of Adrian's limb pulleys were severed, and his head thudded down as the bed flattened. Adrian was seeing stars, and they didn't disappear until Dr. Keene was already wheeling his bed down the darkened hospital hallway at an impossible speed.

"Whoa, doc. Slow down!" Adrian struggled to crane his neck up, but to no avail. All he could see were the dead fluorescent bulbs above him rushing by, accompanied by what sounded like Dr. Keene foaming at the mouth. "Where are you taking me?"

They rushed into the patient elevator and Keene stabbed at a button, before stepping back and bouncing up and down on his feet.

"Aren't you excited?" He whispered back to Adrian. "I'm excited."

Adrian didn't have time to ask exactly what he was excited for before he was rushed out of the elevator into the dank hospital basement. Pipes snaked around unfinished cement walls and around corners. If this was where he'd be getting surgery, it certainly didn't seem very sterile. But it did seem familiar. Had he been here before?

"Uh, doc, where are you taking me?" Adrian repeated.

"Oh, my operating room is just down this way. I like to keep it cool and dark."

"I see." Adrian didn't know what else he could say. "Well, uh, in that case. . . help?"

"What?"

"HELP!" Adrian shouted. "HELP! HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! PLEASE!"

Adrian continued yelling, but no one could hear him. Dr. Keene just kept pushing his bed faster and faster. All Adrian could see was the underside of his manic grin as they burst through a set of metallic double doors. The room was as dark and cool as Dr. Keene had said, but was filled with the acrid stench of rotting meat, mostly due to the disused body parts heaped in dripping, congealing piles.

Adrian tried to scream, but it caught in his throat as a sharp pain in his neck sent him directly into the blackness.

***

Adrian bolted upright in his hospital bed. The bright morning light kept him squinting for a minute before he realized he shouldn't have been able to bolt upright at all. As his eyes adjusted, the hospital room around him resolved itself and he caught sight of his legs. Adrian wriggled his toes to be sure. And yes, they were normal, unbroken legs. A bit stiff, but they were working. He let out a whoop of pleasure, but found that he could not raise his right arm. It was still in a cast, but a much smaller one held up in a sling close to his body. But it was better than nothing. He looked around for a nurse to share his good news with, but found none. When was the last time he'd seen a nurse anyway? Last night? No. . .

Adrian tried to recall more, but could not for the life of him remember anything past last night's initial conversation with Dr. Keene. Any further attempts at probing his memories were immediately thwarted.

BRINNGGGG

Adrian whipped around at the sound of the phone ringing, but his stiff neck brace and bandaged head still limited his movement and he almost fell out of bed. He managed to steady himself and catch sight of his bedside table for the first time since he'd gotten here.

It was empty.

BRINNGGGG

The sound was coming from within the table. That's right. Adrian remembered shoving the broken phone in the drawer. He slid it open and extricated the remains of the handset, holding them to his ear and mouth as if he was speaking to 1920.

"Um. . . hello?"

"Hello?" A tinny voice vibrated through the speaker. It seemed the wires of the phone were still intact.

"Yes, this is Adrian. Who's this?"

"Adrian! My beautiful boy!" A vaguely familiar woman's voice wafted through the earpiece. "How's every little thing?"

"Uh. . . who is this?"

"Oh, c'mon. It's me. Stephanie Dyer. From Duckett & Dyer: D-"

"Don't say it." A man's voice from further away.

"Ahem. From the detective agency. We met two months ago."

Oh. Yes. Mike and Steph. He remembered them.

Wait.

"Two months ago?"

"Yeah. Don't you remember?"

"No, it's only been a week." Adrian's mouth went dry. He couldn't have lost track of time that badly.

"Yeah, no. Pretty sure it's been months. We've been on this case for what's felt like forever," Stephanie said. "Anyway. We've got some bad news for you, Adrian. You're dead."

Adrian's jaw dropped as far as the bandage would let it. When the ringing in his ears began to fade, he caught wind of some harsh whispers on the other end of the line.

"Oh, sorry. I meant 'legally dead'," Steph finished. "Someone's gone into the public record and erased all trace of you. Even your parents think you died in the monster attack. They had a funeral put together for you. It was all very sad. We were there. It was a nice service. And when I say 'we were there', I mean hiding in the bushes."

"Wh – what?" Adrian's hope of returning back to his normal life had been dashed in the space of seconds. Everyone thought he was dead? Is that why his phone didn't allow outgoing calls? Why he could never find out what day or time it was? Who would do this? And why would they want to keep him isolated?

The answer was obvious.

"Sorry. I'm getting off track. We'll shore up all of that later. Mike and I need your help. On top of your missing doctors, there have been bodies missing from morgues all across the city. Classic Frankenstein maneuver. We think your Dr. Keene is connected."

"Yeah, yeah," Adrian found his words. He'd do anything to be able to get back home. Back to normal. "I'll help you. But you need to help me, too. I don't think I'm safe here. There's things I . . . I can't remember."

"Oh, you my boy, Adrian! Don't worry. We'll help you out. That's what we do. All we need is for you to let us into the hospital tonight. Basement. Boiler Room. Back Door. 2 am. Can you do that?"

"Uh, yes. Yes. I can do that."

"Good. You're the only one we can trust, my beautiful baby boy. Over and out."

"Wait," Adrian said, just before Stephanie hung up. "How did you get my number?"

"Oh, I just dialed every extension in the hospital over and over. I was bound to get you some time. See you tonight!"

"Wait, did you say 2 am?" Mike's voice filtered through the background. "I don't want to stay up until 2 am!"

The line clicked silent. Adrian shoved the broken pieces of his phone into his side drawer, and waited.

***

It was dark, and Adrian was tired, but he willed himself awake. He just had to stay up until 2 am.

Whenever that was.

Lacking any sense of time, Adrian thought it best to pick an approximate time based on an educated guess and count the seconds forward. It wasn't the best strategy, but it was all he could do. Plus, it took his mind of the implications of his situation.

At what he figured was 1:30 am, Adrian rubbed his eyes and forced himself up, dangling his feet over his bed. He felt the cool touch of the floor on his left foot a bit before his right, but paid it no mind as he stood up for the first time in what had apparently been months. Aside from his right arm, his body was fully functional again. Adrian felt good, and. . . somewhat taller, if that was possible.

He began to move and immediately tripped over himself. He had to get the hang of walking again, Adrian supposed. But without much more struggle, he made it out into the dark, empty hallway, inching himself closer to the elevator. His steps felt odd, staccato, like he was limping. Adrian chalked that up to some muscle atrophy.

Soon, the cold metal doors of the elevator loomed before him. Adrian squinted at the faded, warped reflection in the metal for a second, then jabbed at the button. He slunk in, slumped against the wall and hit the 'B'. The elevator shuddered and descended, and with it Adrian's mind fell into a crevasse of déjà vu. He'd been in this elevator before. And it wasn't pleasant. His head began to pound, as if something in the back of his mind was begging to be released.

He clutched at his bandaged head to get it to stop, but when the doors dinged open into the rough concrete hallways and twisting pipes, Adrian could practically hear himself screaming for help. Closing his eyes, he trudged forward, stumbling awkwardly, angrily down the basement corridors, struggling to make sense of it all. When the pounding in his head became too much to bear, he steadied himself against a cool metal door. The bright red paint glowed against the gray concrete, searing the words into Adrian's eyes.

FIRE DOOR.

Adrian recoiled internally, but couldn't figure out why. There was nothing bad about a Fire Door. But the thought of fire itself felt like acid in his veins. Worse than the drumming in his mind, the burning feeling was so intense that he could barely stand. He slumped with his back to the door, which gave way and creaked open, letting in a cool, calming breeze that felt wonderful.

But that wasn't all he let in.

"Adrian, you cutie patootie! You did it!" Stephanie Dyer rushed in and helped him back to his feet. "Wow, you're heavy. And, uh, taller than I expected."

"Whoa." Mike slipped through the closing door. "You look terrible."

"Thanks," Adrian muttered. "I think I had a panic attack or something."

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno. Flashbacks. Stuff I can't – but should – remember. I think I've been down here before."

"Hm. That might be real helpful." Steph narrowed her eyes. "Why don't you come with us?"

"Steph," Mike chided. "That might not be safe. We don't know what we're getting into. Besides, he's still recovering."

"Oh, come on. My baby boy's nearly better. Looks as strong as an ox. An ox with one broken arm."

"Yeah, okay, it's fine," Adrian said. "I'll come with you. I need to know what the hell's been going on with Keene. He's messing with me somehow, but I don't know why."

"Alright, it's your funeral." Mike pulled a bat out from behind his back and thrust it towards him. It was like he'd had it the entire time as insurance. "Might wanna take this."

Adrian nodded and grabbed the handle and business end, cradling the bat against his chest as the three of them proceeded down the basement corridors. He stayed behind Mike and Steph since they seemed to know what they were doing – at least a little bit. But he found that he could see clear over the tops of their heads by about an inch or so. They were shorter than he thought.

Rounding a few corners put them smack dab in front of a set of familiar metal double doors. Adrian raised his bat, governed by some faint, near-forgotten instinct. Maybe he just had a thing against doors?

"This is it," Steph said, her hands on her hips. "Your one-stop-shop for gently used body parts. If Mike will try not to throw up again, maybe we can do some proper investigating this time."

"I didn't throw up, Steph. It was dry! Dry!"

"I've. . ." Adrian tried to grasp the words. "I've been here before."

"You have?" Mike wheeled around. "Why?"

"I don't remember."

"Well, let's find out, shall we?" Steph left the doors swinging in her wake and Mike and Adrian had no choice but to follow.

The first thing that struck Adrian about the room was its familiarity. The second was the persistent chill. The third was the mountainous piles of dead body parts, the sight of which caused a reverberation in his head. It only intensified when he spotted the cold metal table in the middle of the mess. He'd seen this before. Adrian let the wooden bat clatter to the floor.

It was Doctor Keene. He'd wheeled Adrian in here. This meat locker. To perform outrageous acts of surgery on him for no reason.

The fourth thing Adrian noticed were the medieval style wood torches hanging in sconces on the wall, each ablaze with flames that did nothing to help warm the room. A spike of fear pierced Adrian's stomach and he doubled over, clutching his head.

"No!" He screamed. "No fire!"

"Whoa, Adrian!" Steph crouched down beside him.

"What's the matter?"

"Fire!" The words flew out of Adrian's mouth instinctively. "Fire bad!"

"Mike, put out the torches!" Steph yelled.

"But we won't be able to see anything!"

"Just do it!"

Peeking through his fingers, Adrian watched Mike grab each individual torch – reluctantly climbing upon piles of desiccated arms and legs to do so – and extinguishing them on the cold ground. Soon, the room was dark. A bright rectangle emerged from the void as Mike turned on his phone to provide some visible light.

"There," he said. "Better?"

"Yes. . . uh . . . a lot, actually." Adrian had felt the spike in his abdomen subside and the icy fear that ran down his spine was replaced by the less intense cold of the room itself.

"What the hell was that?" Steph asked.

"I. . . uh. . . just felt. . . that fire. . . bad, I guess."

The silence that followed was almost worse than the fear. Almost.

"Uh, Mike. . ." Steph's voice trailed off. "I think I might have been right."

The doors burst open, and the room was bathed in the weak industrial light of the hallway, throwing shadows of the disembodied arms and legs into terrifying pantomimes on the room's high walls. And there, in the center of it all, swirled the dark form of Dr. Keene.

"Hello, Adrian," the words slithered past his teeth. Shedding his white coat to reveal a cloak of pure black, he turned an annoyed glance at Mike and Steph. "And you are?"

"Duckett and Dyer: D–"

"Not the time, Steph!" Mike hissed.

"Fine. Well, we're here to kick your ass for what you've done to Adrian here." Steph growled. This was the first time Adrian had seen this weird wispy girl get angry. "You turned my beautiful boy into a Frankenstein!"

Keene's sharp grin widened. With each revealed tooth, Adrian began to grasp piecemeal bits of reality. His blood coursed through veins that weren't his. Dr. Keene had been replacing each and every one of Adrian's limbs with dead body parts. That's why he was taller, stronger, more uncoordinated. The birthmark beneath his thumb. His new arm had belonged to one of his nurses. His limp. One of his legs was now longer than the other! Stephanie was right! He was a Frankenstein!

"Technically, it's a 'Keene's monster'," Keene said.

"Yeah? Well we're not exactly 'keen' on it!" Mike yelled.

Steph patted Mike's chest with the back of her hand, "Terrible. But nice try."

That was when Adrian heard the screaming. A sustained, anguished cry that caused everyone – even Keene, to cover their ears. It was only after a few seconds that Adrian realized he was the one screaming. His mind finally caught up and everything washed over him in an instant. He had lost time. Family. A life. Not to mention all his limbs! Any hope of going back to his normal life was now as dead as the disembodied parts around him. He was now a literal monster, so why not act like it?

Adrian's scream turned into a roar as he lunged at Keene, lifting him off the floor with a surprising show of strength. He swung the doctor into a pile of arms and legs that flew apart on impact. As Keene stirred, dazed, on the floor, Adrian rushed over to grab and pin the doctor to the wall using the cast on his right arm.

"Whoa, Adrian, whoa, relax!" Mike shouted.

Adrian could barely hear him as he stared up into Keene's still grinning face. Cracks snaked through his cast and the plaster began to fall away in chunks, revealing a thick, tanned arm with a tattoo of a deformed tiger that Adrian knew was not his own.

"Why?" He roared. "Why did you do this to me?"

"Well, if you must know," Keene snarled, his teeth morphing into thin, pointed blades, "I was hungry!"

With a hiss, Keene bit down on Adrian's arm. The cast took most of the blow, and the remainder of it shattered. In shock, Adrian dropped Keene and stumbled back before the doctor could get to him.

Keene twirled and hissed. The shadows around him pooled at his feet, revealing his true form: a pale monster with bloodshot eyes and dagger-like yellowing teeth and nails.

"Wait, hold on," Mike said from somewhere behind Adrian. "What the actual hell is going on here?"

"Are you telling me," Steph started, "that Keene is a Dracula? And he made a Frankenstein?"

"It's only logical, my dear." Keene crept toward them, teeth out, back hunched. "Why go through the trouble of sucking people dry and covering up their deaths, when I have a strong heart that can replenish the blood supply of hundreds of disposable limbs?"

Adrian's eyes went wide as Keene's clawed hand indicated him. That's why all these limbs were wrinkled and aged. Keene had been sucking the blood out of them. Adrian's blood. And he'd do it over and over and over again. Adrian's lip trembled in a disgusted sneer.

"That's friggin gross, man." Stephanie had adopted a similar sneer. But this one was a bit more defiant, though they were all being backed into a corner by the advancing vampire. "You're turning people's arms into your own personal Capri Suns?"

"I wouldn't use that term, but the idea is sound. But now you two will be added to my collection since you couldn't leave well enough alone." Keene's gaze snapped to Adrian. "And Mr. Pancake is going back to bed. . . for an extended stay."

"You stay away from my beautiful boy!" Steph dove to the floor and snatched up two limp, rubbery arms – one in each hand – and crisscrossed them, thrusting the result in front of Keene's face. "Back! Back!"

Keene scrunched up his face, but only in confusion. "Whatever it is you're trying to do, it's not working."

"It's a cross," she said. "You guys don't like that stuff."

"Well, yes. But this is more of a sideways X than anything. And those arms aren't remotely holy. And crosses aren't made of arms."

"Oh, good point." Steph glanced down at her creation. "Well, then I guess it's just a distraction."

"A distraction?"

Steph slapped Dr. Keene upside the head with the arms, sending him flat on his back on the cold floor. For someone of her build, she had a surprising amount of power.

"Run!" she shouted.

Mike obeyed immediately and was already out the door. Adrian, on the other hand, was frozen in shock.

"You, too, Adrian! Let's go!" Steph's hand circled Adrian's wrist and he let himself be dragged, stumbling, after her.

***

They ran so fast they nearly collided with walls and pipes several times. Steph's haphazard brand of leadership wasn't doing them any favors. So, favoring his left leg, Adrian picked up speed and soon he was dragging Steph through the maze of corridors at an impossible speed. Around an upcoming corner, Adrian could hear Mike's ragged breathing. He'd stopped, but Adrian was moving too fast to adjust and he and Steph collided with Mike as they rounded the bend.

"God damn it." Mike sat up and rubbed his head. "That hurt!"

"Well, why'd you stop?" Steph frowned. "I gave us a real good head start!"

"I'd be a lot more comfortable if your plans didn't come out of the Three Stooges handbook."

A shrill screech echoed down the maintenance corridors, transforming into an angry yell as it bounced off each hard edge. Keene was up and he was on the move. They had lost precious seconds sprawled on the floor.

"Split up!" Steph said almost immediately.

"What?" Mike scrunched up his face.

"He can't catch all of us. He's only one dude. He can't multiply himself. That's not a thing Draculas can do, right?"

"He's a vampire. Not an X-Man!"

"Would you two stop bickering?" Adrian whispered, though it came out as a shout. "Keene is on his way!"

"Sorry," Steph said. "It's kind of our thing. Anyway. I'll distract Keene. Lead him up the stairs or something. Mike, you take Adrian, find something we can use to kill a Dracula. There must be something in this place."

"Okay, fine. Then what?"

"Come with me, and hope he hasn't turned me into another Dracula. Break!" Steph jumped up and turned back to Mike as she jogged away. "And make sure you take care of that cute little face!"

"Is she always like this?" Adrian asked.

"Hey, Count Chocula!" Steph's voice carried down the hallway, followed by an indignant hiss. "Come get some of this balanced breakfast!"

"You get used to it," Mike said in a tone that implied that you really didn't. "She's probably shaking her butt at him. Let's go."

Adrian followed Mike as they sprinted around the opposite corner to the sounds of hurried footsteps and angry screaming. They found themselves back in front of the elevator Adrian had used earlier and rushed inside, Mike slamming the 'Door Close' button repeatedly.

"Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay." Mike tightened and loosened his fists with each repetition of the word. "Okay. What kills vampires and where can we find it in this hospital?"

"Um. . ." Adrian started. "Crosses."

"Tried that. Need a real one."

"Holy Water."

"Hm. Not bad. Is there a hospital chapel? We could get both there."

"Yeah, but it's 2 in the morning. It's probably closed. Besides, as a monster, I'm not sure if I can even cross the threshold."

"Fine, fine. What else?"

"Wooden stakes," Adrian counted off on his – well, not his – fingers. "The sun."

"We can't wait 4 hours."

"Would you stop being so negative?"

"Oh, what about garlic?" Mike snapped his fingers. "We could get some in the cafeteria."

"It's a hospital cafeteria. Have you tasted the food here? They think steam is a spice."

"And you're calling me negative."

Adrian thought for a few more minutes, then an idea dinged into his head. Actually, the ding was the elevator beginning to rise, but he still had the idea. Something he'd read ages ago.

"Vampires like to count. It's like a compulsion. If you spilled a bunch of rice, they'd have to count every grain."

"What? Like Rainman?"

"I guess." Adrian shrugged his asymmetrical shoulders.

"So that's why Count from Sesame Street likes math so much! Did you know his full name is 'Count Von Count'?"

"I think we're getting off track."

"Right, right. Sorry." Mike shook his head as the elevator doors opened. "We gotta find a supply room. There's bound to be something we can use"

Mike barreled out of the elevator and Adrian followed suit, slipping and sliding on the slick floors. After a few haphazard turns, they managed to find a supply closet halfway down the cardiology wing. Checking to see that the coast was clear, they slipped inside. Unfortunately, the closet didn't have room for both a man and a large monster, so it was a tight squeeze while they turned the place inside out.

"Catheters? No. Masks? Not enough to distract him." Mike tossed boxes to the floor as he crossed each option off.

Adrian, frozen in an awkward position, did his best to hunch over and stay out of the way. But he couldn't help but start thinking, which was not helping his mental state.

"What am I going to do? I can't go back to work. I can't go home again. Everyone thinks I'm dead. Hell, maybe I am! I'm not even myself anymore. I'm a monster. A literal monster!"

Mike stopped tossing boxes and turned to the hulking, quivering mass that Adrian could no longer recognize as his body. He reached up and placed a firm, but gentle hand on the tan, chubby shoulder closest to him.

"Adrian, listen. I know monsters. I fought a bunch of monsters. And you're not a monster."

"Really?" Adrian looked down, his eyes blurry with slight tears.

"Oh, yeah. I used to work for a bunch of actual shape-shifting demons. In an office building! And not one of them had as much humanity as you do."

"You. . . you think things will be okay?"

"Not gonna lie. Things'll be different. Hard. But they'll be better if you just embrace it and learn to enjoy the ride. I mean, just a few months ago I was doing data entry and now I'm fighting monsters and solving crime."

"That's. . . quite the pivot."

"Tell me about it. But once I leaned into it, things got easier. And that's something I had to learn the hard way." Mike sighed. "Don't tell her I said this, but Steph's the best at that stuff. She can find a new normal – even in the craziest times. She doesn't let the crappy stuff define her, she just keeps pushing forward." Mike pointed at Adrian's heart. "With this."

"Thanks, Mike. That helps." Adrian nodded, sniffing.

"Unless Keene replaced your heart, too. Then all bets are off." Mike turned his attention back to the shelves.

Adrian chuckled, then reached up and cracked the plastic neck brace that had been holding his head upright, tossing it to the floor. He unwound the sticky bandage that encompassed his head and let his long hair finally breathe free. Wiping his bleary eyes with an oversized hand, Adrian got a clear view of a box that was sitting on a shelf in front of him. "IV needles. 2000 count."

Mike's eyes widened when he spotted the box.

"Fantastic!" He yanked it off the shelf and the two of them spilled back into the hallway. Mike dug his phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial. "Steph! We got something! Where are you?"

After a few huffs and puffs, Steph's voice croaked through the speaker, "Almost to the roof! I don't know how much longer I can shake this guy."

"Don't worry, Steph. We're on our way!" Mike shoved his phone back in his pocket and ran towards the closest elevator, Adrian in tow.

***

By the time they reached the roof of the hospital and burst through the doors, Dr. Keene already had Stephanie on the ropes. The doctor's shadow stretched out behind him as Steph teetered on the roof's edge. The only thing between her and a deadly drop were the giant illuminated letters that spelled out 'City Presbyterian Hospital'.

"Steph!" Michael yelled. "We're here!"

"Great timing, guys!" she shouted with a scowl that suddenly softened. "Oh, Adrian. Nice hair!"

"Adrian Pancake," Keene hissed, his eyes burning as he stared back. "You ungrateful whelp. I could've given you phenomenal power, but you had to stick your nose where it didn't belong. Once I'm done turning your little girlfriend here into an unholy bride, we'll turn you into a mindless blood factory."

"Bride? Gross!" Steph grimaced. "Mike, whatever you're going to do, do it fast, because I'm not doing the horizontal mambo with a Dracula!"

"Hey, Keene, check this out!" Mike reared back and launched the box of needles into the air. They crashed to the floor by Keene's dark feet, spilling their glittering contents across the entire roof.

Keene hissed, as if he'd been burnt, and immediately crouched down to pick up and count the needles one by one. Steph let out a breath and dashed over to safety by Mike, wrapping her arms around Adrian's waist.

"Wow. That was close." She looked up. "How're you doing, my big beautiful boy?"

"I'm. . . actually, I'm good. Trying to get used to things."

"Oh, that's good." Steph squeezed him tighter.

"Alright, that's enough." Mike shooed her away.

"How'd you know that'd work?" Steph asked.

"Adrian told me vampires have a compulsion to count."

"Like on Sesame Street!"

"That's what I said." Mike smirked.

"Did you know his name is 'Count Von Count'? How nuts is that?"

"Ahem." Dr. Keene cleared his throat as he rose up in front of them. He held the needle box aloft in his clawed, shadowy hands. "2000 count."

"Ah, crap," Stephanie muttered.

Keene hissed and reared back, his fangs growing ever longer. It was barely a second before he struck, but Adrian's increased reaction time and speed allowed him to put himself right in Keene's path. Grabbing the doctor's wrists in his new mismatched hands, Adrian pushed back. The two of them growled and snarled, wrestling their way back to the edge of the roof.

Keene tried to claw and slash at him, but Adrian held him at bay. He wasn't about to let Keene turn him into some sort of Vampiric Frankenstein. Things were already crazy enough.

With one swift jerk, Adrian whipped Keene's body aside, sending him spiraling toward the edge of the rooftop. Keene caught himself in time, of course, crouching on all fours for balance, like an animal.

"Fight me all you want. I am immortal." Dr. Keene floated to his feet, licking his chops. "If I don't kill you tonight, I'll have plenty of other days to do it. And by hook or by crook I will turn your other little friends over there into monsters just as terrible and savage as you."

"I'm not a monster!" Adrian growled, which somewhat undercut the point, but now wasn't the time to nitpick. He wasn't about to let Keene define who he was. He was going to do what he knew – in his heart – that he had to do. "My name is Adrian Pancake! And I won't let you do this to anyone ever again!"

Adrian lunged at Keene, catching him right in the stomach. His hodgepodge body was so massive, and its speed so great, that Adrian's momentum was more than enough to send himself and Keene flying off the roof, crashing right through the framework of the giant 'Presbyterian' sign before plummeting to the ground.

Dr. Keene clawed at Adrian's back, hissing and yowling with malice, but Adrian closed his eyes and silently accepted everything that would happen.

***

Adrian Pancake had no idea what happened.

The warm light of the morning sun caressed his face just before Stephanie Dyer slapped it. Repeatedly.

"Adrian! Wake up!" Steph had been cradling his head and neck in her arms. "Oh, my boy!" she cried. "Look what they did to my boy!"

"Ugh. Steph. I'm awake. I'm alive. Let me go!" Adrian coughed the words out of his mouth and found the strength to push himself up. It took a second for him to regain his bearings. Taking stock of their surroundings, Adrian found that his little selfless sacrifice had caused the hospital's illuminated signage to dislodge and tumble to the ground. Adrian himself was lucky enough to be in the middle of a large O. The other damaged letters were strewn across the street, twisted and almost unrecognizable, aside from the giant lower case T from 'Presbyterian' which sat neatly atop a circular black pool of detritus that had been Dr. Keene. It looked like he had quite literally been flattened.

Adrian didn't need to complete the thought.

"That's as holy a cross as we were going to get, I guess," Mike winced, rubbing the back of his head.

"He's dead," Adrian said, mostly for himself. "He's finally dead."

"Yeah," Steph said. "But you gotta get out of here quick."

"What? Why?"

"Because you're a Frankenstein, man! If hospital management and the cops get wind that a Frankenstein did all this," she indicated the alphabetical warzone around them, "there's gonna be trouble. They're going to wanna lock up and study the monster."

"But I'm not a monster. Doesn't it only matter what's in my heart?"

"I mean, yeah. In an ideal world." Stephanie shrugged at Mike, who seemed confused by the words coming out of her mouth. "But in another, more technically accurate world, scientists are going to try to dissect you. So you'd better hightail it."

Adrian struggled to his feet. "Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? I'm technically dead and I don't think my friends and family would want to see me like this. And they might not be happy about my fake death."

"You'd be surprised at what crazy shit friends and family will put up with," Mike said. "You could try to go back to normal."

"Maybe." Adrian nodded, looking down at his hands. "Or maybe I could do something good for the world with what I've been given. Maybe a different – better – normal. Kinda like you guys."

"Yeah." Mike bit his lip. "I dunno if you could classify what we do as 'good'."

"Whatever you do, first, find a big and tall shop. Get something nice." Steph slapped Adrian's butt, which was a little too exposed by the thin hospital gown. She winked at him as approaching sirens began to wail in the distance. "We'll cover for you. We've got a lot of experience dealing with the cops."

Mike sighed. "She's right, unfortunately."

"Goodbye, my adorable little boy. . ." Steph smiled and caressed Adrian's cheek, before delivering another slap to his butt that spurred him to get going.

Adrian let out a long breath and began to lope away into the rapidly fading night. Once he had made his way into the small copse of trees and shrubbery surrounding the hospital, he allowed himself one look back. Mike and Steph had begun fielding questions from the cavalcade of red and blue lights orbiting around them. Adrian nodded to himself before slipping away into darkness and distance.

For better or for worse, his life was never going to be the same. But maybe that'd be okay.

About the Author

G.M. Nair possesses advanced degrees in Aerospace Engineering, but chooses to be a giant nerd and general nuisance, instead.

Not content to just gobble up content from movies, television, and comic books, G.M. Nair feels the need to express himself creatively, despite everyone's consistent protests. He has written comedy for the stage and screen, and is the author of the highly unlucrative Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire Series.

His favorite Vampire Weekend song is "Unbelievers" and he enjoys long walks off a short pier.

The Brown Note: A Cord & Nenn Short by Clayton Snyder

Cord hung from the cargo netting we'd rigged into hammocks, upside down. His hair swept towards the floor in a hirsute halo. The boat was headed to Pike, a little town some miles north of the river proper, and it'd been a long couple of days. I shot the stocky thief a look that could have cut glass.

"I'm bored," he said. He wiggled his eyebrows.

"You've got two options, then," I said, settling back into the netting and cracking the book. Killer Queen. It was just getting good.

"Take over the boat and find the nearest brothel?"

"I mean you could fuck yourself. Or you could listen to me."

"That's hurtful," he said.

"Not as hurtful as me stabbing you til you're quiet for the rest of the ride."

I'm not normally murderous towards the ones I love, but he'd been singing some infernal thing from the last port nonstop, and I was just about ready to sever his vocal cords for a short respite. Hey, I'm not a lunatic. He'd heal. He always healed. I wondered briefly if Cord would ever die, or if it would be just him, the cockroaches, and whatever syphilitic lunatic he'd picked for a partner at the end.

"Hey, just because I can't die doesn't mean I should. It hurts."

"Baby."

"Piss-britches."

I blew out an exasperated breath. The time he hadn't spent singing had been spent bitching, and barring ending him, I was almost ready to march above deck and declare my presence. Hopefully, the captain would take mercy and only have me flogged half to death.

"Entertain yourself."

"I am," he said. "Your face is redder than a baboon's ass, and that is entertaining. Wow. Look at that vein. I'm gonna name it Axl."

I chucked a knife at him, and he cringed as it hit the bulkhead, quivering in place. He climbed back into his hammock and fidgeted. A long sigh. I tried to ignore him and turned back to the book. The Queen was just getting ready to unlace her breeches. He sighed again, and I pictured him flying from the mainmast like a meat flag.

"What?" I asked.

"I need paper."

I dug into my pack, coming up with paper and a pencil. I passed it up to him.

"I'm convinced your parents were from the same branch of the family tree," I said.

"Thank you, Nenn," he said sweetly.

I sat down and dug into my book again. I'd read maybe another ten pages before his head reappeared. He wore a grin, and one eyebrow cocked.

"Funt," he said.

"What?"

"I decided to make my own curses. Listen: Slimp. Smuctating. Pimhole. Fardwark. Scrum. Clotpole. Wim. Frangilate. I'm quite proud of that one."

"Okay, use even one of those in a sentence."

His grin widened, and I knew I'd asked the wrong question.

"A fortnight ago I funted a slimpy little scribe. When we were done, he thanked me for the frangilation, and licked my wim."

"Have you considered seeing a professional?" I asked.

"Have you considered wearing some shadow on your eyes? Just a little here—," his fingers came up and swiped under his eye.

I chucked a second blade at him, and it sunk into his shoulder.

"You fardwarking clotpole!" he yelled, then promptly fell into the deck.

He pulled the short blade free with a pained grunt and handed it back to me. Somewhere above deck, a bell sounded, and the motion of the boat calmed.

"Hooray, Pike! Get some sleep," he said. "We've got work tonight."

"Okay, but trade me nets."

"Why?"

"Until you stop bleeding, I don't want it all over me."

"You're oddly fastidious for someone who stabs everyone."

"This is my best shirt."

"That is your only shirt."

I climbed into the upper hammock and closed my eyes. After a moment, I heard Cord climb into his with a groan. In a few minutes, his snores filled the hold.

***

We entered Pike just after nightfall, slipping off the boat with relative ease. Most of the sailors were already out carousing or sleeping off the journey, and no one had posted a guard. Pike wasn't a big town, but it was somewhat respectable. It stood on a slight hill, the docks giving way to shops, shops giving way to modest homes, all of which led up to the mayor's house some way up the hill. It was a sprawling mansion compared to everything else. For the most part, despite the fair size of the shops and homes, paint flaked, roofing tiles curled, walls warped in the riverside air. Anemic chickens scratched at the dirt paths, and an emaciated goat bleated from a small corral.

"Okay, why are we here?" I asked.

Cord gestured to the big house. "Rumor is, he's been skimming from the town ledgers, the businesspeople. Taxes are out of control. Got a chest the size of a small elephant."

"And we're gonna steal it?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Too hard to move. We're gonna steal part of it, and redistribute the rest. But first, my plan."

He gestured toward a lamp pole as we passed it. A poster on the iron read:

BARD/BAND WANTED

SPECIAL TALENTS CONSIDERED

APPLY AT CBGB

"CBGB?" I asked.

"Centaur Balls, Goblin Balls," Cord said.

"Classy. How the hell did you get those up so fast?" I asked.

"I slipped the bosun a little gold. Captain doesn't pay him enough. How do you think we got on and off the boat so easily?"

"Nice."

"I know."

He steered us down a side street filled with shops stacked shoulder to shoulder, glass fronts displaying threadbare wares. Someone coughed in an alley, and we moved a little quicker, my hands on my knives. Here too, posters decorated walls and poles, and sometimes windows. As we drew near to CBGB, the sounds of music and laughter came to us, and the smells of roast food. My mouth watered at the prospect of not eating dried fish and biscuits, and we picked up the pace.

Inside, the pub was a riot of noise and color. Mercenaries from Gentia rubbed shoulders with Mane's guard, while pockets of citizenry downed tumblers of beer and shoveled potato and onion mixtures into their mouths. We sat and ordered food, then turned to the stage at the end of the hall. A small band played there at the moment, lackluster and half-hearted, not that the patrons noticed.

My meal was potato skinned thin and fried, and some green that had been boiled and buttered. As we'd seen when we disembarked, meat was at a premium. Fortunately for the town (or maybe not, depending on how often you ate them), potatoes were abundant. While I ate, I watched the door. Patrons came and went as the night lengthened, and I thought perhaps Cord's advertisement hadn't attracted any takers. By the time I finished though, the bards began to enter.

The first was a group of three, black hair, black kohl around their eyes, black clothes. They carried two mandolins and a drum. The next—my heart nearly stopped. I recognized them. Vyxen, a girl group I'd seen several times in my youth. Tall, blonde, thin. They carried all sorts of instruments and could play them. The last was a lanky-haired youth with a slouch and a tube with a pipe at one end. I didn't hold out much hope for him, but Cord perked up when he entered.

The house band trailed off, and the first newcomers took the stage. They tuned their instruments, then the lead, a stocky man in a sleeveless tunic, arms bulging with muscle, announced in a gravelly voice, "We are Goblin Shite!"

The mandolins began, shrill and loud, and the drummer hammered on his instrument in a frenzy, not unlike that of a rabbit's ability to fuck. The big man launched into a verse, voice straining against the laws of physics and good taste.

YOUR LOVE MAKES ME WANT TO DIE  
I DON'T WANT YOUR POISONED PIE

I DON'T WANT YOUR HAIR-COVERED COMB

I JUST WANT THE QUIET OF THE TOMB

KILL ME

KILL ME

KILL ME

COCKROACH

The mandolins faded out, and the patrons of the bar fell into dead silence. I looked at Cord. He shrugged.

"Next," he called.

Goblin Shite trudged off the stage, and Vyxen took their place. Crisy, the lead singer, announced the band name, then they struck up a tune.

This one's called Love Swamp.

One day you left me

You can't just let it be

Now I'm drowning

In the mud

I feel it in my blood

Love Swamp

Let me go

Love Swamp

Everything's moist

Love Swamp

I never had a choice

Again, the music faded out. The crowd looked at one another. Silence filled the room. Vyxen left the stage, and as Crisy passed the lead singer of Goblin Shite, she gave him the finger.

"Ah," I said.

"Heartbreak makes bad poets of us all," Cord agreed.

The last rose to the stage and pressed the pipe on his tube to his mouth. His cheeks puffed out. The note he played was low, and as it went, it rapidly slid to inaudible. Cord stood and raised his hands.

"That's good," he said.

The kid stopped playing, and Cord approached the stage. They stood for a moment, speaking in low tones, then a bit of cash passed between them, and the young musician took the stairs to the rooms above.

"I don't know what just happened," I said.

Cord winked. "You'll see. Let's get some sleep."

We headed upstairs to our room.

***

The next morning, the city was almost as bright as the bar the night before. A festival had been called, and the town square teemed with people in white clothing, bare feet, and ribbons. They looked less than happy to be there, milling about listlessly, casting fearful glances at the guards. Seeing them by day, I noticed signs of malnutrition, of hunger. In others, diseases easily stopped by cheap apothecary medicine. Cord was at my elbow like a ghost.

"See?" he said. "He forces them into these things in his honor. Festivals dedicated to his largesse. Like he's a benevolent king. Let me tell you, those who deserve these sorts of displays usually end up cold in the ground, in my experience. The ones who don't, well—not everyone has a sword arm, a knight on horseback, or a kindly wizard. The ones who do rarely deserve that privilege. You think a kindly leader needs all that muscle?" he nodded toward one side of the square.

They'd erected a platform and made it up with a tall chair in red and gold. Beside it, guards posted up in bright mail and short blades, pikes at their side, ready for the Mayor to arrive. Bunting surrounded everything, from the stage to the fountain. Cord led us through the crowd.

"What's the plan here, anyway?" I asked for the third time that day.

"You'll see. Look, I don't want to give it away. It's brilliant."

"Uh..." I said.

"What?"

"Brilliant usually means 'ending in bloodshed'."

He made a dismissive sound. "That's only happened like three times. But I can guarantee that while everyone's here, we're going to just walk in and take that gold."

"Uh, okay. And I'll shit unicorns."

"If you could shit unicorns, we could've retired a long time ago. Here," he handed me a pair of wax plugs.

"Your sense of humor gets weirder every day," I said.

"They're for your ears."

"Of course. I knew that."

A fanfare of trumpets blared, and the crowd parted as the Mayor strutted from a nearby tent. Thin and florid, he climbed the steps to the platform with a look on his face like he'd just been inaugurated as the city's official shit-smeller. He plopped into his chair.

"Let the festivities begin!" he declared.

Small confetti cannons blared from somewhere, blasting the crowd with colored paper. A cheer went up. Opposite the Mayor's platform, the boy from the bar climbed onto the stage, instrument in hand. A scowl crossed the Mayor's face and he pointed at the boy.

"That is not my band. Guards. Guards!"

Cord nudged me. "Earplugs."

I shoved the plugs into my ears as the boy blew into his pipe. At first, I heard a distant vibration, then nothing. I looked at Cord.

"Why did I need these?" I shouted.

The guards charged the stage, and I wondered if getting the boy cut to ribbons was part of Cord's plan. My hands went to my knives as I calculated how many I could take out. Cord put a hand on mine and pointed, shaking his head.

As the wave of guards approached the stage, they staggered, dropping their weapons. They clutched their stomachs and then collapsed. Wet stains spread across their trousers. The effect rippled outward from there, and the town square became an impromptu latrine. Foot by foot, the crowd was hit by that brown note. White trousers turned brown in violent cascades of liquid shit, stains blooming like particularly aggressive flowers. Bare feet splashed in mud that was not wholly mud. Some tried to flee, the Mayor among them, but the sudden intestinal apocalypse had caused panic and chaos, and as I watched, people were trampled and shoved, broken and suffocated in the dank mud. The mayor went down, and Cord nodded at me.

We made our way up the country lane, the screams of the enshittening behind us. The Mayor's gate opened easily. His front door was unlocked, his personal guard laying unconscious in pools of their own waste. As we passed, one forced himself to his feet, not completely incapacitated. He leaned on his pike, coughed. A thick ripping sound followed, and his face went red as he found the strength to charge, trouser leg leaving a trail as he attacked. I shoved Cord out of the way and slipped past the man's already sluggish guard. My blades found the insides of his thigh, his wrist, and he collapsed as arteries that once held blood he needed no longer did. It ran from him like headwaters, mixing with the foul brown stuff. I thought of the mud-red alluvial soil of the deltas and turned away.

"Feel better?" Cord asked.

I wiped a blade on my trouser leg as we walked.

"Yeah, actually, I do. You have no idea how close I was to skewering your kidneys for fun. Wait, can you grow those back?"

Cord shrugged. "Never tried." He glanced over, then down at my knife. "Don't want to."

I grinned and sheathed the blade as we came into the treasury.

Cord was right. There was enough treasure for a city. I took a small golden flute as a souvenir and a handful of coins. Then, the other bands appeared, and several sailors behind them, each wearing earplugs, each toting a wheelbarrow. One by one, they loaded the money and carted it into town. As Crisy passed, she gave me a wink, and I blushed to my toes. I watched her go, and Cord was at my elbow, grinning.

"Behind the bushes? Down the basement? Lock the cellar door?"

"Shut up," I said.

"Gonna talk dirty to her?"

"Gret's balls," I said.

When it was empty, we left the way we'd come. I stepped over a guard writhing in a puddle of shit.

"Well, what do you think?" Cord asked.

"It's a funting mess," I said.

"We did a good thing."

I thought of the crowd of townspeople who'd be nursing sore bottoms and egos. I grunted.

"We did an okay thing," he amended.

I watched the last of the wheelbarrows of gold disappear into town. It would be used to build business, feed families, and care for children. I clapped him on the shoulder.

"We did a terrible thing with a good outcome. How about that?"

He shrugged. "Potato, diarrhea."

We stepped from the mansion into bright sunlight. At the bottom of the hill, disaster. Here though, it looked like nothing but blue skies. We walked on.

About the Author

Born in Michigan and moved to North Dakota, he's a full-time dabbler and part-time author, pursuing his dream of writing. He's been published in several small magazines, and maintains a blog, Nod.

In his free time, he yells at clouds and accidentally gets nominated for awards.

Klondaeg vs The Plague by Steve Thomas

"Graah!" said Klondaeg. He jumped back a step as a mouth full of dagger-length teeth snapped shut on the tip of his beard. He jabbed the pommel of the King's Rest, his double-headed battle-axe, into the drake's red-scaled snout.

The horned monstrosity reeled back and roared, releasing the Dwarf.

"Really, the pommel?" said Dexter. "I wanted the kill." Dexter was the spirit of a Dwarf king who resided in the right blade of the King's Rest.

"You always want the kill," said Sinister, the left blade.

"And you never want the kill. Why is this an issue?" They were conjoined twins in life, and their sibling rivalry hadn't ended just because their souls were now eternally bound to a magic axe.

"Well, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate feeling included."

"No one got the kill," said Klondaeg. "The kill hasn't happened yet, and he was too close to hit with a blade. Stop criticizing and start helping."

"I already told you how I want to help," said Dexter.

The drake swiped at Klondaeg with an ivory claw, but the Dwarf rolled under its paw and slashed at its ankles. The King's Rest tore away a few scales, but left the monster otherwise intact.

Dexter shouted with glee while Sinister sighed and said, "I can't imagine why I'm asking, but have you considered diplomacy?"

"Hmph," said Klondaeg. "Diplomacy is Dalvinus' department. I never touch the stuff."

Sinister sighed again, louder this time. "I am aware, and it looks like he's making more progress than you are."

Indeed, Dalvinus was. Klondaeg's friend sat on a tree stump near the two-headed drake's blue-scaled left side. The King's Rest wasn't the only pair of minds doomed to share the same body. While the red half relentlessly assaulted Klondaeg, the blue half reclined lazily, listening to Dalvinus' story. The old hero wiped the sweat from the dark skin of his brow and said, "And then Dexter said, 'Klondaeg never even noticed the riddle!'"

"Ah, ha ha ha!" roared the drake, his cold eyes glowing with mirth. "You're funny, for a human. I will entertain your request. Why should we end our raids on this village?"

"Well, for one thing, if you agree to go peacefully, I can talk Klondaeg down before he beheads your brother."

"Don't squander my good will with a threat." On the other side of the dragon's body, the red head coiled back, then launched itself at Klondaeg at full force. The Dwarf turned the strike aside with a heavy kick, and the dragon's whole body lurched away. "Ugh," said the blue head. "On the other hand, maybe he'd be doing me a service." He laughed again.

Dalvinus shuddered. "What would you consider adequate payment, then?"

"This axe shares my plight," said the drake. "We are kindred spirits. I must have it."

Dalvinus cringed at that. "I'd be more careful with your phrasing."

"You heard him!" said Dexter. "Let's change partners. Dalvinus can talk to the redhead over here, and I can slice up the blue one."

"Graah!" said Klondaeg as he hurled the King's Rest toward the thick blue neck.

Dalvinus hopped to his feet and drew his sword in one fluid motion. Before the drake could so much as raise any of his four eye-horns, Dalvinus swung and batted the axe off into the woods.

"No! I had him!" shouted Dexter.

Dalvinus sheathed his sword. "Will saving your life suffice as payment?"

He looked over to Klondaeg, who was now climbing the red drake head, one foot in the beast's nostril and two hands grabbing onto eye-horns. He appeared to be trying to find the leverage to snap its neck.

The blue head scowled. "This still feels like a threat, but very well. We shall hunt elsewhere." He swung his multi-colored tail and slapped Klondaeg off his brother's head, then rose to his feet with a yawning stretch. "Come along, Rufus. Let's find easier prey." A red wing and a blue wing beat as one, and the drake was gone.

Off in the woods, a tree branch snapped and a hundred leaves rustled. Dalvinus heard a thud like two hundred pounds of muscle and armor hitting the ground. "Oh, there you are, Klondaeg," said Sinister. "Be careful grabbing us. I think we landed in poison ivy. How'd it go with the dragon?"

***

In the town of Norcasa, a handful of drake scales was worth room and board for the night and three days of supplies for the road. Klondaeg and Dalvinus sat in a tavern, enjoying the bounty of a hard day of monster hunting. The King's Rest leaned against a table leg, warding away all other patrons. Klondaeg quaffed his beer. "We could have gotten ten times as much for a kill."

Dalvinus shrugged. "The blue head was a perfectly reasonable fellow. We still earned enough money to make it to Kartolf, so I'd call this expedition a success."

"We could have made it to Kartolf in a nice wagon with a keg of beer."

Dalvinus coughed. Normally, this would have been about as noteworthy as a man ordering another drink, but at the very sound of it, the tavern froze. Mugs fell to their tables. Conversations ended prematurely. The musicians set their instruments down on their laps. They all turned to glare at the man.

"Just clearing my throat," he said.

The glares continued and the silence held. Minutes passed. Eventually, in the absence of any further coughing, the silence bloomed into whispers, then into grumbles, and finally the patrons of the tavern resumed their revelry.

Dexter said, "I don't like the way everyone was looking at Dalvinus. It was just a cough."

Klondaeg shrugged and bit into his chicken leg, but Dalvinus set down his cup and folded his hands. "It was curious. There's more to this town than a dragon problem."

Klondaeg swallowed and said, "In my experience, if you stick around a town after you've killed the monster, you regret it. I just want to eat, drink, sleep, and move on."

"But Klondaeg," whined Sinister. "You always skip over the best parts. Just once, I'd like to listen to music that wasn't sung by a siren, or visit a temple without smashing a priceless relic on a rampaging demon."

"Hmph," said Klondaeg. "Just watch. From now on, this town is nothing but cults and corrupt magistrates."

"Back me up, Dalvinus."

The old man smiled. "When I was younger, I would have agreed with Klondaeg. I spent a lot of mornings making a quick exit after a night of, well, let's call it celebrating the local culture. Nowadays, though, it's nice to take a break from the chaos and enjoy a good night's rest." He closed his eyes in a slow blink. "Besides, that one took a lot out of me. I might just get a head start on that good night's rest." He smacked his lips and his head drooped down until it was resting on the table.

Again, the tavern went silent. The glares burned hotter than dragonfire.

Klondaeg swept his eyes across the room, glaring back at the locals. Before he could say anything or maim anyone, Sinister jumped in. "Our friend is just weary from his travels."

Klondaeg relaxed. He mustered up a conspiratorial tone and added, "His constitution isn't what it used to be."

A few nervous chuckles soothed the room, and the tavern went back to normal. "That settles it," said Sinister. "There is something very wrong with this town. We should go."

"Yes," said Klondaeg. He nudged Dalvinus with an elbow, but the old man didn't rouse. Before he could try something more drastic, the door to the tavern kicked open. Three people entered, each wearing a loose pitch black robe, an ominous hood, and a black mask in the shape of a crow's beak.

"Plague doctors," said Sinister. "Now it makes sense."

"Or plague-spreading monsters dressed as plague doctors. Those masks are probably hiding hideous scaled faces, or maybe horns. Klondaeg, we should kill them now and end the curse."

Klondaeg stood. "If the dragon was the source of the plague, I drove it off. And no one mentioned any magical illness, or I would have raised my rates on the hunt."

One of the doctors snorted at this, but the other ignored him. The tallest and broadest of the three reached into his satchel and pulled out a crystal. He slotted it into the right eye of his mask and gazed through it as his attention swept across the room. It slowed down when he reached Dalvinus.

"Him," said the doctor. "The sleeping one."

"I bet that crystal is just for show," mumbled Dexter.

The rest of the tavern-goers stood aside while the three doctors converged upon Dalvinus.

Klondaeg grabbed the King's Rest and stepped between them. "I told you, the dragon is gone."

"Stand aside, Dwarf. That man must be placed in quarantine immediately."

"For taking a nap?"

"For having The Affliction. Natusina, educate this foreigner while we carry his friend to hospice."

A small, slender plague doctor nodded and took Klondaeg by the arm. She brought the crow's beak to his ear and whispered, "You cannot help him with violence. I will explain everything."

Klondaeg grunted and sat. No, he didn't need to solve this problem with violence. Dalvinus would wake up any minute and talk his way out of it.

The two remaining plague doctors draped Dalvinus' arms over their shoulders, hoisted him up, and carried him off. He didn't show a single sign of waking.

When they were gone, Klondaeg turned to Natusina. "I'm listening."

The plague doctor took a seat across from him and folded her hands on the table. "Norcasa has been ruled by The Affliction for generations. Long ago, a princess had a coughing fit, then fell into a deep slumber. While she slept, the same thing happened to her bodyguards and servants. One by one, they fell asleep and could not be roused."

"Sounds like a curse," said Klondaeg. "Did her parents snub an ill-tempered Fairy queen?"

"No, nothing like that. It is a disease, one that spreads rapidly. The princess was moved to a quarantined dungeon under the castle and placed under a magical stasis. Her parents wanted to buy time to find a cure. That was some seventy years ago."

"What about the others?" asked Sinister.

"They were placed in quarantine with her, but the disease was left to run its course. They all died."

"And you never found the cure?" said Klondaeg. The plague doctor shook her head. "So what will happen to Dalvinus?"

"Either your friend will awaken tomorrow morning, which would prove that he does not have the disease, or he will die in quarantine."

"I see," said Klondaeg. He stood up and strapped the King's Rest to his back.

"Where are you going?" asked Natusina.

"To figure out who cursed the princess and chop it in half, obviously."

"I already told you that—"

"Or the princess," said Dexter.

Sinister added, "As a last resort, you understand. There tend to be two ways these situations end. Either we neutralize whoever cursed her, or we kill the princess herself. Again, the latter is a last resort, but you must understand that we have a time limit."

"Wait," said Natusina.

Klondaeg was already headed toward the door. "Where's this quarantined dungeon? I'll start by interrogating the wizard running the stasis spell."

"We should probably smash some walls while we're down there," said Dexter. "Just in case we need to leave and come back."

"Wait!"

"Good thinking," said Klondaeg. "We wouldn't want to let Dalvinus die because of a locked door."

"I wonder if we could recruit the wizard," said Sinister. "If we convince him to put Dalvinus in stasis, we can buy some time."

"WAIT!"

Klondaeg growled and turned back to Natusina. "It's not a curse," she said. "There's no scorned Fairy queen, nor old beggar ladies running secret tests of character, nor jealous step-mothers, nor power-mad viziers trying to marry into the royal family. It's just a disease."

"Ah," said Sinister. "Disease. What you need to do is squeeze the oil out of an orange peel, then mix it with a gallon of water. You take a teaspoon of that solution, then dilute that with another gallon of water. Enough successions, and the results are quite potent. It's basic alchemy."

"Klondaeg might have some monster parts you could grind into a tea," said Dexter.

"I need those for strength potions," said Klondaeg. "Besides, that doesn't work for illness. You need to sacrifice something to the gods. New plan. Let's go track down a goat. Or would a deer work well enough? That way I don't have to deal with a goatherd."

"No!" shouted Natusina, through clenched teeth as well as her mask. "Stop trying to make this about magic and superstition. I've been studying this disease, and as far as I can tell, it's caused by a germ."

"What do seeds have to do with it?" asked Sinister.

"Not that kind of germ," she said. "They're like...oh, how do I explain this at your level? Germs are tiny parasites that enter your body and cause illness."

While Sinister and Dexter shared a laugh at this absurd hypothesis, Klondaeg stroked his beard with a hand. "Parasites? You mean like ticks and mosquitoes?"

"No one really knows what they look like, but yes. They try to steal resources from your body and destroy it from the inside."

"So then," said Klondaeg, his grip on his beard tightening. "You're telling me that Dalvinus is asleep because of tiny monsters attacking him from the inside?"

She sighed. "Close enough."

"Then Dalvinus doesn't need a physician. He needs a monster hunter! New plan. We find these germs and chop them in half."

"It's a little more complicated than that," said Natusina, her voice painted with resignation.

"Graah!" said Klondaeg, and he charged out of the tavern. The plague doctor hurried behind.

***

"I owe you an apology," said Sinister. "I shouldn't have laughed. Now that I've had some time to think about the merits of your hypothesis, your germ theory does make some sense. Bears and lions eat whole people. Leeches are smaller than bears and lions, and only drink blood. Fleas and lice are smaller than leeches. Why wouldn't parasites keep getting smaller and smaller until you can't even see them? And perhaps some of the medicines work because they are poisonous to those germs. I dare say you're onto something here and I would be honored to help you prove it."

"I appreciate the sentiment," said Natusina, "but now really isn't the time." She ducked and a bone saw passed over her head.

Klondaeg buried Dexter in the offending assailant. "Don't let the axe distract you," he said. "They don't know when to shut up." Dexter tried to defend himself, but his voice was muffled by a body's worth of internal organs.

The body attached had most likely been human at some point. Years of experience had given Klondaeg a good sense for who was born a monster and who had been mutated into one. Usually, the eyes gave it away. A proper monster showed nothing but rage and hunger. Former humans tended to display more despair and internalized horror.

Of course, as experts are wont to do, Klondaeg had overcomplicated his diagnosis; he knew the monster was a mutated human because he had watched it stand up and transform. Klondaeg gazed down at the corpse. In the chaos, he hadn't gotten a proper look at it. Its shape was still largely humanoid: two legs, a torso, two arms, and a head. But after the transformation, the skin had turned a sickly green, taking on a slimy, mucus-like texture. It was dotted with pulsating bulges, huge masses of bloated tissue with tiny tendrils sprouting out. Mixed within its blood were spheres like hailstones, writhing as they slipped away from their dead host.

Natusina crouched at the edge of the blood-and-spore puddle. "Fascinating," she said, pulling a vial from inside her robes and scooped up a sample. "I've tended to plenty of plague-stricken people and I've never actually seen the germs. Do you understand what this means?"

Klondaeg stomped on the nearest germ. "That I can see them well enough to kill?"

"That you kept the mutant thing a secret from us?" asked Sinister.

"That we need to kill Dalvinus before it's too late?" asked Dexter.

"No!" said Natusina. "Well, yes. The Dalvinus one is questionable, but we'll sort that out later. The important thing here is that I was right. Germs are causing the illness!"

Klondaeg shrugged. "Or the illness makes the germs. The curse could make people grow these things."

"Oh, I can test for that," said the doctor. "I just have to find someone willing to swallow one of these germs. Or should I inject it?" She waved a hand dismissively. "I have enough samples to try a few methods."

Sinister sucked in a well-practiced gasp. "Surely you wouldn't deliberately infect someone just to prove yourself right!"

"Of course I would," she said, the same way someone would say, "Of course I plan on eating lunch today."

"Dexter! How could you let your guard down? You're always accusing people of being mad scientists or evil wizards."

"And you always ignore me. I thought I'd let you figure this one out for yourself," said Dexter.

"But you were right this time."

"Have you ever heard the fable of the mayor who cried, 'It's not a wolf'?"

Klondaeg slammed the bickering axe into the corpse, just to end the debate. "We'll sort this out after we've killed the Germ Queen. Natusina, we must be close. Which way is the sleeping princess?"

She pointed at a wall. "Graah!" said Klondaeg, and he smashed his way through.

The room on the other side was much like the one they had just left, minus the gore and the dead monster. It was a white, sterile room. A bed sat on the far side, with a sleeping patient on top. He wore a humiliating blue cotton gown that covered everything except the body parts that modesty normally prescribed to keep under a layer of fabric. The room was furnished with a sink, a wooden stool, and a cabinet that, if patterns held, contained an array of sharp and deadly implements. There was also a door, but in a complex where everyone spent all day with their asses hanging out, Klondaeg didn't see why he had any obligation to refrain from making his own hole in the wall. Civilized society had clearly broken down already.

Sinister asked, "Why didn't he wake up when you smashed the wall?"

"I take pride in my work," said Dexter. "When I smash a wall, it's like dropping feathers on a pillow."

"Feathers?" Sinister scoffed, but Natusina raised a hand to cut him off.

"Wait," she said. She quickly, carefully approached the sleeping patient. She pressed two fingers against his neck, then produced a syringe from her pocket and jabbed it into his arm. She returned, saying, "I'm curious about the mutagenic properties. I should be able to compare the germs from that patient's blood against the larger samples I just collected. I want to know how they transformed her, why they grew so large on their own, and—"

"Just tell me which wall to smash," said Klondaeg. She grumbled a bit, then half-heartedly pointed to her left, and Klondaeg opened a path. Next to the door.

They stepped through into the chamber of the sleeping princess. Like the previous quarantined patient, she was sprawled on the bed. The princess, however, commanded more decorum. She lay peacefully on her back, dressed in a pristine white dress, with her hands folded over her chest and a bouquet of roses in her grip. A glass case surrounded the bed, giving the whole scene the air of a museum exhibit rather than a quarantined dungeon.

Klondaeg stepped up to the glass and tapped it with the pommel of the King's Rest, testing its strength. "So we kill the princess and that lifts the curse?"

Natusina, rummaging through her pockets again, sighed. "This is about killing the germs, not the princess."

"Right," said Klondaeg. "So how do we get her to mutate so I can kill the germs?"

"She doesn't need to mutate."

Klondaeg grunted. "Can't kill an innocent princess. If she doesn't mutate, there's nothing I can do here."

"We can save her before she mutates," said Sinister.

"But she's the source of the plague," said Dexter.

Sinister said, "No, the germs are the source. More accurately, the germs are the plague. Were neither of you paying any attention?"

"The Germ Queen is living inside her. We need to kill it to stop the plague. The only problem is they're so small, we don't know which one is the queen."

"New plan," said Klondaeg. "The plague witch will shrink us down, I'll hop into princess' mouth, and we can chop up all the germ monsters on our way down to the queen."

"No!" said Natusina. Even through the mask, her irritation was plainly visible. "Stop. Just...stop. The Affliction isn't a yellowjacket's nest. You can't just 'kill the queen' and end it for everyone."

Klondaeg leaned against the glass case and crossed his arms. "So what am I doing here? Are those samples somehow going to save Dalvinus?"

"Actually, they are." She pulled a flask from her pocket. "I was about to tell you earlier before you cut me off. This," she said, raising the flask to show Klondaeg the cloudy purple liquid within, "is an attractor potion. It's my own invention, half medicine and half alchemy—"

"Ah, alchemy," said Sinister. "Now you're making sense. What are your thoughts on using zinc as a substitute for—"

"Ahem," said Natusina, clearly pronouncing the word in a way that left no room to believe that she might be genuinely clearing her throat. "This is an attractor potion. If I introduce a sample of the germ to this flask, the potion will attract all the germs from this town. Once they're all in one place, you can do what you do best."

With a strike of his elbow, Klondaeg shattered the glass case that had, up until recently, surrounded the princess. "Good. Grab the Germ Queen from the princess and let's get on with it."

"Not so fast, Klondaeg," said Sinister. "She's already jabbed one person with a syringe since we got here and we haven't stopped once to consider the medical ethics of drawing blood from a sleeping, non-consenting patient."

Klondaeg shrugged. "The germs turn them into monsters. I draw plenty of blood from non-consenting monsters."

"But the whole point is to save them. They're not monsters. They're potential monsters, ones which we are trying to prevent from transforming."

"So we need to draw their blood," said Dexter. "If they were awake, I'm sure they'd want us to do whatever it takes to cure them."

"But we can't assume that," said Sinister. "Perhaps some of them want to be infected."

"Why would anyone want that?"

"Who knows? We can't assume their motives, and not everyone acts rationally. For all we know, they welcome the transformation. Maybe it's a religious thing."

Klondaeg growled. "Then we need to figure out which ones want to become monsters and kill them before they do."

"You're missing the point," said Sinister. "Doctors are sworn to..."

Natusina's mask amplified her sigh, but she didn't join the argument. Instead, she stepped up to the princess. "Fine! You win! I'll grab the Germ Queen from the sleeping princess. Never mind that there's no such thing, or that any sample would work just as well as any other. I'll get the blood you want just to end this. How's that for medical ethics?" The King's Rest went silent and Klondaeg scratched his nose. Natusina shufled her way to the princess and drew a sample, grumbling all the while of plagues, germs, Dwarves, axes, and doctors. It was a testament to her skill as a phlebotomist that she drew the sample without interrupting her diatribe in the slightest. She turned back to face Klondaeg with the attractor potion in one hand and the blood-filled syringe in the other. "Now," she said, "get ready to fight the germs."

Klondaeg lifted the King's Rest.

Natusina squirted the infected blood into the attractor potion and set the mixture on the floor.

The potion glowed.

"Graah!" said Klondaeg. He dropped the axe on the flask. Shards of glass exploded across the room, and the glowing purple potion splattered everything in range, from Klondaeg's beard to the princess' dress.

"So is that it?" asked Sinister.

"I was really hoping for a fight," said Dexter. "This is unsatisfying."

"Idiots!" shouted Natusina. She ripped off her plague mask and started stomping on it before it even hit the floor. Then she brushed back her black hair and collected herself. "All I wanted was to show the world that my germ theory was true. All I wanted from you was to defend me from the plague mutants—Affliction victims! But all you've done is test my patience!"

"I thought you were the one testing patients," said Dexter.

Natusina screamed.

"I do apologize for my brother," said Sinister. "I know how obnoxious he can be."

"Not him," said Natusina through clenched teeth. "All of you. Testing requires care, precision, attentiveness. All I got was wanton destruction."

As she fumed, the potion continued to glow. Sparkling trails of light flitted through the room like a swarm of fireflies, then darted out in all directions, squeezing through doorways and dashing through holes in the wall. Klondaeg ignored the plague doctor's ranting. He had plenty of practice ignoring these sorts of outbursts from his axe, and this magic was far more interesting. Soon, the fireflies came back, coated in green. They gathered on the largest puddle of the potion, called back by the magic, deposited what could only be the germs, and flitted away again.

The mass of green grew and grew like a mushroom on a log. First it was a puddle, then a mound, and eventually it rose up on a stalk. "Plague witch," said Klondaeg.

"And you!" she shouted, spinning. She pointed a finger squarely between Klondaeg's eyes. "Has it ever occurred to you that—"

"Your magic worked," said Klondaeg.

"It's not magic. It's a combination of science and alchemy and—" She looked at the puddle. "It worked! We've collected all the germs from the infected villagers."

The magical fireflies made one last trip.They swirled around the sleeping princess in a tornado of light, siphoning out the germs and carrying them to the writhing mass of plague. The princess gasped once, then went still.

The glowing stopped.

"That's all of them," said Natusina. "Now comes your part of the plan. I apologize for calling you a single-minded brute."

"It was simple-minded," said Dexter, helpful as always.

Sinister rushed to moderate. "You're both right, but one might have been by accident."

Klondaeg grunted. "No need to apologize. If you insulted me, I wasn't listening."

The monster before him was no mere tiny parasite. It was nearly as tall as he was. Sometime during its growth, the stalk had split into two legs and a dozen flailing tentacles had sprouted from its translucent orb-like torso. Small red stalks protruded from that orb like heads of malevolent broccoli. Inside the green, clear torso, odd floating structures gathered toward the front, spirals of worm-like fiber.

Klondaeg, for want of a target, imagined that those bizarre structures constituted his enemy's face. Klondaeg drew back his arm and exploded forward with a mighty punch that could shatter stone. It smashed into the germ monster like he was punching gelatin, and with a squelch, Klondaeg's fist was absorbed into the green goo. He grabbed the nearest structure, hoping it was something important like a heart or a kidney, and pulled a spiral-worm out from the monster's body. He hurled it against the ground.

The germ monster didn't seem to notice. "New plan," said Klondaeg. He slashed at it with the King's Rest. This got the germ monster's attention. It lashed at him with one tentacle after another. Klondaeg deflected some, dodged others, and those that got through merely splashed harmlessly against his armor.

"Careful, Klondaeg," said Natusina. "This isn't like fighting a normal monster. If it gets any part of itself inside you, you could be infected.

Klondaeg wanted to roar, but took heed of Natusina's warning and pressed his lips firmly shut.

He cut and slashed. He weaved through a relentless assault of tentacles. With every blow of the axe, the germ monster shed mass. He dismembered it piece by piece, first shearing away its tentacles, then slicing off its stalk-like legs. While the germ might have stood a chance against Klondaeg's immune system, it never posed a threat in macroscale.

Finally, with an overhead chop, Klondaeg opened a gaping wound through the outer membrane of the main body, and a thin green liquid rushed out like a popped water balloon. All that remained were the broccoli heads and discomforting spirals. Or so Klondaeg thought at first glance.

Something else wriggled free of the deflated monster. It was a smaller version of that monster, the size of Klondaeg's fist, but with legs and tentacles. It scampered across the floor and toward the sleeping princess.

"The Germ Queen!" shouted Dexter.

"This can't be," said Natusina. "There shouldn't be a queen. That goes against my entire hypothesis."

The Germ Queen stepped over the glass shards littering the floor and grabbed onto the foot of the bed with a cluster of tentacles.

"If she makes it to the princess, she can start breeding again," assumed Sinister.

Klondaeg wound up to spring into action, but this time Natusina was faster and closer. She calmly stepped to the Germ Queen, uncorked yet another flask, and upended it onto the tiny monster. As soon as the potion touched its outer membrane, the germ withered and shrunk like a raisin in the sun. Soon, it was a dry and wrinkled husk. Natusina kicked it aside.

"What was that potion?" asked Sinister.

"My own concoction," she said. "It's a mixture of alcohol and aloe. I use it to sanitize my hands after touching patients. It looks like I've proved yet another of my hypotheses true today."

"Glad I could help," said Klondaeg. "Now, speaking of alcohol, I'd say Dalvinus owes me a beer." He strapped the King's Rest to his back and charged out of the quarantined dungeon.

Natusina rubbed her forehead. "It's not that kind of alcohol."

***

Klondaeg sat with Dalvinus at the tavern, sharing food and drink yet again.

"Tiny parasitic monsters, eh?" asked Dalvinus. "I have to admit, it seems far-fetched."

"So did we," said Sinister. "Until Natusina used alchemy to make it grow to Dwarf-size."

"And when Klondaeg punched it in the face," said Dexter.

Dalvinus smirked. "Germs have faces?"

"No," said Klondaeg. "I had to improvise."

Dalvinus nodded. "And what about Natusina?"

"Went off to rub this in the other plague witch's faces, I imagine. It's one of those, 'We'll see who's laughing now,' situations."

"I've heard that speech before," said Dalvinus. "Well, I already feel much better and it sounds like a successful day for medicine. Congratulations all around. Knowing your enemy is key, I always say, so maybe Natusina can figure out better ways to fight these germ monsters and we can stop drinking castor oil every time we get a cold, eh?"

Klondaeg shrugged. "I never get sick. Germs know better than to try invading me."

Sinister laughed. "It's good to see you embracing science so easily, Klondaeg. Now about an alchemical theory I've been meaning to run by you..."

Klondaeg coughed into his elbow.

The tavern turned to stare.

Klondaeg growled, and a tiny green monster leapt off his sleeve and ran for cover.

About the Author

Steve Thomas is the author of comic fantasy, including "Mid-Lich Crisis" and "Kicking Axe and Taking Gnomes." He has been addicted to all things fantasy since he was a child, and his friends and family failed to dissuade him from writing his own. When he isn't writing, he can be found reading, playing video games, pretending to do something productive.

Plagued by Management: Rats, Chips, Soda, Socks by Martin S. A. Realboy

In a hole in the floor, there lived an intern. He'd dug that hole himself as punishment for eating his bosses' snacks. They declared that his usual bed, a blanket on the cold stone floor of the basement, was too high above the ground for a boy of his nature, so they made him find somewhere lower to sleep.

Martioni didn't mind. It gave him somewhere to hide when they were in a mood, and they were always in a mood.

That's the thing about Fools - professional Fools, at least. They were dysfunctional sacks of pent-up emotion and neurosis, so when they told Martioni that sleeping in a hole in the floor built character, he was inclined to believe him. They had experience. Elder Number 12 (Martioni had not yet earned the right to use their names) had once told them that as an intern, he himself had been forced to copy a two hundred-year old joke book by hand. In triplicate. And he had to start over every time he laughed, just to drive home the lesson that all these jokes were played out and were not to be repeated.

Martioni suspected that the exercise had accomplished the opposite, based on some of the jokes Elder Number 12 made. He wouldn't say that, though. He preferred to at least have access to food, even if it was usually more Taco Bell-quality than meals for human boys.

Martioni sat there in his hole, waiting for his daily orders. The day tended to start with the more annoying and less self-flagellant tasks. Most of them revolved around putting together obscure breakfast foods and hangover cures, often both at once. Bacon (soft, but charred exactly 2 millimeters along each edge...so help him, if there was even a millimeter off, there came the hose), eggnog with a splash of gin (in July and only July), cobra eggs (with a venom-vinaigrette glaze), and so forth.

When he heard the Elders stomping down the stairs, they seemed more frantic than usual. These weren't, "I regret waking up and we plan on taking it out on the intern" stomps. These were, "The world is ending and we plan on taking it out on the intern" stomps.

"Marty!" shouted Elder Number 4. "We need your rats! Stat!"

Martioni sighed and climbed out of his hole. Elders Number 4 and 9 were sitting on the stairs, catching their breath. "Rats?" asked Martioni. "What makes you think I have rats?"

Elder Number 9, grinning, said, "Because of that time we released a family of rats into the basement."

"They left because there isn't enough food down here."

"Interns are edible," said Elder Number 4.

"Maybe he ran out of toes," said Elder Number 9.

Martioni brushed the dirt off his pants before realizing that the dirt was covering the holes. Dang.

"Why do we need rats, anyway?" he asked, trying to sound innocent but sounding more like he wasn't listening.

"Question marks are for Fools, Marty, "said Elder Number 4.

Martioni rolled his eyes and rephrased his question in the form of a statement. "I, a lowly and humble intern who lives to serve his myriad bosses hear your command and request clarification as to its purpose."

"To build character," said Elder Number 9 without taking a moment to think. The two of them turned and left. As they walked away, Martioni could hear what they were saying, clear as day.

"Should we tell it?" asked Elder Number 4, who was not good at whispering.

"No!" yelled Elder Number 9, who was somehow even worse at it, "All the toilet paper is already gone. If the rat idea goes public, there will be a rat shortage and we'll be back where we started."

"But it's going to be washing the rats. It'll find out eventually."

"So? We'll tell it to wash the rats and it will wash the rats. It's just an intern. We don't have to explain anything."

The full-volume whispers trailed off as they turned a corner upstairs. Martioni strapped on his boots and saw himself out. They really must have been having a tough day. They didn't even check his hole for contraband, which is good because he had managed to creep upstairs at early o'clock - he couldn't tell time - and steal a bag of chips and even a leftover half a sandwich from wherever they had ordered in lunch. It hadn't been great (who honestly orders olives on a turkey sandwich?) but it was actual food. Of course, he hadn't been able to get rid of the bag yet, so their finding that would have led to not just the hose, but the nozzle. Sneaking past the kitchen, he peered in to see all of them gathered around the table, passing back and forth a bottle of something that was either brown or black. He was hoping it was the first one because the second one led to him being forced to completely remodel all three bathrooms by hand, even though only one of them had been turned into some kind of warzone.

Stealthily, like a tiger wrapped in panther fur, he made his way to the backdoor (*giggle*) and turned the knob (*giggle giggle*). Just then, an alarm erupted like a clap of thunder and red lights began flashing. Martioni heard the clap of boots behind him as the Elders approached. Our intrepid hero was trapped!

"What do you think you're doing?" Elder 7 grabbed Martioni by the shoulder. Elders Number 2 through 5 were with him, along with Elder Number 9, who made a zipping motion over his lips with one hand, while miming a throat slitting with the other.

Martioni was used to the constant secrets, feuding, and contradictory orders from his bosses. In his vainer moments, he mused that he probably knew more about what went on in the Fools Guild than any one member, by virtue of being pulled into all their schemes at once. Any time he received orders, it was a matter of survival that he immediately started planning cover stories and alibis. "I was just going out to get snacks," he said. That one worked two out of three times.

Elder Number 7 narrowed his eyes and glared at him, but Martioni was well practiced in looking innocent, too. Elder Number 7 threw a wet, wadded up bill at him. He chose not to wonder why it was wet. He knew he would not like the answer.

"There's $10, Marty. I need tortilla chips and cream soda. And buy yourself something nice while you're out. With your own money, obviously. I need you to have something I can confiscate as punishment in case the change doesn't match the receipt."

"Yes, Wise Elder," said Martioni.

"I recommend a nice pair of wool socks," said Elder Number 7.

"But they make my feet itch. I don't like wearing wool."

"Yeah, but I do."

Marty bowed his head in resignation. "Yes, Wise Elder," he said, and he trudged out the door. The lists tended to grow out of control with the Fools Guild. He wasn't allowed to take notes (because a proper Fool has his routine committed to memory), and he'd be punished for forgetting anything, as well as for the slightest delay, error, fluctuation in price, or substitution. He repeated the list to himself as he walked. Rats for Elders 4 and 9, tortilla chips and cream soda paid for with $10 from Elder Number 7 (receipt mandatory), and a pair of wool socks from his own non-existent budget to be confiscated by Elder Number 7. Rats, chips, soda, socks. Rats, chips, soda, socks. He mentally chanted as he walked, until he saw his one strongest temptation: the coffee shop.

He managed to walk a few stores past the place before his instincts got the better of him, he turned around, and sprinted into the store.

"Rats chips soda socks!" he screamed, startling the two people inside. The first - an elderly gentleman wearing a raincoat - got so spooked that he ran out the door and headlong into a trashcan, tumbling over and spilling detritus and old McDonald's wrappers everywhere. The other person - the barista - recovered her composure quickly and smiled at Martioni.

"Hi, Martioni! How are you today?"

She was so pretty. Like, super-pretty. Pretty that made his chest hurt a little bit. She was also actually nice to him and always smelled nice - like vanilla and something else. Coffee, maybe? Wait...probably coffee. Martioni smiled and tried to respond, but froze when he couldn't remember her name. What was it again? Stacy? Tracy? It was one of those two but he couldn't recall. Dang! He decided, because he was so smart, to chance it.

"I'm doing alright, St..racy. Stracy."

She smiled again, this time for real.

"You remembered my name, Martioni! Nobody ever gets Stracy right, but you did. That just made my day."

Martioni felt his cheeks heating up. He pressed his hands against his face to hide the blushing. "It's very important to get names right," he said. "My bosses--" He stopped himself. She didn't want to hear about his bosses. He didn't want to hear about his bosses. He was at the coffee shop now. "Live in the moment," his self-help cassette tape always said. In a creepy demonic voice because his only cassette player was a Teddy Ruxpin running on batteries he found in the trash.

Martioni seized the moment. "ONE HOT CHOCOLATE PLEASE!"

Oh no! He just shouted again. Why did he always shout? It had to be something broken inside of him, right?

"Eep," he said. He clamped his eyes shut and covered his mouth instead of his ruby-red cheeks.

Opening his left eye just a crack, he saw that Stracy was still smiling. It was a genuine smile. A friendly smile. A smile that said, "That will be 4.95 and what name do you want me to write on the cup?"

Rats, chips, hot chocolate, socks. "Elder Number Seven," said Martioni dejectedly. He handed over the ten dollar bill, tried not to melt when her fingers grazed his palms as she gave him his change, and avoided all eye contact until he felt a warm cup in his outstretched hand.

Martioni fled the coffee shop. "See you tomorrow!" Stracy called from her counter. "If we're still allowed to be open." Martioni would be lucky if he had the courage to come back in under a month. If he was still allowed out of the basement.

Rats, chips, hot chocolate, socks. Rats, chips, hot chocolate, socks. Hats, chaps, hot chocolate, rocks.

Where would he find a hat? Or chaps? Wait, the Western wear store down the block! He wasn't sure why the Elders wanted to dress like a cowboy, but he wasn't about to ask. The last time he had questioned them on their clothing choices, they had forced him to wear a loose black tunic for, like, three weeks. In winter. Confident in his awesome critical thinking skills, Martioni moseyed (like a real cowboy) down to the Western wear store, which was appropriately titled 'The Corral'.

Still miming a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek with his tongue, Martioni was greeted by a flier on the door. It was advertising a sale on matching chaps and hats. "Yes!" shouted Martioni. It was also defaced with Sharpie.

CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

DUE TO PANDEMIC

"No!" shouted Martioni. How could this be? He needed those chaps and hats. How could he return to Guild Headquarters without every item on his bosses' shopping list? He needed to find a manager or a particularly disgruntled employee. He needed to get in that store or else he'd get the hose again.

But did he need someone to open the door for him? The store was closed, after all. The parking lot was empty. Perhaps this was a job for (dun dun dun) Stealth Martioni. He'd been practicing for this day ever since Elder Number Three had decreed that no one was allowed to use the bathroom after 11 P.M. because the floorboards were too squeaky. Did that stop Martioni from sneaking out to relieve himself? No. He was as silent as a still winter night. He would get those cashmere chaps, just like the Guild wanted.

He darted from shadow to shadow, creeping around the side of the building, testing windows and doors, trying to find something that had been left unlocked. He chanted, "Cashmere chaps, hot chocolate, rocks," as he walked. Soon he was humming his own tense, pumping bass line between the words, and it grew into a full-blown song.

He's Marty

Who?

Martioni

That's right

Cashmere chaps

Ba da

Hot chocolate  
Ba dup ba paaa

And rooocks

Do do pow

He gets the goods

Bow dow dow

He fills that list

Who's got that list?

Martioniiiiiiii

He continued his theme song rendition - at a far louder volume than he likely should have given it was around noon on a Tuesday - until he reached the back of the building. Nothing was unlocked, but there was a window leading into what appeared to be an office. There was also, he noticed with his amazing stealth vision, a handy-dandy cinder block near the back door, presumably left there to prop the door open when trash was being thrown out at the end of the day. With a grunt, he picked the block up and prepared to do a little damage.

Ten minutes later, the handle of the door was dented and bent, but still had not come off. Martioni was perplexed. He had been wailing on that handle with the block and had expected it to snap off, allowing him to open the door at his leisure, since that would have broken the lock. Probably. Was that how it worked? Annoyed, he tossed the cinder block over his shoulder. A monstrous CRASH filled the air and he spun around. The window, previously untouched, was now in shards as a result of the brick hurtling through it.

How fortuitous! That was a word, right? Of course it was a word. Good writers know words.

Carefully, so as to avoid the glass shreds, Martioni crawled in through the window and into the empty office. It was a boring office, filled with a desk, chair, computer, a degree on the wall for some reason...definitely not what he was looking for. He walked across the room and opened the door into the store. As he walked through the aisles, he went through his list again. Chocolate chips, hats, Rocky shorts. Chocolate hats, cats, Rocky IV. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives. How many were there going to St. Ives?

St. Ives? That British pub down the street? Why the heck was he at the Western store? That didn't make sense. Still, while he was here, he should grab something to bring back as an offering. They had sent him out for some reason or another and would be displeased if he came back empty-handed. That way lay the extension cord until he fell asleep. What would they like though? After too many walks around the store, he settled on a rattlesnake skin belt, rattlesnake skin boots, a rattlesnake skin vest, and a crocodile skin hat, just to throw them off. He tried the clothes on and, naturally, they fit him perfectly. Now all he had to do was pay...but there was nobody in the store. Hold on now. If nobody was around to take his money, then surely he would be free and in the clear to walk away with the merchandise! It wasn't his fault that nobody took his money. He wanted to pay - he just didn't have the ability to do so. This wasn't looting because it wasn't in a time of crisis after all. It was just good old-fashioned pragmatism.

Martioni whistled as he left the store, feeling better about the day. He hadn't blown his shot with the barista Stracy and he had gotten a spiffy new outfit for free. Today was great!

THE END

About the Author

Martin is an absolutely real boy, regardless of whatever lies the Guild Elders have spread. He totally has a real girlfriend and lives in an actual apartment instead of in a cardboard box in the basement. In his spare time, which he definitely has, Martin likes to whittle chair legs down into stakes to kill the vampires that are stalking him and they arestalking him. He also enjoys the rare hard seltzer and YouTube clip shows of old cartoon shows. He runs the Guild Twitter account too (@InternMarty), although that sometimes is too much responsibility. He is on the fence about ducks. Okay, bye.
