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Authors: Jeff Strand

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BOOK: Dead Clown Barbecue
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The physical violence stopped after graduation, but I was horrified to discover that Tom Booth and I were not only attending the same college, but his room was directly above mine in the dormitory. So when he stole my girlfriend Maggie away from me, I had to listen to him make vigorous love to her.

I also listened to him cheat on her. I happily told Maggie about it and invited her over to listen to the evidence, and felt a warm happy glow inside as she stormed upstairs to confront them. I sneered as I listened to the sounds of an argument above, but these were followed by the sounds of laughter, and then the sounds of him making vigorous love to both of them at once.

Oh, how I despised Tom Booth!

We graduated college. I went to work at an entry-level position at a heartless corporation, while Tom Booth vacationed around the world on money from his parents. Two years later, I was promoted out of the copy center into an administrative assistant position, which primarily involved making copies. A week after that, to my unimaginable horror, my boss left the company and was replaced by the man I abhorred most in the entire world.

As you might expect, Tom Booth was an abusive boss, demanding and condescending and almost always unsatisfied with the quality of my work. I wanted revenge so badly that I could taste it. I'd be eating a bowl of Apple Jacks, and the taste of revenge would sour the milk. Even my beloved gummi bears tasted like revenge. I was miserable.

I desperately tried to get even with him, but every attempt was a humiliating failure, particularly my plan to season his coffee with a generous portion of my own saliva. It was clear that my efforts at revenge were cursed.

And so I turned to the supernatural realm.

Strange Playthings was a four-hour drive away, but I didn't mind, even when I ran out of gas and had to accept a ride from a sweaty bearded man who complimented my kidneys. I returned home with a 350% increase in my credit card debt and a Tom Booth voodoo doll.

I couldn't wait to go back to work on Monday. I giggled during the entire drive, ignoring the strange looks from my fellow motorists. Oh, Tom Booth, this would be your day of suffering! I wouldn't kill him. Not today. I'd stretch his misery out for weeks. Months. Years. Perhaps a lifetime of vengeance!

Monday morning, I sat in my cubicle, waiting for him to arrive. At the very first sight of his phony grin, I very slowly inserted a needle into the right arm of the voodoo doll.

He didn't react. Even when the tip of the needle protruded from the other side he didn't react. I switched to the other arm. Nothing. Legs, chest, face . . . my voodoo doll didn't do a thing. I took a pair of scissors out of my desk drawer and began cutting, desperately hoping to see a hand or ear fall to the office floor, but even when I was left with a handful of doll pieces, the tyrant sat happily behind his desk, completely unharmed.

I spent the rest of the week alternating my thoughts of hatred between Tom Booth and the bitch who'd sold me the defective voodoo doll.

That Saturday I returned to Strange Playthings and angrily sprinkled the doll parts on the front counter. The elderly shopkeeper invited me into the back room, where she read my palms and analyzed my aura.

"Your vengeance is indeed cursed," she informed me. "A mere voodoo doll will not suffice."

"So what should I do? Bash him over the head with a shovel? Shoot him?"

The shopkeeper shook her head. "The shovel would slip from your grasp and strike you upon the nose, staining your face with blood of shame. And a bullet would not penetrate the skull of your enemy, but rather find its way into your own toe."

"Dammit!"

"Do not worry, vengeful one. All is not lost. For the price of a few coins more charged to your Visa, I can give you the revenge you seek." She smiled. "That is, if you are willing to endure some pain . . ."

I was. And it hurt like hell. But I drove home with a two-inch-tall tattoo of Tom Booth upon my upper left arm, and I knew that finally my nemesis would suffer.

I spent much of the next day just staring at the tattoo, admiring it in the mirror from all angles. It looked exactly like him, head to toe. It itched and stung, but my own pain was nothing compared to the itching and stinging that Tom Booth would feel.

Once again, I giggled during my entire drive to work. No fellow motorists saw my glee, because I was so anxious to get there that I left three hours early.

Tom Booth walked past my desk and gave me an odd look; almost as if he knew what excruciating agony lay in store. Then he entered his office and sat behind his desk.

I pulled up my sleeve, and slowly, ever so slowly, I inserted a needle into my arm, right into the tattooed image of
his
arm.

He did not react.

I slid it in deeper. A tiny trickle of blood ran down my arm, but Tom Booth did nothing. Gritting my teeth in pain, I pushed the needle into my arm as far as I could stand.

He reached for his own arm.

And scratched it.

I pulled out the needle and jabbed it into the image of his leg.

He shifted slightly.

I withstood the urge to cry out in frustration, and slammed the needle into my arm over and over again, puncturing his chest, face, and groin. Blood ran down my arm, staining my dress shirt, and I wanted nothing more than to burst into his office and plunge the needle right into his eye.

Tom Booth scratched his forehead and let out a soft laugh, as if something tickled.

I had defaced my own flesh to
tickle
him.

I hurried into the restroom, locked myself in my favorite stall, and wept.

I didn't wait until the next weekend to drive back to the shop. I called in sick and drove there the next morning. When I returned late that night, my Visa card was filled to capacity, my Discover card was halfway there, and the tattooed image of Tom Booth covered my entire chest.

This time, I didn't waste time with a needle. I brought a knife.

Tom Booth, this was your day of reckoning!

The bastard was in offsite meetings all day, so I never saw him. He'd left me plenty of work. I did it poorly.

But the next morning, oh yes, he arrived and sat behind his desk as usual. I unbuttoned my shirt. It felt as erotic as undressing before a lover. And I sliced a thin red line across my stomach and his wrist.

He winced.

Yes!

I cut his other wrist. Another wince.

Tom Booth was
mine
.

At least every fifteen minutes or so, I cut my skin. Oh, you can't imagine the pleasure I felt each time he reacted. He looked concerned, perhaps frightened that there was something medically wrong with him. As I soaked up my blood with paper towels, I had to bite down hard on the sides of my mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

I drew the blade across his neck.

He swallowed hard, as if a piece of hard candy had prematurely slid down his throat.

It was a bad day for Tom Booth. When he met with some important clients, I repeatedly jabbed the tip of my knife into the center of his forehead. He tried to make it through the meeting without the embarrassment of stopping to take some aspirin, and was unsuccessful.

Rinsing my chest with antiseptic that evening was almost unspeakably painful, yet completely worth it. And later, I lay in my warm pink bathwater and knew that all was right in the universe.

Tom Booth did not show up for work the next day. He had a doctor's appointment. I gleefully imagined him trying to explain his symptoms to a physician who insisted that there was nothing wrong with him.

I kept this up for weeks. By the end, even the slightest brush of my shirt against my chest caused me to flinch with pain, but I didn't care.

I did care when Tom Booth stopped reacting, as if he'd grown accustomed to the phantom pains and learned to live with them.

I took my entire two weeks of vacation time. Upon my return, I waited for the foul cretin to walk past my desk. He glanced at me, frowned, and stopped.

"What happened to your face?"

"Don't you recognize it?" I asked.

"Seriously, what happened to it?"

"It's like looking in a mirror, isn't it?"

"Is that makeup? What did you do?"

I held up the hatchet I'd bought the previous evening, placed my left arm on my desk, and slammed the hatchet blade upon my wrist. It took a second blow to sever my hand completely, but I cackled with glee as Tom Booth's left wrist split open. He staggered back against the wall, screaming as blood sprayed.

I turned the hatchet around and smashed the blunt end into my mouth, shattering several of my front teeth. One of Tom Booth's teeth dropped onto the floor and the pitch of his screams increased by at least two octaves.

He turned and tried to run, until I smacked the hatchet blade deep into my leg. He fell to the floor. I tried to wrench the blade back out, but it wouldn't pop free.

I stood up, immediately lost my balance, and dropped back into my chair. I couldn't see him anymore and I was starting to feel extremely dizzy from blood loss, but that was okay. This was my moment of ecstasy.

Since I couldn't get the hatchet out, I picked up the hammer I'd brought from home and dragged the claw end across my chest, over and over. I screamed with laughter as I ripped out generous chunks of flesh.

Tom Booth howled.

Yes, Tom Booth, that reprehensible creature, had finally received his comeuppance.

 

 

THE APOCALYPSE AIN'T SO BAD

 

If you ask me, people are unnecessarily gloomy about the end of the world. And that starts with calling it "the end of the world." It's not like the planet exploded or cracked in half or melted or anything like that. The world itself is perfectly fine — it's just that almost everybody is dead.

Here's the thing: We all
know
that it was a devastating tragedy. Why keep bringing that up? Anybody you talk to, you literally can't have more than fifteen seconds of conversation before they've gotta switch the topic to the apocalypse. I'm not suggesting that it isn't a major news story; I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be the
only
news story. Know what I'm saying? It's been almost four months.

Believe me, I've got plenty to whine about. I'm pretty much on my own at this point. For a short while after humanity's 99.7% demise, I was traveling with a woman named Cyndi. Unfortunately, I sort of botched the timing on bringing up the whole "Hey, we've gotta repopulate the earth!" topic, and I found myself surviving on my own.

Sure, the mutants are a problem. (And, yes, they're mutants — it seems like some people want to call any non-verbal human with a messed-up face a "zombie.") But they go down pretty quick with a shot to the head, and c'mon, who among us thought we'd get the chance to open fire on real people without it being a felony?

Now, some survivors did have to defend themselves against mutated friends and/or family, and there's no question that it must've sucked. If you're one of them, you have the right to be mopey. That's not who I'm complaining about. It's the folks who had to shoot three or four mutant strangers, yet are acting like they had to drown their own mother in a bathtub. Three words: Get. Over. It.

Would I rather the plague not have claimed billions of lives? Of course. You'd have to be a fool or a psychotic to feel otherwise. But are those billions of people going to get right back up and return to their normal routines? No. (Especially because they're
not zombies
!) It happened, the streets are littered with corpses, so let's make the best of it.

Take Disney World, for example. The rides aren't working because there's no electricity. But admit it, haven't you always wanted to get out of the car in the Haunted Mansion and just take a look around on your own? I did that a couple of days ago, and it was an absolute blast. I even tore off a piece of the wallpaper as a souvenir. Could I have done that pre-apocalypse? No way! I would've been thrown out of the park. Hell, I even got to climb on the track of Space Mountain, and there were no lines anywhere. You don't need some guy walking around in a Mickey Mouse costume to have a good time.

Food is a trade-off. I won't lie to you — I miss steak. On the other hand, last week I brought home an entire shopping cart filled with candy. That sucker was overflowing, and I left plenty on the shelves.

I guess I just don't understand people who always have a negative attitude. Life in a post-apocalyptic world isn't anywhere near as bad as movies want you to believe. It's actually kind of fun. Now I'm going to head over to Barnes & Noble and pick out any book I want.

* * *

I got bit by a mutant this morning. It was my fault; I should've been paying closer attention to my surroundings. Got me right on the arm. It hurt — oh, Christ, did it hurt. Still, my gun was within reach, and I've always been ambidextrous, so I took care of him before he was able to actually start chewing.

Infection is a concern, I'll admit, but it's not worth getting all bent out of shape over.

Trust me, I'm not taking a lackadaisical attitude toward the bite. I cleaned the wound (which did, unfortunately, break the skin) thoroughly with antiseptic, and then I covered it with a bandage. I cleaned it again every half hour after that. Yeah, it stung like crazy, but that means it's working, right? When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, and even though the antiseptic burned worse than pouring lemon juice into the wound, I wasn't going to let it bum me out.

I knew a guy who got bit. You wouldn't believe how much he carried on, and how much of a "Pity me!" attitude he had about the whole thing. Know what he did? He said "I don't wanna become one of those things," shoved his revolver in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Can you believe that? I mean, who kills himself over a mutant bite?

Me, I don't care if I become a shambling, oozing, moaning super-mutant, I'm not swallowing a bullet. That's the coward's way out. Screw that.

* * *

Well, it's been five days, and the bite is almost completely healed. That's how it works. When you have an upbeat attitude, your body chemistry and immune system respond accordingly. Mind over mutant.

BOOK: Dead Clown Barbecue
13.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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