Five Minutes to a Healthier YOU!

(OK, maybe not so much healthier...)

I got five minutes to kill, so let's sprint it up.

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Some forgettable grunge-lite pop song was playing in Eddie's head as he cautiously looked around the corner. Robbing the bank had been the easy part. The hard part was getting that goddamned Filter song out of his mind. That, and the masked idiot chasing him.

Everything Eddie'd read and seen about Spider-Man led him to believe he was fake. No one could be that stupid, but that powerful, while leaping around and shooting webs. Eddie was finding out the hard way he was wrong.

He had been wrong about a great many things over the course of his lifetime, but this mistake was going to put him away for a very long time. His uncle had gotten him out of some tight jams in the past, being a Yale-graduated lawyer, but now Eddie was looking at real time.

The judges always added extra time whenever you were brought in by one of the capes. Eddie didn't know if it was out of spite or if they thought since a super hero had to come in, that made the alleged crime more heinous. All he knew was, he needed to get the hell out of Dodge with a quickness.

The Jennifer Sweet Problem

(My story isn't nearly as interesting as this picture's origin. For reals.)

This fuckin’ kid, man.

Christ.

Look, I know my job isn’t very kid-friendly and I know they have a right to defend themselves, but man, this kid is too much.

My name’s Kevin and I work at an odd place. We provide childrens' monsters with living quarters, which happen to be under those childrens’ beds. I barely graduated high school, haven’t cracked a book since then, and I’m making almost $50 grand a year at a job I’m not even sure how I got. Seriously. I went to a strip mall a couple blocks from my house to see about a temp job or even joining the military and now I’ve been here eight months.

It was a great gig until Jennifer. Jennifer Sweet, or Jennifer Fuckin’ Sweet, as we call her here. Granted, eight months isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but at a job like this, it’s almost tenure. So I’ve seen a lot. And little of it good.

We’re putting monsters under kids’ beds. This ain't a Pixar movie. They’re legit terrified when these things show up, which is intentional since the monsters (an alien race referring to itself with a series of clicks that requires two tongues to recreate) feed off the energy created when the youngins are scared. The monsters take almost all the energy, so the kids only remember the incidents as vague nightmares.

We, on the other hand, see it all. Each monster has an implant behind their left eye acting as a camera. It gives us a perfect view of what they’re seeing. No idea why we do it and I can’t imagine it’s for anything good. But the company pays well, they have great insurance, and they don’t drug test. I think they pick people like me who aren’t real bright and smoke a lot of weed so there aren’t a lot of mental health issues. Seeing kids screaming in horror because of what just crawled out from under their beds isn’t the best way to make a living, but enough pot and enough PS4 and that shit just leaves your mind.

But Jennifer Fuckin’ Sweet, man. Good Lord. We’ve never had a monster reject a child. Ever. Jennifer, though, has managed to send every monster we’ve assigned back to us as an emotional wreck. One of them is still under medical observation for trying to kill itself. Suicide is unheard of to these creatures, but Jennifer managed to get in their heads and create absolute havoc. Depression, anxiety, paranoia…she’s turning them into my dad, only without the ability to use ice cream and bourbon to self-medicate.

And I know. We’re probably doing some really shady shit here. I mean, our job is to scare children so an alien race can eat their fear. On paper it sounds pretty bad. OK, it sounds bad when you say it out loud, too. This kid is probably a damn super hero or the next Hitler or something. I don’t know. What I do know is that she’s fucking with my job and frightening a lot of two-tongued, orange-haired, terrible-smelling monsters.

The first time was about a month ago. We sent one of our clients down there (they all look/sound/smell the same and I have no idea to tell them apart; identifying them is above my pay grade) and he came back two days later making some odd noises (even for them) and shedding heavily all around my desk. Fun fact: their fur not only smells faintly of catfish bait but is also sticky. That means when they shed, you can’t just wipe the fur off your desk or run the vacuum. It’s a whole thing.

From then on, it became a daily event. We’d send a monster to Jennifer’s bed and they’d come back the next morning, terrified. We’d send another monster down there, same day, and the next day, the process repeated itself. Sixteen straight days, sixteen straight monsters returning and refusing not only to not go back, but they also wouldn’t let me reassign them. This is literally the only time this has happened and now I’m monster poison because it’s a kid in my section.

My manager has been pretty cool about it. Todd said he gets it’s not my fault, but the monsters we’re dealing with tend to be pretty superstitious and there’s a rumor they have some kind of hive mind, so if one of them doesn’t want to work with me, it’s a sure bet none of them do. I heard we’re working with the alien leadership to get them to work with me again, but I also heard it’s not going well.

What is it about this girl? I mean, all I’m doing is just to live my life and save a little money. That’s it. And God forbid it happen to Andy, that fuckin’ douche. This kind of shit always happens to me. The monsters don’t complain much, but when they do, it seems like it’s the ones I’m working with. The kid’s room smells funny, there isn’t much room under the bed, the kid’s going through puberty and experimenting with their bodies, both loudly and vigorously. Look, I’m not here to provide a five-star experience. I’m here to get you in front of a scared kid so you can do what you have to do. What they do in bed after the lights are turned out ain’t my problem.

“Hey, Kev, Corporate told me to give you this.”

Todd slides a folder across my keyboard.

“Thanks, man. So what’s up with Jen—“

“Just read it.”

Todd turns around and leaves. My stomach is feeling kinda squirty. It’s a fucked-up job, but I don't mind it and like I said, the money’s sweet.

I open the folder to see a single sheet of paper with my name at the top, followed by four sentences. In those four sentences, two words stand out and I instantly understand. The other words tell me I’m no longer responsible for Jennifer (Fuckin’) Sweet’s “Monster Situation” and that the monsters will still work with me. But those two words let me know we’ve stumbled onto something bad, something we’re not going to escape anytime soon.

Umbrella Academy.

Happy Birthday, Lord of All Evil!

As I often do, I'm taking part in another Chuck Wendig Terrible Minds Flash Fiction Challenge. This one is based on this Tweet from a Twitter account that does nothing but throw out insane writing prompts. We're about to see how pure evil celebrates a birthday. And no, it's not political. But this one is.

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Everyone thinks being evil, that pure megalomaniacal evil built on a foundation of power and endless streams of money, is easy.

I’m here to tell you, that’s not the case.

I am called many things, but I’m mostly known as Jotara, the Crusher of Souls. My real name is Randy and I used to sell vacuum cleaners door to door. Being the Lord of the Malevolent Keep can be challenging, but it’s indescribably better than dealing with some soccer mom or stay-at-home dad wearing stained sweats, talking down to you because they think they’ve finally met the person one rung lower than them on the social ladder. They were among the first visiting my Chamber of Nefarious Punishment. Those smug faces were twisted canvases of pain and regret within minutes. That was a good day.

For the most part, being indescribably evil is fun. Ultimate payback to those who mocked me when I peed my pants in fourth grade on the bus to our annual field trip to see the world’s Largest Bottle of Ketchup. Being responsible for the disappearances of the prom date who stood me up as a joke (and let’s not pull any punches, she was no prize), her parents, the entire student council who planned the prom, and the band who sang the song chosen by said student council to represent the entire affair. The state of New Jersey thanked me afterwards for that one.

My point being, this job doesn’t suck. At least not most days. Like today.

My birthday.

Just because I’m the Lord of Ineffable Villainy doesn’t mean I don’t still enjoy my birthday. I like cake. I like unwrapping presents. I like being served the hearts of unbaptized babies whilst having those who respect and fear me most singing “Happy Birthday.” I’m an immortal god of repugnance and destruction, but I have feelings. I’m still just a guy, you know?

It’s a catch 22. I can’t explain the concept of a birthday to my loyal slaves because they are as I made them—mindless automatons whose sole function is to follow my orders without thinking and to kill everyone in sight. And if we’re being honest, those two taskes tend to fall under the same umbrella. I mean, are you going to trust one of these mindless mass murder machines to bake a red velvet cake with matching cupcakes? Of course not.

When it comes to music, I’m the first to admit I dropped the ball there. I thought extinguishing the lives of all the musicians, actors, and writers I admired in an effort to steal the creativity from their very souls was a solid idea. As it happens, I didn’t actually gain their power and now the people I would’ve invited are all too dead to show. Plus, I killed the last two guys who could’ve sang the song from the White Album to really get the birthday celebration rolling.

You know there’s no handbook for this, right? No one tells you how to be an all-powerful entity bathed in darkness and monstrosity. It just happens and you do the best you can. People seem to be real cool about stealing my ideas, though. Don’t get me wrong, I dig the ones who recognize the artistry of what I’m doing. But the fact that little orange prick—

You know what? I’m not going there. I gave up talking politics for Lent and I’m going to stick with it.

But just the audacity to—

Nope. Gotta have willpower.

OK.

What was I saying?

Ah, yes. I didn’t know what would work and what wouldn’t when I got this gig. I thought, hell, I killed the guy, I can bring him back, right? Nope. What I do is reanimate the corpse and just a shade of the soul is left to run the body and if you think a shade can properly command a body to do a decent version of “In Da Club,” you’re insane. You know what my options are? Either trying to get Conway Twitty’s dead ass to sing “Happy Birthday, Darlin’,” or Florida Georgia Line. Yeah. Florida Georgia fucking Line. One, they suck out loud, and two, they don’t even have a birthday song. But, I killed everyone else, so…

Then there’s the presents. Even I admit, I’m a hard guy to shop for. I literally have $147 trillion at my disposal. So no, I’m not going to be impressed by your grand gestures. A solid gold Ferrari? Please. Ever driven a solid gold car? That shit is soft and you can’t even touch the damned thing without it warping. It’s ridiculous. Oh, wait, you kidnapped the President of France for me to use as ransom? What part of $147 TRILLION did you not get? At this point, I would have to expand the lair to hide any more money. I’d probably have to use the ransom to do the rebuild and you see how that’s just a potential loss leader right there.

And I swear to Me, anyone shows up with some homemade nonsense, I will personally bring your dead grandparents back from their eternal slumber and make them perform the most deviant sex acts Porn Hub could never show you while forcing you to watch every moist, gooey second. I have no interest in seeing the results of your ill-fated struggle with art because you think it’ll come off as kitschy and cute. No one wants your drunken interaction with construction paper, glue, and unicorn hair, GREG.

I dunno. I just wanted a birthday, you know? I brought Marilyn back to sing to me. Yes, that Marilyn, and yes, that song. She looked like a stroke victim and sang like a, well, like a stroke victim. It’s just that—

Hang on. My phone. Sorry about that.

Oh, shit, it’s Vlad.

I have to take this, sorry.

“Привет, господин Президент!”

Is That You, Lemmy?

(Photo by Andre Rodrigues)

Eric missed Lemmy.

It wasn’t the kind of longing one feels for an old friend he hasn’t seen in many a moon, or the type of heartfelt sadness a person carries with them after a lover has decided to call it a day. It was the feeling of loss that comes when you honestly have never thought of that person being gone forever and, suddenly, they are.

When Lemmy Kilmister, bassist and vocalist for the band Motorhead, died the day after Christmas last year, it hit Eric particularly hard. He wasn’t sure why. He liked Motorhead well enough. He had a couple of their albums and, like everyone, knew the words to “Ace of Spades” by heart. In fact, his favorite episode of The Young Ones was when the band played that very song as the lads scrambled to arrive to University Challenge on time.

But he had never seen them live, nor did he own any of their gear. Not even a t-shirt. Yet, when it was publicly announced that the metal god had been diagnosed with cancer and then died two days later, Eric felt as though a part of his soul was gone. A presence he always thought would be in the world, like God or Batman, was now gone with nothing to replace it.

Oh, sure, there was always Keith Richards, but Keith wasn’t someone Eric could identify with. Lemmy was an everyday kinda man, who enjoyed Jack and Cokes and video game machines at his favorite bar and speed. OK, Eric didn’t really identify with Lemmy’s love of go-go powder, but other than that, the rock-and-roll cowboy was someone who always seemed to have no intention of dying.

And yet he did.

Since Lemmy passed, Eric had been listening to a lot of Motorhead and wondered why he didn’t when Kilmister was still alive. The music was driving, it was loud, it was heavy. It was also irreverent and funny at times. All these were traits Eric loved in art, be it music, literature, etc., but he was never a Motorhead guy until Dec. 26, 2015. You know, when everyone who wasn’t one already became a fan. He had even considered getting the Ace of Spades symbol tattooed on him somewhere until his younger brother called him a poser dickhead for even thinking about it. If Kevin could see that, Eric was pretty sure his other friends would think the same thing because Kevin was kinda stupid.

Eric had been watching Lemmy, the documentary about the musician, on Netflix and was amazed at the fact the rock icon lived in a smallish apartment in Los Angeles. Granted, Eric couldn’t see him living in a palatial British estate, but the living quarters displayed in the movie only made Eric miss Lemmy more somehow.

As he sat on his couch, staring at the now-dark screen of his television, Eric said aloud, “I wish you were still around, Lemmy.”

The sound of the words were still reverberating around the room when a sudden knock at the door made Eric jump and, to be honest, damn near piss himself.

It came true, was the first thought in Eric’s head as his heart still pounded in his chest from the initial scare. Lemmy is here!

On the heels of that, as Eric began to calm down, his panic subsiding, he realized there was no way that Lemmy Kilmister, dead at 70 of cancer and cremated, had risen from the dead and was knocking on the door of his rural Missouri apartment.

But what if he has, Eric thought. What if the power of his wish, combined with a variable such as a falling star or a passing benevolent faerie made Eric’s wish come true? The 23-year-old welder and former Navy Hull Technician wasn’t an intellectual giant, but he wasn’t necessarily dim, either. An active imagination and a love of comic books and fantasy/sci-fi fiction since he was nine years old gave Eric a surprising level of worldly understanding.

Having said that, he sometimes went a little overboard when it came to things he wanted to be true yet were physically impossible. Like the time he spent two hours bargaining with God to grant him the ability to use the Force and then, sure his prayers had been answered, spent another hour trying to levitate a plate of pizza rolls from the coffee table to his lap.

Like that unfortunate day when the Force failed him, Eric was now sure Lemmy was waiting on the other side of the door. As if on cue, the sound of someone pounding on the door filled the room once again, this time louder and more impatient. Eric, his heart now beating like a bass drum from excitement instead of fear, jumped up from his couch and began walking towards the door.

Then he stopped.

A comic, one of those old EC comics from the Fifties, leapt into his head. A man had bought an old monkey’s hand that was supposed to grant him three wishes and discovered later that it did, in fact, work. When the man wished for money, he and his wife received it the following day. However, the money came from an insurance policy they had placed on their son, who had died the previous night in an automobile accident. The man then wished for his son to return to the land of the living. The son was back from the dead, all right, but as a mindless zombie. The grieving father finally wished for his boy to return to the grave and he did. The moral of the story was, of course, be careful what you wished for.

What if Lemmy was a zombie? A pissed-off zombie who wanted to make Eric pay for awakening him from his eternal rest. What if Lemmy was in the afterworld, hanging out with Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones and his former drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor and Eric’s wish took him away from the greatest party in the history of time itself? The fear returned.

He jumped again as the beating on the door now shook the TV and TV stand next to the wall. Eric realized he must do it. He must open the door and accept his fate.

Hands trembling, mind numb with terror, he walked to the door. His right hand lingered over the doorknob for a moment, then grasped it. He turned the knob, flung open the door, and—

“Jesus Jumped-Up Christ, you fucking asshole! It’s pouring out here!”

Kevin was standing just outside the door, soaking wet, clutching a large bag of groceries in one hand with his other hand formed into a fist that was about to hammer the door again.

“Oh!” Eric said, a combination of relief and mild disappointment flooding him. “I thought…well, never mind.”

His brother looked him for a moment before speaking.

“You thought it was Lemmy again, didn’t you?”

Grandma Shirley

Another Chuck Wendig Flash Fiction Challenge via his amazing blog at Terrible Minds. Here's the deets on the piece. You can see which of the five seeds I went with. It's not the best piece I've ever written, but it's the first bit of fiction I've done in awhile. Enjoy.

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“Where is it?”

“Huh?”

“The body. Where is it?”

Tim looked up from the computer screen at his second cousin and longtime co-worker Tony. The pair had worked at the town’s only morgue since they were teenagers, Tim moving up to the rank of mortician and Tony happy to continue doing the behind-the-scenes grunt work. He had never been one for dealing with the public and if it made Tim happy to wear a suit and tie every day, good for him.

“First of all,” Tim said, with a look Tony recognized as the beginning of a patronizing sermon, “’it’ is a she. We do not refer to our client’s remains as ‘it.’ They are to be treated with respect and dignity. How would you react if someone referred to your mom as ‘it’?”

“Well, she’s been dead for more than 20 years now,” said Tony, “so I wouldn’t really get too worked up over it. Second, ‘our client’ has shuffled loose this mortal coil. Nothing that was Shirley Talkington remains behind other than the candy shell. All the good stuff, the gooey, creamy center and the milk chocolate, is gone.”

“God, you’re so weird when you compare the clients to food. And what if one of her relatives heard you talking like that? Her family is enough of a pain in the ass without them overhearing you talk about her like she’s a fucking M&M.”

It was true. Shirley Talkington’s family used to be a big deal in their little town of Hempshire, back when it had a population of more than fifty thousand. After the Korean conflict, however, many of the town’s families, especially the affluent ones, left. Hempshire’s largest employer, Plastco Flowers & Accessories, moved out of the state in 1964, putting the final nail in the coffin of what was once a booming city. Now, without high schoolers being guaranteed a job creating plastic bouquets for funerals and weddings, the metropolis was now a smallish town of around ten thousand mostly lower middle-class people who drove 30 or more miles every day to work in Sappington Springs.

The Talkingtons didn’t get the memo that they were neither rich nor powerful any more, hadn’t been since the early 70s, and probably shouldn’t talk down to the remaining townspeople as though they were pre-Magna Carta serfs. The dearly-departed Shirley was the family matriarch, a vile woman who, in the opinion of nearly everyone who knew her, couldn’t croak soon enough. She finally expired in Hempshire’s only nursing home at the age of 98, suffering a massive heart attack while screaming at one of the nurses about there being too much sugar in her iced tea. Most of the citizens of the town either let them have their way because it was easier than arguing with them, or just ignored them entirely.

Tim knew the Talkingtons had no real power or influence anymore, but he had a reputation as a good man, a fair man who treated everyone equally and he wasn’t about to blow that courtesy of a thankless bitch who died many decades too late and her equally awful family.

He glanced at the table Tony was motioning to and realized with a start Shirley really was gone. In the span of a second, he thought of where she could be. She wasn’t in the viewing room yet and he knew he had taken her out of the cooler first thing this morning. That really didn’t leave anymore else. Curiosity slowly turned into a mild panic; the Talkingtons were broken-down annoyances, but finding out there was a body thief in town would create the kind of bad press and rumors that Tim absolutely did not need. Being the sole funeral home in town didn’t provide the kind of job security one might think. Sappington Springs had two funeral parlors, one of which also provided a crematorium. This was bad.

“Where is she?” Tim asked, his voice slightly shrill.

“Literally just asked you the same question,” Tony said with a sarcastic undertone. “Remember?”

“Shut up. Let me think.”

A quick glance at the television monitors above his desk told Tim the hearse was in front of the building, ready to take Shirley to her eternal resting place at the Holy Gardens cemetery just outside town. The other monitor showed the van they used to pick up the newly-deceased was in its customary place behind the building. Finally, the third screen showed the empty chapel where Shirley’s family would begin arriving in the next hour or so to send her on her way, probably with their customary passive-aggressive snottiness and backbiting disguised as farewell sentiment.

“Hey, Tim?”

He looked up and saw Elizabeth Stanton standing in the door. She was the 20-year-old niece of Tim’s best friend from college who wanted to get into the mortuary business. Elizabeth had worked for them just more than a year and had the perfect temperament for the job. She could console the most grieving mother with a kind word and a simple hand on the shoulder and take the brutal tongue lashings from an angry son, too heartbroken to understand Elizabeth didn’t create the cancer that took his beloved mother.

“Yes?”

“Jenny Talkington is here.”

“Fuck,” Tim said, the word slipping from his lips unintended.

“Oops, sorry about that.”

Elizabeth tried to hide a smile. “That’s OK. She wants to talk to you about seeing Mrs. Talkington before the rest of the family gets here. She’s waiting in the viewing room. Should I bring her in?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Tim said with a sigh. “How’s her mood?”

This time, there was no hiding the smile on Elizabeth’s mahogany face. “About usual.”

Jenny Talkington graduated high school with Tim. She was a cunty know it all then and she remained true to her roots as an adult. “Usual” meant he was about to be talked to like he was the help and that she wanted to avoid paying the funeral bill for as long as possible, if at all.

“Awesome. Yes, go get her, please.”

Still standing by the table, Tony was smirking.

“Something funny?” Tim asked, annoyed.

“Nope,” Tony said, smug grin still on his face. “You have fun with her. That’s why you get the big check and your own parking space. Now you get to earn it. I’ll go track down the corpse.”

Tim was about to once again reprimand his cousin, but decided it was a bad cause and he had much bigger problems to deal with. And as if on cue, bereaved granddaughter Jenny Talkington walked through the door. She, like Tim, was nearly 40, but looked closer to 60. A steady diet of Marlboro Light 100s, Diet Coke, and pure hate had emaciated her to the point of looking positively mummy-esque. The fact no one could quite recall the last time they had seen her smile played no small part in her witch-like appearance.

“Hello, Tim.”

Her voice was nicotine-coated gravel. In their youth, she had a beautiful singing voice and was a soloist who sang at churches all over the county and state. Now, she sounded like Leonard Cohen after a hard weekend.

“Hey, Jenny,” Tim said, standing up and walking to her with his hand out to shake hers. She ignored the gesture entirely.

“We would like to see Grandma before the service and before those money-grubbing moochers show up to pretend they’re devastated,” she said. Tim knew full well Jenny was the lead mooching money grubber and had already scoured Shirley’s will for anything and everything she could possibly get her hands on. The lack of any liquid assets in her grandmother’s last directives had put Jenny in an even more foul mood than her regularly-vitriolic demeanor. Tim’s face betrayed none of these thoughts as he put his hand in his pocket, trying to act as though he had intended to do that all along.

“Of course. Can you give us about an hour for us to prepare her?”

Jenny rolled her eyes, but said, “That’s fine. Also, I would like to think our credit is good here.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Here we go, thought Tim.

“Well, Jenny,” he started, “we normally don’t provide credit and as a rule, request the family make a good-will gesture at least 15 percent down—“

Jenny cut him off. “Wow. You’re really talking money right now? Grandma Shirley isn’t even in the ground and you’re demanding money? I really thought better of you, Tim. I really did.”

She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, leaving Tim to stare at her as she turned the corner leading to the exit. Tony walked past him and plopped down in Tim’s chair and once seated, stared at the floor, unblinking.

“What’s up?” Tim asked.

Tony continued to stare at the floor saying nothing.

“Tony,” Tim said, becoming alarmed, “what’s going on?”

“She’s gone, man.”

“Yeah,” Tim said. “I know. That’s not in question.”

“No, I mean she left. On her own.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Tim asked. “That’s impossible. I watched the autopsy being done. She’s dead.”

“Yes, she’s dead, but she left on her own. I swear, Tim. She’s out there.”

Tim looked at Tony for a long time. It was impossible to even consider that what his cousin was saying was true, but was there another option? Was Shirley Talkington a—Tim could barely even think the word without feeling ridiculous—a zombie?

“Tony. Seriously. Is she…undead?”

Tony finally looked up at Tim, his face still a mask of solemnity.

“Nah, I’m fuckin’ with you. She’s in the other room getting her hair done.

“You retard.”

The Legend That Is Nipple Clamps!

 

Another of Chuck Wendig's Terrible Mind Flash Fiction challenges. This time, we were to visit this page of unexplainable stock photos, pick a random pic, and write a thousand words about it. The pic above is what I got. The words below form the story I wrote.

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If asked, Anthony would say he’s a good man. A good father, a good husband, a good cop. Not a regular churchgoer, but not a C&E Christian, either. He prided himself on his ethics, both at home and at work. He was easy to like and hard to anger.

That being said, even he had his moments.

“Are you fucking kidding me with this shit right now?”

Anthony was standing next to his car in a neighborhood that would need millions in urban renewal money to be considered a “bad” neighborhood. Even gang bangers only came here after dark on a dare. These facts made it even harder to understand why a doughy white guy, wearing tighty-whities with two large carpenter clamps on his nipples, would be here.

The man seemed nonplussed by all the activity around him. In addition to Anthony, two other detectives in street clothes joined five uniformed officers, three police cruisers with bubbles on, at least 20 onlookers, and, oh yeah, the quickly-stiffening corpse of what appeared to be a homeless woman lying on the sidewalk.

“Anyone?” Anthony asked. “Can anyone explain this?”

One of the uniformed cops, a sergeant, stepped forward and was about to speak when Nipple Clamps (Anthony had decided Nipple Clamps was his name, regardless of what his mom and pop may have christened him) began talking.

“I can read the confusion on your face, my good man, and believe me, I empathize with your plight. My true identity is irrelevant so for now, you can call me Nipple Clamps.”

A senior detective with more than 20 years’ experience, Anthony, for the first time he could remember, was at a complete loss.

Nipple Clamps.

“What in the entire fuck are you talking about?” Anthony managed to spit out. “Who are you, why are you here, and why the shit is there a dead woman laying here?”

“I already told you, sir, I am Nipple Clamps, and I am here to solve this mystery.”

Anthony looked around to his brother officers, who looked back at him with the same bewildered expression he knew he himself wore.

“Perhaps I should elucidate further,” Nipple Clamps said. “I am, for lack of a better term, a super hero, a meta, if you will. I was once a normal human being, much like yourself, until I came across these.”

He motioned grandly to the two large red clamps, one attached to each nipple. They appeared to be the type of implements used in woodworking that would hold pieces of glued wood together tightly while drying. And more than just dangling from his nipple, the clamps were actually holding on to the entire man teat, but Anthony understood why the nearly-naked man in front of him went with Nipple Clamps; Teat Clamps would just sound stupid.

“A super hero?” Anthony said, sarcasm fighting with incredulity in his voice.

“Yes, good sir!” Nipple Clamps said brightly. Anthony felt like, in Clamps’ mind right now, he had a cleft chin as his wide smile sparkled with a gleam like Superman’s. “I was a babe in the woods, so to speak, lost without any path. But one day, in a mystical castle, I found the Nipple Clamps of All-Encompassing Truth, Strength, and Tightness!”

One of the uniformed officers leaned in to take a look. “Sticker says they’re from Home Depot.”

“But, citizen, would you not agree that Home Depot is a magical place?”

The men in attendance looked around at each other and began nodding their heads and muttering, conceding the point that Home Depot is, in fact, pretty awesome.

“So alright, Mr., er, Clamps, what powers do you have and why are you here with a dead women lying at your feet?” Anthony said, still obviously unconvinced of the power of the Nipple Clamps of All-Whatnot and Et Cetera.

“I have the power of focus, good constable,” Nipple Clamps said, still talking as though he was wearing a cape and talking to a group of awe-struck toddlers. “I have the power of knowing when danger is near, allowing me to arrive on the scene and mete out justice!”

“Got here a little late this time, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not at all!” Clamps declared. “I arrived in time to see her murdered…”

He looked at the assembled law men dramatically.

“…by one of YOU!”

Nipple Clamps looked around at each of the officers with a smug, knowing look of triumph on his face. He did this for nearly a minute until it became obvious he wasn’t getting the reaction he was looking for.

“So, the thin blue line is in effect, eh?” Clamps said, stroking his chin. “No matter. You are men of the law. When I tell you who did this dastardly deed, you will have no recourse but to do your duty and place your brother in arms under arrest.”

“You mind if I talk to my, uh, fellow ‘brothers in arms’?” Anthony asked.

“Not all all, sir!”

Anthony turned his back to the pale, nearly-naked man with the twin clamps attached to his pecs. They were each trying to maintain a modicum of professionalism in the face of overwhelming absurdity.

“Alright, the guy’s obviously struggling with some issues, but he seems to really believe this, so be careful. He could get violent when we try to bring him in. I mean, there’s no doubt he has a high pain tolerance; those clamps have got to be killing him.”

Anthony turned around as Nipple Clamps began shouting.

“It was you who are the murderer!” Clamps said, pointing to the same policeman who had pointed out the origin of his namesake home repair implements. “I got here as you finished choking her. You were trying to extort money from her. You see, gentleman, this woman is one of the most highly-paid beggars in the city and your badge-wearing friend gets a cut from her and many like her so long as he allows them to panhandle!”

Anthony turned to Officer Thompson, the man in question. Amazingly, Thompson was looking very nervous.

“Eddie, he’s full of shit, right?”

“I didn’t kill her, Anthony, I swear,” Thompson said.

“But the other stuff…”

“Hey, she’s just some homeless broad, right?” Thompson said, looking from cop to cop.

“Jesus,” Anthony mumbled. He turned back to Nipple Clamps.

“Are you willing to make a statement that you witnessed this officer attack and kill this woman,” Anthony asked.

“Nah,” Clamps said. “I’m just fuckin’ with you. I killed her.”

INTERVIEW: Best-Selling Harlequin Romance Author Michele Dunaway

I've known Michele for awhile and in addition to being a good friend, she's a great writer who has been an invaluable resource to me in my own writing career. I was thrilled to be able to chat with her about her career and her thoughts, as a romance writer, on 50 Shades of Grey. For the Walrus Publishing article, click HERE.

LitStack.com: Lines We Wish We'd Have Written

One of my latest writing ventures is with LitStack.com, an amazing site featuring contributors who love the art of writing and the artists who do the writing. My first piece with them is their weekly LitStack Picks, where a literary-type question is posed. This week's was: What line do you wish you'd have written? Based on the photo, you can probably get an idea where I went, but for the full piece, click HERE.

NaNoWriMo Time, Bitches!

November is National Novel Writing Month, known better as NaNoWriMo. I gave it a shot last year and by "gave it a shot" I mean I set up my page on their official site and proceeded to write not a single word.

This year, however, is different. Yesterday was Day 1 and I dropped 1,774 words. Yeah. Like a boss. I'm doing it this year, dammit. The tentative title is Hannibal Preston & the Adventures of the Six Gun Wizard. Probably won't stick, but who knows. And in case you noticed it's the name of this blog, there's a reason. I've been thinking about this novel for the past four years and I'm just now getting down to the process of writing it.

NaNoWriMo was a big factor in my hitting the laptop and finally telling the story, but another was attending a book signing by Heather Brewer this week. You can read about that event in the next week or two over at Walrus Publishing, but suffice it to say, it was inspiring. We share a very similar past and upbringing and something just clicked.

So I'm doing this. NaNoWriMo is the beginning. This novel is getting written. I have given myself a deadline of Jan. 1, 2015 to get it published. Gonna. Fucking. Happen.

Here's the opening of Hannibal Preston.

Hannibal held a wand in one hand, a smoking pistol in the other as a wizard lie dead at his feet.

Hannibal was fucked.

Perhaps “wizard” isn’t the most accurate description of the man on the floor with a brand new hole in his head just above the left eye. “Charlatan” would be a generous term. “Asshole” would be closer to the truth and more in line with the thoughts racing through Hannibal’s mind as he heard the rumble of the so-called magician’s loyal, albeit mislead, followers.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As Hannibal is barricading the door, preparing for the arrival of several pissed-off, recently-made-leaderless minions, we’ll go back to the beginning, a time before our protagonist was the recipient of the murderous rage of a small city. In the beginning, Hannibal was only loathed by a few. To their credit, though, they had years of practice.