Cannibal Dwarf Detective: An Ephemeral Beardening

by Hunter Wiseman

  “Jeac, over here,” Armando says. He waves Jeac over to a cubicle that is just outside his office. “They set me up with this because no one can open the door to my office. There’s too much crap in there.”

  Jeac squirms his face about and is shaking his body in anticipation.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Armando asks.

  “The wizard duel!” Jeac says. “Have you heard?”

  “Oh, piddle. That’s right!” Armando replies. “Jeac, we’re pissed and you have to go up there and stop it. The duel. Wizards. Bad.”

  He points his hand toward the ceiling, shrugs, and makes a pbbbt noise. Jeac smirks the smirkiest smirk ever.

  “Yes, sir!”

  Jeac trips over Armando’s pipe on the way out, completely shattering it.

  “Get the smirk out of here you bastard,” Armando says.

  Jeac rushes toward the elevator but it’s crowded with people. As he tries to shimmy his way through the crowd a banana figure approaches from behind and grabs the dwarf by the sack (the one full of mustaches) and pulls him away from the crowd.

  “Watch out you crazy potassi-man!” Jeac yells.

  Alfonzo throws a mashed up banana into the crowd and jumps back with Jeac. Everyone explodes against the walls and ceiling, creating a thick paste that weighs down the elevator. It falls into the shaft below.

  “Hooray,” says the banana. “Jeac, I wanted to tell you… I’m coming with you.”

  He punches Jeac in the face and then they venture up the stairwell to the very tippy top of the tower.

  Part XVII: Brothers Betrayed

  Chapter 25

  Ranch and Baby look up in terror as the shockwave sends bits of tower flying in all directions. Debris and people litter the ground around them.

  “Good,” Ranch says. “The tower is crumbling! The sooner it’s gone the better.”

  “Aren’t you afraid to die?” asks Water Baby, her foaming head peeking out of the canteen on the raptors’ saddle bag.

  “No. Not now that I know the truth,” Ranch replies. “Not now that I know this planet has been dead for ages. I shouldn’t have ever been born. Hundreds of billions of people living lives that should have never happened. It’s time this story reached its conclusion.”

  “What do you propose we do?”

  “Jeac and I had a friend. I’m pretty sure he has… expired. But he had a very large arsenal. It’ll prove useful. Follow me or get back in the canteen.”

  Walking the many thousands of miles around the base of the tower would take far too long, so once again the dinosaur takes flight. It’s only a few minutes of super-sonic flight before they glide to a stop at what’s left of Ja-La Pe-Pe Ecko Sanders Cactus Farm. The house is gone and black ink still stains the rubble and the sand surrounding it.

  Ranch walks up to the rubble and uses his tail to move it away from the top of a steel-plated double door resting in the ground beneath. He pulls them open and descends into the weapon-filled safe house. He grabs a duffle bag off a table and starts filling it with guns, ammo, and thermo-nuclear explosive charges.

  Ranch looks over and sees the maintenance table where he, Jeac, and Ja-La Pe-Pe spent so much time fixing and creating weapons together. Right in the center is a project they never got to finish. A pair of shoulder-mounted guns that shoot clusters of razor blades. He grabs it with his teeth and swings it over his back and fastens the straps in front of his chest.

  Water Baby sloshes about at the commotion and appears to ask what it is. Ranch explains and asks the elemental if she can think of or see anything else in the room that might be useful. Water Baby points out a suit of custom velociraptor armor that was created just now in my brain for this exact moment in the book. Ranch puts on the raptor suit as Water baby grabs the nuke. They then fly back towards the tower.

  Beams of light, bolts of lightning and balls of fire are flying in all directions from an increasingly large hole in the center of the tower. A massive figure, which Ranch recognizes as the golem, is rocking back and forth as though it were trying to get out. Its arms are pinned within the tower. Only its head and shoulders are visible.

  The duo flies close and lands on a broken-up building in the city most visible at the top. Water Baby gets out of the canteen and sticks close to Ranch as they make their way down the building and into the Chandakan streets. As they exit, people run about panicking and looting. Ranch conserves ammo but shoots anyone who dares attempt to approach them and take their duffle bag.

  They work their way street to street towards the colossal blood beast. The nearer they get, the worse the carnage. Rivers of blood pour off the monster and flood the roads. People and police are swept downstream and wash onto the curbs of cleaner areas. Ranch opts to fly to avoid most of the trouble.

  When they get close they can see the source of the magic. Go is doing battle with the Ronin leader Mu. Ranch darts in between spells and avoids being swiped out of the air by a massive golem arm and reaches an exposed opening to the murder shaft.

  Chapter 26

  “Go, stop this at once!” Mu yells as he steps backwards and deflects a bolt of lightning. “Can’t you see the folly in all this?”

  “No! The only folly I see is perpetuating the lives that never should have been only to kill them and continue a lie. Join me or die!”

  “I can’t! I know you’re right, but I can’t!”

  “Why can’t you?” Go asks.

  “My code,” Mu replies. “I dedicated myself to defending this tower. Just as you once did. You let your magic consume you!”

  “I let knowledge manifest itself as power. Something you refuse to do. You know the truth. Let it take hold! Truth is the spark of my power!”

  “The truth is insane!”

  Mu stops using his magic and jabs Go right in the eye. He follows through with a hook and then uppercuts him so he lands flat on his back. Go groans and rolls onto his stomach, holding his face in his hands. The golem bellows and shakes below them.

  “So that’s what’s containing it,” Mu says. “Its life force is you.”

  Mu drops to one knee and starts repeatedly slamming his fists into the back of Go’s head. His face leaves an impression in the fleshy red ground. Each blow causes a small shockwave that spreads out through the golem. The blood holding the bodies of the fallen starts to run everywhere. The jetpacks holding the golem stationary fall into the cities below as its legs melt away and flood the tower with red.

  A door slams open ten blocks away from the golem and Jeac and Alfonzo emerge.

  “What the hell is going on here!?” Alfonzo drops to his knees and yells. “We will never recover from this.”

  He does something Jeac has never seen a banana do before. He weeps.

  “Go on, Jeac,” Alfonzo says. “Save the tower. I’ll stay here.”

  “Why me?” Jeac asks.

  ‘Because you’re a tower cop. You’ve sworn to defend the tower. Someone has to do it.”

  Jeac frowns then sprints off through the knee-deep river of blood filling the streets.

  “I can do this,” he thinks.

  The golem continues to deliquesce as the Ronin leader grabs his brother by his scraggly homeless hair and slams his face repeatedly into a skull. The skull fragments and Go, face bleeding profusely, grabs a shard of the chalky bone fragments.

  Mu sees Jeac running toward the crater they’re doing battle in.

  “Jeac!” he yells. “Head to the murder shaft! I saw your old partner fly in there. I think he’s in league with this janitor! You have to stop him and save the tower!”

  Jeac nods and heads toward the opening with reluctance.

  “I don’t want to fight Ranch,” he thinks.

  “Brother,” Go whispers.

  Mu leans in and asks, “Last request?”

  “Yes,” Go answers as he swings the sharp bit of bone up and into Mu’s neck. “Die.”

  Mu rolls off Go and they lay next to each other wheezing. The golem continues to mel
t beneath them and they ride a short wave of crimson onto a nearby ledge. Once there, Go props Mu up next to him and they stare off into the desert.

  Chapter 27

  Ranch and Water Baby work their way carefully down a partly destroyed stairwell on one side of the murder shaft. They reach an observation platform overlooking the flesh bucket. They head through a door and onto a skinny platform that connects to a long railed-off walkway that encompasses the circumference of the flesh bucket. It probably serves as a maintenance access way so work can be done on the chains and ropes holding the bucket.

  “How are we doing this, Baby?” Ranch asks and sets the bag of weapons down on the ground.

  “You have to set the bombs up there and over here,” Baby says. “If I even touch them they could short because I am a being of pure water and throw one down in with the bodies while you’re at it for shits and gigs.”

  Ranch starts carefully making his way across the skinny platforms and charging the explosives. He spots Jeac through the window of the observation platform.

  “Baby, stop him!” he yells as Jeac kicks in one of the doors leading to the bucket access walkway. Jeac is pushed back when Water Baby crashes into him with all his watery might.

  “Out of my way, Baby!” Jeac yells. “I will hurt you!”

  He steps up and cracks his knuckles before reaching around and pulling his mighty axe off of his back.

  “There’s no way I’m letting you out there, Jeac,” Baby says. “This is the last time you screw us over.”

  Jeac brings his axe down over his head and into Baby but Baby separates and moves around Jeac. Jeac throws his entire body into his swings but the blade simply passes through the old water goddess.

  “Hold still you stupid element,” Jeac growls. He kicks hard at Water Baby. Baby engulfs his leg and holds tight.

  “Jeac, stop! Why are you doing this?”

  Jeac reaches out to grab the water which is impossible.

  “Why are you doing that?” Jeac yells while pointing toward Ranch Dressing.

  Water Baby spits Jeac out. Jeac flies through the single window of the observation platform. As Jeac smashes into the metal platform beneath the window, Ranch looks over with a look of concern and starts rushing to plant the bombs. Jeac rolls over, sees Ranch, and becomes enraged.

  “You left me there to die, Ranch,” he says. “Back in chapter one.”

  Water Baby scoops Jeac up and squirts him toward a chain holding up the bucket.

  “Screw you, Baby!” Jeac yells and holds onto the chain.

  Ranch finishes planting the explosives.

  “Let’s get out of here, Baby,” Ranch says. “We did it.”

  He begins to run towards the door, but the sound of the dwarf jumping from the chain and back to the platform stops him.

  “No,” Jeac says. “We finish this now.”

  Water Baby sloshes across the metal surface between the raptor and dwarf and rises up in the form of a liquid leopard. She looks mean.

  “You’ve been a decent friend,” she purrs. “But now you must die.”

  Water Baby launches herself at Jeac in an effort to travel down inside him and expand and explode him. But she misses. She lands in Jeac’s disgusting beard.

  “Noooo!” Water Baby starts screaming and flailing her arms around. Jeac stands proud with his hands on his hips.

  “I didn’t think this situation could get any… Bearder.”

  Water Baby slowly dissolves within Jeac’s beard before finally evaporating and cleaning his beard of blood and scabs.

  “You son of a bitch!” Ranch screams. “You drowned Water Baby!”

  He flies towards Jeac while shooting razor blades from his dual-mounted back cannons that are really cool and bad ass. Jeac chops them down with his battle axe. Ranch head butts Jeac and shoves his cannon in his face. Jeac grabs the barrel of the cannon and bends it upward which causes the razor blades to explode backwards within the gun. Ranch starts clawing at Jeac but is tossed to the ground and curb stomped repeatedly. Ranch manages to scoot out from underneath Jeac’s massive, metal feet.

  “Wait!” he yells. “Jeac. You must understand why this needs to be done, right?”

  Jeac lets the disfigured talking velociraptor have a breath.

  “Nope,” Jeac replies. “All I know is that you’ve betrayed the tower.”

  Jeac steps back from Ranch Dressing, who is pawing at his bleeding face.

  “Like a million years ago a giant being from an unknown place crashed into Chandaka and split it completely in half,” Ranch says. “That being was you!”

  Ranch shoots his arm out and points it at Jeac’s face. Jeac’s meaty eyes bug out of his face and his lips quiver like some dumb child who’s just been told they can’t have any cake because they’ve been bad.

  “No, you’re lying!” Jeac cries like the aforementioned child. “You can’t put this on me!”

  “Jeac, you have known me forever,” Ranch says. “Why would I lie?”

  Ranch struggles to his feet. Jeac takes a few steps back and pulls a shotgun from inside his beard. He cocks it twelve hundred times because that’s funny and how guns work, yeah?

  “Please, Jeac!” Ranch says. “Think this through. The tower is evil and we need to destroy it.”

  Jeac looks stupid and confused like an alcoholic baby who has pooped himself.

  “Jeac,” Ranch says. “You look stupid and confused, but I’ve come too far now to quit.”

  He screeches like an eagle.

  “If you destroy the tower we’ll all die, Ranch,” Jeac says. He levels his shotgun at his old Peruvian raptor.

  “We were never really alive anyway,” Ranch says. “Look beneath you. Jeac, there is nothing. The only reason we aren’t dead now is because of this bucket. Because our superiors thought we wouldn’t figure it out.”

  Ranch moves closer to Jeac. Jeac presses his shooty McRifle against Ranch Dressing’s face.

  “You may or may not be right, Ranch,” he says. “But I came here for a different reason.”

  Ranch pushes the barrel away from his face.

  “Jeac, no,” he says. “Think this through!”

  Jeac grips the grip of the gun tight and locks the butt of the gun into his shoulder.

  “Jeac, you’re my partner,” Ranch pleads. “You’re my friend.”

  Ranch lowers to his… Knees? Do velociraptors have knees?

  “No Ranch,” Jeac says. A single tear trails down his face and rests on his beard. “I’m a tower cop, goddamnit!”

  An explosion of led roars from the black depths of the cylindrical death tube. Hundreds of tiny lead balls shred through Ranch’s face and neck. The torn flesh and milky warm blood splatter onto the far wall and look like a smokers’ tarred lung. Ranch’s body lays stiff.

  “Goodbye my friend,” Jeac says. He gently kicks Ranch’s broken corpse into the bucket, but the velociraptors’ tail gets caught in the metal grating. Jeac kicks harder until he finally decides to just pick up the mangled corpse. He starts yanking on it to loosen its tail. Jeac drops the raptors’ dead body out of frustration, crosses his arms, and scrunches his face.

  “Hmph.”

  THE END?

  Epilogue: Dwarf Support

  Twelve years later. Jeac sits at his desk smoking a live hamster (fact: hamsters are a euphoric drug). Its ass burns and ashes as it squeals and writhes in his fat hand. He is a hero. Well, he is a hero to the precinct. The people of Chandaka are still enslaved and sacrificed regularly.

  Oddly enough, the blood from the rampaging golem has coagulated and glued the broken pieces of Chandaka back into place. A new sea exists, a new ocean. A blood ocean.

  The wizards who dueled atop the tower and killed more people than the C.D.P.D did in the entire time the bucket existed have been prosecuted and shot into one of the dying suns. They’re probably still alive.

  Randomly and for no reason, which is basically the same thing, Jeac gains a conscious. He realizes that the
tower is evil. He stands with such a force that his desk flies off the ground and through the ceiling, killing twelve office workers above.

  “I’m not sorry!” he shouts to no one in particular.

  He storms out the door, grabbing his metal shard axe and the same shotgun he used to kill Ranch. He heads down the hall and into Armando’s office where he finds him once again puffing on an insanely long pipe. The room has been repaired since his last visit, but poorly. The far wall is constructed of cardboard. Jeac jumps on Armando’s desk and rips off his pants.

  “Jeac!” yells Armando. “What in the name of the infernal shark gods who we all started worshipping last week are you doing!?”

  “I realized something,” Jeac replies. “I was used! Used to defend an evil secret that is evil and was secret! Ranch basically rubbed my face in it! And now I’m going to rub your face in this!”

  He defecates all over Armando’s desk and then grabs him by a tuft of hair. He slams his face into the shite with such force that his nose breaks off and flies out the back of his skull. Jeac catches the cartilage-based smelling appendage and chews it like gum while using his axe to saw off Armando’s scalp. He takes a moment to sew it into his beard, but as he’s finishing the job he looks up and sees Alfonzo standing, mouth agape in the doorway.

  “You scalp-tosser!” the banana cries. “You killed my son!”

  He draws one of his banana pistols from a holster. He doesn’t have time to fire. Jeac has already jumped from behind the desk and is running with his arms spread out wide like the default T-pose for characters in video games that haven’t been animated yet.

  He dislocates his jaw like a snake and slams face first into Alfonzo’s stomach. With a mouthful of banana he continues to run down the hallway, his arms scraping the cheap wallpaper off around him.

  Jeac looks back and sees Alfonzo pulling himself down the hall towards him. His lower half still lying in the doorway.