Madness & Mayhem: 23 Tales of Horror and Humor

by James Aquilone

  The minion led them down a winding staircase, over a moat filled with mutant sewer alligators, through a series of hidden doors, and finally to a landing that overlooked Edison’s control room.

  “Just go down the stairs at the end of the landing,” the minion said.

  “You’ve been awesome,” Jesse said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Maybe we can catch a Mets game sometime. I have season tickets.”

  Jesse grinned—and then he bashed the minion in the face with the butt of the gun. He crumpled like a beer can under an elephant’s foot. “I might be a lame hero,” Jesse said, “but a Mets fan?”

  “I noticed an open broom closet back down the hall,” Veronica said. “We could stash him there.”

  “Steve, take care of it,” Harold ordered. “But first get those magnetic handcuffs off his utility belt.”

  “Sure.”

  Harold crawled onto the landing and peeked over the railing. The control room was crowded with computers and odd-looking machines, the sort of machines an insane five-year-old would make if his only toys were circuit boards and Lincoln Logs. Edison stood in the center facing a large computer screen. Two minions fluttered about as Edison barked orders. An electronic display beside the computer screen was counting down the time till the Negatron’s transmission. It was at 00:09:03.

  As Harold was thinking of a plan, Edison shouted, “The jig is up, lames asses!”

  Each League member wore an expression that said “oh crap.” Then one by one they stood.

  “Jesse, give Steve the gun,” Harold whispered.

  “Good thinking,” Steve said, and took the gun.

  “Put down the gun or my minions will vaporize you!” Edison ordered.

  “I don’t want to do that,” Steve said, and marched slowly down the stairs.

  “Like when you didn’t want to put the cap back on the toothpaste! You were always inconsiderate. Take another step and you’re dust.”

  When Steve reached the bottom of the stairs, the second minion drew his molecule-eroding pistol, fired, and—

  Nothing happened.

  “Goddamn! Is that the prototype molecule-eroding pistol you’re using?” Edison growled. “What is wrong with you Stanford guys?”

  “Lucky Dog!” Jesse whooped.

  Steve fired the pulse gun. A wave of purple light hit the minion in the chest. He fell to the ground, twitching like a frog on an electrified fence.

  “Don’t worry, guys. I didn’t kill him!” Steve shouted, as the minion went limp. “I set it to stun.’ At least I think I did. If not, then he’s dead. Sorry!” Steve glared at the other minion, and he ran out of the control room.

  Just then Edison pressed an oversized button set in the wall beside him, and a tube of transparent thermoplastic swooshed over him.

  Steve walked over and tapped on the tube.

  “You can’t touch me in here,” Edison said. “The Tube of Isolation is impervious to all weapons. ICBMs, scud missiles, dark-matter cannons…”

  Steve walked over to the button in the wall, pressed it, and the tube rose.

  Edison ran, but Steve was on top of him in an instant. He knocked him to the ground and clamped the magnetic handcuffs over his wrists. “Just so you know, I was meaning to work on a remote control for the tube,” Edison said, as Steve dragged him toward the League, who were now all gathered by the giant computer screen.

  “You’re too late,” Edison said, struggling to his feet. “The Negatron goes live in three and a half minutes.”

  “Veronica, you’re good with computers,” Harold said. “Stop the Negatron.”

  “I use a PC. This is a Mac.”

  “This is your lame plan?” Edison asked, before throwing back his head and laughing.

  “Just believe,” Harold said. “Remember BTK.”

  “The serial killer?” Edison asked.

  “Just try, Veronica.”

  In a blur Veronica’s fingers danced over the keyboard. She looked up at the screen.

  “INVALID OPERATION,” the computer intoned.

  “Try using voice commands.”

  “Remember,” Steve said, “all Edison’s other doomsday devices had glaring vulnerabilities. It’s always something simple. Don’t overthink it.”

  “Computer, end current operation,” Veronica said.

  “REQUEST DENIED.”

  “Computer, override program.”

  “REQUEST DENIED.”

  “Computer, shut down.”

  “REQUEST DENIED.”

  “So lame,” Edison said, rolling his eyes.

  “We have only ninety seconds!” Jesse cried.

  “You cannot stop the transmission,” Edison said in a bored voice. “You’ve lost. Once all the networks are found and the audio file is uploaded, the entire world will be plunged into the blackest depression. I hope you all have Prozac.”

  “Thank you!” Veronica shouted. “He always talks too much. It’s bizarre. We cannot stop the transmission, but maybe we can change what it transmits. Computer, select new audio file!”

  They waited, but the computer didn’t respond.

  “Computer, select new audio file!” Veronica repeated.

  A few long seconds passed. Then the computer said, “PLEASE BE PATIENT AS I LOAD THE LIBRARY.” A beat later a menu listing hundreds of audio files appeared on the screen.

  “Hurry, we have only twenty seconds!” Jesse said.

  “Computer,” Veronica ordered, “select, uh, select—Edison, you have some crappy songs on here—select Hall and Oates’ Kiss on My List.’ ”

  “STUDIO VERSION OR LIVE?”

  Ten seconds!”

  Studio version!”

  “Nothing’s happening, Veronica!” Harold said.

  “Damn, I didn’t say, Computer’—”

  “Five seconds!”

  “—Computer, studio version!”

  “I can’t believe this,” Edison said, shaking his head.I really have to start hiring minions from MIT.”

  The computer pinged. There was a brief pause, and then the room filled with the smooth, soulful voice of Hall or Oates. Harold didn’t really know. He was more of a Bruce Springsteen fan.

  Steve ran around the room, whooping and shouting and high-fiving his teammates.

  “You did it!” Harold said to Veronica.

  “No, we all did it,” she corrected.Teamwork. BTK, right?” Veronica gazed at Harold with those too-blue eyes, and for once he didn’t mind.

  An explosion jolted the control room. The back wall crumbled, and through a cloud of dust and smoke, Mr. Superlative stepped into the lair, followed by Barbara Bombshell and Ultra-Violent Boy.

  “They’re not dead!” Jesse shouted.

  “Apparently not,” Mr. Superlative said. The ground shook as he strode toward the League.The anti-matter bomb was a dud. We would have been here sooner, but Bombshell got frostbite while we were in Siberia. I had to use my superlative breath to defrost her.”

  “Wearing pants might have been a better idea,” Veronica muttered.

  “What was that?” Bombshell asked. She wore a black G-string, pasties, and, incongruously, a bomb suit helmet. She must have been the one who blew up the wall. Her touch was explosive.

  “Oh, I said, Nice G-string. It accentuates your nakedness.’ ”

  “Thanks.”

  “Edison planted the story of our demise in the gossip blogs,” Mr. Superlative said.

  “Apparently they’ll publish anything,” Edison added.

  “Well, we’ve got everything under control here,” Harold said, and watched Mr. Superlative’s muscles ripple under his suit. Harold sucked in his gut and made a mental note to start hitting the gym.

  “I see. Nice job. But we’ll take Edison and his minions off your hands now.”

  “They’re ours,” Steve said. “We stopped them.”

  “Do you guys have an anti-gravity prison on a remote island equipped to hold an evil genius?” Ultra-Violent Boy
asked. He leaned against a wall covered with flashing green and yellow lights. Pistols hung from both his hips. Strapped to his left leg was a Bowie knife and strapped to his right was a stiletto.

  “Not yet.”

  “Let him go,” Harold said. “We’ve done our job.”

  Steve shoved Edison toward Mr. Superlative, who handed him off to Bombshell. Then she and Ultra-Violent Boy swept out of the lair.

  “You saved the world,” Mr. Superlative said. “On behalf of everyone, thank you.”

  “Just doing our job,” Harold said, trying his best to mimic Mr. Superlative’s stentorian voice.

  Mr. Superlative nodded stiffly. “By the way,” he said, “we’re starting a West Coast version of the All-Stars. I think you’re just the man to head it up. What do you say?”

  Harold smirked. “I appreciate that, Mr. Superlative, but my loyalty rests with the League.”

  “Good luck, then, League of Superheroes,” Mr. Superlative said, before bounding through the demolished wall.

  “Did you notice he didn’t call us lame’?” Veronica asked. “Just plain ol’ heroes.’ ”

  “I think I’m going to cry,” Harold said, and then he did. Like a boss.

  Inner Dragon

  (Originally published in SQ Magazine)

  “Philip, are you ready for massive change?” Dr. De Graat asked. “Are you ready to take the arduous journey toward your ultimate destiny? To face the abyss and let the abyss face you?”

  The doctor stopped suddenly, looked at me with laser-focused eyes. They were quite beautiful blue eyes, I noticed. Sort of a cerulean-blue with flecks of green.

  “Philip?” he said, eyebrows raised.

  “Sorry. That wasn’t a rhetorical question?”

  “Philip.” The sound of disappointment in his voice made me want to evacuate my bowels. “Tell me, what do you want?”

  “I want to be a successful writer. A best-selling author.”

  De Graat clapped, let out a joyous laugh. “Wonderful! Wonderful!” His expression intensified, his eyebrows knitting together and his jaw tightening. “Philip, you will be a success if you truly want success. If it is the only thing you want. If you can do this, it will be easy. There are two steps: First we find your inner dragon and then we release him. Once he is soaring through the universe, the dragon takes care of the rest.”

  “How do I find my inner dragon?”

  “I have a machine.”

  After disappearing into the shadows of his office, De Graat returned with a large silver contraption. It reminded me of an old movie projector but with two lenses instead of one. He positioned the machine in front of me and looked me in the eye. It was intimidating, but I held his gaze.

  “It is a simple process,” he said. “I am going to hypnotize you with assistance from the Dreams of Destiny Machine. Please, look into the lenses.”

  He flipped a switch at the back and two beams of light jabbed me in the eyes. It didn’t feel like light; it felt like knitting needles.

  “Don’t look away, Philip. Focus! The effect depends a great deal on your effort. I turned the machine up to full power to compensate for your timidity.”

  My eyes burned. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I wanted to puke.

  “Concentrate, relax, and visualize your ultimate desires, your dreams of destiny… Imagine the life you’ve always wanted... Envision your dragon. You will birth the beast you deserve…”

  The light shone as brightly as a supernova and then everything went black.

  When I left De Graat’s office I didn’t feel any different. I hadn’t felt my inner dragon being released, but what would that feel like anyway?

  That night I met with my writers’ group. My new short story got savaged. Half the group hated the ending, the other half hated the beginning, and they all hated the middle. It was a typical session—except for the appearance of Bill McDougal, a recently retired Air Force captain who said he’d been trying to write his debut fantasy novel for more than two decades, but “life just kept interrupting.” I know what that’s like; though for me, instead of life interrupting, it’s Internet porn. A few months after returning to civilian life Bill finally finished his story, and then joined our little group to get an opinion. He handed out hard copies of his manuscript. Obviously the guy hadn’t heard of email. I felt bad for the old newbie.

  After the meeting I asked a blonde named Jeannette if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee. She looked at me as if she had never laid eyes on me before, turned to the person sitting next to her, and started chatting about the new X-Men movie. The weird thing was that it didn’t hurt my feelings. Rejection was a constant in my life. It was as familiar as my own face.

  I went home and hit the tub. If De Graat turned out to be a kook, and I was ninety-five percent sure he was, I wasn’t too concerned. The session was dirt cheap. But, man, it would be nice to be a best-selling author. I had visualized my ultimate desires: being on the New York Times Best Sellers list; Forbes’ list of the richest authors; People’s Sexiest Author Alive.

  The first five pages of Bill’s novel were a vague, confusing ramble. He didn’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s.” I made notes as I went along to help the poor guy out. The dialogue was terrible, mostly characters explaining things. There were a ton of plot holes and the end didn’t quite come together. But I loved the premise and a few of the minor characters. I thought there was a good story buried in there. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about it, and after about an hour I figured out how to make the thing work.

  Then I had a better idea: I’d steal Bill McDougal’s story.

  He wasn’t going to get the thing published anyway, not in its current condition. But with my alterations I was confident I could sell it. I also knew I could finish it in a week. Besides, fuck him.

  In the morning, I called my boss and told him I needed to take care of some “personal business” and wouldn’t be coming into the post office that week. Let someone else sort the damn mail!

  Then I started writing. I had never worked so fast. The words just flowed. I was done in five days. I thought it turned out pretty good and figured there were enough changes that I would get away with it.

  I sent it out and a week later an agent said he was interested in my novel, which I had titled Dragon’s Breath.

  Hal Jensen couldn’t have been younger than eighty-two. He was about five-foot-four with a comb-over and said he knew the most important people in the book biz. What he didn’t say was that those people had all died decades ago. Hal insisted he still had a few tricks up his sleeve, though. Maybe I was desperate, but, hey, he thought I had potential. He said I reminded him of a young Terry Brooks. I didn’t know who that was, but I signed with him anyway. I think I was his only client.

  A few weeks later, a mid-level publishing house picked up Dragon’s Breath. I got an equally mid-level advance. It wasn’t enough to live on for long, but that didn’t stop me from quitting my job. Actually, I just stopped showing up. If anything, Dr. De Graat’s method gave me confidence. Most likely it was a placebo effect, but so what? Sometimes all you need is a little boost.

  The critics hated Dragon’s Breath. They said it was “full of lazy writing,” “riddled with clichés” and “a monumental waste of time.” I didn’t care. Critics are just jealous, wannabe writers anyway, right? What mattered was that the book was selling. Not a lot at first. But sales picked up enough that my publisher committed to a sequel and sent me on a book tour.

  I met a grad student named Lauren in North Carolina. When the tour ended, she moved in with me. Three weeks later, she left. Lauren thought I was cheating on her. She was right. I was cheating on her. Come on. No one had ever wanted to have sex with me before and now there was another woman offering herself. How could I resist?

  I had zero ideas for my second novel. I kicked myself for not hanging around the writers’ group longer and seeing if Bill McDougal planned any sequels. It didn’t matter. I just did a rehash o
f the first book, added a few ideas from several current bestsellers and a couple of classics, took a character from here, another from there and—voila!—I had another novel. I was impressed with the result and then I fired my agent.

  “But you’re like a son to me.”

  “This is business, Hal. Don’t take it personally.”

  He started crying. I hung up.

  The guy was deadwood. He couldn’t take my career to the “next level.” For him, the next level was six feet under.

  Out of nowhere, I got a call from the largest literary agency in the country and I signed with them. They got me out of my deal with the mid-level publisher and landed me a four-book deal with one of the Big Five publishers.

  Then Jessie left me. She was the librarian I was seeing after the grad student. Jessie said I was “never there for her.” Boo-hoo. You can’t write a best-seller and “be there” for some co-dependent whiner, right? I was focused on my career. It was all I could think about. I wrote for at least six hours a day. I blogged about writing. I dreamed about writing. In between I did signings and readings. I was making up for lost time and didn’t want to waste a second.

  Other parts of my life just had to give. I paid no mind to the fact that every morning I woke up sobbing. Tears would be streaming down my cheeks and my hands would be wrapped around my pillow like I was a drowning man clutching a life preserver. But once I got out of bed, the feeling dissolved and I put it out of my mind. I had bigger things to worry about.

  The critics detested my second book, Dragon’s Teeth. One called it “regurgitated, derivative drivel not worth a kilobyte of space on a flash drive.” I almost admired his perception. Derivative, yes, but come on, there was some really fine writing in that book.

  Someone had to pay for the bad press. So I fired my publicist. I had a publicist by then. Her name was Gloria or Cheryl or Abigail.

  Dragon’s Teeth landed on the New York Times Best Sellers list, peaking in thirteenth place. For some reason, dragons were hot at the moment and here I was at the forefront of a trend!

  I headed out on another publicity tour. I met a Classics professor named Gabrielle when I hit Pittsburgh. Two weeks later we got married. She thought my books were “modern fairy tales filled with Oedipal rage.” I didn’t understand a word she said, but her breasts looked amazing in tight silk blouses. We had a kid, too, a girl named Ursula. But a few months later Gabrielle left. She said I was “unkind.” Who talks like that? She took the kid and moved across the country.