Madness & Mayhem: 23 Tales of Horror and Humor

by James Aquilone

  While preparing to release my third book, Dragon’s Tail, Bill McDougal threatened me with a lawsuit for copyright infringement. I wasn’t worried. I sicced my legal team on him—I had a legal team by then. Lucky for us, Bill’s wife had terminal cancer and the medical bills were piling up. We threatened to tie him up in litigation for years. He quietly settled for ten thousand bucks. It was the right thing for him to do. He wouldn’t have made anywhere near that with his original novel.

  The crying jags worsened. Now I was waking up every night at three a.m. shaking like a heroin addict going through withdrawal. I started taking sleeping pills.

  I finally released Dragon’s Tail. It was my best writing to date. It got an average rating of one-point-eight on Amazon, and critics began calling me one of the worst writers of the twenty-first century. Well, they could just suck it—because Dragon’s Tail topped the New York Times Best Sellers list.

  I had done it. I had achieved my dream.

  And I was fucking miserable.

  I was sitting on the window ledge, my feet dangling seven stories above the ground, when my personal assistant—she was actually my third assistant by then—walked into my office.

  “Mr. Columbo, what are you doing out there?”

  “I’m about to kill myself, Cheryl,” I said between sobs. The crying fits had followed me into the daylight.

  “But you have the best selling book in the country. And, by the way, my name is Rachel.”

  I leaned forward, looked down. It was a long way to the pavement. Hell, I had everything I wanted. But there was no joy in it, just a terrible emptiness. “Sorry, Rachel, it’s just not worth it. Everybody hates me. I hate me.” I scooted closer to the edge.

  “Wait! I know someone who can help you.”

  “Do you think I’ll pass out before hitting the ground?”

  “He’s a self-help guru named Gustav Karl. He specializes in fulfillment. He helped me. It was the only way I could bear to work for you.”

  I sat on the ledge for a few more minutes, thinking about what led me there, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. I had gotten what I wanted. So why was I so unhappy?

  I ducked back into my office and made an appointment with the guru. What did I have to lose? I could always kill myself tomorrow.

  When I entered the uptown office I found the guru sitting by an open window smoking a cigar. It was De Graat.

  “Ah, my star patient,” he said.

  “Now you’re hawking fulfillment as Gustav Karl?” I said, as I sat down opposite him.

  “I was always hawking fulfillment, Philip.”

  “Well, I have to tell you I don’t feel very fulfilled.”

  “Your success isn’t enough?”

  “I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, but I’m not happy. I cry all the time now. I have half a dozen ex-girlfriends, an ex-wife, and a kid—and none of them talk to me. I don’t have one true friend. What the hell did you do to me?”

  “You need two things to be successful, Philip: focus and aggression. That is the dragon. A dragon has only one goal: protect its hoard. It is unrelenting, powerful, focused, aggressive.” De Graat blew cigar smoke into my face. “You rid yourself of that which hinders most people: doubt, consideration, loyalty, kindness, accountability, fairness, reason… Dragons are filthy rich, but they aren’t well liked. Once you release your inner dragon, you become—for lack of a better term—a fucking jerk. Many successful people you will find are fucking jerks.” De Graat smiled wolfishly.

  “You and your machine made me a jerk?”

  “That is the surest way of activating the Law of Attraction. Once the dragon is released into the universe, it opens up whole new vistas of possibility. Haven’t you ever wondered why some people succeed even though they’re talentless hacks? That’s the Law of Attraction at work. Think of your desire, your dragon’s fire, as a beacon. The stronger the focus the stronger the beacon’s light. Once the fire is burning bright, the secret and mysterious forces of the universe take notice. And like moths to a flame, that power surrounds you. Some people may see this as a prayer being answered. You ask of the universe and the universe answers. It doesn’t care about ability.”

  “You never mentioned anything about the Law of Attraction before. You never mentioned any of this.”

  “Had I told you, it might have undermined the treatment. Initially, it works best if you have no knowledge of its operation. Your intent needed to be pure for the universe to be on your side.”

  “Well, the universe might be on my side, but people aren’t. They despise me.”

  “You wanted material gain and status, Philip, not love. Classic mistake!” De Graat laughed. He was having a blast.

  “Well, can you make me happy or not?”

  “I can, but first I must lock up your dragon. I cannot make you a jerk and make you happy about it. That is how you create a psychopath.”

  “What then?”

  “First I return you to your former state, then I make you happy.”

  “But wouldn’t I stop being successful?”

  “If your success is contingent on you being a jerk and not having talent, then yes.”

  “So I can be either happy or successful?”

  “In a manner of speaking. But if you are happy, then you have no need for success.”

  “How do we proceed?”

  “First you pay me and then we can begin.” He wrote on a slip of paper, handed it to me. I had to count the zeroes three times before I was sure of the figure.

  “But this is everything I have!”

  “Success is easy to obtain, Philip. Happiness is not. And as I said earlier, one needs to be aggressive when one strives for success.” Then I noticed his gold Rolex and the platinum cigar case on his desk. Apparently De Graat was a fucking jerk, too. “Come back tomorrow with a certified check if you are still interested.”

  I thought about not going through with it, but the next morning I found myself back on the ledge.

  A day later, I handed over the check and De Graat wheeled out the Dreams of Destiny Machine.

  “First we must block your rampant ego,” he said.

  As the lights pierced my eyes, I felt for the pin in my pocket and in seconds it was over.

  “Let’s begin the second phase and make you a nice and happy boy,” De Graat said. “Sit back and I’ll guide you.”

  Again, the lights burned into my eyes. This time I relaxed and drifted into the void. When it was over I was supercharged. The world was brighter, I felt lighter and full of energy. I was happy!

  As I walked out of De Graat’s office, I pushed over his stupid Dreams of Destiny Machine. De Graat screeched. Screw him and his machine. I was still a jerk. But a happy jerk now.

  I wasn’t going to give up success for happiness. Not when I could have both. So before the treatment I had studied The Absolute Imbecile’s Guide to Hypnosis. All I had to do was distract myself by pricking my finger with a pin, and the first phase of De Graat’s treatment was nullified.

  I ditched my dream of being a writer. De Graat was right. I had made a mistake in wanting only material gain and status. Now that I knew how the process worked, I only needed to shift my focus and take control of my dragon.

  I moved to New Mexico, where I founded a religion. I have money and power, but most importantly love. Lots of love. De Graat said a happy jerk would turn into a psychopath. But would a psychopath be adored by more than ten thousand followers? They would die for me. I probably won’t have them do that. My children are more valuable to me alive.

  My inner dragon and I have big plans. I’ve asked the universe to make everyone love me. I’m just waiting for the answer.

  My So-Called Life in Reruns

  (Originally published in Fantasy Scroll Magazine)

  I was on the couch watching Star Trek. It was the original pilot episode with Captain Pike getting trapped on a planet called Talos IV. I’d seen it so many times it no longer felt like watching televi
sion; it felt like remembering. And like all the reruns they allowed me to watch, the episode comforted me and reminded me of home. More so than this horrible apartment, which was an exact replica of my old place in New York, right down to the water stain in the shape of South America on the living room ceiling and the cat scratches on the front door. My cat wasn’t here, though. He was gone, along with my real apartment and everyone and everything else on Earth.

  Now Captain Pike gets snatched by a couple of Talosians with giant-scrotum-looking heads and they take him to their zoo. I laugh. If I didn’t, I’d go insane. The TV helps me to focus, to block everything else out. When I’m watching Star Trek or The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, it’s like I never left Earth and everything’s okay.

  I reminded myself, once again, that the apartment was fake, but the shows were real.

  The wall to my left faded away. Class was in session.

  I ignored the students—all of them looking like upright caterpillars—and instead watched Captain Pike argue with the big-headed aliens from inside his cage. I remembered watching this episode with my girlfriend, Karen. She loved the Original Series, though she would never admit to being a Trekkie. She turned me on to the show, actually, and we always watched it together. She left me months before the Hanlar destroyed the Earth.

  My body stiffened as the Hanlar instructor began speaking.

  “Behold Jason, the last being of the planet called Earth,” it said in Hanish. “Notice the blank stare, the bloated and slumped body. Notice his lack of arms, the two of them remaining motionless and idle. Jason is addicted to entertainment, particularly in the form of television transmissions. He is the ultimate nema’kemon.” That, I interpreted as “big, lazy loser.” It’s the worst thing you can call the Hanlar. The class booed and hissed.

  “Greetings, Jason of Earth,” the alien teacher said, enunciating each syllable as if it were a separate word, even though I knew Hanish fluently. “Can you tell my class what you find so appealing about mindless entertainment?”

  I’ve learned not to engage with the aliens. They only want to hear what they want to hear. I focused on the television and Vina, the beautiful blonde the Talosians were trying to force on Pike.

  The Hanlar despise entertainment, especially passive entertainment like television shows. It threatens Ardnung, which is the belief system upon which their society is based. Ardnung is all about being productive and maintaining order. The Hanlar have six arms and they are always moving, always building or fixing or creating something. It’s worked out pretty well for them. The Hanlar are the most advanced race in the universe.

  Things were running pretty smoothly for them until they started receiving our TV signals, which had been leaking into space for decades. It took them a while to figure out what they were seeing, but by then it was too late. The entertainment-starved Hanlar loved Earth TV. They couldn’t get enough of it. They binge-watched, they named their offspring after characters on The Brady Bunch, they even started to create TV shows of their own. This, of course, didn’t sit well with the elders of Hanlar. Productivity was down. Hands were idle. Society was collapsing, or so they believed. Something needed to be done. So the Hanlar High Command decided to cancel the planet. Ha-ha. Except me. They saved the Earth’s biggest couch potato to be the ultimate negative example. “Hey, kids, see that fat lump in the box? If you watch TV, you’ll end up just like him.”

  The students barraged me with questions:

  “Is it true that media consumption resulted in near-extinction decreases in your population levels? Do you still have procreative desires?”

  “Have you noticed an impairment in your rational thought?”

  “Is your morbid obesity a result of your excessive viewing habits?”

  “Are you no longer able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy?”

  “Is it true media consumption lowered the aggregate IQ on Earth by an average of two points a year?”

  “Did The A-Team desensitize earthlings to violence, accounting for the increase of war in the twenty-first century?”

  “Is it true that the entertainment producer Joss Whedon caused more harm than Krydax the Obliterator of the Seven Worlds?”

  Anger boiled up inside me. I used to tell them that none of that was true. Their ideas about entertainment were ridiculous and unsubstantiated. Once I said, “You hate TV, but you blew up my planet. Killed billions! What influenced you to do that?” That got me a month with their mind disruptor.

  “Jason of Earth,” the teacher said, “please explain to my class the meaning of the term boob tube’?”

  I jumped up and flung my remote control at the teacher. It disintegrated as soon as it hit the force barrier.

  And with that, the apartment wall returned and the TV went out. It wasn’t because of the remote control. That doesn’t control anything. It’s just a prop. The Hanlar control the TV.

  The television flickered and George Clooney appeared on the screen. “Jason,” he said, but sounded nothing like George Clooney. He sounded like the heartless Hanlar. “You have been found in violation of Code 477: Acting belligerent toward a schoolteacher; as well as Code 863: Refusing to answer a student’s question.”

  I clenched my fists.

  “A scan of your vitals determines that you are within appropriate health parameters, though your blood pressure is slightly higher than normal. Are you getting enough exercise, Jason?”

  “I am following the required minimum physical fitness requirements.”

  “That is good to hear, Jason. We want you with us for a long time. We want you to be happy. Are your dietary needs sufficient? We can bring you a different kind of pizza. Perhaps chips and beer? Nachos?”

  “No, no. The food is fine.” It wasn’t by a long shot. The pizza tasted like damp cardboard covered in Spackle. But it didn’t matter. All the food sucked.

  “Obviously, your excessive television viewing has caused you once again to lash out.” I kept still, held my breath. “We must discipline you.”

  I could have picked up the TV, smashed it to pieces. But the reruns were all I had.

  “It has been decided that your viewing privileges will be taken away. Instead we will loop an educational video.”

  My right hand trembled. “When will you bring back my shows?”

  The camera zoomed tight on the alien George Clooney’s face. His unblinking eyes were pools of darkness. He said, “You provide an important function.”

  The TV went black.

  I slumped back onto the couch, depleted.

  I stared at the blank screen. I could have been looking into outer space, into that dark emptiness where the Earth once was. I wanted to plunge into that void. Let the television take me away to oblivion, capture me for eternity and send me back across the cosmos at the speed of light.

  The video started. An alien version of Jon Stewart went over the history of the Hanlar, the three pillars of Ardnung (productivity, order, tradition), and the devastating effect of mindless entertainment.

  I closed my eyes and watched, from memory, as the Talosians let Pike and his crew go. When I was a kid I called it Mind TV. On long trips in the car I would close my eyes and “re-watch” cartoons in my head. When I wanted to see a different show I would hold a fist up to one of my eyes and pretend I was turning a channel selector. As usual, I took special notice of Pike’s escape. The Talosians free him after realizing that humans would rather kill themselves than live in captivity. They had big heads but were pretty dumb. The Hanlar aren’t dumb. I’ve tried killing myself. It never takes. As I said, Ardnung made the Hanlar incredibly advanced—especially in the biomedical sciences. By my calculations, I’ve been watching reruns for more than a hundred and fifty years. The Hanlar want me here for a long time. Maybe forever.

  The Hanlar control the transmissions, but sometimes they honor my requests. I usually stick with the sci-fi programs. They’re wrong, of course. Television isn’t mindless or useless. TV characters have
solved every problem imaginable. So I watch, study, and gather ideas, even when they take the boob tube away.

  I raised a fist to my eye and switched over to an episode of Lost in Space called A Day at the Zoo.

  TV got me into this predicament, it would get me out.

  Do Stand-Up Bots Dream of Electric Hecklers?

  (Originally published in Perihelion Science Fiction)

  Harold was sitting on the toilet, reading the holo-paper, when the stand-up bot began an impromptu set. Harold had come to hate the metallic hack with the ferocity he usually reserved for people who dog-eared old print books or got those ridiculous data-streaming bionic eyes.

  “Ever wonder why they call them restrooms’?” Karlin560 asked. The bot looked like a cyberman on holiday with his bright Hawaiian shirt hanging loosely over his chrome-plated frame and rainbow-colored suspenders holding up his black slacks.

  Harold dropped the holo-paper in his lap. A hologram of the wreckage from a starbus crash on the Moon floated above his privates. “The facilities are occupied!” he shouted.

  “You do not rest in them. I think the last place you would want to take a snooze is in the vicinity of animal waste products. Humans!” Karlin560’s thick black neoprene eyebrows twitched. His neoprene lips spread into a clownish grin.

  Harold bought the stupid thing for his children.

  “Risa and Rickard have them,” his daughter Cheryl said. She was always going on about those obnoxious twins, whose parents were apparently made of credits.

  “They’re really funny,” his son Tony said. “And you won’t let us get data-streaming eyes.”