Madness & Mayhem: 23 Tales of Horror and Humor

by James Aquilone

  “Listen, you stupid carcass, getting married was my idea—no matter what my bigoted mother might think. In fact, it took a bit of chasing and prodding to get this dumb oaf to finally propose. You and my mother won’t stop that!”

  “But he locked you in the dungeon.”

  “It wasn’t locked, you brain-licking ghoul. We’re in the middle of converting the dungeon into my boudoir. It’s the only room in the house that doesn’t stink like hellhound soup.”

  “Well something sure stinks around here.”

  “And what’s this talk about destroying souls?”

  I remained silent, and then Madgogg said, “Remember, honey, what I told you before about giving you my soul as a wedding gift? Well, I actually had it shipped here this morning. It was going to be a surprise. But considering what just happened…”

  The ogre retrieved the small wooden box from the front table. It was nearly identical to the one I retrieved from the goose’s insides.

  “My soul, my love,” he said and handed her the box.

  This ogre really was a smooth-talker.

  “Thanks for ruining the surprise, corpse!” Willa spat. “Reginald wants to stick your head on his trophy wall, but the idea of looking at your rotten, dead face every day gives me the willies. So get out of here before I change my mind. And tell my mother the wedding is happening whether she likes it or not.”

  “Well, it looks like our business here is done,” I said. “Good luck to the both of you. You’ll need it.” To Oswald, I said, “You’re completely useless, you know that? If I don’t get that fairy dust, I’m eating you first.”

  EPILOGUE

  “It was a lovely wedding, wasn’t it, Jack?” Oswald said.

  I took a deep drag of my hellfire stick and then threw back a shot of Devil Boy.

  “Would have been nice if they had a bottle of formaldehyde. No one considers zombies.”

  Madgogg insisted we come to the ceremony as his guests. Probably to piss off his new mother-in-law. I didn’t need much prodding to piss off Gwendolyn. That was the last time I’d take a job from those double-crossing pixies.

  “I did find the goose pâté in bad taste,” Oswald said.

  “I got my fairy dust. That’s all I care about.”

  “But there’s one thing that’s still bothering me.”

  “Oswald, you’re such a woman.”

  “Whose soul did you destroy?”

  “Listen, souls are destroyed every day. Such is the cruel world of Pandemonium. Besides, what are the odds of it ever getting back to us?” I looked out my office window and watched a black-winged nightmare glide east toward the Broken Lands, a limp elf in its talons.

  Oswald shrugged. I poured myself another hit of Devil Boy, but the intercom buzzed before I could throw it back.

  “Yeah, Lilith?”

  “There’s a rather large and angry ogress here.”

  I looked at Oswald. He started morphing into a blob. That was a bad sign.

  “Yeah, Lilith, what does she want?”

  “Something about her recently deceased husband and a coyote named Sam.”

  I wondered if the fire escape would hold my weight. It had been a while since I last used it.

  “Thanks, Lilith. Oswald will be right out.”

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

  (Here’s the first chapter of the first Dead Jack book. Available now here!)

  1. Waiting for My Wee-Man

  I reached into my jacket for a Lucky Dragon once the shakes began. The undead aren’t known for their dexterity so I had a bit of fun getting that hellfire stick. I was like a drunken mummy trying to do jazz hands. I burned off half the skin on my left index finger lighting the damn thing. That made three fingers now that were practically nothing but bone. If this continued, I’d end up a skeleton inside a cheap suit and fedora. I doubted anyone would notice.

  Being a member of the great unwashed dead isn’t all bad, though. I was happy for my dulled sense of smell. The alleyway stunk like rotten cabbage and sour apples.

  I had tried everyone in downtown ShadowShade, but no one was holding. Out of desperation, I came here to Irish Town in search of Fine Flanagan, my old dealer.

  Without dust, the hunger becomes overpowering, and when I’m hungry, no one’s safe. I’d eat my own dead granny.

  I had been waiting in the alley behind Finn McCool’s Pub for at least an hour before the leprechaun appeared.

  Flanagan isn’t your typical lep. First off, he’s not that short. Maybe five-foot-two in his pointy shoes. He’s broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and someone you don’t want to mess with. He also has the saltiest mouth in all the Five Cities of Pandemonium.

  As he entered the alley, he sang:

  “There once was a fellow McSweeney who spilled some gin on his weenie…”

  With a large sack slung over his shoulder, he swaggered past the reeking dumpsters full of what must have been hundred-year-old cabbage.

  “Just to be couth, he added vermouth. Then slipped his girlfriend a martini…”

  “Sorry to interrupt that charming little ditty,” I said, slipping out of the shadows as I blew smoke out of all the holes in my face. All nine. Real bad-ass.

  The lep stopped deader than my libido. Like I’d caught him bathing naked in his pot of gold. (Leprechauns don’t really have pots of gold, by the way, but they are known to carry sweet, sweet fairy dust, the closest thing to heaven in this godforsaken world. And Fine Flanagan had the finest.)

  The sack jerked and the lep gripped it tighter.

  “What’s in the bag, Flanny? Someone didn’t pay their vig?” I noticed the lep’s fashion sense had changed since I last saw him. He wore a green duster that hung to the ground, but there was no pointy hat on his head. His curly red hair blew in the wind. Leps love hats almost as much as their shoes. And his shoes, I noticed, weren’t even pointy. They were square-toed boots. What the holy heck?

  “None of your fookin business,” the lep said. “Now, if you wouldn’t be minding, I have better tings to do than conversate with a zombie. I be needing to get to me apartment.” When the lep took a step forward, I blocked his way.

  “Look, meat bag, I don’t be wanting any trouble tonight,” he said.

  “No trouble. I’m just looking for dust.”

  The lep exploded into laughter. He actually placed his hand over his belly. A real guffaw.

  “You fookin dust head. Oh, Jackie boy, I thought maybe you was on a case. I should have known what you was after. All you zombies are the same. You people are the dumbest pieces of filth in Pandemonium. Just soulless, corpse-faced, brain-licking ghouls.”

  I told you he had a mouth on him. “Nope. Never licked a brain. Total myth.”

  “Mouth-breathing, empty-husk, meat-headed, motherless bags of bones, the whole lot of you.”

  “Keep going.”

  “You’re wasting me precious time.”

  “Just a gram, Flanny. The hunger is starting to eat through my innards.”

  “You have innards? Figured it’s all just sludge inside you by now. Like ya fookin brain.”

  “The last time I went cold turkey, it ended real bad for some fairies. I went wilder on them than a pack of weres. I’m still not welcome in the Red Garden.”

  “You ain’t threatening now, are you, ya dead dick?” He smiled, exposing the four or five teeth left in his mouth. I heard he was quite the boxer back in his day.

  My hands shook and my bones rattled as I held them up. Flanny probably thought I was trying to conjure a demon. I dropped the hellfire stick and ground it out with my shoe. “I’m desperate.”

  “Then you’re out of luck. I don’t deal anymore. I have new opportunities.”

  There was a clink, like a glass bell, from inside the sack and then it shot up in the air. Flanagan nearly lost his grip but managed to pull the canvas bag back down. The lep shot me a look so dirty I thought of taking my first bath in seventy years.

  “What’s in the
sack, Flanny? A sentient beer keg?”

  “None of ya fookin business, you filthy corpse.”

  “Does Dana know what you’re up to?”

  “Don’t you be talking about that blessed woman. This is none of ya business.”

  “What if I told your leprechaun queen you were up to some unsavory stuff? She might just kick you out of the club. Unaffiliated leprechauns aren’t treated very well in Pandemonium, are they?”

  The lep spit out a laugh like it was venom. “I don’t have to be worrying about that, zombie. You are the one who needs to worry. This is going to be your last night in Pandemonium.” The fairy swung the sack into my crotch. I flew into the wall, and Flanagan took off down the alley. Fortunately, I have a dulled sense of pain so I easily shook off the between-the-legs shot. (As for my zombie genital situation, the less said about that the better.) Still, something in me snapped. Maybe my hunger had reached its apex, or maybe I didn’t like the way he called me a filthy corpse. Either way, I pounced on him like a lycan on a moonpie. I don’t even remember feasting on the little guy, I was in such a blood frenzy. I do remember him tasting damn delicious, though, like smoked sausage and sweet beer. Then Oswald, Pandemonium’s most obnoxious creature and my associate, appeared out of nowhere.

  I sat on the ground, gnawing on a leg bone, when the alley filled with a blinding light. I continued eating. Like I said, it was damn good, and I hadn’t eaten in so long. The light died out and I saw the Studebaker—my Studebaker. The driver’s-side door opened and out slid the homunculus.

  The little bugger stared at me, not saying a word, his X-shaped eyes unblinking. This was supposed to shame me. But I’m a revenant (which is a fancy way of saying zombie). I’m beyond shame.

  I took a bite out of Flanagan’s calf. It was stringy, but I wasn’t complaining.

  “I cannot express how very disappointed I am in you.” Oswald tried to sound tough, but when you’re all of eight inches and nothing but a marshmallow with a mouth, the effect is underwhelming. No one knows what Oswald is, or was. The best description I’ve come up with is a homunculus, which is another way for me to say I have no idea. I think I’d rather not know where he came from. It would most likely lead to trouble and Oswald is plenty of trouble already.

  The sack rolled down the alley.

  “What’s that?” Oswald said.

  I licked the lep’s shin. Salty with just a hint of sweetness. It just made me hungrier.

  “Hey, dummy!” Oswald shouted. “Let me remind you that you’re eating a leprechaun in the middle of Irish Town!”

  I sprang up—as best a zombie can spring up, which meant I awkwardly repositioned my bones into a standing position. I stepped over to the sack and picked it up. I opened the bag, but wasn’t prepared to find what I did.

  Mr. Obvious said, “Is that a naked baby inside a glass jar?”

  “I’m sorry for ever calling you a terrible detective, Oswald. You figured it out on the very first try.”

  The dope smiled.

  I stood the glass jar up. The baby looked at us with curious silver eyes.

  “Maybe this is like those ships you find in bottles,” I said.

  “How did you get in there, little guy?” Oswald asked.

  The fact that he didn’t cry should have alarmed me, but I was still on a high from my leprechaun buffet. I wasn’t thinking straight.

  The baby pointed at the top of the jar. He was a cute little fellow. Pink and soft and full of rolls. A mass of golden curls covered the top of his head.

  The observant marshmallow said, “I think he wants you to remove the glass stopper and let him out.”

  The fact that the baby didn’t pop off the glass stopper himself should have made me wonder, but Oswald distracted me with his prattling.

  I removed the stopper.

  The hole certainly didn’t seem big enough for a baby to fit through, even a naked one, but that didn’t stop him.

  He slid out of the bottle like he was a piece of taffy. But instead of falling onto the ground as a normal baby would, he floated into the air. The large, black wings that had unfurled from his back helped a lot with that, I think. The now-winged baby stopped just out of our reach, shot me a dirty look, gave me the finger, and disappeared into the blood-red sky of Pandemonium, going north. Bye-bye, evil baby.

  I wasn’t able to conjure up one of my famous ripostes, though, because at that moment two irate leprechauns barreled towards us.

  Get Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device now!

  About the Author

  James Aquilone was raised on Saturday morning cartoons, comic books, sitcoms, and Cap’n Crunch. Amid the Cold War, he dreamed of being a jet fighter pilot but decided against the military life after realizing it would require him to wake up early. He had further illusions of being a stand-up comedian, until a traumatic experience on stage forced him to seek a college education. Brief stints as an alternative rock singer/guitarist and child model also proved unsuccessful. Today he battles a severe chess addiction while trying to write in the speculative fiction game.

  His short fiction has been published in such places as Nature’s Futures, The Best of Galaxy’s Edge 2013-2014, Unidentified Funny Objects 4, and Weird Tales magazine. Suffice it to say, things are going much better than his modeling career.

  James lives in Staten Island, New York, with his wonderful wife.

  Sign up for his newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bx5axT.

  Table of Contents

  MADNESS

  6 Attempts at Winning Jennifer’s Heart

  Head to Head

  Simon Clash: The Galaxy’s Greatest Hero

  Bad Poets Society

  Princess or Poison

  No Place for a Hero

  The League of Lame Superheroes

  Inner Dragon

  My So-Called Life in Reruns

  Do Stand-Up Bots Dream of Electric Hecklers?

  So You’ve Metamorphosed Into a Giant Insect. Now What?

  MAYHEM

  Hart House

  The Zombie Who Had a Name

  Google News Alerts for the End of the World

  Teatime With Mrs. Monster

  The Baseball Gods

  A Day to End All Days

  Circle of Power

  Insectivoracious

  The Great Work

  She Will Be Home for Christmas

  The Grimlorn Under the Mountain

  DEAD JACK

  The Case of the Amorous Ogre

  Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device

  About the Author