by Various
"I sure as hell hope so!" I replied. She asked for my hand and I cautiously stuck it out there. She grabbed it, twisted my wrist so that my palm was up and began tracing her sharp, red nail through my hand, it tickled a little but I courageously left it out there to see what she was going to do.
"This is not good." She cackled.
"What's not good?" I shot back. "We must hurry, you have little time. Tomorrow is full moon, you need to sleep soon or you will perish." I suppose it did not take a genius to tell I had not been sleeping - I looked like hell. I told her about the dogs and she said she could help. "Use this tomorrow night, under moon, be careful with this, it is very, very strong potion."
Before long I was out the door and had the potion in my pocket. She said all I had to do was sprinkle a little around the yard and drop some in the dog's water bowl, just a few drops mind you, because this was supposed to be powerful shit, anyway the dogs would stop the barking and I could get some sleep. Well, me being the genius that I am decided that I would also put some in the creek that ran down through the woods in the back of our property. I knew all the stray dogs in the area and most of the neighbor's dogs would go down there and drink when they got a chance. I figured "what the hell" might be a good way to shut 'em all up! So I also decided to drive through the neighborhood and sprinkle a drop or two in everybody's yard too, you know how dogs are. They have to stop and piss in every yard, smelling every bush and phone pole they can, anything that has been pissed on before. It couldn't hurt.
"Hell I wish every one of those damn smelly son of a bitches would disappear," I said under my breath as I sprinkled the last of the potion. "Hmmm, what a coincidence." I thought "Halloween night a full moon, damn I sure am glad it's not Friday the thirteenth, this would be too weird." So I finally returned home after completing my ghostly mission and crawled into bed. My wife was already asleep and I scooted in under the covers beside her, a maniacal grin spread across my face that no one could see as I fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning and it was daylight. As soon as I opened my eyes I thought, daylight, morning, and I didn't even wake up during the night." I couldn't believe it - it worked. I got up and made my way to the back porch and looked out for the dogs. I whistled and no response, I walked around the house looking for them but they were gone, really gone. In fact I did not see or hear any dogs in any of the neighbor's yards either. Some of the neighbors were outside in their yards looking for their mutts too I suppose. They looked at me really funny. Do they suspect me for doing something? I wondered to myself - they seemed to be staring. "Fuck it!"
I ran through the house out the front door and jumped in my car. I started riding through the neighborhood. I was singing happily as I drove, "Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone, oh where oh where can he be, hahaha." There was not a damned dog in sight, they were all gone. I couldn't believe it. It's a miracle, every freaking dog in the whole neighborhood is gone, "Hallelujah!" I screamed, only then did I realize I was still in my underwear, my old ones at that. The pair that had big holes in the front and back, the pair my wife hated!
I tried to sneak back in the house without anyone seeing me and I got caught coming in the door. "Where have you been this morning?" She asked, scanning me up and down with a confused look after seeing I was in my BVDs.
"I was out looking for the dogs honey, they're gone!" I replied, trying to sound genuinely worried.
"Well put some pants on next time you go out and throw those old underwear away! I can't believe you went outside like that! Where are those dogs, did they jump the fence again?" She asked, scowling at me like a prune-faced Pekinese.
"I don't know honey, I think something really strange is going on, I did not see one damn dog in the whole neighborhood, I think they have all disappeared!" I could hardly contain my glee, couldn't even believe I was really saying what I was saying. My wife was worried sick but I was soooo happy! I planned to give my gypsy witch a big hug next time I saw her.
A few days went by and I was sleeping like a baby, of course the big dog disappearance was headline news in our city, hell even in the country. CNN and MSNBC had been in the neighborhood interviewing people. Of course everyone was speculating on what happened. Some said it had to be an alien abduction, others whispered it was due to that new Vietnamese restaurant that opened a few blocks over. Some even thought it was a sign from God Almighty himself that the end was near, but only me and the little gypsy woman really knew what had happened. Hell even I was a little confused, I thought it was supposed to shut the dogs up not get rid of them, but after going back and seeing the gypsy again she said I must have wished them away somehow. She said my anger was so powerful that it made her potion that much more effective, maybe because of the full moon, Halloween and all.
I was sleeping so good, in fact a whole week went by and I never woke up once during the night. Then it started. The nightmares came, like fanged ghosts in the dead of night, and I could not wake up until the worst would happen. They were terrifying, horrible and savage. In my dream it would be around midnight, the moon was bright and a chill wind blew that made me shiver. I would be out in the yard or somewhere outdoors with nothing but my old worn out BVDs on and I would be calling the dogs, looking for them. My wife would be somewhere in the background crying and upset because they were missing and I would be calling out looking for them, I would hear them barking, faintly at first and then louder. I could hear them coming closer, I would turn to my wife and say, "Listen honey, I can hear them, they are all right, they're coming home!" But it was no longer my wife, it was her body but with a big Doberman Pincher's head, her big sharp teeth were bared and saliva was dripping from her mouth, she came after me and I, I started running and before I knew it all the dogs in the whole neighborhood were chasing me down the street. I was barefoot and I kept stepping on glass and nails as I ran, my feet were bloody, the pain was awful, I tried to keep going. The dogs kept coming, they seemed to smell my blood and this made them run even faster, they were all mad, foaming at the mouth coming after me wanting to rip me to shreds, eat me alive. Suddenly I would be in the middle of the street and my legs would be trying to move but it was like I was stuck in a big pile of thick glue or something, it seemed like slow motion. I looked back and the dogs were closer, hatred in their cold, black eyes and blood lust in howling throats, their muscles taught, flexing as they bounded closer and closer, I was terrified like a small deer, caught in a poacher's spotlight. I looked back ahead of me and it was a dead end, a big gate with metal bars ahead too tall for me to climb. The dogs were right on my heels now and I, I was stuck unable to climb, unable to move and then suddenly they pounced...
Sharp, razor-like teeth were ripping my flesh, hot acid breath suffocated me, the pain was tremendous, I tried to fight but the dogs were all over me, had my hands, my wrists, my ankles. Biting me on the face, the ears, even my crotch. They were like a pack of hungry sharks grabbing hunks of flesh and shaking their heads with crushing force ripping apart my body piece by piece, the pain was unbearable, then one of my, I mean my wife's own dogs was right in my face, our eye's locked, I thought for a moment she would save me, rescue me from the pack of frenzied killers. I pleaded with her in my mind, "Lucy help me," I begged. She smiled it seemed with those pearly white, razor sharp teeth then she snapped, ripping my throat out!
I sat straight up in bed, sweat pouring from me all over, I looked at my hands and arms, I was OK but the nightmare, so real so terrifying. "God forgive me, what have I done!" I said to myself. It happened again and again ten nights in a row, I couldn't take it anymore, I was going nuts, loosing my mind. I could not eat or sleep. I had circles under my eyes, I had bags under my circles! Then it dawned on me, the gypsy, yeah maybe she can help. I got up and showered, managed to get dressed and headed down the block, I had to walk because I just couldn't seem to drive anymore, my nerves were shot, I seemed to hallucinate all the time.
I was about a block from the gypsy's house, I could see t
he big sign in the front yard with the palm and the big red eye in the middle of it. I was almost giddy at the sight. I stepped into the street, hoping she was there and could help me. I heard a noise, I turned my head and looked up just in time to see the big metal grill of a truck, a Mack truck I suppose, it had a dog on the front as a hood ornament, you know the one, it's a bulldog kinda standing on its back feet. "Oh shit," I managed to say with my last living breath.
That dog was the last thing I saw, felt actually, it caught me right in the forehead, then the truck smashed me, my bones splintered, blood gushed everywhere, brains and guts too. The trucker slammed on the brakes and drug my mutilated body about thirty feet or so. I saw it all, it seemed I was up above the accident, floating, watching as the truck driver got out and looked under his truck. I thought he was gonna get sick when he saw me or what was left of me. The truck was one of those eighteen wheeler rigs, had a big trailer painted with a picture on each side of what else but big dogs, eating out of a big bowl full of Science Diet food or some shit like that. How Ironic, I thought to myself as I continued to float. Fucking dogs got me back after all. I floated up and up until I could no longer see the earth.
Next thing I knew I was standing in front of two large gates, St. Peter was there and I knew I was in Heaven. Actually I was a little surprised but I had always been told our God was a very forgiving fellow.
After I met with St. Peter and got assigned to my eternal job I realized that God must also have a sense of humor, although I personally didn't think it a bit funny. Turns out my job is cleaning up after all the dogs in Heaven. I walk around with a pooper scooper, 24 - 7 and pick 'em up as they drop 'em, I even recognize many of the dogs from my old neighborhood, I think they recognize me too, they seem to show it in their own way (if you get my drift, peee -ew!) Oh yeah, my, er, my wife's dogs are here too, Lucy and Ricky - they bark constantly, day and night just like the rest of these stupid mutts. Dogs, dogs, dogs everywhere! God how I hate dogs! "OOPS sorry, good doggie."
In Loving Memory of Fred...
JD PEARCE
is a 41 year old, who spends his time riding his motorcycle, pampering his lovely wife, listening to talk radio, playing D&D computer games, reading fantasy adventure books and writing in his spare time. JD loves to hike, camp, eat, play poker, go to the movies and sing old songs. It is his dream to someday live in a log house with his wife in the NC mountains by a river or lake. That done he would hope to write, then publish a novel in the vein of R. E. Howard's Conan, his all time fave character next to Gath of Baal, better known as the Death Dealer..... Visit JD at: www.jdskaraoke.com/fantasyandlegends.htm. Email: [email protected]
The Boblin
By Michael A. Arnzen
Bob couldn't get the goblin mask off his face. The plastic stuck to various patches of flesh like bandages that hurt too much to peel off. Frustrated, when no one was looking, he tugged on it with all his might - just once - and yelped from the pain. The goofy green plastic face held its position, snapping back in place.
His brother, Pete, leaned over in the backseat and peeked into Bob's goodie sack, his sticky fingers pulling open the lip of it to reveal Bob's hefty collection of treats. "You got any Gobstoppers in there?" Pete was a wizard, and his conical purple cap of moon and stars dangled below his face on a piece of elastic. It was spattered with purple splotches of grape saliva like a soiled bib. Pete didn't know how to eat a lollipop correctly. He tended to just press it against his lips and blow spit bubbles and then suck those back into his mouth. The hard candy never actually entered his mouth. And that meant a lot of drool got all over the place while he spent hours trying to finish it off, before giving up and throwing the whole thing out. Bob hated this habit about his brother, especially because he often would open a drawer or a bag or a book and get sticky old sugar spit all over his fingers.
This time, though, Bob just ignored him, idly plucking the chin of the goblin mask with his index finger, as though playing with a scab. The streets of Massapequa streamed past the mask's eyehole cuts in a blur as the car made its way back to their neighborhood. His eyes were still tearing from the attempt to extricate himself from his mask, pooling cold against the plastic rim of his new and unwanted sockets.
"Leave your brother's candy alone," their mother said to the rear view mirror. "I told you that I want to check it first, anyway, Peter."
Pete shrugged and looked inside his own bag, seeking a sucker when she wasn't looking.
Bob kept crying to himself, silently hoping his tears might loosen the glue - or whatever it was - holding him prisoner to his mask.
***
No one had bothered to say anything about his goblin face all evening. Mom probably thought it was just so much kid's play. And Pete was treating him like the mask was simply a part of who he was now, just like the glasses his mom wore.
Bob tried explaining to his mother that he couldn't remove the mask and that they might need to go to the hospital, but she just nodded and ignored him as she went about her household duties, acting like he was crying wolf. Pete didn't say a word, either, but of course he was still wearing his goofy wannabe magician's outfit, too, keeping in costume like some extra from a Harry Potter film. He was acting as though some unspoken competition was going on to see who could last the longest in their Halloween costumes. Later that night, their mother even said how cute they both looked, all dressed up and watching TV together. She even went so far as to call Bob her "little gobblin' goblin" when she caught sight of him sliding candy pellets into the little breathing hole that the manufacturer had blessedly cut into the lips of the mask. He hated being called "cute." Truth be told, he felt dopey and heavy-headed, like a giant Pez dispenser.
When he got into bed that night, the mask felt like it had completely become one with his face, save for the clammy gill-like cuticles around the edges of his chin and ears. It was hard for him to sleep, feeling as though his face were being permanently contorted into a goblin's, warts and all. He thought of his mother and her cosmetic mud masks. He wondered what sort of plasticky mud his face was really becoming beneath it all. Probably much worse than the wormy whiteflesh his fingertips turned to whenever he took a bath for too long.
Pete slept under the covers in the bed beside him. He had begged Bob to stop scaring him with that mask but Bob didn't know how to oblige. So Pete got angry, called him a zit-faced dweeb, and ducked his head under his sugar-stained Baltimore Ravens blanket.
Bob just stared at the ceiling, imagining that his face was being eaten away by some sort of unseen acid. In his mind it slow-burned into his skull until he fell into a sleep like death.
***
Bob awoke to the sound of Peter's electric toothbrush buzzing across the room. Ever since his last visit to the dentist - which earned him his favorite grape lolly's - Pete had been a clean tooth fanatic. He had a morning habit of walking around the house with the brush zimming in his jaws as he pulled some stunt like putting on his socks with one free hand while brushing. Today, Bob discovered as he pulled open his crusty goblin eyes, Pete was sitting cross-legged on the bed, doing his penmanship homework in a large ruled notebook that sprawled across his knees while he polished away his incisors.
Bob got up and headed toward the bathroom to pee, but Pete was already up and running out the door. "Gotta spit" he gurgled, but it sounded more like "goblin sped" and Bob wanted to punch him for it.
When his turn to use the bathroom finally came around, he trundled into the room and locked the door and went straight to the mirror. His eyes darted around inside the mask. He could tell they were his by the blue color and the telltale vein in the left orb. His hair, muffed into weirdness from his strained sleep, was also familiar. But that's where the familiarity ended. His face was green and yellow, its two bulbous cheeks and chin tinted in colors that reminded him of three nicely waxed Granny Smith apples. Aside from a brooding brown shelf of impossible eyebrows, the most notable goblin markings on his green face were a long nose that hu
ng sideways like a divoted pickle from between his eyes and numerous banana-colored boils that seemed ready to burst at the touch of a finger.
Bob touched it anyway, pressing into the plastic. His face had gotten distinctly more rubbery over night. Or was it more gobliny? How rubbery was a goblin's face, anyway? He didn't know, but he knew one thing with such utter certainty that he had to sit down on the toilet and think long and hard about what to do about it: the mask was merging with his very skin, taking over his features, becoming his new face.
When he stepped into the shower, he turned the hot water all the way up and stood on tiptoe to get maximum water pressure into the space around the edges of the mask. But it did no good: the edges were barely there anymore, and in some places the edging was gone altogether. All he did was scorch his face so harshly that he had to pull away and eventually give up trying altogether. The pain was too much to bear.
As he dried, the realization dawned on him: the heat of the water had seared his goblin flesh. The mask had bonded with him completely. His very nerve endings confirmed it.
He dried his hair, mulling over the implications. He was no longer Bob. He wasn't entirely a goblin, either. He'd become something in between the two. A Boblin.
His mother punched on the bathroom door. "Hurry up, Bobby, it's time to go."
"It's not Bobby. It's the Boblin!" he shouted back.
"You're running late for school," she called back, her voice pulling away. "Meet us in the car."
He went back to his room and put on his nicest clothes. He wanted the Boblin to look his best when people met him.
