by Zack Murphy
“When our distinguished Secretary of State told me on my popular show Plowing Ahead with Dana Plough…”
The mention of her show seemed to rile a good portion of them up into a hate-filled frenzy, as they hurled some unique and some not at all lady-like curse words in her general direction. She shuffled her papers as she tried to regain her composure.
“Um, Plowing Ahead with Dana Plough,” she repeated herself softly, trying to find her place in the speech, “She stated that all women should learn from past mistakes in history and use those lessons to build a better future. I believe these points are a building block for the discovery of our lives and our bodies, as long as those discoveries, of course, are not with another person of the same sex.”
“You Suck!” yelled out someone in the audience; this caused a loud roar of applause from her fellow comrades in ears.
“Now please, there will be time for questions after the speech, thank you. Now where was I?” A half eaten apple flew past her head and the crowd burst into thunderous laughter. “Now, if we are going to get through this as mature adults we are going to need a little decorum in here. Hey, it’s not that I haven’t had those types of thoughts before; there was this one time in college where my roommate was changing and I thought, for a second, about what it would like- but that’s neither here or there. We are not here to discuss my sex-life; we are here to discuss my accomplishments.”
“Tell us more about your roommate! Was she hot?”
“Listen people, you all can’t be a bunch of raving dykes!”
Satan, who had been listening from the wings, turned to Rebecca and smiled, “I think she’s got a good handle on this. But just to be on the safe side, I’m going to step out before the murderous rioting begins.”
In the back of the room Jeremiah sat and listened silently to the spirited debate that had erupted into total chaos. He tossed another apple to the screaming girl sitting next to him and she hurled it violently towards the dais. He stood up and surveyed the room then turned and exited, leaving Dana Plough in the midst of the second biggest riot in GRUMBLE history, a fact that she would later grumble about it not being the biggest.
*****
Actor Jonathan Frakes was in the midst of a marathon autograph signing session where he tried desperately to talk to fans about the wonderful book he had just had the pleasure of reading.
“You see here it says,” he read to a particularly uninterested fan, “I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood.
The stars from the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind. The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up. Every mountain and island were moved out of their places.”
“That’s the Bible; you’re just reading from the Bible.”
“Well yes, that part is from the Bible of course. But, this is a different Bible. Am I mentioned in the Bible? I don’t think so. Here in chapter seven, you see,” he pointed to a specific passage mentioning him by name, “Actor Jonathan Frakes, see it? It mentions me right there.”
He pleaded with her to no avail to try and follow his incoherent rambling. He pounded the book on the table, becoming more and more riled up at her unwillingness to listen to reason. As she walked away she turned around to yell, “You’re crazy. I like Leonard Nimoy better anyway.”
“Is Nimoy in here? Let me check. Nope. Leonard Nimoy isn’t mentioned in here at all! He doesn’t save the world! He doesn’t fight the great armies of Hell in a universal war between good and evil! He doesn’t ride off into the sunset in a blaze of glory while angels on high sing his praise! And besides, this isn’t the Bible! It’s totally different from the Bible! And even it were the Bible, would you see Nimoy’s name in it? Huh? Would you?” the young lady had disappeared from sight but not earshot, “Come back- you haven’t gotten your autograph yet!”
He sat back down in his chair, straightening out his suit and regained his composure, “Next.” A young man awkwardly hesitated before making his way gingerly up to the out of breath and red-faced actor. He cautiously laid down a hand-drawn picture in front of Actor Jonathan Frakes and tried his best to look happy to be there.
“Well what’s your name, young man?’
“Benji.”
“That’s a nice name, and a beautiful picture you’ve drawn.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you ever seen this?” showing Benji a copy of The Last Days vol. XII: or what to do when it finally does happen.
“No sir.”
“Well you’re in luck; I’m going to read to you from it.” The beam his insane smile blazed could light the night sky. “You might want to pull up a chair; this is going to take a while.”
*****
Dana Plough returned to her dressing room to find Satan relaxing on the sofa doing a crossword puzzle in pen because real men don’t need erasures. He had found an old copy of the New York Sunday Times Magazine stuffed behind a file cabinet and since Dana Plough was rather indisposed he figured he’d keep himself occupied until she returned. He looked up from his puzzle and saw a very angry woman covered in chewed up apple glowering back him.
“So, how did it go?’
“I can’t believe what just happened out there. It was a madhouse, a complete madhouse. I’ve never seen anything like it before. This is not the GRUMBLE I knew and loved as a kid. These were viscous, spiteful, ugly little hellions. With fantastic throwing arms.”
“Why do you think I came?”
“Let’s just go. We have to get to Sacramento.”
“Why are we going to Sacramento?”
“Because I need to take care of some family business before the world comes to a screeching halt.”
“Family business?”
“Yes, I do have a family; I just didn’t sprout from a cabbage patch. But we have to take this gently; I haven’t spoken to my family in years.”
“Why not?”
“Have you met my family?”
“No.” Satan had never needed to meet her family. He had barely needed to meet her. Family was a sore spot with him, what with his father throwing him out of the house all those millennia ago. He didn’t need family, and he didn’t need to meet hers. But he was going to because he knew he was a good guy deep down.
“Well, you’ll have to meet them to get the full picture of what the Plough family did to permanently scar me.”
“Sounds like fun, what are we waiting for?”
“First, we have to go back to the house so I can change. I can’t show up after twenty-five years looking like a half-eaten apple pie.”
*****
Barnaby bolted upright from his drug-induced slumber. His eyes darted around the darkened room as he tried to remember who and where he was and why his ass hurt. He had little bits and pieces of strange images scattered around the back of his brain. None of them made any sense, like the parts of 3 jigsaw puzzles thrown together in a pile.
He tried in vain to swallow, but his mouth felt as if it were chock-full of not so delicious cotton. He reached out weakly for a glass of water before he would lose consciousness again from dehydration.
Ketty, who had been sitting by his side, quickly grabbed the glass and held it up to his mouth. He guzzled the entire glass and let out a satisfying sigh of relief when the inside of his mouth no longer felt like it had been used to fire pottery.
“How are you feeling?”
“I had the most wonderful dream.” He said regaining some semblance of wherewithal/ Although what he thought were memories were a bit off-kilter, “You were there and a Spanish speaking bear wearing khaki shorts was there and I was stabbed in the ass by a baton-wielding, megaphone-yelling madman. It was so won-der-ful.”
“That wasn’t a dream. Well, it’s sort of true; you sort of got the facts mixed up a little. You were shot by an animal tranquilizer dart and we assumed that you�
�d probably not make it through the night.”
“Well, I showed them!” he was quite proud of himself for teaching people who thought he would die that he didn’t. It’s the little things in life that keep you going.
“Yes I guess so. Here, eat something,” she shoved a chocolate bar in his face at which he turned both his nose up and his face away from.
“No really I don’t want any, thank you.”
“You have to eat something, you need your strength.”
“I have plenty of strength. Watch.”
He threw off the blankets and jumped off the bed in one fell swoop. Raising his arms in a triumphant glory before his knees buckled and he plummeted to the carpet at the foot of the bed. Sometimes the brain is willing to do what the body cannot, like taking on Mount Everest Sherpa-less after a lifetime of eating nothing but fried foods and smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. Sure you’ll start off invincible, but after a few miles you’re yeti food. Barnaby’s body was still packed with enough heavy sedatives coursing through his veins to make a door jamb seem like K2.
“Just suck it up and eat the damn chocolate.”
“But I don’t like chocolate.”
Ketty shoved the candy bar into his bleating mouth before he could say anything else damning about the one constant in her life, chocolate. Men and money had come and gone, but the gooey goodness of Snickers never did. Barnaby’s face contorted over a few seconds into several hundred unique expressions, all illustrating his distinct displeasure with both the taste and his being bested by someone who just hours ago was so hung-over she couldn’t hear someone across town sigh heavily without wincing in pain.
“Well now that that ordeal is over with, will you please help me into the sitting room? I would like to sit on something other than the floor. Though, I must say they do have rather nice carpeting here.”
*****
Michael Ryan had spent the last twenty-six hours in a Las Vegas casino playing a $20,000,000 jackpot slot machine. His face was becoming as ashen as the ends of the cigarettes perched permanently suspended on the old women’s lips that sat beside him. It was probably the knowledge that he had spent all of his savings, maxed out his credit cards on cash advances, or borrowed the twenty thousand dollar marker from the casino that was causing him to sweat profusely and his left arm to twinge. That, or he was having a massive heart-attack.
He dropped another five dollar chip into the slot and pulled the giant lever. His eyes attached the array of bars, lemons and dollar signs spin dizzyingly in their rapid, flashing colored whirl. The sections stopped, revealing two bars and a cherry. He closed his eyes tightly and massaged his tingling arm, dropping another five into the slot and giving his luck yet another chance.
He rubbed his chest and stiffened his brow as the lights and bells from the casino floor danced in his head. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, moving his hands down his face, pulling the skin from his jowls to one of his chins and then letting go, causing his neck to snap back under the weight of the fat deposits that sat like huge bags of sand around his mouth. He rolled his shoulder, trying to revive some life into the muscles that had all but shriveled since his marathon sitting session began.
A sharp pang went through his heart and he grabbed onto his bosom. He squeezed, trying to combat the pressure of his corroded artery that was getting him back for the years of neglect and Philly cheese steak breakfasts he had regularly enjoyed since his divorce.
His large frame made a thud when it came barreling down on top of the machine. The saliva dripped from his gaped lips into the bucket of casino chips that sat under his chin.
“Let me ask you a question.” Echoed a voice in his head.
The most beautiful woman he had ever seen was sitting next to him on the previously empty stool. She had long, flowing cherry red hair and lips to match. Her skin was pale, as if it were would burst into flames at even a drop of sunlight. She wore black from head to toe, but through the thick robe he could tell she had one killer body.
“Okay?” he said, trying to match his wits against the slot machine bells.
“If you were in a bed with a woman and she was feeding you chocolate candies while stroking your hair and rubbing your leg and you didn’t do anything to stop it, you’d be a major league asshole, right?”
“Uh, well--” Usually beautiful women didn’t give Michael the time of day. Now they were asking him for relationship advice?
“I mean, it’s not like she’s a great beauty; she’s okay, nothing to write home about. Plus, she’s got like a pig nose. Not an actual pig nose, but you know-- it’s turned up in a way that’s neither appealing nor useful.”
Michael looked down and noticed that he was standing over his body, which was being ignored by the gamblers that walked passed him and sometimes over.
“Am I dead?”
“I know that men have some sort of primal urge to bang anything with a working vagina, but really, she’s like a two-bit hussy. I mean, she’s probably been with like at least five, six men, which I know doesn’t sound like a lot. But still, I know about these types of women, all miss goody-goody and then they jump your bones at one crack of a smile.”
“I have no idea what’s going on here.” He was confused about being ignored by the throngs of slot monkeys. He also didn’t know if the woman talking to him could hear him. She didn’t seem at all interested in anything he had to say.
“I mean, they were practically having sex right there. How does that happen? You don’t just go around doing any woman who shoves a bon-bon down your gullet.”
“I know they say you’re not supposed to go into the light.” Said Michael to no one in particular, since no one in particular was listening. But he was starting to get uncomfortable. “That you’re supposed to fight the temptation, but what the hell, how bad can it be? It might be nice.”
“And here’s another thing- he’s supposed to be on a job, not getting his jollies with every girl that bats an eyelash in his general direction.”
“Well, here goes, I’m just going to head into the light now. It was nice meeting you.” Michael once again attempted to sway the conversation back to him, to no avail.
Michael Ryan ran faster through the brightest, and for him, calmest light than anyone in the history of dying had ever done [The previous record was set by Jonas Winchell of England in 1420 when presented with a ride on the Official Catapult of Death after watching his wife get shot through a brick wall]. After he threw himself at full force through it, the light evaporated and DANZ & C>500TP was left alone, staring off into space, babbling to no one who would listen.
“Well, I for one am not going to sit idly by while he--” she glanced over to her ward but discovered that both he and the light had disappeared. She stood up, tugged on her robe and putting her hands on her hips, gave an aggravated snort, “Men! They’re the same everywhere you go!”
*****
The Insurance Agents were lined up for the daily inspection that was to take place at precisely at nine a.m. It was like clockwork the way the Devil ran his ship, really something to behold. It was ten p.m. but now he was just now going through the motions.
“Ms. Plough and I are going to be leaving town. We’ll be back late tomorrow night. Until then I have all the faith that you will all do what must be done to ensure that the things that must be done will get done.”
“Of course,” said #12.
The Agents had been worrying, in silent deference about the state of his mental health in this time that they had planned for centuries. This is all he had talked about morning, noon, and night for the better part of three millennia, and now he seemed distracted. He seemed more concerned about pleasing the human woman than ascending to his rightful throne in heaven.
“This was a bunch of baloney”, said #9 earlier in the day while playing a rousing game of charades. The other Agents agreed, but discerned than their master had some sort of divine plan; that, or he was just plain whipped [a word they
had just learned from a television program about cheating boyfriends and the woman they impregnate].
Agents were not predisposed to thinking for themselves, but these past few days they had been left to their own devices while being pent up in the house. When a group of obedient, mindless behemoths are left alone their minds start to progress to questions of their existence in a dictatorship.
They had listened to the radio, read newspapers, and watched television and felt that they were missing out on something tangible. They saw commercials for theme parks with rides both fantastic and splashy. They heard about a shop where people made sandwiches to your specifications right there in front of you. #6 had read that there was a place called Tijuana, Mexico where if one was so inclined, one could get something referred to in Señor Jose’s South of the Border Erotic Rendezvouses ala ‘taking a hit to the old pocket piñata’. They were feeling left out of the world they were trapped in, while the boss was probably taking the woman to Splish-Splash Village in a fantastic land called Sacramento.
Dana Plough came barreling down the stairs, dragging a suitcase behind her. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gave her man a tiny pout with curled lips, accompanied by puppy dog eyes. The muscles in his jaw fought hard to come up with anything that resembled a smile as she gestured to the suitcase at her feet. He picked it up and gave a half-hearted embarrassed grin to his troops.
“I guess we’re leaving now. Number Two, you’re in charge until we return.”
The other Agents shook their heads and gave a team-effort furtive glance to Satan, all tilting their heads in #2’s direction and giving the universal ‘you don’t want to do that’ face.
“Delay that order Number Two. Number Five?” He examined the body language of his troops for a sense of the mental capability of his last pick; they all agreed as they shrugged their shoulders in a show of unity that it was certainly better than the alternative. “Number Five you’re in charge.”
“Are we going to do this or not? I don’t have all the time in the world, seeing as times are about to come an abrupt end any day now.” Dana Plough caterwauled.
“Yes dear.”
“And we need to stop and get ice cream before we hit the road. I’m in the mood for rocky road. Or am I craving mint chocolate chip? Well, I’m sure I’ll figure it out before we get there. Of course I’ll probably need to stop for a burger and a rotisserie chicken too while we’re at it.”
