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Alexandra continued her inspirational talk. “I’m tired of being demonized as a woman, tired of being described as too ugly for anyone to look at. Who’s to say I’m not too beautiful? Tonight, I’ll show you just how beautiful I really am.”
The audience was transfixed by her provocative words. Alexandra’s shadow loomed large as she moved closer to the screen. Everyone held their breath, anxious to see what she would do next.
I had a very bad feeling. “She’s going to try something, McGoo.”
“I think you’re right, Shamble.” We both lurched to our feet while the audience members behind us booed for us to sit down and stop blocking the view.
Robin was disturbed and angry. “She wouldn’t dare. This will ruin her case! I worked so hard—”
“She doesn’t care about her case!” I yelled at her. “And cover your eyes!”
The Medusa turned sideways to the screen that faced the judges. “Tonight you will behold the real Alexandra and remember me for all time!” She spread her arms.
McGoo and I both jumped over the row of seats in front of us to land in the open area before the stage. Spotting a white figure in the shadows behind the curtains backstage, I realized that it was a statue, a hunchback stagehand who had been petrified while grasping the thick ropes. Alexandra had gotten to him just after he raised the velvet curtains high.
The Medusa’s silhouette grabbed the cloth screen facing the panel of judges, extending her well-manicured claws to rip through the fabric. Robin stood up, yelling, “No, Alexandra! Don’t!”
But the Medusa shoved the wooden frames, and they all began to topple. In seconds, her hideous visage would be exposed for the judges and the entire audience to see.
Acting instinctively, I did what came first to mind. I pulled my .38 and fired off a shot, even though I didn’t have time to aim. Instead of killing Alexandra, which might have saved hundreds of people in the audience, the bullet went wide and struck the petrified hunchback stagehand. It ricocheted, then whanged up to sever the heavy rope that held the scaffolding. The curtains came crashing down, folds of thick velvet plunging like a blood-red waterfall. It blocked the entire stage from the audience.
From behind the curtain, though, I heard the panel of judges cry out, then suddenly fall silent.
Sheyenne swooped past as McGoo and I rushed forward. I yanked off my fedora and covered my face against accidental Alexandra-gazing. Following my lead, McGoo placed his patrolman’s cap in front of his own face. Unfortunately, this made it impossible for us to see where we were going, and we tripped over each other as we hit the stairs leading up to the stage.
“This way!” Sheyenne flitted directly through the red velvet barrier. Following her voice, we raced up the steps and fought our way to the curtain. Behind the red velvet, I heard the struggle as Sheyenne used her poltergeist powers to tear the gauzy fabric from the shielding screens.
The Medusa wailed in frustration. “No! They have to see how beautiful I am!” Her voice became muffled, and the snakes on her head hissed and then wheezed, falling silent as if they were being smothered.
“It’s all right, Beaux!” Sheyenne called. “It’s safe now.”
McGoo and I pushed our way behind the red curtain. Onstage, I saw the wooden framework of the fallen screens, but the cloth had been yanked free. Now the gauzy fabric was wrapped in a large muffling wad around Alexandra’s head. The Medusa flailed and clawed at it, but Sheyenne kept adding more, covering her face. I could see only the shadows of Alexandra’s features, the confined and squirming serpents that sprouted from her head.
I glanced over to the judges’ table, dismayed to see Sheila, Eleanor, and Lewis all marble-white statues in their seats, staring with wide eyes, their faces petrified in exclamations of horror. Egnort, though, sat with a huge clay grin and a completely smitten look on his face. “Pretty lady,” he said.
McGoo and I hurried forward to help Sheyenne subdue the suspect, and before long Robin also pushed her way behind the curtain. Always resourceful, she had grabbed one of the orchestra’s cymbals and held it up as a reflective shield. Looking down at the cymbal-shield, she cried, “Alexandra, what did you do? I worked so hard to give you a chance!”
“I wanted them to see me!” the Medusa said, her voice muffled. “Why can’t I be beautiful like everyone else?”
McGoo slapped handcuffs around her wrists. “You’re under arrest for the petrification murders of ten young men from the Monster Match dating service, three members of the judges’ panel, and attempted murder of all the audience members at the Miss Unnatural pageant.”
“No!” Alexandra wailed, muffled behind the gauzy fabric. “I can’t help it! It’s who I am.”
Ignoring his statue colleagues, the golem lumbered around the judges’ table toward us. “Very pretty lady. Totally beautiful. I have never seen anyone so beautiful.”
Alexandra’s struggles ceased. “Did he say I was pretty?”
I looked curiously at the golem. “Why didn’t you turn to stone?”
Egnort squeezed the clay of his arm with one set of fat fingers. “Because I am already stone. Squishy stone, but still stone.”
“He thought I was pretty,” Alexandra said from beneath the head wrapping.
“Not pretty,” Egnort said. “I said you were beautiful.” I saw that he had carried the tiara with him from the judges’ table. Without ceremony, he placed it on the Medusa’s cloth-covered head.
“Awww,” Sheyenne said.
McGoo and I hauled Alexandra to her feet. Even though she was being arrested for multiple murders, she seemed more amazed that the golem found her attractive.
Robin sighed. “You’re probably going to jail, Alexandra.”
“I don’t care. Somebody thinks I’m pretty.”
The golem adjusted her symbolic tiara and awkwardly put a big clay arm around the Medusa’s shoulder. “Can I come see you in prison?”
“I’d really like that,” said Alexandra.
“And I thought our romance was weird,” I muttered to Sheyenne.
McGoo hustled the stumbling Medusa past the petrified hunchback. “We better add the murder of this stagehand to the charges. I have to start writing this down so I don’t forget.”
Rattled, Robin shook her head. “I was trying to do what was right.”
“You always try to do what’s right,” I told her. “That’s what I like about you. But sometimes theoretically right is altogether different from practical right.”
The golem looked forlornly after them.
From the other side of the curtain, we could hear the audience stirring, beginning to suspect this was not part of the actual pageant.
I went to the rope, disentangled it from the hunchback’s stone hand, and began tugging. After I lifted one side of the red velvet curtain, the audience could see part of the stage and the three petrified judges.
“Sorry folks,” I said. “The judges are still deliberating. Please go home. It might take them a while.”
The zombie ushers filed forward to organize the herd-like movement as the crowd flowed toward the exits. Robin called out to the departing audience from the stage. “The results of the pageant don’t matter. You’re all beautiful in your own way. You know it!” Only a few turned around to look at her.
Sheyenne drifted up to me, and I slipped my around her tingling ectoplasmic waist, then I reached out my other arm to put it around Robin’s shoulder.
“I know that,” I said. “And you two are as beautiful as I can handle.”
Previous Publication Information
“Paperwork” copyright (c) 2018, WordFire, Inc. First publication.
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“Eye of Newt” copyright (c) 2016, WordFire, Inc., originally appeared in Shadowed Souls, Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes, eds., Roc Books (2016).
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“Head Case” copyright (c) 2017, WordFire, Inc., originally appeared in Hardboiled Horror, Jonathan Maberry, ed., Journalstone Press (2017).
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“High Midnight” copyright (c) 2017, WordFire, Inc., originally appeared in Straight Outta Tombstone, David Boop, ed., Baen Books (2017).
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“Collector’s Curse” copyright (c) 2018, WordFire, Inc., originally appeared in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Issue #3, April 2018.
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“Wishful Thinking” copyright (c) 2018, WordFire, Inc., originally appeared in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Issue #4, October 2018.
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“Game Night” copyright (c) 2018, WordFire, Inc. First publication.
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“Cold Dead Turkey” copyright (c) 2015, WordFire, Inc., originally appeared in Naughty or Nice: A Holiday Anthology, Jennifer Brozek, ed., Evil Girlfriend Media (2015).
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“Heartbreaker” copyright (c) 2018, WordFire, Inc., originally appeared in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Issue #4, April 2018.
About the Author
Kevin J. Anderson has published 150 books, 56 of which have been national or international bestsellers. In 2012 he launched his humorous horror series of mysteries featuring Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I., who has starred in five novels and numerous short stories, even a graphic novel crossover with Kolchak the Night Stalker. Anderson has written numerous novels in the Star Wars, X-Files, Dune, and DC Comics universes, as well as unique steampunk fantasy novels Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives, written with legendary rock drummer Neil Peart, based on the concept album by the band Rush. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series, the Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy, and the Saga of Shadows trilogy. He has edited numerous anthologies, written comics and games, and the lyrics to two rock CDs. Anderson and his wife Rebecca Moesta are the publishers of WordFire Press.
Read all of the hilarious cases of Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.
Death Warmed Over
Unnatural Acts
Hair Raising
Slimy Underbelly
Tastes Like Chicken
Working Stiff
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Zomnibus
(contains Death Warmed Over and Working Stiff)
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The Unnatural Hairy Zomnibus
(contains Unnatural Acts and Hair Raising)
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The Slimy Chicken Zomnibus
(contains Slimy Underbelly and Tastes Like Chicken)
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Our list of other WordFire Press authors and titles is always growing. To find out more and to see our selection of titles, visit us at:
wordfirepress.com