He needed this contract.
He hated his
current job. He hated phone conferences that resembled the one he currently
shared.
Anderson, his
cellphone wedged between his shoulder and face, bent over in his screened-in,
back porch and tried to coax his one-year-old to accept another spoonful of
yellow, baby gunk.
His one-year-old,
Patrick, wouldn’t comply. He kept his lips shut tight and his head turned away
from the offered spoon.
Anderson’s pool
reeked of chlorine. His family always wanted a pool, and he felt content that
he provided one.
A flat screen TV
hung from one of the back porch’s brick walls. A foursome of brightly colored
beaver-things danced around the screen and sang, “This Old Man.” Dreamy Studios produced the show, which
Anderson put on for Patrick’s benefit.
Anderson’s future
rested with Dreamy Studios. He could quit the career he hated and start the one
he always wanted if Dreamy agreed to
run a pilot for Anderson’s children’s show. He already wrote the scripts for
the first season.
Anderson loved
kids. He considered them geniuses. They always spoke their minds, they did what
felt good, and they always asked, “Why?” It stuck him as a shame that adulthood
would turn them into idiots.
Idiots like
Anderson’s current boss, Harvey, whose voice echoed from Anderson’s cellphone.
“We can’t afford to keep the airline, Anderson. We never could compete with
those big-name carriers.”
Anderson didn’t
bother to remind Harvey that no one but
Harvey ever considered the purchase of a small airline a good idea.
“We’ll just make
up our losses with a few more transcontinental bus routes,” Harvey said the way
someone says, I’ll just make some toast.
Anderson stirred
the bottle of yellow, baby gunk. “From where will we get new busses?”
“We’ll just make
them from the airplanes we no longer need.”
Anderson felt the
seed of a headache behind his right eye. “You can’t turn airplanes into busses.
They’re not Transformers.”
“Sure I can,”
Harvey said. “Busses. Planes. They’re both machines. Just take one apart and
build the other.”
“You’re thinking
of Legos,” Anderson said.
His attention
returned to the flat screen. The beaver-things now sang “London Bridge” while
it rained marshmallows with goofy eyes in their silly, Dreamy Studios world.
He thanks God that
Dreamy Studios agreed to review his scripts. The company seemed interested. They
sent his family free tickets to Dreamy Studios Theme Park in Orlando, Florida.
Anderson, too busy
with the job he hated, stayed home to watch Patrick.
His wife, Beverly,
took their two daughters, Tanya and Bee, ages ten and seven. He imagined that
the three of them currently stood in line for a ride or overpriced snack.
* * *
Bee giggled.
“Mommy passed out.”
Tanya chewed her eight-dollar,
soft pretzel while Mom snored on a park bench.
Tanya’s eyes slid
towards Dreamy Studios Castle, where (their ticket-taker told them) Dreamy’s
famous cartoon characters lived.
Guests at the
theme park couldn’t enter the castle. They could only admire it from the outside.
Tanya and Bee both wanted to sneak in, but, of course, Mom wouldn’t allow it.
Mom continued to
snore, her sunglasses askew across her face.
A door, painted to
appear as part of the surrounding wall, creaked open from the castle’s side, as if in invitation.
Tanya and Bee
exchanged excited expressions. They glanced about themselves. No one seemed to
notice the open door.
They hurried
through the door, which slammed shut
behind them.
They discovered
themselves within a wide, frosted, blue-glass hall. They walked, hand-in-hand,
down its length.
The hall branched
ahead of them. Tanya glanced over her shoulder as she and her sister neared the
fork. The wall (hidden door concealed somewhere within it) stood farther away
from them than she expected.
Footsteps drew her
attention forward. Bee squealed with delight while her favorite cartoon
character, Poe Bear, rounded the corner ahead of them and spread his arms wide.
Tanya and Bee
halted with twin gasps of glee—and Poe Bear changed.
Half his face
melted as an orange wad of goop. Silver metal winked beneath it. A robotic eye
narrowed around its red iris. Serrated claws sprouted from his fingertips.
His muzzle opened,
and, amongst a spray of maggots and drool, he screeched with fury.
Tanya and Bee
screamed, turned, and fled. Poe chased them. His thick feet shook the glass
hall. His screeches grew louder, less human.
The girls reached
the wall, frantically searched for its hidden door. They couldn’t find it.
Tanya, tears in
her eyes, turned to watch Poe slow to a stop, squat, and, with an explosion of
flatulence, crap no fewer than six hundred spiders made from blood-soaked, finger
bones.
The spiders
scurried across the hall. They covered its floor, walls, and ceiling, closed
upon the terrified sisters—when the hidden door behind them opened to reveal
not the Theme Park they left, but a mountainous land of fire, lava, and freshly
eviscerated, multi-headed clowns.
One pool of lava
hiccupped before a figure erratically jerked free from its depths. The
creature--a mostly hairless, seven-foot-tall rat with copious facial and
genital piercings--grinned at them. His copper fangs dripped.
* * *
Anderson completed
his phone conference in time to notice his daughters on TV.
He stared, slack-jawed,
while a hideous, demonic version of Marty Mouse lifted Tanya and Bee, both
wrapped in spiked chains and padlocks.
A throat cleared behind
Anderson, who spun to witness a man in a business suit.
The stranger
carried a briefcase. Green, ghostly light pulsed from the crack between the
case’s lips.
The TV shut off
with a cough of smoke.
The stranger
produced, from the inner pocket of his jacket, a rolled sheet of paper. “I
represent Dreamy Studios.” He handed the paper to Anderson, who realized he
held not paper, but dried skin.
Anderson, dazed,
unrolled the skin, stared at the contract printed across it.
All rights to his children’s show . . . in
exchange for the return of his daughters.
“I would sign it,”
the stranger said.
Anderson cleared
his throat, reached for his pen.
“In blood,
please.” The stranger handed Anderson a small knife decorated with Marty
Mouse’s manically happy, cartoonish grin.
Anderson hesitated
before he set the contract on a table and ran the blade across his palm. Blood
pooled. He, with a wince, dipped his finger into the pool.
He signed the
contract, returned it to the stranger (who vanished in a cloud of feathers),
and watched in horror as his daughters, each hacked into several chunks,
floated up from the bottom of his pool.
His pool water,
now the color of cheery Kool-Aid, overflowed, slurped at his ankles, and
bubbled with contentment.
(Thanks for reading.
You might notice below that I changed the schedule for my blogs. I will now,
because of the number of projects on my plate, only produce a short story for
this blog on Mondays. Fiction Formula will switch from Fridays to Thursdays. I apologize
for any inconvenience, though I . . . doubt this will rock anyone's existence.
Thanks again!)
I (now) publish my blogs as follows:
Tuesdays:
A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.
Wednesdays:
An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com
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