Horror Stories Part 36

"Speak up, Mr. s.p.a.ceman, or I'll tie these eye things into a big bow on your ugly head."

"A scratch-and-win lottery ticket."

Debbi scowled. "So that's how it is. You come up to me all slick, flashing your cash like you're a real player. Then you knock me up, and you don't even have a job. Do you at least have a place to live?"

"I arrived on this planet only two earth hours ago, and have not had a chance to establish a permanent residence."

Debbi sighed. Ugly, hung like a Chihuahua, and a homeless deadbeat.

"How about a car? No! Wait! A s.p.a.ce ship! You've got a s.p.a.ce ship, right?"

Gnerlok glanced, one-eyed, at the floor.

"When I landed, a group of three disaffected youths a.s.saulted me and absconded with my interstellar vessel."

Welcome to LA.

Debbi needed to think, and she mentioned as much.

"While you are thinking, could you please release my -"

"I got it! My brother-in-law works for a furniture place. I bet he can get you a job in upholstery. But first, we have to go to City Hall and get married."

"Married? But I am not ready for marriage. I still require a few more years to play the field."

"Should have thought of that before you started mating with earth women. This is your responsibility, Yoda. And you're not weaseling out of it."

Debbi released Gnerlok's eye and turned her attention to the kids on the bed. A feeling of pure joy welled up in her chest, a place she hadn't had much feeling since getting the implants.

"h.e.l.lo, my darlings. I'm Mama."

"Mama!" several of them cried.

"Yes. Mama. And this is your homeless deadbeat father. He's going to do good by you, or else your Uncle Joey will break his knees. Say h.e.l.lo to your children, Hubbie."

"h.e.l.lo, children." Gnerlok frowned and gave them a half-hearted wave.

"Tracy! Jerry! Don't eat your brother! Daddy will get you some food." Debbi jabbed a finger at Gnerlok's chest. "There's a pizza place down the street. Get an extra large with anchovies. I bet they'll like anchovies."

"Anchovies," Gnerlok repeated.

"And I'm starving too. Get me a meatball sandwich. And move your alien b.u.t.t, or I'm picking up the phone and calling the CIA. I'm sure they'd love to hear about your plans to dominate the world."

"Yes, earth-woman."

Gnerlok slunk out the door.

Debbi sat on the bed and tickled little Alphonse under the chin. He giggled.

So did Debbi.

She'd always put her faith in the stars. And for good reason, it turned out.

"You know what, kids?" Debbi's eyes became moist. "I think we can make this work. We can be a big, happy family."

And if it gets too weird, Debbi decided, I can always make a big pot of gumbo and eat the little b.u.g.g.e.rs.

"Come to Mama, my delicious little babies. When your father gets home we're going house hunting. We're going to get a nice, big place in Beverly Hills."

With an extra large stove, Debbi decided.

Just in case.

My friend John Weagley asked me if I had any radioactive monkey stories for his collection Requiem For A Radioactive Monkey. Naturally, I did.

At first, they were all kind of excited when JoJo got into the Uranium.

"He's gonna mutate, I bet," said Gramps. "Maybe grow another monkey head. Or teats."

"Could easily quadruple in size," said Pops. "Go on a rampage, killin' folks and rapin' women."

Uncle Clem disagreed. "I'm bettin' invisibility. A seeable monkey causes enough trouble, running around, bitin' and chitterin', throwin' feces. An invisible money would be a hunnerd times worse."

"Would the feces be invisible?" Aunt Lula asked.

"Likely so. Wouldn't know it was there 'till you sat in it."

Gramps packed his lower lip with a wad of Skoal and spat brown juice into Aunt Lula's coffee mug.

"Shoulda kept that uranium locked up. Leavin' it on the counter like that, monkey was gonna mess with it sooner or later."

Uncle Clem disagreed. "JoJo ain't never fooled with it before."

"Them glowin' isotopes, they're like a magnet to the lower primates. Shoulda kept it locked up."

Pops scratched his head. "Where'd we get the uranium anyway?"

They all sat around and had a think about that. No one said nothin' for a while, the only sound being the slurp-slurp of Aunt Lula and her coffee.

"Well," Gramps finally said, "whatever strange mutation happens to JoJo, I'm guessin' we all agree it'll be speck-tack-ler."

Somethin' did happen to JoJo, and it happened fast. An hour after messin' with the Uranium, JoJo's hair all fell out, and then he died.

"Didn't see that comin'," Uncle Clem said.

Pops scratched his head. "Where'd we get a monkey anyway?"

No one could answer that. Only one who could have was JoJo, and he didn't say much on account of his deceasedness. Plus, JoJo was a monkey, and monkeys don't talk.

The next day, Gramps lost all of his hair, even the hair growin' from his ears, and got sick something fierce.

"Gramps?" Pops asked him, side-steppin' the chunk-streams gushing from Gramps's dip-hole. "You been messin' with that Uranium?"

Gramps answered between expulsions. "Wanted...another...head."

Later that night, after Gramps hemorrhaged, they buried him in the garden, next to JoJo. The family grieved and grieved, and Aunt Lula made some Uranium cookies to cheer everyone up, but Uncle Clem h.o.a.rded them all for himself.

"Thad a dab thine thookie," Uncle Clem said, not speakin' clearly because most of his teeth had worked themselves free of his bleedin' gums.

When Uncle Clem coughed up his pancreas, they buried him in the garden, next to Gramps and JoJo.

Not long after, Aunt Lula's hands turned black and plum fell off, on account she didn't wear no lead gloves when she made the uranium cookies. "Because lead is poisonous," she had said, smartly.

When Aunt Lula died, Pops buried her in another part of the garden, not too close to Uncle Clem and Gramps and JoJo, because that part was all took up.

When he was done, Pops scratched his head. "Where'd we get a garden anyway?"

Convinced the Curse of the Radioactive Uranium would claim him next, which would have been a very bad thing because there was n.o.body left to bury him in the garden, Pops played it smart.

He buried himself in the garden with the uranium.

When the milkman came by later that week, with the milk and eight ounces of farmer's cheese, he noticed the five new mounds in the garden. Being a curious milkman, he dug them all up.

"Well, will you lookit that," said the mailman. "Where'd they get that uranium?"

He found some tin foil in the kitchen, and wrapped up the Uranium and took it home, for his pet monkey to play with.

Written years ago, this eventually sold to Blood Lite 2 edited by Kevin J. Williamson. It's a fun piece where things aren't what they appear to be.

"It all goes back to the time I was bitten by that werewolf."

Dr. Booster's pencil paused for a moment on his notepad, having only written a 'w.'

"A werewolf?"

Tyler nodded. Booster appraised the teenager; pimples, lanky, hair a bit too long for the current style. The product of a well-to-do suburban couple.

"This is the reason your grades have gone down?"

"Yeah. Instead of studying at night, I roam the neighborhood, eating squirrels."

"I see...and how do squirrels taste, Tyler?"

"They go down dry."

Booster wrote 'active imagination' on his pad.

"What makes you say you were bitten by a werewolf?"

"Because I was."

"When did this happen?"

Tyler scratched at the p.u.b.escent hairs on his chin. "Two weeks ago. I was out at night, burying this body..."

"Burying a body?"

The boy nodded.

"Tyler, for therapy to work, we have to be honest with each other."

"I'm being honest, Dr. Booster."

Booster made his mouth into a tight line and wrote 'uncooperative' on his pad.

"Fine, Tyler. Whose body were you burying?"

"It was Crazy Harold. He was a wino that hung out in the alley behind the liquor store on Kedzie."

"And why were you burying him?"

Tyler furrowed his brow. "I had to get rid of it. I didn't think digging a grave would be necessary. I thought they disintegrated after getting a stake in the heart."

Booster frowned. "Crazy Harold was a vampire?"

Tyler shifted on the couch to look at him. "You knew? Shouldn't they turn into dust when you kill them?"

Booster glanced the diplomas on his wall. Eight years of education, for this.

"So you're saying you hammered a stake into Crazy Harold -"

"It was actually a broken broom handle."

"-and then buried him."

"In the field behind the house. And just when I finished, that's when the werewolf got me." Tyler lifted up his right leg and hiked up his pants. Above the sock was a raised pink scar, squiggly like an earthworm.

"That's the bite mark?"

Tyler nodded.

"It looks old, Tyler."

"It healed fast."

"Your mother told me you got that scar when you were nine-years-old. You fell off your bike."

Tyler blinked, then rolled his pants leg back down.