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While Heinrich and Aphrodite Were Preoccupied

  • by Kentcoughing and spewing and afraid to move
  • And the salt.
  • near constant tabloid surveillance
  • supposed to sever the jugular
  • made little use of his arms in speaking

Tune in next time part 63                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

While Heinrich and Aphrodite were preoccupied I made a break for it, scurrying from beneath the truck and into a narrow aisle of wooden crates. Creeping to the end of the aisle on my belly, I peered around the corner. I strained my ears for signs of pursuit, but all I could hear was Aphrodite hectoring Heinrich about letting himself take a blowdart from his contortionist floozy, and Heinrich whimpering in reply. Their spat was occurring at the main entrance, meaning if I wanted to get out I’d have to find another doorway. Finding the coast clear, I wormed through the intersection and into the next aisle.

Svetlana peered down from atop a stack of crates, malicious delight shining in her eyes. I tried to tell her using hand signs that we had to work together, but she calmly undid the catch holding the side panel of the crate on which she perched. It swung out dumping greenish water onto me, a stinking low-tide sludge infested with jellyfish pressing the air from my lungs as it mashed me into the cement floor. I lay there, coughing and spewing and afraid to move lest I get stung. I gagged from the rotten smell. And the salt.

Svetlana plopped lightly into the mess, standing over me with a raspy giggle. She wore the same scandalously skintight outfit that had been a signature of the side-show act with her sister all those years ago, before John decided he couldn’t stand to be near constant tabloid surveillance and estranged himself from his family, uttering sharp words that were supposed to sever the jugular that carried blood so much thicker than water. Although probably no thicker than the slimy muck now covering me.

A resounding boom from the far end of the building indicated the slamming of the door. “Get up,” Svetlana said. She marched away, pausing to glare when I didn’t follow. We soon came into sight of the main entryway, where Heinrich lay on the floor alone. As we drew near, he mouthed words that we couldn’t hear. Svetlana knelt close, trying to discern his message. His torpid stillness made it harder to make sense of the faint sounds. Even when he wasn’t paralyzed, Heinrich made little use of his arms in speaking.

Suddenly he made full use of them in seizing Svetlana by the throat. In full voice, he said, “You should have known better than to leave your darts laying around where I could wipe off the poison!” Aphrodite slid from the shadows beside the door, her pistol aimed at my midsection.

 

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I Became More and More Sure That I Was Inhabiting a Warehouse

  • by jenwait to find out why her husband is hobbling toward her in insane panic
  • far-reaching international manhunt
  • I thought his bouncing was accidental
  • in the very near future
  • — one fat, one skinny

Tune in next time part 62                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I became more and more sure that I was inhabiting a warehouse as the drug cleared my system and my faculties returned to normal.

I seemed to be alone in the large open area. Why had Lyudmila and Tessa left me unguarded? And whose warehouse was this?

After arranging the tarp to look like I was still beneath it, I dropped to the cement floor, rolled underneath the pickup, and curled up in the shadow of its oversized tires. And just in time! The door at the far end of the room opened and two figures entered — one fat, one skinny. I recognized them immediately as Heinrich and Aphrodite Hunter, which meant I was in deep shit. Or would be in the very near future. Those two hated each other almost as much as they hated everyone else. For them to team up meant something huge was going down, and I was in the middle of it.

Aphrodite laughed at something her rotund husband said, and then went back out through the door. Heinrich approached the pickup truck, whistling, his belly bouncing. For a moment I thought his bouncing was accidental, merely a result of his loping gait, but then I realized that he was purposefully jostling his stomach up and down. What could he possibly be doing?

In a moment I had my answer. He pulled his enormous Hawaiian shirt up and over his head. Instead of the expanse of flesh I expected, I saw instead a small woman, curled into a ball and clinging to a harness around Heinrich’s normal-sized torso.

He wasn’t fat after all! All this time he had merely been smuggling a contortionist under his clothes. With a sigh she unfolded herself and stood beside Heinrich, fluffing her hair.

My spine chilled as I realized it was Svetlana, John’s other sister, and subject of a far-reaching international manhunt. No wonder she’d proven impossible to find! For just how many years had Heinrich been smuggling the nefarious criminal around inside his clothes? And to what end?

This situation made less and less sense every minute. Lyudmila would never knowingly be in league with Svetlana. They hated each other, and with good reason.

“What are we going to do about this one?” Heinrich asked, gesturing toward the truck bed where he assumed I still lay unconscious.

“We can’t kill him,” Svetlana said in her scratchy voice. “Yet.” She stretched her arms and then bent over into a backbend, every vertebra popping. “I still need him.”

I swallowed.

“But I no longer need you.” Svetlana turned her backbend into a backspring, and launched herself away from Heinrich. She pulled a blowgun from somewhere in her skimpy leotard and shot a dart into Heinrich’s leg. In a blur she disappeared up into the rafters.

The door opened again, admitting Aphrodite who could only stand there and wait to find out why her husband is hobbling toward her in insane panic.

 

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The Ipswich Jail

  • by KentI still get goosebumps
  • for the first time since breakfast
  • thought snow, felt snow, smelled snow
  • without a handrail to guide you
  • you should wash that spoon

Tune in next time part 59                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

The Ipswich jail had one of the coziest holding cells I’d been in, but I still get goosebumps remembering my time there. With nothing to do but wait for Lyudmila, I lounged on the cot while Tessa paced. I paid little attention to her for an hour or so, but then noticed the troubled expression on her face. I was about to ask what was wrong when her look turned icy, and for the first time since breakfast three days ago, when I drank six cups of black coffee, I was utterly awake.

That coldness in her gaze made it impossible to imagine anything but winter. I thought snow, felt snow, smelled snow, and shuddered convulsively. The lights in the jail went out, and I heard the cell door open in the inky blackness.

“You can leave the cell,” Tessa’s flat voice said from everywhere, “but the jail is like a maze, and without a handrail to guide you I doubt you’ll reach the outside before they restore power. Oh, and one other thing,” she intoned as I stumbled out of the holding cell and my foot skidded on something metal laying on the cement floor, “you should wash that spoon.”

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Tessa Leapt From the Roof

  • by jenon foot
  • “They’re after us, Bill.”
  • perhaps a seal
  • I don’t wanna call bullshit on that woman
  • confiscated her hip flask

Tune in next time part 58                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Tessa leapt from the roof and landed in a squat on the sidewalk below. She waited impatiently as I clambered down the drainpipe and we set off on foot, Tessa leading the way.

Before we turned the corner onto the main boulevard, some quick adjustments to her ninja garb transformed it into a sleek black cocktail dress. The residents of Ipswich were still under Dr Minka Stiletto’s control. Her power over them had not ceased with her death. We would have to be careful.

“Where are we going?” I inquired.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” Tessa whispered as we joined the throng queued up outside the opera house. “Follow my lead.”

Tessa’s lead had a way of getting me in trouble, but in this case I had little choice.

She jostled and cut in line ahead of a pair of middle aged men, making just enough of a fuss that the ushers were sure to notice.

“What do you mean we should just let them? We were here first!” she said loudly in my direction. “They’re after us, Bill.”

She only called me Bill in times of great peril. It was code for ‘be on your toes.’

When the ushers rushed over to break up the kerfuffle, Tessa flashed something from her purse at them, perhaps a seal or a badge. I didn’t get a good look.

“I don’t wanna call bullshit on that woman,” said the shorter of the men we were scuffling with, “but we were here first.”

Tessa winked at me, and then slugged the man in the chin.

In the ensuing melee, I got a black eye, Tessa got a bloody nose, we both got arrested, and they confiscated her hip flask, which is what I had foolishly mistaken for a badge earlier.

In our holding cell Tessa explained that adrenaline and violence was the only way to break Dr Minka Stiletto’s hold over the populace. She’d sacrificed our freedom in order to return the town’s to them.

“And anyway,” she concluded, “Lyudmila will be here to bail us out any minute.”

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“It Feels Wrong to Have You Fighting All My Battles”

  • by Kentstill (uncomfortably) close
  • manacled together in front of him
  • entertaining a theory concerning those skeletons
  • thronged into his memory
  • very few molecular biologists

Tune in next time part 57                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“It feels wrong to have you fighting all my battles for me,” I said to Tessa as I made sure the Uzi’s safety was off. Heinrich lay groaning at our feet. “Also,” I smirked, “shouldn’t this be a deactivated speargun?”

“Sorry, I’m fresh out,” she replied, deadpan. Her smile was ninja-like, flitting across her face as stealthily as she’d flitted over the rooftop.

I wanted to ask her about the treasure, I wanted to ask so many things, but Heinrich’s continued mewling reminded me that he was still (uncomfortably) close. If I shot him we would be able to speak openly, but I couldn’t bring myself to plug an unarmed man, not even Heinrich. Tessa shook her head and pulled out a length of chain from some mysterious compartment of her black outfit. Soon Heinrich was fastened to a sturdy pipe with his hands manacled together in front of him.

By then he’d recovered somewhat from his beating, enough to mutter something about “heaps of bones on the beach” while looking sidelong at Tessa. To me, he added, “I’m entertaining a theory concerning those skeletons.” He winked at me, a ponderous droop of one creased and greasy eyelid that left me tempted to shoot him after all. But clearly he was trying to tell me something, something he thought should matter to me. What was the significance of the bleached remains that had thronged into his memory?

Tessa took off one of her socks. Just before she gagged him with it, Heinrich blurted out, “The art of such flensing is a secret known only to a very few molecular biologists.”

Hefting the submachine gun, I weighed the wisdom of pressing Tessa for an explanation.

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“We Can’t Use the Front Door”

  • by jen“Keep your hands above your head.”
  • I hate that little fucker.
  • people with no job or family
  • overwhelming and compelling
  • attack was largely fueled by anger

Tune In Next Time Part 56                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“We can’t use the front door,” said Tessa, “or the back. They have spies everywhere. We’ll need to leave through the skylight.”

I was just relieved that she didn’t say sewer.

“Keep your hands above your head.” Tessa squatted down and laced her fingers together. “Put your foot here and I’ll lift you up so you can reach the rim.”

Her plan worked beautifully until I hoisted myself onto the roof and found myself face to face with Heinrich Hunter. He stood there, casually holding a katana in one hand and an uzi in the other, a sneer protruding from beneath his floppy red mustache. Man, I hate that little fucker.

“All alone I see,” Heinrich gloated incorrectly. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. People with no job or family are often alone.”

I struggled to keep my eyebrows from furrowing. I had both a job and an overabundance of family, and with Tessa about to climb up through the skylight I was hardly alone in my danger. I had to keep Heinrich distracted so she might have a chance to escape notice.

“Your evidence is overwhelming and compelling, Heinrich,” I muttered. “I am alone. So, so alone.”

I felt the merest breath of air against my ankle, my only indication that Tessa had joined us on the roof. I’m not sure when she became such an adept ninja, but in the moment I was grateful. Later, not so much.

Heinrich threw back his head and laughed, and that’s when Tessa struck. Her attack was largely fueled by anger. I could tell because Heinrich’s head stayed firmly attached to his shoulders. She pummeled him about the midsection, her ninja stealth faltering and allowing me to catch a glimpse. The next thing I knew, Heinrich lay groaning on the rooftop and Tessa was handing me his uzi. She kept the katana for herself.

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I Sat Amidst the Evil Hypnotist’s Verdant Decorating Scheme

  • by jentheorizing upon the abstract and the unknowable
  • this happens to other people
  • I nearly fell down
  • I know that I shall go mad!
  • recognize these assholes out in the wild

Tune In Next Time Part 54                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I sat amidst the evil hypnotist’s verdant decorating scheme, theorizing upon the abstract and the unknowable, hoping that I would be able to see the green light were it to illuminate.

Minka Stiletto’s low voice purred through the humid air. “I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, ‘this happens to other people, not to me’ — but you are wrong. This does happen to you, and it will continue happening until I decide to stop it.”

I heard the faint chuckle under her words and I nearly fell down into the abyss where she would control me completely. If that ever happens, I know that I shall go mad! I could not raise my fingers to plug my ears because my wrists were still bound.

Suddenly, the banyan tree behind Minka sprouted arms. A second later I could discern the outline of a camouflaged shadow warrior, and a second after that it swung its sword and lopped Minka’s head off. Earlier I had been worried about squirrels, but ninjas were the greater threat. I chastised myself for never learning to recognize these assholes out in the wild.

The fountain of blood from Minka’s severed neck painted the plant life a deep red. It was nauseating, but did allow me to locate the blinking green light that signaled my release from the dead hypnotist’s hold.

Now all I had to worry about was the ninja.

 

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Fred Bound My Wrists

  • by jenattracted by the scent
  • resuscitating a knocked out fighter with a hand job
  • took you for granted
  • the nightmare that keeps on giving
  • ribbons of lavender

Tune In Next Time Part 52                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Fred bound my wrists with ribbons of lavender and silver, at Dr Stiletto’s suggestion. They might look frilly and dainty, but the damn things were too tough for me to tear through, and cut into my skin.

Now that I was harmless, Minka moved close and stared into my eyes. I tried to make them glassy and vacant so that she wouldn’t guess her hold on my psyche had slipped. She smiled and laid her hand against my cheek, a vivid reminder that Minka Stiletto’s affections were the nightmare that keeps on giving. Years of therapy had rid me of the worst of the PTSD, but I could feel the memories crawling out of their dark holes once again to haunt me.

“I took you for granted last time,” she snarled into my ear. “A mistake I will not make again. You will quack like a duck for me whenever you hear a doorbell, and you will be my eager love slave when you hear me snap my fingers.”

She held her hand in front of my face and snapped, and the effect of her hypnotic power on my libido was like resuscitating a knocked out fighter with a hand job, if that’s not too graphic a metaphor.

Minka Stiletto arched one eyebrow at my very visible reaction to her words.

From every tree along the street, squirrels emerged from their hiding places and scurried toward us. Minka explained, “They’re attracted by the scent of your pheromones, darling boy.”

I thought about the sorts of things squirrels liked to eat and shuddered. Luckily for me only certain parts of my mind were under Minka’s control. I could still resist, plot her defeat and my escape from both her clutches and a rodenty fate.

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Not The Ipswich in England

  • k-avatar“The answer is easy,”
  • such a thing as sexually transmitted food poisoning
  • “Such, gentlemen, is my secret.”
  • “I demand satisfaction!”
  • then takes the form of a helicoidal or screw-shaped spiral

Tune In Next Time Part 51                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Not the Ipswich in England, though. The one in Massachusetts. Which was a good thing, because the dinky chopper would never have made a crossing and the directives of Dr Minka Stiletto were irresistible.

And, as it turned out, there wasn’t enough fuel even for the local hop I had to make. Unlike a plane, when a helicopter runs out of gas it doesn’t glide smoothly forward. It lurches and drops rapidly in a steep parabolic arc, which then takes the form of a helicoidal or screw-shaped spiral. The controls do little to influence this trajectory, but with finesse a skillful pilot can bring the craft to ground at a survivably slow rate of descent. My skills and my luck were barely adequate to the challenge, or perhaps the haze of the trance I’d entered upon hearing the implanted phrase kept me sufficiently relaxed to avoid injury.

Wandering the outskirts of Ipswich, Mass, I searched for Minka Stiletto’s clinic. Asking passersby got me only glares and hasty retreats. “I demand satisfaction!” I roared at a leathery fisherman, whose gap-toothed yodel of fright woke me from Dr Stiletto’s clutches for the moment. My clarified thoughts coalesced upon the realization that the foul doctor was known throughout Ipswich, known and feared. But not yet in total control.

“Bravo,” said a silky feminine voice behind me. My blood froze.

“But,” Dr Stiletto continued, “you misapprehend one thing. Yes, they fear me. But also yes, I do have total control. Now follow me. You too, Fred.” As the leathery fisherman fell into step beside me, and we both stumbled in Minka Stiletto’s rose-perfumed wake, she elaborated on her diabolical mastery of this quaint New England seaside town. “Such, gentlemen, is my secret.”

If she divulged any actual secret, I didn’t recall it.

Minka Stiletto raised her eyepatch to study me more closely. The experience made me wonder if there was such a thing as sexually transmitted food poisoning. I tried to hide my revulsion, hoping the fiendish doctor thought me still hypnotized.

“You’ll note that Ipswich, Mass is the cleanest town you’ve ever visited,” she singsonged, “and you might wonder why. Mightn’t you?” Fred nodded avidly, seeming to have a lot invested in learning how this fact could be true of the place he had no doubt lived for many decades. “The answer is easy,” Minka said, laughing. “She who controls the sanitation guilds controls all!”

Her amusement over this proclamation verged on incapacitating, but all the while she kept both eyes glued to me. This would not be my chance to escape. Perhaps if I played along I could learn something important. But would it be worth the risk?

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I Hesitated Too Long

  • by jensuch a large gang of outlaws
  • dragged him backwards
  • The doctor will see you now.
  • looking furtively at me
  • someone to show her love and compassion

Tune In Next Time Part 50                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I hesitated too long. My chance to bolt for the helicopter disappeared when Oscar took two slinking steps closer and ran his finger along my jaw.

“I’ve never seen such a large gang of outlaws as I saw that night in Pensacola,” he murmured. “The crocodiles ate well.”

His chuckle told me how much he had enjoyed watching those men get eaten. I gulped, wishing I hadn’t let my curiosity get the better of me, wishing I was in the chopper right now, rising high above Oscar and Enzo and Alonzo. The inner workings of the sanitation union were not for the squeamish.

Enzo and Alonzo moved forward on either side of me, and I was sure they were going to pin my arms, but instead they pounced on Oscar and dragged him backwards toward the barber shop, screaming.

Enzo hissed as he passed me, “The doctor will see you now.” He was looking furtively at me as he said it and I had a sinking feeling I knew which doctor he was talking about. “She needs someone to show her love and compassion,” he went on, confirming my suspicion.

As the three of them disappeared into the crowd, Oscar’s cries were suddenly silenced. I shuddered. If there was one person in the world I wanted least to see it was Dr Minka Stiletto, but it seemed I had no choice. That line about love and compassion was the post-hypnotic suggestion she’d implanted during my last “appointment,” and it meant that I was already climbing into the helicopter and charting my flight to Ipswich.

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