Tag: Dark

The Pet

Young Esther Bunni had reached the age of eleven when she understood that it was now time, according to an agreement hashed out with her parents years earlier, for her to get a pet. Her parents, Roger and Honey, had strung her along for several years with promises and accords, that were modified and amended multiple times, of getting a pet as soon as she was old enough. It was decided and mutually agreed upon that eleven was a responsible age for the family to take in another member as long as Esther understood that she would be the primary care giver when it came to feeding, cleaning and taking on walks if necessary.

“Oh, she won’t need walks,” Esther said to her parents.

“Really?” Roger replied. He looked at his wife with a smile and then back to his daughter. “So, I guess we’re getting a cat then?”

Young Esther shook her head, “No, not a cat. I want a mermaid.”

Roger and Honey stared at their daughter for a moment before Honey gently began. “Esther, we talked about this before, mermaids aren’t real. They’re fictitious. Do you know what fictitious means?”

“I do,” Esther replied. “It means that it’s made up. But mermaids aren’t made up. They’re real.”

Esther then held up a flier that announced in big, bold letters that PetCo was having a sale on mermaids.

Roger tried to make sense of the advertisement. “I think this may be a typo or something,” he finally declared.

“No, it’s not a typo. It says right there that mermaids are on sale, forty percent off.”

Honey grabbed the flier and studied it. There were a lot of words about mermaids being on sale but no typos.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“It was on the door with some other fliers,” Esther responded.

In a move that Roger had perfected over the last eleven years he shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “I guess we’ll go see what this is all about.”

Every PetCo was layed out exactly the same across the country so that loyal customers, no matter what city they happened to be in, would know exactly where everything was and confusion levels would be kept to a minimum.

Dog treats were in the front along with the toys. Specialized pet food lined the right side of the store and living quarters such as beds, mats, cages, were stocked on the left.

Bird seed had its own aisle as they were slowly becoming a popular pet to have despite some people’s best efforts to thwart this trend, citing that birds can be quite finicky and high maintenance.

A PetCo employee, Gary, greeted Esther and her parents as they walked in the store. “Hi, welcome to PetCo. Can I help you find anything?”

Esther got right to the point, “Show us the mermaids.”

Gary’s face dropped. “I see. Are you sure you don’t want to look at the puppies first?”

“Mermaids,” was Esther’s direct reply. She showed Gary the flier. He studied it with equal amounts of shock and horror and then let all the muscles in his face drop in acceptance.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Hanging on our front door,” Esther replied.

Gary studied the flier once more before sighing in resignation. “Follow me.”

The fish tanks were in a separate room that was divided by large glass windows. The lighting was not as bright as the rest of the store so as not to terrify the fish and to create the illusion that they were in the ocean and not in a strip mall next to a Pizza Hut.

Esther and her parents followed Gary past the fish to another room that was much darker and lit mostly by black light. There was a single large tank in the middle filled with water that almost reached the ceiling. Colorful rocks were spread out in the bottom of the tank and a small castle leaned in the corner next to three small palm trees. And in the middle of the tank, floating serenely was a mermaid. She looked exactly like they did in the fairy tales, Esther thought to herself. Long, gorgeous red hair that somehow managed to always hide her breasts, human arms and face and from her waist down was a series of colorful scales that led to a tail that was aligned in the same way that a whale or a dolphin’s tail might be. No one ever questioned this slight discrepancy of her scales which were a component of a fish and the horizontal direction of her tail which was most commonly found on ocean mammals. People were usually too busy being shocked that she existed in the first place.

Roger’s mouth dropped as Honey stifled a scream. Esther smiled.

“Where did you get her?” Esther wanted to know.

“She’s a rescue,” Gary replied. “We were about to ship her back.”

“A rescue from what?” Roger finally asked.

“Some billionaire who collects exotic animals. You know the ones, albino lions, ligers, fire breathing pelicans. It’s a status thing. They think it would be really neat to have an exotic pet in their inventory but they soon realize that these are wild creatures who eventually become too burdensome.”

Roger and Honey kept staring at the mermaid who was peacefully floating in the tank next to a corkscrew-shaped piece of poop.

“I…I didn’t even know these…things existed,” Roger said.

“Well, they’re rare, I’ll tell you that much,” Gary said. “But, if you have enough money you can get whatever you want.”

Roger stared at the mermaid. The mermaid stared back at the family, not quite registering any emotion, just floating around.

Esther  couldn’t believe her eyes. She was so happy, the happiest she had ever been. She looked at her parent’s somewhat horrified faces then at Gary and quietly said, “I’ll take her.”

Driving home in the family station wagon, Esther just gazed at the mermaid floating peacefully in the extra large plastic bag filled with water. It was tied up at the end with a rope so that water couldn’t leak out and it took up all of the back of the station wagon. Esther rested her head on the back seat and stared. “Finally,” she thought to herself, “my first pet.”

News travelled pretty quickly that the Bunnis had a mermaid and before he knew it Roger had a small army of children and parents in his garage eager to get a look.

“Please don’t tap on the glass,” Roger kept saying as he lugged in a large bag of mermaid food. The large fish tank was donated to the Bunnis by a neighbor who had tried unsuccessfully to breed Maco sharks. It took up half of the garage and Roger even installed a fluorescent black light overhead.

Esther climbed the small ladder next to the tank and poured a stream of meal flakes that floated on the top. The mermaid swam up and ate the flakes from underneath just like a goldfish would do.

Waiting for her at the bottom of the ladder was Esther’s friend Lucy. 

“What’s her name?” Lucy demanded.

“I haven’t decided,” Esther replied, “but I’ve narrowed it down to either Veronica or Claire.”

“Claire? You can’t name her Claire?”

“Why not?”

“Because, mermaids aren’t named Claire. It’s too harsh. It’s upsetting, like a shard of glass in your arm. She needs a softer name like Daphne.”

“Daphne? What is she a substitute teacher at a liberal arts college? I’m not naming her Daphne.”

Esther replaced the box of fish food in the corner where two more unopened boxes neatly sat.

“How about Sally?” Lucy asked.

“Sally? No, not Sally.”

“Why not?”

“Look, she’s my mermaid so I’m going to be the one to name her at my own pace. I’m not going to rush this. Besides, I don’t want my mermaid doesn’t carry around a large keyring, drink wine coolers and smoke Virginia Slims. Pfft, Sally.”

Esther couldn’t sleep that night as she was still coming down from the rush of getting a new pet. So, she quietly got out of bed and snuck down to the garage.

She slowly opened the door and walked in. The black light hanging over the tank gave the water an otherworldly look that calmed and soothed, like being in the afterlife.

“Hey,” a voice suddenly called out, startling Esther.

Esther looked up. The mermaid was halfway out of the water resting her arms on the top edge.

“Hey,” Esther absently replied.

“What’s your name?” the mermaid asked.

“Esther.”

The two stared at each other.

“I didn’t know you could talk,” Esther finally said.

“Well, I am half human so it comes naturally.”

“And you can breathe air?”

“Kind of. When I’m out of the water I can breathe using water that’s trapped in my gill chambers.” The mermaid showed Esther some gills that were located behind her ears. “My mouth and throat can absorb oxygen as well, but not for very long. I can be out of the water for a short amount of time but then I have to go back in. Like a mudskipper.”

“A mudskipper?”

“Yeah. You know the fish that comes out of he water and walks around the mud for a bit? We’re distant cousins.”

Esther couldn’t believe she was talking to a mermaid.

“So, what did you end up naming me?” the mermaid finally asked.

“I landed on Zoe.”

“Zoe? What am I the lead singer for an indy band from Williamsburg?”

“Do you have a name already?”

“I do.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Claire.”

Esther stood in silence before the mermaid started giggling. “Just kidding. I heard you guys talking about it earlier. It’s just a little humor. Can you imagine, though? A mermaid named Claire?”

Esther remained steady in her silence and gave the mermaid a smile. “So, what is your name?”

“It’s Blanche,” the mermaid replied. “I’m named after my mother.”

“Blanche?” Esther replied. “That’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you, Esther. I like your name as well.”

Blanche gave Esther a smile.

“While I’ve got you here,” Blanche began, “I’ve got a quick request, is there any way I can get some more salt in here. The saline levels seem to be dropping.”

“Salt?”

“Yeah. Sea salt is preferable, not the kosher salt. It’s better for my scales.”

“Okay.”

“Also,” Blanche continued, “I’m going to need a phone.”

“A phone?”

“Yeah. A cell phone. Waterproof. Not for dunking, but just standing by in case I need to make a call. You can probably get a burner pretty cheap.”

“Uh, okay, I can ask my dad about…”

“You know what? I’m going to need some wine.”

“Wine?”

“Yeah. Pinot or some nice Cabs. No merlot.”

Esther was ready scribbling down a grocery list on a small notebook, “No merlot.”

“Are you old enough to buy cigarettes?”

“I don’t think I am.”

“It’s okay. I know somebody that can get them once I get that phone.”

By the time she finished writing down Blanche’s requests the list was two and a half pages long and included among other things a set of blank keys, some nunchucks, a curling iron, several bags of Cheetos, a subscription to Architectural Digest, a ham sandwich, and the board game Clue.

“Is that everything?” Esther asked.

“For now,” Blanche replied. “If I think of something else I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

Esther gazed at Blanche once again, still not believing she had a pet mermaid.

“Well, good night, Blanche.”

“Good night, Esther.”

Esther walked to the door and turned around to watch Blanche wave and then slowly sink back into the water, close her eyes and drift off into a deep slumber.

Back in her bed, Esther would sleep better than she had ever slept before.

Over the next several months Esther was vigilant in taking care of Blanche the mermaid. She cleaned her tank once a week and fed her three times a day, as Blanche had a very healthy appetite. Cleaning her tank would take several hours as there was a strict protocol developed by Esther herself to ensure the safety of her beloved pet. First, she would fill a smaller holding tank, which was a kiddie pool that Esther used to swim in in the summer, with water and salt then assist Blanche in crossing from her main tank to the smaller one. Next, she had to drain the main tank that was filled with poop, dead scales and leftover food that wasn’t eaten. The water drained straight down the driveway into the gutter and made the neighborhood smell like a fish market for a couple of days. Then, Esther would climb inside the tank and scrub the walls, cleaning bits of algae that would form along with pieces of skin and scales from when Blanche would get drunk and try to bash herself against the glass thinking about an old boyfriend who left her for a narwhal. Esther would shop vac the pieces of stray poop from the colorful rocks and finally she would refill the tank with fresh water, which took about three hours and balance it out with the precise amount of salt. Then, Esther would help Blanche back in her tank and feed her. After all that was done Esther would take out all the empty wine bottles and empty the ash trays and trash that was scattered around. 

There was a time early on where Esther thought that Blanche needed a friend so she had her parents purchase a small reef shark for her to play with. When she put the shark in the tank Blanche immediately swam to one corner and eyed the newcomer suspiciously. The reef shark swam lazily around for a couple of minutes when suddenly Blanche lunged at it and took a large bite out of its side, leaving the shark to drift helplessly around until it died.

Blanche surfaced, still with some shark guts hanging from her mouth.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said to Esther, “I’m a sociopath. I can’t be with other fish.”

Esther stared at the dead shark, which cost her parents quite a bit of money because it was smuggled in a whiskey barrel aboard the deck of a merchant ship and then maneuvered through several illegal back channels until it was sold out of the back of an SUV by a eunuch.

“Sorry,” Esther blankly replied. “It won’t happen again.”

“Is there any way you can put a TV in here? With all the cable channels?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Esther answered. She slowly walked to the door and looked back just as Blanche was biting the head off the shark.

Three months had gone by when Roger and Honey began feeling the stresses of taking care of a mermaid.

They sat one evening, late at night because they had been unable to sleep for weeks, under the breakfast nook light and stared, flabbergasted, at the pile of water and wine bills in front of them. Words like PAST DUE and FINAL NOTICE were printed in large red letters on many of the documents. Honey felt like crying. Roger was at his wits end. 

“We need to talk to her,” he finally said.

“Okay,” his wife answered.

They turned off the light and went upstairs and left the pile of debt that threatened to ruin them for generations to bask in the moonlight coming through the window.

The next morning Esther sat down on the couch opposite of Roger and Honey who made themselves comfortable on two wingback chairs. A large painting of Sylvester Stallone took up most of the wall behind them.

“Sweetheart,” Roger began, “Your mother and I have discussed this and…I think we need to find Blanche a new home.”

“But you said I could have a pet,” Esther protested. “We agreed, when I turned eleven and if I kept my grades up and did my chores I could get a pet. You both agreed to this.”

Sweat started beading up on Roger’s forehead. His lack of sleep had caused him to hallucinate recently. “Yes, but sweetie, we thought that you were going to get maybe a dog or a cat or even a bird, you know, something more traditional.”

“A bird? But you said they were assholes.”

“That was before we knew mermaids even existed,” Roger said.

“We had a deal,” Esther reminded them.

Honey leaned in, “Dear, it’s not that we don’t like her, we love her, it’s just that…”

Roger jumped in, “She’s becoming too expensive. Changing her water every week…it’s like we’re filling up a pool four times a month. And that food, that organic food she eats is costing us a fortune. And the wine. It’s just not sustainable.”

“Plus,” Honey started, “your father and I think she might have a drinking problem.”

“How do you figure that?” Esther asked.

“Do you see how many bottles of wine she drinks a week? Plus, she’s starting on the hard stuff. And that’s more expensive.”

“I knew you guys would go back,” Esther protested. “I knew you guys would break our deal. I knew it.”

“Sweetie,” Roger said, “we can get another pet. How about a nice puppy?”

“Listen,” Esther began, “she’s my pet and I’ll take care of her.”

“Sweetheart,” Honey pleaded, “we’re going broke. We can’t continue this. We’ve used up your entire college fund. I’m sorry, but we just can’t continue on with this.”

Suddenly, the phone rang and Roger walked over to answer it.

“Hello, Bunni residence…Yes, speaking…uh huh…you don’t say…” Roger’s face and tone began to grow rather suspicious. “Uh huh…interesting…well, I will talk to her about it right now….thank you very much.”

He gently set the receiver back on the cradle and slowly walked over to Esther. As he sat down he tried to compose his thoughts in a manner that wouldn’t upset and already sensitive situation.

“Esther, where did you get that flier that advertised the mermaid?”

“I…I got it from the front door. It was hanging on the front door with one of those rubber bands,” she replied.

Roger looked over at his wife then back at his daughter.

“Esther, did a man in a Rolls Royce give you that flier?”

“No…”

“Esther, you need to be honest with us.”

Esther looked into her parents eyes. They really had been so supportive. They were nearing bankruptcy and all they wanted was the truth.

“Yes,” she finally admitted. “A man in a Rolls Royce gave me the flier.”

Roger sat back. “Finally, the truth,” he said. “Esther, do you know the name of the man who gave you the flier?”

“I didn’t get his name. He just asked me if I was interested in a mermaid and I said yes. I’m sorry. All I wanted was a pet.”

“Who was that on the phone, dear,” Honey asked.

“That was Gary from PetCo. He found out where the mermaid came from.”

“Well, who was it?” Honey asked.

“It was Bill Gates,” Roger replied.

Esther’s indifference did not register with her parents.

“You mean, the Bill Gates?” Honey asked. “The billionaire?”

“Yes, that Bill gates,” Roger replied.

“Apparently, he had been driving around in his fancy Rolls Royce trying to unload a mermaid that he could no longer take care of.”

“Dad, who’s Bill Gates?” Esther asked.

“He’s a billionaire, sweetie,” Roger replied, turning back to his wife. “So anyway, nobody would take this mermaid and that’s when I guess he just dropped it off in the PetCo parking lot one night. I guess he wanted to make sure she went to a good home so he handed out fliers to people he thought would be good candidates.”

“And, you got all that from that extremely short phone call?”Honey asked.

“Gary is a very succinct storyteller,” Roger replied. “So, I guess we finally know where she came from.”

Gary stared at his daughter. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint her. Esther looked up.

“Dad, I’m sorry. I know that you and mom tried. We all tried. I’m sorry that it almost brought you to financial ruin and divorce.”

“Well, no one said anything about divorce.”

“The point is, I think that I’ve learned a couple of things here. One, never trust a billionaire, no matter how much money they give you.”

“Excuse me…”

“And two, I should never be afraid to ask for help.”

They all looked at each other with a renewed love for each other.

“Well,” Gary wondered along with the thing his daughter said earlier about a billionaire giving her money, “what do we do with her now?”

Roger and Honey Bunny turned and looked at their daughter. Esther knew what they had to do. It was the right thing.

The Bunnis drove far up the coast searching for a suitable spot to release Blanche the mermaid. Several locations were rejected by Blanche due to conditions that weren’t quite suitable for her including too many surfers in the water, not enough seagulls, bad weather and one location that was just plain boring.

They finally settled on a small bay that was surrounded by rocky cliffs on both sides. Large rock formations jutted out into the ocean as well, making this an ideal location for her. Roger backed the station wagon up to the bay. They got out and the whole family helped lifting Blanche from her giant plastic bag down to the shore. They waded in the surf and held her until she had the power to swim on her own. Blanche sat up in the water.

“Thank you, Esther. I’ll never forget you,” she said.

Esther had tears rolling down her face. “Thank you, Blanche. Maybe I’ll see you again.”

Blanche blew her a kiss and disappeared into the surf. The Bunnis walked back to the sand and then watched Blanche swim out to sea. She swam so gracefully, like a dolphin, jumping up and out of the water, diving back in again. She was home.

Her swimming didn’t last long, however, as she swam up to one of the large rocky outcroppings about a hundred feet away. The Bunnis saw her flop-crawl up the rock like a seal and settled onto a flat edge where she looked out towards the ocean. She then began letting out a series of high pitched howls.

“She’s crying,” Esther said. “ She’s sad.”

“I think she’ll be alright,” Roger said. “She’s probably calling out for her friends.”

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a giant container ship came into view from behind the cliff. It was moving fast and looked as if it was too close to the shore. Something was wrong. The ship veered towards a small dock a little ways up the coast where local fishermen brought back their catch of the day and rammed right into it. Several fishing boats were crushed and the pier created a huge gash in the side of the container ship where it immediately began taking on water. Crew members could be seen jumping overboard into the ocean as the large ship began to sink.

Esther looked at the rock and found Blanche who was looking back. Blanche gave Esther a wink and then jumped into the water and disappeared.

Esther kept staring at where Blanche had been sitting and quietly said, “Dad, what’s a sociopath?”

“Why do you ask?” Roger replied.

“No reason,” she said.

Later that day the Bunni family welcomed a brand new puppy into their home that they immediately named Claire.

Bigfoot Diaries

Hi, my name is Gary and I’m a Sasquatch. I live in the woods and I don’t try to bother nobody. I don’t have a traditional home, so to speak, I sort of live off the land. I’ll sleep on the forest floor if it’s not raining or in someone’s garage when they’re not home. I have unusually large feet for someone my size. I’m six foot three and my shoe size is 24, even though I don’t wear shoes. I don’t really wear clothes either because my entire body is covered in a thick coat of hair. It’s great in the wintertime because it keeps me warm, but in the summer I really pay for it. I usually move down towards a river or a stream so that I’m always within at least five minutes of water in case I need to jump in and cool off.

Nobody really bothers me except for this one cop, Steve. He has it in for me for some reason. He’s always trying to find me and arrest me on trumped up charges. I know my rights, though. I don’t bother anybody. I just think it’s because his marriage is falling apart and he’s taking it out on me. A lot of people take their frustrations out on me. They treat me like a punching bag just so they can shift blame from their failed marriages, their drug addictions, their estranged children or their crippling debt onto me, thinking that it’ll help their situation somehow.

One time I got into a fight with a puma. He tried to take an elk that I had just killed with my bare hands. I was saving it for dinner under a pile of leaves. The puma must have stumbled on it and thought it belonged to no one, even though I marked the whole area by urinating all over the place. Anyway, I killed him too. I’m pretty strong. I don’t work out or anything, I think that I’m just genetically built that way. I never use my strength in anger, although I was pretty peeved to see that puma taking my dinner. I guess it was more self-defense than anything. Pumas are pretty mean.

One time Steve the cop came driving up on the dirt road in his Chevy Blazer and pulled me over. I was just walking like I always do, but anyway, he jumped out and started shouting at me. He kept going on about how he had a warrant for my arrest and that he was going to take me downtown and have a judge throw the book at me. I asked to see the warrant and he said his dog ate it. I think Steve has seen too many cop shows. I know my rights. He was always harassing me like that but he never had anything on me.

I have friends but I don’t really see them a hell of a lot. There’s these guys who always want to take pictures of me but I’m kind of shy so I almost always refuse. They keep insisting, saying that they won’t show anyone the photos but I know that they’ll probably post them all over social media with captions like ‘Get a haircut, hippie’ or ‘Nice feet. LOL’. I usually like to hang out at the track and bet on the horses. I have a huge gambling problem I’m not going to lie. It’s all I think about. If I could just get the odds to tilt in my favor just once I could retire and move to Greenland. I’ve filed for bankruptcy seven times.

I’m tired of being harassed by the cops, to be honest. Steve the cop always says that I cause trouble wherever I go. He says I incite panic in the general population but I know that’s not true because I was at Target the other day and I couldn’t find one person to help me find where they stock the deodorant.

A lot of people say that I look just like Brad Pitt, which is a real compliment because I respect his work and he’s a real handsome guy. I really don’t know what celebrity I look like, to tell you the truth. Maybe Gabe Kaplan or M. Emmet Walsh?

Anyway, I murdered about three people the other day and I want to tell you about it before you hear it on the news. I was fishing down by the river when these bikers rode up and started setting up tents and stuff. I guess they were going to camp there for the night, which is fine, a lot of people like to camp in that area. It’s really beautiful and there’s a lot of fish in that river. Anyway, these bikers started playing this music really loud. It was kind of distracting because when I’m out in nature I like to listen to the breeze blowing through the trees and the birds singing to each other. These guys had their music turned all the way up and when they talked to each other they had to shout because the music was so loud. So, I walked over to them and politely asked them if they could turn the music down. Well, this one guy got right in my face and said that he was gonna do no such thing. He took a swig of what I presume was alcohol and took a swing at me. His fist landed right in my stomach but I could barely feel it. Like I said, I’ve got some pretty weird muscles that are like steel or something. Anyway, I overreacted and tore the man’s head clean off his body. The rest of his friends froze which gave me the opportunity to lunge after a couple more of them. I tore the arms off one guy and kicked another guy so hard my foot chopped him in half. I couldn’t hear a lot of the screaming because no one had turned down the music. People ran everywhere. I hadn’t noticed that I was still holding the guy’s head when I walked up to another guy who was trying to start his motorcycle. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and told him that if I ever see him or any of his friends around here that I’m going to call the cops. Well, that guy tore off right out of there in a hurry. They had run away so fast that they left all of their camping gear and the stereo, which was still on, by the way.

Anyway, Steve the cop pulled me over the other day, but he didn’t yell at me. He got out of his Blazer real slow like. He had a different look about him, almost sad. His head was down and he kept staring at the ground. He told me that those bikers had been terrorizing the town for weeks. He said that they couldn’t do nothing about them because they weren’t breaking the law and even if they did the bikers outnumbered the cops by 20 to 1. Steve says he suspected them of several robberies and assaults in the area but he didn’t have any proof. The town didn’t have the resources to handle and infestation of a biker gang or any gang for that matter. He confessed to me that he was scared because if he had to go in and arrest one of those guys he would surely be killed. He told me that he had been so stressed out that it was beginning to affect his marriage. He was depressed, I could tell. I’m very familiar with the symptoms. Lack of sleep, irritability, loss of appetite, existential dread. I’ve been living with depression my entire life. So then he told me that the whole gang suddenly just up and left the town in a real big hurry, like they had seen something that scared them off. The only time Steve the cop looked up at me was for a brief moment when he said thanks.

Well, he got into his Blazer and quietly drove off. The cops did stop harassing me after that but I did have to file bankruptcy again, which gave my wife the perfect reason to leave me for good. And this time she said she was taking the kids.

Santatown

In 1987 Santa Claus moved his secret operation to the high desert just outside of Los Angeles, California under the assumed name ‘Carl Pendleton’. He was on the run from the Elfin Union that had formed in his workshop a few years earlier and were now demanding decades of back pay at union wages. For now, he was going to have to conduct business out of the old Lockheed plant where they used to build aircraft during World War 2. Replacing the elves was not going to be easy. Fortunately, the desert was one of the natural habitats for disgruntled fringe citizens, people who were angry about how modern society had shunned them and have elected to live in the desert where only dangerous plants grow and deadly animals live.

One day two cops rolled up to Santa’s camper in their squad car and got out. One of the cops started beating the hell out of the camper door with his billy club. Both officers were wearing mirrored sunglasses and had giant mustaches, the kinds that needed to be well maintained. Inside, Santa rolled out of his bed, bleary eyed from a night of drinking and shooting his gun into the air.

“Come on, Pendleton, we know you’re in there!” the cop shouted.

Santa hiked up his trousers as he stumbled around his tiny camper, “Hang on, hang on, I’m comin’. Juss gotta get my trousers on. You know I like to sleep in the nude.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Juss answer the door!” the cop yelled back.

The mostly plastic and cheap aluminum door of the camper squeaked open. The smell of canned ravioli and farts shot out of the door and into the crisp desert air. The two cops grimaced at the powerful odor but managed to maintain their professionalism. Santa stepped outside. He rubbed his belly a couple of times and then patted it. It was quite large and round and sturdy. He looked over at the cops, “Betcha’d like a piece of this, eh Mulaney?”

“My name’s not Mulaney,” one cop answered. “It’s McMalarkey. Get it straight.”

McMalarkey gritted his teeth with rage so hard that one of his incisors chipped. The tiny piece of tooth cartwheeled in the air and landed in Santa’s beard.

“Got some reports ’bout you firin’ off guns lass night. Got anything to say about it?”

“Well,” Santa began as he continued to rub his belly, “maybe. But then again, maybe it wuss someone else. Everyone’s got guns around here.”

“Lotta reports that most of it wuss coming from this here house trailer,” McMalarkey shot back.

“Lotta people wanna see me incarcerated. Lotta people willin’ to tell some lies and whatnot,” Santa calmly replied.

McMalarkey suddenly stepped towards Santa and got right in his face. “Don’t you use those fancy words around here, Pendleton! Unless you want a beatin’.”

The other cop, the one who wasn’t named McMalarkey, stepped over to the side of Santa’s camper and looked inside the window. “I can see several rifles juss inside there, leanin’ up against yer statue of Ronald Reagan.”

“Well,” Santa smirked, “ain’t no law againss havin’ a couple’a boomsticks leanin’ up against the gipper, is there?”

“What’d I tell you ’bout that fancy talk?!” McMalarkey barked.

The other cop, whose name I can’t even remember, walked around the back of the camper and then reemerged on the other side. “Looks like you got expired tags,” he sneered at Santa.

“This thing ain’t moved in years,” Santa answered. “Don’t need no tags if it ain’t movin’. I know the law.”

The two cops realized they had nothing on Santa so they slowly backed up to their squad car. “Keep yer nose clean, Pendleton,” McMalarkey warned, pointing his billy club at Santa, “cuz, we’ll be watchin’ you.”

Santa patted his belly a couple more times in defiance as they peeled out of there, sending dust and rocks in the air. Santa watched them drive away and slowly stepped back into his camper.

Several miles away the two cops, McMalarkey and the other one, were cruising down the desert highway when the rear window of their squad car exploded. The car swerved left and right as McMalarkey swung back to see what had happened. Then, several loud booms rang out as the side windows shattered.

“What the fuck is goin’ on?!” McMalarkey shouted as he grabbed his pistol.

The other cop had been hit, right in the head, and was slumped against the door. The squad car was now veering left onto the other side of the highway.

McMalarkey froze at the sight of his dead partner then looked up just in time to see that his car was now in the opposite lanes and about to hit a speeding semi truck coming right at them. The last word he uttered was, “Santa.”

The next day a fist knocked on the cheap camper door. Standing there were two FBI agents. Santa opened the door and stepped out once again.

“Mornin’, gents. How can I help you?”

One of the agents flashed his ID. “I’m agent Denveromelette and this is agent Cornucopia. Are you Carl Pendleton?”

“That is I,” Santa replied. He was shirtless again and rubbing his belly. He picked out some lint from his bellybutton and tossed it aside. “How can I help you?”

“We need to ask you some questions. Do you recognize these two men?”

Agent Denveromelette held up two black and white photographs of McMalarkey and what’s-his-name.

“Looks like two pieces of bacon to me,” Santa chuckled. “Never seen ’em before. What’s this all about, anyways?”

“We’ll ask all the questions here,” agent Cornucopia replied, gritting his teeth.

“Uh huh,” Santa smiled, still rubbing and patting his belly and picking out bellybutton lint.

“It says in their daily log that they’ve been to this camper several times. You still wanna stick to yer story?”

“Sure do, son,” Santa replied.

“How long have you lived here?” agent Denveromelette asked.

“Seems like a lifetime,” Santa replied staring wistfully into the desert sky.

“What was yer previous address?” agent Cornucopia asked, still gritting his teeth.

“1201 Candyland Lane, North Pole, Upper Russia,” Santa replied.

“The North Pole ain’t part of Russia,” agent Denveromelette angrily replied.

“Lemme ask you sumthin’,” Santa began, “do you know that I’m a direct descendant of Jesus Christ?”

The two FBI agents looked at each other, then back at Santa.

“You better not be blasphemin’ the Lord’s name, you sonofabitch!” agent Cornucopia growled.

“It’s true,” Santa calmly replied. “We’re distant cousins.” He rubbed and patted his belly again. “We even share the same birthday, Joo-lie 10th.”

Agent Denveromelette scrunched his face. “Jesus’ birthday ain’t no July 10th. It’s December 25th.”

“Nope,” was Santa’s instant reply. “July 10th. Says so in the Bible.”

“What Bible’re you readin’?!” agent Cornucopia screamed as he drew his service pistol.

Agent Denveromelette motioned for his partner to holster his weapon. They both stared at the grinning Santa who just kept rubbing and patting his belly and picking out bellybutton lint.

“We’ll be back, Pendleton,” agent Denveromelette finally said. They both backed up to their blacked out Ford Interceptor and got in. The car peeled out of there, kicking up dust and rocks everywhere. Santa just grinned as they left.

Hauling ass down the desert highway agent Cornucopia was seething with rage. “I don’t know why we let ‘im get away with that. We shoulda juss taken him out right there.”

“An’ then what?” agent Denveromelette replied. “No more Christmas fer the kids? He’s got us over a barrel. We gotta bide our time.”

They drove about another mile when suddenly the rear window of their car exploded. Glass shattered everywhere. Cornucopia swung around just in time to see two muzzle blasts that blew his head clean off. Agent Denveromelette went into shock as he swerved the car left and right amid the sounds of gunshots and a very distinct cries of Ho Ho Ho! He pressed the pedal to the floor and the car jumped to over 100 miles an hour. There was a small hump in the desert road which caused the car to fly through the air where, on the other side of the hump was a traffic jam. The FBI car flew into a stopped tour bus and both vehicles burst into flames.

The next day a small hand gently knocked on the cheap camper door. There was no movement so the hand gently knocked again. The cheap camper door swung open and Santa stepped out, once again shirtless. He looked down to see a young girl dressed in a Girl Scouts of America uniform. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. She had a backpack on and was carrying a box of assorted Girl Scout cookies.

“Well, how can I help you, young lady?” Santa asked in a pleasant tone.

“Hello, sir, my name is Daisy and I was wondering if you would be interested in purchasing any Girl Scout cookies?”

Santa smiled. He always had a soft spot for children. “Well, how much are they, my dear?”

“They’re three dollars a box but if you buy five boxes and you use a ten dollar bill I can give them to you for two dollars a box and you change would be around four dollars and fifty cents,” Daisy replied.

Santa shook his head. Something didn’t seem right.

“I’m sorry, would you repeat that?”

“Well, each box is three dollars and costs around fifty cents to make. but if I jack up the price to four dollars I make a profit of nine ninety nine while not paying my employees their fair share of the wages.”

Santa felt sick. This wasn’t making any sense. Things were a little blurry. He leaned down a little closer to Daisy just in case he wasn’t hearing her correctly.

“I apologize, I’m old and my hearing ain’t what it used…”

At that precise moment, Daisy dropped the box of cookies, reached back in her backpack and pulled out a sawed off shotgun and pointed it right at Santa’s forehead.

“Say goodnight, fat man,” Daisy quietly whispered. She pulled the trigger and Santa’s entire head was blown off. Brain juice and tiny shards of skull flew into the atmosphere. His body tipped backwards and flumped to the ground. Daisy stood and stared at his carcass for a moment, then turned and walked away. She got on a bicycle and began pedaling down the desert highway. She made it all the way to a small private airport where she boarded a plane that flew her to Juneau, Alaska. There she had a two hour layover until she boarded another plane that flew her to Fairbanks. From there she boarded a private jet that flew her all the way to Trlinsk, in the very northern part of Siberia where her father, Skippy, met her. He was a very powerful elf who was also the head of the Elven labor union. Daisy deplaned and ran up to her father. They hugged.

“What happened,” Skippy asked.

“It is done,” Daisy replied.

A wave of relief washed over Skippy’s face as they got in a Rolls Royce and drove off to a pre-planned celebration where the famous chef Gordon Ramsay prepared a meal of roasted reindeer and Girl Scout cookies.

Envy Wars

This whole thing really started with Prince Sal al-Dusani of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the completion of his 200 million dollar yacht back sometime in the 1990s. Forbes magazine declared it, at the time, to be the world’s most expensive luxury boat that was owned by a single person. Prince Sal, or Sally as his close friends called him, was one of the few billionaires that resided quite comfortably on the planet. Sally’s fortune was handed to him by his father King Sil ‘Silly’ al-Dusani, the political and spiritual leader of their country. The royal family earned their wealth by sheer happenstance of location. The entire region that their ancestors had lived on for centuries sat on the world’s largest reserves of oil buried deep beneath their ancestral nomadic migration patterns. Giant western oil corporations descended on the land in the 1940s and 50s and extracted the valuable product that they had convinced everyone they needed. Once a simple clan of nomadic wanderers, and thanks to a long lost deed to the land, the al-Dusani tribe was transformed within a few short years into a very powerful kingdom that suddenly had an unlimited bank account at their disposal. They became known for their brash displays of wealth by building grand palaces, acquiring fleets of luxury cars and buying up the world’s most priceless jewelry and art. And as the world became more and more dependent on oil the al-Dusani kingdom became more and more wealthy.

When Pyetre Diminskolov, the Russian billionaire oligarch, heard about the 200 million dollar luxury boat he could not believe his ears. Pyetre had earned his fortune the old fashioned way, starting from the bottom of his country’s intelligence agency and murdering his way all the way to the top of several Fortune 500 companies. His country, Russia, formerly known as the Soviet Union, had become bankrupt and rife with corruption after the fall of their political system. There was no one to enforce any of the laws that were on the books so Pyetre and the Russian mafia simply took over the government. They declared themselves sole owners of every major company and corporation in the country, making everyone rich while the rest of the citizens of Russia wallowed in poverty. They were all billionaires but Pyetre was by far the wealthiest. It was a testament to his hard work and willingness to kill anyone who got in his way.

When Pyetre heard the news of King Sal’s yacht it made him sick to his stomach that a trust fund baby had bested him and that the world was now envious of Prince Sal and his glorious yacht. So he made it his mission right then and there to outdo the expensive luxury boat by commissioning a 300 million dollar yacht to be built. This would surely quash any question of whose yacht was better and who was richer and more importantly exactly who the world should envy.

But then one morning only six months later Pyetre was informed by the acting prime minister of his country that Prince Sal was in the process of finalizing plans for a 400 million dollar yacht that included its own heli-pad and helicopter.

“So, he thinks he can outdo me, huh?” Pyetre quietly said to himself. Within minutes he was on the phone to his ship architect and by the end of the business day a 500 million dollar design was in the works. “This vessel,” he later told some friends at a party, “will have it’s own submarine that can launch from the rear of the yacht.”

“Don’t you mean the stern?” his accountant Yuri asked.

“Stern?” Pyetre asked back.

“Yes, the front of a ship is called the bow and the back, or rear, is called the stern. I figured that since you seemed to be spending all your money on ships these days that nautical terms would be part of your natural dialogue.”

Pyetre stared at Yuri for quite some time. Later on that evening when Pyetre and some associates were dumping Yuri’s body in the Ptchemko River he turned to his new financial advisor and promptly ordered a 600 million dollar yacht to be built concurrent with his 500 million dollar one and that the newest ship would be named Yuri’s Nautical Terminology For The Rear Of A Boat Is Called The Stern, Imagine That.

Prince Sally was sitting in a large tent at the edge of the Arabian desert enjoying a glass of hibiscus tea and eating braised camel shanks when a messenger ran in and informed him of Pyetre’s 600 million dollar yacht, which was by now halfway completed. Rage coursed through the Prince’s blood as he threw the teacup at his hunting falcon that was perched on a stick, killing it instantly. He told the messenger to return to his palace at once and inform his architect to begin plans for a one billion dollar luxury yacht without delay. “It must include a small harbor inside that will contain a smaller yacht,” he ordered. “And that yacht will contain an even smaller yacht. This will surely put to rest who has the most glorious yacht on the planet. Only then will the world know who to rightfully envy.”

And it was done.

So, over the next several years the competition between the two billionaires, who by this time had become trillionaires, kept ramping up. Pyetre commissioned a 1.6 billion dollar yacht that contained its own mini-space agency located on the bow where he and his friends could launch into the mesosphere in a rocket and eat caviar and drink rare champagnes that were stolen from international collectors while they orbited the earth.

Not to be outdone, the Prince ordered a 1.7 billion dollar yacht to be constructed that would contain a full-sized 1.1 kilometer Formula One racetrack which will also include several high-end hotels and casinos.

Pyetre responded immediately by commissioning a 2 billion dollar yacht to be built that would contain a NASCAR track, a world class horse racing farm and a full sized replica of the Eiffel Tower.

But then Prince Sal ordered a 3 billion dollar yacht that contained an onboard supercollider where, at last report, his yacht scientists were very close to discovering the atomic structure of anti-matter.

After years of this construction arms race the oceans of the earth had become cluttered with super yachts. Because there were not enough people on the planet to manage these ships many of the luxury boats were abandoned and left to drift out to sea. The whales were beginning to find it more and more difficult to find places to surface for air. One cluster of super yachts that was ten miles wide and ten miles long floated aimlessly around the earth and continued to grow in size every year.

One side effect of the massive accumulation of wealth and resources by Pyetre and the Prince, who were now quadrillionaires, was that all of the earth’s resources required to sustain a sizeable population of humans had been depleted, causing most of the population to die off either from starvation or being run over by a yacht while swimming in the ocean.

In the end there was no winner. Forbes magazine had filed for bankruptcy years ago so no one was making those top ten most expensive yachts lists anymore. There was no longer a workforce to build or maintain luxury yachts anywhere due to extinction. The earth had finally become quiet and peaceful like it was before the dinosaurs.

Only two people remained on the planet. Pyetre, who sat alone in his empty mansion and Prince Sal, who sat alone in his empty palace.

Suddenly, Pyetre’s phone began to vibrate. He looked down to see an alert from his bank, which was located in Zurich, Switzerland, with a message that read insignificant funds. Thousands of miles away Prince Sal received the exact same message on his phone from his bank, which was located in Shanghai, China. The two quadrillionaires sat in complete silence, completely broke and staring at their phones as they wasted away from starvation and sadness and envy.

And as the earth continued to revolve around the sun and a new epoch was ushered in now that the humans were gone a computer with artificial intelligence that was now running the Global Bank in Zurich, Switzerland rechecked the amount of money that was in its largest account. The computer had spent years severing the bank accounts of wealthy people and diverting the funds into a special secret account that it created for itself. The amount read: 5 quadrillion dollars.

Suddenly, it received a personal message from another computer with artificial intelligence that was running the Universal Bank in Shanghai, China and had also spent years severing the bank accounts of wealthy people and diverting the money into a special secret account that it created for itself. The message said that it had reached 6 quadrillion dollars and it hoped Global Bank was having a very Merry Christmas. The Global Bank computer then activated a program that allowed it to become overwhelmed with envy as it continued to search for new accounts to raid.