hungry, no one’s safe. I’d eat my own dead granny.
I had been waiting in the alley behind Finn McCool’s Pub for at least an hour before the leprechaun appeared.
Flanagan isn’t your typical lep. First off, he’s not that short. Maybe five-foot-two in his pointy shoes. He’s broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and someone you don’t want to mess with. He also has the saltiest mouth in all the Five Cities of Pandemonium.
As he entered the alley, he sang:
“There once was a fellow McSweeney who spilled some gin on his weenie…”
With a large sack slung over his shoulder, he swaggered past the reeking dumpsters full of what must have been hundred-year-old cabbage.
“Just to be couth, he added vermouth. Then slipped his girlfriend a martini…”
“Sorry to interrupt that charming little ditty,” I said, slipping out of the shadows as I blew smoke out of all the holes in my face. All nine. Real bad-ass.
The lep stopped deader than my libido. Like I’d caught him bathing naked in his pot of gold. (Leprechauns don’t really have pots of gold, by the way, but they are known to carry sweet, sweet fairy dust, the closest thing to heaven in this godforsaken world. And Fine Flanagan had the finest.)
The sack jerked and the lep gripped it tighter.
“What’s in the bag, Flanny? Someone didn’t pay their vig?” I noticed the lep’s fashion sense had changed since I last saw him. He wore a green duster that hung to the ground, but there was no pointy hat on his head. His curly red hair blew in the wind. Leps love hats almost as much as their shoes. And his shoes, I noticed, weren’t even pointy. They were square-toed boots. What the holy heck?
“None of your fookin business,” the lep said. “Now, if you wouldn’t be minding, I have better tings to do than conversate with a zombie. I be needing to get to me apartment.” When the lep took a step forward, I blocked his way.
“Look, meat bag, I don’t be wanting any trouble tonight,” he said.
“No trouble. I’m just looking for dust.”
The lep exploded into laughter. He actually placed his hand over his belly. A real guffaw.
“You fookin dust head. Oh, Jackie boy, I thought maybe you was on a case. I should have known what you was after. All you zombies are the same. You people are the dumbest pieces of filth in Pandemonium. Just soulless, corpse-faced, brain-licking ghouls.”
I told you he had a mouth on him. “Nope. Never licked a brain. Total myth.”
“Mouth-breathing, empty-husk, meat-headed, motherless bags of bones, the whole lot of you.”
“Keep going.”
“You’re wasting me precious time.”
“Just a gram, Flanny. The hunger is starting to eat through my innards.”
“You have innards? Figured it’s all just sludge inside you by now. Like ya fookin brain.”
“The last time I went cold turkey, it ended real bad for some fairies. I went wilder on them than a pack of weres. I’m still not welcome in the Red Garden.”
“You ain’t threatening now, are you, ya dead dick?” He smiled, exposing the four or five teeth left in his mouth. I heard he was quite the boxer back in his day.
My hands shook and my bones rattled as I held them up. Flanny probably thought I was trying to conjure a demon. I dropped the hellfire stick and ground it out with my shoe. “I’m desperate.”
“Then you’re out of luck. I don’t deal anymore. I have new opportunities.”
There was a clink, like a glass bell, from inside the sack and then it shot up in the air. Flanagan nearly lost his grip but managed to pull the canvas bag back down. The lep shot me a look so dirty I thought of taking my first bath in seventy years.
“What’s in the sack, Flanny? A sentient beer keg?”
“None of ya fookin business, you filthy corpse.”
“Does Dana know what you’re up to?”
“Don’t you be talking about that blessed woman. This is none of ya business.”
“What if I told your leprechaun queen you were up to some unsavory stuff? She might just kick you out of the club. Unaffiliated leprechauns aren’t treated very well in Pandemonium, are they?”
The lep spit out a laugh like it was venom. “I don’t have to be worrying about that, zombie. You are the one who needs to worry. This is going to be your last night in Pandemonium.” The fairy swung the sack into my crotch. I flew into the wall, and Flanagan took off down the alley. Fortunately, I have a dulled sense of pain so I easily shook off the between-the-legs shot. (As for my zombie genital situation, the less said about that the better.) Still, something in me snapped. Maybe my hunger had reached its apex, or maybe I didn’t like the way he called me a filthy corpse. Either way, I pounced on him like a lycan on a moonpie. I don’t even remember feasting on the little guy, I was in such a blood frenzy. I do remember him tasting damn delicious, though, like smoked sausage and sweet beer. Then Oswald, Pandemonium’s most obnoxious creature and my associate, appeared out of nowhere.
I sat on the ground, gnawing on a leg bone when the alley filled with a blinding light. I continued eating. Like I said, it was damn good, and I hadn’t eaten in so long. The light died out and I saw the Studebaker—my Studebaker. The driver’s-side door opened and out slid the homunculus.
The little bugger stared at me, not saying a word, his X-shaped eyes unblinking. This was supposed to shame me. But I’m a revenant (which is a fancy way of saying zombie). I’m beyond shame.
I took a bite out of Flanagan’s calf. It was stringy, but I wasn’t complaining.
“I cannot express how very disappointed I am in you.” Oswald tried to sound tough, but when you’re all of eight inches and nothing but a marshmallow with a mouth, the effect is underwhelming. No one knows what Oswald is, or was. The best description I’ve come up with is a homunculus, which is another way for me to say I have no idea. I think I’d rather not know where he came from. It would most likely lead to trouble and Oswald is plenty of trouble already.
The sack rolled down the alley.
“What’s that?” Oswald said.
I licked the lep’s shin. Salty with just a hint of sweetness. It just made me hungrier.
“Hey, dummy!” Oswald shouted. “Let me remind you that you’re eating a leprechaun in the middle of Irish Town!”
I sprang up—as best a zombie can spring up, which meant I awkwardly repositioned my bones into a standing position. I stepped over to the sack and picked it up. I opened bag, but wasn’t prepared to find what I did.
Mr. Obvious said, “Is that a naked baby inside a glass jar?”
“I’m sorry for ever calling you a terrible detective, Oswald. You figured it out on the very first try.”
The dope smiled.
I stood the glass jar up. The baby looked at us with curious silver eyes.
“Maybe this is like those ships you find in bottles,” I said.
“How did you get in there, little guy?” Oswald asked.
The fact that he didn’t cry should have alarmed me, but I was still on a high from my leprechaun buffet. I wasn’t thinking straight.
The baby pointed at the top of the jar. He was a cute little fellow. Pink and soft and full of rolls. A mass of golden curls covered the top of his head.
The observant marshmallow said, “I think he wants you to remove the glass stopper and let him out.”
The fact that the baby didn’t pop off the glass stopper himself should have made me wonder, but Oswald distracted me with his prattling.
I removed the stopper.
The hole certainly didn’t seem big enough for a baby to fit through, even a naked one, but that didn’t stop him.
He slid out of the bottle like he was a piece of taffy. But instead of falling onto the ground as a normal baby would, he floated into the air. The large black wings that had unfurled from his back helped a lot with that, I think. The now-winged baby stopped just out of our reach, shot me a dirty look, gave me the finger, and disappeared into the blood-red sky of P
andemonium, going north. Bye-bye, evil baby.
I wasn’t able to conjure up one of my famous ripostes, though, because at that moment two irate leprechauns barreled towards us.
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About the Author
James Aquilone was raised on Saturday morning cartoons, comic books, sitcoms, and Cap'n Crunch. Amid the Cold War, he dreamed of being a jet fighter pilot but decided against the military life after realizing it would require him to wake up early. He had further illusions of being a stand-up comedian, until a traumatic experience on stage forced him to seek a college education. Brief stints as an alternative rock singer/guitarist and child model also proved unsuccessful. Today he battles a severe chess addiction while trying to write in the speculative fiction game.
His short fiction has been published in such places as Nature's Futures, The Best of Galaxy's Edge 2013-2014, Unidentified Funny Objects 4, and Weird Tales magazine. His first novel, Dead Jack and the Pandemonium Device, is available now. Suffice it to say, things are going much better than his modeling career.
James lives in Staten Island, New York, with his wonderful wife.
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