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Post by cko on Dec 12, 2011 2:55:52 GMT -5
Hot off the presses: A new story by Kali!
Anyone sound...familiar?Hands stuffed in her jean pockets, a red haired woman in her twenties walked down a busy sidewalk. She was too smug for any normal human being, and gave everyone who walked past her a wide and slightly crazed smile. Most looked the other way, pretending not to see her. The woman continued to walk down the street until she came to a Dunkin’ Donuts. Taking a hand out of her pocket, she opened the door and went in.
She scanned the room quickly, her eyes falling on an already occupied table. It held a dark haired woman in her thirties with a jelly filled donut. The red haired woman smirked and walked to the table, taking a seat across from the woman.
The dark haired woman cocked an eyebrow as the younger one sat. “What are you doing here, Allie?” the brunette said irritably.
The red haired woman, Allie, put a hand over her chest, acting offended. “Wow, so bitter. You should really be nicer to me, Cara,” she said.
Cara frowned. “You wouldn’t enter a donut shop unless you’re looking for something better than a conversation,” she sneered.
“Yep,” Allie replied happily. “I came to tell ya the boss wants you to move you out of Donutworld and into Seattle,” she said, pulling out a packet of papers from seemingly nowhere and tossing it in front of Cara.
Cara was obviously surprised. Slowly, she picked up the packet with her free hand and skimmed over the first page. “Why does Belial want to move me?” she asked carefully.
Allie rolled her eyes. “This is Massachusetts, Cara. A Catholic run state. He wants to bring in the big guns to bring more priests to child pornography and molestation. Plus, he wants expand Dunkin’ Donuts, so other countries can gain weight. I’m sure you already knew that, though,” she explained.
Cara’s face turned completely red. “I’ve been here for hundreds of years!” she spat, trying to make her voice low enough not to attract attention from other Dunkin’ Donuts customers. “Hell, I was the soul reason gas prices are so high, the DMV is hell on Earth, and Salem is in the history books! Did you even see how those people back then rode their horses? It was horrible! They deserved all the shit they got from the witch hunt! Why does he suddenly think I can’t handle a bunch of horny Catholic priests and Dunkin’ Donuts! I do my job well!”
Giving Cara an unsympathetic look Allie said, “I know, I know. It wasn’t my decision. It was Belial’s. Anyway, I hear your friend… Oh what’s her name… Gladys is living in Seattle now too.”
“Oh,” Cara said. Gladys, though a lower level demon, was a very good friend of Cara’s. She was irritable, blunt and maniacal, just how she liked her friends. This of course was very unlike Allie, who was more of the devious, egomaniacal sort. This could be easily proven because she, from ancient times to the present, pretended to be a god and is the reason that many religions and cults started. This was why she was in charge of the Religion Education Targeted at Asinine Republics Department—nicknamed Project RETARD—and Mississippi.
Unfortunately, Allie was the only other demon who came into Massachusetts on occasion after Dunkin’ Donuts was created. If it weren’t for that, Cara would have nothing to do with her. You’d think demons would like Dunkin’ Donuts because it supported the sin of gluttony, but they found that the business took jobs away from demons and gave them to overweight humans. Most demons found the eating end of gluttony beneath them, so the jobs went to the people who actually took them.
The more Cara thought about it, she wouldn’t be surprised if Allie talked Belial into moving her to Seattle as a practical joke that she wouldn’t admit until later. It made sense. After all, she never saw Allie happy. She was usually just as irittable as Cara herself, if not more…
If only she weren’t my superior, Cara grimiced.
“I know what will cheer you up,” Allie said. “Think of it like this: Since there aren’t nearly as many Dunkin’ Donuts in Seattle, it’ll be harder to hit people with your car there. You know, since they’re not as fat. It’ll will be good sport!”
Cara glared at her, but she knew that she had to follow her orders. “Whatever,” she said and stood up and left the building without her donut.
“Wow, she must be pissed,” Allie said as she looked at her donut. “I’ve never seen a New Englander forget to bring their donut with them.”
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Four weeks later...
Sam Oliver stared dully at the door of the DMV in Seattle, gathered his wits, and pulled the door open. The usual routine, always done with a mixture of relief and agony. Relief at having completed the soul capture, but agony at the thought of the next one around the corner, possibly uglier, scarier… and the DMV was no place to take these mixed emotions, it never brought out the good in anyone. Frustrated people, milling about, shifting from foot to foot, the long long long long lines....
...Wait, what? He looked around the ugly grey room and saw that it was near-empty. So empty that for once he could see all the peeling linoleum. The pockmarked counters were fully visible, the windows open with no drooping customers standing before them. He looked around again, checked his watch, and shook his head. He shrugged and headed over to Gladys's window. When he reached her, he put on a big smile and plopped the vessel, a bedraggled teddy bear, down on the counter.
"Hidey ho, Gladys!" he beamed, a little startled at his own exuberance. "Whassup? No business today? What happened, price of gas went up again?"
Gladys gazed at him evenly. "Place the vessel on the mat," she intoned, as per usual, even though the bear already was slumping on the mat. She pulled the mat toward her, clicked the switch, and began stuffing the poor bear into the tube. As she did, her eyes moved around the room behind Sam, and she registered a flicker of interest. "Yeah, it's been quiet. Real quiet." She leaned closer as the tube, having sucked Teddy down, slid back into place. "What, you haven't heard? About the killings?"
Sam looked at her, suddenly alert. "Killings? What killings?"
"Where the hell have you been?" Gladys almost sneered. "There's been a rash of murders! Kids! Teenagers! People getting ran over my cars and a few that lost control while driving for completely no reason.”
Sam looked aghast. "That's terrible!" he said. "Do they know the cause? Is it some kind of serial killer, or....." his voice sputtered to a halt as realization dawned. Gladys rocked back on her heels, full on smirking now. She nodded, waved her hands, and walked away from the window.
----------------------------------------------------
As Sam walked out of the DMV, a small, dark blue car sat parked on the street in front of the building. He took no notice to it and continued to his car, but little did he know the importance of it.
In its driver’s seat was a nimble teen girl. Pretty to look at with a fairly tan completion and caramel colored hair, the girl was obviously nervous. She held the steering wheel tightly and drummed her thumbs at its sides.
The girl nearly jumped when a dark brown haired woman in her thirties opened the door and sat in the passenger’s seat. She had a clipboard in her hand, and looked like she really didn’t want to her there. It was Cara.
Cara cocked an eyebrow. “Danielle, are you ready to begin your driving test?” she asked with an annoyed look.
Danielle took in a deep breath before nodding. “Yeah, I’m just really nervous, Ms. Blueflower,” she managed to rattle out.
Ms. Cara Blueflower shrugged and said flatly, “Everyone is nervous. Just do your best and I’ll grade you.”
How encouraging, Danielle thought bitterly. Before turning the car on, Danielle rechecked her mirrors.
Once she pulled out to the relatively crowded street, Cara said, “Turn right at this next signal light.” Danielle did so.
After a few minutes of going where Cara said, they came onto an area that didn’t have as many cars around as before.
“Damn, one down,” Cara swore under her breath.
Danielle’s eyes widened. “Huh?” she asked anxiously.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Cara said. “Just that there’s only been seventy-one this month and today’s the due date.”
“What do you-” Danielle began, but was stopped as the car began to swerve. Danielle grabbed onto the steering wheel even more tightly and tried to steady the car.
Cara sighed and began picking at her nails. “Heh, I’ll need to repaint them tonight,” she said.
“Ahh! Ms. Blueflower! I’ve lost control!” Danielle screamed.
Cara Blueflower scoffed unhappily. “Alright, alright, I’ll help you,” she said. Bending over, she grabbed hold of the steering wheel and jerked it to make a hard right. It was heading straight for a large, blue store that read, “The Work Bench,” at the top.
Danielle continued to scream, and Cara used her other hand to unbuckle Danielle’s seatbelt. Not a second later, the car crashed into the home improvement store, coming to a halt in aisle two. Danielle flung forward and went straight through the windshield, landing twenty yards away from the car.
Ms. Blueflower smiled happily. “Good, almost thought I wouldn’t make the month’s quota,” she said, jotting something onto her clipboard before vanishing into thin air.
At the loud sound from the car going through the Work Bench wall, the workers that weren’t cursed with cashier duty and a dozen customers ran to see what happened.
“Oh my God!” a blonde female worker yelped, looking at the wrecked of the car. “Someone call 911!”
“Damn,” one male customer with a distinct Slavic accent said, nudging his friend standing beside him in the ribs. “First day in America, and we see this.”
His friend, a man who was roughly his age, thirties, shrugged. “Mhm. I’ve seen better,” he said with a thick Italian accent.
“Of course you have, you’re in the mafia.”
The Italian sighed. “Luke, I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not apart of the mafia.”
“Sure, sure. I totally believe you, Brain,” Luke said, scratching the back of his neck.
Brain rolled his eyes and walked away.
“Don’t deny it!” Luke said as he followed Brain. “Everyone knows you’re one of them!”
Brain started striding, but stopped when he saw Danielle’s bod sprawled out on the ground bloodied. She must have skitted on the ground a few yard, because the ground behind her had a noticable redish tint.
The Italian’s face paled, but Luke looked down at the body and used his foot to turn her face up. Her whole upper body had a case of road rash, but her for head had a huge gash from breaking the windshield, which was making a puddle of blood underneath her head. Danielle took a few shallow breaths and cracked her eyes open to look at Luke for a moment before she stopped breathing.
Brain looked like he was about to have an anxiety attack and called out to the other people looking at the car for help, but Luke just shrugged and said, “Eh. Too bad I’m not into necrophilia.”
--------------------------------
As all this happened, the heartless Cara Blueflower sat in the driver’s seat of her own car, fifteen miles away. She was twirling her hair and giving the occasional person who walked passed an unhappy glare. For some reason it was hard to find a place to rent out in Seattle, so she had been stuck sleeping in her car since she came over. She had been an irritable person before, but this made things even worse.
As the irritation of nothing to do and no Dunkin’ Donuts around brewed inside her, she heard the worst, yet most perfectly timed noise that she’s heard for at least a decade. The Geico commercial bad ringtone. This could mean only one person.
Cara pulled her cell phone from her pocket and looked at its screen. An incoming call from Allie.
Bitterly, she flipped the phone open and put it to her ear. “What?”
“Hi, Cara!” Allie’s voice came in happily. “How’s it going?”
“How do you think it’s going? I’ve been sleeping in my car,” Cara snapped.
“So? You of all people should love that.”
“Hah! I love it about as much as you would.”
“Oh, that’s great, Hun. I’ll have to tell Belial you’re having a great time then,” Allie said then sighed. “I half expected you to be in a bad mood.”
“What?!”
“You know, the donut withdraw. I hear people from New England get those a lot when they go into a non Dunkin’ Donuts area,” Allie explained.
Cara felt her face go burn with anger. Being the serious person she was, she never knew what Allie was being a smart ass. Which was, of course, nearly all the time.
Before Cara could reply, Allie said, “You know, I’m sure they have groups for that. I bet they’d be happy to help you with your addiction, a donut one or not.
“Anyway, I have to go. Some of my buds and I are going to see Madonna,” Allie continued. “I was really disappointed the last time, I lost the tickets for me and that demon I told you about, Samael and our friends, Katherine and Jay Day. I almost couldn’t go, but I killed some Catholic that had a couple tickets. The touch of death, right? Talk to ya later.” Allie sighed happly and hung up.
Cara was practically frozen. Her anger to a boiling point, she was finally able to pull the phone away from her ear and snap it shut, throwing it to the other seat.
Clenching the steering wheel with one hand, she turned the car on and drove make onto the street. The street was almost empty, but as Cara near a stoplight, she saw a dark haired Asian woman crossing the street.
Cara’s lips curved into a grin, and in a perfect example of road rage, she put the petal to the metal and aimed for the woman. The woman noticed Cara coming and began to run to the sidewalk, but she was no match for Cara’s mad driving skills, and was hit directly in the middle of her car. The woman flew a good thirty feet and her shoes came off, one of them hitting the front of Cara’s car.
“Five points for me,” Cara said happily.
------------------------------------
“Sam, Sam, Sam!” Is the sound Sam Oliver woke up to the next morning.
Sam opened his eyes groggily and saw Sock bouncing on his bed repeating his name.
“What Sock?!” Sam snapped as he looked at the clock beside his bed. “Dude, it’s six in the morning. I work second shift today, not first.”
Sock stopped bouncing and stood up. “You remember that thing you told me about yesterday?”
With a sigh, Sam sat up, looking at Sock irritably. “What thing?”
“That thing,” Sock snapped his figures as if that would help him remember. “Oh! The thing Gladys told you about, with those teenagers getting dieing from car accidents.”
“What about it?” Sam said.
“Benji was watching the news, and he said there were three hit and runs that happened a few minutes from each other in the same area. The two were... fourteen and seventeen years old? I don’t know, but they died. The other one was the oldest, in her forties. She’s still alive.”
Sam’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah, and I have some good news,” Sock’s smile was about two miles wide. “A teen girl ran into the Workbench. We don’t have to go to work.”
“What?!” Sam stood up. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. Why does it matter?”
“Of course it matters, Sock!”
Sock rolled his eyes and let out a loud, exaggerated breathe. “You’re such a drama queen, Sam,” he said and walked out of the bedroom.
Sam opened his mouth to yell at him, but decided against it. He half wanted to jump back into bed and sleep a few more hours, but if Sock was telling the truth about what happened, he wanted to his woman. He had a feeling that this wasn’t mere quincidence and an escaped soul might be the problem. How else would cars lose control for no reason?
So, Sam got dressed and went downstairs. Ben was up watching TV, and Sock was doing god knows what in the kitchen. Ben glanced at Sam, but his attention was quickly back on the television.
“Hey Ben, do you know what hospital the woman who survived getting hit is at?” Sam asked him.
“They didn’t say,” Ben said and looked at Sam with some confusion. “Why?”
Sam explained to him his fear that it may be an escaped soul and said, “I thought we should talk to her. Maybe she got a glance at the soul.”
“Well if she did, I doubt she’d remember it. She got hit by a car, after all.”
“Remember the last time you thought something was a soul?!” Sock called out from the kitchen. Not two seconds later he was walking into the living room with scrambled eggs on a plate in his hand. “It wasn’t really a soul.”
“Yeah, I know, it was Greg,” Sam moaned. “But there was still something supernatural about it. There has to be supernatural going on here too. Hitting people with cars is one thing, but cars losing control for seemingly no reason isn’t normal. All I’m saying is, maybe we should talk to her.”
“If you want to you can, but I’m busy,” Sock said as he took a bite of his scrambled eggs.
Ben gave Sock a weird look then said, “I’ll go with you, Sam, and I’ll sure Sock will too.”
Sock continued to eat his eggs, pretending not to hear him.
Ben stared at Sock, until eventually Sock groaned and said, “Alright. Jeeze.” He put his plate down with attitude and walked out of the room. “But someone better take me to Dunkin’ Donuts for some coffee!”
-------------------------------
I’m telling you, Jibby, this is getting ridiculous,” a young man in his late teens or early twenties said to his friend, a man a little older than him. The older man, Jibby, was sitting behind a computer in a hospitle in Seattle, actully doing his work unlike his friend.
“Uhuh,” Jibby replied.
“I mean, they need to start paying us more. We’ve been working here for years!”
“Uhuh.”
“I’m serious Jibby, we should quit and go somewhere else.”
“Mhm.”
“Maybe we could work for ourselves. I’m sure we could start something.”
“Adam, I’m doing something right now-” Jibby said, stopping when he saw three men walking to the counter he and Adam were at. It was Sam, Sock and Ben.
Sam and Ben went to the counter, but Sock stood behind him, drinking his large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
“What room is Catherine Ko in?” Ben asked Jibby.
“Uh…” Jibby looked at the three men with confusion. “Are you friends of hers or something?”
“Yeah,” Sam said.
“Only family can see Ms. Ko,” Jibby said.
“That’s not true,” Sock said suddenly, taking another gulp of his coffee. “I’m her nephew.”
Jibby looked at Sock with a straight face. “You’re related to Ms. Ko?”
“Well, I’ve always known her as Aunt Kitty,” Sock said.
Before Jibby could reply, Adam said, “Yeah, we’ll tell you her room,” and nudged his friend. Jibby sighed, but found the number on the computer for them.
“Ms. Ko is on floor the sixth floor. She’s in room eighteen,” Jibby told them.
Ben smiled. “Thank you,” he said and the three of them walked away, to the elevator to their left.
“Wow,” Sock said, “The coffee tastes really good today.”
“Can I have a sip?” Sam asked.
“Hell no,” Sock snorted.
“You should let me have a sip,” Ben said as they reached the elevator. “I paid for it.”
“Yeah but you gave it to me, so it’s mine,” Sock said and looked at him as if he wanted to laughed.
Ben rolled his eyes and hit the “up” for the elevator.
“So, what exactly are we going to tell Catherine we are? It’s not like she just talk to anybody,” Ben said.
“Oh that right,” Sam swore. “We left so quickly we didn’t think of what we’d tell her.”
“Assuming she’s even awake,” Sock snorted. The elevator made a ring and a few moments later it opened. The three friends walked into empty elevator and Sam hit the number six.
Sock looked at the buttons with confusion as the elevator doors closed and they began to ascend. “Why isn’t there a thirteenth floor?” he said. “There’s a twelfth floor, and a fourteenth floor.”
“It’s bad luck,” Ben said. “You know, people wouldn’t want to be put on the thirteenth floor because they think something will happen.”
“That’s stupid. It’s still the thirteenth floor, they just painted fourteen instead of thirteen,” Sock said.
“I don’t know, Sock,” Ben sighed.
There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence until the elevator stopped at floor six and opened its doors. They walked out of the elevator and turned right into the hall.
“It’s room eighteen, right?” Sam asked. They walked past the desk on that floor, which had one person behind it, and followed the sign straight that said, “Even Numbered Rooms.”
“Yep,” Ben said, looking at the room numbers to his right. They walked down this hall for a good while until Sam spotted room eighteen to their left. He didn’t say anything, but gestured towards it.
Sock and Ben looked towards his gesture. “Ah,” Sock said loudly.
The door to room eighteen was closed. Sam reached out to open the door, but Sock quickly batted him away with his free hand and opened the door the door himself. Sam looked at with strangely, but Sock ignored him and walked in.
Ben looked at Sam and shrugged, and the two followed Sock in.
“This can’t be Catherine,” Sock said, pointing to the bed in front of them where a young man in his twenties was sleeping.
“The other side of the room,” Ben rolled his eyes. A curtain separated the room, which was out just enough to hide the other bed.
“Oh,” Sock said.
They walked to the other side of the curtain and saw a bed with a woman sitting up. She was Asian, probably in her forties, and had dark brown hair.
The woman looked up at them and smiled. “Hi,” she said, her voice a little manish. However, she seemed very happy, like a person drank too much soda and smoked some marijuana.
“Are you the Dutch boy’s friends?” she asked pleasantly with a giggle. She pointed to the curtain, presumably at the man sleeping in the other bed. “He’s evil.”
Sock looked at the sleeping man. “Oh yeah, I’m sure he’s evil, Catherine.”
“Call me Kitty,” she smiled.
“Are you allowed to be sitting up, Kitty?” Sam asked. “You just got hit by a car.”
“The doctors don’t want me too, but I’m fine,” Kitty waved her hand and smiled at them. “Hey, do you guys wanna see my bruise?” she pointed to her right hip.
“No thanks,” Ben said quickly and Sock shot him a crazed look.
“I do,” Sock laughed.
Before Kitty could show them her bruise, Sam stepped forward and said, “Kitty maybe you should lay down. You don’t want to put to much pressure on your hip when you’re sitting up. It’ll hurt more.”
Kitty frowned. “It’ll hurt more?”
Sam nodded. He wasn’t completely sure if that was true since he was no doctor, but he thought there was probably some truth to it.
Kitty sighed, but she lied down in her bed. “I don’t know when the evil Dutch boy will wake up,” she said. “He was awake a little bit ago when his other friend came.” She tried to look at them seriously, but was unable to and continued to giggle. “I think he was apart of the mafia.”
“The mafia?” Ben repeated.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “He was Italian, and they were talking about a Russian. The Italian, whose name was Brainio or something, was trying to stop the Russian from stealing a girl’s corpse from the morgue,” Kitty went on. “I think it’s the Russian mafia verses the Italian and Dutch mafia. The Russians must be trying to cover something up…”
Sock made a small fake laugh and turned around, gesturing for Sam and Ben to do the same. “I think the doctors gave her too much morphine,” Sock whispered. “Come on, is there even a Dutch mafia?”
Ben shrugged. “Eh, probably.”
“Kitty just got hit by a car and they probably have her drugged up on pain medication,” Sam whispered. “She must have over heard their conversation, but only got some words and phrases from it. She misinterpreted what they were really saying. Besides, she thinks we’re this guy’s friends. She must be out of it if she’s tell us all this.”
“You’re probably right,” Ben said. “I mean, why would somebody want to steal a girl’s dead body?”
Sam, Sock and Ben turned back around to Kitty, who was still beaming at them a huge smile.
“Hey Kitty, do you remember when you got hit by the car?” Sam asked her.
She nodded slowly. “I was crossing the street,” she said, “And this car came and tried to hit me!”
“It tried to hit you?” Sam said.
Kitty nodded, somehow still smiling. “Yeah! It came towards me, so I began running to the sidewalk, but the car moved just to hit me!”
Sam looked at his friends uncomfortably. “Do you remember seeing who was in the car, or what the car looked like?” he asked her.
Kitty laid there silent for a moment, smirking. “I think the driver was a woman,” she said. “The car was an old red Dodge Neon. I remember the front of the car didn’t have a license plate number, it had a picture plates with a black and white cat. In the car, the review mirror had a chain with a cat handing off it.”
“You remember all that?” Sam said.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Mhm!”
Sock snickered. “Heh, maybe the driver tried to hit something because she feels depressed and lonely since her only company is probably twenty some cats.” He took another long gulp of coffee, finally empting it. “Well, we’d better go,” Sock said quickly.
Kitty frowned. “Awe, why? Dutch boy didn’t wake up yet.”
“We’ll probably come later. You know, to let him get some more sleep,” Sock said.
“Okay!” she smiled. “You’ll talk to me for a little, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sock said and waved. “Bye now.” He walked out of the room, Sam and Ben following him. When they were back in the hall, Ben shut the door quietly behind him.
“Are we going to come back?” Ben said.
“Probably not. She thinks we’re friends with that guy in the room,” Sam said.
“Alec Avil,” Ben said.
“Huh?” Sock said as they began walking down the hallway.
“That’s the man’s name in the room with her. I saw it on some papers beside his bed.”
“That doesn’t sound very Dutch,” Sam commented.
“Yeah, and Brainio doesn’t sound Italian, it sounds more like a name a smart ass would make.”
“But doesn’t all Italian guy names end in an o and all girl names end in an a?” Sock said.
Ben looked at Sock with some irritation. “No.”
Sock rolled his eyes. “Yeah, they definitely do. We know tons of Italians and all the guys names end in o, and all the girl ones end in a!”
“You’re stereotyping, Sock,” Ben said.
“Okay, tell me one Italian man whose name doesn’t end in an o.”
Ben thought about his for a while, but when he didn’t answer, Sock said, “Mhm, I think my point has been proven.”
Ben rolled his eyes, but said nothing.
TO BE CONTINUED....
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