PART THE NINTH: THIS WAS A TRIUMPH
Holden adjusted his belt to accommodate his sudden increase in girth. Despite his elevated risk for heart disease and previously unknown ability to play the tuba, he was only about half as heavy as his partner Abe. At least Abe could blame most of his weight on the fact that he was a gorilla with a supernatural fondness for pizza. Their detective agency was already looking like a poorly conceived idea now that the novelty of an Irishman and a gorilla solving mysteries had worn off.
“Come on, Abe," he growled. "Stop fucking around with your go-kart. This case isn’t going to solve itself.”
Abe remained seated in his go-kart while making engine noises by blowing through his rubbery gorilla lips. “Don't care. Not a real case.”
Holden removed Abe’s signature stovepipe hat and slapped him across the face with it. “It’s a pilot case. Nobody’s going to hire us if we can’t even find where the hell Eva went.”
“To find a spastic, you gotta think like a spastic” Abe stroked his gorilla beard in contemplation, while absently turning the wheel of his go-kart to and fro and occasionally giving the toy horn a soft honk. "Where do spastics hang out?"
“On tumblr, bitching about the lack of diversity in skeleton colours.” Holden returned Abe’s hat to its rightful place atop the gorilla’s head. “Or else woggling violently on the floor like a cat in the presence of a banana.”
“Why would she be there?” Abe dropped a banana peel behind his stationary go-kart and flipped the bird at his imaginary pursuer.
“Because someone said something that upset her. It’s her only self-soothing mechanism aside from whispering sweet nothings into her bifocals.” Holden looked at the banana peel and wondered how Abe kept finding them.
“Who talks to Eva?” Despite its lack of initial momentum, The go-kart spun out of control and tipped over, sending Abe rolling across the pavement. “Fuck!”
“There’s me and that’s about it.” Holden twirled his moustache Irishly. “Except...of course! At school! Other people have to interact with her there. You’re a genius, Abe!”
Abe crushed the disobedient go-kart between his powerful gorilla hands and drank its hydrocarbon blood to gain its power. “Mystery solved.”
“Let’s go pick her up before she chokes to death on her bifocals or some shit. Corpses aren’t any fun unless they’re fresh.” Holden tossed a set of keys to Abe. “Ever driven a stolen ambulance?”
#gorillatheftauto #higherprimatesforhire #notyourmonkey
“To bee or not to bee, that is our question. Have you an answer?” Klaus’s unusually long forked tongue gently caressed his pepperoni nipples as he watched Eva frolic with her new bee friends.
“Not to bee! Not to bee! Oh God, please, not the bees!" Eva’s screams struggled from her bee-stung lungs and fought to push themselves free from between her bee-stung lips.
“Yesssss, we agree, no more. We feel that you’ve been triggered enough." With a snap of Klaus' fingers, the bees disintegrated into so many pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes. "Have you learned your lesson, shitlord?”
The potatoes reminded Eva of her Irish heritage and what it felt like to not be stung by bees. “Y-yes. I've learned my lesson. I will always tag your triggers.”
“Very good. We appreciate this very much, Evangeline.”In a moment of generosity, Klaus removed one of his pepperoni nipples and placed it upon Eva’s eye. “One day you might even be as special as we are.”
A familiar fluttery son-of-a-bitch descended from above and landed on Klaus’s cat-ear headband. The butterfly coughed to clear its throat and spoke with a deep raspy voice. “Anyone know where I can get a good snack to go with my lunch?”
Eva was about ready to tell the butterfly to go fuck itself when her bifocals pointed out a crucial detail regarding the pigmentation of its frontal limbs. “Bun’s eyepatches look pretty tasty," she said. "You should give them a try.”
“Thanks, sentient blob of meat.” The butterfly fluttered down to Klaus' face to enjoy some tasty eyepatches. “Mmm...tastes like oppression.”
A crack of light appeared in Klaus' vision as the butterfly nibbled away at the meaty treat. It was enough. As soon as Klaus saw the butterfly up close, he gasped, then began to scream. The little fucker had six blue arms. “BLARMS! BLAAAAAAARMS! Blarglebarglegarglegaaaaaaaah...”
His words trailed away to a useless gurgle even as he continued to flail. At last, it had happened. Klaus was literally too autistic to scream blue arms.
“Whoa, dude. I’m just trying to peacefully coexist over here.” The blue-armed bandit easily avoided Klaus' spaz-hands as it rose into the air, its blue arms loaded with a bounty of pepperoni. "Adios, ya spastic." It hovered briefly above Eva, tipping a tiny fedora at her. "Thanks for the snack, meatsack.”
As the butterfly flitted away over the pond and Klaus stumbled away screaming, Eva felt an easily described feeling that she could not name due to her extreme cynicism.
She was happy.
#fastandorfurious #streetracing #byebyebutterfree
The stolen ambulance crashed through a third-floor classroom wall and screeched to a halt. One of DJ Eli’s many Linkin Park/Nickelback mashups was blaring in place of the usual siren.
“Stuck the landing!” Abe pounded his chest to the rhythm of the airhorn solo in celebration.
“You’re a pretty good driver, Abe," Holden admitted, impressed. "Almost as good as me.” He retrieved his passport from his back pocket in case they found anyone who needed to be reminded that he was Irish. “Now let’s go find that spastic.”
The two stepped out from the ambulance to begin their search. Abe immediately established his position as the world’s leading gorilla detective by solving the mystery within seconds. “Found her.”
“You’re full of shit, Abe.” Holden glanced at his partner, who was pointing to a congealed mess of grease and blood beneath the front tire. “Looking good, Eva. Have you been working out?”
Abe removed his hat and bowed his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Load her up in the back before she gets cold." Holden removed his pants in preparation. "This corpse ain’t gonna fuck itself.”
“You’re the boss.” Abe scraped the majority of Eva from the grill of the ambulance and shoveled it into a stretcher. Grinning in anticipation, Holden held open the loading doors so that Abe could load the body in the back for a tender father-daughter bonding moment.
It was a bumpy ride home.
Author’s note: Huge success.
PART THE TENTH: BRIANSTORM
Brian was a douchebag--specifically the kind of douchebag that was born in the information age, yet still owns a typewriter. With the money he spent on that obsolete piece of garbage, he could have gotten a decent computer, but he couldn’t brag to all his friends about a decent computer. What really impressed people was that his assignments were always typed on an actual vintage typewriter, even though the broken “L” key made his word choice a little bit unusual.
As a writer, Brian felt, it was his duty to remind other people that he was a writer. Writing was important too, but it was the act and not the product that mattered. He had a typewriter; he hit the key. It was that easy. Top marks for not trying.
Brian stared down at his typewriter and prepared to make the kind of enthusiastic typewriter noises that made people believe you were really working. There was only a single line on the page.
How Brian was Super-Duper and Saved the Day
with his Big Tuper: The Brian Hicks Story
by Brian Hicks
Brian couldn’t get the day Mr. Yorkin achieved enlightenment out of his mind. The way he got that kid’s attention with his quick wits and powerful shirt-throwing arm backed with elbow-greased strength was a work of art. It was so kind of him to bless the world with his effortless heroics, and he did it all for free. He was something special, that much was sure. And soon the world would know it, just as soon as he finished his masterpiece.
Truth be told, he didn’t really enjoy writing. It was just something he did to impress the ladies. As smooth as he fancied himself to be, the ladies weren’t all that impressed. Of course, that just meant they weren’t yet aware that soon they’d be his.
His style of writing and dress was what he liked to call “Classic Brian” because he wouldn't be a douchebag if he wasn't an insufferable prick too. He wore t-shirts with ties and slicked his hair back and wrote about protagonists that did the same, except with bigger dicks and a father that didn’t abandon them.
Back when he was a sophomore, he wrote a novel called “Mrian is Awesome.” It was mostly about Mrian, a subtle stand-in for Brian, beating up that asshole Josh for taking his seat on the bus one time. The parts that weren’t about that were about ladies that wanted to kiss him and men that wanted to kick him for kissing their ladies.
He had taken his masterpiece to school, where he gave it to everyone he knew and sat on their shoulder until they finished reading. One reviewer had said, “This sure is a book, please stop touching me.” Another told him that it was unrealistic because he could totally kick Mrian’s ass. That reader was Josh and he definitely could.
Eventually Brian got tired of thinking about how great he was while pretending to write a book. He realized he could think about how great he was while touching himself instead. That would be way better. He took a handful of dong and flapped like an autistic. Classic Brian.
Author’s note: Well see you later, innovator.
PART THE ELEVENTH: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A GORILLA TO SOLVE THIS MYSTERY
“Oh hai, dark,” the mysterious girl with a secret identity that you do not yet know said to herself as the sun departed to bring warmth and joy to the less-important side of the world. Now was a good a time as any to begin her leisurely stroll of terror. By the powers granted by her enchanted scarlet hoodie, rubber gloves, and leather pants she would be protected. The eight instruments of power were under her sleeves. Soon the wind fish would awaken.
On her way to the house, she noticed a newspaper and wondered why they still printed those. The headline of theDaily Bugle read “SIX SHOCKING REASONS WHY SPIDERMAN IS AN ASSHOLE (THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND).” Who the fuck was Spiderman? Why wasn’tshe the headline? It was like murdering four people didn't even mean anything anymore. The anti-skeleton bias of the media was the only thing that kept her from getting the recognition she deserved.
Her leisurely stroll came to a close as she arrived at the home of her newest special night-time friend. The lights were out. Her friend must be sleeping. Perfect conditions for a visit. The front door was locked, a minor inconvenience that couldn’t hope to stand in the way of friendship. The sliding glass door in the garden looked much more inviting, though it was locked as well.
Locking all the doors was very disrespectful to potential guests, but not discouraging. She slammed like a very confused bird against the glass door until it shattered. The glass couldn’t harm her, even if it tried she had no flesh to cut. The door led into her new friend’s living room, not that she’d need one for much longer. She had a pretty nice TV, though. Maybe they could watch it together later.
She could hear typing coming from upstairs. Her new friend must be writing in their diary about how much fun they were about to have. She gleefully slithered up the stairs, anticipating the merriment that was now only moments away. As she moved like smoke along the upstairs hallway, she was careful not to look in any mirrors, for fear of provoking a long descriptive paragraph that might reveal her true identity too soon.
Peeking around the doorway of the room the typing was coming from, she was filled with disappointment. Her new friend wasn’t writing in her diary at all! She was only playing World of Warcraft. Not a very sociable creature, she deduced. She would see the errors of her solitude soon enough, and bifocals weren’t the proper tool for this job.
From inside her red hoodie she retrieved her handy-dandy little knife buddy that she lovingly referred to as Mr. Shanky. Slipping silent behind the trill gaming girl, she introduced Mr. Shanky to her new friend’s kidneys.
“I think I understand schadenfreude now, Ms. Pickens,” she said as her new friend toppled over.
Ms. Pickens was in no mood to point out the differences between schadenfreude and sadism. She was too busy screaming while being stabbed to death by a skeleton. Soon, she was a skeleton as well. Everyone was a skeleton on the inside. Flesh was a prison and now she was free.
When all Ms Pickens' inconvenient flesh was peeled away, the mysterious and still unidentified red-hooded girl took it downstairs so that she could watch TV with her new skelefriend. It was a shame her skelefriends never seemed to move like she did, a bunch lazybones they were. She wasn't worried about being interrupted. The cops couldn’t do anything about her series of murders because skeletons aren’t bound by the laws of mortals.
Author’s note: Did you solve the mystery of the Skeleton Shanker? Answers on Page 84
![:\](/styles/custom/emotes/svg/chris-confused.svg "Confused :\")
