by Scott Colby
I’m fucked, Kevin thought as he swung himself into the backseat.
“So, what’s the plan, Casanova?” Driff asked as he guided the Jag back down the hill.
Kevin sighed. “Get him drunk. Get him talking. Get him laid. Hope whoever the girl is doesn’t immediately run away screaming the next morning.”
“Brilliant.”
“You got a better idea?”
“Nope. This one will have to do.”
“Glad you’re here to impart that bountiful elven wisdom.”
“Human, elf, reaper—a little action goes a long way with all of them. Each comes with a different set of consequences when things don’t go according to plan.”
“Tell me about it,” Ren moaned.
Kevin tapped idly on the window, debating whether to voice his next concern or squelch it. In the end, curiosity won out over caution. “Why is it that dealing with this particular set of consequences is up to a single elf and his motley crew of human companions? Isn’t there some sort of authority that can step in to strip Billy of his reaper responsibilities and give the job to someone who will actually do it?”
“It’s complicated,” Driff replied. “Billy’s tied to his territory by a very old, very powerful magic that—quite frankly—we’re all afraid to fuck with.”
“So there’s no way to remove him?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Withholding certain circumstantial information unnecessary to completing the task at hand could make things easier for me down the line.”
“You’re a real jerk, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
The remainder of the drive was quiet, save for Ren’s occasional pathetic moaning. Kevin couldn’t speak for his companions, but he kept his own mouth shut simply because he’d seen and heard enough strange shit for one day and wanted to go home so he could process it all. Occasionally he snuck a peek at the other two. Ren fell asleep quickly, his head dangling loosely against his chest. Driff, however, remained wide-eyed and alert, the wheels in his mind obviously spinning a mile a minute. The elf may not have been the college professor he claimed to be, but he was certainly a thinker. That was worth watching; he certainly had Plans B, C, and D prepared in case things didn’t go as intended, and Kevin knew he couldn’t completely discount the possibility of Driff sacrificing him to the reaper to get the job done.
They arrived in front of the Felton residence ten minutes after departing Lordly Estates. As Ren snored away in the front seat, Driff leaned around to offer Kevin some advice. “Make sure you’re prepared for Friday night. We may not get more than one shot at this.”
“I’m kind of assuming we won’t.”
“A pessimist. Good. Perfect attitude for this line of work.”
Unable to determine if Driff’s words were meant to be serious or sarcastic, Kevin merely nodded and exited the vehicle.
Abelia ambushed him as he walked through the front door.
“And how was that delightful Professor Driff?” she asked happily.
Kevin still couldn’t believe the change the dust had brought about in his mother. Her suspicions about the elf had been washed away with a handful of crap and a few carefully placed words. It made him wonder what else that stuff could do—and what else it had already done to other people he’d met.
“Just like I remembered him,” he replied as he kicked his shoes off onto the mat beside the front door. “Kind of a stuck-up jerk, but he’s all right.”
Abelia slapped his elbow playfully. “Just your type! What’s this job he’s offering you?”
“Research. He’s writing a paper on Harrison Metalworks.” Years of such interrogations had taught Kevin to think on his feet. This particular little white lie was an easy one to whip up; outsiders rarely came to Harksburg unless their visit had something to do with Harrison.
“Well, normally I’d say the town’s skeletons are best left buried, but I’m sure Professor Driff will handle it with tact and class.” She turned to go, heading for the living room to her right. It was about time for her afternoon dose of court shows. “Dinner’s at six, Poofy! I’m making your favorite: lasagna!”
“Thanks, Ma,” Kevin replied as he slipped down the nearby stairs and shut the door behind him. He still didn’t like the idea of Driff wiping his mother’s memory, but at least it might help keep her off his back while he dealt with the reaper. He just hoped the elf wouldn’t see fit to give her another handful of that dust crap anytime soon.
The dull ache in the back of Kevin’s head reminded him of the day’s stresses. He headed straight for his freshly made bed when he reached the bottom of the stairs and collapsed atop the clean sheets, passing out almost instantly.
— CHAPTER TEN —
Dinner was indeed lasagna, and it was indeed Kevin’s favorite. It had been for as long as he could remember. Abelia didn’t make it often; it was a lot of work, so she saved it for special occasions or instances when her motherly radar told her Kevin needed a pick-me-up. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t remember watching her son get shot. Abelia knew something was wrong, and so she offered her support the best way she knew how. Kevin appreciated it.
After helping with the dishes, Kevin quickly retreated to his room. An evening of cheesy sitcoms and running commentary on the state of the casts’ waistlines just didn’t seem all that appealing. A trip to the only bar in town—the Burg, the lovely establishment to which he planned to bring the reaper Friday night—wasn’t an option because he’d long ago made it a policy not to go to that dump more than once a week. That left one option: drinking alone in his basement bedroom.
Kevin was perfectly content with that.
He’d long ago gotten in the habit of keeping a bottle of Jim Beam attached to the back side of his headboard with a rubber band in case of emergencies. Mrs. Felton changed the sheets on that bed weekly whether her son used them or not, but she had no reason to look behind the thick headboard. The half-empty bottle was right where Kevin had left it during a weekend visit four months ago. Tangles of dust flaked off as he pulled it away, lingering in the air as if judging him. A quick sip warmed his stomach. He settled in to relax and let the booze work its magic.
He wondered what Driff was up to right at that moment. What did an elven spy do when he wasn’t busy doing elven spy stuff? Driff looked like he enjoyed a good book, or perhaps unique art shows hosted in small, trendy galleries, or maybe evenings at posh cafés in tony neighborhoods. Was the elf a film buff, perhaps? Maybe a wine connoisseur? Or was there some other distinctly elven pastime in which he involved himself? It was an odd line of thought, to be sure, but it bothered Kevin how much he didn’t know about these fairy people. What did Driff watch on television? Where did Nella go to get her hair cut? How did his neighbor, Mr. Gregson, a pixie in a Vietnam veteran’s crippled body, really feel about local politics?
Kevin took a long drink of bourbon. Mr. Gregson. That gave him an idea. A terrible, stupid, horrible idea—but if it paid off, it might mean a better understanding of the new world in which he found himself. Any little bit of knowledge, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, might mean the difference between a long life with a hot blue woman and having his soul yanked out through his schnoz.
After taking one last swig for good luck, Kevin stood and headed for the stairs. The alarm clock on the nightstand declared that it was 7:38; that meant Mr. Gregson would be on his front porch, enjoying his evening’s cigar. A few questions—including what the hell a pixie was doing smoking Cubans—couldn’t hurt, could they?
Although there was a pretty good chance his mother would be zoned out in front of a gameshow in the living room, it would be best not to raise her suspicions. Getting caught attempting conversation with their unfriendly neighbor would only lead to endless, extended interrogations that would break much tougher men. This was another job for the Pussy Hatch.
As Kevin stepped out into the clear, brisk eve
ning, he couldn’t help reflecting on his eighth birthday party. His mother’s work at the church didn’t pay much, but she’d managed to scrimp and save enough to put together quite the spectacular birthday party for her beloved young son. Their tiny backyard became a miniature circus of sorts, complete with a colorful tent, a few goats and sheep from a nearby petting zoo, and Boink-o the Clown. All of Kevin’s friends were there, having a grand old time as their parents watched from the patio.
The party hadn’t been in full swing for more than half an hour when the local police showed up to investigate a complaint. The squeaky rubber horn on Boink-o’s tricycle, it turned out, violated local noise ordinances by several decibels. Boink-o did not take kindly to these accusations—Kevin would later learn that the seemingly benign clown was, in fact, an ex-convict wrongly imprisoned for grand theft auto because of police incompetence—and the cops were even less happy with Boink-o’s suggestion of where they could shove their badges. A fight ensued. Bloodied and beaten, Boink-o was dragged to the waiting cruiser in handcuffs. That was the end of Kevin’s eighth birthday party, thanks to a complaint from Mr. Gregson. The Feltons and their neighbor hadn’t exchanged more than angry, suspicious glances ever since.
Local lore claimed that the events of that party first put the idea of becoming a police officer into Tom Flanagan’s head. Young Tom spent the majority of the afternoon hiding in the bushes because he was absolutely petrified of the smiling clown. Most of the children were devastated when the police dragged Boink-o away, but Tom Flanagan couldn’t have been more relieved. Those men in their snappy blue uniforms weren’t there to ruin a birthday party; they’d arrived to rid the world of a scary clown. Or at least that’s what Waltman said.
Regardless, there was no neighborly reason for Kevin to approach Mr. Gregson. None whatsoever. Kevin almost turned around and went back inside, but giving up wouldn’t accomplish anything. Surviving his current situation would mean manning up, pulling his balls out of his purse, and making something happen. It was time to do just that, even if it led to the occasional bout of borderline stupidity.
A plastic privacy screen obscured the side Mr. Gregson’s front porch, but the tangy-sweet scent of a fine cigar wafted gently through the night air. Kevin’s quarry was waiting for him. He straightened his jacket and strode confidently down the front steps, shoving his hands into his pockets when he reached the sidewalk. Calm, cool, and put together—that was Kevin Felton, despite the nervous energy coursing through his body that threatened to turn him into a quivering mess. People are more likely to speak with those who appear confident, he reminded himself as he sauntered down the sidewalk. He hoped that same rule applied to pixies secretly living as humans.
Mr. Gregson slowly came into view around the privacy screen. The old man stared right at Kevin as if he’d been awaiting his arrival. A thick black beard spilled onto his burly chest like a tangle of twisted moss down the side of a tree. His legs ended at his knees, leaving behind a pair of stumps sticking out just beyond the lip of his motorized wheelchair. One ham-sized hand clutched a half-smoked cigar, the other a can of cheap beer. Mr. Gregson wore his usual green military fatigues and a black baseball cap emblazoned with the word “Army” in big gold letters. Despite the man’s disabilities, he exuded an aura of lethality that forced the town of Harksburg to treat him with respect. There, in the harsh glow of his porch light, Mr. Gregson appeared downright regal, an angry king surveying his lands and hating everything he saw. Kevin had always thought he looked a bit lopsided; the man’s girth listed to his right, as if that side of his body just couldn’t deal with his weight.
And, Kevin realized suddenly, he’d always looked that way. Always. It had been twenty years since Kevin first laid eyes on Mr. Gregson, and yet there wasn’t a single new wrinkle on the man’s face or even a gray hair in his scraggly beard. The man hadn’t aged a day—which made sense, if his human form was indeed just a disguise for something much smaller.
Kevin stopped in front of the steps to Mr. Gregson’s porch. “Evening,” he called out in what he hoped was a calm and friendly yet unavoidably confident and manly voice.
Mr. Gregson replied by sticking his cigar in between his thick bulldog lips and taking a long drag.
“I met someone today who said he knows you,” Kevin continued. “Man named Driff.”
His neighbor exhaled, blowing three perfect smoke rings into the night air. Mr. Gregson took his beady black eyes off Kevin to admire his handiwork.
“I was hoping you could tell me a little more about him. He—uh—offered me a job, and I’d like to know more about the man before I start working for him.”
“Leave it alone,” Mr. Gregson replied. His deep voice rumbled like a diesel engine.
“I’m sorry sir, but…leave what alone?”
“Driff ain’t a man the likes of you ought to be getting involved with.”
That’s an understatement, Kevin thought. “So…so you do know him!” Relief washed through Kevin’s body, warm and tingling. Coming to Mr. Gregson had been the right decision. “And you are a pixie!”
To say that Mr. Gregson froze wouldn’t be quite accurate. His body merely stopped in place, his cigar halfway to his mouth, his eyes just beginning to squint, his lips curling mid-sneer. It was as if his flesh had suddenly turned to wax, or—and upon further review later on, Kevin would come to this conclusion—that he’d simply shut down, his pieces and parts locked in place like those of a robot that had suddenly lost power. Regardless of what exactly happened, Kevin immediately knew that he’d made a huge mistake.
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to offend you—”
Suddenly weightless, Kevin Felton floated a few feet up into the air. Although his heart pounded a mile a minute, he couldn’t move any other part of his body. He couldn’t fathom what was happening; one moment he’d embarrassed himself in front of his neighbor, a closet pixie, and the next he’d been lifted off the ground by an invisible hand that also rendered him mute and paralyzed.
Then it clicked. A soft “oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh” would’ve eased through Kevin’s lips if he’d been able to move them. Mr. Gregson had called upon some sort of magic spell to forcibly remove his annoying neighbor from the premises.
I fucking hate this magic shit, Kevin thought as he zipped back above the sidewalk toward his own house. He’d always assumed that being telekinetically lifted would be much more complicated sensation. Outside of the cool air rushing past his face, it didn’t feel like much of anything. It reminded him a bit of driving with the windows down, but even that was a stretch.
Mr. Gregson set Kevin down gently on the Felton family driveway. A thick, rasping cough erupted from behind the privacy screen. Magic, it appeared, involved a bit of cardio.
Kevin took the hint and went back inside through his bedroom window, relieved that he’d escaped with all of his pieces and parts intact.
— CHAPTER ELEVEN —
The next two days felt like two years. This was not because Kevin anxiously looked forward to spending an evening with Billy, far from it. He couldn’t think of a worse way to spend a Friday night than chaperoning some moody emo kid during a night of drinking and carousing at a shithole bar in the middle of nowhere. No, the days dragged as badly as they did because absolutely fucking nothing happened. That lack of excitement, Kevin remembered, was why he’d left in the first place. Perhaps excitement was too strong of a word; life in Chicago hadn’t always been exciting, but it had never been as mind-numbingly dull as his time in Harksburg.
Kevin spent most of his time poring through job listings in the local papers and online. He wasn’t quite ready to take a job outside of the finance industry; someone, somewhere in central Illinois surely needed a junior business analyst with big city experience and a diverse skill set. There would come a time, he knew, when he’d tire of living with his mother and settle for a low-level clerical job, but he wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet. Not after six years in school and three years at one of
Chicago’s hottest firms.
To get him out of the house, Mrs. Felton tasked Kevin with going to the post office to get the mail every day—a fair trade, he decided, for free room and board. That first day, Thursday, after getting dressed and mentally preparing himself to deal with the horde of chatty old biddies that infested the Harksburg post office during the weekdays, Kevin couldn’t find his keys. They weren’t on his nightstand where he usually left them, nor in the pair of pants he’d worn the day before. After half an hour of searching, he finally located them underneath his pillow. Briefly he wondered how the hell his keys had found their way into his bed—and then he became suspicious. He checked his headphones and the USB cables of his computer peripherals. All were indescribably twisted. He turned on the television and found it set to the VCR’s input; he hadn’t used the VCR in years.
Gnomes, he thought. I’ve got fucking gnomes.
Try as he might, he couldn’t find the little bastards. The thought of a tribe of tiny men laughing maniacally at the petty annoyances they inflicted upon him really rubbed Kevin the wrong way. He was going to find his unwanted guests, and when he did there’d be hell to pay.
Kevin also invested several hours scouring the web for any trace of the man known as Poofy. Death via Google seemed like a miserable way to go out. The top hits for his nickname were weird Japanese fetish sites and some kind of overpriced teddy bear that told terrible knock-knock jokes—and neither topic, luckily, led back to Kevin Felton. An expert in cybersecurity, his mother had configured her email and social networking accounts to log in automatically, so he checked those, too. Nothing. Someone else out there had to know that Kevin and Poofy were one and the same—that’s just the way small towns worked—but at least Billy would have to put some time and effort into sniffing out Poofy’s identity. Hopefully that would buy Kevin the time he needed to hook the reaper up with a new woman that would make him forget all about Nella.