LITTLE FLUFFY WIGGLETOES AND THE BIG REVENGE

©2008 by Richard S. Crawford

about 1500 words

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Did you children think that Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was really dead when Peter Cottontail shot him? Well he wasn’t. What I did was lie to you. Lying is never good, is it, boys and girls? You should never lie, unless it helps you get away with something you weren’t supposed to be doing.

Anyway, after the great fight at the playground, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was indeed seriously injured, but he wasn’t dead. All that happened was that he crawled into some bushes and hid there. Peter Cottontail was so stupid that he didn’t even see the trail of blood. Little Fluffy Wiggletoes watched as Peter Cottontail euthanazed all of his future slaves, and seethed when Peter Cottontail took kindly Miss Paddletail away.

And once the sun had set, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes crawled out from under the bushes. He wanted to have revenge. You know what revenge is, don’t you boys and girls? Revenge is where you make sure that someone who did something mean to you gets what they deserve. Like maybe a punch in the nose, or some arsenic in their morning oatmeal. But before Little Fluffy Wiggletoes could have his revenge, he needed to heal up and get his strength back. Losing so much blood is hard on a little bunny.

So Little Fluffy Wiggletoes went to visit his friend Mallory the duck. Mallory had a large nest filled with all kinds of medicines that could make hurts go away and make you feel all better. Mallory was a very funny duck, because he was really a boy duck but he covered himself with brown feathers to make himself look like a girl duck. We call ducks like that “transvestites”. What’s the best thing to do to transvestites? That’s right, boys and girls, we beat them up. But Mallory did have access to the best drugs in the pond, so he was okay to be friends with.

So while Little Fluffy Wiggletoes recovered in Mallory’s spare bed and Mallory brought him more Vicodin, he started to plan out his revenge on Peter Cottontail. And finally, after months of recuperating and putting up with Mallory’s loud key parties, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was ready to go out and have the revenge he had planned for Peter Cottontail.

And what a revenge it was going to be! He was so excited about it, boys and girls, that he wished he had even more enemies that he could have revenge upon. But, boys and girls, we all know that we don’t have to have enemies if we want to do something terrible. Sometimes it’s okay to just fine someone who has said something mean to you, or even someone you don’t know at all.

The first thing that Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was going to need was a pretty red wagon. All the bunnies in the forest liked to play with wagons, because they were fun for riding in and useful for carrying around carrots and lettuce and radishes and explosives. He went to WalMart, which is where any evil genius can find all the tools they need for world domination, and bought some gunpowder and some pipes. He wanted to buy some uranium, too, to make some happy nuclear bombs, but WalMart was all out of uranium. So he just bought some more gunpowder and a new assault rifle, just to be sure. And a new HypnoRay because Peter Cottontail, that puffy-toed little bastard, had broken his last one.

Later that night, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes hacked into the DMV database and found out where Peter Cottontail lived. It turned out that Peter Cottontail had married Kindly Miss Paddletail and the two of them lived under an apple tree on the north side of the meadow. Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was furious because Kindly Miss Paddletail had been his girlfriend before, and now she was married to someone else. Even if Kindly Miss Paddletail was a retard, she was still a great lay. Do you know what that means, boys and girls? It means that Kindly Miss Paddletail told very good bedtime stories.

So Little Fluffy Wiggletoes took his wagon and loaded it up with explosives, then went to the apple tree on the other side of the meadow, and carefully planted the explosive all over, just like the carrots that grow in Mr. MacGregor’s garden. I like carrots, don’t you, boys and girls? I have a great big carrot, and if you’re good I’ll let you look at it.

But before Little Fluffy Wiggletoes blew up the explosives, he decided to go to Peter Cottontail’s front door and look inside. And there he saw Kindly Miss Paddletail, lying on the couch, playing with herself.

Little Fluffy Wiggletoes couldn’t help himself. “Miss Paddletail!” he said.

Kindly Miss Paddletail looked up from her game of solitaire. “Little Fluffy Wiggletoes!” she said. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

“I’ll give you one chance, Miss Paddletail. Come away with me now, or suffer the consequences!”

Kindly Miss Paddletail was shocked that Little Fluffy Wiggletoes had said such a thing that sounded so mean. See, even though she had known Little Fluffy Wiggletoes for so long, she still wouldn’t believe how bad he was, and always thought he had some goodness inside of him. That’s because Kindly Miss Paddletail was stupid.

“But I can’t,” she said. “I’m married to Peter Cottontail now.”

“I thought you’d say that,” said Little Fluffy Wiggletoes. And with that, he burst open the door and jumped into the house. Kindly Miss Paddletail screamed and tried to run away, but Little Fluffy Wiggletoes caught her and covered her mouth and nose with a rag that he had soaked in chloroform. Kindly Miss Paddletail fell asleep right away.

Little Fluffy Wiggletoes took Kindly Miss Paddletail out of Peter Cottontail’s house under the apple tree, and carried her back to where he had left his wagon. He was just about to dump her into it when he heard a voice from behind him.

“Stop right there, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes!”

Little Fluffy Wiggletoes turned around. Sure enough, just as he had suspected, Peter Cottontail stood behind him, holding a gun.

“You won’t stop me this time!” Little Fluffy Wiggletoes said. “Go on, do your worst.”

Peter Cottontail, though, just looked smug. “You’ve escaped once already, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes. I won’t let that happen again.”

Little Fluffy Wiggletoes held Kindly Miss Paddletail, who was still asleep, in front of him so that she was between him and the gun that Peter Cottontail held. “But I have a hostage this time, Cottontail. Plus, I’m unarmed. You couldn’t possibly fire on an unarmed bunny.”

Peter Cottontail knew that Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was right. But he couldn’t let Little Fluffy Wiggletoes get away with this crime. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll put the gun down if you take your hands off my beaver. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

Little Fluffy Wiggletoes knew that Peter Cottontail was a bunny of his word, and he knew that Peter Cottontail would never break a promise. So he said, “Fine, then. I suppose she can die along with you. Put the gun down.”

Peter Cottontail put the gun down onto the grass, and Little Fluffy Wiggletoes shoved Kindly Miss Paddletail at him. “Here, take her.”

“Thank you, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes. Perhaps there’s some good inside of you after all.” So Peter Cottontail took Kindly Miss Paddletail and led her back to the house under the apple tree.

Behind him, Little Fluffy Wiggletoes chuckled, then took the detonator out of his pocket and pushed the button. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion right underneath him! Bits of fur and fluff flew into the sky, and it rained bunny bits for days after that.

“Goodness, what happened?” asked Kindly Miss Paddletail, still woozy from the chloroform.

Peter Cottontail smiled. “Well, while Little Fluffy Wiggletoes was busy with you in the house, I dug up all his explosives and planted them right next to his wagon. So when he set them off, he blew himself up.”

“How exciting,” Kindly Miss Paddletail, just before she fell asleep again.

So Peter Cottontail took her home and put her into bed. Then he figured that since she was asleep, he may as well have some fun with her, so he took his toy cars and pretended she was a mountain range for the cars to drive over. Also, he fucked her.

Because one thing that Little Fluffy Wiggletoes did NOT know about Peter Cottontail was that he was kind of a dick.

TERRIBLE TALES FOR TINY TROLLS - MOLDYLOCKS

©2008 by Richard S. Crawford

about 800 words

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Once upon a time, Bethelda, the Troll King’s daughter, was rampaging happily through the forest, tearing up trees and smashing boulders, when she heard a sound from nearby. She went over to the closest house she could find and saw three bears leaving. They locked their door and each of them was carrying a happy assault rifle, ready to shoot down any trolls or hobgoblins they might encounter on their Sunday constitutional. There was Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear, who was wearing camouflage diapers.

“I sure hope no one comes into our house while we are gone,” Mama Bear said.

“Yes indeed,” said Papa Bear. “That would be a terrible tragedy for everyone. But just think how yummy our porridge will be when we get home.”

“Goo,” said Baby Bear, who wasn’t really a baby but who had decided long ago that he wouldn’t talk because every time he did, Mama Bear and Papa Bear made fun of him.

Then the three bears skipped merrily into the woods.

Bethelda thought that the house that the bears lived in was ugly so she decided to smash it instead of going inside; she had no desire to experience a tragedy.

But on the other hand she was curious. So she went up to the house, pulled the front door off its hinges and went inside.

On the table in the kitchen there were three bowls of porridge. The first one was really hot, so Bethelda ate it. The second one was really cold, so she ate that one too. The third one wasn’t hot or cold, so she left it alone. Lukewarm food is just disgusting.

After eating the porridge Bethelda wandered into the living room, where she found three chairs. The first chair was too hard, so she crushed it into pieces. The second chair was too soft, so she crushed that one into pieces too. The third was just right, so she stomped on it and then crushed it. Then she gathered up all the pieces from all three chairs and threw them around the living room.

Now Bethelda was sleepy, so decided to have a nap. She went upstairs to the bedroom. The first room was where Mama Bear and Papa Bear slept. The first thing she did before even trying to lie down was smash the video camera and the mirror on the ceiling. Then she tried to lay down but the bed was strangely both too hard and too soft, so she smashed that too.

The bed in Baby Bear’s room was far too small, so Bethelda smashed that one too, then took all the pieces into the master bedroom, where she took all the pieces from all the beds and all the pieces from the mirror and made a nice nest for herself.

Soon after that, though, the bears returned.

“Oh my goodness!” cried out Mama Bear upon seeing the wreckage in the living room.

“Good heavens,” said Papa Bear, flicking the safety off his assault rifle. “We’ve been ransacked!”

“Goo,” said Baby Bear.

Mama Bear loaded her assault rifle. “Let’s see if there’s anyone upstairs.”

So they went into the master bedroom, where they found Bethelda snoring mightily in her nest of broken wood and glass.

“DIE TROLL DIE!” shouted Mama Bear and Papa Bear in unison, and they both emptied their entire clips into Bethelda.

Bethelda woke up, feeling itchy, and saw two big bears looking at her. So she ate them. They were really quite yummy.

Then Baby Bear came into the room. He saw the remains of his dead parents on the floor, and cried out. “Thank you!” he shouted. “You’ve released me from my captivity! How ever can I thank you, kindly troll?”

Bethelda ate him too. But not all of him, because she didn’t want to spoil her appetite.

So Papa Bear had been wrong. The day hadn’t ended in tragedy for everyone. Feeling quite happy, she smashed the Bears’ house, then went home for supper.

THE PRINCE’S CHALLENGE (SANGRILICIOUS II)

©2008 by Richard S. Crawford

about 1,800 words

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“Mortal combat!” Cletus shouted. His voice reverberated all throughout the back room of the International Pancake Hut in downtown Roosterville where the vampire clan had its weekly meetings. There were two dozen of us there that night. Roosterville had a population of maybe 3,000. According to conventional vampire wisdom, the town should have had maybe four or five at most.

“What?” I asked.

Cletus wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his denim jacket. Blood had dribbled down his chin along with little bits of flesh. “You want to be Prince of Roosterville, Delilah, you gotta fight me to the death.”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s not how it’s done.”

“That’s the way we always done it around here.”

“Well, it’s stupid. And it’s not tradition.”

“And I suppose you know all about tradition, huh?”

“My sire taught me all the secrets of our kind,” I told him. “All the mysteries, the traditions, the codes, and that thaumaturlogical arts.”

“The thauma-what?”

“Magic.”

Cletus snorted. The other vampires around the table began to laugh. “Magic? Shit, girl, vampires ain’t magic. We’re just flesh eaters and blood drinkers.”

“Do a trick!” shouted the woman to Cletus’s left. She was wiry, with hair that had obviously been dyed, and she was covered in faded, blurred tattoos. She was Cletus’s main concubine, I’d been told, and her name was Flo.

“Yeah,” Cletus echoed, smiling. “If there’s vampire magic, do a trick.”

I hesitated. My sire had taught me about vampire thaumaturgy, but, honestly, it was all theoretical. I’d never learned any spells, cantrips, or the like. Certainly I’d never learned any tricks.

“Tell me about this mortal combat,” I said at last.

Cletus laughed again. In the two weeks that I’d been in Roosterville, I’d grown to really loathe that stupid laugh of his. “Hell, let’s just wrestle. I bet you’re a good wrestler, ain’t ya?”

“Don’t do it, Delilah!” said Flo. “He just wants to cop a feel.” At that, all of the vampires around the table laughed. Cletus’s post-mortem libido was legendary.

Flo’s comment wasn’t surprising. Men never change, not even when they’re dead. But this was seriously starting to piss me off. Everything that Cletus did, everything that he was, was an affront to tradition. It was very upsetting. When I was first Embraced, I was thrilled to learn about the whole culture of those who walk at night. My sire taught me to respect the traditions. And I’d come into Roosterville, all excited to become part of the local vampire scene, and what did I find? A bunch of rednecks who didn’t give a tinker’s cuss about the culture and history of our kind.

I mustered up all the pride I could and stood up straight to my full height, all five foot two (including heels) of it. “I won’t wrestle you,” I said, “but I accept your challenge to mortal combat.”

The lopsided grin on Cletus’s face vanished. “What?”

“Mortal combat,” I said. “I accept your challenge.”

If I’d still had a beating heart, it would have been pounding. If I’d needed breath for anything other than speaking, I would have been panting. Nevertheless, I could feel blood rushing to my face. My cheeks grew hot. In life I’d always blushed way too easy, and it pissed me off that that hadn’t changed.

“Shit, girl, you’ve got to be joking. You’re, what, five feet tall?”

“Four eleven.”

“And you weigh maybe a hundred pounds. I’m at least three times that. You really want to fight me?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yeah, do some of that thaumatobullshit and I’ll give you the fucking town.”

“The secrets of the vampire mysteries are not for the uninitiated,” I said, improvising as well as I could.

“I’ve been a vampire for fifty years,” Cletus said. “How much more initiated can I get?”

“Well, have you performed the Rite of Cain?”

“The what of who?”

I smiled. “If you don’t know what it is, I can’t tell you.”

“You just made that up!”

He was right, of course, but I’d never tell him that. “Your ignorance is appalling. Are we going to fight or what?” I was hoping to bluff him into backing down.

One of the other vampires spoke up then. He was a skinny guy, all bones and skin, and not much taller than me. His name was Skeeter, and with his sharp proboscis, he definitely looked like he could have been a mosquito in a past life. “Hey, how about Trial by Sewer?”

“What’s Trial by Sewer?” I asked.

Flo laughed again. “What do you think, sugar? It’s how Cletus got to be the prince of Roosterville. Before Cletus was Elton. Cletus challenged Elton to Trial by Sewer, and Cletus won.”

“Well, what is it?”

“We stick you both in the sewer in one end of town,” Skeeter said. “First one to come out the other wins.”

“That sounds pretty easy,” I said.

Cletus laughed again. He took another handful of guts from the bucket in front of him and shoved it into his mouth. “Ain’t easy,” he said, spraying bits of flesh and blood onto the table in front of him. “There’s shit down in that sewer, and I ain’t talking just the real shit like what comes out of people. I’m talking some real serious shit. Monsters. Demons. We’ll do it if you want, but it ain’t gonna be easy. You sure you don’t want to wrestle me?” He winked. “It’ll be all kinds of fun.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Trial by Sewer it is.”

“Boo yah!” shouted Skeeter. “Tomorrow at dusk at the east end of town! It’s gonna be an old fashioned spelunkin’!”

Cletus rose up to his full height, and slammed his considerable fist down on the table. “Right!” he shouted. “Now let’s get to some serious partying!”

Someone turned up the juke box, and the music began to play. These vampires had a thing for Lynyrd Skynyrd, and “Freebird” began to play at an ear-shattering volume. I sighed and sat down, trying to keep myself elegant. What is a vampire, after all, if not a creature of elegance?

Seriously. These people had no clue at all.

#

My sire had taught me that among there were many qualities a vampire must have, and among the top priorities was a strong sense of fashion. Black, he had taught me, was definitely the way to go. And for a woman, lace. Black and lace. And stockings. Long skirts (or sometimes very short) and high heels. That was the way to go.

Never one to abide strictly by convention, though, I’d added a splash of scarlet to the black. It became my trademark. Every outfit I wore had at least a little bit of scarlet somewhere, whether it was a skirt, a pair of stockings, a pair of shoes, a jacket, or even just a scarf. Who wants to look like everyone else? But I always did my best to stay on top of the trends. It was important to me to make a good impression at all times. My sire had once or twice tried to get me to dress up like Vampirella, saying it was also tradition, but I would never have anything to do with that. I knew he was doing it just to test me.

I sure didn’t feel stylish at dusk the next day, though. I had on an old pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of scarlet Doc Martins I’d stolen from a shoe store the night before. It wasn’t particularly pretty and I didn’t feel attractive in this outfit, but at least it was practical. I also had a gun.

Cletus laughed when he saw it. “You even know how to use that thing?”

“Of course,” I sneered. I lifted the gun up. I’d grabbed it from Wal*Mart because it was big and looked dangerous. How hard could it be to work a gun? You point one end at the thing you wanted to shoot, and pulled the trigger. This one was heavy, too. It would cause lots of damage to anything foolish enough to get in my way.

Cletus looked the same as he had the night before. He was even wearing the same clothes, for crying out loud. His jeans and T-shirt were stained with blood and his leather jacket had certainly seen better days. So had his jeans. Big guys like him can pull off a good look if they only try. The trick for them is balancing out their bulk. You know, a thick leather jacket on top and a pair of cargo pants on the bottom. Maybe Doc Martins or a pair of combat boots, but certainly not the cowboy boots he was wearing. Cletus just looked like he didn’t give a damn.

And, I noticed, he didn’t even have a gun. No weapons of any kind, unless you counted the spiked bracelets he wore.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked. It was just the three of us here: Cletus, Skeeter, and myself. The three of us were standing around the manhole cover that led down to the sewer system underneath Roosterville.

“Oh, they’re all waiting on the other side of town,” Skeeter said. “At the other side of the sewer. They’re having a party, so when you get there, they’ll probably all be good and drunk.”

“Yeah, we’ll see them there,” said Cletus. The two of them looked at each other and grinned. I didn’t like the way they did that.

Still, in for a penny, in for a pound. “You ready?” I asked Cletus.

“You know it, little girl. Let’s do it.”

Skeeter reached down and lifted up the cover of the manhole. The sewer underneath was black and the smell of shit and worse wafted up with a cloud of steam.

“Ladies first,” Cletus said.

I wasn’t having anything to do with that. “After you,” I said. “I insist.”

“Whatever you say.” Cletus grinned, then stepped into the sewer. He dropped straight down, and I heard a loud splash which told me his bulk had hit the bottom.

Oh shit, I thought. This is really happening. For a moment — just a tiny moment — I thought about backing down, letting Cletus keep his position as Prince of Roosterville, and just moving on.

I took a deep breath — instinct, really, more than anything else — and jumped. I could only hope that I had prepared properly for what was ahead.