Chapter 1: No Mercy

The morning was dewy outside the window of Jed Foster’s palatial estate. The kind of morning where you want to take a beautiful woman out into the grass, strip her clothes off, and make passionate love to her right in the middle of God’s outdoors. Or perhaps play badminton. Either one sounded good.

Jed sat at his desk and lit another cigar. He laughed bitterly at the phallic smoking utensil. “These things are going to kill you one day, Jed.”

“You’re damn right they will,” a voice said. It was not the cigar.

Turning his chair away from the window, he saw his old business nemesis Hans “Two-Bit” Reilly. He was a tall man, with possibly a thick head of hair, although most people were not tall enough to see the top and really tell, it may have been thinning up there. The guy had to be, Jesus, six foot or something. Monstrously tall. His eyes were smoky, mainly from Jed’s cigar, and his grin was smug and didn’t come with a free cup of coffee.

“I’ll be damned,” said Jed, and so did his mother one time. “I never expected to see you waltz into these doors. I thought the guards at the door would beat you into a senseless pulp the minute you tried.”

“Maybe next time,” said Two-Bit, to humorous effect. He approached the gargantuan antique desk where Jed sat and put an item on the table. “But not today.”

It was a handwritten coupon, good for one free backrub, non-transferable. Jed took it with a start.

“Jesus rides a pony!” he exclaimed. “I never thought I’d see this again.”

“It’s time, Jed,” said Two-Bit, poising his hands on his hips in a way to make him look only slightly homosexual. “You told me to come calling when I was ready to find the lockbox. Well, I’m calling.”

Furious-like, Jed wadded the coupon and tossed it out of his hand. He spun in his chair dramatically to face the window again. “Bah! You go head to head with death. I’m an old man now, though keep in mind it’s more a self-piteous statement than a reflection of my physique. I’m too old to go treasure hunting with some gaylord who stands with his hands on his hips.”

Two-Bit slumped in his spot. “You made a promise.”

“That was a long time ago,” growled Jed. “Besides, I don’t owe you anything.”

His jaw all steely, Two-Bit bent to the floor and picked up the coupon ball from off the floor. He presented it to Jed’s back like a little origami bird. “I don’t mean me. You made a promise to Audreybell. And according to this, you owe her one free backrub.”

Jed Foster sobbed briefly, composed himself, and stood. He grabbed a shotgun off the wall that had once been used for hunting and now only came down when kids were jumping around his sprinklers. Like him, it had just come out of semi-retirement.

He pulled back the stock and loaded in menacingly. “Let’s ride, Two-Bit.”

Next Chapter: Sierra Mist Some Fuck Stole Christmas
People awoke all a-clatter from their dreams of sugarplums and shit and found every single piece of valuable merchandise had been lifted during the night. Even the sentimental crap, homemade decorations and what, had disappeared without so much as a fingerprint. Detectives in the 9th precinct were shithouse.

The King of the Road (Part 3)
“Quiet!” shrieked Linux, spinning around with his throwing stars drawn. He always said the same thing whenever Munchen laughed, but this time it was for a different reason. He could hear the sound of stalking. The stalking of them.

How to Write a Contrived Novel
It’s not as hard as you might think. You see authors all the time who are struck by the muse, punched in the balls and thrown by the stairs by inspiration, and they come up with a brilliant can’t-miss idea people find genuinely interesting. We hate these people.

Murder in the Toolshed
It was at this time I, his loyal assistant Cap’n Trails, called upon his abode. The sound of nipple-exciting music filled the abode.