Fifty Shades Of Sparkling Vampires With Dragon Tattoos That Play Starvation Games (8 page)

"When I look into your eyes, I feel
like God's giving me a high five," Cindy Sue said.

"I may have only known you for an hour
and a half, but I think we should get married in some really over
the top wedding with elephants and hot air balloon rides," Landon
mooned.

"You know, most girls would think that
was the creepiest thing since old men doing tai chi in thongs. But
since I'm a hopeless romantic, my heart just fluttered a little.
Still, I can't go and die on you until I'm confident you're ready
to change the world."

"Are you kidding? I can't even change a
tire."

"That means I have a lot of work to do.
Good thing I'm relentlessly perky. So, let's start with world
peace..."

***

Cindy Sue was on a mission to renovate
Landon's soul, and she didn't have time to hire lazy contractors.
Instead she used her can do attitude and a bubbly
spirit.

"All right Cindy Sue, I rescued a deaf
dog with a limp from the pound, fed a hundred homeless guys at the
soup kitchen this morning, then cleaned up senior citizens bedpans
at the retirement home all afternoon. What are we going to do
tonight?"

Cindy Sue didn't hesitate. "Single
handedly reverse the effects of global climate change while holding
a bake sale to raise money for hurricane relief
victims."

"How do you find time to do all that
while you're ravaged by a life threatening illness?"

"I was going to save the manatees and
catch a few criminals too, but a girl can only do so
much."

Landon stared deep into Cindy Sue's
eyes. "I was just thinking maybe I could give you hickeys while
mesmerizing you with my washboard abs and super ripped
chest."

Cindy Sue swooned. "Rain check on
saving the world."

***

Cindy Sue and Landon laid in a verdant
field lush with flowers and lusting loins.

"My diary is so going to be jealous,"
Cindy Sue swooned.

"That was better than looking at myself
in the mirror for an hour straight," Landon replied. "Wow, you
really have changed me. Maybe I really can save the world. Or, you
know, at least not make it collapse under the weight of my
throbbing ego."

"Oh, you're going to change the world
all right. I'm not dying prematurely so you can sit around and
count your money naked. Once I kick the bucket, I expect to be able
to stare at you from a marshmallowy cloud and get all misty eyed as
you honor my legacy."

"Can we stop talking about you pushing
up daisies? It's seriously killing my boner."

"You're right. We should play more
tonsil hockey. Sucking face is splendid."

***

"Cindy Sue, you wouldn't believe it,"
Landon remarked. "I just got you flowers and didn't even pick them
out of your own garden. I really am a changed man."

But Cindy Sue just sat on her back
porch swing with the kind of furrowed brow only super awful news
could bring. "Landon, we have to talk. I'm dying."

"You've said that from the beginning.
And yet you built a whole house for a homeless family with your
bare hands over the weekend."

"Landon, I'm serious. The doctor says
it's time to take the great swan dive into the afterlife. Which
really sucks, because I have a nail appointment scheduled for
Tuesday."

"Wait a minute. You're really dying?
Like you mean with coffins and funeral processions and no more
making out?"

"I know, it's a real bummer. But look,
I don't want this to get too melodramatic. I just want to play tug
of war with your heart strings until you can fill a whole swimming
pool with tears."

"I think I'm literally going to die of
heartbreak. I can feel the Grim Reaper carving my soul out with a
spork. I haven't cried this much since I got hit in the nuts with a
baseball in third grade."

"It's going to be ok. People meet the
hunk of their dreams after getting rare incurable diseases all the
time. The important thing is realizing we had some legendary hanky
panky. Not to mention you went from a meano jerkball to a hunk with
a heart under my tutelage. All that matters now is who I'm going to
tutor in heaven."

"I just want you to know I love you
more than my custom made cufflinks. And I'm never going to forget
you--even if I have a freak kegstand accident and get
amnesia."

"I love you too. Now if you'll excuse
me, I have to go die a really schmaltzy death. Toodles."

And like that, Cindy Sue waltzed into
the sunset with open arms and an empty stomach (she hoped heaven
would be waiting with ice cream). Landon meanwhile had some
grandiose tears, deciding to cry himself a river while playing a
violin solo and cursing at the turtle dove flying overhead. But
while Cindy Sue was gone, she was not forgotten. Every time Landon
saw an over dramatic sunset from then on, he could swear he saw
Cindy Sue and her sweet hickey smiling back at him. Or maybe that
was just the alcohol talking.

The Schmaltzy End.

The Baked Good Bandit
Catchers

"All right ladies, now that the
chocolate chip cookies are baked, who wants to go solve some
murders?" Quirky McCrimesolver said, with feisty zeal.

Quirky wasn't just any old housewife.
She also enjoyed quilting, decoupage, and catching low life sleeze
balls. Never mind that she had no training in criminal justice or
that she had to be back home by nine to read her kids bedtime
stories, Quirky always got her deadbeat.

And considering she lived in a town the
size of a shoebox, there sure seemed to be an endless supply of
filthy murderers. Heck, with all the crimes she solved, the town
could have been killed three times over. But who needed logic when
you had spunk? Quirky wasn't alone in her plucky ways though. Her
quilters circle was more than happy to do freelance
forensics.

There was Sidekick
Vonagreeswitheverything, the classic second fiddle who sold custom
whittled woodwind instruments out of the back of her truck when she
wasn't throwing bake offs. Then there was Gossip Likecrazy, the
neighborhood tattle tale that also made a mean key lime pie. And of
course, Drunk McSkunk, the lush of Lansing Avenue, who somehow
managed to come up with some astute observations between
cocktails.

The ladies had come together to gossip
about the size of their husbands peckers under the guise of
knitting a quilt. After enough stub jokes were made and their
bellies were filled with laughs as well as cookies, they figured
they might as well solve the Dowers case.

The Dowers homicide was a cold case, so
Quirky immediately took it out of the freezer with that nights
spare ribs. Then after a good thaw, the sleuthing heated
up.

***

"Sidekick, hand me a cookie. I have a
hunch," Quirky insisted, scanning a case file.

"Oh thank God. I was worried this
murder was going to get in the way of my pedicure," Drunk McSkunk
remarked, downing a martini.

Quirky looked at her watch. "Wow, that
took me five whole minutes. Ladies, it might just be time to retire
from beating the police at their own game."

The ladies all laughed.

"Are you kidding?" Gossip asked. "It's
a good thing the police have us, or they'd never solve any crimes.
Although to be fair, donuts shops are great places to hang out. I
met my fourth husband at one."

"All right, calm down ladies," Quirky
continued. "It's time to go into a skeezy part of town with no
police back up to question a suspect."

***

"Mr. Patterson, I need to talk to you,"
Quirky said, knocking on an apartment door with her sassy ladies
behind her.

The door opened revealing Tim Patterson
with a look that just screamed "I'm a murderer."

"Who the hell are you?" Tim
barked.

Quirky hated salty language and poor
manners. Sheesh, sure there were a lot of criminals out there, but
couldn't they at least mind their P's and Q's?

"Oh come on Mr. Patterson. This is a
really small town. How could you not know I'm the woman that
figured out you murdered Janine Franklin?"

Tim shot Quirky an evil look. "I don't
know who you think you are, but I suggest you get the hell out of
here."

Tim went to shut the door in Quirky's
face. She stopped him.

"Mr. Patterson, you have two options.
Either you can confess to the murder now and I'll give you one of
my fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, or you can wait and confess
at the police station where all you're going to get is week old
coffee. It's your choice."

***

"You should have taken the cookies.
They're delicious," Quirky insisted. "Francine Tupelo from my book
club gave me a new recipe."

But Mr. Patterson just grumbled as a
police officer hauled him to a jail cell.

Police detective Joe McDimwit scratched
his head as he'd been outsmarted again.

"Another good piece of detective work
Quirky," Joe said. "It you keep things up like this, you'll put me
out of a job."

Quirky laughed. "Don't be silly Joe. If
I started solving murders full time, I'd have no time to make
delicious cookies."

The End.

You Totally Just Got Double Crossed By
Your Own Spy Agency

James O'Sixpackabs had read thrillers
where spies got double crossed by their own agency, but never
believed it could happen to him in real life. Then snap, he flew
halfway around the world on an assignment only to find himself
ambushed by the Halitosis Mafia. But it wasn't just the thugs
breath that stunk. James quickly found out that the Mafia had
secret masters...wait for it...da da dum...his own
government.

Suddenly James found himself thousands
of miles from home with his own country wanting him dead. It left
James trying to stay alive long enough to clear his name, kill the
bad dudes, and figure out how far up the conspiracy
went.

Unfortunately, all that led to
researching, which meant paperwork. And James hated paperwork.
There wasn't relentless page turning action in it. Of course, there
wasn't page turning action in going to the bathroom either, which
is why he never bothered with that either. He did run in business
suits at full speed a lot though (which really troubled the extreme
couponers at the supermarkets who thought he was trying to one up
them).

Luckily James was really good at
beating the tar out of people, so he could squeeze out exposition
with his fists instead of cracking open books. James briefly
considered having a back story and developing some character depth
at some point, but he always seemed to be too busy crushing skulls
for it to matter.

But just because James was in hiding
didn't mean he was going to turn into a professional napper or any
other kind of wussy hobby. No, James was going to take the battle
right back to the home front. He was going to stick his nosy
martial arts skills right where the sun didn't shine.

It turned out for a secretive spy
agency, James was able to bust through security like a covert bad
ass relatively unnoticed. Action scene after action scene ensued,
each more mindless and unbelievable than the next. You'd think
James could dodge bullets (either that or trained spies had lost
the ability to aim--maybe it was too many tequila shots the night
before).

Finally James snuck his way into his
bosses office and started snooping around for super classified
conspiracy info. Luckily, there was a file right in the front of
his bosses cabinet labeled "super classified conspiracy info." But
when James looked inside, he couldn't believe what he saw. James'
boss wasn't just some evil kingpin. He was working for the most
evil of kingpin's--the "I can't believe he's been pretending to be
dumb all this time when in reality he's a genius" Vice
President.

That was the kind of knowledge that
could get someone killed. And as James' boss Trevor Turncoat came
back to his office with a gun drawn on James, that someone to get
killed looked at lot like James.

"Well well well, if it isn't the guy I
double crossed and pegged for dead earlier," Trevor
said.

"Why are you doing this?" James
asked.

"Who cares? You're going to be so dead
in a minute anyway," Trevor added.

"Wait. But aren't you going to give me
some long drawn out speech about why the world turned you into an
evil hate monger?"

"Nah. I think I'll just kill you now
and pin the conspiracy on you. I have a tuna sandwich in the break
room that could spoil any minute."

"Guess I'll just have to pull out my
super secret escape plan then," James insisted.

"And what's that?" Trevor
asked.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be secret
anymore."

"Oh come on, you don't seriously expect
me to believe you're going to improbably manage to escape, do
you?"

"Hey Trevor, is that Agent Distraction
eating your tuna sandwich?" James asked, pointing towards the
door.