Midnight Squad: The Grim (29 page)

           
I screamed again, “Giddy up goat!” The goat bleated,
“dumb ass!” Then went back to staring blankly out into nothing. Then it struck
me. I did remember this goat. It was the very same goat that got me locked up
in jail. He was the beer drinking goat of Mudstump, Texas. It was time to think
outside the box. I yelled, “Hurry up! Happy hour is starting
!“
The goat’s head shot up, and with a mighty bleat of urgency, we were gone.
The goat’s hooves click-clacked along the street as we tried to
distance ourselves from the raging Danika puppies.
I didn’t have a gas
or break to use so I steered the goat using the horns like handlebars, and held
on for dear life. All the while the Danika puppies nipped at our heels. They
were gaining, and my goat was wearing down.

           
I was getting desperate. I grabbed the balloon and
fumbled with the string. I’m not sure why I was doing it, but for some reason
it just seemed that it was important to untie the balloon. I let the balloon go
once I untied it, and instead of floating away, it crashed into the pavement. A
huge bottomless hole was left in the street, and the little Danika dogs fell
into that whole. We were finally safe.

           
The goat slowed to a stop, and I hopped off to give it a
rest. We started walking down the street when I heard whispers. They were faint
at first, but started getting closer. I made a slow tactical retreat, and began
to jog down the street. The voices behind us were gaining, but now there was a
hissing sound in front of us. In the distance a pink smoke appeared, and it
started moving towards us. Laughter swelled behind us, and a hissing pink smoke
in front of us, how could this get any worse?

           
My thoughts were answered almost immediately when
Alhambra stepped out of the smoke. She was dressed in a pink belly dancer
outfit, and looked like she was trying out for a remake of I Dream of Genie.
She smiled seductively, “Master, if someone rubbed me right I’d have granted
all their wishes, but nobody ever even tried. So I’ll take you all down with
me.” The smile turned into a vicious snarl that twisted her face into something
gruesome, and then she stepped back into the smoke. The smoke started
advancing. The goat moved himself between the smoke and me. When the smoke
enveloped the goat, and began eating him up like acid. I heard one loud death bleat,
and then the goat fell to the pavement. Alhambra kept laughing maniacally from
somewhere deep inside the smoke.

           
I turned and began running. My legs pumped faster, but
the smoke started gaining. “Faster Grimmy, you know how I like it when you go
faster!” Alhambra’s voice teased me from within the smoke. I ran hard, but it
kept gaining. Then in the distance, I saw an escape. There was a ladder for a
fire escape. I leapt, and just barely caught the lowest rung on the ladder. I
started climbing like my life depended on it, and though my body was aching, I
kept rumbling up the fire escape. The pink smoke passed below me. Alhambra
screamed in frustration, but somehow I knew she couldn’t follow. I kept
climbing until I finally reached the roof. My lungs were burning, and I could
hardly stand up so I just stood there sucking wind. My hands on my knees, and
my eyes clenched tight while my heart thundered through my chest.

           
“Aw, is someone getting slow in his old age?” I was
Katy’s voice. I looked up and…well it just got weird. I had just climbed a fire
escape, but now I was standing in a meadow. There were flowers of all colors
everywhere I looked. Some even changed colors, and one or two actually flashed
and glowed to some bizarre psychedelic rock that you could almost hear if you
really stopped and concentrated. The whole sky was a rainbow that kept shifting
patterns and colors. Katy stood in front of me, but she looked so different.
Instead of her normal gothic look, she was wearing rainbow glitter, and nothing
else. An angel surrounded by beauty. Finally, this dream was starting to look
up. Something inside me knew it wouldn’t last.
 

           
Katy’s face twisted into an evil smirk. She sneezed, and
burst into hundreds of butterflies. They fluttered a few seconds before
bursting into flames and falling to the ground. The flowers and grass caught
fire and soon became a hellish blaze within seconds. I did the only thing I
could, I turned and ran. The flames were so hot my back and butt felt like it
was blistering. Fire chased me to the edge of a cliff. As they got closer, I
realized I didn’t have any real options. I turned and leapt off the cliff, and
splashed down into a river below. When I came up I was floating around in a
cereal bowl. The doctor, Elizabeth, and DD were sitting around eating. DD
scooped me up with her spoon as if I was part of this morning’s delicious
balanced breakfast and put me in her mouth. In one gulp she swallowed me whole,
and I screamed all the way down. When I finally stopped falling it was pitch
black, and I was knee deep in water, or at least something watery. I kept
stumbling around in the darkness. Liquid splashed and sloshed with each step. A
faint glow started off far away. It was just under the surface, and it slowly
moved towards me. There was nowhere to go, and the glow was picking up speed.

           
The glow finally surrounded me, and started getting
brighter. I could hear laughter. The glow became blinding, and I finally had to
cover my eyes. The light was so intense that even closed it burned my eyes. I
tried to use my hands to cover them, but they kept burning. The laughter got
louder and louder until it became deafening unending howl. After a long while,
the laughter died out, and the light stopped being so painfully intense. I
pulled my hands from my face. I opened my eyes and realized that I was standing
in a large empty room. There was a cement floor, and I was standing in a circle
of light. Just outside the light it was pitch black.

           
“We missed you.” It was a small child’s voice. I could
hear rustling out from the darkness. They had me surrounded. The child stepped
into the light. It was the orphan that I’d killed. The orphan I met with Jesus
was standing in front of me again. When he first stepped into the circle of
light he looked healthy and whole, but almost immediately he began to decay.
The child stepped right up to me and said, “We missed you, but we’ll be seeing
you again soon.” Then out of the darkness, every one of my victims shuffled
towards me. They began rotting even as they surrounded me. Hands pulled me down
from all sides, and they started swarming over me like ants. The weight of
their rotten, putrid flesh began crushing me.

Mercifully,
I woke up. A cold sweat covered my body. The bad thing was that this was
becoming my new normal. I had a full sweat outline of where I slept. I tried to
shake out the cobwebs in my head. Today was Halloween, and our last official
day together. They would rehire some of us, but we wouldn’t find out who was
staying on until tomorrow. In the meantime, we had a Halloween party planned
for the night, and even though the whole situation was still a little
melancholy, I thought it was best to enjoy the night. It might be the last
night I’d have to be around these people. I’d miss them.

           
It took me a bit to slip into my costume. I was dressed
as
a whoopee
cushion, and my shoulders made it a tight
fit. I would have preferred something different, but it isn’t easy to find a
costume that fits someone my size. I made my way up to the recreation room, and
when I stepped inside the room, I was surprised by how different it looked. DD
really had worked hard. There were streamers, an apple-bobbing tub, and
decorations everywhere. It was mostly fake cobwebs, and plastic spiders, but
still the place had that perfect cheesy Halloween feel.

           
DD was the only one in the room. She turned to me, “Wow,
you’re a little early. Can you help me with some of the decorations? Everyone
should be here in the next forty minutes or so.” I plodded over and helped set
the last few decorations up. “Grimmy, do you mind if I go back to change into
my costume? Also, can you fill the apple-bobbing tub? There’s a hose over in
storage. You can just hook it up straight to the faucet.” I nodded and she
slipped off to change. After finishing with the last few streamers, I went and
grabbed the hose. I dropped one end into the tub and started walking back to
the sink. Katy’s screamed, “Oh…my…God! You did not come in wearing that!” I
turned around and Katy’s face turned beet red, “Oh! I’m sorry. It was a
complete misunderstanding.”

           
“What are you talking about? I’m
a
whoopee
cushion. What did you think I was?” I questioned.

           
“I thought…I thought you were
a whoopee
cushion.” Katy’s voice sounded nervous and embarrassed. I stomped over to her,
“Seriously, what did you think I was?” The door opened behind me and Danika
screamed, “Grimmy, that’s just gross!” I turned around and she immediately
backtracked, “Sorry, misunderstanding.”

           
I dropped the hose, and put my hands on my hips and
growling, “Ok, what did you two think I was?” They both stared at the ground
and shuffled their feet. Neither was willing to tell me. Elizabeth and Alhambra
walked in. I yelled, “Ms. Mann, what do I look like?” She looked at me as if
I’d grown a third head. “You’re
a whoopee
cushion.
What else would you be? I turned around and picked up the hose. I needed to
move the apple-bobbing tub over a little so I tucked the hose into the top of
my costume, as soon as I did Katy, and Danika started giggling. Even Elizabeth
and Alhambra started biting back their laughter.

           
“Ok what the fuck is so funny?” I snapped, but nobody was
coming clean. DD and Penny finally came in. I looked at them both and said, “Ok
you two. What’s so damn funny about this costume?” DD and Penny barely looked
up, and dismissed me like an annoying fly before resuming their conversation.
In frustration, I turned around and stomped back to the sink. I was just about
to disengage the hose when DD screamed, “Holy Shit! Grimmy, you’re a giant
douchebag!” I turned around with a sneer. Penny raised her hands, “No Grim, she
really means it. With that hose hanging out of the top of your costume…you
really look like a douche bag.” I turned around the room until I found a
mirror. Then seeing myself I hung my head and groaned, “Crap!”

           
It wasn’t the best start for my night, but even I had to
admit it was somewhat funny. I felt stupid, but my mood really improved when I
looked around at the other costumes. Thank God for Halloween, the one day of
the year when women try their best to look slutty. I was in horndog heaven.
Women don’t pick normal costumes. I think there is a law against it. There’s no
woman that dresses like a witch. She has to be a slutty witch. There’s no cop,
but there is a slutty cop. There’s no old grandmotherly librarian, it is always
a slutty librarian. Therefore, your options if you are a woman are something
slutty, or don’t celebrate it at all. There’s the slutty angel, the slutty
devil, the slutty clown, the slutty ghost, and even a slutty nun. God bless
Halloween!

           
DD was dressed as a slutty ninja turtle. I’m sure she
made the costume herself, and the fact that she had giant turtle boobs was just
plain weird, but oddly arousing. Janine really didn’t have a costume, but since
she could change her outward appearance, she made herself look like a stripper
with Dick Cheney’s head. It was more than a little disturbing to think that I’d
been having sex with that. I think my dick tried to crawl back inside my body.
At the very least there was definite shrinkage. Penny was a slutty pirate. She
even had a fake parrot that sat on her shoulder. As pirates went, I really
wanted a closer look at this pirate’s booty.

           
Katy was dressed up in a little schoolgirl outfit. At
least I thought it was a schoolgirl outfit, but when I asked her about it, she
said it was a Sailor Moon costume. I don’t know what that is, but she explained
that apparently it is a cartoon involving women wearing skirts that barely hide
their panties, and I am definitely now that shows biggest fan. Danika was
dressed up as Catwoman, and the irony wasn’t lost on me. Alhambra was dressed
like an early nineteen fifties waitress. She even had the beehive hairdo.
Elizabeth was wearing a complete latex outfit. She looked like the queen of
bondage, and I got the impression that outfit wasn’t really just for Halloween.

           
“Ok, so we just need the Doctor and the party can start.”
I said. The anticipation was getting to me. It might be the last night I have
to spend around these people, so I was gonna enjoy the company. “Gina isn’t
coming. She prefers her privacy.” Elizabeth said matter-of-factly. I suppose I
can’t complain. I mean I really didn’t want to see her slutty-whatever costume.
There was nothing good about a sexy costume on an old woman. DD docked her iPod
and started playing some of the cheesiest Halloween music I ever heard. There
was even a techno version of the song Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Then she
fired up a blender and before long we had a bunch of those sissy froufrou
drinks. DD kept apologizing to me for not having something a little more…manly.
I didn’t really have a problem with it. The drinks were great, and how often do
I get a chance to drink a bunch of sissy daiquiris without someone giving me
crap.