Returning to Earth, Mongrel finds some surprises waiting for him: his pet mon, a pet monkey, and Elvis. After learning that he’s not the real Elvis, they are then attacked by raging fans. Trying to explain the situation doesn’t help to improve the situation, especially when one of the groupies comes on to Mongrel.
Excerpts:
Elvis stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you Mr. Death. Put ‘er there.”
Death looked at the hand. “If I connect your shaking apparatus with mine own, I shall discontinue your existence.”
Elvis looked confused, and turned that look towards Mongrel.
“He’ll kill you if he touches you,” Mongrel explained. “He’s Death. Think about that now.”
“Ah,” Elvis noted, taking back his hand. Then it sunk in. “Oh, oh! Death? Like the Death? Guy with the scythe and black robe and kills people – people like me – Death kinda guy?”
Death nodded.
Mongrel concurred.
Elvis dived behind Mongrel. “He came for me, didn’t he? I knew it! Sweet mamma this can’t be happening!”
Death sighed and shifted around, annoyed.
“He’s here to help us,” Mongrel tried to explain.
“No I’m not,” Death muttered.
“No he’s not,” Elvis said. “You heard him. He’s come to take me away to that jukebox in the sky. I knew it was going to be a bad day. I just knew it.”
“It’s gonna get a whole lot worse if you don’t enhance your calm!” Death threatened him. As ironic as it seemed, Death had a life too. It wasn’t always on business (in fact, it had just returned from vacation), and liked to get out sometimes just like everyone else. But when people found out that Death was THE Death they always had the same reaction – sheer panic. Because of this Death often traveled under an assumed name: Gregory A. Pocalypse.
“Stay back, I’m warning you!” Elvis held Mongrel in front of him like a human shield. “I know eighteen kinds of Kung-Fu!”
Mongrel struggled to free himself from Elvis. “Let go of me! You’re losing it, man!”
“You’re messing with trouble here! You know who I am? I’m Elvis! A living legend! The King of Rock and Roll! You can’t just go around killing the King of Rock and Roll!”
“Why not?” Death asked, taking offense to this. “I’ve done it once already. What are you saying – I can’t do it again? I’m Death buddy! You got that? Death! D, E, Eth! The Grim-freaking-Reaper!”
“All right, that’s it!” Mongrel yelled. “No one’s going to be killing anyone around here!” He tore lose from Elvis’ vice-like hands and turned to him. “He ain’t gonna kill you.” He glared at Death. “Right?”
“Well I wasn’t but I think I’ve changed my mind.” Elvis backed away at this remark and seemed to gather himself into a peculiar fighting stance.
Mongrel sighed. Standing on a near-tropical beach, far away from his problems at home, he ironically felt like he desperately needed a vacation. “Look Greg, we just need a little favour, that’s all.”
“I don’t do favours. And I don’t go by Greg either.”
Mongrel ignored the remark. “We need to get to Dunttstown, can you give us a lift?”
Death gave Mongrel a look that, if it had eyes and a nose and all that good stuff, might have conveyed disgust, or maybe disapproval. Possibly even dismay. It would begin with ‘dis’ one way or another. “Oh yeah, sure!” Death flung its arms in the air. “Just let me swing back to the Deathcave and pick up the Deathmobile.”
“How long will that take? We’ve got to be there before si-”
“No I will not give you a lift! I am not a taxi. Transportation is not one of my services.” Death thought about this. “At least, not for the living.”
***
Dunttstown is one of the few towns in the world that can actually loom. It has also, on very rare occasions, peered. Once it even sneezed, but no one lived to remember that, since the sneeze had killed everyone, and it’s now widely regarded as a folk tale.
Elvis jerked his head around in fear, his eyes darting this way and that. The building to his left, the fire hydrant, the lamppost, the mailbox; the whole town appeared to be looking at him.
As an impersonator of the most famous person there is to impersonate, fans he was performing for often got too emotionally involved in what he liked to call his ‘simulated experiences,’ and thought he was actually the real Elvis. It also didn’t help that he was exceptionally good at his job. Screaming groupies often charged the stage, mauling him senseless. He usually had to leave buildings through back doors or hidden side entrances, but he was still frequently ambushed. He’d been hospitalized several times, had lived through several major operations, and, although he preferred to keep this private, his left arm was animatronic. Some rabid fan had run off with his real arm. Fortunately through current medical breakthroughs he was still able to live a healthy, normal life, albeit a life that made him permanently paranoid.
He grabbed Mongrel and pulled him aside. “This city is watching me,” he whispered.
***
Berthys wasn’t too happy with being forgotten. It reminded her of when she was in the zoo and her mother abandoned her. She’d never felt so cold and alone. All the other monkeys had their mothers (and in some cases their fathers too – in fact most of them shared the same one), but her mother had opted out of her parental role by inheriting a rare trait in her lineage that predisposed her to contracting rabies. She attacked several zookeepers, several children who’d gotten too close to the cage, and a hot air balloon. The incident with the hot air balloon in particular was what pushed the zoo to take drastic measures to ensure the health of anyone or anything in or around the zoo, including, but not limited to, hot air balloons, especially since no one could offer even a partial explanation of how she’d managed to attack it. So she was put to sleep, and Berthys was left to fend for herself among the other gentle, caring monkeys. The others tried their best to console and take care of her, and Berthys resented them for it. Eventually she couldn’t take their kindness any longer, and began ripping their tales out and strangling them with them. After killing the zoo’s entire stock of monkeys, it was assumed that Berthys had inherited her mother’s rabies gene, and that she should be put to sleep like her mother.
Luckily, Berthys managed to escape the zoo before her fate befell her. She lives her life in malevolent solitude, or is at least trying to, and still believes that she is a product of her environment rather than her mother’s genes. At least, mostly.
The Chris Effect 