By Dan Cheek
“And finally,” Sam said as he walked up to the front door, preparing to leave for work, “Don’t kill anything. I mean it. If I come home and find one dead anything, I will bury all of you along with whatever else I have to bury. Understand?”
He looked down at the four sock puppets. Bob flashed a smile and they all nodded. “We gotcha’ Sam,” Bob said in a sincere-sounding voice. “No killing of anything.”
Sam held his gaze on them for a few seconds longer and then nodded. Then he turned, opened the door, and left for work. The door slammed behind him and then the house was filled with silence. The four puppets, Bob, Doctor Sanity, Lost Cause, and Goblin stood there for a minute or so longer before Bob spoke and broke the quiet.
“So, what should we do today, fellas,” he asked.
Doctor Sanity, the resident mad-genius sock puppet, was giddy with excitement. “Ooo! Ooo! Let’s kill something!”
Goblin growled his agreement. Bob, however, was shaking his head, disapprovingly. “Doc,” he said in a calm voice, “We just promised Sam that we wouldn’t kill anything today. Remember?”
Doctor Sanity’s one big eye got a little bigger. His other, much smaller eye, squinted tighter. “I recall no such thing,” he said. “I remember you promising Sam that we wouldn’t kill anything. I swore nothing to no one.”
“Point taken,” Bob answered, “But no killing of anything today. Sam will stick us in the blender if we fuck up today. We might have been able to get away with it, assuming someone hadn’t mixed Clorox in with his eye drops.” Everyone turned and gave hard, accusing stares in Lost Cause’s direction.
“It wasn’t me,” Lost Cause shot back defensively. “Spooky did it. He’s a bastard. Although, in his defense, he was pretty high when he did it. So perhaps he didn’t mean to be cruel.”
For a few seconds, everyone just stood there, trying to absorb that. Finally, Doc Sanity spoke up. “LC,” he began, “I realize that the years of heavy Windex abuse has left your brain, um, damaged, but you can’t possibly expect us to believe that your imaginary friend put real Clorox in Sam’s very real eye drops. Just confess and accept your punishment. Which, sadly, will probably be execution.”
“Calm down, Doc,” Bob interjected. “LC, you need to stop all of this ‘Spooky’ talk. I mean, it’s funny as hell watching you blame shit on this guy when Sam is here, but we are multitudes smarter than him. So just drop it, m’k?”
“Listen you guys,” Lost Cause, the constantly manic depressed Sock Puppet, shot back, “Spooky is no figment of anything. He’s real and I can prove it. I’ll invite him over today and you can all meet him.”
Goblin was the first to react. He began making laugh-like snorts, shaking his head slightly. He then turned and left to go ravage some other part of the house. Bob and Doctor Sanity just stood there. Finally, Bob broke the silence.
“Lost Cause,” he said matter-of-factly, “You’re full of shit. There is no Spooky. You need….”
Lost Cause quickly interrupted him. “Fine, you arrogant bastards, I’ll call him over now!”
Doctor Sanity tipped his head back and laughed. “You don’t even know how to use the phone, you stupid puppet! How in the shit are you going to ‘call him over?”
Lost Cause went over to the back door, stuck his head through the doggy-door that Sam had installed for Goblin and screamed at the top of his lungs, “SPOOKY!!! C’M’ERE!!”
Bob and Doctor Sanity both looked at each other, then back at Lost Cause, who was now standing in front of the door, looking at the other two puppets. “Now, nonbelievers, you will see that….”
The back door swung open, sending Lost Cause flying into an adjacent wall. Standing in the doorway was a tall, lanky, dirty, and very hairy man. He wore a World War II style aviator’s jacket, but instead of military patches, it was covered in patches that had the names and logos of various bands on them. His hair was jet black, and was long, unkempt, and matted, matching his scraggly beard. His eyes were bright green, but glazed over. The man’s pants were covered in crud, torn in many spots, and were obviously three sizes too big for his skinny frame. A thick leather belt, with a big, yellow smiley face for a buckle held them up. A pair of thrashed and trashed skater shoes completed the ensemble.
Bob and Doctor Sanity stood there, mouths hanging open in disbelief. Finally, Bob was able to form words. “Um, Spooky?”
The man’s eyes were rolling around in his head, aimlessly. Finally, the focused themselves as he looked down at Bob and Sanity. “Whoa…you know my name? Are you the Gate Keeper?”
Doctor Sanity looked at Bob and then back up at Spooky. “No, ass, I’m the Key Master.” The Doctor then turned his attention to Lost Cause, who was still shaking off his concussion. “Nice, LC,” the Doctor chided, “You’ve made friends with a crack head. And here I was beginning to think you had no social skills.”
At this, Goblin came tearing ass into the kitchen. His head darted around wildly, looking around for something new to destroy. It didn’t take him long to see Spooky standing there in the doorway. Goblin’s eyes narrowed and his body tensed, as if he were about to pounce.
“Well, I think this is the part where you get eaten, my friend,” Bob said in a dry tone. “It was lovely meeting you.”
For a long second, no one breathed. Everyone stood there, tense, waiting for Goblin to perform his usual “kill everything” magic trick. Instead, Goblin took a couple of sniffs and then relaxed. He slowly moved towards Spooky, who was still standing there, eyes glazed over, not really knowing what was going on. Goblin, now standing right next to Spooky’s right leg, sniffed some more. His eyes narrowed and then widened again.
What he did next shocked everyone. Instead of turning Spooky into ribbons of bloody meat, he quietly chuckled to himself and then headed back to the living room. Bob and Doctor Sanity stood there, mouths hanging open in disbelief. Slowly, Lost Cause was getting upright again, shaking off his blunt trauma induced head injury.
“Let’s eat,” Spooky said as he broke the silence, unaware of the high drama that had just occurred in front of him. Lost Cause was now up and moving and together, he and Spooky wandered over to the refrigerator. Spooky opened the door and the two peered inside, oogling all of the food and beverages as they began to plan their meal.
Bob and Doctor Sanity turned and left the other two to their own devices as they made their way out into the living room. There, Goblin was sitting on the couch, enthralled in some Discovery Channel special featuring naked Canadian lumberjacks and porcupines. Bob and the Doctor hopped up on the couch next to Goblin, who didn’t take his eyes off of the television screen.
After a minute, Doc Sanity began shaking his head, obviously pissed. “This fucking blows,” he finally stammered. He looked at Goblin, “Why the hell didn’t you eat that dirty hippy?”
Goblin barked something that sounded between a growl, a burp, and a small explosion. “Bullshit,” Doctor Sanity shot back at Goblin, countering whatever he had just said, “I’ve seen you eat a diseased skunk.”
Goblin grumbled/barked/growled something else, again, never taking his eyes off the television. “Don’t fucking tell me you weren’t hungry. Listen, Goblin, I have an IQ that…”
Goblin turned and shot out a growl/scream that rattled windows in the next room. At this, Doctor Sanity realized he had pushed Goblin to the limit and any further prodding would probably result in mass bleeding and dismemberment. “Fine. You weren’t hungry,” Sanity finally said in a diplomatic voice.
“Let it go, Doc,” Bob said. “Goblin will do what Goblin does. He didn’t eat Spooky today, maybe he’ll eat him tomorrow.”
Just then, Spooky and Lost Cause came meandering into the living room. Instead of settling on the couch, with the others, they made their way over to a pair of recliners that were positioned over by the large window that overlooked the front yard. The two perched themselves there.
Bob and Doctor Sanity, obviously confused, looked at each other and then back at the Lost Cause and Spooky. Finally, Bob asked, “What the hell are you two doing? Over there, I mean. Can’t you see the television is turned on?”
“And while we’re on the subject,” Doc Sanity interjected, “Why do you hang out with this breathing sack of bong water, Lost Cause?”
“Because he smells like hotdogs, I guess,” Lost Cause answered in an uninterested tone.
“I like hotdogs,” Spooky said, to no one in particular.
“Yeah,” Lost Cause responded. “And as for your question, Bob, we’re watching the neighbor’s sheep.”
“Why are you doing that,” Doc Sanity asked. “That fucking this is retarded.”
Spooky turned and looked over at the Sanity and the others. “Yeah, man, but before I came over, I gave the sheep some Ecstasy and some Speed.”
At this, Goblin, Bob, and Lost Cause went rushing over to the window and hopped up on the chair next to Lost Cause. Goblin began laughing so hard he fell off the recliner. Bob and Sanity were also instantly entertained.
Outside, the neighbor’s pet sheep was hopped up on both Speed and Ecstacy. The sheep was going bonkers. As the Puppets and Spooky sat there, watching, the sheep attacked a mailman, a UPS delivery woman, two garbage cans, and a squirrel. In between it’s assaults, which consisted of a combination of tackling, biting, humping, and kicking, the sheep would run around and tear clumps of grass out of the yard, kick holes through picket fences, and ravage flower gardens.
A few hours later, Sam finally came back home. He opened the front door, came in, and closed the door. He then turned and looked at the four puppets, who were sitting there by the window, still watching the sheep rampage outside.
For a minute, Sam just stood there. Finally, reluctantly, he asked, “Um, guys, why is there a sheep raping a pizza delivery guy on the front lawn? And why do I have the sneaking suspicion that you are responsible for this abomination?”
Bob turned and looked at Sam, “First of all, that sheep is addled with all sorts of neat little mind altering drugs. So he’s doing what he’s doing because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And second, we had absolutely nothing to do with this. Spooky gave that sheep the drugs. We’re just watching.”
Sam stood there and then, after a long couple of seconds, nodded his head. “Right. I’m going to bed. Wake me up when the police come for me.”
“Will do, Sam,” Doctor Sanity answered as Sam made his way upstairs. He then looked over at Lost Cause, “Hey, invite Spooky over tomorrow. He’s fucking awesome.”
End.
