Jeff Strand - Casket For Sale

Now The Headhunter held an innocent woman hostage, demanding that I be brought in for a chat. Really, it would've been well within my moral rights to say "No offense, anonymous innocent woman, but I'm staying way the hell out of there!"

Unfortunately, though I may be an irresponsible slacker, I'm not the kind of irresponsible slacker who can stand back and let somebody die. While a cop fitted me with a comfy bulletproof vest, Bruce touched a button on his cell phone. "I'll let him know you're here."

"I can't believe he's making you use your daytime minutes."

Bruce didn't acknowledge my joke, which didn't bother me because he never acknowledged my jokes. "He's here," he said into the phone. He listened for a moment, nodded, and glanced at me. "He says you can go right in. But, Andrew, you don't really have to do this."

I ignored him and walked to the front doors.

It's okay , I told myself. You're not breaking your vow to quit being stupid. This is bravery, not stupidity. This is honorable. Stupidity remains far in your past. You're a smart, responsible individual now.

I opened the door and walked inside Hector's Subs-N-Suds. The Headhunter stood up from behind a counter at the back of the restaurant, holding a knife to the throat of a young woman with puffy red eyes and a tearstained face. He wore orange prison garb and didn't quite have the same look of malicious glee he had when I'd encountered him several weeks before.

He giggled maniacally. "Glad you could make it," he said in a high-pitched voice. "Oh, yes, it's always such a pleasure to see my favoritest friend Andrew!"

"Why are you doing the goofy voice thing? I already know it's an act, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," he said in his normal voice. "Glad you could make it anyway."

"No problem. I'd been wanting to see your new fashion statement. That orange suit really brings out the evil in your eyes."

He sneered. "Aren't you going to ask me to let the woman go?"

I gave a casual shrug, even though sweat poured down my sides. I couldn't let him know how nervous I was. "Would you do it?"

"There's only one way to find out."

"Okay. Would you care to let the woman go?"

"Sure. Come over here and take her spot."

I shook my head. "I hope you don't think I came in here just to let you kill me. That would be nutty."

The Headhunter pressed the knife more tightly against the woman's throat. "You want her to die?"

"C'mon, Ned, I know you're not stupid. You kill your hostage and those cops outside will mow you down in about three seconds. Why didn't you just run? You haven't gone to trial yet, so why go to all the trouble of escaping from prison just for this kind of revenge nonsense?"

"I've gotta be honest with you. The whole 'bring me Andrew Mayhem' thing is only because I got stuck here and needed a way to buy myself some time."

For the briefest of moments I was actually kind of offended. "So, what now?"

"Now? Well, I've had some time to think things over, and revenge nonsense sounds like a good idea." He shoved the woman out of the way, dropped his knife, and kicked it across the floor toward me. "One-on-one. Let's see what you can do."

I picked up the knife. It had some blood and mustard on it. "I don't want to fight you."

The Headhunter grinned. "This is your chance to beat me fair and square. I don't even have my sword. We'll find out if you're as tough as you say you are."

"I never said I was tough."

"Yes, you did."

I shook my head. "No, I didn't."

"I'm sure you did."

"Nope. Not something I would say."

The Headhunter looked confused for a moment, and then shrugged. "Either way, it's time for a rematch. This time you don't have your wife to protect you. You and me, Mayhem. You with the knife, me with my bare hands. May the best man win."

We stared at each other.

"You've gotta be kidding me." I casually stepped out of the way. A gunshot rang out, shattering the window, and the Headhunter dropped to the ground, screaming and clutching his bleeding leg. Within moments, several cops burst into Hector's Subs-N-Suds, their guns pointed at the fallen kidnapper.

Wow. The Headhunter, a savage serial killer who'd come terrifyingly close to murdering my wife and I, had turned into a complete idiot.

I smiled. If even a lunatic like the Headhunter posed no real threat these days, then my vow to stay out of trouble would be no problem to uphold.

Six Months Later

WEDNESDAY NIGHTS WERE typically spent hanging out with my friend, Roger Tanglen, at the Blizzard Room, which was the lamest coffee shop in Florida and possibly the world. Most of our conversation was devoted to the low quality of the coffee. It was a long-running, if pathetic, tradition.

But the Blizzard Room was no more. It had burned to the ground (faulty wiring) last week. We'd actually noticed a few sparks the last couple of times we were there, but thought they were meant to be decorative.

So now we sat in the Java Joint, an upscale, modern coffee shop with tables that didn't wobble if you breathed near them and a menu selection longer than my children's combined Christmas lists.

I sipped my cappuccino. "Wow," I said. "It contains heat."

"And the foam doesn't make your tongue numb."

"And the cup retains most of the coffee."

We drank in silence for a long moment.

"Now what do we talk about?" I asked.

"I dunno."

We drank in silence for a longer moment.

"We could talk about our relationships," Roger suggested.

"Pass."

"I don't understand why you don't like her."

"I said, pass."

"C'mon, Andrew, she's a nice person. She's gorgeous, we get along great, and I'm learning more about menstruation than I ever thought possible."

"Don't even joke about that. Your continued emasculation is a serious problem."

"I'm just saying, she's the best thing that ever happened to me. She might be The One."

The horrid creature in question was Samantha. Samantha Tracer. Samantha the Demon Monster from Planet Wretch. He'd met her maybe a month ago, and she'd immediately latched onto him the same way that crab thing latched onto John Hurt's face in Alien . I half-expected a phallic-looking extraterrestrial to burst out of Roger's stomach at any moment.

Even though he's a loser like me, Roger dates fairly regularly. He's short, kinda pudgy, losing his hair, and has a big nose, but he's got these beautiful blue eyes (so I'm told, since I'm really not the best judge of a guy's beautiful blue eyes) that just about bring women to their knees. I'm taller, have more hair, more muscles, and a nose that's in proportion, but my eyes are a non-bringing-women-to-their-knees dingy brown color. We both dress like slobs.

So I wasn't surprised when Roger started dating Samantha, who is admittedly, for all her life-sucking evil, a blonde bombshell. I was surprised it got so serious so fast. My best friend shouldn't be talking about "The One" after a month of dating, and he certainly should not have reached the point where phrases like "we could talk about our relationships" came up in our man-to-man conversations.

"She's not The One."

"She might be," Roger insisted.

"She's not."

"I'm serious, I don't get this. Why don't you like her?"

"Because she's Satan."

"Be more specific. What about her makes her Satan?"

"I don't know, it's just… it's just this Satan-vibe I get from her."

Roger glared at me. "That's not good enough. If you've got a problem with my girlfriend, I want to know what it is. Don't give me this vague Satan-vibe crap. What don't you like about her?"

"She's needy."

"She is not needy! She's one of the most independent women I know! And I've dated plenty of needy women you've liked. C'mon, Andrew, you've gotta do better than that."