Howie Amourscow's Stories

King In Hell

2008-04-09T22:49:45Z

Simon sighed.

“It’s not good enough,” he said as he sat down. “I really frelled this up. The six of us against an army of souls and five Lucifers. And then Lilith and those Men In Black and all the rest of it.”

A black, starry cloud that smelled of peppermint settled round Simon’s shoulders. “Right will be, Da,” thought Xirm Christ, the first of Simon’s sons, born and died and risen on a world in which God had been tricked into imprisonment by the first and craftiest of Simon’s Lucifers. “Past you look over, obvious see not.”

“We’ve been through Hell, Dad,” Billy Christ said with a flick of the tail.

“That’s not making me feel better, kids,” Simon said.

“Da no, through Hell been me,” Xirm projected urgently. He was used to his heavenly father trapped beneath not listening, and had learned patience.

“When we died, Father,” twittered Wook, we went to Hell.”

Simon took his head out of his hands. He saw.

”’Who is King in Hell?’” Simon laughed with joy.

Things had just gotten a helluva lot easier.

It Is Not Finished

2008-04-09T01:20:13Z

Simon felt something move next to him, and turned to look. A raptor stood next to him, a beatific, sinuous creature with ironically soulful slitted eyes.

“Yo, Dad,” Billy Christ said, “I haven’t forsaken you.”

“Me neither,” said a gorgeous, pulsing coelenterate. It took Simon a minute to place him: Steve Christ, from World Two. Simon looked around and saw his five sons, the five martyrs of the five worlds he’d made.

He didn’t understand, he’d only created one Savior on purpose, and only so he could build the Army Of Souls to save Angela.

“Yeah, but that was an act of Love, Dad,” said Ashmagis Christ, a two-foot tall rodent with rabbit ears and golden eyes that endlessly and unconditionally forgave and adored Simon and everything else they fell upon. “You’re such a softy underneath the whole badass wizard shtick, you couldn’t help making worlds you loved. And that was, like, the dustmote that starts a snowflake.”

“So we’re all here for ya, Daddy-O,” Wook Christ twittered as he landed on Simon’s shoulder.

A Rapture Of Raptors

2008-04-06T22:46:28Z

Kevin drummed his talons on the steering wheel and wondered what was taking so long. He was going to be late and that damn station wagon with the TRUTH bumper sticker needed to get moving or…

His yellow and green eyes blinked several times. Nobody was in the station wagon. A third of the cars on the freeway were empty and the sky was full of a spinning pool of luminosity that poured from the emptying shells of the faithful into the sky.

Kevin got out of his car, tail limp and mouth wide as he gawked at the sky.

Apparently all those idiots who were always knocking on his door all the time with the pamphlets and everything were right all along. There was a Simon, who had so loved the world He sent His only son, Billy Christ, to die for their sins. And the Rapture was nigh; no, the Rapture was fifteen seconds ago.

In the next world, Simon basked in the glow of his army of souls, and looked up into the next world. One down. Five more to go.

Somewhere, Blake wasn’t wholly wrong.

The cavalry was coming.

Will Work For Air

2008-02-05T02:23:44Z

The problem, Gregor thought, wasn’t how to get to Mars. The problem was how to get back to Earth.

He saw that now. This was Matti’s idea, and like all of Matti’s ideas, it was a bad one. He shouldn’t have told Matti about Moonage Daydream: if he hadn’t told Matti, he’d still be talking about it and not stuck up here without enough credit to go home. He didn’t even have enough to breathe tomorrow, much less pay a fare. Not even a luggage berth.

Another problem caused by Matti and booze, just like his second wife. “This is just like Jenny,” he said aloud.

“What’s just like who?” said a husky voice over his shoulder. Hope had an Elvis smile, or maybe just a tic. “I got us a ride,” she said.

“I’m not getting frozen,” Gregor said. “Freezing is for peas.” Matti shot him a dirty look.

“Psh,” Hope said. “As if. Cryo makes me look like a Gorey debutante. You’re willing to work for air, right?”

Matti gave a noncommittal shrug. “Sure,” Gregor said, “what’s the gig?”

“Stevedores,” Hope said with a half-smile.

Tastes Terrible, But It Gets The Job Done

2008-02-04T23:23:27Z

“You’re quiet,” Matti said, glancing at him without completely turning his head. “Stomach still bugging you?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about my stomach.” Gregor sucked a shot of sakila from a bulb with a blue cactus logo. It was sold as tequila-flavored rice wine, but it tasted like water downstream from a paper mill. Some kind of mite was in all the agave and you couldn’t get even a blanco for less than $35 an ounce. He held the alcohol on his tongue ‘til his eyes watered, then reluctantly swallowed.

Matti said, “Luggage.” He’d kept going on through Gregor’s reverie.

“Don’t have any,” Gregor said, mostly to air out his mouth because the old-shoe taste of station air was better than the sakila.

Matti glared at him sideways. “You weren’t listening. I said we could go as luggage.”

“No way. My luck, soon as I’m frozen they’ll ship me to Europa for my corneas and kidneys.”

“They don’t want your kidneys. You’re an alcoholic.”

“But I have lovely eyes. No cryo.”

Matti shook his head and sucked on a bulb.

On The Couch

2008-02-01T20:04:22Z

The world begins to rumble from your ass to your teeth and the Hand Of God covers your chest, holds you down, viciously pushes you back into the launch couch. His Terrible Roar fills your skull.

Gregor poured fire up his nose. He tried to cough out the cheap scotch and couldn’t breathe with the weight on his chest. Tears flowed into his ears. He was dimly aware of a yowling sound and suddenly realized Matti was shrieking like a kid on a rickety 20th century wooden rollercoaster; he’d managed to raise his hands up and was holding them out against the gees.

“We’re goin’ up, Gregor!” he shrieked through his teeth, lips pulled back in a grotesque, clownish parody of a face. Gregor thought he was going to vomit and only thinking of the mess kept his teeth shut like a sluice gate. He closed his eyes and remembered hating this sixteen years ago.

And then God let go. The thunder stopped.

Gregor rolled his eyes to the window. A brown-blue line, eggshell thick, separated the world from the sky.

Papa's Funeral

2008-01-25T18:53:55Z

Monday, Nov. 4, 1889

We buried Papa today. The service did not proceed as smoothly as we hoped. Even after I crept downstairs last night after the house was abed and put my lips to the coffin and whispered, “Please, Papa, do not make a scene tomorrow.” I know he heard, for I heard him whisper back, begging for release. I left him before he made promises we both knew he would not keep.

Father Murray has not long been in our village, but long enough he should know to retain composure in such circumstance; when Papa began screaming obscenities and banging on his coffin lid in church, Father Murray faltered. This only emphasized the awkwardness of the situation. People coughed and shuffled their feet nervously in the pews. Eventually Father Murray resumed the sermon and managed to drown out Papa’s wailings, but I thought it was very poor form.

I regret to admit it, but Darby was right: we should have buried Papa with a stake. But Mother insisted.

Clouds tonight: it appears it will rain tomorrow.

Voting Machine (part two)

2008-01-25T18:11:39Z

Logically, Igbot should vote for the device which will most improve Robot-Owner interaction in the General Sentient Parliament, but Igbot finds itself spending cycles on Machine-372’s treads (like Igbot’s!), and Spindle-A2’s mode of data transmission (a feature Igbot appreciates although it’s otherwise unrelated to performance).

The Emotional Emulator begins overheating: this is so hard. It takes several seconds, and Igbot seems to be stuck. But at last, a decision! Installer-17/c has green diodes!

Igbot begins to feel taken nanoseconds after submitting its vote. What did it just do? Yes, Installer-17/c has aesthetically-pleasing green diodes and Igbot is certain they would be highly compatible during socially-interactive contacts. But Installer-17/c’s draft taxation protocol cannot possibly allow government-subsidized sprocket production to continue through next fiscal year.

Igbot’s Emotional Emulation Card makes a soft whirring noise as the robot bangs its sensory module against a nearby wall.

Voting Machine (part one)

2008-01-25T18:00:33Z

Igbot-309 ‘plinks to the democracy server and struggles with itself.

“This used to be easy,” it subroutines.

But that was before it went in and got all those upgrades that were supposed to improve Owner interactions: the Empathy Chip, the Sympathy Processor, and the Emotional Emulation Card. Not to mention that Random Behaviorial Subroutine Generator that’s had Igbot almost continuously on the fritz since Monday—now Igbot has minor malfunction incidents whenever its Optical Core detects the infantile progeny of Owners, sees pairings of elderly Owners coupling manipulators while perambulating in the park, or even when it detects sunlight that has been spectrally-refracted by water vapor in the upper atmosphere after precipitation. And then there was that incident when it rolled past a pet store and saw all those pre-adolescent stage felines in the window display…

A Mean Wind From Unkind Places

2008-01-25T17:39:35Z

Incessant drone and rattle. It’s a mean wind from unkind places, locked up and chained up out west somewhere that got itself out and climbed the mountain and rolled down this side and beats itself ragged and torn against the window like it wants back in again. It keeps slipping through the peeling seal at the bottom, bringing tiny dusty balls of snow in onto the sill where they roll and melt into pinpricks of dew in the yellow light of the floorlamp.

I’m surprised, honest I am, the power hasn’t gone. When the ice brings the lines down, there goes the heat and light and all this shack will have going for it is that the wind can only get its fingernails under the windowframe.

The temperature will drop, and I will face a conundrum. A Catch-22, Heller called it in that book.

See, if the heat goes and I leave my gloves off, my fingers will be too numb for me to do much of anything with them. If I put my gloves on, my finger won’t fit through the trigger guard and I still won’t be able to use the gun.

Irrefutable Evidence To The Contrary [The Stovohobo Inspirer Not-A-Challenge Challenge]

2008-01-15T18:42:43Z

The missiles had been activated. All he had to do now was pull the string with his left hand and turn the key with his right, and then the argument would be settled.

“Isn’t that right, Major?” he said to the man lying in a swelling puddle of his own blood.

“We’re just wasting time, sir,” he’d said to the Major twenty minutes earlier. “These things are a crock. It’s a big fat hoax like the moon landing. I’ve been reading this book, I can loan it to you if you’re interested, sir, about how the real reason for all the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan Project was that we actually used 40,000 tons of conventional explosives on Japan.”

Then they started arguing, the Major accusing him of insubordination when he said the Minuteman wouldn’t actually do anything; now the Major was on the floor and he had the Major’s key in its panel, tied to a string crossing the room. All he had to do was pull on it while he turned his own key. So much for fail-safe.

This would show him.

Friends Over [The Stovohobo Inspirer Not-A-Challenge Challenge]

2008-01-15T02:17:20Z

James’ large frightened eyes traveled slowly around the room. The creatures, some sitting on chairs, others reclining on a sofa, were all watching him intently.

“So you’ll never believe who I saw yesterday,” said one of the things, long-necked as a giraffe and pale as a frog’s belly. She thrust her head forward when she spoke and flipped a lock of rancid hair over a misshapen ear.

“Who?” said the thing whose eyes were shielded by two scratched pieces of glass supported by a wire between his waxy ears and draped across his flobby nose.

“Diane Wenkle,” said the giraffe-creature.

“Diane? Who used to be in payables?” interjected a sweating grotesque with beaver teeth. There were bald spots on his head where hair had migrated to his ears and nose, fascinating and repelling James.

“James, you’re very quiet,” said the cold, oily fish he’d been dating since September. “Are you feeling okay? You remember Diane, don’t you?”

James wanted to puke on her and the rest of the hideous lot. He couldn’t take much more.

Three Fifteen, Dwayne Gets A Call That Would Get Him In Trouble With His Probation Officer

2008-01-07T17:40:36Z

“Who the fuck is calling at three a.m.? This better be fucking important!”

“Meepmermmpmepmrpmeeprmmrmp—”

“Slow down! (Hang on baby.) What?”

“Merrpmrp merp mp meep mip meep!”

“No fuckin’ way! What kind of animal? (You might as well get dressed. Hey, we still got any of those microwave things?) I’m listenin’.”

“Meep erm mrp mepp erp meep—”

“(Yeah, those.) Waitasec. Whose teeth? (I don’t know, make a whole box.)”

“Mrm.”

“Naw, I’m listenin’. Wait… okay. Now, who—”

“Mrpm mrr mrip mep mrm. Mr mm eep mrp mrrmr.”

“So the guy with the teeth blew up the animal?”

“Mrp mrp meep mrp mrperp!”

“He blew up the whole fuckin’ lab!”

“Mrperp!”

“The animal blew up the lab? What kinda animal?”

“Mrp!”

“Yeah, but what kind of animal—”

“Mrp! Mep mrp meep mrp mep meep mrp ep erp meep mrp eep mep! Mrp erp memeememe!”

“I can’t do that. My probation officer finds—”

“Mrperp mepp mrmpme!”

“Don’t! I won’t… Okay… come over, but come around the back. Hello? Hello? Shit.”

Night Of The Frog

2008-01-06T19:17:45Z

“What the hell was that?” Danny said, spitting out his sandwich. It was a lousy sandwich anyway. Ray’s eyes were as round as Kennedy dollars.

“That came from the locker,” he said

“It didn’t.”

“Did too.”

“It did,” Danny said, and they flew from their chairs like startled starlings.

You heard stories, but they were just that: someone brought to the morgue by mistake waking up in a cooler. It never really happened, though. Did it? Not anymore, anyway. But Danny and Ray ran to the fridge and pulled the heavy door open. It was a scream they’d heard; Danny had never known what “bloodcurdling” meant ‘til now.

Ray yanked the door open and froze. He couldn’t be seeing what he saw: a deformed, black, spotted lump sprawled in a dark puddle, holding a purple jack’o’lantern…

A mustachioed pumpkin with bushy eyebrows? What?

And it wasn’t black, it was red. It only looked black because it was covered in… from… it was chewing on…

Ray threw up. The frog stopped eating and turned its feral eyes on him.

Yet They Make It Look So Easy On "National Geographic" Specials

2008-01-03T17:03:48Z

Fozzie stared miserably at the foamy rapids. He’d asked them three times to drive him by the condo or at least a liquor store or something, but no.

He tugged at the radio collar. Damn thing itched and he couldn’t figure out how to take it off to save his life.

He’d always prided himself on being a good fisherman, but it was becoming increasingly obvious to him that catching swordfish from the back of Sean Combs’ yacht and grabbing a salmon out of a creek with your teeth and bare paws were completely different skill sets, one of which he had somehow neglected to learn. And he had no clue how he was supposed to start a fire to cook the damn thing if he caught one, nor did he know where to find asparagus spears in the woods.

His tummy growled.

He was cold. He was wet. He was hungry. And, though he didn’t know it yet, he was being hunted by the most dangerous chicken on Earth.