You’re about to enter another dimension. You’re about to enter The Carnacki Zone.
The men approached me in dark suits and dark sun glasses. “Into the car,” the nearest said.
I shrugged and got in. My choices were mowing the grass or abduction and I didn’t feel like mowing.
“OK, where are we going?” I said.
“To an undisclosed location,” the man next to me said.
I swallowed hard with fear. My last visit with Vice President Dick Cheney had not gone well. Oh I had survived and escaped. But the holy water I had sprayed on him had not destroyed him as I thought. It had only ruined his tie — cut from the skin of a still-living baby panda. He loved that tie. It was a gift from Lynn.
I tried to think what MacGuyver would do to escape. Thinking of MacGuyver made me think of Richard Dean Anderson. That led me to Stargate: SG-1. SG-1 made me think of my favorite sci-fi series Firefly. That made me think of how stupid Fox was for messing up the show and cancelling it before it had a chance to find an audience. The black sedan pulled in through a gate and up a curved drive. I had missed my opportunity to escape.
“Could we go around the block again?” I asked the driver. He looked at me in the rear view mirror.
“Nuts,” I said.
I was led inside. The house smelled of putrid corpses. (By the way, if you google putrid corpses my blog is the third entry out of 82,200 sites. I didn’t know that until just now.)
Vice President Cheney stepped into the entry way from an adjoining room. He carried a shotgun in one hand and a bottle of Crown Royal Special Reserve in the other.
“You aaannngred meeee,” he slurred.
“Oh,” I said. “I do that a lot to people. Especially of late.”
“Nottt mee,” he said. He thumped his chest with the forearm wielding the shotgun. His face turned blank and an alarm sounded. It sounded like it came from his chest. Then I heard the distinct sound of grinding gears and machinery. He thumped his chest again and the grinding noise stopped and I heard a faint hum.
“My tickkker,” he said.
“You mean that literally,” I said.
“No heart,” he said, looking forlorn and almost human as if he missed having one.
For a second we looked at each other and I felt a look of understanding occurred. No heart. He was inhuman and could not…
My sympathy must have showed on my face for he grew angry. His anger seemed to sober him up.
“I like to hunt,” he said.
“I’ve heard.”
“I’m gonna hunt you,” he said.
“Oh,” I said.
“The fence is 20 feet high. There are guards at the gate. You cannot escape.”
At that moment, I felt a pang of regret for all the things I would not get to do: Yearly Carnacki (this Saturday, 11 a.m. at the entrance of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Click on link for further details); seeing my children growing up; dancing on Jerry Falwell’s grave.
“I’ll give you a five-second head start,” he said.
I turned to run.
“One,” he said and I heard the shotgun blast behind as loud as a cannon.
“You said you’d give me a…,” I said indignantly then slapped my hand to more forehead. “Oh wait, you always lie.”
He cocked another round and I ran out the door around the house and to the trees in the back. I had to think. What would MacGuyver do? Five minutes later my thoughts were interrupted by the crack of a twig. He was close. Too close.
The blast roared in my ears and a tree branch fell down on his head. As he slumped, the whisky bottle slipped out of coat and the shotgun dropped from his hands. I dove for it — and caught it right before it hit the ground.
“Whew,” I said with relief. I opened the bottle and took a swig.
The vice president, however, had picked up the shotgun.
“Nuts,” I said, thinking of bad choices I had made in my life.
As the whisky ran down my throat, however, I knew this wasn’t one of them.
He fired from pointblank range. A flower pot to my side shattered. “It’s much easier shooting the game when it’s domesticated and tied down in front of me,” he said to himself with a growl.
He pumped another shell into the chamber, his lips curled in a snarl and flames — real flames — shooting from his eyes.
“Uh oh,” I said and ran for the front gate. He fired, hitting one of the guards moving to stop me and fired again, screaming curses and killed the other guard. His next shot blasted the gate.
“Damn you, Carnacki,” he shouted as I said goodbye to him and his cruel world. “I’ll get you yet.”
Some day he might. But I know he won’t be getting that bottle of whisky.
MMMmmm. I wonder what’s on Sci-Fi?