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EN World Short Story Smackdown - FINAL: Berandor vs Piratecat - The Judgment Is In!
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<blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 4310168" data-attributes="member: 2"><p><strong>Round Four - Match Fifteen</strong></p><p>Berandor vs. Piratecat</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 15px">Brood</span></strong></p><p>By Kevin Kulp (Piratecat)</p><p></p><p></p><p>“Mrs. Wheeler?” His voice was resonant, with a unique cadence and a rhythm to it. You could picture that voice murmuring sweet nothings to you over a cocktail in your favorite dimly-lit hotel bar. You could picture that voice whispering in your ear as you lay in the summer darkness atop rumpled sheets.</p><p></p><p>I’d been nervous to open my door to a stranger. I shouldn’t have been. The man on my front stoop was handsome and neatly dressed. He wore a collared shirt and tie along with dark blue slacks. His outfit looked just enough like a company uniform to put me at ease. It had probably been picked for that exact purpose. </p><p></p><p> “Ms. Wheeler, not Mrs.,” I corrected him, and opened the screen door with one arm. “Call me Shelly. Thanks for responding so soon.” </p><p></p><p>“You bet,” he said, and grinned up at me. His smile was infectious. “Infestations are never fun. I’m Mr. Blatti from Brody Bug Removal, at your service.” </p><p></p><p>He must be Italian, I thought. “Glad to hear it. Come on in.”</p><p></p><p>He paused at the doorway. “I hear you called for some help. Where’s the problem?”</p><p></p><p>I shivered a little. “All over the house, I’m afraid. I’m not sure how they got in, but I can’t get them out. I figured it was time to call in a professional.”</p><p></p><p>“Smart thinking. That’s what we’re here for. We’ll give you your house back.” </p><p></p><p>“We’ll?” I asked teasingly. I didn’t see a partner.</p><p></p><p>“Figure of speech,” he said with a laugh and stepped inside. He looked at me and I looked back. His eyes were clear blue. He was clean-shaven, his hair cut short, and he looked to be in his early thirties. I didn’t know what his cologne was, but it smelled fantastic. Shaking my head a little, I silently reminded myself that I hadn’t called him in just to avoid lonely weekends. </p><p></p><p>“Fair enough.” I led him room by room through the house, pointing out the problem areas: under the kitchen baseboards, a crack at the base of the tub, my art studio, the basement stairs. I couldn’t stop thinking about him as we walked. I knew it was a mistake; he probably had women hitting on him all the time, even in his line of work. I just couldn’t help it.</p><p></p><p>“I’ll just go out to the van for my gear,” he said. Suddenly his voice reminded me of a television actor, but I couldn’t remember who. When I strained my ears I thought I could detect the slightest buzz to his speech. An accent? If so, it was so small as to be almost nonexistent. And very, very sexy.</p><p></p><p>Don’t get interested in the hired help, Shelly, I reminded myself. You’re newly divorced and newly depressed. Screwing the exterminator wasn’t likely to improve your life. </p><p></p><p>Oh, but I told myself, it couldn’t hurt, could it?</p><p></p><p>Steady on, girl. I focused back on what Mr. Blatti was saying. “...this is a good time for you to go out for some coffee. At the least, best to stay out of my work area.”</p><p></p><p>“Okay,” I said, and he turned towards the door. I squinted at the white van at the end of the walk. “Mr. Blatti, you said you were from Brody Bug Removal? That’s not who I called, was it?”</p><p></p><p>He laughed and turned back towards me. I felt a wave of warmth. “Buyouts and consolidations, I’m afraid. It’s hard to keep track of whose buying who nowadays. We’re all part of the same parent company.” It made perfect sense. He went out the door and I watched him walk towards his vehicle. Things were looking up, I told myself. When’s the last time you even thought about a man since Brian left? I couldn’t remember one, and this sudden infatuation was somewhat surprising. I headed into my art studio to consider ways to seduce the poor man that wouldn’t leave me feeling trashy afterwards. I couldn’t particularly think of any, but it was a fun fantasy nonetheless.</p><p></p><p>Be serious, Shelly, I told myself. After all, the man is here to kill your cockroaches.</p><p></p><p>That brought me back to Earth. My house hadn’t had roaches six months ago. Then Brian walked out of the door and into the Las Vegas sun, taking half of our belongings with him as he went. I never had any hint it was coming. He left a note on the fridge, pinned there by a cross-eyed raccoon magnet that we’d picked up somewhere over the years. “Dear Shelly,” the note said, “How are you? I am fine. This isn’t working out. I am leaving and taking half our things and half the money in our account. We would have talked this through, but there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t love you any more. Brian.”</p><p></p><p>Bastard.</p><p></p><p>He took the couch, so I didn’t even have any place good to lie down and sob. He left all my art supplies and the painting I had made for him. He took the air conditioner. Later I heard a rumor that he was shacked up with some cocktail waitress from a wine bar down on the Strip. I was in bad shape by then. Depressed, eating too much, not doing the dishes, not living my life. Depression is miserable. It took me several months to get back on my feet, but by then the damage was done. A filthy kitchen full of unwashed dishes, plus desert heat, equals an infestation of cockroaches that just wouldn’t go away. </p><p></p><p>And finally, enough was enough. I had been sitting around reading the night before when a roach skittered over my foot and into my bedcovers. It was the last straw. After I killed it I flipped open the yellow pages to find a professional exterminator.</p><p></p><p>“Exterminus,” the ad read. “Fast. Effective. Cheap.”</p><p></p><p>Worked for me.</p><p></p><p>And now I could hear Mr. Blatti moving around the house and starting to work, and I finally felt like my life was back on track. Maybe I’d go change clothes and ask Mr. Blatti out for a drink. Or maybe not. But I really did like his cologne.</p><p></p><p>Forty minutes later I was working in my studio when I heard an indistinct knock on the back door. I put down my brush and went to the door. I opened it and squinted into the sunlight. </p><p></p><p>The man on my front steps slouched as if standing up straight was only for people who understood basic hygiene. A greasy baseball hat was turned backwards over his head. It hid unwashed hair, but not the man’s thinning mullet. A limp hand-rolled cigarette drooped out of the corner of his mouth like a failed erection. He had desert eyes, sunburned and cynical. A patch on his uniform shirt declared that his name was Mickey. Before I could say anything he looked me up and down and then back up again. It was like being felt up by his eyes.</p><p></p><p>“I think we got us an appointment, lady.” His voice was rough, a smoker’s voice. “You Shelly Wheeler?”</p><p></p><p>I blushed uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, who are you? Can I help you somehow?” </p><p></p><p>“You called for an exterminator. That’s me.” He jabbed an unwashed thumb at his own chest. “Mickey Groat, Exterminus. Let’s kill us some buggies.” He hefted up a big tank of chemicals and tried to walk in the door. His frame sagged under the weight; he wasn’t any taller than I was, and I probably outweighed him by twenty pounds. I blocked his way.</p><p></p><p>“No, there’s been some confusion. Your company’s already sent an exterminator out. He’s been working for almost an hour.”</p><p></p><p>He considered, doubtful. “Oh yeah? Who?”</p><p></p><p>“A Mr. Blatti. You know him?”</p><p></p><p>He smiled, and I could see he was missing some teeth that you’re usually used to seeing. He issued a grunt that must have been laughter. “Blatti? Yeah, I know him. You didn’t call him. You called me. Exterminus.” He handed me a smudged card with the company name and logo on it, and tapped it a few times with a dirty finger. The card smelled vaguely like cigarette smoke and socks. “He’s poaching my job.”</p><p></p><p>I frowned. “He said you were all in the same company.”</p><p></p><p>“Yeah. Not so much. He probably bugged my line.” He found this tremendously amusing for some reason. “You give me just a second, yeah?” He turned away and sauntered slowly back to his car. From here I could see that his baseball cap had a picture of a dead bug on the front. He rooted around in the back of his car for a minute and came out with something in one hand. He disappeared around the back side of the Brody Bug Removal van, then reappeared and returned to his car. A minute later he strolled back to the house, this time holding a clipboard. His odor preceded him.</p><p></p><p>When he reached the door he thrust the clipboard into my hands. It was full of information from my call the night before. “Mind if I come in, sort this out? Maybe I know why.” </p><p></p><p>I paused, unsure. Mickey Groat was not exactly the picture of a trustworthy individual. But this was the company I had called, and I was a little disturbed that I had been half-planning to seduce a man who apparently wasn’t even supposed to be there. I had an inkling that this could have been an awfully bad idea. I opened the door and stood aside.</p><p></p><p>“Where he at?” asked Groat.</p><p></p><p>I stuck my head in a few rooms, sniffing. “My art studio, I think. The door’s closed. What’s he using to kill bugs, anyways? I don’t smell any chemicals at all.”</p><p></p><p> “Yeah, you wouldn’t. You be quiet now.” And with more skill than I would have given him credit for, he soundlessly eased open the studio door.</p><p></p><p>Mr. Blatti was sitting in a chair at the edge of the room. He had a serene look on his face. His spray pack of chemicals lay on the floor next to him, obviously not touched. He stood in what looked like a small puddle of brownish paint.</p><p></p><p>The puddle of paint was getting smaller. </p><p></p><p>Then I realized that it wasn’t paint, it was roaches. Hundreds of roaches in my art studio, gathered around him like freezing men gather around a fire, swarming onto his brown shoes and crawling over and around Mr. Blatti’s feet. But why was the pool of roaches getting smaller? I couldn’t understand until I saw the man’s pant legs twitching. The roaches were swarming up his legs, underneath his pants. They were crawling onto his body under his clothes. Even his shadow against my wall seemed horribly, horribly wrong.</p><p></p><p>I turned and vomited. Mr. Blatti looked up.</p><p></p><p>I was hanging onto the doorknob as I retched a second time. A lone roach scurried past me from the hall and into the studio; running late, perhaps, for its appointment with Mr. Blatti. Mickey Groat stepped on it instead. It made a crunching sound. </p><p></p><p>“Well, Shelly, don’t you look pretty,” Mr. Blatti said to me in that wonderful, resonant voice. He favored me with a smile from across the room. Then he looked at Groat and his voice fell in volume. “Sorry, fella. We’re done here, and you’re too late.”</p><p></p><p>Groat spit a thin brown stream onto my white floor, that pig. “Now, you know you ain’t welcome here. You’re on my turf. I got me a signed contract to rid this house of vermin, and you’re standing in it right now. That means you count.”</p><p></p><p>He shook one trouser leg and straightened his pleats as he prepared to stand up. No roaches were visible. “I’ll be leaving in just a moment.” </p><p></p><p>“Too late,” said Groat as he raised his chemical sprayer.</p><p></p><p>“No it isn’t,” said Mr. Blatti, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34985" target="_blank">and sprung upwards from his chair</a>. The leap should have been impossible, but he cleared fifteen feet effortlessly and landed next to both Groat and myself. Blatti reached forward and slapped Groat with the back of his hand. The scrawny exterminator flew across the studio and slammed into a stack of completed artwork. Canvas and broken frames scattered under the impact. “I don’t like actual exterminators,” said Blatti as he picked up his chemical tank and walked towards Groat. “You give us a bad name and kill our recruits. We’re efficient. We’re polite. We clean every single vermin out of a person’s house, and we don’t charge them much for the privilege. Tell me, is that so bad?”</p><p></p><p>Groat pushed himself off the floor and looked up. His hat was askew and his nose was bleeding. “What you do with ‘em afterwards?”</p><p></p><p>“We let them join,” said Mr. Blatti, “we let them get smart.” He fired his chemical sprayer into Groat’s face. Brown fluid hissed. Throughout the attack I could still smell Mr. Blatti’s cologne, and I swear no one has ever looked as good as that horrific man did standing in my studio. I <em>knew</em> he was probably covered with roaches underneath his clothing, and I <em>still</em> wanted to sleep with him. That didn’t stop me from hitting him in the back of the head with a wooden easel, though. There was a crunch as if from snapping chitin. The sprayer fell from his hand and spun across the floor, spraying a fine mist of liquid as it went.</p><p></p><p>“You stop that!” I screamed. “Stop it now!” Groat covered his face with his hand and writhed on the floor in front of me. Mr. Blatti regained his balance and turned around. I gazed into those blue, blue eyes, and this time something seemed strange. A shadow in the left eye? No, something <em>inside</em> his eye, peering out the pupil. A cockroach. There was a cockroach in the man’s eye, using it as a window onto the world. Impossible. I felt my knees lock as blood rushed from my head. </p><p></p><p>Slowly Mr. Blatti smiled, nodded, and fondly patted my face. A roach scurried out of his sleeve and into my hair, and that broke me from my near faint. I pushed away. “I’m sorry, Shelly. We won’t have time today. I was hoping, but oh well.” He shoved past me back into the house. By then I had Groat dragged over to the large sink and was spraying his face and neck with water. I didn’t even hear the white van pulling away.</p><p></p><p>* * *</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Piratecat, post: 4310168, member: 2"] [b]Round Four - Match Fifteen[/b] Berandor vs. Piratecat [b][size=4]Brood[/size][/b][size=4][/size] By Kevin Kulp (Piratecat) “Mrs. Wheeler?” His voice was resonant, with a unique cadence and a rhythm to it. You could picture that voice murmuring sweet nothings to you over a cocktail in your favorite dimly-lit hotel bar. You could picture that voice whispering in your ear as you lay in the summer darkness atop rumpled sheets. I’d been nervous to open my door to a stranger. I shouldn’t have been. The man on my front stoop was handsome and neatly dressed. He wore a collared shirt and tie along with dark blue slacks. His outfit looked just enough like a company uniform to put me at ease. It had probably been picked for that exact purpose. “Ms. Wheeler, not Mrs.,” I corrected him, and opened the screen door with one arm. “Call me Shelly. Thanks for responding so soon.” “You bet,” he said, and grinned up at me. His smile was infectious. “Infestations are never fun. I’m Mr. Blatti from Brody Bug Removal, at your service.” He must be Italian, I thought. “Glad to hear it. Come on in.” He paused at the doorway. “I hear you called for some help. Where’s the problem?” I shivered a little. “All over the house, I’m afraid. I’m not sure how they got in, but I can’t get them out. I figured it was time to call in a professional.” “Smart thinking. That’s what we’re here for. We’ll give you your house back.” “We’ll?” I asked teasingly. I didn’t see a partner. “Figure of speech,” he said with a laugh and stepped inside. He looked at me and I looked back. His eyes were clear blue. He was clean-shaven, his hair cut short, and he looked to be in his early thirties. I didn’t know what his cologne was, but it smelled fantastic. Shaking my head a little, I silently reminded myself that I hadn’t called him in just to avoid lonely weekends. “Fair enough.” I led him room by room through the house, pointing out the problem areas: under the kitchen baseboards, a crack at the base of the tub, my art studio, the basement stairs. I couldn’t stop thinking about him as we walked. I knew it was a mistake; he probably had women hitting on him all the time, even in his line of work. I just couldn’t help it. “I’ll just go out to the van for my gear,” he said. Suddenly his voice reminded me of a television actor, but I couldn’t remember who. When I strained my ears I thought I could detect the slightest buzz to his speech. An accent? If so, it was so small as to be almost nonexistent. And very, very sexy. Don’t get interested in the hired help, Shelly, I reminded myself. You’re newly divorced and newly depressed. Screwing the exterminator wasn’t likely to improve your life. Oh, but I told myself, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Steady on, girl. I focused back on what Mr. Blatti was saying. “...this is a good time for you to go out for some coffee. At the least, best to stay out of my work area.” “Okay,” I said, and he turned towards the door. I squinted at the white van at the end of the walk. “Mr. Blatti, you said you were from Brody Bug Removal? That’s not who I called, was it?” He laughed and turned back towards me. I felt a wave of warmth. “Buyouts and consolidations, I’m afraid. It’s hard to keep track of whose buying who nowadays. We’re all part of the same parent company.” It made perfect sense. He went out the door and I watched him walk towards his vehicle. Things were looking up, I told myself. When’s the last time you even thought about a man since Brian left? I couldn’t remember one, and this sudden infatuation was somewhat surprising. I headed into my art studio to consider ways to seduce the poor man that wouldn’t leave me feeling trashy afterwards. I couldn’t particularly think of any, but it was a fun fantasy nonetheless. Be serious, Shelly, I told myself. After all, the man is here to kill your cockroaches. That brought me back to Earth. My house hadn’t had roaches six months ago. Then Brian walked out of the door and into the Las Vegas sun, taking half of our belongings with him as he went. I never had any hint it was coming. He left a note on the fridge, pinned there by a cross-eyed raccoon magnet that we’d picked up somewhere over the years. “Dear Shelly,” the note said, “How are you? I am fine. This isn’t working out. I am leaving and taking half our things and half the money in our account. We would have talked this through, but there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t love you any more. Brian.” Bastard. He took the couch, so I didn’t even have any place good to lie down and sob. He left all my art supplies and the painting I had made for him. He took the air conditioner. Later I heard a rumor that he was shacked up with some cocktail waitress from a wine bar down on the Strip. I was in bad shape by then. Depressed, eating too much, not doing the dishes, not living my life. Depression is miserable. It took me several months to get back on my feet, but by then the damage was done. A filthy kitchen full of unwashed dishes, plus desert heat, equals an infestation of cockroaches that just wouldn’t go away. And finally, enough was enough. I had been sitting around reading the night before when a roach skittered over my foot and into my bedcovers. It was the last straw. After I killed it I flipped open the yellow pages to find a professional exterminator. “Exterminus,” the ad read. “Fast. Effective. Cheap.” Worked for me. And now I could hear Mr. Blatti moving around the house and starting to work, and I finally felt like my life was back on track. Maybe I’d go change clothes and ask Mr. Blatti out for a drink. Or maybe not. But I really did like his cologne. Forty minutes later I was working in my studio when I heard an indistinct knock on the back door. I put down my brush and went to the door. I opened it and squinted into the sunlight. The man on my front steps slouched as if standing up straight was only for people who understood basic hygiene. A greasy baseball hat was turned backwards over his head. It hid unwashed hair, but not the man’s thinning mullet. A limp hand-rolled cigarette drooped out of the corner of his mouth like a failed erection. He had desert eyes, sunburned and cynical. A patch on his uniform shirt declared that his name was Mickey. Before I could say anything he looked me up and down and then back up again. It was like being felt up by his eyes. “I think we got us an appointment, lady.” His voice was rough, a smoker’s voice. “You Shelly Wheeler?” I blushed uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, who are you? Can I help you somehow?” “You called for an exterminator. That’s me.” He jabbed an unwashed thumb at his own chest. “Mickey Groat, Exterminus. Let’s kill us some buggies.” He hefted up a big tank of chemicals and tried to walk in the door. His frame sagged under the weight; he wasn’t any taller than I was, and I probably outweighed him by twenty pounds. I blocked his way. “No, there’s been some confusion. Your company’s already sent an exterminator out. He’s been working for almost an hour.” He considered, doubtful. “Oh yeah? Who?” “A Mr. Blatti. You know him?” He smiled, and I could see he was missing some teeth that you’re usually used to seeing. He issued a grunt that must have been laughter. “Blatti? Yeah, I know him. You didn’t call him. You called me. Exterminus.” He handed me a smudged card with the company name and logo on it, and tapped it a few times with a dirty finger. The card smelled vaguely like cigarette smoke and socks. “He’s poaching my job.” I frowned. “He said you were all in the same company.” “Yeah. Not so much. He probably bugged my line.” He found this tremendously amusing for some reason. “You give me just a second, yeah?” He turned away and sauntered slowly back to his car. From here I could see that his baseball cap had a picture of a dead bug on the front. He rooted around in the back of his car for a minute and came out with something in one hand. He disappeared around the back side of the Brody Bug Removal van, then reappeared and returned to his car. A minute later he strolled back to the house, this time holding a clipboard. His odor preceded him. When he reached the door he thrust the clipboard into my hands. It was full of information from my call the night before. “Mind if I come in, sort this out? Maybe I know why.” I paused, unsure. Mickey Groat was not exactly the picture of a trustworthy individual. But this was the company I had called, and I was a little disturbed that I had been half-planning to seduce a man who apparently wasn’t even supposed to be there. I had an inkling that this could have been an awfully bad idea. I opened the door and stood aside. “Where he at?” asked Groat. I stuck my head in a few rooms, sniffing. “My art studio, I think. The door’s closed. What’s he using to kill bugs, anyways? I don’t smell any chemicals at all.” “Yeah, you wouldn’t. You be quiet now.” And with more skill than I would have given him credit for, he soundlessly eased open the studio door. Mr. Blatti was sitting in a chair at the edge of the room. He had a serene look on his face. His spray pack of chemicals lay on the floor next to him, obviously not touched. He stood in what looked like a small puddle of brownish paint. The puddle of paint was getting smaller. Then I realized that it wasn’t paint, it was roaches. Hundreds of roaches in my art studio, gathered around him like freezing men gather around a fire, swarming onto his brown shoes and crawling over and around Mr. Blatti’s feet. But why was the pool of roaches getting smaller? I couldn’t understand until I saw the man’s pant legs twitching. The roaches were swarming up his legs, underneath his pants. They were crawling onto his body under his clothes. Even his shadow against my wall seemed horribly, horribly wrong. I turned and vomited. Mr. Blatti looked up. I was hanging onto the doorknob as I retched a second time. A lone roach scurried past me from the hall and into the studio; running late, perhaps, for its appointment with Mr. Blatti. Mickey Groat stepped on it instead. It made a crunching sound. “Well, Shelly, don’t you look pretty,” Mr. Blatti said to me in that wonderful, resonant voice. He favored me with a smile from across the room. Then he looked at Groat and his voice fell in volume. “Sorry, fella. We’re done here, and you’re too late.” Groat spit a thin brown stream onto my white floor, that pig. “Now, you know you ain’t welcome here. You’re on my turf. I got me a signed contract to rid this house of vermin, and you’re standing in it right now. That means you count.” He shook one trouser leg and straightened his pleats as he prepared to stand up. No roaches were visible. “I’ll be leaving in just a moment.” “Too late,” said Groat as he raised his chemical sprayer. “No it isn’t,” said Mr. Blatti, [url=http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34985]and sprung upwards from his chair[/url]. The leap should have been impossible, but he cleared fifteen feet effortlessly and landed next to both Groat and myself. Blatti reached forward and slapped Groat with the back of his hand. The scrawny exterminator flew across the studio and slammed into a stack of completed artwork. Canvas and broken frames scattered under the impact. “I don’t like actual exterminators,” said Blatti as he picked up his chemical tank and walked towards Groat. “You give us a bad name and kill our recruits. We’re efficient. We’re polite. We clean every single vermin out of a person’s house, and we don’t charge them much for the privilege. Tell me, is that so bad?” Groat pushed himself off the floor and looked up. His hat was askew and his nose was bleeding. “What you do with ‘em afterwards?” “We let them join,” said Mr. Blatti, “we let them get smart.” He fired his chemical sprayer into Groat’s face. Brown fluid hissed. Throughout the attack I could still smell Mr. Blatti’s cologne, and I swear no one has ever looked as good as that horrific man did standing in my studio. I [i]knew[/i] he was probably covered with roaches underneath his clothing, and I [i]still[/i] wanted to sleep with him. That didn’t stop me from hitting him in the back of the head with a wooden easel, though. There was a crunch as if from snapping chitin. The sprayer fell from his hand and spun across the floor, spraying a fine mist of liquid as it went. “You stop that!” I screamed. “Stop it now!” Groat covered his face with his hand and writhed on the floor in front of me. Mr. Blatti regained his balance and turned around. I gazed into those blue, blue eyes, and this time something seemed strange. A shadow in the left eye? No, something [i]inside[/i] his eye, peering out the pupil. A cockroach. There was a cockroach in the man’s eye, using it as a window onto the world. Impossible. I felt my knees lock as blood rushed from my head. Slowly Mr. Blatti smiled, nodded, and fondly patted my face. A roach scurried out of his sleeve and into my hair, and that broke me from my near faint. I pushed away. “I’m sorry, Shelly. We won’t have time today. I was hoping, but oh well.” He shoved past me back into the house. By then I had Groat dragged over to the large sink and was spraying his face and neck with water. I didn’t even hear the white van pulling away. * * * [/QUOTE]
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