Session 5 (6/4/2003) Joe's Free Time
Session 5 (6/4/2003) Joe's Free Time
The crashing sound woke Joe up. His head was a throbbing like some kind of melon that had a good reason to be throbbing and was going to throb as hard as it could. His nose was stuffed up with dried blood, and his throat was raw. But his ears were fine, and he had definitely heard a crashing sound.
Joe opened one blood-shot eye and scanned the dark bedroom. Bed, dresser, alarm clock reading a little after four in the morning, pile of dirty clothes, Pamela Lee poster, growing pile of bloody tissues, two open containers of Chinese take-out from sometime last week, collection of Yu-Gi-Oh cards organized by rarity, laptop computer, Scooby Doo nightlight. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Joe tried to drift back off to sleep. He had gotten used to noises like that living in Southside. Probably just a car wreck or a pipe bomb or something…
Another crashing sound echoed through the room, and then the sound of something heavy scraping across the floor. Joe opened both eyes this time.
Alien Abduction Prevention - Lesson One: Get out of bed before the Grays come into the room. If they get into your room and you are still in bed, then they will hit you with the paralysis ray, and then you get taken aboard the ship and get probed. Just ask Whitley Strieber. Not a fun way to go.
Joe slid out of bed and crouched on the floor. The movement caused a sudden bout of dizziness, and he nearly puked, but adrenalin took over and helped him choke it back. He reached under the mattress and pulled out his emergency weapon, the Collector’s Edition 007 “The Man With the Golden Gun” Custom Gold-Plated Derringer, and flicked off the safety.
Another loud scraping sound. This time clearly coming from downstairs in the shop. Joe padded over to the door to the stairs. He put his hand on the knob, and then listened at the door.
“Joooooee…” a deep whispering call echoed out from downstairs, with a voice like the sound of something whose lungs were full of wet gravel.
Chills ran down Joe’s spine. He paused and considered the situation. Aliens were unlikely to call him by name, and the Men in Black would never have made this much noise. He could be looking at the Freemasons here, or maybe World Domination Incorporated. He slowly opened the door, held his breath, and peeked down the stairs.
There was a figure at the bottom of the stairs. She was an old blue-veined woman with white hair, just standing there, wearing a night robe. She had her back to Joe and appeared to be focused on something in the shop.
At the sound of the door, she slowly turned around. Joe froze and just stared. The woman’s eyes were rolled back into her head, revealing only white sightless orbs. She called up again in the voice, which impossibly bellowed forth from her thin elderly frame.
“Jooooooe…”
Before Joe could respond, she swiftly backed away from the foot of the stairs. Only she was not just backing away, she was floating backwards. Her feet never moved. She just slid back out of sight.
Joe swallowed hard and his sore throat burned with the effort. He took one slow trembling step onto the stairs. He couldn’t deny his knees were shaking. Moon-walking lich-grandmas had that effect on him. Fighting every normal instinct to bolt back upstairs and lock the door, he crept halfway down the stairs, so that he could bend down and see through the doorway into the shop.
All of the display cases and comic book racks had been moved around. All of his inventory was stacked tightly and haphazardly into the corners of the room, leaving a wide open circular area in the center of the shop. Joe could see the whole room now, except for whatever was in that circular area. There was no sign of the old woman.
Holding the gun out before him, Joe edged closer to the circle, and peered over the edge. The old woman was gone. But there, in the center of the circle of shelves and display cases, was the Necronomicon.
Joe relaxed his shoulders and cursed. He shoved a display case to one side and stepped into the circle. He picked up the book and for a brief moment, he thought it spasmed in his hand. He saw an immediate difference on the front cover. Something had changed. He stepped into the pale light from the front shop window and read the altered words on the black leather cover.
“Joe Empire’s Necronomicon…”
. . .
The Radio Shack manager was confused and more than a little tired, and this fat guy in the Superman tee-shirt was not making things any easier on him. “As a very crude alarm system, these might work for you, sir, but I would not guarantee them for that purpose, and really, sir, I would recommend a security company that could install a complete system for you instead of just relying on these---”
“Oh, sure, let Big Brother monitor me with a so-called ‘home alarm system’? I don’t think so.”
“I’m really not sure I understand what you mean, sir.”
“okay, you’re suggesting I wire up my shop with cameras and sensors and then broadcast that signal to an alarm company, which in reality is a front for the government, so they can spy on me? I don’t think so… Haven’t you ever read 1984?”
“Um, no sir.”
“Well…me neither, but I read a website about it, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that they did back then, and I’m not gonna let the government spy on me.”
At the point, the manager apparently gave up any attempt at rational conversation and just began ringing up the purchases. Two motion detector floodlights and five sets of “Logiblocs” interactive light-activated noise-making toys.
“Oh, wait…I am gonna need some way to mount these on my walls. Do you guys sell duct tape?”
. . .
Joe blew his nose into a well-used tissue, and then shoved the remains into his pocket. “Hey, I’m here to pick up some film I dropped off this morning.”
“Certainly, sir. What name is that under?”
“Hal Jordan”
“Alright…here you go sir.”
“Thanks,” Joe muttered and dropped the cash on the counter. He left the store in a hurry, stuffing the envelope of pictures into his pocket. Shouldering the bag of alarm equipment he had purchased earlier in the day, he trotted back down the street to the bus stop. He made it just in time, and gladly collapsed into a seat in the rear of the bus, panting and sweating.
After spending a moment to catch his breath, Joe tore into the envelope of pictures. He flipped through one picture, then two more in rapid succession.
“SON OF A B*^$%!!”
An old woman two seats up from Joe turned around, gave Joe a brief once-over, and decided to ignore him.
Joe flipped through several more pictures, and his jaw dropped a little wider with each shot.
These were the photos from the expensive offices at Healthsouth. The offices of the men whose names showed up on the rolls of the Numismatic Society. Joe had taken these pictures just last night. But the camera did not see what Joe saw.
Here was the photo Joe had taken of the old oil painting on one of the walls. Same office, same wall, but no oil painting. In its place, just a little yellow Post-It note stuck to the wall that read, “OLD OIL PAINTING”
Here was a shot of the floor. Joe could see his own legs in the shot, where he had pointed the camera straight down. And there, next to his left foot, another Post-it note. This one read “PERSIAN RUG”
Another, of a cheap empty bookcase. Another, of a barren metal desk. Post it notes scattered in both pictures, labeled “LAW BOOKS” and “HEAVY ANTIQUE CHERRY WOOD DESK”
Joe was so ticked off he couldn’t even form words. He just growled. He wanted to rip the pictures up and throw them out the window. Only his determination to include the pictures in his next issue of the Red Herring, and the odd looks from the old lady two rows up from him, kept him from doing so.
Clearly these people did not know who they were dealing with. You did not do this to Joe Empire.
