Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter One
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Two
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Three
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Four
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: Chapter Five (Coming Soon)
Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2: The Tybee Uranium Killer
Chapter Four: The Sting
Four aspirins. It took four aspirins to reduce the crippling migraine to a hangover level. Max was struggling to determine how much time had passed since he had last experienced the comfort of his bed. Time spent in Oz was no more than four hours, the balloon ride seemed instantaneous, and everything up to meeting the bishop was maybe an hour. Add in twelve hours of being ushered into a mansion, Debra compensating for being human by drinking way too much red wine and passing out, and him finally getting some sleep after her direct blow to his head. Now here he was in Colonial Park Cemetery with her being her regular self-assured schemer personality while he was his normal, being exploited self.
There was something how the cold fried chicken skins mushed against his skin that disgusted him. The disgust the skins made morphed into annoyance as Debra kept singing old timey tunes but changed the lyrics to insert herself.
“I'll tell you just why, you know I don't lie, not much
It's been said she knocks 'em dead when she lands in town
Since she came why it's a shame how she cools 'em down
Fellers she can't get are fellers she ain't met
Georgia claimed her, Georgia named her
Sweet Deb-er-ra"
“I got to tell you, Max, who knew being human would unlock so much creativity in me?”
She smeared another piece of fried chicken skin over his mouth, draping this one along his neck. Once done, she took a step back, put her hands on her hips, and preened like a dog owner showing off the best in show.
For his part, Max wanted nothing more than to have this night be over. The Confederate reenactor uniform’s wool fabric made him a sweaty mess this summer night. Meanwhile, flies and all sorts of other bugs were starting to come to get a piece of the fifty or so chicken skins on him.
He sighed. “When you said I could order out, I thought you were being kind. Instead, yet again you used me.” The realization started a fire in his heart. “You know, Debra, have you ever given any thought to your actions? From being a pariah wherever you go, to getting trapped in Oz, to everything else bad that has happened to you, it’s all because you do things only thinking of yourself. It wouldn’t hurt to think about others.”
The former vampiress chuckled and poured herself another tin cupful of wine from her thermos. After swigging it all down, she took in another look of her companion before rolling her eyes.
“You poor thing. I can only imagine how your decomposing brain confuses you. Here I am, about to be recognized for my selfless service for all monstrosity.”
“I thought you said the preferred term was Creatures of Cryptidkind,” he interrupted.
Her face froze before she broke out laughing. “You believed that? I made that up!”
Those words sank his heart into his stomach.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I am about to be recognized for the hero I am, and those jerks in The Junior Club are about to eat it. And I’m going to have them remake me a vampire. That way, they'll have to have me in their club! Yes, sir, everything I did got me here! And my deeds have gotten you here, too.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“’Don’t remind me,’” she said in a mocking voice. “When the Uranium Killer sees you, he won’t think you are a worthless collection of human skin stumbling around. He’ll see you and say, ‘That must be Colonel Chickenman, the Confederate officer cursed to walk the Earth as a chicken man, after fleeing from the Battle of Atlanta.’”
He had no clue if Colonel Chickenman was a real monstrous citizen of the area, or just another fiction from the bowels of her madness. Thoughts ranging from his Yankee blood not wanting to wear Confederate gray to how would anyone mistake wearing peeled fried chicken skins for a man-transformed-into-a-chicken were picking at his brain, yet Debra kept yapping, robbing him of the ability to do anything. His muscles relaxed when she finally walked out of sight, saying something about a hat.
When her loquacious monologue ceased, he counted to five and then spoke. “There better be no lice in that hat.”
Crickets chirped.
“Debra?”
Turning around, he saw him. It was the deep, dark goggles that mirrored Max and the nightly glow of the cemetery that the lawyer first noticed. Next was the khaki trench coat with oily black buttons, then the matching hat, then the pearl white teeth shining at him, and then the bubbling skin on the man’s face that stood out. Finally, he realized the man was holding his gloved right hand over Debra’s mouth.
Max felt frozen like a deer caught in headlights.
A gravelly voice crept out of the man’s mouth. “Back off! She’s not what you think.”
Max gulped. “I-.” A piece of chicken skin slid down into his mouth. After flinging it out, he spat and then restarted. “Oh, I have more than an idea of who and more importantly what she is.”
Oglethorpe laughed. “Says the man larping as a Johnny Reb. And what is all that on your face? Is this some sort of kink she had you playing before she killed you?”
The dismissive words were enough to cause the lawyer to throw off all the skin covering his face. His ire rose as started questioning himself why he always let himself others belittle him.”
More gravelly words came from the Uranium Killer’s lips. “I’m taking her- it- with me. You just stay there, and I won’t have to hurt you.”
That was it. Max was done being ordered around. He didn’t bother with a “No” to Oglethorpe; he didn’t need to, his eyes said it for him. Puffing out his chest, he marched straight up to the Uranium Killer and- flew back fifty feet. The shock was so great that he didn’t even feel his head slamming into a tomb.
“Nuclear-powered mental blast, son.” The Uranium Killer paused. “Hmm, maybe I should call it the Atomic Blast- for coolness sake.”
Those words drifted through Max’s mind as everything faded to black.
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Until Next Time
Each week in October there will be a new chapter of the Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency 2! Then, on November 12th, we will continue our religion and aliens series looking at the Babist faiths of Babism and the Bahia faith. Check out the previous posts of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Other Christian Faiths, Islam Judaism, the Dharma faiths, the ancient faiths, Theozoology and World Ice Theory, Native American religions, and the Twentieth Century faiths of Nation of Islam, Scientology, & Falun Gong, and Outside Mainstream Catholicism for more.
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