Christmas in July #2, Course Overload #28: "Christmas Chaos"

With the holidays right around the corner, it’s time for all of us to reflect on all the most important things in life. The things that, were it not for them, we would not be the fine, upstanding citizens we are today. God, family, love, and helping others less fortunate than us, those in need, have nothing to do with it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a liar or works for a greeting card company, which is a little like lying in itself. Obviously, presents are the most important aspect of any holiday, and one can measure their future success in life by the amount of shiny boxes under the Christmas tree (or the Chanukah tree, for those of us who are Jewish or Canadian).

Therefore, the only way to avoid becoming a bum who dances with a monkey in the street for pocket change or someone who has all their white pigment extracted for sale to Ronald McDonald is to get totally inundated with gifts on Christmas morning. But, how does one do that?

Don’t count on your parents. Mom and dad can't help you, because by now, you’ve already used up all your Christmas credits. By now, they’re saving for their retirement. And don't even think about getting gifts from your friends, because they're all buying themselves presents in a desperate bid to escape hoboism. Only a single solution remains: the man in red. I speak not of Papa Smurf or Mao Ze Dung, But of Santavier Q. Clauzentide - AKA Santa Claus.

Woe to those who have turned their backs on Saint Nick, after all those years he creepily knew whether you were sleeping or awake; all those years he broke into your house, ate your cookies, and left you gifts that only a true stalker could have known you wanted. For shame! Santa is indeed very real, and I assure you, he's very jolly.

Ho, ho... uh oh! You don't believe in me!?

Santa is your only hope and I’ll bet you didn’t write him a letter this year, did you? Now the Merry One has no idea what to get you and you’ll probably wind up with a stupid tie that says “Better luck next year, you ho ho horrible excuse for humanity!” Also socks filled with beetles.

Ahh, beetles. So tiny, yet so venomous.

So what about the Santas at the mall? Everyone knows that department store Santas aren’t the real thing. They’re hideous genetic clones of the real Santa, manufactured from his jolly DNA in a process similar to that used in Jurassic Park, and distributed throughout Wal-Marts everywhere. It made sense when it was done: more Santas equals more absurdly overpriced presents, more Christmas photo ops, and more breaking and entering via ridiculously undersized chimneys. However, what seemed like a jolly good idea at first had a single, fatal flaw. Suppose you taped your favorite episode of Donald Trump’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Apprentice and made a copy for your lousy neighbor, Jim, who has yet to return your snowblower after borrowing it three Christmases ago. Then Jim makes a copy for his neighbor, who makes one for his, and so on. By the fourth or fifth copy, you’ll start to notice defects, like fuzzy picture, poor sound quality, and extra limbs and eyes.

This is exactly what happened with the mall Santas. The real Santa is a busy man, with the millions of children he spies on all day while Mrs. Claus is sleeping or perhaps dead. After the first clone was made, Santa was told to go home and have a merry 264th day before Christmas; the other clones could be produced from the one they just made in factories called Santateriums. However, each clone made from the original clone was less and less stable, until the last batch of about 28,000 Santas were more reptilian than human, spewing more than just Christmas cheer when they opened their nefarious “mouths.”

All that these horrible Santa clones are good for is scaring America’s children in malls across the country. Come on, you’ve seen it. Whenever a child sits on the odious knee of a Santa clone, they know it and they scream.

Yet, these awful clones are the key to your present dilemma!

Violence is your only option. First, find a mall Santa. Any will do, but try to find one who looks particularly busy because he’ll be the most distracted. Now simply run up and steal his hat and beard. Because mall Santas are inferior genetic copies, their beards and hats aren’t a secure part of their bodies like the real Santa, making it easy for you take them. Now you’ve got to hit that Santa clone hard and fast, or he’ll use his special Santa telepathy to call other Santas and sometimes mall security.

Next comes the easy part. Wear the Santa parts you just pilfered. If stores at the mall think you’re Santa Claus, you can pretty much take anything you want. Who’s going to stop Saint Nick from making his annual Christmas rounds? Just remember to say things like “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!” and seem obsessed with children. It might be a good idea to take a few with you while their parents aren’t looking to give yourself more credibility.

As you sit back in the squad car after your shopping spree, thinking “sirens are so romantic,” with your arms in a straight jacket like that ever enduring symbol of Christmas, Hannibal Lector, I want you to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas: It is better to receive than to give. God bless us, everyone!

Christmas in July #1: Working in a Retail Wonderland

Makin' a list. Crushing you twice.

‘Twas the season to be jolly, which of course meant that everyone and his brother’s dentist flocked to the malls like lemmings: perpetually moving, bargain crazed lemmings. Contrary to the songs and stereotypes of the season, not many shoppers seemed to be very jolly, and good will towards men (and women) was in short supply. But as hassled and angry as the shoppers were, with only six days remaining before the birth of Christ, retail workers were under ten times more pressure.
“Adam!” exclaimed my manager, mysteriously known only as Mr. T. From my station behind the register, I watched as Adam, my co-worker, looked up from the plastic Christmas tree he had just placed in the window.

“What’s the problem, Mr. T?” Adam asked, wiping the sweat off his brow.

“Why did you put a Christmas tree in the window instead of this karaoke machine?” Mr. T. demanded, pointing angrily at the small tree. “What’s more important, a Christmas tree or selling karaoke machines?”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what Jesus wants,” I mumbled, looking across the vast line that had formed at the front register in the twelve seconds I hadn’t been watching. Heading the line was a woman who wanted 30 gift cards for five dollars each. She was also looking for an album by the band Boston, the one “with the UFOs on the cover.”

I bit my tongue. Hard. It was all I could do to keep from screaming.

*   *   *

As the day wore on, the line seemed to be getting bigger and bigger, no matter how many people I rang up. There must have been at least five thousand dollars in my register, and the day was still young.

Then it dawned on me.

I wasn’t at a crappy retail job, selling stupid people stupid things that they would never use and helping them charge themselves to death, no. It was an epic battle between good and evil. It was me versus the line. The line was not composed of different people. Instead, it was a single, faceless mass, its odious presence sucking the joy out of my soul. I became more and more methodic, treating every customer as another obstacle in my path to happiness.

“Thank you for shopping FYE and have a nice night… bitch.”

Finally, several hours later, the line was almost gone. Three customers remained; there were likely more were on their way, but that didn’t matter to me. I had almost killed the object of my hatred. In my euphoria, I barely notice the gentleman who came up beside me, opposite the line.

“Mumble, mumble,” said the customer.

“Excuse me sir?” I asked, knocked temporarily out of my register trance. The short customer stood before me, just a little over my height, but much, much rounder. His joyless eyes stared into mine.

“Mumble, Adams Family Christmas mumble?”

I quickly looked up the answer, and found that we had never even carried an Adams Family Christmas album to begin with.

“Sorry, sir, we don’t have that one. You might want to try Media Play or Best Buy,” I suggested.

Joyless Eyes crinkled his nose and walked away.

Back to the line I went, ringing the last customer up. I looked around, unable to believe that the line was actually gone. Triumphantly, I waved my hands in the air.

“Anyone else need some help?! Anyone?” No one responded. Feeling cocky, I exclaimed, “Bring it on!”

Hearing my wisecrack, Joyless Eyes gave me a strange look from across the room, but no one else came to rebuild the line. I turned to Mike Barrett, a friend and fellow co-worker, who had arrived just in time to see my epic feat. “Did you see that?” I asked, a maniacal grin passing my lips. “I killed the line!”

“I see that, Matt,” he responded enthusiastically. “Since you worked so hard killing the line, you must be hungry!”

I shook my head yes.

“I’m going to Wendy’s; I’ll bring back some chicken nuggets for you.”

“Thanks, Mike,” I replied, turning to tend to the sadistically reforming line.

I don’t know how long it was between when Mike Barrett left and the next time the line dwindled to zilch, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. Wondering where Mike was with my chicken nuggets, I decided to brave the sales floor in search of my friend and my lunch. With a prayer that the customers wouldn’t see me or ask me any dim-witted questions, I sprinted out from behind the counter like a gazelle trying to outrun a pack of hungry wolves.

It wasn’t long before I spotted Mike Barrett. For some reason, he was waving his hands wildly, as if trying to tell me to run. However, the only thing wrong I could see was the lack of chicken nuggets in his hands. “Hey Mike! Have you got that chicken yet, or haven’t you got a chance to…”

Before I could finish, Joyless Eyes appeared in front of me out of nothingness. “You told me you didn’t have this!” he exclaimed, pointing to the CD in his greasy hand. Surprised, I looked down and saw an album cover with a little boy standing by a Christmas tree. He didn’t look like Uncle Fester to me.

“What are you talking about, sir?” I asked, my confusion growing.

“Where’s your manager, you smart ass? I wanna speak to your manager!” replied Joyless Eyes, apparently too wrapped up in his sudden bout of Turrets Syndrome to answer my question. I wondered what exactly he expected my manager to do about me ringing people up while he found a random CD.

Giving up on his devious plan to get me fired for doing my job, Joyless Eyes abandoned his short-lived search for a manager and instead began storming towards the cash register. “You told me you didn’t have this and now you’re going to ring me up!” he shouted. I marveled at both his grasp of the past and his ability to tell the future.

“Are you sure it was me?” I asked, convinced that some other employee had somehow angered the beast, and now his rage-blinded eyes had picked up on my gray work shirt and decided we were one in the same.

“It was you! I remember your ponytail! I have three witnesses to prove it!” Looking out behind him, I didn’t see anyone else. I wondered if maybe one of these imaginary witnesses had convinced him that the CD he was holding was the missing Adams Family Christmas Album.

When we arrived at the register, he threw the CD towards me and angrily pulled out his credit card. “What exactly did I say to you, sir?” I asked, running his purchase under the scanner.

“You said ‘Bring it on,’ you smart ass!”

For a moment, I considered trying to explain to him that my offer for customers to “bring it on” was a joke. Then, for the first time, I noticed what he was buying: the Adam Sandler Christmas Album. That’s when I knew that he wouldn’t know a good joke if it kicked him in his fat ass. I decided to let it go.

"Merry Christmas! Hababbaloo! Himo doobooloo! I'm an unfunny asshat."

“Your receipt is in the bag, and thank you for shopping at FYE,” I said cheerfully, handing him his confusing purchase. He yanked it out of my hands and threw the credit card receipt at me before I had even finished the sentence.

Just then Mike Barrett walked up beside me once more, holding my chicken nuggets. “I tried to warn you, but I didn’t know how,” he apologized, handing me my food, “so I just waved my arms around and hoped you’d get the point.”

“It’s okay, Mike,” I replied. “Anyway, I figured it out. He said ‘Adam Sandler,’ and I thought he said ‘Adams Family.’” I shoved a chicken nugget into my mouth. “Well, at least I didn’t put a Christmas tree where a karaoke machine should have been.”

“What are you talking about?” Mike Barrett went to his register and readied himself to ring.

“Never mind,” I replied, surveying the new, mile long line.

"Misprint!" - The Course Overload Novella, Chapter 14

Chapter 14: It Must Be True!

The police found my coworkers tied up and unharmed in the storeroom, just as The Yeti had said. As they led him out, my boss promised me that, in return for everything I had done, he’d correct the damage the Ying-Yang Gang had inflicted on my character. I shook his hand and he flashed his best P.R. smile as the police drove him to the station for questioning.

Of course, the members of the Ying-Yang Gang, once revived, that is, claimed that they were simply innocent orphans searching for food. They claimed that I had parachuted out of a helicopter and started beating them up so I could perform horrible genetic experiments on them in my secret lab.

But Joe’s video said otherwise.

Joe had been filming since I had stepped out of the building, so he had captured Sinister Eyes’s entire confession. Unlike orphans, video doesn’t lie. The terrible trio was carted off to the local jail in the sheriff’s paddy wagon.

As for what he was doing at the Wappingers Falls Tribune offices, Joe was about to apply for a janitorial position when he saw me and smelled an opportunity for good video. Much to his delight, Joe got his job, all right – as the official photographer/videographer of the Wappingers Falls Tribune.

After everything calmed down a bit, Kara and Shannon were standing by the van.

“Thanks for everything, you two,” I said. “I don’t think I could have taken the orphans and Joe Shurize at the same time.”

Kara smiled. “Hey, it takes more than orphan gang members to stop me.”

“And I figured that I should help too,” said Shannon.

“Yeah,” Kara agreed. “Shannon and I were supposed to hang out, but then it really bothered me that you didn’t get an answer when you called your job. I thought you might need me for something.”

“So she dragged me here,” added Shannon. “But you really did need us, so I guess it worked out okay.” Shannon winked at me. I know it was supposed to be witty, but actually it was just creepy. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, in which we all just kind of stared at the rocks on the pavement.

In the distance, the cops started leaving the scene, their sirens blearing.

“Sirens are so romantic,” I mused, a huge grin plastered on my exonerated face.

And the swan… well, the swan was nowhere to be found. (Insert eerie music here.)

*    *    *

The next morning, I dashed out of the house and looked in the mailbox for what promised to be a very special edition of the newspaper. Unfortunately, it hadn’t arrived yet. Those damn lazy delivery people! Is it too much to ask to have my paper delivered at a decent time, like 2 a.m.? I guess so.

Waiting for that paper was like waiting for Mom and Dad to wake up on Christmas. Sleep wasn’t really an option, and this time I couldn’t just set Dad’s clock ahead five hours. Instead, I resorted to counting all the blades of grass on my lawn. It was really hard to explain to the neighbors why I was asleep in the middle of their lawn when they left for work that morning.

But there was no time for that! After making something up about a failed robbery attempt to said neighbors, I sprinted to my mailbox and grabbed the paper. I unrolled it and was instantly elated. There, on the front page, was a picture of me that had been taken yesterday at the scene of the battle. I was standing over Sinister Eyes after knocking her down the last time. The headline was written over the top of the page in big, black letters: “Local man rises from the grave to devastate local cute orphan population!”

I held my arms triumphantly in the air. Ahh, it was good to be alive!

*    *    *

“Goodnight Mom!” I yelled through my closed bedroom door. She mumbled something. “No, I’m really still alive. …Yes, you too. See you tomorrow!”

I placed the cell phone back to my ear.

“Yeah, sorry about that Kara. I’ll talk to you tomorrow then.”

“Goodnight Matt,” she replied. “I’m so glad you’re alive again!”

“Me too, Kara. Me too.” I smiled, but Kara couldn’t see it because cell phones don’t transmit facial actions very well. Instead, I told her in great detail what my face looked like at the time for another 15 minutes. Then it really was time to go. “Goodnight Kara! Sleep tight!”

“Sweet dreams!” Kara replied. I hung up the phone and put it back in its charger.

Within minutes of slipping under the covers, I drifted off to sleep effortlessly easily. My first day of rebirth had gone by like any other, with me playing video games and eating excessive amounts of cheese. Yet, everything was enhanced. I hate to admit it, but playing video games all day and night isn’t as fulfilling as one would think. That day I felt like my life had a purpose once again. For the first time in weeks, I was looking forward to tomorrow.

That night, I had a dream. I was sailing in a beautiful Caribbean sea, all alone, marveling at the truly resplendent beaches and vegetation of my tropical island. That was the first good dream I’d ever had.

It was nice, like being alive.

"Misprint!" - The Course Overload Novella, Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Raging Battle! Vampire Killer, or Killer Vampire?

From the shadows, the nightwalker spoke.

“I wasss beginning to think you’d never come.”

I was ready for combat. All of my years reading comic books, watching horror films and playing video games had led up to this moment. I squinted and searched the darkness. “Show yourself, you son of a bitch!”

However, it wasn’t a son who emerged from the shadows, but a daughter. Before me stood Crazy Soup Girl, baring her shiny fangs and her similarly satanic neon green t-shirt and orange pants!

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “You’re a vampire? But how? I saw you in the daylight!”

“Thatsss when I wasss a daywalker,” she replied, inching past the light of the open window and forcing me into the hallway. Instinctively, I backed into the nearest office. Though it was still dark, I was able to feel my way in, half by instinct, and half from having memorized the floor plan when I started working there, just in case of such an incident.

“Then how did you become a vampire? Did one sweep you up after you jumped out that window?” No one but me had noticed Crazy Soup Girl’s body missing from the ground mere moments after she leapt out of Kara’s dorm...

But it all made sense! Obviously, the scent of her blood had attracted a vampire who was somehow immune to sunlight. He sensed an easy meal, swooped down and grabbed her, then brought her back to his castle and feasted on her delicious plasma!

“No,” she hissed, “I was fine after jumping out of that window. I just dusssted myssself off and walked back inssside. I became a vampire two nightsss ago when I left my window open a crack at my house in Alassska.”

And that would have been my second guess.

“But I tire of thisss. My employer sssent me to dissspossse of you,” she revealed. I could tell she was licking her lips. Her inhuman eyes shone through the shadows. “Are you ready to cry bloody tearsss?”

“Employer!? Who? Who wants me dead?”

I could feel the joy of the kill escalating within Crazy Vampire Soup Girl. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she taunted. “How ironic that I wasss sssent to kill a dead man!”

I didn’t exactly have time to sit around and contemplate the irony.

“Please tell me,” I weakly pleaded. “I’ll be your best friend.”

“Never! You ssshall die not knowing your true asssailant!”

I searched my pockets for any sort of bargaining chip. I hastily bumped into the only thing of value in my pocket. It was a long shot, but it was also my only shot. I looked her in the eyes. “If you tell me, I’ll give you a piece of gum.”

“It wasss the orphansss!” Crazy Vampire Soup Girl exclaimed, leaping out of the darkness, yanking the gum out of my hand, and chewing it with great ecstasy.

I stumbled back, grabbing a chair and regaining my balance. “The orphans!? But why? Why would they…?”

“Thank you for the tribute. But now I really do have to kill you. I have a four o’clock at a fun houssse in Chessster.”

“Tribute?!” I was flabbergasted. “You steal men’s souls!”

“Perhapssse the sssame could be sssaid of all religionsss,” she returned smugly. “What isss a man? A missserable little pile of sssecretsss! But enough talk. Have at you!”

As if on cue, before she could even throw the first punch, Crazy Vampire Soup Girl began reeling with agony. She coughed and spit out the gum, tripping over a nearby conveniently placed object and slamming into the adjacent wall.

I smiled ever so slightly.

“Garlic gum. I never leave home without it; it makes your breath so fresh and minty!”

“Cursssse you!” she yelled. The fires of hatred blazed in her eyes.

I sprinted over to the wall she leaned against. “Rise and shine!” I screamed valiantly, reaching for the cord to the blinds. I yanked them valiantly.

Nothing happened.

“Hang on, this is going to be super cool!” I pulled again, but it still didn’t work. I could tell that Crazy Vampire Soup Girl was getting frustrated. I was so embarrassed, I could feel myself turning a vibrant shade of red.

“What’sss the hold up!?”

With a final tug, the blinds rolled up. Sunshine poured into the room like a tidal wave. Crazy Vampire Soup Girl flopped around on the floor like a badly dressed carp caught in a fisherman’s net. I closed the blinds just enough to let only a little light in. The vampire stopped flailing as much.

“Tell me where my coworkers are!”

“I don’t know!”

“Then, tell me where the orphans went!” I let a little more light in through the blinds.

“They’re outssside!” she exclaimed.

But as I watched her writhe about on the floor in such pain, I actually felt sorry for her. It was against my better judgment, but…

“If you promise to be nice, I’ll let you go,” I offered.

Crazy Vampire Soup Girl took little time to make her decision. “Yesss, I will!”

I closed the blinds. Crazy Vampire Soup Girl slowly regained her footing. “I guesss a thank you isss in order…”

I nodded. “From now on, I want you to play nice, okay?”

“Of courssse.”

“You can hang out in that closet over there until nightfall, and then go and do whatever it is vampires do.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Usssually we play Monopoly or make fessstive sssoups together. And we love reality TV, like Sssurvivor and –”

“Okay, But no more biting people,” I commanded. “It’s rude.”

I dashed to the back exit, leaving Crazy Vampire Soup girl to fend for herself. After all, I had a bigger threat to thwart. I opened the door and rushed out.

“Bravo,” congratulated a small, sinister female voice. “We didn’t think you would make it this far.”

I didn’t need to see the speaker to know who it was. I spun around hurriedly. There in front of me were the immoral orphans, standing coyly in the parking lot by mother’s car. Thankfully, they had driven my car to the scene. Hallelujah! I never thought I’d see it again! I didn’t even care that it had orphan germs in it!

I faced the terrible tribe of heathens and stared them down as best I could. After all, there were three of them and only one of me, and though I had gained a few pounds from all the ramen noodles and cheese I had been gulping down, I still wasn’t big enough to equal their combined mass.

“I should have known that you satanic orphans had something to do with all of this!”

“Something to do with it?” asked Sinister Eyes, trying to contain her awful laughter. “We had everything to do with it!”

“What?!”

Sinister Eyes seemed disappointed. I could do nothing but continue standing there, my mind racing. “Oh please, I thought you were smarter than that. I thought you’d have figured it all out by now.”

“Sorry, I was playing that new video game, Yojimbo’s Carnival of Pain,” I retorted. “I guess I got a little distracted… for six weeks.”

“It’s no coincidence that we targeted you last month with the old ‘orphans by the side of the road’ scheme. It works every time!”

“Gasp!” I gasped.

“And it wasn’t your boss or anyone from the Wappingers Falls Tribune who wrote that obituary. It was me! I wrote it as soon as we finished beating you.”

I shook my head with disgust. “Well, shows what you know. That obituary was full of spelling, grammar and factual errors!”

“We did it on purpose to embarrass you, you fool.”

I shook my fist at them angrily. “Damn you! It worked!”

Sinister Eyes allowed herself a small grin. “We’ve been trying to ruin you from the beginning.”

“But why?” I asked, confused. “What did I do to you?”

“This goes far beyond petty vendettas. It’s all business. You see… I wanted your job.”

“My job!?” I exclaimed with disbelief. “But you’re only nine years old!”

Sinister Eyes squinted at me, her devilish sight squarely on my face. It was as if she was looking directly into my soul. “I’m actually 27. I’m older than you. And my comrades are both far past the legal drinking age. Together, we have formed the crime syndicate known as… the Ying-Yang Gang!”

“The Ying-Yang Gang!? You mean the jewel thieves that the Wappingers Falls Tribune reports on?”

“The very same,” returned Sinister Eyes. “We estimated that if I got your job, I could slowly gain more and more influence and finally become the editor!”

“And when that didn’t work, we just tied everyone up and left them in the storeroom,” added The Yeti.

“Shut up!” yelled Sinister Eyes. “I’ll do the talking here!” The Yeti’s lip curled up and he began to cry. Sinister Eyes ignored him. “So now that I’m the editor, I can print fake news stories that will make store owners leave their stores open at night… for us to rob! Because if you read it in a newspaper, it must be true!”

“That’s diabolical!” I exclaimed.

“And no more of those pesky reports of our activities,” she added.

If there were ever a time to prove myself as a ninja, it was then. I assumed my most deadly ninja fighting stance. I wasn’t going to be defeated again!

“Oh? A challenge?” countered Sinister Eyes. “We weren’t going to let you live anyway, but now disposing of you is going to be a lot more fun than anticipated. Are you ready for another thrashing?”

“Uhh… well, are you ready for some… football!?”

I’ve never been very good at comebacks.

Sinister Eyes readied herself for combat, her hands set to both defend and attack. The Yeti and Silent Orphan followed suit. I knew that defeating three evil orphans wasn’t exactly going to be simple, but at least this time I was ready for battle. I breathed in deeply, and motioned arrogantly for the orphans to “come on” and attack me.

Milliseconds before the clash could begin, an engine revved loudly in the distance. All heads turned in the direction of the sound. From out of an alley, a blue minivan careened towards us. It screeched to a stop and the door slid open ominously. I wondered if I’d be able to take any more assailants or if I should try to escape during the confusion.

Out of the van stepped Kara and Shannon! “Thank God!” I exclaimed. “But how did you know I needed help?”

“Who are you two?” Sinister Eyes inquired, puzzled. “What’s going on?”

“I thought you might need a hand,” replied Kara. “Looks like I was right.”

Shannon waved at me. “Hi Matt!”

There was someone else around as well, though. I could sense their presence. “Well don’t stop now!” they yelled from behind me. I couldn’t believe it. I mean really, who else could possibly have shown up? Would there be yet another combatant, again turning the tide? I looked cautiously, ready for anything.

Except for who was standing there.

“Come on, keep going! This is great stuff!” Joe Shurize yelled, his camera rolling. “I’m gonna call this American Brawlers and put it on the Video Club channel!”

Sinister Eyes rolled her tiny pupils. “Are you all quite finished? Because there’s supposed to be an epic battle right about…”

“NOW!” The Yeti shouted as he jumped at me. My right leg jetted up swiftly, ready to deliver a snap kick, but before I could extend my leg past knee-level, The Yeti hit the ground hard. Either I was a really great ninja, or something else had hit him before I could. Then I saw the answer. Kara was standing over him, holding a stop sign with a yeti-shaped indentation. She flashed me a thumbs up gesture.

With The Yeti out of the way, I could concentrate on Silent Orphan before taking out Sinister Eyes. But when I looked away from Kara, searching for my next opponent, the first thing I saw was Shannon sitting on Silent Orphan and tying him up.

I was beginning to feel slightly inadequate.

“Your fight is with me now!” taunted Sinister Eyes.

I was ready. It was she that had orchestrated the entire incident! It was her fault I had spent the last month in hiding! It probably wasn’t her fault that I always had bad dreams, but for now I’d blame it on her because it was inaccurate but convenient, just like the legal system!

We flew at each other like lions, both releasing a volley of shots. Stinging blows rained down upon both of our bodies, but neither yielded to the pain. I was in an unstoppable frenzy. My feet barely touched the ground.

“This is golden!” Joe exclaimed, moving closer to the action for a better shot.

Our rage in the streets continued. Sinister Eyes uppercutted my stomach. I doubled over. She landed a devastating blow to my jaw. Then she grabbed my hair and thrust my face towards her unholy knee.

My elbow sailed through the air like a baseball bat, crashing into the side of her head. Sinister Eyes was knocked back just enough for me to wiggle free of her unrelenting grasp.

Another flurry of punches and kicks followed. Sinister Eyes attempted a jumping attack, but I intercepted her with a rising tackle. We both hit the pavement. We were up in an instant.

My fatal fury was unmatched. A quick roundhouse kick slammed into my nemesis’s shoulder, followed by a quick haymaker to the chest.

Sinister Eyes returned the favor with a knee attack to my chest. I fell to the ground. The second I returned to my ready stance, Sinister Eyes had a big, shiny gun pointed at my forehead.

“This ends now,” she informed me calmly. Kara and Shannon stood back, powerless. Joe stepped in for a close up. “You were a good sparring partner, but my associates and I really must be going now. Enjoy truly dying.”

My life flashed before my eyes. It was mostly playing video games and eating cheese. It kind of made me feel like I should have done more with my time on Earth, like playing more video games and eating more cheese.

My reprieve came in the form of a curious fluttering sound above our heads. Sinister Eyes instinctively looked to the sky. Crashing down towards her was the fiendish paper swan!

Shannon began screaming. “But I killed you!” she yelled, and tried to hide by pulling her jacket over her head.

Sinister Eyes flailed her arms crazily, but the swan just kept floating towards her. “Stop lookin’ at me, swaaaaaaaaaaan!” she exclaimed in terror.

My chance was slight; hesitation meant death. My spinning crescent kick knocked the gun from her hands. Sinister Eyes looked back at me just in time to catch a spinning back kick with her face.

The swan landed peacefully next to her fallen, incapacitated body.

“That was awesome!” Joe exclaimed, hopping up and down and swinging his camera triumphantly about. One more punch and I think we’d have had to clean Joe’s joy-exploded head off the pavement.

Kara and Shannon released a collective sigh of relief.

I listened to the police sirens in the distance. Someone must have seen me and my friends beating three little kids senseless and called the cops. It was so nice of whoever had called the police to come to my aid. The flashing lights surrounded us all.

"Misprint!" - The Course Overload Novella, Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Shining in the Darkness

Have you ever spent six hours straight on the phone? That’s exactly what I did after my breakthrough. Kara and I inspected the details surrounding my fake death like FBI agents, looking at the situation from every possible angle. Had sinister aliens landed and abducted me as I lay dying after my brutal beating? While that would account for all the missing time before I got home, it wouldn’t help us resolve my current dilemma. Perhaps there was a vampire conspiracy to ruin me for always helping to halt their blasphemous attacks. But what did orphans have to do with that? Could everything be linked somehow? After much deliberation, Kara and I agreed that it was most likely a random act of violence.

That only left the obituary.

“Did you ever call your job to tell them you weren’t dead?” Kara asked.

“Well… no. I never thought of it,” I said. “I was so devastated after the Santa thing didn’t work out that all I did was try to convince Mom I hadn’t died, play some Resident Hill, and then go to bed. I guess it was so simple I just didn’t…”

Kara interrupted me mid sentence. “Wait a minute. You played a video game after all that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

I’m not sure, but I thought I heard Kara beating her head against a table.

“Kara?”

“Never mind Resident Hill. What you need to do to call the Wappingers Falls Tribune and see if you can get them to print a retraction. This might be the answer to all of our problems!”

I thanked Kara for all of her wonderful help and hung up the phone. Swiftly, I dialed my job.

I wasn’t expecting what happened next; or rather, what didn’t happen. I allowed the phone to ring for a good five minutes. With so many people in the office during normal business hours, someone should have heard the phone. Something was definitely amiss, but it could have been anything from my boss working on something very important and not wanting to be bothered to someone hitting the wrong button and silencing all the phones in the building by accident.

At any rate, it looked like I’d have to go and talk to them in person. I knew that it was a dangerous proposition, but when you’re desperate, you’ll resort to a lot of things you wouldn’t do normally. Even if I were once again suspected of being a ghost, or worse, a zombie, at least I’d have done something about it. Besides, then the new Dynamite Barslut game and I could get better acquainted without me feeling like a jerk.

I grabbed my mother’s keys and hopped into her car, speeding off towards the Wappingers Falls Tribune headquarters. I vowed that something was going to happen in the office that day, whether it be good, bad, or indifferent, and I was going to go home feeling like I accomplished something.

But I could never have anticipated… (Note: This is foreshadowing.)

*    *    *

When I arrived outside my place of employment, the small driveway was full of cars as usual. It had always been difficult to find a spot and today was no different. I slowly pulled into the last space, the one next to a stone wall that separates the newspaper parking lot from the other, higher parking lot. It was a tight fit, but I was used to it by then.

I stepped out of the car and readied myself to enter the building for the first time in… well, today was Jan. 21, so it had been exactly a month to the day that I was attacked by the unholy trinity of orphans. It sent a clichéd shiver down my spine. As I proceeded to the door, I noticed that the shades had been pulled down. Sometimes this was done if the sun blinded too many employees, but most of the time, everyone was so absorbed in what they were doing no one would notice. Still, it was enough for me to hesitate before placing my hand on the shiny golden doorknob. I took a deep breath and pushed it open.

I was immediately plunged into darkness. The office was silent; not even the electric hum of a computer emanated from my boss’s office.

“Hello?” I called, my eyes still adjusting to the blackness. The only light came from the open door behind me. Daylight seeped in and let me see just enough to proceed.

I was pretty sure at that point that something was a little off. The smell of coffee placated me a little, but it was faint, meaning that it must have been brewed at least a few hours ago. I took another couple of steps in. I looked in each cubicle as I proceeded, checking for anyone hiding under a desk or a chair, waiting to jump out and yell “surprise!” Maybe this whole false death thing had just been a ploy to throw me a really rockin’ birthday party, even though my birthday was in November. I listened, but all I heard was my own muffled footsteps on the carpet.

Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind me. I heard an unmistakable click and I knew it was locked. I was blind in the pitch blackness. My heart beat so hard I could feel it in my legs. I hate to admit it, but I was just a little spooked.

I wasn’t about to go and investigate what had closed the door, so my only option was to continue forward, towards my boss’s office. I had a gut feeling that if any answers were to be found, they’d be there.

I was wondering how I’d know when I had reached my boss’s office, but as it turned out, it wasn’t a problem – a small light protruded from the door, a beacon in my world of darkness. I slowly stalked up to the open door and readied myself for the worst.

I jumped into the room, prepared to take out any number of ninjas, aliens, pirates or janitorial staff. Yet there was nothing but an open window – the source of the faint light. I immediately knew what I was up against.

“Nicesss of you to finally arrive,” hissed a voice from the void.

And you laughed at me when I told you about vampires and open windows.

"Misprint!" - The Course Overload Novella, Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Life as the Living Dead

Don’t tell me you thought that plan was going to work. Yes, it was a great plan, maybe even the best. But if the story had ended there, what did you think the rest of these pages were for? Were you all giddy at the prospect of grabbing your copy of Misprint! and marching down to the local H&R Block, triumphantly exclaiming that they didn’t need any paper to do your taxes on because you had plenty? Were you psyched at the concept of using all the blank pages I left as a nice place to calculate your tips longhand? Or perhaps you wanted to use it as an impromptu coaster when company you don’t want to waste the good coasters on come over.

I hate books like that. You know, books that pretend that there’s going to be a resolution towards the middle of the story, and yet, there’s about 60 pages left? (Which, ironically, means that I should hate my own book.) Who do these authors think they’re fooling with their unresolved plots and their fake climaxes?

So, as you and the other 98 percent of the people reading this right now and not thinking, “My, that was a short book. And it ended so abruptly!” can see, Kara’s plan failed by the narrowest of margins. Were it not for Joe Shurize or that evil paper swan, I’d have been considered among the living once more. But the truth is that Joe messed things up, and that terrible paper swan… well, who knew where it had gone; I assumed it was sucked back down into the bowels of hell where it belongs.

Yet, Kara’s plan wasn’t a total wash after all, because no one thought that I was a ghost anymore. Essentially, Kara’s plan resolved half the problem, which is more than I can say about anything I had done up to then.

After the plan went horribly awry, there was nothing left to do but go to the local diner and cry face down in a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Kara and Shannon eventually had to leave, so I drove home in a stupor listening to sad love songs on the radio, because there weren’t many sad songs about mistaken deaths played that night. When I arrived, I saw my father’s car sitting in the driveway in its normal place. Judging by the light coming from the computer room window, I figured he was surfing the Internet.

My father is a good man and no one can deny that. But, like everyone else, he has a few small flaws. For example, sometimes he leaves the refrigerator open, and other times he eats kittens. You know, small stuff. One of his most noticeable problems is that once he’s on the computer, he tunes everything out until he’s finished, like fire, dinner and Mom. So, when my mother tried to tell him about my supposed death, it went something like this:

Mom: Oh my God Dave! Our poor son is dead!

Dad: Ian?

Mom: No, the other one.

Dad: Matt needs what now?

Mom: He needs a funeral because he’s dead! Our loving son is gone!

Dad: Another good semester, huh? He’s so smart.

Mom: Listen to me, Dave! Listen!

Dad: Yes, I don’t know how the Ying-Yang Gang keeps getting away either.

Mom: (Sounds of agony and deep seeded grief.)

Dad: My credit card is on the table. I love you and I’ll see you at dinner.

So, although Mom tried to get through to him for several hours, Dad still had no idea that I was supposed to be dead when I schlepped wretchedly into the house.

My dog Bailey was pretty happy to see me. He danced around me, wagging his tail and licking my hand. The poor thing had no idea that he should have been afraid of me because I was dead, but not really because I was still alive. Poor stupid animal; I was glad he had me to protect him.

The sound of Bailey’s jumping must have finally broken my father’s monitor induced trance. He walked to the living room to see me. “Hi Matt. How was your day at school?”

“Hi Dad. Everyone at school thought that I was dead, and when Kara and I tried to fix it, it didn’t work like we wanted it to.” I tossed my book bag on the couch. “How was yours?”

“It was fine. I had potato salad for lunch.”

“Well, that’s nice, I’ll bet it was… wait a minute!”

That night, dinner was surreal. Mom spent much of the time lamenting over her lost son and crying in her macaroni, while Dad and I slowly broke the news to her that I was still alive. I kept asking her to pass me the salt, the milk, or more macaroni, and every time she obliged, I could see that the wheels were turning inside her head. Sometimes, Mom would start to convince Dad that I really was dead and it was his grief-stricken mind that was projecting my image in the seat next to him, but I would always wind up reeling him back in. So, a few hours later, after the intense reprogramming session, Dad and I managed to convince my mother that I was still alive. Now at least I’d have a family (and new video games) again! Sometimes, though, Mom had her doubts, like when I slept past 5 a.m. But being awoken at the crack of dawn to frantic maternal anguish is a million times better than having no family.

Thus began the long Winter Recess. Kara and I talked every day, sometimes for hours, about how to resolve my dilemma. She felt really bad about going home and leaving me in that condition, but if it weren’t for her and Shannon, I might be on display at some carnival in Arkansas.

Kara was full of good ideas over the break. So many, in fact, that we’d come up with a new scheme practically every week. For example, once I tried sending out Christmas cards; sure it was January, but that’s not the point. On the front was a picture of me giving a thumbs up and sporting the biggest grin I could muster. Instead of some cheery holiday greeting next to me and my huge toothy smile, I wrote in large caps, “I’M STILL ALIVE.” This seemed like a fantastic strategy; everyone would see that I was still alive with a festive yet functional holiday salutation. And it was a good idea too, except for one little problem: The studio that made the cards for me ruined the picture. Somehow, the negative was used instead of the developed photo. What had once been a thoughtful holiday hello had suddenly become sinister – I looked like a horrific zombie. My teeth were bulbous and seemed to be ready to start gnashing into tender flesh. My thumbs up gesture was no longer encouraging and playful, it now looked like I was reaching my decaying limbs toward my next helpless victim. I looked as if I wanted to turn everyone into foul creatures of the darkness.

Needless to say, my greeting of “I’M STILL ALIVE” was indeed taken at face value; however, it wasn’t the way I had intended. By “alive,” people thought I meant “undead,” and the card had been a friendly reminder to lock their doors at night, lest they become a part of it… The night, not their doors. For weeks people thought I was telling them to have some sort of belated zombie Christmas and that the New Year would be besieged by hoards of the living dead.

Every day another plan ended in colossal failure. I was forced to spend most of my time hanging around the house in my underwear and doing nothing but eating cheese while playing video games. Now I know that sounds unbearably hellish and you might be wondering how I survived the ordeal, but I’m not going to lie to you: It was freakin’ awesome. After a while, I stopped caring. I had my family, I had my girlfriend, I had my video games and I didn’t have to go to work. Really, what could be better?

Yes, day in and day out, the same thing, with no social interaction and a very limited diet… Well, towards the middle of January, I felt like my life had slammed into a brick wall. I had enough video games and ramen noodles to last me until 2010, and that would have been fine – if I didn’t have Kara or any of my friends. I didn’t want Kara to have to visit me in seclusion, never being able to go out to the movies or nice restaurants like Burger King for fear of everyone thinking I was a ghost again. I wanted to frolic in the summer sun, holding my friends’ hands and thanking God for the simple miracle of a warm sunny day. I wanted to live! I wanted to live, damn it, and I was going to find a way to finally be myself again! I can’t even begin to tell you how pissed off I was to have to give up my dream of playing video games all day, every day, for the rest of my natural existence and maybe a few more years as a soulless cyborg of the 21st century, but my love of friendship and humanity were more important to me in the long run.

But not by much. The new superhero action game, Dynamite Barslut, was due out later that year. I mourned for days.

However, how could I do it? Kara and I had been trying to come up with a viable solution for weeks now to no avail. I felt like Wile E. Coyote from those old Road Runner cartoons – I had tried everything, and my plans either backfired or were foiled by some one-in-a-million occurrence that left me sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally, flat on my ass.

As time crept on and I meditated on my previous failures, a critical piece of the puzzle fell into place one afternoon as I gazed out my window. I’d been going about the whole thing all wrong! Every plan, every tactic, every move I made up to that point had been focused on undoing what had already been done. However, that was a mammoth task that had proven nearly impossible over the past few weeks. I had been trying to solve a result, not a problem, not the cause. I needed to attack the root of the disturbance to get any results!

Quickly, I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Kara’s number.

"Misprint!" - The Course Overload Novella, Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Christmas Comes But Twice a Year

Copying signs and hanging them about campus has never been so easy and so difficult at the same time. Sneaking into the copier room was fiendishly simple – most of the security guards weren’t around. I had guessed that some skipped out early in anticipation of the end of the semester – no students means no need for security – while others had flocked to the dorms to keep the peace as everyone got out of their tests and marched back home at any cost. Those who were left had decided to get lunch or take a nap, or perhaps they had all decided to walk to Mexico to try to bottle the hot air and sell it to people in the states with inadequate jackets. I didn’t know. But it didn’t really matter, because they weren’t around to get in my way.

The difficult part was hanging all of those suckers up. I went from building to building, hanging the signs everywhere, from the traditional wall in a hallway to toilet seats and the shirts of young children from the neighboring elementary school. Towards the end, I had simply begun to toss the fliers around the campus like that lovable icon of American perseverance, Johnny Appleseed – only without a retarded bucket on my head or raggedy overalls that smelled like pig dung. Other cultures get legends about samurais with 27 foot long razor-sharp blades, who take down entire armies single-handedly, or gladiator generals who take over entire continents with a few bits of tattered string and a week-old mango. But America gets a village idiot with unwashed pants and an affinity for fruit. Go figure.

I remember wandering onto the soccer field, gleefully tossing the last of the fliers to the wind. But I don’t recall my exact reaction to Kara’s masterwork, probably because I was trying to locate a new pair of pants to replace the ones I had just urinated in. What had been a small potato crate in a huge empty field only hours before was transformed into a mini North Pole. Children were singing carols around a 30 foot tall Christmas tree while elves danced happily in the snow, chattering in annoyingly high-pitched voices and bubbling over with copious amounts of Christmas cheer. Reindeer pranced about, eating snow and jellybeans and excreting eggnog, and a hearty Christmas fire blazed in the center of it all, warming the heart of even the coldest of snowmen. And I don’t know how Kara managed this, but it all somehow smelled like joy and cheer.

Kara approached me, sipping on a cup of hot chocolate and wearing an outfit made of tinsel and good will towards men. As she got closer, I could smell chestnuts. I didn’t have to ask what they were being roasted over.

“Kara! How… what did you…?”

She stopped scanning over her clipboard and frowned. “I know, you don’t have to tell me that it’s not that great. But it really would have been better if the dancing snowmen hadn’t canceled.”

“The what?”

A man wearing a light-up Rudolph nose and clad in nothing but multicolored lights and a red thong strolled by, juggling five trays of holiday cookies and a wreath for a crowd of mesmerized elves. I was pretty sure I was dreaming at that point, because everyone knows that elves hate juggling. I considered pinching myself, but when I thought about it, I knew I wasn’t dreaming because nothing horrible was trying to wound or humiliate me. That, and pinching hurts.

“Now all we need is an appearance by the big man himself,” Kara hinted.

“Jesus?” I exclaimed excitedly, scanning the crowds for Him, but finding only Cindy Lou Who.

“You’re such a special boy,” Kara returned, shaking her head. She produced a festive red Santa cap from behind her back and pulled it onto my head.

*    *    *

They had arrived much more quickly than I had imagined. At first they came in twos and threes. But a half hour after I had set foot into Kara’s impromptu winter wonderland, the soccer field was swarming with jovial students. I felt a little bad for duping them all into coming. After all, Kara hadn’t obtained any candy because she was too busy trying to train the circus bears to sing “Jingle Bells.” Yet, they were all truly enjoying themselves. The sea of green and red clad bodies was truly a jolly bunch, steeped in the Christmas spirit. Unless they didn’t celebrate Christmas, in which case, they sat in the far corners of the field softly weeping.

I knew that somehow, through some cosmic fluke, I was responsible for bringing good will to men (and women). I watched them like my own personal TV program from behind the massive green curtain on the stage.

Shannon was weaving her way through the crowd, touching the elves’ pointy hats and building snowmen out of frozen eggnog. Her legs were covered in ketchup and it looked like something fierce had bitten her arm. I was sure that she had done a good job corralling people around to where they needed to be. So, after keeping everyone at bay for so long, she deserved a little Christmas cheer too; she had earned it.

Kara tapped me on the shoulder, knocking me out of my deep thoughts and back to the task at hand. “You’re on!” she informed me excitedly. A grin crossed her face. I wondered if I’d be going home after all this. Could I really just forget the whole thing?

I took the red and green mic, walked out on stage, and nervously blew into it through my cottony beard to see if it was working. The sound of my breath echoed out through the crowd. Instantly, everyone’s attention was on me. It was time to exonerate myself through the man in red’s good name.

I timidly addressed the mass of yuletide joy. “Uhh… Ho, ho, ho, everyone.” Feedback shot through the speakers and rebounded all about the soccer field, sending all but the heartiest of scholars standing by or on the massive speakers to the frosty ground. But they didn’t mind, because Santa Claus had come to town! With candy! Or so they thought. I gingerly held the microphone and flashed a weak smile.

I’ve never acted in the theater before, not even a bit role in my high school production of Fiddler on a Hot Tin Roof. In fact, my credits included a few student films and trying to convince my father that his car had been possessed by the soul of Little Richard and spastically danced itself into that telephone pole. Yet, standing on that stage, fondling the poor microphone and gazing over the festive Christmas crowd, something inside me just… clicked. I could feel my blood infusing my organs with jolliness, and the essence of Christmas surged through my bones. My heart grew ten fold. Out of nowhere, I wasn’t just pretending to be Santa, I had actually assumed his spirit. For a few odd but exuberant seconds, I was good ol’ Saint Nick.

“Ho, ho, ho!” From the depths of my belly came the merry laughter. “Have you all been good little college students?”

The audience released a collective mumble. Many looked down at their shoes while others tried unsuccessfully to purge the alcohol from their systems by drinking an excessive amount of Christmas cola.

“Fantastic!” I bellowed. “Have you all remembered to hang your stockings?”

“Yes!” the crowd yelled enthusiastically, even though some were still wearing theirs.

“And have you all written me a list?”

“Yes!” they exclaimed once more.

“And did you all know that Matt isn’t really a ghost?”

A sudden hush befell the crowd. The silence forced my heart out of my chest. I could feel every vein in my body bulge with tension. Then, just when I was about to run away crying, a voice penetrated the intense quiet.

“If an authority figure like Santa Claus says it, it must be true!” yelled a young man in a bulbous black jacket. His cell phone flew from his pocket at light speed, and he began dialing people to tell them the “news.” In less than a minute, almost everyone in the crowd was speaking into their phone, spreading the truth to their parents, comrades and dogs. Kara’s plan was working beautifully. Now all I had to do was hit them with the kicker – that I wasn’t really dead – and I could forget that this nightmare had ever happened. Then I’d go home for a nap, where I could have all new, much more bizarre nightmares than waking up “dead.” And obviously, that would have been incentive enough for anyone.

“Listen my children,” I began, another belly laugh forming from deep within; or maybe it was just gas. It saddens me that I’ll never know the truth because of what happened next. “There’s something else about Matt that I want you all to know. That wonderful boy not only isn’t a ghost, but he’s not even de-”

But that’s when the earsplitting, eye-melting sound shot across the campus, shattering every window in America and some in Canada. (I shudder to think of all the poor students who would be returning to college only to find themselves entombed with the bloodsucking undead.) The fickle audience had leapt from the palm of my hand. Panic swept them; heads spun in all directions like that scene from The Exorcist and arms flailed wildly.

It sounded like an elephant’s death cries in a field of chainsaws and 1000 simultaneously flushing toilets. “What the hell is that awful noise!?” I screamed. I covered my ears and immediately lost whatever mystic Santa power that had, up to that point, been surging through me like 100,000 watts of fantastic, festive electricity. Then the grotesque answer to my question rolled into view.

I had never seen such a monstrosity in my life. It was like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade had regurgitated an awful lump of rejected balloons and some mad scientist had fused them together into Frankenfloat. The giant rolling stage was covered in purple tinsel, with yellow and green lasers firing through huge clouds of smoke. I couldn’t make out who was playing on stage and producing that ear-splitting racket, but there had to be legions of them. No less than 70 heathens playing at least three instruments each could have created that aural weapon of mass distraction. Not surprisingly, riding atop the float was none other than Joe Shurize.

“What the hell are you doing!?” I exclaimed in disbelief. I still had the mic in my hand, so I could somewhat cut through the horrid noise protruding from the rolling terror blimp.

Joe watched me from his perch. He had a microphone as well, which on any other day would have sent me and half the school running for the hills. But today I was fearless. Today I was unshakable. Today I was pissed.

“Oh, hi Santa!” he yelled, beaming and waving down at me. “I thought you weren’t coming for another three days! Did you get my list?”

“If you don’t want a boatload of coal in your stocking Christmas Eve, you’ll tell me what’s going on!” I shook my fist angrily at him, as if his ears would somehow work better with a visual aid.

“You crack me up, Santa! You’re always so jolly!” Joe returned. “See, I was talking to this dead guy about an hour ago, and then this giant phoenix burst from the underworld and rocketed towards me, trying to drag me down to Hell so Satan could hollow out my skull and put extra rubber bands in it.”

I guess he meant the paper swan.

“Of course,” I returned, rolling my eyes.

“Anyway, I ran away and into the city, and wouldn’t you know it…”

As Joe spoke, the ethereal fog surrounding the horror machine cleared. I saw what was making those frightful noises. Surprisingly, it wasn’t hundreds of monkeys nefariously beating drums and screeching at the top of their simian lungs. It was even more horrible than an army of hard rock vampires with a plan to take over the colleges of the United States one by one, starting with Mount Saint Mary. There, on that deplorable stage, stood both Michael Jackson and Axl Rose, doing an appropriate yet reprehensible rendition of Jackon’s “Thriller.”

Joe just kept rambling through his story as I made the grizzly discovery. “Michael Jackson and Axl Rose were having a fight in the parking lot of the local diner over the merits of black and white film versus color. So I just walked right up and began talking to them about it for the next four hours or so, and what do you know, they suddenly agreed to do a dual concert here at the Mount for me to film and play on the TV station! I’m going to call it American Bandstand!”

I didn’t bother telling him that the name was already taken.

Everyone who had come for Santa’s winter lovefest quickly forgot who they had come to see and started following the insipid rolling stage like festive lemmings. I tried to convince them that Santa would sneak into their rooms while they were sleeping on Christmas Eve and stab them all in the arm, but they refused to listen. The lure of the freakish superstars was simply too much.

The only people still left on the soccer field were Kara and Shannon. Kara buried her head in her hands. “Why, God? Why?!”

“Woo! Where’s the candy, Santa!?” Shannon exclaimed, sitting on the back of a reindeer.

I didn’t know this before, but cotton beards are really good at absorbing tears.

*    *    *

I watched Joe and his superstar float until they turned the corner and marched out of sight. I could still hear them faintly in the distance as the winter sun stretched across the pink and violet horizon. A few minutes later, the sun quietly hid itself behind the mountaintops. Finally, the day had ended – and so too had my dreams of a normal life.

"Misprint!" - The Course Overload Novella, Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Wheels in Motion

I pushed the closest two rungs of the Venetian blinds apart and stared through the clear tarp as best I could. I was scanning for anything detrimental to my cause, like a pizza deliveryman who might come to the Mount to dispense a mouth-watering pie, only to learn of the gruesome specter that haunts the campus and dash away to reveal the news to everyone in the outside world. Everything needed to be contained; in essence, we needed to quarantine the entire college. And with most finals ending in a few hours, the chances of people spreading the rumor far and wide were astronomical. It was a doomsday scenario that couldn’t take place, lest I spent the rest of my days and nights hidden in the shadows like the bloodsuckers I so despised.

Shannon sat at her desk, her eyes plastered against her computer screen. She ignored the disturbing paper swan that stared at her from her pinup board and concentrated on searching for more anti-vampire measures to take, in order to Nosferatu-proof the dorm for the winter break. She had said something about not wanting to let any vampiric activity disrupt Kara’s plan, so she was going to “fortify the dorm” until we started our mission. For the first time in my life, I wished I hadn’t enlightened someone of the perils of careless window usage.

Kara was in her desk chair, looking coy. I hadn’t really talked to her since her return, but she and I shared a sort of connection where I knew what she was thinking sometimes without her having to tell me. By the look on her face – the slight upturn of her lips and the twinkle in her eye – I knew she was working out the final details of her master plan, the plan that would save me and end the deplorable rumors of my death once and for all. I really owed Kara, regardless of the plan working or not, for her dedication and concern. Perhaps some kind of fruit basket was in order.

Just as Shannon began rubbing garlic on the bedposts, Kara jumped up from her chair and walked to the center of the room. She commanded so much authority with her confidant stride that Shannon and I couldn’t help but stop what we were doing and follow her with our eyes.

“All right,” she began. Her demeanor was that of a president about to address the nation. “As far as I can tell, we’ve only got one chance to correct this before everyone goes back home and spreads the story of Matt’s death. For my plan to work, we need to split into two separate groups. Shannon, I want you to deal with containing anyone still on campus. Create a distraction of some sort to catch people’s attention as they try to drive away. And don’t let anyone come on campus either. The fewer people who come in contact with the rumors, the better.”

Forgetting the vampires for a moment, Shannon was swept up in Kara’s rousing directions. She accepted her role whole-heartedly. “Matt, can I borrow your car?”

“Sure,” I replied, “But why?”

Shannon smiled. “Because I feel that I’ll be getting into a little accident today.”

Since it was Mom’s car and not mine, I thought that idea sounded great.

Shannon continued, “I’ll tell everyone trying to come in that I’ve been bitten by a zombie and I could spread my disease to anyone who comes to the college.”

So far, so good. Kara’s plan to quarantine the entire school would work perfectly, as long as no one decided to use the other entrance. I wondered what Kara could possibly have come up with to fix my unsolicited, inaccurate case of death. I really hoped that it would involve rockets and ninjas, or at least a decent car chase.

Kara turned her attention towards me. “Matt, you and I have a lot of work to do,” she said, reaching for her book bag. She yanked out hundreds of charts, graphs (pie, bar, and otherwise), written plan proposals, a short video adaptation of her idea, and no less than 14 models of various locations on campus in 1/200 scale.

“Where the hell did you get all that?” I exclaimed. Kara was busy setting up the projector, so she could show us her slides. “Oh, I had a few minutes before the test, so I set a few things up to get my strategy across easier.”

The PowerPoint presentation and the guest speaker really aided in my understanding of Kara’s plan. First, we’d have to set up the soccer field to be the epicenter of our operation. Knowing that time was extremely limited, Kara said that we could just use the parts of The Dean’s loathsome assembly that had yet to be disassembled. Kara was going to be in charge of that, leaving me free to complete phase two. I was supposed to make a sign that read:

“GET FREE CANDY AND FIND TRUE LOVE!

Students! Faculty! Creepy guy who always stands by the garbage cans at night! Do you like candy? Sure, we all do, because if you don’t, you must be a terrorist! And you don’t want to be a terrorist, now do you? Everyone who loves candy, America and puppies should come to the soccer field at 4 p.m. today to receive their free 67-pound bag of sweets, being handed out by none other than Santa Claus! Shake his hand to find true love and make rainbows spray out of his eyes like the mighty Mississippi river. Tell your friends and don’t be late, or Santa will bring you something poisonous and leave it under your pillow on Christmas Eve. Sponsored by the Video Club.”

Then, I was supposed to sneak into the campus security building and use their copier to make 500 signs. If anyone stood in my way, I was to use my ghostly influence on them, so they’d run away and leave the coveted sign-maker all to me. It was a risky proposition, because if the plan didn’t work out for some reason, I’d have actually perpetuated the myth further. But at that point, I was willing to try anything. Seriously, what other viable options did I have, other than a possible career as an overlooked and underpaid television ghost, playing second string to Casper?

The signs were to be placed around campus on the walls of various classrooms and major hallways. Everyone on campus knows that if something is written on a sign placed in the hallways at school, it must be true. That was even our school motto – Doce Me Veritatum – “Teach Me Truth.” There was no way invalid information could be plastered on those sacred walls, because everything went through The Dean before it could be copied and distributed… everything, that is, except for this. Everyone would still be taking their final exam of the semester while I ran around and madly taped, glued or stapled the signs everywhere I could, so at least I didn’t run the risk of revealing myself to the entire school and causing mass hysteria.

Then all I needed to do was find a Santa suit and stand on the stage in the soccer field, waiting for the lambs to come to pasture. “Santa Claus” would tell everyone that it was all a mistake and that Matt was neither a ghost nor even dead, and the students would go their separate ways, spreading the truth like a righteous river across parched soil.

I couldn’t stop myself from grinning after listening to Kara’s brilliant strategy. This is why I always went to her when I needed help.

“Well, it’s a little light on the giant robots and heated hand-to-hand combat, but it’s still a really a great idea!” I said.

Shannon was equally impressed. I don’t think anyone could have come up with a better plan without resorting to unfeasible tactics, like mind control or telling the truth. We had very little time left, so Shannon jumped on her laptop (and into the unerring gaze of the demonic paper swan) to look up tips on how to act like she had just been hit by a car on her favorite insurance fraud webpage, and I threw my coat on so fast it was as if it had simply materialized on my body. Kara and I sprinted down the steps and out of the dorm, ready to put our plan into action. Old Man Time had his icy fingers around my neck, but there was nothing that could stop us now!

And that’s when we turned the corner of Kara’s dorm and ran straight into Joe Shurize.

*    *    *

Shannon watched her computer screen intently. After a little research, she was almost confident enough to go out and be the best fake accident victim/zombie virus carrier she could be. She had the keys to my mother’s car, plenty of ketchup to serve as “blood,” and she had just perfected her tormented whimpers. There was only a single question still on her mind, regarding the position she was supposed to lie in next to the vehicle.

But as she typed “fake car accident+victim position” into Google, an overwhelming sense of terror overtook her. Almost hyperventilating with fear, she desperately searched the room, expecting a dastardly vampire to burst from her closet with the kiss of eternity on his dead white lips. But instead, she caught the rancorous gaze of the malevolent paper swan.

She would not back down. She didn’t fortify the dorm with anti-vampire paraphernalia simply to be taken out by a spiteful, recyclable fiend. No, Shannon was a rock. She stared into the swan’s minuscule eyes, and they gazed into hers, trying to take over her soul with their overwhelming evil.

Shannon watched even harder. But the swan would not be deterred, increasing its gaze 20 fold! Shannon squinted her eyes, concentrating. The swan somehow did the same! Shannon had to do something, lest her body be stolen by the soul of the paper sadist and she be forced to spend the rest of her days wading in sub-zero ponds and ruling over all as Queen of the Swans!

“Stop lookin’ at me, swaaaaaaaaaaaan!” she exclaimed, tearing the terror from her pushpin board. She leapt from her seat and towards the tarp covering the window, swan in fist. In midair, she threw a colossal punch that tore a softball-sized hole in the vampire tarp, and the second her fist was completely outside, hovering 30 feet about ground, she released the horror swan into the cold winter air. It fluttered helplessly down, its diabolical plans shattered in the wake of the mighty vampire hunter, Shannon Morris.

*    *    *

“So I said to myself, ‘Joe, so what if Matt’s a ghost? He’s still damn good to talk to.’ So I came back to tell you about my new idea for a show. It’s called American Rooster and it involves this guy in a rooster costume who goes to college classes and lives in a really tricked-out dorm!” Joe stood annoyingly between us and carrying out Kara’s plan, yacking away and proving that nothing, not even fear of death or the supernatural, could keep him from his duties as the Video Club president.

“That’s good Joe, but I have a better idea for a show.”

Joe could barely contain himself. For the first time since our last film, I had suggested something first. If it weren’t for the fact that it would freeze to his legs and make a cold day even colder, I’m sure he would have wet himself. “What is it?!” he asked intently.

“It’s called American Guy Who Never Shuts Up and it stars you.”

Joe looked hurt, and I felt like a heel for losing control and saying what I had said. After all, Joe wasn’t a bad guy – he just had horrible timing. That is, until I realized that it wasn’t emotional pain he was experiencing, but deep thought. “Yes! That’s brilliant! Throw in a guy in a rooster costume who goes to college classes and lives in a really tricked-out dorm and you’ve got yourself a deal!”

Kara buried her face in her hands. I could tell that in mere seconds, she’d be searching through her pockets for anything blunt with which to dig out Joe’s eyes. I tried to come up with of a way to stop her, but I was interrupted by a peculiar fluttering noise above my head.

Kara and Joe heard it too. The two of them looked towards the sky to discover the source of the odd noise.

“What the hell?” Kara was flabbergasted. “Why did Shannon toss that out the…”

Horror flashed across Joe’s face. “Sweet merciful Jesus! The Mega-Swan Terror Squad has finally found me! The witness relocation program told me that I was safe! I have to get out of here and warn my pet fish, Benny!”

Joe fled screaming from the scene, waving his arms in the air like he was batting away hundreds of tiny, venomous beetles as he went. A small gust of wind propelled the sinister paper swan further in his direction, prompting another tormented cry before Joe finally disappeared into a nearby building.

“Well, you don’t see that every day,” mumbled Kara.

I watched as the wind carried the swan away, its paper wings outstretched like some sort of hideous archangel. “Why did Shannon…?”

“It’s all right.”

“It’s all right?”

“It’s all right.” Kara shook her head. “She moves in mysterious ways. Don’t think about it or it’ll give you an aneurysm.”

I said no more. Kara and I ran side by side, almost step for step, towards the soccer field.

"Misprint!" - The Course Overload Novella, Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Ghost in the Machine

In my restless dreams, I saw that college – Mount Saint Mary. The Dean had a giant bullhorn affixed to the top on an old Pinto, a car that’s a nightmare in its own right, and he was driving around announcing to everyone on campus that I was an evil spirit whom no one should trust. Crazy Soup Girl was running after him at breakneck speed, handing out what appeared to be newspapers to everyone who stepped outside to see what was going on. I was trying to catch up to them, but my shoes were filled with tapioca pudding and I couldn’t run very fast at all. And tapioca, while a delicious snack time treat, isn’t so tasty when used as a foot lubricant.

I was screaming and running in slow motion, and The Dean and Crazy Soup Girl were nothing more than sonic blurs, speeding off campus and into the heart of the surrounding city. I managed to get a hold of one of the newspapers that Crazy Soup Girl had dropped. The front page read: “Abomination of Nature Matt Stalks and Kills at Random, Eating Victims’ Flesh; See What the Stars are Wearing to the Emmy Awards.”

The Dean’s Pinto and Crazy Soup Girl reappeared instantly and I dropped the paper in dismay. They started laughing like madmen. The Dean, the Pinto, and Crazy Soup Girl began expanding at an alarming rate until they were 300 ft. tall. Rocket powered engines appeared on the car and then on Crazy Soup Girl, shooting brimstone and hellfire. The heat set my precious hair ablaze and I screamed and screamed. The Heimlich Maneuver did nothing to put out the flames that danced upon my scalp, until I realized that I should have stopped, dropped, and rolled. But it was too late for that, as Crazy Soup Girl got behind the Pinto and started pushing, and they started soaring through the skies, taking over America with their wickedness and lies.

And that’s when I wet myself in front of the whole school.

Then, crazed clowns came out and started ripping off my clothes, revealing my stark white, genderless body. But that’s the part of my dream that my psychiatrist wants me not to talk about.

I woke up to a cold plastic nose nudging me. My eyelids slammed against my eyebrows and I was ready to battle giant deans and horrible white clowns, white, white horrible clowns, with bright, red noses, but then I realized what had awoken me. Or rather, who: The first thing that I saw when I opened my eyes was Rolley’s cottony face.

He sat atop my chest and was staring at me. “Go to sleep Rolley,” I muttered, tucking myself back in. I closed my eyes and attempted to go back to sleep, but I could feel those plastic eyes staring through me.

When I opened my eyes for the second time, I was nose to nose with Rolley. I knew what he wanted. “All right!” I yelled, getting out of bed. “I’ll take you for a walk!”

Inside Kara’s closet, I found a big black coat that wrapped around me and covered most of my legs. It also had a hood that concealed almost all of my face, giving me a mysterious, spy movie-like appearance. Most importantly, no one could tell who I was. It was essential that no one recognize me, or my cover would be blown. It was only an hour until Kara came home – and God knows where Shannon had gone; I assumed that the tattoo parlor was just taking their time – so I needed to lay low until she and her wondrous plan came back to save me. Kara and Shannon both said that I should stay inside, but what could possibly go wrong if I just took Rolley on an innocent 15-minute walk?

After finding and attaching Rolley’s chain to his collar, we were off. I slowly crept outside of Kara’s dorm, sneaking past a group of security guards as stealthily as possible by saying “hello.” Ha! Those fools had no idea that they had just let a ghost escape with the most prized stuffed animal on campus, and that I really wasn’t a ghost anyway, so it didn’t matter in the first place. Fools, I tell you!

I felt the frigid air whisper around my face, penetrating my toasty hood and chilling my lips. It was good to be outside without people constantly yelling and running away from me. Rolley and I managed to get all the way around campus without a hitch. People just kept walking by us and going about their daily activities, some even waving to the strange passerby in the long black coat. I couldn’t believe that people who had run away from me in terror to hide in their bathtubs just an hour or two ago were now greeting me. I was also surprised at how bold they were. With a malicious ghost on campus ready to tear out people’s throats and use them like crazy straws, people sure were acting like nothing was wrong. Well, I guess that life goes on, even if there is a crazed spirit on the loose. People have got to eat and people have to go take tests. Otherwise, there was a tremendous lack of passersby, and it wasn’t just from some having gone home already.

By the time I had made it back to Kara’s dorm, Rolley and I had been gone for about 20 minutes. Looking to the top floor of Kara’s dorm, I checked the window hole for any signs of activity. Kara wasn’t due back for another half hour or so, and judging by the lack of both lights on in the room and a tarp to cover up the broken window, Shannon hadn’t returned yet either.

But when I walked up to the dorm door and attempted to enter it with my car keys, I deduced that there were some things that the keys to my Taurus simply can’t open. Ironically, the window I had climbed in that morning had been shut by Shannon no less.

I really, really taught her well.

So it seemed like I’d have to wait for Kara or Shannon to come home, or for a stray meteor to come rocketing towards the United States, fizzle out to almost nothing, and then smash into the door, knocking it over and allowing me (and any stray, daylight vampires) entrance. But since the only meteor that day was scheduled to hit the dorm next to Kara’s, I decided to sit on a nearby bench with Rolley and wait. Besides, where else could I go? Anywhere else and I’d miss Kara’s return – and my salvation. I huddled on the bench with Rolley. After all, he had only his cotton to keep him warm, and I had Kara’s comically large coat.

All of a sudden, a voice echoed from the artic winds. “Pretty cold today, isn’t it?”

I stared at Rolley in amazement. “Rolley! You can talk?” He looked back up at me from my lap and was silent. His voice was much deeper than I would have expected. “That was amazing! C’mon, say something else, Rolley.”

“Look behind you,” the voice commanded. I quickly spun around, expecting to see a dirty vampire. With his first few sentences, Rolley had already saved my life. I’d have to thank him if I made it out alive.

Yet, when I spun around, I didn’t see a vampire. Instead, standing there behind me was Joe Shurize, president of the Mount Saint Mary Video Club.

Now, I wouldn’t say that I panicked, per se. But my inner child started screaming and running through a field full of bear traps just to get to Mommy. I know Joe, because I’m the Video Club vice president, and he knows me. I figured that he’d recognize me upon sight, or at least the second he heard me speak. It was all over, and only minutes before Kara would come back and save me with her miracle plan. I’d have cried right then and there, had my tear ducts not frozen over about four minutes ago. I tried to conceal a terrified whimper.

“Yep, it’s really chilly,” continued Joe, fishing for a response. Joe would speak to anyone who would listen and didn’t give up until he got the conversation he craved or the other person ran screaming to their dorm. A few times I caught him speaking to garbage cans when he thought no one was looking, hoping that some tiny elves might have taken residence in the receptacles so that he might speak to them about the ups and downs of being enchanted creatures.

There was no chance I could have escaped with a simple head or hand gesture. I tried to disguise my voice as best I could, taking on a deep, guttural tone. “Yep. It’s freezing.”

“I tried to start my car today, but the fuel line had frozen over!” mused Joe, empowered by having found another victim. “So I started trying to thaw it out by hitting it with warm water, but after filling my biggest water gun with water I’d been boiling for the past few hours, it froze before I even got back to the car!”

“I see. Then what did you-”

“Then I filled up my water gun with crude oil and lit the stream on fire as I shot it into the underside of my car. Well, who’d have guessed it, but the whole car became a fireball! It was like I had created the world’s biggest Molotov cocktail!” Sure enough, I could see the smoke bellowing high above the trees in the distance. The sunlight trickled through the holes in the smoke screen and the resulting scene looked like something one would find on a religious greeting card. “If I got out my video camera, I bet I could record it and made a show called American Firebomb.”

If there’s a way to excrete fear as a smell, I definitely wreaked of it. And I think I was more afraid of having to cut that show together than Joe finding out that he was really talking to a “ghost.”

“Nice talking to you Joe, but I really have to go and drown myself in the snow at this point,” I said, and began to stand up.

Joe put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down onto the bench, all the while keeping a friendly smile plastered on his mug. “American Firebomb! What will I think of next! …Oh, hey! Did you hear about the Ying-Yang Gang’s latest jewel heist? The cops are never going to find those guys!”

“Well, I heard that-”

“You want a breath mint?” asked Joe, whipping out a box of Tick Tacks. I figured that my throat would need some soothing after speaking like a heavily-smoking waitress for the past few minutes. I accepted, and seconds later, my throat was coated with delicious mint. At least I could continue my façade a little longer now.

Amazingly, Joe didn’t ask about the stuffed Dalmatian sitting on my lap the entire time. I was a little disappointed, because I had already concocted a cover story about my short, hairy cousin, Rolliferd. But just when I was about to give myself away and take my chances with the Ghostbusters, I spied Shannon stepping up to the dorm door and yanking out her key. There was a long, clear tarp in her right hand, catching the wind and almost blowing away more than once.

Shannon was my only chance. If I didn’t get in that dorm, Joe would figure out who I was, and then I’d have to go into seclusion or join the nearest circus as the Great Ghost Boy! (“Don’t get too close, or he may try to bite your finger off, kiddies! Now give me a quarter and you can feed him some grain.”)

Ignoring Joe’s story about the time he set up his computer to display on 37 separate monitors at the same time, I called out to Shannon.

“Shannon! Shannon! The window was closed!” I exclaimed. My long black coat fluttered in the wind like Dracula’s cape as I waved my hand violently to catch Shannon’s attention.

But as I was yelling, the breath mint that I had been sucking on became lodged in my throat. Ironically, for the first time all day, my life really was in danger.

I guess that when I tried to cough up the breath mint, it must have sounded like a vampire’s hissing. Now that I think about it, had I not been choking myself at the time, I’d have thought the same and assumed my anti-vampire combat stance.

As I hissed and my coat blew out like a cape, Shannon began quaking with fear, but her eyes were sparked with confidence. “Leave me alone you crazy vampire!” She tried to get the door open even faster.

I had trained her too well.

I didn’t have much of a choice, so I punched myself in the stomach as hard as I could. As if by the hand of God Himself, the mint came sailing out of my mouth and I regained my composure. “Wait, Shannon! It’s me!” I removed my hood to show her who I really was, but it was too late for Shannon to notice. She had already escaped into the building and slammed the door.

“It’s you!” Joe shouted.

I knew what had happened.

Joe turned and vomited at the sight of me. Then he stared at me, paralyzed with fear. I could tell that, even with the extreme stress he was suddenly under, he was already formulating a show about the ghosts of Mount Saint Mary for Video Club TV, called American Ghosthunters.

Joe hastily recuperated, most likely from the tantalizing prospect of putting something new and exciting on TV. “I’ve got to get this up on the station! Everyone needs to know about this!” he yelled. “I’ll make a TV news program called American Reporter!” With that, he raced towards the building we set up the station in. “And I’ll only play true stories! Because if it’s on the news, it must be true!”

I watched helplessly as Joe became a speck on the horizon.

A few moments later, after I had finally convinced Shannon that I wasn’t a vampire, I found myself sitting on the floor of Kara’s dorm, watching Shannon nail the tarp to the wall because the staples hadn’t worked very well. That’s when Kara walked back in.

“What happened while I was gone?” she asked.

“It… got worse,” I somberly reported.

Kara blinked a few times and dropped her book bag to the floor. “You went outside, didn’t you?”