It was time for Freddy to do some begging.
Freddy was broke to the brim.
The wars were over and there was nobody left to burry so Freddy was not in a position to rely on the burial business at the moment for an income - and even if there was a full-blown war in motion it was going to take a lot of bodies to fill his coffers up to the fine tune of 35G's...
So what were Freddy's options?
He knew he was shooting for the stars but he decided to start with his uncle...
Maybe the decrepit old spider had a pot of cash hidden away in his rickety home somewhere... Freddy had worked with the man for years but Uncle Lucien was still a grave mystery to him (no pun intended!!!!!!!!!). Lucien had been digging up graves long before Freddy's mother had cranked Freddy out screaming into the wide and wicked rotten vile beastly dreadful disgusting world.
Maybe the old crooked and corrupt man had a treasure or two stowed away from all his years of playing about with the dead?
It was worth asking him anyway.
So one day Freddy plucked up the courage to ask his uncle about his personal finances.
'I don't spend money on anything Freddy because I do not have any money,' his uncle replied. 'These clothes I am dressed in right now? Want to know where I came by them? They were used to dress a dead man I dug up twelve years ago. I thought he wore nice clothes. I knew the man before he died and I knew that he was sick. So I waited for him to die and then I dug him up and took what I needed.'
'Why are you telling me this?' said Freddy.
'Well isn't it obvious? I don't have money. NO money stored away. NO bank account. NO credit cards. NO online thingamajigs. NO MONEY! I don't store money,' said Lucien. 'If I want something I simply steal it. Stealing has always been my way. The world stole from me once something very precious to my heart... SO I don't mind stealing back from the world - I will give the world back in kind what the world gave to me. I will keep on stealing until the day the world steals me back into the Earth. And that day might happen very soon...'
'You really are a miserable old swine!'
'Yes. I am. And it has taken you this long, over how many ears we have known each other to realise this reality? Tut tut! You are quit dim aren't you Jim!'
'Hey?'
'Ah! Sorry. Freddy! I was meant to say you are quite dim aren't you Freddy?'
'I hope you do die soon, uncle Lucien. You are blight on this planet!'
'O you will get your wish soon,' Uncle Lucien replied coldly, and also with a note of jollity as well!
'Why are you so vile?'
'The world, Freddy!' replied the crooked and spindly old man. 'The world made me what I am. You will be like me one day IF you manage to live that long.'
'Thanks. I guess that is a kind of a compliment from you?'
'NO, Freddy. It isn't. But listen to this! We need another war right now. It is the peace that is killing you! You need to figure out a way to get the gangs back to fighting one another again. It is the only way. Get another war brewing, which should be easy to do with a trick or two, and you will have bodies pouring back into the ground again and cash pouring back into your pockets! There is a lot of money to be made from death, don't you know?'
'You would know, wouldn't you? You old wretch you! You old spider! You are a wicked man! I have nothing more to say to you. Goodnight!'
It was now time for Freddy to stretch a word or two of measured desperation to his other friends.
His next stop was the Kings Residency.
'Ah! Wonderful to see you Frank!' said Freddy as the man himself let him inside his guest room.
There were drinks setup and Frank was in the middle of playing a game of pool with the dreaded Mr LA Thins, leader of New York and all round American superstar.
Frank offered Freddy a drink but Freddy, thanking him, said no and he was here only to talk business.
'I guess you would like to talk to me about that little co-owned funeral directing business we have got going on in the corner of town?' said Frank while chalking his cue up.
'O no! The funeral business is absolutely fine positively "top notch" as they say in Thailand. No. I am actually here to discuss a rather more personal matter...'
'O really? You do realise Freddy that I never mix business with pleasure...' And then Frank started chuckling. 'Look at you! I am just joking with you!' Frank stopped chuckling and then he continued: 'Of course! What personal things would you like to talk about? Is it concerning your failed marriage and recent divorce? If it is then don't worry about it I am all ears. We are friends Freddy and I am happy to help you out with that sort of thing. And don't worry about Mr Thins here, he is a man of the world and the advocate of many divorces down through time and none of the break ups were related to any of his own personal marriages. So go on, speak freely. Tell us what is on your mind, Freddy.'
'It has nothing to do with my divorce, well...I guess it does a little bit,' Freddy replied with a slight stammer. Evidently the conversation was not going well. Frank had obviously got the wrong angle on why Freddy was there but Freddy pressed on nevertheless:
'I find myself short of cash,' and then he came straight out with it, hoping that Frank would appreciate his directness. He told Frank he needed a loan.
'If you had asked me the other day I would have quite gladly given you a loan. But this morning I expanded the brewery into the east quarter of the town and it has soaked up all of my finances. Sorry about that Freddy boy. I am sure you will be alright int he end! You strike me as a resourceful kind of chap.'
So Mr Frank King has expanded his vast brewery empire to make it even bigger? HOW NICE, Freddy thought.
So that put an end to Freddy's hopes of acquiring a loan from his good friend.
Freddy tried the bank next.
The business with the bank went as badly as Freddy knew it would.
The bank staff literally laughed at him, one person saying: 'Hey mate! You do realised the comedy theatre is situated at the end of Gloom Street, first turn on your left from the Western Road?'
Freddy acknowledged defeat and decided to give up asking for money.
It was obvious nobody wanted to give him any of the stuff.
The only option that was available to him then was to waste what little money he had left and get drunk...
Now getting drunk was the one thing Freddy had promised himself to never do again but getting drunk was the only thing that was going to help him forget about his general failure as a man, which is what he felt like he needed to do at the time.
And so Freddy rustled his credit card out of his coat pocket and bought himself a rather fine looking bottle of the G-Juice. It was sitting there staring at him from behind a shop window. His name had been written on it in invisible letters: Dear Freddy - Drink Me, they read.
DRINK ME NOW!
Not willing to disappoint the bottle Freddy made ready to act on the message.
One swipe of the card one click of the bottle lid one tilt of the hand and his gullet was gushing and brimming with the goodly juice. Ah! What a happy place it was to be, swimming in the G!
That night while his brain was awash with the Juice, and his liver was dank with the contents of a second bottle, Freddy got a little visit from the ghost of his old friend Jim McGregor King, the war veteran who used to own the drinking house up the road from Freddy's old flat.
Jim was so drunk that the sight of the worm ridden man did not offend him in the least, in fact he invited McGregor into his room and found him a nice chair to sit down on.
Freddy asked the old lad how well he was doing.
'To be honest I am doing quite badly right now Freddy boy,' McGregor responded honestly. 'The life of a dead man is not what its cracked up to be... I thought death was going to be like, you know, like sleep? So I got a rather nasty and unhappy surprise when my time finally came and I found myself stuck in another dimension and surrounded by ghouls... and other things. Damn! Why couldn't I get into some kind of heaven-like place? Somewhere nice, you know what I mean? I am a war veteran I deserve a break don't I? But then again I did do a lot of nasty stuff back in the day. I teamed up with the gangs, got involved with all of the fighting. I sheltered thugs, and helped kill thugs. I guess I do deserve what I got in the end. This is purgatory for me Freddy and it is a miserable thing. There is no release. Death is somehow more unhappy than life! But ah well here I am and all I can do is get on with it I guess.'
'You sound so sad McGregor!' Freddy offered his friend a drink.
McGregor said he would love to have a drink but then he had to explain that he was unable to drink anything anymore now that he was bereft of a solid body. BUT:
'There is a little trick I heave learned that does work just as well as the real thing,' said the old dead man. 'Let me put my hand inside your body and grab your liver! When you next take a drink I can enjoy a bit of it for myself! What I will do is absorb the alcohol into my essence! Can we do that?'
It looked like McGregor's hand was made of vapour. With Freddy's reluctant permission McGregor slotted his hand into Freddy's liver, and when Freddy took down his next slug of booze McGregor sighed with joy! McGregor could taste the G-Juice! 'That tasted so good Freddy boy!' said the hungry ghost.
'So what do you do now that you are dead?' said Freddy to his old dead friend.
'Pretty much the same thing I used to do when I was alive - wander around - get lost, that kind of thing. People still ignore me wherever I go. But at least nowadays it makes sense because nobody can see me!'
'Sounds like a bad business,' Freddy replied. 'Here McGregor I will take another drink just for you! Just keep hold of that old liver of mine!'
'Thank you Freddy!' The ghost sighed again and afterwards continued to waffle on. He was boring to listen to, as always, it was always McGregors way to ramble about silly things, but Freddy was still glad of the company and happy to listen to the old Scotch and his random prattlings.
'My son won't speak to me,' said McGregor. 'But then he never used to even when I was alive. He is still playing that weird video game, what's it called again? The Silly Hedgehog Brothers? I never understood the darn appeal of those video games. But my son plays them all day. He never leaves his bedroom. You know he didn't even leave his room to visit me at my funeral? Let me tell you something Freddy and this is true, I am fully ashamed of my son. You know it is because of me he is alive? And it is because of him that I am dead. You know my pub burned down? That upset me when I saw that. Without my pub I am nothing. In a strange sort of way I am glad to be dead. I have nothing to live for. Drifting about in liminal space seems to make more sense than living. Living is a waste of time. I mean we are all going to end up in purgatory one day so we might as well stop wasting time trying to live and get to the place right away and be done with it.'
'I am sorry to hear that,' said Freddy. 'You are one of the few people in this town who has absorbed more bad luck than me. I don't think there is no cheering ourselves up right now! G-Juice has a trick of cheering up most lost wanderers of the world, but when the wanderer gets too lost then sometimes not even the Juice has the way of leading the way.'
'Ah! You are right, Freddy, it is a sad thing,' replied the ghost wearily.
McGregor and Freddy decided it was time to get some fresh air and took a walk in the streets.
They stopped together eventually at the turning that led away from Blight Court Road. There was a copse of pine trees lurking nearby and beyond that a stretch of grassy land. On that land was built the old Church of Fenwick. Beyond the Church was a field and standing in the field was a lonely old shed.
'I wonder who lives in that old rickety shed yonder?' said McGregor wonderingly.
'An old rickety man who just so happens to be my uncle, unfortunately,' Freddy replied darkly. 'He is a miserable so and so to say the least. He courts misery like a pig in mud. He absolutely beats us in that department Mr McGregor!'
'Your uncle, hey? O yes old Lucien. I remember. He should be careful leaving so close to the Church like that,' said McGregor. Those fields over there are haunted by the spirit of a lady dressed in black. She is said to visit you in the night and steal your soul. It is a true story Freddy. Very true. I know it now I am dead. Now I am dead there are a lot and a lot of things I know that I didn't know when I had the flow of blood in me. I am more educated in death than I ever was when I was breathing! I don't want to scare you Freddy but I probably will when I tell you this next thing: There are monsters out there, Freddy. Real monsters - alien entities and other nasty things beyond that...'
'O I can believe it,' Freddy replied and he wasn't joking.
'There was this author back in the day, C.S Lewis he was called and he used to right all these mad littles stories about cosmic horrors from beyond the abyss. He wrote about this monster that lived out in the oceans he called it Kassylulu...?'
'NO, McGregor. That is H.P Lovecraft you are actually talking about there. And the monster was called Cthulhu. I know, I have read one or two of his stories over the years,' said Freddy.
'Ah! That is it! Lovecraft! That's the man I am talking about. Well let me tell you something now, Freddy boy, all those strange dark littles stories he wrote all of them were true! Those monsters are really out there. I have seen them. There is this one called Shoggoth. This thing is like a green pulsating mass of tentacles. It's real, I have seen it! And I have seen it tonight hovering around the place where you live, Freddy. You need to be careful, my boy. I think the thing is after you! Watch what you do. Be careful about what you drink and how much you drink. There is a reason why the thing is there. Don't be dragged into purgatory, Freddy. Take it from a lost soul who is actually stuck in it right now it is not a pleasant place!'
Freddy woke up the next day lying on the local park bench holding an empty bottle.
He had blacked out.
Lucky because of the goodness of the G-Juice he wasn't hungover at all, but he was feeling embarrassed about the empty bottle and tried at once to hide the thing.
It was while he was carrying out this shameful act that a figure approached him.
'I have just returned from an interesting meeting with Mr LA Thins. He tells me that you are having money problems, Freddy? If that is true then listen to me. I am the man who can help you! A few days ago I made you an offer of making money. That offer is very much still open. All you need to do is accept it.'
It was Wuan.
Freddy had not seen him in a while but he remembered the strange little man who worked in the gas station very well.
'Alright, you are right. I have got money problems. BIG money problems. If you think you can help me then fine I accept your offer!' Freddy replied holding his hand out.
Wuan shook Freddy's hand. 'Your worries are over now Freddy,' Wuan said. 'I know I can help you,' and then Wuan continued speaking in a monotone computer-like voice. 'Follow me and we will do business together and make lots and lots of money...'
(Remember! All spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are intentional - the author 😆)
Previous part here
There is a prequel to this story. Check the link below if you would like to read it: Jim's Subway part 1
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