Phillip, the Fed-Up Pup by Stuart R. West

                “Humph.” Phillip flumped down onto the buggy, itchy-scratchy grassy ground around his doghouse.  “You know what’s up? I’m a fed-up pup, that’s whassup!”  Phillip flapped a paw at a buzzy bumblebee singing and swinging around his nose and toes.  “Every dog-gone dash day is the same, no game, quite lame,” said Phillip. “I sleep unsoundly in this coldenly doggie hut, while my pinkly, plumply people sleep deeply in a lovely human housey!  I tell ya the totally, terrible truth, I’m fed up!”

                Phillip rolled his bug-bitten rump over a muddy hump with a big fat doggy thump.  “Sure, they take care of me by feeding me crunchity crackers and treaty smackers, but my hairless humans don’t eat the same.  On wickedly warm days filled with hot, sunnish rays, my people slurp cones of cream as cold as ice, tasting twice as nice!  On snowsy-blowsy nights of freezy-breezy rain, they eat soups so hot… the shame!   They rest their rears on things called chairs that are full of softness and angels’ feathers!  They watch an unbelievable box, a display of bravery and tears, policemen and dancing bears and humans selling underwears.  Worst of all…they get to go potty on the wonderfully white, certainly soft, kingly comfortable pleasure potty palace chair!   Me?  I growl barkity-bark-bark at the daily, dependable deliveryman and drop my doggity doody-do on the grass surrounding my houndy home!  No class!”

“ I’m one fed-up pup and I’ve had enough,” hollered Phillip.  “It’s time to get tough, take no guff and hope that things don’t get too unpleasantly rough!”  Phillip stood solidly sound with his back two feet on the ground , his tail waggling wiggily around.  He dashed up the driveway, proudly paraded past the demeaning doggy flap, pushed open the human door (quite a chore!), and stepped onto the kitchen floor.

Father frantically raced down the stairs, staring stupidly at what was willfully waiting for him at the kitchen table.  “Mother!” yelled Father.  “Why is Phillip sitting so pleasantly and peoplely at the proper plate setting for me?”

Mother joined the rowdy ruckousy kitchen commotion calmly.  “Hmm, it appears Phillip feels he’s fully family now, Father,” said Mother with amazingly matronly motions.

“That is correct, Mother,” said Phillip.  “If you don’t mind, if you’d be so kind, I’d love to dine, and try some coffee if that’s fine.”

“But…but…Phillip,” blustered a barely believing Father, “I never, ever, ever knew you could speak in such mannerly and humanly ways!”

“I’ve never had anything to say before now ,” said Phillip as he pawingly pulled the front page of the paper open. “And please, use my dog name from now on: Sir Barks-A-Lot.”

Brother and Sister tumbled down the steepish stairs to see what the loudish hoo-hah hullaballoo was about.  “Phillip!” squealed Brother & Sister.  “You’re sitting, reading and drinking in a very mannerly and humanly way!”

“This is oh-so-totally and truthfully true, my youngish humanly crew,” said Phillip.  “For you see, Brother and Sisteree, I’m a frighteningly fed-up little pup.  I’ve delightfully decided to declare my doggishly days dog-gone done.  I wish to be treated and undefeated in ways most humdingishly humanish.”

“Well, Sir Barks-A-Lot, I can see you’re not so hot to dog trot a lot, so I’ll tell you what’s what and what’s not,” said Father.   “It’s fine that you’re a fed-up pup, but I do believe (here, let me roll up my sleeve), that I would like to achieve being a fed-up Father!”  Father shed his shirt and shucked his shoes, flopped to the floor like a fish with the blues.  “I’m a fed-up Father now and I want to experience delightfully doggishly, luxuriously lazy, hazy doggy days!  Now scratch my tummy and talk to me funny!”

“I do not want to be left out,” said Mother.  “So here me shout, ‘I’m a fed-up Mother, what about you Sister and Brother’?”

“Awesome!” yelled Brother and Sister.  “We’re going to be fed-up Sister and Brother, there can be no other, so why even bother, isn’t that right, Father and Mother?”  Brother junked his jeans, standing in his tidy-whities, making for quite a sighty and said, “It’s doggy nap-time, so good nighty!”

“I’m going outdoors,” said Sister sassily, “and getting on all fours, and bark for hours at passing cars and neighbors next doors!”

“Hold on here one hot-doggedy, dog-gone hair,” hollered Phillip. “We all can’t possibly pretend to play at being fed-up forever!  Who will work and cook goodies and send Brother and Sister to school in their hoodies?”

“You should’ve thoroughly thought this through, Sir Barks-A-Lot,” murmured Mother.  “Now we have a household of hairless hounds with no helpful humans.  In order to feed, you will indeed need to learn to read at school, obey the golden rule and get a job…If that’s cool.”

“Work?  School??” screamed Phillip.  “I’m no fool, but a drooly, wooly puppy pal who’s just fed up, that’s all.  You can’t possibly pretend to ponder this pup’s wonder at screamingly scary school and weirdly wicked work!”

Father rantingly ran in, his tongue wagging wildly, his manner oddly mildly, and plopped puppy-like at Phillip’s furry feet.  “Bounce the bouncy blue ball, Sir Barks-A-Lot, and we’ll play all day until we’re hot!”

“No pants, no shoes and no shirt!” barked Brother.  “I just did doo-doo in the outdoor doggy dirt!  I must run, for there’s much more fun in the sun that I’ve only just begun!”

Father was chasing balls and scratching his bottom up against walls.  Mother napped nicely and neatly with no shoes on her feeties.  Daughter hollered houndishly at neighbors and cars and voices from afars.  Brother pottied and partied in the puppy playhouse and yard! 

And they want me to go to school and work, thought Phillip, this is too hard!

“Enough!” yelled Phillip.  “Enough funny stuff, it’s just too tough to take, it’s no piece of cake!  Maybe I was too quick, to say I’m fed-up and sick.  I do not want to go to school and work, I do not want to eat with a fork.  I want to go back to being Phillip the dog and be as lazy dazy as a log!”

Father and Brother put on their clothes, Daughter stood up on her back toes, and Mother merrily said, “I suppose…I suppose, if we chose, we could go back to the lives we know.  Let’s get going, gang, and be cool, it’s time for us to leave for work and school!”

Phillp’s family fled out the door, leaving Phillip panting on the floor.  “Well,” pondered Phillip as he walked out the doggy door, “Life is swell, all is well, the neighbor’s did not put Brother or Sister in jail.”  Phillip plopped oh-so-puppy-like onto the green grass in front of his cozy, comfy, cutesy & delightful doggy-house.  “I am houndishly happy and puppishly pleased to go back to my lovely life as a well-fed pup and not a fed-up pup!”

From that day on and once a week, Phillip’s furless family (so to speak), fed Phillip a cone with cream as cold as ice and twice as nice.

* * * 

 Here I am, talking about myself, pretending not to. Ah,

I'm probably not fooling anyone, but play along anyway, 'kay? Just imagine Morgan Freeman narrating and we'll all get through this just fine.

For more of Stuart R. West's adult and young adult suspense tales filled with light heart and dark humor, check out his Amazon page.

And please do check out Stuart's blog featuring weekly rants, failed stand-up comedy routines and incisive author interviews: Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley

Brand spankin' new and creeptacular trailer for Ghosts of Gannaway: http://bit.ly/1Icbj0N

Vegetables Are Bad For You by Stuart R. West

Kyle will never forgive his parents for telling him vegetables are good for you. They lied.

* * *

Eleven years old, Kyle considered himself too mature to believe in ghosts or any of that silly supernatural nonsense. Just the stuff of spooky movies, nothing more. But regardless of his age, he couldn’t deny the sounds he heard coming from the cellar. Actually, more like felt the noise as weird as that seemed. High-pitched humming echoed in his mind, circling round and round in his skull’s cavern.     

Drawing him down the steps. 

He couldn’t decipher what the voices were saying, not really. Just sort of a sad song, a desire, a longing for companionship. 

Something Kyle missed as well.

With his parents still at work, Kyle had no reason not to investigate. They weren’t here to tell him to stay out of the cellar. Not that that would stop him. In fact, every adventurous kid worth his salt usually took such orders as a challenge. 

His family hadn’t lived in the old house for too long. One day, out of the blue, Kyle’s dad had come up with a stupid idea about country living. Cleaner air, better values, living off the land, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Kyle’d been against the move, recognized it for nonsense. But his voice never carried any weight in family decisions, the curse of being eleven. So when they packed up, Kyle had no choice but to man up and say goodbye to his friends. The friends he thought he’d have forever. But when you’re a kid, things change. And you’re powerless to do anything about it. 

The steep and narrow stairs slanted, dirt-covered piano keys groaning out percussive notes with each footstep. Kyle’d been in the cellar before, not his first rodeo. But earlier when he’d gone down with his mother, he shamefully snatched onto her apron the entire time. For good reason. Shadows danced and swooped, threatening to snatch him up and whisk him away to a dark world. Rusty and sharp-looking tools lined up along a stone wall, a Grim Reaper’s one-stop shop.  Bottles flanked another wall, sitting on shelves and lined up perfectly like at attention soldiers. In the bottles, bulky yellow globs swam in even murkier water. Kyle’s mom warned him not to come down here alone. At the time, he’d silently agreed, thankful for his mother’s wisdom. Even though it seemed embarrassing now.

But he had to know about the sounds. The noise drew him down like metal shavings attracted to an unseen, but definitely heard, magnet. Simply, he had no choice. Just like so much of his life.

The light bulb at the bottom of the stairs provided very little coverage, a small oval of light. Once he pulled the string, the bulb swayed. So did everything else. Shadows darted to even blacker places. Eyes and grins seemed to form in the jars’ gelatinous masses. The light continued swinging, a pendulum chop-chop-chopping light across the dirt-covered floor. Like a metronome, it counted out the beats of Kyle’s hammering heart.

And the strange humming intensified. One voice, two voices, a disembodied chorus singing in Kyle’s ears.

At the foot of the stairs, Kyle grasped the flashlight his mother had placed there on their last visit. Flicking it on, he swiveled the beam, familiarizing himself with the creepy cellar, a far cry from their refinished basement in the Kansas City house. Green strips of algae—or something else entirely—painted the stone walls. Spider webs hung like forgotten cotton candy. Leaves crunched beneath Kyle’s feet as he shuffled across the dirt floor. With no windows or doors in the cellar, how in the world had the leaves gained entrance? A chill roller-coastered down his spine. But he couldn’t turn back now, no way. That’s not how a man would act.

A mummy of a bookshelf leaned against a back corner, the bottom warped and aging into dust. And Kyle knew—absolutely so—the sound came from behind it. After tucking the flashlight beneath his arm, he planted his feet solidly and yanked the bookshelf. He watched as it toppled backward. When it landed in the dirt, a cloud of dust rose. So did a rotten scent, so strong Kyle’s eyes watered. Bent over, he coughed until the fumes passed. Then he aimed the light toward the uncovered corner.

Glistening stalks of varying sizes grew out of the dirt, not unlike the asparagus Kyle loathed. Except these were slug-colored, pink, white and grotesque. Black rings circled small nubs, almost limbs. Kyle rubbed his eyes, swung the flashlight away, then looked again. No illusion, the stalks moved, actually moved! They twisted and bent as if uprooting unseen legs from the ground. As Kyle dropped to his knees for a closer examination, warning sirens bellowed in his head. Some of the strange growths attempted to dodge the flashlight’s beam, but the dirt cemented them firmly. Little holes opened at the top of each stalk, mouths silently gasping for air. Whispering. Small hairs (teeth?) waved out with each puff of breath. 

Kyle yelped when the flashlight landed on the tallest stalk. A smaller stalk branched out of it, an eyeball dangling at the end. Milky and wide-eyed and horrible. The branch extended, rigid as if held up by a hidden string, a gross one-eyed mannequin. It darted toward Kyle, snapping at him.

Kyle fell back in the dirt. He scrabbled back, leaving a trail of dust behind as if his sneakers had caught fire.

Suddenly the sounds in his head clarified. Voices from somewhere else. Comforting and warm, almost hypnotic.

Yet, even though the voices made Kyle feel as if he were lounging in front of a cozy fireplace, the messages were anything but soothing.

Something needs to be done.

The older people are not your friends.

They’re holding you back.

They must die.

“No!” Kyle locked his eyes shut. He slapped his temples, hoping to stop the voices, the awful messages, praying to awake from this nightmare. Daring a peek, though, confirmed his worst fear. He wasn’t dreaming. The stalks continued to stir, shifting in unison like a mass wave at a sporting event.

Kyle…

Listen…

Cut them, make them bleed.

A blade across their throats.

The old people have to die.

How easy it would have been to give in. Kyle relaxed, propping up on his elbows. Warmth filled him, sunshine on an August day. He floated in an invisible raft, bouncing and bobbing on tranquil waters, nature taking him where it may. When he breathed, the cellar’s rank odor had vanished. Now the smell of flowers and cinnamon and freshly cut grass in the summer and everything fine and wonderful he’d associated with growing up filled his nose, his thoughts.

That’s good, Kyle.

Don’t fight us.

Let us take over.

Destroy the older ones.

But as Kyle basked in golden memories—everything good about his childhood zipping by in a hurried slide-show—one image burned stronger than the others. His parents. 

Clearly, these creatures—aliens, monsters, mutants?—wanted him to kill his parents. His parents who sometimes sucked and made him move and leave his friends behind and punish him and…

The parents he loves.

With a small battle-cry, Kyle climbed to his feet. “Not gonna’ listen!” Holding one hand over an ear (even though the sounds came from within), he shot the flashlight around the cellar. Shadows played hide-and-seek, zipping up the walls like bats skittering away in a cave. Then he found something. A fairly ancient looking gas can, rusted and crumbling at the top.

What are you doing, Kyle?

Stop.

Listen to us.

We wouldn’t lie.

“Shut up. Just…shut up.” The can weighed heavy in Kyle’s hand. Giving it a good shake, liquid sloshed up, spilling out a hole at the top. Orange and brown rust flakes coated his hand. The pungent aroma of gasoline swept all other smells away. Using a heave-ho motion, he spilled the gas onto the stalks. “Eat it.”

No.

Don’t do this.

You’re killing us.

Killing us….killing….

The hellish stalks wilted, then sprang up like air dancers at a car dealer, their lives contingent upon the wind’s whim. Kyle tossed another round, giving the eyeball stalk an extra dose. The voices died down to a hiss, air deflating from balloons. The stalks shriveled and collapsed on themselves, their dried husks curling up into nothing but small kernels. And the voices stopped.

Kyle dropped the can, wiped the sweat from his forehead. And listened. Nothing. Just the plinks and tinks of rafters wheezing under the weight of the house. One last touch, Kyle buried the hideous garden beneath the bookshelf, a gravestone of sorts.

He clapped dirt from his hands, a job well done. Then raced up the stairs like the devil himself had pitched a fork in his bottom.

At the top of the stairway, he slammed the door shut. Leaning against it—keeping monsters at bay—he thought about the new role forced upon him, a very responsible, adult role. Caretaker, gardener, year round de-weeding.

* * *

Here I am, talking about myself, pretending not to. Ah, I'm probably not fooling anyone, but play along anyway, 'kay? Just imagine James Earl Jones narrating and we'll all get through this just fine.

For more of Stuart R. West's adult and young adult suspense tales filled with light heart and dark humor, check out his Amazon page.

And please do check out Stuart's blog featuring weekly rants, failed stand-up comedy routines and incisive author interviews: Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley