A new voice said, “Or else you two get to eat cloacal casseroles, and guess who donates the cloacas?”
Mick the Mick unconsciously crossed his tentacles over his cloaca. In his twenty-four years since budding, Mick the Mick had grown very attached to his cloaca. He’d miss it something awful.
A fourth croquette had entered, followed by the two biggest croquettes Mick the Mick had ever seen. Only these weren’t turkey croquettes, these were chipped-beef croquettes. This was serious.
The new guy sounded like Nate the Nose, but didn’t have a nose. And what was a nose anyway?
“Oh, no,” Willie moaned. “I don’t want to eat Mick’s cloaca.”
“I meant your own, jerk!” the newcomer barked.
“But I have a hernia—”
“Shaddap!”
Mick the Mick recognized him now: Nate the Noodge, pimp, loan shark, and drug dealer. Not the sort you leant your bike to.
Wait …what was a bike?
“What’s up, Nate?”
“That brick of product I gave you for delivery. I had this sudden, I dunno, bad feeling about it. A
The brick? What brick?
Mick the Mick had a moment of panic—he had no idea what Nate the Noodge was talking about.
Oh, yeah. The
“Sure Nate, it’s right in here.”
He led Nate to the kitchen where the brick of product lay on the big center table.
Nate the Noodge pointed a tentacle at it. One of his guards lifted it, sniffed it, then wriggled his tentacle fringe that it was okay. Mick the Mick had expected him to nod but a nod would require a neck, and the guard didn’t have a neck. Then Mick the Mick realized he didn’t know what a neck was. Or a nod, for that matter.
What was it with these weird thoughts, like memories, going through his head? They were like half- remembered dreams. Nightmares, more likely. Pink flowers, and giant lizards, and big rocks in the sky, and stepping on some mice that looked like a lot like the Capporellis up in 5B. Except the Capporellis lived in 4B, and looked like jellyfish. What were mice anyway? He looked at Willie to see if he was just as confused.
Willie was playing with his cloaca.
Nate the Noodge turned to them and said, “A’ight. Looks like my frisson of malaise and apprehension was fer naught. Yer cloacas is safe …fer now. But you don’t deliver that product like you’re apposed to and it’s casserole city, knome sayn?”
“We’ll deliver it, Nate,” Willie said. “Don’t you worry. We’ll deliver it.”
“Y’better,” Nate said, then left with his posse
“Where we supposed to deliver it?” Willie said when they were alone again.
Mick the Mick kicked him in his cloaca.
“The same place we always deliver it.”
“Ow!” Willie was saying, rubbing his cloaca. “That hurt. You know I got a—hey, look!” He was pointing to the TV. “
He settled onto the floor and stared.
Mick the Mick hated to admit it, but he was kind of addicted to the show himself. He settled next to Willie.
Faintly, from the kitchen, he heard Nana say, “Oh dear, I was going to bake a cake but I’m out of flour. Could one of you boys—oh, wait. Here’s some. Never mind.”
A warning glimp chugged in Mick the Mick’s brain and puckered his cloaca. Something bad was about to happen …
What had Nate the Noodge called it? “A
But about what? What could go sour? The product was safe, and they were watching
The
Soon the aroma of baking cake filled the house. Right after the show he’d snag himself a piece.
Yes, life was good.
THE END
DRACULAS Deleted and Alternate Scenes
During the writing of Draculas we wrote a few scenes that we ended up changing or omitting. We thought it would be fun, for people who liked the book, to see what ended up on the cutting room floor, and hear why.
Alternate Shanna Shooting Scene
Joe says: In our very first email volleys, Paul had intended Shanna to embrace Clay’s gun-loving ways, and wrote this to be the scene where she becomes enamored with them. I liked it and thought it was realistic—lots of people, when they shoot for the first time, instantly fall in love with firearms. Paul thought it was too over-the-top and changed it to her having a negative reaction.
SHE stared down at the dead creature. “That fella” wasn’t a fella. It was wearing a bloodstained maroon pantsuit. She stepped closer and saw the nametag:
Shanna felt sick. “That’s Marge from admitting! I had a long sit-down with her when Mortimer was admitted for that possible overdose. She had pictures of her kids on her desk. She…” A sob broke free. “What have I done?”
“It was her or you, Shanna.”
“I killed Marge!”
Clay knelt beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “That wasn’t Marge from admissions anymore. Marge was already gone. You killed something else, something that had taken her over.”
“But her kids—”
“Had already lost their mama. You just kept this thing from fouling her memory by killing you and who knows how many others, and turning them into foul things like her. You did Marge a favor.”
Clay seemed to understand and was making sense, neither of which she’d expected from him. He helped her to her feet.
“Us or them,” Shanna he added. “Who do you want to walk out of here?”
“Us, of course.”
“And who are the attackers here?”
“Them.”
“So we’re going to walk out of here, and along the way we’re going to leave them alone. But if they try to kill us, we need to do what we have to do to protect ourselves—and that means kill them first.”
Yeah…they did.
She looked at the thing that had been Marge. If she hadn’t fired this big heavy thing in her hands,
He pointed to the Taurus. “I’m sorry it knocked you down.”
“It’s okay, Clay.”
“No, it’s not. That gun’s too powerful for you.” He reached for it. “I’ll find you—”
She snatched her Taurus away and clutched it between her breasts. Yes, suddenly it was
