MisStaked Read online

  * * *

  Champagne Books

  www.champagnebooks.com

  Copyright ©2008 by Bill Scarborough

  * * *

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Author Notes.

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Four

  Forty Five

  Forty Six

  Forty Seven

  Forty Eight

  Forty Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty One

  Fifty Two

  Fifty Three

  Fifty Four

  Fifty Five

  Fifty Six

  Fifty Seven

  Epilogue

  About J.

  * * * *

  Champagne Books Presents

  Mis-Staked

  By

  J. Morgan

  * * * *

  * * * *

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Champagne Books www.champagnebooks.com

  Copyright © 2007 by J. Morgan

  ISBN 978-1-897445-15-0

  April 2008

  Cover Art © Christopher Butts

  Produced in Canada

  Champagne Books

  #35069-4604 37 ST SW

  Calgary, AB T3E 7C7

  Canada

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Dedication

  This book is for my Dad. I may not be living in his basement, but I ain't far from it. And for Rochelle for helping me get it together when it was all over the place.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Prologue

  Don't be alarmed. Let me get this out of the way, so you faint at hearts don't go all postal before I get this story going. This tale is purely fictional in nature, except for those parts which are unfortunately real. It is even more tragic to note the parts you think are made-up are those are in fact the unabashed truth. To those readers who feel better sleeping at night thinking nothing is real, feel free to keep thinking so. I have never been a primate to deny the delusions of the delusional.

  First off let me assure you, I have endeavored in no way to attain this position of being the sole chronicler of the imbecilic hero, whom you will shortly meet. Like life itself, the odious task was thrust unwilling upon me. Through circumstances beyond my control I came into the service of one Breathred E. Petrifunck. I do not wish to go into the particulars of the sad event. Let us just simply say it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

  Before I go any further, let me tell you, I am not human, nor do I quest for such an unsavory burden. I am simply content to be a citizen of simian descent, a chimpanzee to be more precise. A sight more intelligent than one Mr. Petrifunck, I have no modesty in assuring you.

  Which explains his choice of a name for me, Stud Lee Monkey. Like I stated earlier in this preface—humanity is a burden to those of you who wear it. I have overcome this painful moniker, nonetheless. Through considerable tribulation on my part, I am the chimpanzee you see before you today. The evidence of this is the lengthy tome you now hold in your hands.

  As I said before, my main purpose in this dreadful melodrama was to assist Mr. Petrifunck. For those of you who consider yourselves well versed in the occult, you may wrongly name me a familiar. Through another failed attempt at rising above mediocrity, I rose above my birth to become so much more. Perhaps if time allows, or readership demands the tale, I will go into that debacle at a later date. Considering the readership of these penny dreadfuls a sequel is a distinct possibility, but I digress.

  This is tale, however, tells the story of how my erstwhile master came to fame, or infamy depending on how history chooses to record it. It all started with an ad in the back of a comic book. You know the kind: “See the mysteries of the unknown in seven easy steps.” It might have worked out differently if the moron hadn't been more than a little bit inclined toward that brand of science, or if this hadn't been his first foray into the field. This was just another in a long line of attempts to become something more than a drain on society, and his father.

  Once the packet arrived from—forgive me—The Boffrend School of Vampire Slaying and On-line Technical Support, there was no stopping him. Believe me when I say this is something I would never try to make up. It is just so bizarre it had to be true. In no time he devoured the flimsy tome, using his well-chewed highlighter to single out those sections of particular interest. The fact he came to excel in this his chosen profession was no surprise to me. Despite his ingrained naiveté, he was somewhat of a genius in his own demented way. It was just the rudiments of common sense that seemed to elude him.

  I watched all this with silent bemusement. I gave the whole thing a month before he switched to something less trying on his fragile mentality. It wasn't until after the second and third crates arrived I began to worry. By then it was too late. Our road was set to my ultimate humiliation.

  Author Notes.

  * To help finance this manuscript, each chapter heading will contain a snippet of wisdom from Dr. William Wainsboro, author of the Boffrend School of Vampire Slaying Handbook, Volumes One through Thirty-Seven.

  ** Being a chimpanzee doesn't mean I'm willing to work for bananas and humorous outfits. Those I get for free.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  One

  When dealing with the undead, the best course of action is to run like hell.

  It was raining. It was always raining. If you find yourself living in Seattle for more than a week, you become used to it, or you move somewhere slightly drier, like in the middle of a rain forest. That isn't to say it doesn't have its perks. You never had to wake up and ask yourself: Is it going to rain today? Because ninety-percent of the time the answer is yes. The other ten percent you dress for rain just in case. Tonight was no exception to the rule. The rain started as a slow drizzle and pretty much continued along the same vein through the day and into the night.

  To the man dressed in
black, it was nothing new. Breathred had suffered these slings and arrows for most of his life and was accustomed to the weather and to the numerous other little things existing solely to make his life miserable.

  Case in point. Leather did not coexist well with water. It tended to shrink in the most uncomfortable of places, but what was he to do? Vampire slayers had to wear black leather body suits. It said so right on page thirteen of the handbook. So once again, he found himself damned by the very thing he strived to become.

  The longer he waded through the wet night, the more the leather shrank to his body, like a painful second skin. He dealt with pinched genitalia and cramped calves in the only way he knew how: he sweated, which only aggravated the condition. Even that simple sentence was not adequate to describe the situation. Unfortunately for him, his body produced enough sweat that an entirely new ecosystem popped into existence to handle the runoff.

  Breathred couldn't help himself. He came from a long line of sweaty people. He swore somewhere along the line someone would have figured out a way to breed the condition out of the gene pool. As of yet, no one had the foresight to do so. Long ago he had formed the opinion the condition resulted from the fact that his family only had two branches, and they went up and down in a single line.

  Finally, the ceaseless squish-squish-pinch of the leather was more than he could bear. He had to do something, no matter how unbecoming it might look. Breathred hazarded a peek to see if anyone was looking. Once satisfied no one was giving him a second glance, he reached down and pulled at the crotch of his body suit. Sweet relief flooded his face. Then the leather slipped from his wet fingers and slammed the suit once more back into its former position. The effect was like a gunshot through his prostate. He immediately doubled over and gasped in unrestrained agony. Needless to say, he fell writhing to the rain-washed street.

  After executing several gyrations defying modern science, he lay limp and panting on the rain-soaked sidewalk. His face rested slackly amid the pooling water. Once assured he was still whole, he allowed his eyes to roll back to their proper position. He watched the procession of passing ankles for a few minutes more before attempting the more arduous task of sitting up.

  Except for a momentary spike of pain riding his spine straight to his brain, Breathred found he could indeed still move without the use of functional testicles. Just a theory, mind you, because he had never put the functional part of that statement to use before. There had been this one time at fat camp, but he wasn't sure if he could consider it an actual test, or even if he wanted to. Lord knows he had spent enough time suppressing the memory to be bringing it up now.

  Deciding vampire slayers didn't squat on rain drenched sidewalks he stumbled to his wobbly feet. The exercise left him winded, but otherwise unhurt, except for the obvious—the throbbing groin. Against his better judgment, he ran his hand over the damaged body part. Despite what Father Benedict had warned him about, he found he did not go blind from doing so, nor did he come to find the sensation pleasurable like Father Sebastian had tried to convince him it would.

  After the systems check was finished, he was happy to discover despite the soaking, he was remarkably dry after the unfortunate experience. Besides, luck seemed to be with him for the moment, the leather had worked its way loose from its previous fit. Feeling better, he let his gawky frame prance down the sidewalk undisturbed by the stares his leather-clad form was beginning to draw.

  To say Breathred Petrifunck was geeky would be putting the case mildly. He stood six four in bare feet. Most of it comprised of jutting bones with very little muscle poking out in any way, shape, or form. The only part of his body that had any definition was his stomach and the only definition befitting this body part was pudgy. Over the years he had tried to work on it, but never seemed to get past slightly pudgy before deeming himself fit enough to wear shorts and an oversized tank top to hide the fact his workouts had been less than successful.

  He hadn't had to endure the perils of teen acne, so his face was clear of blemishes; his only redeeming characteristic. His eyes never could seem to settle on a color preference, so they shifted from blue to green before finally affixing themselves to gray. His nose was a little too pointy but otherwise defined his face quite well. He also allowed himself a makeshift mustache and beard, though the hair couldn't seem to grow in the places he wanted it to and flourished in the areas that didn't need the excess. He tried to totally forget the unruly mop of black hair all together.

  In spite of all these flaws, both those named here, and those left out for the pacing of the story, Breathred saw himself as quite a dashing figure, which was all that mattered, anyway. It wasn't too much of a stretch of the imagination to see him in the same light as he saw himself, unless you were within twenty feet of him. From a distance he had a mysterious Johnny Depp quality that made people take notice. Up close was a different story.

  His legs once again responded to nerve impulses, other than pain that is. Breathred found he was able to make good time to the distant corner of the street. At his destination, Breathred reached into his pocket, extracting a soggy piece of paper. Through the smudges he was able to discern the address leading to the eventual end to his quest. Looking at the street sign, he judged he was, indeed, on the right track and promptly turned down the next blind alley he came to.

  The alley ended abruptly against a brick wall, which he would have seen if he had not still been reading the now-useless piece of paper. The impact was neither loud, nor was it painful when compared to the leather-wrenching groin injury of the earlier paragraph.

  Still, the skull-jarring hit did give him one brief moment of conscious-altering euphoria enabling him to transcend his usual state of being. In that instant he saw answers to questions he had never even considered. As it is with such things, the feeling passed all too soon, but it did leave him with enough insight to realize he had made a wrong turn.

  While not as intelligent as a moment ago, he was able to safely stagger back onto the sidewalk without further injury. From there he had little trouble accessing his meager mental database, ticking through the rough-hewn collection of numbers until finally settling on the newest in the collection. With the address firmly affixed in his mind's-eye Breathred headed in the proper direction, more or less.

  After half an hour more, his search came to an abrupt end. In truth it wasn't all that abrupt, but for the purposes of story direction we'll say it was. As incredible as it is to believe, he had circled his destination four times without noticing it. On the fifth circuit, Breathred found the object of his search—102 Carrington Ave—nestled amongst the weeping buildings.

  From the exterior the place looked homey. Its decor was from somewhere in the fifties. In the intervening years the city had grown up around it, giving the place the appearance of a willow among redwoods. An iron fence bordered the house, casting flickering daggers on the wet sidewalk. The ancient structure was broken apart by age and abuse. It was almost undetectable by the raging river of ivy that had already taken over the yard, with sights on the street beyond.

  Breathred took a deep breath, idly fingering the signet ring on his right hand, as he always did at times of self-induced stress. This was no time to be nervous, but he couldn't help himself. Everything he had ever done in his sad, pathetic life led up to this moment. The ring was part of his journey, but he didn't like to think about it. Some things were best left forgotten, like he could ever be fortunate enough to become a victim of selective amnesia.

  This adventure was to be his trial by fire. All the hours of study were finally going to pay off. He patted the handbook where it was situated right next to his heart beneath his black duster. It was his own private talisman. He wouldn't be able to whip the book out in front of his client, but he felt better knowing it was there. He pushed those fleeting thoughts of failure from his mind. A new life started for him at this exact moment.

  He ran down his mental checklist and judged that he was as ready as he would ever be.
He pushed the rusty gate until it whined in protest. It lodged against a mass of ivy and came to a screeching halt, leaving Breathred with less than twenty inches of space in which to squeeze his lanky frame through.

  Drawing a deep breath, his oversized chest popped up, allowing a mountain of pudge to suck in. Rising up on his tiptoes, no easy thing to do with wet leather grabbing at hair and other assorted epidermal extremities, Breathred slid between the two rusted gateposts.

  At the last minute a bulge (his modesty prevents me from revealing which bulge) caught on the gate's heavy iron latch. He tugged and slipped free, throwing him clear of the confining opening. After his own momentum took over, Breathred spiraled down the cobbled walk. He was able to regain his balance just as he slammed into the peeling paint of the front door.

  Thankfully the brass door knocker dominating the thirty-six by eighty inch panel stopped his headlong advance. It rang with a muted thump, as it struck the middle of his forehead. The sound was followed by dull echo Breathred was sure came from a back molar he had been meaning to see a dentist about.

  The throbbing ring subsided just as the door creaked open. A chain stopped the door an inch from the frame. Breathred bent down to peer through the meager sliver. A cobwebbed eye glared back at him. It unnerved him somewhat, but being in the profession he was, he decided it was best to become accustomed to disembodied eyes.

  "What'd ya want?” a voice croaked.

  "Oh great floating eye, there are many things I want, but I guess world peace would be a good start,” Breathred answered in a clear and distinct voice. He hoped he had chosen wisely. It was so hard to know for sure in these situations.

  "Dumb-ass,” the voice stated, before slamming the door, which added a new crease to the tip of his nose.

  Rubbing yet another damaged piece of anatomy, it dawned on him the floating eye must have an owner. This epiphany was indeed a jump for his beleaguered mind. In someone else, it might be a breakthrough. In Breathred, it amounted to a blank spot in need of filling. Giving his nose a final twist, he decided to take a different approach to this turn at knocking on the door.