The Indigo Parsnip: Chapter 2

"No, seriously no! I-I have no idea what you're talking about! I am not lying, I swear, I promise! Why do you have to be such a bi-"
A small click was heard out of phone receiver.
"Crap crap crap."
The only light in the room was sneaking through half-closed venetian blinds. It spread bands of light over a hardwood desk. One band of light was exactly over a man's face. Intensely green eyes shone through the smokey haze of the room. To the left of the man was a door. The glass pane in the top-centre part of it had "Private Investigator" printed on it, in big bold letters. The name Clip Magnum was printed underneath.
Clip had just had a fight with his now ex-girlfriend, and was simmering in his anger. A string of smoke still rose through the air from the butt of a cigarette in an ashtray, as Clip lit a new one. The flame from the match lit up Clip's entire face for an instant. A relatively handsome face, as most private eyes seem to have, and stubble covering his chin and upper lip. Short, messy, brown hair evenly covered his head, baldness had never been a problem in the Magnum family.
Then a sharp ringing noise riotously broke out into the room. Clip picked up the phone.
"Clip Magnum, Private Eye."
"Yes, uh, hi," stammered the voice on the other end.
Clip sighed.
"Hello Constable Higgins. What can I do for you?" Clip said in a sarcastic way. "You do remember that I don't work for you anymore."
"But Clip, this is important. I know I can rely on you for the hard cases."
"Maybe you should rely on your own people, I sick of picking up the slack from your lazy work."
"Please Clip, this is important."
"I dunno," mused Clip in a sly manner. He was going to milk this for all its worth.
Years ago, a naive Clip had joined the City Police Squad only to find that the police were corrupted, and the Constable was a blithering idiot.
"I'll pay double this time!" pleaded Constable Higgins.
"Aww, you sure know the way to a man's heart. I'll be down in 10 minutes."
Clip threw the receiver back onto its saddle and got up from his chair. He grabbed his trench coat and rushed to the door. As he opened the door with his left hand, he made sure that his handgun was in place in its saddle with his right.
"I'd never go anywhere without you," Clip whispered lovingly to his gun. The incident two years behind him still haunted Clip like a shadow.
Clip rushed down the steps, his feet hit the checkered tiles of the landing like a flash. He was in such a hurry he almost slid right into a lamp post. Unfortunately, the lamp post was the least of his worries, which Clip soon discovered as he flew through a pile of garbage bags. The whole sidewalk was covered in a dark layer of black ice.
"God damn," muttered Clip. "That landlady promised she would put salt down."
He staggered to the subway station, and in a couple minutes he was riding on a train headed to the police station. Clip regarded at this moment that he had refused to do this at least 5 times previously.
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Constable Higgins was a large man, but not the normal description of large. When Constable Higgins walked into a room, everyone knew he was there because the air became tighter and more compressed. It seemed that after getting to a desk job position, the constable decided that he did not need to keep up his fitness training. All the officers under his command emulated Higgins in laziness. This, among others, helped Clip leave the force. Also, they hated eachother.
"So why did you call me down here Higgins? Lost your car keys? Or are you just stuck under your desk, and you know your officers are too lazy to even pick up a phone?" asked Clip in a coy manner.
"There's lately been a chain of murders Clip," replied Higgins, ignoring Clip's insults. "We think that they are all tightly related."
"Lay it on me Conny."
"5 men have been murdered, all 5 have been found to be very distantly related, and all were stabbed. The latest was a certain Tedworth Jackson Heintz."
"Are we saying like, second cousins, or what here?" inquired Clip.
"No, we're talking about 7th and 8th cousins even more," answered Higgins. "Really distant. None of the people had any close relatives alive actually."
"Really?"
"Yes. It seems each of their family members have dissappeared mysteriously over the ages."
At this moment Clip realized something very odd.
"Constable, how do you know all this? No crew of your detectives could deduce such things in so little time."
"You are quite right Mr. Magnum. The truth is, I wouldn't care so much if they were just some people being killed..."
An odd sense of tension creep its way up Clips spine, like an octopus after it's next meal.
"...but I am distantly related to all of them."
"Uh, okay." muttered Clip, who was busying himself with a snow globe that was on the Constable's desk.
"Don't you see?" whimpered Higgins. "I-I'm next!"
"Yeah, I don't really see any logic backing that up, I mean..."
Constable Higgins sat straight up with a jolt. A horror-stricken look formed on his pudgy face. Blood began to seep down the sides of his chair. His eyes started to glaze over as HIggins fell to his desk with a thing tube sticking out of his back. The desk was already becoming dark with blood, as it was slowing seeping out of the tube.. Clip caught the leg of a person climbing out the window with the corner of his eye.
"Well, that was...unexpected." stated Clip in a matter-of-fact manner.
He walked over to ex-Constable Higgins' corpse. He poked Higgin's torso with the barrel of his gun. The mass of flesh that had been Higgins jiggled in an utterly un-jolly manner, but still, quite like bowl full of jelly. Clip jumped back a couple inches. The jiggling was unnatural, even for an obese man like the constable, it was as if...
Clip quickly grabbed a pen from the ex-Contable's desk. Quickly, he gave the mass a short stab.
A thin, dark red spray erupted from the puncture hole. The blood did not stop though. The ex-Constable kept bleeding, as the whole grew bigger other colourful liquids streamed out. As more and more poured out, Higgins' skin deflated and became flat, save for the bumps of broken bone chunks. The whole desk became drenched in frappéd inards. Clip didn't stop vomiting for another 5 minutes.
Obviously, an explosive was injected into the ex-Constable that liquified his insides. Clip realized that he was dealing with a pro, a sick pro who would stop at nothing to succeed. Clip reflected that his job was a never-ending source of confusion as he retrieved some "pay" from the ex-Constable, and proceeded to leave the police station to get a gyro.

A False Moon: A Novella

Ted looked over his fields - beets weren't selling this year, but that was alright. He still had plenty of cash left over from last years crop. Beets never sold anyways, the real money was in corn.

Never before had Ted seen such a summer with such a terrible drought. The old Robinson farm practically dried up, and it was only with a new watering system that Ted stayed in the black. He was also considering completely switching to a hydroponic farm, and grow exclusively lettuce, but his son, Simon, would never go for that. Simon enjoyed the simple pleasures of walking through the rows of tall stalks of corn, or the enjoyment wrought from plucking carrots from their rooty hibernations.

Ted walked to his truck, hopped in, and started it up. He made sure his foot was on the pedals this time, because on more than one occasion he was trying to accelerate on an old tissue box. The old farmer drove into town to pick up some seeds for Simon's science fair project. Simon planned on growing beans, and then showing the effects of mashing them into coffee. Simon always had a knack for finding things no one would think were good, but made them great.

Ted reached the store, and ran his fingers through his long mullet. He donned a pair of sunglasses, and grabbed his 12 gauge shotgun from the back of his truck. Calmly, he strode into the shop, and sidled up to the cashier.

"You're going to do what I want you to do, or else this may get very unpleasant." Ted brandished his gun to the young female cashier. She nodded, and tears began to stream down her face. She had seen this on the news last night. An old man with a mullet and sunglasses would rob stores for, of all things, bean seeds.

"You know what I want, right, hun? The seeds. I need the seeds."

The cashier handed him a bag of seeds, just as two police cruisers pulled up into the parking lot.

Constable Herkins was no fool to agrorobbery. He had seen a lot of cases in his time, and they never ended up pretty. He advised his comrade, Lieutenant Donald to go in through the back door, for a sneak attack.

Ted knew this wasn't going to end pretty. He climbed the ladder onto the roof, and took position behind a cooling vent. He had trained for months.

He was prepared for this.

Herkins threw a flashbang onto the roof, instantly blinding Ted. Donald climbed the ladder while Ted stay there as silently as possible, waiting out the effects of the deafening grenade. Donald leapt around a corner, and dropkicked Ted right in the face. The effects wore off Ted, and he sprung up with an uppercut to Donald's jaw. Donald became quite disoriented, and fell off the roof onto a conveniently placed picket fence, which had been sharpened earlier that day.

Herkins heard the death wail of Donald. He wept a little behind his aviator goggles, but he knew he had to stay strong.

Ted ran to the helicopter, and instructed the pilot to start it immediately. Herkins anticipated this with a bribe to the helicopter pilot, who was told to fly to the secret police station in the mountains. Herkins knew that the pilot would double cross him. He had a gut feeling.

The constable sprinted to the trunk of his cruiser where he kept a little something for a special occasion such as this. A laser-guided RPGRGPPRGPGPR. He assembled it in no time at all, took aim, and fired.

A giant explosion lit up the night sky, and the helicopter careened into the ground with an earth-shaking roar. Herkins turned around, and a pair of sunglasses fell at his feet.

"Ted...perhaps in another life, I could've called you friend," Herkins silently whispered silently into the warm summer wind. He picked up the remains of his dead cop buddy, and called it a night.

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