Note: This is a collection of short stories (some shorter than others) about oddball Lone Wanderers or Couriers. Sometimes I have an idea but it doesn't pan out, and the story goes stolid. This is the graveyard where stories go to die.
Have a gift of crazy, on the house.
ORIGINAL TITLE: Murder, He Says
DESCRIPTION: Short and sweet introductory story to obviously insane Courier Ruth Roberts; 714 words.
"You know what I don't get?" The woman looked down at the corpse, squatting next to it, pushing her shotgun into his face and moving it to the side. "Honestly?" She chuckled. "Don't listen to me, Patrick, you've heard this before."
Ruth shifted her weight and turned her head to the side, like she was listening to someone. "No, you shut up! I'm gonna say it! ...You know what I don't get?" She moved the head of the corpse back and forth like it was shaking it's head. "I don't get why all you uppity jackasses have to chase after me. I mean, c'mon! There's the―the lead flying through the air, sheesh, I mean, that's gotta hurt when you get hit by it. There's the whole 'Oh Mama, I don't wanna die' angle―who the hell chases down someone just on principle?" She chuckled again, then coughed and grimaced, turning her her again.
"Patrick, so help me God if you don't shut up―" She smacked herself in the side of the head with her shotgun, twice. "Yeah, that's what I thought, you jerk. You let me talk." She pushed the shotgun into the corpse's eyeball. "Hey, and you know what, man?" The corpse "shook" it's head again. "I hope it's cold down there in hell. At least tell that big boss man to turn on the AC because it's gonna have to be cold before ya'll are gonna get Ruth Roberts."
Ruth stood and put the shotgun up on her shoulder. She toed at the corpse's shoulder. "Are you listening?!" The woman scoffed and rolled her eyes. Turning her head to the side, she said, "SHUT UP PATRICK, I TOLD YOU―"
The only sound on the desert floor around Jean Sky Diving was metal meeting flesh repeatedly. The woman stopped her assault on her face and blinked at the sky. She sat back onto a rock and stretched, slowly.
"Aw, hell!" She sat up, abruptly. "I forgot to eat lunch." She tossed the shotgun to the side casually and pulled out an iguana-on-a-stick from her pack, munching distractedly. "Hey, Patrick," she said, around mouthfuls of food. "Did you ever go sky-diving?"
She looked up at the sky, flattening her hand and moving it through the air. "That would be the coolest," she said, eyes glittering. "Man. Imagine dancing around on the clouds up there, just skipping along like rocks on water." She tossed the stick up into the air and laughed when it almost hit her on the way down.
"Shut up, Patrick." Ruth held a hand over her eyes and scanned the distance. "Wait, where are we?"
She stared at the device on her arm, poking at it. It made all sorts of weird noises. She didn't like it. "I don't know what I'm do-ing," she sing-songed into the air. "Oh, that reminds me...! Shut up, Patrick. You used to like my singing. Finally found a fella, almost completely divine..." She cleared her throat.
"But his vocabulary is killin' this romance of mineeeee!" Ruth stood up and pulled out a missile launcher, grinning. A couple of geckos, attracted by the smell of food and the noise, were moving near.
"HE SAYS MURDER HE SAYS!"
The wasteland floor exploded, one of the geckos flitting through the rocks completely destroyed by the missile, and Ruth reloaded.
"EVERY TIME WE KISS! Come on, Patrick! Sing along!" She grinned at the next target when it exploded into a red mist.
"HE SAYS MURDER HE SAYS!" Ruth tilted her head to the side, turned herself toward the building. "Why...?" she asked, her voice irritated. "Why the hell should I calm down? You're a beat-up rug on the grimy metal floor of my mind! I deserve better―" Ruth stopped still for a moment. She lowered the missile launcher. "Okay. But, Patrick..."
She scowled at herself, and aimed the missile launcher at the wall of the shack. "You think we could survive this? I ain't kiddin', Patrick! Shut the fuck up!"
No one noticed the explosion in the desert. No one but a lone gecko, poking a head up over a rock, and he was a goddamn gecko. He didn't think about it.
But he did poke through the rocks afterward, looking for something to eat.
