Charlie Needs a Cussbomb
By
Daniel Whittman
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2008 Daniel Whittman
Discover other titles by Daniel Whittman at Smashwords.com
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Charlie Needs a Cussbomb
By
Daniel Whittman
Everyone that could walk rushed to the windows of the Hilltop Hospital. The word had flashed around that he was coming again. They crowded over each other trying to look down the hill and out over the city below.
An extra sharp-eyed watcher yelled, “Here he comes! But it sure doesn’t look like he is going to make it this time. He’s too bright! He looks like a…well an angry volcano being jet propelled into town bottoms up.”
Far on the other side of the city a scarlet light rocketed its way toward the hospital getting ever brighter the closer it came.
By shielding their eyes as it came near, they could see the scarlet glow was radiating from a stretcher inside a speeding ambulance with the siren wailing.
White-coated Doctor Richardson stood waiting at the emergency entrance with a hypodermic syringe in one hand. His other hand was on the tip of a welder’s helmet. He snapped down the visor just as the siren tapered off and the ambulance drove up to the door.
The doctor snatched the back door open and jumped into the ambulance. He was inside a full twenty minutes before the brilliance of the strange light began to dim enough not to hurt people’s eyes.
Stepping out of the ambulance, he asked the attendants to take the patient to room 409 and put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, Doctor Richardson quietly turned the doorknob of room 409 and walked inside the room. Lying in the bed was a very tall, heavy chested man, with long hairy arms. His intelligent looking face had the coloring of a seasick man in a leaky lifeboat.
The doctor walked over, sat down on the bed, tapped his patient lightly on the shoulder and spoke as the patient’s eyes slowly opened. “How are you feeling Charlie? Pretty rough, right?”
Charlie thought the words came out of the bunghole of a beer keg. He squinted his eyes and then recognized the doctor. “Oh, hi Doc. Saved me again didn’t you?” Charlie forced a grin as he looked at the doctor. “But my gosh Doc, what did you give me those shots with this time, a fire hose?”
“Almost Charlie. Why heavens man, do you know you had the entire city in an uproar?”
“But Doc, this time I couldn’t help it! Fate sure dragged me through her wild backyard this time. She…”
The doctor waved Charlie’s beginning explanation aside and continued, “As nice a person as you usually are, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” The doctor frowned slightly. “Do you realize humans cannot go around glowing like animated furnaces?”
“My gosh Doc, was I that bad? You’re kidding aren’t you?”
“Charlie I have been telling you ever since you were a little fella emotionally you are like an atomic bomb. In addition, you are holding that temper in too tight a check, much too tight.”
The doctor shook his finger gently at Charlie. “Charlie I am giving you this straight. You will have to learn to cuss. I do not mean a word or two. I mean…well remember what you said before, that someday you will be able to let loose such a blast of cuss words that if directed at a human, would boil and shrink his brain so small it would fall down his throat and choke him to death.”
“But Doc I…”
The doctor good-naturedly cut him short. “That kind of cussing is the only way to keep releasing the tremendous force of temperamental energy as fast as it builds up, and you know it!” The doctor thumped Charlie’s chest, “The next time they will have to dig you a membership in the hereafter.”
“Yeah Doc, just like the gallows, the jerk is at the end of the rope. But dad blast it! Doc I just can’t cuss! I can think ‘em but I can’t say ‘em. You know that don’t you Doc? I’ve tried my best to learn haven’t I?”
The doctor sighed. “Yes Charlie but have you tried hard enough?”
“I guess not Doc. But dad blast it anyhow! How am I going to cuss without actually cussing? Tell me that Doc, how?”
“I wish I knew.” The doctor said shaking his head sadly, “I wish I knew!”
Both men were silent for a few moments. Then Charlie spoke and acted as if a gorilla of an idea was beginning to shake the moldy ideas and cobwebs out of his head. “Doc I’m going to quit trying!”
The doctor’s head jerked up with a startled look on his face. “Charlie has your mind gone on a stroll in the mystical land of Paul Bunyan?”
“No…no I am not out of my mind. Besides, I don’t really mean I am giving up at all. I’m just giving up on the old cuss words. I’m going to build a completely new dad blasted, bubbling, spitting, whoosh boom, and buzzer bam vocabulary! Doc don’t look at me with those straight jackets in your eyes!”
“Well after all Charlie I just …” The doctor saw Charlie was on fire with an idea so he stopped talking.
“Doc there’s only one way to do it. Actually no one can pin down a cuss word as a cuss word other than they relieve the pressure in the person saying or screaming them, right?”
“Yes I suppose so Charlie but go on. What are you driving at anyhow?”
“Just this Doc, if that is true then any word or phrase that has the same effect or stronger will do the trick, Don’t you agree?”
“Certainly Charlie, but I still do not see how you are going to accomplish that.”
“First, I’m going to gather all the word material I can lay my hands on from all over the city. Then I’m going to build the best dad blasted cussing vocabulary you ever heard before. Well...almost anyhow. Don’t you think it will work Doc?”
“The doctor laughed. “Yes Charlie that may work, if…if you do not run into someone or something that will play tunes on that hair-trigger temper of yours before you get that vocabulary into fighting shape.”
“Yeah Doc I know. So I’ll have to move faster than a gossip changing her friends.”
The doctor smiled and stood up. “Just stay here for a couple days rest. Then you will be good as new. Be sure to make your plans carefully Charlie. If you do not get it right, you might not make it to the hospital alive next time.”
The doctor walked over to the door, had his hand on the knob, and then turned back at Charlie who was gazing out the window. The doctor spoke softly. “Incidentally, what did set off this last performance you gave the city?”
Charlie had a blank look on his face at first. Then he said, “”Huh Doc? Oh that! That fool inventor neighbor of mine was the cause. He’s the one whose mother was frightened by a monkey wrench. Along about ten this morning since it was Saturday I decided to wash the windows. I was carrying the big ladder on my shoulder down the driveway when he called, “Hey Charlie!” Naturally, I turned around to see what he wanted then it happened. One end of the dad blasted ladder went through the windshield of my car. The other one smashed through our big picture window, and then smashed my wife’s prize antique lamp, which scared our Persian cat so bad she clawed and hissed up the back of that old biddy of a social leader that my wife has been trying to make a good impression on for years. As they were loading me into the ambulance, I saw the dad blasted cat sitting on the cross arm of a telephone pole trying to shake off of her claws something that looked like a wig or maybe the dad blasted cat scalped her. I don’t know for sure.”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow high on his forehead tried hard not to smile. After he was sure the giggles and guffaws would not break out and embarrass him, he said, “Charlie I am surprised at you. You mean to tell me you let a trivial item such as that disturb you?”
Charlie jumped half way out of bed. “Why dad blasted you Doc! I’ll…I’ll…”
Doctor Richardson laughed. “See what I mean Charlie? You have a problem…a gigantic, colossal and life threatening problem!” The doctor opened the door. On his way out he added, “I don’t imagine you would be interested in going home for a couple day now anyhow.”
A couple of days later, Charlie was headed downtown to the public library in a taxicab. He was dressed in his favorite gray suit. He also had ten notebooks he was juggling from hand to hand. Impatient to take the first attempt at solving his problem had him squirming like a sweepstakes winner paying his income tax.
Charlie stopped momentarily just inside the big revolving doors of the library, disagreeably surprised to see the night package-checking guard working days. The guard was all bedecked in overly polished brass buttons and gold braid as far as Charlie was concerned. Charlie could hear him snapping his crepe paper whip of authority at the man in front of him.
Charlie started to turn back. “Dad blast it!” he thought. “That reference room holds a lot of material I need. I can’t take a chance and wait until later. I need it now! If I hop around here like a flea on a hot dog, maybe I can avoid another argument with that bloat brained, brass plated egoist.”
Charlie’s eyebrows jumped like a firecracker scared cat. He was thinking, “Hey! That is what I want, words like that but with more branding irons and blowtorches in ‘em.”
Charlie began to pick up steam as he headed for the reference section. He had completely forgotten about the guard. As he was about to pass the guard’s desk, an arm shot out to stop him in mid stride.
The guard’s tone of voice was lathered in sarcastic politeness as he said, “Sorry sir, I will have to stamp a pass in for your notebooks if you do not mind.” While he was writing it, he added, “Be sure to stop on your way out sir and I will stamp it out sir.”
The condescending tones hit Charlie as if a length of red-hot barbed wire had been yanked through his brain. Reason kept jumping up and down and screaming forget this egotistical fool! Get your material and get out! Do it fast, fast, really fast!
Charlie reached for the pass as the stamp banged down on it. Then he left in a gray blur and ricocheted around the room like a bullet from a high-powered rifle.
Less than a second later Charlie held out the pass. “Would you stamp this out please? I’ve taken all the notes I need.”
The guard was visibly shaken. Several buttons fell off his uniform and spun idly on the marble floor. He spoke in a hoarse whisper, “Bu…but…si...sir I just stamped your pass in not a second ago look!” He rubbed his finger over the ink leaving a smudge. “You couldn’t have moved more than five feet in that time. Or…or could you?”
Charlie smiled condescendingly. “Well you can see I was in a sort of hurry. I only took time to fill eight notebooks.”
“Did you say ei…eight no…note books?”
“Well yes as a matter of fact I did. As I said, I was rather in a hurry. But don’t worry. I can always read my writing even after it is cold.”
The guard’s voice when he spoke, it seemed to be echoing from a crack in a long forgotten tomb. “B…but that is…is not exactly w…what I was worried about si…” The guard had slowly slipped to the floor unnoticed by Charlie who had vanished through the door on his way to hunt more material.
Later that day, the quiet of the evening was shattered by a group of newsboys who grabbed armloads of newspapers from the back of the news truck, which had parked temporarily near a lighted theatre marquee. Then each of them ran in a different direction through the midtown streets of Cleveland, Ohio. They all were shouting the headlines, “Gray Phantom Strikes Waterfront.”
One little fellow accidentally ran headlong into Charlie. Charlie hardly felt him, but caught him before he could fall and set him up on his feet again.
Smiling down at the boy Charlie said, “You hurt son?”
“Nah! I ain’t hurt. Paper Mister? Maybe ya wanna read bout the Phantom? Huh Mister?”
Charlie dropped a quarter in the boy’s hand and took the nickel paper as he said, “Think you’d have any trouble spending the change?”
“No Sir! Gee tanks Mister!” The newsy ran off down the street and resumed yelling the headlines.
As Charlie glanced at the headlines, he thought he began to hear the sizzling and sputtering of a big juicy steak being tossed on a hot griddle behind him.
Turning to see where it was coming from he found himself looking into the grill window of a restaurant that he had bypassed many times before as being a little too swanky for his tastes.
Charlie smiled as he saw the fat French Chef dressed in white cast iron standing at the window grill lovingly tending his latest victim. The chef appeared to love his job and the food he prepared. He needed the cast iron suit to keep his bulk from exploding out and strangling him.
The Chef seeing Charlie’s smile, patted his tummy and rolled his eyes pointing at Charlie then at the sizzling steak.”
By this time, the exhaust fan over the window had put the finishing touches on the Chef’s invitation. Charlie took a deep breath hoping the captured aroma would hold him until he could get inside.
Finding the grillroom too crowded, Charlie had to go into the also crowded dining room. “Yipes!” Charlie thought. “This is swanky.”
Charlie found a small table and sat down. While waiting to be served, he opened his paper wondering why he had hit the headlines and began to read.
“Late this afternoon reports flooded into Police headquarters of a strange happening in the Dock Street district. Bystanders were not exactly sure what happened. It happened so fast one disappointed man said he had blinked his eyes and had missed the whole thing. Some of the more fortunate witnesses stated that there was a gigantic gray phantom snatching up in rapid succession more than a hundred screaming and struggling waterfront characters. Then he twisted them the way a housewife would twist a dishrag, as if he wanted to drain them of words or emotions. However, all the gray phantom got for his trouble were strings of hoarse voiced curse words that burnt and blistered their lips as they hurled the words at their assailant.
Police Chief I. C. Haddock who appeared on the scene just minutes later admitted there wasn’t much he could charge the Gray Phantom with even if he did exist since no apparent damage was done nor did anyone press charges. The Chief made mention of other smaller escapades of the alleged Gray Phantom that had come to his attention throughout the day…”
Charlie did not finish reading. He thought,”Well look like that’s going to blow over in a hurry. Besides, I think I think I have all the dope I need. Let’s see now…” Charlie’s mind was clicking along like the rush hour in a slot machine joint.
Lost in thought he folded his newspaper and tossed it on the table. The corner of the newspaper bumped not too gently an upturned water glass against the frosted sides of a large pitcher of ice cubes and water. It made a noisy glass dinging sound.
When Charlie saw the glass righting itself, he ignored it. Then he looked up to see if he could catch the eye of a waiter.
He glanced up just in time to see a woman who looked to him as if she had her ancestral ship Mayflower branded on her forehead. If her nose stuck up any higher, she could have rented it out for a flagpole. She was looking in his direction and saying something to her dominated male. Her husband slave tried to look over his shoulder without appearing to do so. Charlie was wondering if she had her nose to high because she got too much of a sniff of the bilge water in the lady’s room. Charlie was not sure of anything she said, but at one point, he clearly saw her lips form the words, “Clumsy Ape!”
The words roared around the walls of his skull like a motorcycle of death performance. His brain cells raced to their battle stations.
Commander Blowtop was still trying to get into his pants as Commander Cuss’emout began shouting orders to line up the newly arrived word torpedoes and ready to be shot through the nerve tubes to the vocal cords.
Charlie could feel the words lining up in his mind. Why that ceiling sniffing chuck of blubberized girdle stuffing. I ought to…” Forgetting where he was Charlie blurted out, “Hey! I am learning! I am…”Then as he remembered he grabbed up the newspaper to hide his embarrassment.
Then Charlie heard a sound as if a mouse had skidded to a stop beside his table. “Ahem. Ahem.”
Looking up he saw the headwaiter pulling his one hundred pounds up to his full five feet. Tapping his chin on a menu, he said in a frigid tone of voice, “I’m sorry Sir! I will have to ask you to control yourself.”
Temptation was strong for Charlie to strike with his new vocabulary, but then he decided it best to kid around instead of cussing his way out of this little jam.
Charlie was sincerity itself when he said, “Certainly but where is the check room. Also is the attendant playful?”
The headwaiter tilted the menu toward the entrance. “Just as you say Sir. The first door on your right…” Time stood still for the headwater until he could catch up with Charlie’s words. Then the real meaning of the words started boring themselves into his unusually soft skull. Contempt sat on the little man’s tongue as he said, “You huge men! You are utterly brazen! Utterly horrid!” The menu was woodpeckering his chin as his voice continued with a trace of fear, “If I had my way I wouldn’t let such riff-raff into this establishment even if they are dressed like gentlemen.”
Sitting down at almost eye level with the headwaiter, Charlie looked up slightly, “Take it easy. There’s no sense of calling each other names is there? Now is there? I only made a small joke after all.”
The expression on the face of the headwaiter made Charlie think of a rooster squawking and strutting to show off for the hens. However, it appeared the human hens were not that impressed in the establishment. He fixed the best steely stare he could muster on Charlie. Then he spoke as if he was balancing a piece of Limburger cheese on the end of his nose. “Sir this establishment wishes to be patronized by only the very elite. From all appearances, you are certainly not a member of that set. The clumsy mannered person should confine himself to a less refined…”
That moment, things happened in a blur in Charlie’s mind. Charlie’s brain cells were torn between waiting for the steak or blasting the pompous ass with a blizzard of new cuss words or losing face.
Even before the last ballots were in from the competing brain cells, his temper had moved up a notch then clattered to the ceiling as if a stick was being pulled along a picket fence.
Charlie hastily ran a sneak preview in his mind’s eye. “You fly speck on the pump handle of life, a mere stretched out crumb flicking, tip begging blister on the heel of humanity. Fate must have blown your brains into your head with a pea shooter.”
Charlie’s temper was dropping a notch at a time as each new cuss word fell into place in his mind. He began to feel like a boy with an armload of snowballs at a high hat convention. Charlie’s voice rumbled and came out with a blast, “Now it is my turn sonny. You, sputter…sputter…sput…whoosh.” Charlie’s voice died out. With a grunt of astonishment is all he could manage after his failure. Amazement battled with the red fury for possession of his face. In addition, the old hag Fear was screaming and shrieking with maniacal laughter as she climbed hand over hand up his backbone.
Charlie jumped to his feet.
The headwaiter moved back a couple steps with his tongue snapping to the back of his mouth like a coiled spring. He stood there in front of Charlie not sure what to do.
Charlie was breathing deep and fast. A little tinge of pink was climbing up from his collar to his chin. Down deep inside, old man Temper was stripped down to his shorts with boxing gloves and was going on the third round with Reason who was putting up a good fight too.
Taking a big breath, Charlie blurted out, “Dad blast it! I can’t get ‘em out! I can’t cuss a dad blasted word! All that trouble and I still can’t cuss!”
The other diners were looking in Charlie’s direction, curiosity tearing at their faces.
The headwaiter began fumbling with the menu. He was having trouble keeping his feet pointing forward as he squeaked, “And you better not Sir. If you do, I’ll…I’ll call the manager. That is what I’ll do! And I’ll have you inspected…I…I mean ejected!”
The pink tinge was fast turning to a light scarlet and had reached Charlie’s ear tips. Old man Temper was punching Reason with a combination repeatedly. If Reason did not get a glove up and a torrent of word to fight Temper, it was going to be bad for Reason.
Charlie waved his arms and almost shouted, “I didn’t mean I couldn’t cuss in here! I meant I couldn’t cuss anywhere much less in this dad blasted burp-taurant! I just can’t cuss! Cuss the dad blasted cussing anyhow.”
The waves of laughter coming from the other diners sounded to Charlie’s ears like the booming and crashing of a storm maddened surf mixed with the barbed lightning of feminine shrieks of hilarity.
Charlie’s head was beginning to feel like a red-hot boiler that was about to explode. Making a quick lung, he grabbed the large pitcher of water and ice cubes.
The headwaiter gave Charlie a startled look and then ran screaming toward the back of the dining room, “Mr. Finglefoot! Mr. F-i-n-g-l-e-f-o-o-t!”
Charlie paid little attention to him. He just held the pitcher over his head and slowly tipped it to pour over his head. He slowly emptied the pitcher over his head. Then he sat the pitcher on the table, started toward the door and flicked an ice cube out of the fold of his lapel pocket. He didn’t notice that the ice cube bounce on a table then bounced right down the cleavage of an old biddy who screamed.
Charlie paid no attention. He continued to stalk out of the restaurant still steaming but gradually cooling off, as he got closer to the street.
When he got back on the sidewalk, he saw the same newsy that sold him the newspaper. He was hawking his papers near the curb.
The boy looked over Charlie for a second then said, “Gee, ya sure did get soaked in that place didn’t cha Mr.?”
Charlie began laughing to himself as he turned in the direction of a hamburger stand a few blocks up the street.
About nine the next morning, Charlie was in his blue pajamas sitting on the living room floor with his jacket open. Every light in the room was blazing. Every book in the house surrounded him. Several of the books were laying open on the flour and chairs.
Holding a pencil between his teeth, he had both hands busy jumping the pages of two big books on his lap. After making a note on one of his notebooks, he rested his chin on one hand. The other hand guided the pencil on safari in the depths of the jungle of hair on his chest. “Dad blast it! There’s a reason I can’t cuss. There must be. There has to be! Why is it that I can think of them but can’t get ‘em past my vocal cords?”
A passing pain hit him in the pit of the stomach as the thought of Doc’s warning and possible failure crossed his mind. However, the thought and pain were quickly banished.
Charlie stood up, stretched and began to enjoy the fresh gentle breeze coming through the open window. He was hoping that it would help ease his roaring headache.
After turning all the lights off, he walked into the kitchen. He took a couple of aspirin tablets and gulped a cup of self-brewed coffee. Charlie made a frown at the taste, but still felt this wife’s hastily decided vacation had its good points.
Back in the living room, Charlie stretched out on the couch under the window and let the breeze lull him to sleep.
Sometime later, he heard someone tapping on the front door with a hard object. It awakened Charlie. He refused to open his eyes. Instead, he asked, “Who is it? What do you want?”
The strange voice sounded like it was an inch from his ear and talking fast. “You are one of the first to see a mechanical servant that can do anything! It can sharpen your knives, polish your shoes and wax your floors. It can do almost anything! Almost anything sir!”
Charlie opened one eye to see where the voice was originating. All he could see was a black hairline mustache doing a rumba over the two rows of bleached tombstones hanging above the windowsill.
“Another dad blasted salesman, “Charlie thought. He got up and walked over to the screen door.
When they met on opposite sides of the door, Charlie looked down at a butter like face that was holding the mustache about five foot, five inches off the floor. Charlie said, “Look Buster, can that thing cuss?”
“Well…no, at least I don’t think so that is. I never heard it cuss.”
The salesman started to open the screen door. “Perhaps during the demonstration we can get it to cuss. It can do everything else. Let me show…” The salesman started to walk inside.
“Whoa Buster, I don’t need that mechanical monster. Why don’t you go bother my neighbor the inventor? He might find it amusing.”
Charlie turned to go back to the couch.
However, the salesman tugged at his pajama top sleeves and halted him. “But how do you know that you don’t want it? You haven’t seen it in action. It will only take a minute of your time.”
“Can’t you take a polite no for an answer?”
The salesman smiled. “Often no can mean yes after a demonstration.”
Charlie shook his head. “Buster you have a thick head. No means no demonstration.”
“But sir, it will make your wife’s work much easier. And if she is in a better mood it might be better for you.”
Charlie almost snarled. “You’re putting me in a foul mood. Take that contraption and beat it!”
“You’ll be kicking yourself if you miss this deal. It will be the best thing you ever bought.”
Charlie was losing patience fast. “Hold it buster! Don’t you think you’ve pressured me enough? Why don’t you be a good fellow and beat it before I take that machine and use it for a sledgehammer to rivet your teeth to your toenails?”
The salesman smiled. “”Ah ha, must not get mad now. I know you would like it if you had one in your house. And all the neighbors that did not have one would be jealous. What do you say, want to see more?”
Each time the salesman refused to leave and gave a reason why he shouldn’t, it dropped a tumbler into place on the vault door of Charlie’s chamber of anger horrors.
The salesman seemed startled when he saw the beginnings of a scarlet light glowing in he depths of the matt of hair on Charlie’s chest. Looking closely he asked, “What in the world have you gotten in that mattress stuffing on your chest. Is it a clever lighting effect for other ape chested apes?”
Molten fury roared through Charlie’s arteries and tore down through his arms to dam up in a raging caldron of anger in his clenched fists. Cuss words were jamming into his chest with no outlet. He began to hear ambulance sirens screaming through the tortured corridors of his mind. Charlie’s huge chest filled with air. Then his came from near his knee and slammed into his chest. It sounded like a steel battering ram striking the side of an empty battleship. Baaroom!
“This is my chest you clatter witted, gabble speaking, gush mouthed, pitch pitching, skunkified, leech headed, diddle brained, gum clanking, gibber spouting, gobble tonsiled, porch clattering, shekel grabbing gypskate!”
Unconsciously Charlie swung the other fist like an angry gorilla against his chest, Baaroom! “You palate pounding, turkey voiced, frazzled faced, sucker seeking, bellowing peddler of animated swizzle sticks. You animated tongued, meaning mangling…”
Charlie’s world had burnt its wheels off to the hubs coming to a brick wall stop. In a tomblike silence a thought clicked into place, then another and another, click-click—jackpot! Then it sounded like a group of wildcats was fighting under the front porch.
“Eeee-oww-ee! I know how to cuss! Eeee-oww-ee! I know how to get them out of me! Do you hear?”
Not hearing an answer Charlie looked for his audience. He was gone. Then Charlie saw scorch marks on the porch. He followed them with his eyes to the deep gouge marks in one of the porch posts, right up to the ceiling where he found his audience clutching his machine tight to his breast. The man had his porch roof pushed off the post a good four inches. He was shaking like a drunken hula dancer. His teeth sounded like the testing room of a castanet factory.
Charlie squinted one eye and jacked up the eyebrow above the other eye as he looked up. He made sweeping and beckoning motions with his arms ending with beating both of them on his chest like a bull ape. “Come on down out of there you post scrambling, Bunco spieling, wordy word peddler before I yank that callous peppered, swivel hinged, bull battered tongue of yours down around your Adam’s apple until your eyeballs play pop goes the weasel.”
The salesman seemed to be reluctant to come down on the porch. Instead, he jumped to the lawn and tore holes in it trying to get his footing, before Charlie pounced on him.
Then he turned around and started burrowing, throwing dirt in all directions trying to get under the porch.
He was halfway under the porch when Charlie caught him again. Charlie grabbed the first thing he could get a good grip. It was the salesman’s belt. The belt stretched out three or four feet before the salesman popped out of the hole and hung him dangling and squirming from Charlie’s up raised arm.
He had dropped his mechanical servant but was fiercely gripping its electric cord.
Charlie tried a couple of experimental Yo-yo tosses. “Whee, I can play Yo-yo with a pip-squeak of the housewife’s squawks.”
Charlie tried a few angle throws but was careful not to stretch his luck.
The salesman’s voice had packed up and left for Kitcheekemee some minutes before. All he could do was hang around collecting the interest on his tongue flapping investments of the past.
On one particularly long shot in the direction of the sidewalk the belt decided to part company with the owner. One section of the sidewalk flipped in the air as the human projectile hit it. Then the salesman’s feet moved so fast the sidewalk moved backward as he tried to go forward. His feet finally made headway and he streaked off. The salesman was running with one hand holding up his pants and the other one fastened tight to the electric cord.
Charlie was about to start after him when the electric cord pulled tight between his legs. Then the monster machine pulled Charlie off his feet as the salesman kept going.
Charlie had just made it to what was left of the sidewalk to see the salesman dive through his open automobile window head first, tugging the machine as it bumped down the sidewalk toward him. He finally pulled the machine in after him.
Charlie watched the car until it became a flying speck in the distance. Then he turned around, walked up to his porch, did a little soft slipper jig and then disappeared through the door.
The End
Daniel Whittman’s Books
Cast Out of Paradise
What if you could meet God? What if He was nothing at all, as you have been told? What if the mysteries of the world were revealed to you? Could you stand to hear the knowledge that might rock your world? How would it change your life? Would you do things necessary to get to the real heaven?
Although this is a work of fiction that is also a thriller, it might rock your world. Nothing has been told accurately what really is guiding this world and others. Do you have the guts to find out?
See a modern angel banished from God’s closeness. Then see how the angel acts in human form, trying to get back in God’s good graces.
This is not tame or religious in the slightest bit! There is violence, sex, murder, and terrorism with epic battles, as you have never seen them!
It is a rush to read this novel. It is one of the wildest and most gripping stories of the century!
Kevin and the Dead
Kevin is a handsome college student that is scared of girls. Nearly his whole life his many friends have been ghosts. In the opening, he meets a beautiful girl named Tracy who is strongly attracted to him. He starts to get fond of her just before she is kidnapped. Using his abilities to talk to ghosts and other abilities, he knows something about her kidnapper. Her mother and Kevin take off to find Tracy. The closer they get, Kevin senses more and more. Therefore, he gets Tracy’s mother ahead of the kidnappers. Then Kevin waits for them. There are three armed men with a drugged and docile Tracy. Kevin takes them apart without a weapon.
After they get back safely, Kevin helps dead kids talk to their parents. In addition, Kevin gets fonder of Tracy. Soon he helps other families get rid of bad ghosts, heal critically injured kids, find other kidnappers, and establishes a scholarship for a baby.
In a couple of months, Tracy and Kevin are engaged to be married.
Kevin has to turn down one request because he does not see that God would allow him to help. However, it angers the man who called who happens to be the head of a crime syndicate. This man puts a death contract on Kevin, his fiancée and her parents.
Later Kevin and Tracy get married in secret to keep ahead of the gangster.
Near the end of the novel, Kevin is kidnapped, drugged and buried alive in a cemetery six feet down. In order to make it the worst possible the mobster have given his air tubes to the surface hidden by the special headstone as well as enough water for forty days, long enough for him to starve to death slowly in the dark and cold. How he gets out is part of the story.
There is much more to this book than I can say in a few words. It is fast moving, very interesting and entertaining. It is also a powerful thriller.
Demons Despise Cole
Demons Despise Cole is a gripping action novel with romance mixed into the story. Cole Adams is challenged right from the start and in so many ways he is constantly off balance. Destiny is his girlfriend that grounds him in the chaos. He is artistic and develops an obsession with making money after he has Destiny. Still the demon attacks continue no matter what he does. As soon as it gets calmer, new threats from strange space aliens shatter Cole’s fragile peace.
This is an edge of your seat action novel. Any action fan will enjoy this. Romance fans will too. This is a terrific novel of almost 72,000 words. Enjoy!
Pluto 2550
This is science fiction at its best. It is a thriller full of action, adventure, love, leadership, far in the future, fast paced and with a satisfying ending. It is the first in the series with these characters. The second one is nearly finished. You do not really have to be a diehard science fiction fan to enjoy this novel because of all it has to offer.
Enjoy!
Adam 2552
This is the second in a science fiction series with the same main characters. It is a thriller most of all with so much excitement you can scarcely believe it! Adam is challenged like never before! It is a gripping, edge-of-your-seat adventure! If you want pleasure reading, this will do it for you! It is a very satisfying novel all the way through! Read it! Adventure and another world of fun waits for you!
This special novel has over 90,900 words.
Enjoy!
Astonishing Nina
Nina Stafford is a six-year-old girl. She is an only child. She is very smart and was home schooled since birth. She reads at a tenth grade level, is more interested in weapons and math than anything else is. She lives with both parents. At the opening of the novel, three assassins break into their home to kill all three of them. Her mom is killed in the attack. Her dad kills all the assassins but is fatally injured.
Before he dies, he tells Nina, “Honey I am not going to make it. Now listen. Our last will leaves everything to you. We could not decide on a guardian for you that were not greedy bastards. We did not think we would have to so soon. You cannot trust anyone. They might even have a contract on you. You have to disappear and learn to survive in the world the best you can. We have tried to train you to be self-supportive and you learned better than I hoped. Open the safe and take it all with you. You will need it. Remember the survival, weapons, engineering and business studies. Cover your tracks. Be invisible. Do not let me die worrying about you Nina. Be strong…” He stopped breathing just then.
Nina must then do what few six years olds must do. Follow her adventure unlike anything you might think.
This is a thriller written in her unique own words. It is over 82, 800 words in length. Astonishing Nina is an edge of your seat thriller of what a small girl could be with the right parents and the right genes.
Advanced Human Finds Earth
The novel Advance Human Finds Earth is a satisfying thriller. Danger is ever present which tests the main character to the full amount. He was a doctor on his advanced world and a soldier. When yellow pirate aliens attacked his planet from space, Drexel was the only survivor because he stowed away on one of the aliens’ warships. He kills the crew with his powers and steals the ship. He eluded capture or destruction by using the former captain’s secret weapon. He does not look for a new home until he is in a far galaxy not known by the yellow pirates.
He discards world after world until he finds Earth. There is a very evil and powerful alien on Earth so Drexel almost does not stop. However, he does not want this human world to be destroyed by another powerful alien so he learns what he needs to know and then comes to Earth. Soon after he gets to Earth he finds a young woman named Tricia who is a nearly perfect match for him.
Tricia bonded with him quickly as a result. Together they begin the fight against the black alien, which is much more difficult than he ever imagined.
There is nonstop action, romance, adventure, many battles, medical miracles, action on three worlds and a satisfying conclusion. Any action, romance, adventure, science-fiction reader will love it.
There are over 131,000 fast moving words in this spellbinding novel.
Adventures of Scotty
This delightful coming-of-age novel is very unusual. First Scotty has been pretty much on his own since he was ten years old. Second, his step dad does not care about his at all, or usually provide food for Scotty. Third, much of what he has learned about life has been learned down at the hobo jungles in Rivercove, Ohio in 1931. Finally, Scotty is smarter than average and likes to tear into life more than most kids his age. If he had been a farmer, he would have kicked the bull in the butt to get more excitement. There are many surprises in this novel. Scotty tells it in his own words.
Fasten your seatbelts! This is powerful fiction at its best!
Con Man and Black Widow
Con Man & Black Widow is a thrilling novel of a con man in the last century. What Chad does, you have to see. In the con man’s mind is a different world that you know. Money and women are what drives him. However, he is looking for a special woman in the meantime. He meets a wonderful woman later is the story. Two weeks later, she is kidnapped. Chad finds out when he comes home to a thug pointing a gun at his chest. See Chad’s life explodes in the mobster’s world. Then see the novel explode in new directions.
Time Traps
TIME TRAPS is a science fiction thriller of 82,800 words. The main character is a former marine. He is unusual because as he describes it, “I have no girl friend because their inner beasts would drive me crazy.” He also sees inter dimensional holes on Earth that no one else sees. His hobby is the self taught student of the power of the mind. His name is Daniel Prescott. He is twenty-five years old with blue eyes and short blond hair.
When the novel opens he is forced into a dimensional door where he is trapped inside with vicious huge, red, horned banshees. They are bigger than lions and more of a killing machine than anything else.
Due to the dimensional doors on Earth and other worlds in various time periods, other strange things blunder into the doors and are trapped with Daniel on this same terrible world called The Realm of Hell.
Strangest of all is when a young woman named Amanda is chased into Hell by a crazy man trying to kill her.
Daniel defends her and then defends himself from the crazy man. After that Daniel discovers for the first time this woman does not have a terrible beast inside her. He actually likes her.
A little later they both see a white unicorn being chased by a gigantic banshee. The unicorn is seized by the banshee. The unicorn drags the banshee past Daniel trying to shake it off.
Daniel jumps on the back of the monster and starts stabbing it with his knife.
The banshee lets the unicorn named Ulysses go then attacks Daniel with its teeth.
Daniel uses his knife to cut out its tongue, slice both eyes and open many blood vessels as he dodges the deadly teeth.
Everything calms down then but not for long. Five aliens in the future are playing with them in an evil way. They want to test these three beings. They want to see how long it takes to kill them. They are taking bets of how many worlds in different time periods they can survive.
Then Amanda, Ulysses and Daniel are moved to worse and worse places always getting more dangerous and unpleasant.
See what happens. This is a real adventure with a romance. Enjoy reading a very good novel with characters that will delight you!
Daniel Whittman’s Short Story Collection & Humor
This includes all of my romantic, humorous and unusual short stories. There are ten short stories. They include Charlie Needs a Cussbomb, Herod Hipster Hippopotamus, Is She an Undertaker,? Loan Shark for Breakfast, A Night at Liar’s Club, Partner from Hell, Screaming into the Wind, The Kettering Stick, The Prominent Angry Suckers and The Seven Passenger Dog.
Alternate Timeline
Thomas Freemont has been cheated out of his software business by his wife and partner. To make it worse, at the divorce hearing Thomas was ordered to pay his ex-wife Pricilla, fifty thousand dollars a month in alimony.
Thomas decided to disappear rather than paying Pricilla a penny more. He buys phony identification and pays cash for everything. Jobs never lasted more than a week so he could keep moving and invisible to authorities.
As the novel opens he is working at a big ranch cleaning out a stable. Another man is beaten nearly to death right in front of him by the owner of the ranch. The owner wants to hire him more permanently and will not take no for an answer.
Thomas discovers too fast that that it is a sex slave training facility. For breaking the rule of no talking he is reduced to a slave.
Since Thomas was in the military and was good at it, the first chance he has, he kills his overseer and leads a revolt of the slaves.
Thomas ends up on the run with the two former women slaves who like him.
A spirit seemingly evil hurls them back into time to test them in two different ancient eras. Then they are sent back to key places in history with the knowledge to do something major at each place.
As a result the future is drastically changed.
Thomas and both women are brought back to the new present. The spirit turns out to be an angel.
The angel informs them that none of them have been born in this timeline, so they will get new lives.
The next instant they are put into newborn babies. Their new mom Darlene names them Thomas, Megan and Misty.
All three of them have adult minds from the past.
When the kids reach one year old, their mom has them tested since they are so smart.
A ruthless CEO finds out about how easy Thomas can make money. She kidnaps him to make money for her and her company.
Thomas negotiates a better deal with her and brings his family into the business to help.
There is no more contact with the angel. Thomas, his sisters and their mom have to fight for their very survival in the corporate setting with the ruthless former CEO and the board first trying to defeat Thomas and then trying to kill him and his whole family.
This spellbinding thriller has 139,000 satisfying words.
Thanks all of you who buy this novel for enjoyment.
Supernatural Sherlita
Supernatural Sherlita is a startling look into the difficult life of a poor Philippine girl with unusual powers and her difficult battles with getting the necessities of life. Her life is turned upside down when a ruthless agent from the United States CIA tries to recruit her. When she refuses, the agent starts to kill her mom. Sherlita retaliates by killing the agent.
That triggers the enormous power of the CIA and other agencies to be used against her.
Sherlita is forced to go to America to take the fight to them so her family can disappear in the Philippines in safety. Some of the police, FBI and military units are sent against her. Numerous CIA assassins are also sent to kill her.
She charms most of the police. The ruthless assassins and mercenary units she deals with more harshly.
As she is dealing with unlawful and ruthless members of the US government she also starts building a successful match-making business in Columbus, Ohio. Sherlita also helps many who had no chance with terrible congenital problems or other problems with improved health and money.
From abject poverty to fantastic riches Sherlita is still the same sweet girl to her clients, friends and family.
It is an amazing, thrilling, and satisfying story of the triumph of one woman and all her friends. You will be captivated by Sherlita and her life. It contains over 106,450 words.
The Immortal
My novel, The Immortal, was set with the US economy doing about what it is now October 2008. Unlike the real population who are oblivious about the real causes, the population in the novel realizes almost all the elected state and federal elected representatives have caused it at the same time they are living like royalty. The people revolt and drag the bastards from their homes and jail them. Later the people’s court sells them into slavery along with all the other criminals. The public also adopts the twenty-two amendments to the constitution that starts a booming economy, raises the wages, puts tariffs on products coming into the USA undercutting the prices of US products, bans Islam, makes citizens much safer, and rolls back the evil socialism in the federal government. Want a thrilling story and all the answers? Buy The Immortal. If you are a communist or socialist, you will hate the answers and the thrilling novel.
Secrets of Death & Life
This nonfiction book contains self help information about life and death, some of which you have never considered before. The topics include: Who Are You? - Mental Minefields - Money You Have - Earning More Money - Job Security - More Happiness – Truth – Addictions - Good Health - Self Defense - Healthy Sexuality – Relationships - Increased Excitement of Living - The True Purpose of Life - Getting Ahead in Life - The How and Why of Death - Secrets of God - The Fountain of Youth - Fighting Illness and Pain - Become the Person You Want to Become - Taking It With You - Improving the World - God’s Commandments
Thank you for reading this story. I hope you liked reading it as much as I did writing it. Please tell your friends about the pleasure you had reading this. Thanks again!