Posted by Dancer (via HH) on May 30, 2001 at 16:24:58:
Dancer #28:
[The scene: the dawn of creation.
Timespace is newfangled. A mean-looking old bald man shakes his fist at some
rapidly-disappearing heroes.]
Mean-looking old bald man: Darn you! Come back here with my talisman!
SacredClownSmilingCoyote!: Ha-ha!
*SCSC!, HV, Paradox Stranger, and Space Ghost run away over the event
horizon*
[Meanwhile, several billion years later, waitress Sarah Shepherdson is
working a late shift at the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar]
Sarah: Hi! I’m Sarah, and I’ll be your… You!!!!!!
Con Johnstantine, trench-coated troublemaker: Hello, darlin’. I happened to
be in town and I thought of you. Careful. You nearly spilled that boiling coffee
down my pants.
Sarah: It wasn’t an accident. What do you want, Johnstonslime?
Con Johnstantine: Cappuccino, bagel, packet of sugar. And I suppose a quickie
under the counter’s out of the question?
Sarah: I don’t do ‘quickies under the counter’. These days.
Johnstantine: You were a lot more fun before you wised up to me, darlin’.
Still doin’ the charity work?
Sarah: I help where I can. For the genuinely needy and deserving, as opposed
to showerdrain slime, that is.
Johnstantine: Well that’s good news, cause I don’t have a bed for the night,
and I was wondering if there was some room in yours.
Sarah: Don’t push your luck, Johnstantine. There’s more coffee in this pot,
you know. If you really need help I’ll fix you up at the YMCA.
Johnstantine: Thanks, Shep, but I’ll manage somehow. Your bed would have been
a lot cosier though.
Sarah: Don’t count on it.
Johnstantine: Tell you what, just look after my bag for me while I get fixed
up. I’ll be back for it in the morning, okay?
Sarah: OK.
Johnstantine: *smiles*
[So Sarah locks up and heads home. On the way she posts a letter to her
mother, picks up some milk at the all-night mini market, and flags down a
taxicab for a nice old lady. When she gets back to her loft over the Bean and
Diner she is glad to kick off her shoes and put the radio on while she does
her exercises]
Radio newsreader: …series of strange incidents in central Parodiopolis. Even
while emergency services were investigating the freak whirlwind that devastated
the central post office there was some kind of localised earthquake at a nearby
mini-mall. And reports are just coming in of some kind of explosion at the
Parodiopolis Cab Company…
Sarah: Hmmm. What a mysterious series of apparently unrelated events.
[Radio goes all crackly]
Sarah: What? Cheap rubbish radio. Let’s see what the chances of me hitting
you making you work are.
[There is a knock on the door]
Sarah: Huh? Who can that be at this time of night? It had better not be that
Con Johnstantine trying his luck again. Not that he would get anywhere of
course, charming bastard that he is, with that cheeky grin and wicked twinkle in
his eye… [*answers door*]
Frightmare, Lord of the Nightmare Realms: Greetings, Dancer. I am Frightmare,
Lord of the Nightmare Realms.
Sarah: Yes, I remember you now from Dancer #2. Is this a social call?
Frightmare: Hardly. I have come to claim the amulet that the irritating Con
Johnstantine left with you this evening. [*looks at the bag Shep was given to
look after*] Ah, there it is.
Sarah: He is irritating, isn’t he? Don’t you find the smug way he sets people
up like chess pieces makes you want to slap him?
Frightmare: Oh, yes. And that stench of cheap English cigarettes…
Sarah: And that crumpled old trenchcoat…
Frightmare: And the way he sort of smirks when he knows he’s done something
clever.
Sarah: I see you know him well. So about this amulet… What is it?
Frightmare: Oh, it’s a primal elder artefact containing the greater portion
of the power of… why the hell am I explaining the plot to you?
Sarah: Because you’re a helpful supernatural entity of dread and horror?
Frightmare: Just give me the damn amulet. Johnstantine tricked you into
guarding it anyway. You don’t owe him anything.
Sarah: True. But on the other hand you are a baddie, so it wouldn’t be right
to let you have it. It’s not mine to give away, you see. Sorry.
Frightmare: If you do not give it to me then I shall dredge up the worst
horrors of my realm and send them forth to rend it from you before the night is
done.
Sarah: I’d prefer it if you didn’t. Hey, was it you who did that stuff to the
post office to check if I’d mailed it, and to the mini-market and cab place to
see if I’d slipped it away there?
Frightmare: No. that was the… opposition. Give the amulet to me and I shall
save you from him.
Sarah: that’s very kind of you but really I think I’ll hold on to it for Con.
Not that he won’t be getting a piece of my mind when he gets it back. Thank you
for calling.
Frightmare: What? Weren’t you listening to my threats.
Sarah: Oh yes. I certainly was. Very good threats they were too, I thought.
Chilling stuff. Anyway, I’ll expect the nightmares to attack presently, shall I?
Bye! [closes door].
[*Loud explosion as of a doom tube opening in Sarah’s bathroom*]
Sarah, picking herself up from behind the sofa: What the heck was that? I
didn’t know Donar had called in after an all-night curry eating session again.
Dark Thugos, Destroyer of Tales, walking out of the bathroom: Ah, there you
are Probability Dancer. Give me the Amulet of Parodies or die.
[To be continued, natch]