Monsane: Random Tangent, #2

By Chris Hollywood

Some people are born with vacations, some achieve vacations, and some have vacations thrust upon them, as William Shakespeare almost said. Mongrel Stevens is firmly in the later category. 

 

After being accused of a crime he didn't commit, Mongrel Stevens flees to Cuba to seek refuge. There he meets the very man he supposedly killed, as well as the very police officer trying to arrest him. Small world, right? Oh and he also meets a creature whose very existence proves that something is very wrong in the Universe. While Mongrel adopts the little deus ex machina of a beast, can he also prove his innocence and earn his freedom?

 

(Please note that this is a short story; more episodes are coming)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Hollywood
• Release date: Mar 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201847357

Book preview

It was walking around Mon Isle before our story began.

It still is.

And now our story begins.

Mongrel looked at it, but it didn’t look back, because it didn’t have any eyes.

Mon, it said for the umpteenth time.

Is that all you can say? Mongrel asked it.

Mon.

It had no eyes, but had a very keen sense of...well, everything. And not just the kind of senses like sight, sound, or smell. It had senses like Spidey Sense, luminescence, nonsense, Seinfeld sense (knowing what channel Seinfeld was on even without a TV guide). It also had senses that don’t even have names yet, like the sense you have that you’re about to be hit by a bus, or the sense that fruit is watching you, and it always, always remembers where the car is parked. Mons have these kinds of senses.

Maybe it’s psychic or something, Mongrel ventured. It sure is a freak of nature."

Indeed.

Mongrel was on the run from the law, even though it was technically on his side. Officer Switchblade of the Dunttstown police department believed he had murdered Captain Pete. Of course Mongrel denied this, and there was no evidence, yet the officer was a swell guy and Mongrel hated to say no to him. After all, Mongrel did need more friends. But the next morning he’d come to his senses and realized how foolish he was being, so he booked a flight out of the country, not particularly caring where.

This turned out to be another poor decision. Although he’d ended up on a flight to Cuba – or several flights, since there were two layovers and one connection, (it was cheaper than a nonstop) – he’d almost died getting there. The last leg of the journey was out of Jamaica on a small commuter place, the pilot of which had begun the flight stoned out of his mind and grew worse from there. Out of the handful of passengers aboard, Mongrel must have looked the most appetizing, as the pilot became incredibly hungry and saw Mongrel as a bubbling pot of beef stew, and tried to drink him. Mongrel quickly grabbed a parachute, leapt out of the plane, and floated down to Mon Isle. From there, he wandered around until he came across a medium-sized perfectly round red blob with feet.

It’s just a walking mouth, Mongrel was quick to point out. It looks like a red Pac-Man. And it probably isn’t going to help me get off this island is it?

Mon, said the mon.

Oh. Well in that case, come on, we’ve got to get to Cuba...somehow.

Mon Isle is not an incredibly vast stretch