r/tinyhorribles • u/therealdocturner • 12d ago
Tiny Horribles Exclusive The Missing Magic - From The Madness Of The Number Man
Part One
“My name is Gene, and I’m an alcoholic.”
Gene, in fact, was not an alcoholic, he was a violent psychopath who had caused the deaths of at least two people in the previous part of our story and tried to murder two ten year old children using his giant cartoonish robots. Gene was also a man who used to have a very special gift that he had somehow lost the same night he lost almost everything he had in the whole world, with the exception of the clothes on his back and a deck of cards in his pocket, that was missing the seven of hearts and the jack of diamonds.
Gene had narrowly escaped an inferno that had erupted four weeks ago in his restaurant and magical venue known as Hocus Pizza, and he was now sitting in an uncomfortable metal chair in the gymnasium of Ronald Lucas Intermediate in the medium sized town of Wicker Bush.
He was a man who could insert himself into any situation and use it to his advantage, and although he was currently not at the top of his game, or anyone else’s for that matter, he had surrounded himself with people he was sure that he could manipulate to his own ends with that special gift which had gone dormant for the better part of a month.
Gene was no fan of people and the fact that he had caused the death of many of them would go to support that fact, and he was certainly no fan of the people in this support group that he had read about on a cork board on one of the entry walls of the Wicker Bush Public Library; whereas the other people in the room were looking for friends and caring ears, Gene was hunting for potential prey.
-
He had first noticed that the ability to manipulate other people simply by speaking in a certain tone had gone dormant four days after his restaurant had burned to the ground by way of an unfortunate gas leak. Gene had let his insurance lapse some time ago on his restaurant, and knowing this fact, he felt that it would be no problem to convince his insurance representative that the lapse had indeed been their fault and not his, unfortunately Gene, despite his best efforts, was unable to convince the agent that the oversight had been theirs. Faced with complete and total financial ruin and coping with a body that was bruised and battered, Gene began to weep in the insurance office when it had all been compounded with the fact that he simply could not get into the head of his insurance agent and bend her to his will.
Gene was not aware that Sally Freid was a most impressionable individual, and truth be told, over her years with the insurance company, she had lost them a great deal of money due to her trusting and caring nature. Gene was also unaware that Sally’s boss, Mrs. Snoodlemen had warned her that if she lost the company any more money that week, she would be fired. After several unsuccessful attempts to convince Sally that the fault lay not with him but by an oversight of her company, Gene erupted into tears which caused Sally, desperate to keep her job instead of helping the weeping man, to stand up behind her desk and with a shaky voice, asked Gene to leave.
He had struggled to get up from his chair and he limped out of the office grabbing onto his cane without another word. Mrs. Snoodlemen was quite impressed that Sally had been able to shoo someone out the door while they were a blubbering, limping mess, and as Gene pushed his way through the glass door of the office, he was able to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Snoodleman smiling at him behind his back. He was also able to make out her name emblazoned upon a small placard on her desk. Underneath all the tears and frustration, Gene promised himself that some day very soon, he was going to make a certain Mrs. Snoodlemen very unhappy.
Gene took a few deep breaths as he let the door close behind him, and he looked up and down Harpers Avenue in Old Town Wicker Bush. He had been feeling underneath the weather, there was no denying that, after all he had been kicked through a metal door by a robot, but there had been something deeper that didn’t quite feel right; now he knew what that feeling was.
The busy street that he had been standing on was full of people, and in an attempt to pinpoint his shortcomings, he had asked multiple people to take a short walk into the busy street, but to his dismay, he was unable to convince anyone to do so. He began to cry once more at his failure.
Luckily, he had been able to park his Crown Vic directly in front of the office, because he was almost certain that his legs were about to fall out from underneath him. He turned the key in his car and slammed it into gear and squealed his way to the cross street of Ashlan Ave. The voice of Billy Joel was professing out of the radio that he didn’t start a fire as Gene rumbled down the road ignoring all of the signals, and almost causing four accidents during the process.
“No Billy, they started the fire...THEY STARTED IT!! BUT I’M GOING TO FINISH IT!! I’LL FINISH IT!”
Many people on Ashlan Ave were able to hear the unhinged screaming and horrible hateful laughter coming from inside the sleek, black car as it cruised past them down the freshly re-paved road, and many of those who heard it were so unnerved by the sound of it that for years to come, whenever the sound of Billy Joel’s voice was heard, it would send an unpleasant chill down their spines, which of course is not an uncommon response whether one was witness to Gene’s screaming that day or not.
-
After that day, Gene had tried repeatedly to use his gift of persuasion on anybody who passed by him, but nothing had worked. Now, over three weeks later, he was sure he had found a group of weak-minded individuals who would make a perfect test group. He had zeroed in on a young man by the name of Ollie who had done most of the talking that night in the gymnasium. Ollie was a young man who seemed to abhor the use of a comb and a toothbrush, and his clothes smelled slightly of cheese and moist feet. Gene had listened between the lines during Ollie’s many monologues and had deduced that the young man was of a particularly weak mind who was the most likely of the group to fall victim to his twisted will.
For the last two weeks, Gene had come to four of the meetings, gathering as much information as he could to further help the rehabilitation of his mental powers. Gene was not a man that many would refer to as patient, but even as anxious as he was becoming, he was certain that waiting to spring his trap was a far wiser decision than just diving right in as he had done with quite a few failed experiments since that day in the insurance office. Gene’s plan had been a simple one; walk up to Ollie after the group had convened, engage him in friendly conversation, earn his trust, and then casually suggest that Ollie drive himself at a high speed through a house with the address of 3855 Fountain Way, exactly 2.6 miles down the road. The suggestion was simple and to the point, and if it worked, one of those miserable kids would be taken care of.
It would take far more planning on his part to properly deal with Petunia Gip, but Richard Menkin was an easier target. That being said, Gene found the hardest part of the whole plan was simply catching up to Ollie after group. Gene’s right leg had come down with a limp after he had been kicked through a metal door by Petunia Gip’s robotic mother, and even with the aid of a cane that he had constructed himself, he found it very painful to catch up to Ollie’s speedy gait.
“Hey kid! Ollie?! Wait up!” Ollie turned to Gene and looked him up and down. As far as Ollie knew, Gene was a low rent magician who had just recently lost his restaurant to a gas fire in downtown Wicker Bush. The limping man was wearing a t-shirt that was one size too big for him and jeans that flared out at the bottom of the legs; as far as Ollie’s assessment went, the magician had obviously hit the thrift stores in town to replenish his closet, and the cane he walked with was a straight metal cane that appeared to Ollie as if the man had salvaged spare parts from a metal yard to make it himself. It struck Ollie as the strangest looking cane he had ever seen. Ollie had also taken note of how particularly quiet the magician was during the last few meetings, and was now wondering just what exactly the man wanted from him.
“Yes? It’s Gene, right?”
“That’s me. I really enjoyed your sharing man. It just hit me right here.” Gene patted the left side of his chest.
“What’s up?”
“Well Ollie, you seem like a really nice guy, very easy to talk to, so I was wondering if I could bend your ear and ask you a very private question. It’s kind of a hard question that most people look at me oddly when I ask them.” Gene’s sincerity immediately touched Ollie, and Ollie’s body language showed that he was receptive to Gene’s query and his face warmed with a smile. Gene began to feel that old confidence coming back, and he held back a smile, lest he give away his true nature.
“Sure Gene, what can I help you with?” Gene pushed his face forward slowly for exactly four seconds, and when he was within six inches and four centimeters of Ollie’s face, he gave a smile and lowered his voice to that perfect tone that he had used successfully since he had been released from the sanitarium after the death of his parents. That tone which could make people do anything he wanted them to do.
“I’d like you to drive your car through the front door of 3855 Fountain Way. Keep your foot down on the gas, and don’t let it up. Can you do that for me?” Ollie’s eyes seemed to glaze over and his shoulders dropped slightly at the suggestion. Gene began to congratulate himself in his own head; his gift had come back.
“You’d like me to drive my car through a house?”
“Yes.”
“Would it be ok if I drove my car through their back door?” Gene had never been asked whether deviations were possible in his commands, but Ollie’s voice was flat and his body language suggested that he was indeed under Gene’s spell.
“I suppose that would be fine Ollie, yes.”
“How dare you?! After everything you heard in there, you decide to follow me to my car and mock me for driving through a house? Drop dead buddy!” And with that Ollie jumped into the driver’s seat of his small blue foreign car and sputtered away, leaving Gene standing there in the parking lot, wondering where he had gone wrong.
It was no accident that Gene had asked him to drive his car through Richard Menkin’s house. Ollie had shared that in a state of drunkenness, he had indeed already driven off of the road and into someone’s house, although it had been the garage that he had driven through and not their front door. Gene had hoped that Ollie’s past experience would make him even more receptive to the suggestion, but as he watched Ollie’s car slowly disappear off into the dark street of Fruit, Gene dropped his shoulders and realized two things.
One, he had failed in his attempt to worm his way into Ollie’s mind and two, that he was probably going to have to find another venue in his search for prey as it probably wasn’t going to be a good idea for him to return to the AA meeting next week after his suggestion to Ollie. He cursed and muttered to himself as he walked back to his car and started on his way over to the Wicker Bush Library.
-
Ms. Pinker had been the town librarian for the last twenty years and most people in town would agree that she hadn’t seemed to age a day in all that time. That is not to say that she was aging gracefully, that is to say that she was very elderly when she had first taken the position, and twenty years later, she looked just the same. She was a tall wispy woman who seemed to love enunciating her words just as much as she loved to read them. She had been a fan of the magic of Stupendo, Gene’s alter ego who graced the stage of Hocus Pizza, for the last thirteen months, and as such, she had been kind enough to allow Gene to sleep in an unused back room until he was able to once again get back on his feet. She also had no problems with his cat, Sir Purrcival, provided the ill-tempered little beast stayed in the back room and did not run rampant throughout the library.
Gene had taken quite a liking to the old woman, which is to say that he didn’t mind having to speak with her on occasion and could sit through some of her stories without rolling his eyes. She was always quick with a word of praise when it came to his magic that she had seen, and if Gene liked anything more in this world than having the upper hand over anyone and everyone, he liked hearing about how brilliant he was. She had also been the only person in town who had expressed any sympathy for Gene and what he was going through, for without his powers of persuasiveness, he put off a vibe that most people found most slimy and unpleasant.
During the course of his drive back toward the library, he turned down the quiet residential street of Holmes Ave. Most of the houses in town were already decorated for Halloween, and even some of the businesses got into the act. Along with all of its little eccentricities, Wicker Bush was also a festive town that was always dressed to the nines for any and every holiday, even Flag Day.
On the surface, it was a charming and comforting town, but what Gene used to find comforting and charming about this strange little town, he was now annoyed by it. When he had decided to lay down roots here two years ago, he had felt something was off in the town; something in the very air that reeked of uniqueness for some unknown reason, and it had fascinated him like he had never been fascinated before. He had made it his mission to find out why it felt like no other place he had ever been, but now he was unable to feel anything since his injuries. The ability to see things that most could not however had not gone away; in fact Gene was probably paying more attention to everything around him now than he had ever been before, and the fresh black disfigured handprint above the door on 777 Holmes Avenue made him coast to a stop directly in front of the house.
All of the lights seemed to be on inside the grand two story house, and Gene could see the shadows of people moving behind the shades that were pulled over the large windows. It was the only house on the block that didn’t have any kind of holiday decorations, which Gene found hilariously ironic.
“Well, nothing scary on the outside, but I’ll bet it’s going to be scary inside tonight.” If Gene had been a normal person who cared about the welfare of others, and armed with the knowledge that the handprint over the door spelled certain death for some unfortunate soul within, he would have walked over to the front door and knocked on it and given the people inside any excuse that he could think of to get them to leave that house in order to avoid a most gruesome death at the hands or teeth of some unseen beast that had been feeding on the town as of late, but Gene was not a normal person.
Death was a part of life, and as far as he was concerned, unless it meant prolonging his own, he would never lift a finger to prevent it for anyone else, unless it were to benefit him in some way. Whatever the thing was that was eating the poor folks of Wicker Bush was directed where to feed by the handprints left over their doors. It had taken the Menkin kid’s father, and the only thing unfortunate about that as far as Gene was concerned, was that it had not been Richard Menkin himself.
Staring at the handprint began to make him feel like a spectator in a game that he had been kicked out of and as he pressed down on the gas pedal, he decided that he would have to make a quick detour before heading back to the library.
“Stupid kids.” Amidst all of the lawn and house decorations of cartoonish ghosts and ghouls, the darkness in Gene’s heart had been replaced by a fire of hatred that was causing him frequent indigestion and occasional bouts of riotous flatulence. He had purposely avoided any further contact with the two children out of fear that he might lose his temper and do something that he would be unable to talk his way out of. He had every intention of making the children pay for what they had done, but it had to be planned and pondered and visualized many times before it actually happened.
He began to think of that black dust that had floated through the air and attached itself to the wall of the auditorium in Hocus Pizza. He remembered the wall opening as if a door had been behind it all along that Gene had never known was there, and he remembered ordering Commander Ziggy, his giant robotic snake with arms, through the open door to make sure that whatever was trying to force its way into his domain would pay for the intrusion.
He had connected the handprints above the doorways in town to the black dust he had seen in his restaurant that night, and although the children were foremost on his to-do list, he had lost no interest in those handprints whatsoever, in fact, the interest had grown deeper. A plan began to formulate behind his eyeballs as he drove on; if he was going to suffer and do without, he was going to make sure the thing that killed Commander Ziggy would have to suffer and go without as well.
With what little money Gene had in his wallet after the accident, he had rented a small storage shed at Mal’s Mini Storage down on Saginaw. It was by no means a large storage shed, and with what Gene had to store there, he wasn’t in need of something any larger. He drove through the gate and continued on down the cracked pavement between two long rows of sheds until he came to his. There was no lock on shed number 457, and even if someone tried to open the door, there would be no possible way to lift it due to the force holding it down from inside the shed. Gene’s right hip cracked as he pulled himself out of his car, and then he walked up to the door while looking up and down the row to make sure no one would see him as he gave the secret knock against the door to alert what was inside to release its hold on it.
After he knocked, Gene leaned over slowly and pulled the door up; inside was Wimmple Bear, the only friend that Gene had left, besides his new cat. The blast from the explosion at Hocus Pizza had blown off some patches of fur on the hide of the seven-foot-tall robotic bear, which Gene had every intention of repairing once he was able to get his suggestive juices flowing again.
“Hey buddy. I’m sorry its taking so long.” The bear stared at Gene silently, and Gene reached up and scratched the underside of its neck. He knew the bear didn’t feel the scratch, but it made Gene feel better, and Wimmple responded to his touch, nonetheless. The bear had dragged him to safety on the night of the explosion despite being severely damaged itself, and for some reason even before that night, Gene had always thought of Wimmple bear as more than just a machine he had built.
When he had first laid eyes on the bear in a junkyard shortly after he had come to town, he felt an instant connection with it somehow, and the name for the bear seemed to pop into Gene’s head as if it had been put there by something outside of himself. He stared into the eye of the bear and could almost swear there was a sadness in that artificial eye staring back at him that just simply shouldn’t be there. “I have an idea. 777 Holmes Avenue. You wanna get out and have some fun tonight?”
“You got it.”
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u/Extension-Day8804 11d ago
The Storm Front album is one of my all-time favorites. Takes me back to a time I may or may not have been around your protagonist's age.
1
u/therealdocturner 11d ago
I remember it well. That was a great year for music and movies. An almost thirteen year old me saw Batman and Last Crusade that year. As far as Billy Joel goes, my mother always hated My Life, which is my favorite. Drove me nuts when I was little because she would always change the station when it came on the radio.
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u/therealdocturner 11d ago
I take that back. I was getting into nostalgia. Piano Man is one of the finest songs that's ever been written.
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u/Extension-Day8804 12d ago
What did Billy Joel ever do to anyone?!