Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Humor
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 0986644358
Type: Fiction
Pages: 286
Copyright: July 2012
ISBN-13: 9780986644351
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
William Bradshaw, King of the Goblins is a blend of comedy and fantasy.
There's a new King in town! That's the good news. The bad news is that Will Bradshaw has problems. He's new on the job, but he's already made enemies with a fire breathing dragon. His friends are not much better: goblins whose favorite pastime is messing things up, trolls with anger management issues, an over-achieving fire scepter, and an uncooperative magic mirror.
Aside from that, all he has to worry about is a war. And that's the trouble. Throughout recorded history, goblins have never won a battle, let alone a war. But things are going to be different this time around. William Bradshaw is determined to win, using every means at his disposal, including stealth, subterfuge and exploding outhouses.
Excerpt
Trespassers will be shot;
survivors will be sued, kicked
in the shin, and shot again.
Puzzled, Will studied the sign on the door. It struck him as being a bit antisocial for the front door of a law office. He wasn’t sure what he expected a law firm to be like, but this didn’t look right. The building itself was nothing special, just a big brick box near a busy intersection. But the glass door in front had that message etched into it.
William Bradshaw was a young man, six feet tall and lean, with short brown hair and gray eyes. He wore an old suit that itched and wasn’t good enough to make the right impression with people.
Normally Will had nothing to do with lawyers, but this bunch had recently advertised for a manager’s position to oversee one of their projects. The advertisement had almost no details besides the firm’s address and phone number. Out of desperation he’d applied, and to his surprise they agreed to interview him for the position.
Looking at the message on the door, he wondered if coming here was a good move.
In the end he had no choice in the matter. His efforts to find work had all been dismal failures. Worse, he still had student loans to pay off, and the bank was getting impatient. Their last letter described (in friendly terms) how large men with baseball bats would visit him to discuss repayment of his loans if he didn’t start sending money soon.
Cautiously, he tried the door. It opened smoothly, with no alarms or signs of armed guards appearing. He stuck his head inside and looked around.
The building’s lobby could double as a rain forest. With the exception of a trail leading from the front door to the offices, there wasn’t a square inch of space not covered in potted plants. They were big plants, too, some reaching up to the vaulted ceiling. Thick vines clung to the taller plants and connected them together in a single tangled mass. Along the trail was a desk half-covered with blooming orchids, and a lady secretary hammering away at a computer keyboard. She was pretty and wore black business attire and a machete on her belt. She glanced up from her work when he entered.
“If this is about the plants, we’re working on it,” she said.
“No, this is about the interview for the manager’s position,” Will replied.
“Oh good,” the secretary said in relief. “I thought you were with the health department. Those guys have been on us like white on rice! I mean, seriously, one person gets a tropical disease and they have to make a federal case out of it. If you see anything move, don’t touch it.”
“Right,” he said as something scurried through the undergrowth. “Why so many plants?”
She shrugged. “You know, I’m not sure. It started with an African violet and kind of got out of hand from there.”
Will took a piece of paper from his pocket and checked it. “I’m supposed to meet with someone named Twain. I’d appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.”
A door behind Will opened and an older man stepped out. “Jennifer, I need some coffee, all the documents we have on the Palmer case and a bear trap, preferably steel.”
“That’s him,” the secretary said sourly.
The man standing in the doorway looked wrong to Will, but he wasn’t sure why. Twain stood around six-foot-four and was of average build. He had gray hair and a gray mustache. He was dressed in a conservative gray business suit, black shoes and necktie. That said, there was still something slightly odd about him. Something about his eyes, or maybe the way he walked.
“Ah hello, you would be Mr. Bradshaw. My name is Mr. Twain, do come in.” He smiled at his secretary and said, “Now Jennifer, don’t go frightening our friend Mr. Bradshaw. You know that’s my job.”
“I’m very glad you’re here,” Twain said cheerfully as he shook William’s hand and showed him into his office. “And ten minutes early. Is that because you’re impatient, you’re nervous, or you need to use the bathroom?”
“Uh, none of the above,” William said.
Twain smiled. “That’s good, because we don’t like impatient people or nervous people. And we have no public bathrooms.”
William walked into Twain’s office, a large room with a wood table, five padded chairs and a steel door at the back of the room. There were three bizarre paintings hanging on the white walls. The first picture showed giant squids playing poker, while the second showed a bar where Twain was sharing a drink with a shambling plant-thing that looked like a cross between a man and a compost heap. The last painting was of Kermit the Frog as President of the United States. Come to think of it, Kermit would be better than most of the yahoos who’d ever held the job.
“Do sit down, Mr. Bradshaw,” Twain said pleasantly.
“Thank you. I have some questions about the position you’re offering.”
Twain smiled condescendingly. “Mr. Bradshaw, we here at Cickam, Wender and Downe are very busy, frightfully busy, really, and this is taking up time I could be golfing and billing a client. Now are you going to sit or do I need to club you with that chair?”
“I’ll sit,” Will said nervously as he sat in the chair opposite Twain.
“First good move you’ve made, Mr. Bradshaw,” Twain said, still smiling. “There’s no time for rational thought or common sense in business. That’s where ninety percent of questions come from.”
Puzzled, Will asked, “Where do the other ten percent come from?”
“People asking to use the bathroom. That’s why we make it a policy not to have one.”
Before Will could say anything else, he heard a loud snap. Twain shouted in triumph and dove out of his chair. He got up off the floor with a confused look and a mousetrap bent out of shape. The lawyer took a tiny piece of paper stained with cheese crumbs off the trap. “Blast it, the writing’s too small. Can you read this?”
Will took the scrap of paper and saw tiny words written on it. “It says, ‘next time, make it cheddar’?”
Twain stood up and boldly pointed at a mouse hole low on the wall of his office. “Your luck can’t hold out forever, you infernal rodent! One of these days you’ll slip up and I’ll send you back to the fiery realm that spawned you!”
“Mouse trouble?” Will asked. Nervous, he scooted his chair away from Twain.
Twain scowled and sat back down. “Of the worst kind! I told that miserable rodent I wouldn’t take his case and he threw a fit. He’s holed up in here and refuses to leave until I say yes.”
“Why don’t you hire an exterminator?” Will asked.
“I tried that,” Twain said. “The man was here for three days. In the end we had to have an ambulance take him home. Poor man’s been traumatized for life. I seem to recall hearing he’d changed jobs and become a turnip farmer. Oh well, my problem, not yours. Back to the business at hand.”
Twain opened a folder and took out a copy of Will’s resume. Smiling again, he took out a red pen.
“Cickam, Wender and Downe was founded in 1851 by three lawyers who wanted someone else to do their work for them,” Twain said. “They decided to only accept men of great intellect, unsurpassed integrity and a firm understanding of the law. They gave that up after five years when no one fit the bill. This led them to hire any fool who could manage to open a door without hurting himself, which produced a slightly higher number of successful applicants. But there are only so many jobs and too many idiots trying to get them! It’s been my experience that people will lie, cheat and steal to get a job here. So far no one has tried killing someone to get hired, but give it time.” Twain’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a gun, do you?”
“No,” Will told him.
“A knife?”
“No.”
“A spatula?”
A bit exasperated, Will replied, “That’s not a deadly weapon.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you met my second or fourth wife,” Twain retorted.
“Mr. Bradshaw,” Twain began, “when we advertised this job we received over seven hundred resumes. None of them were even remotely qualified. You, however, are less unqualified than the other candidates. In fact it came down to you and an organ grinder’s monkey in Florida.”
“For a job as a manager?” Will asked quizzically.
Twain nodded. “It was a close one, but the monkey refused to relocate. Now, Mr. Bradshaw, you say you have managerial experience?”
“Yes, at my first job.”
That was stretching the truth until it broke. His first job was at a petting zoo where he ‘managed’ seven guinea fowl, two foul tempered geese that attacked children on sight and a border collie. The job lasted three weeks and ended when the border collie decided dry dog food wasn’t going to be good enough anymore. Will felt very bad about what had happened to the guinea fowl, but those geese had it coming.
“Good, good,” Twain said and wrote on the resume with exaggerated strokes of his pen. “And you have no problem working outdoors?”
“No problem at all.”
That was less of a lie. His second job involved spending three months scooping road kill off highways. Will had learned how to identify many small animals native to North America during that job, provided they were two-dimensional.
“Working with people from other cultures isn’t a problem for you?” Twain asked.
“Oh no.”
“Well, everything looks good then.” Twain wrote something on the resume, smiled at Will, then crumpled the resume up and threw it in a trash can.
“What did you do that for?” Will demanded.
“Mr. Bradshaw,” Twain said pleasantly, “I have been instructed to ask prospective employees a series of questions, a few of which actually make sense. I’ll need you to answer them as truthfully as possible, and remember, there are wrong answers and you’re probably going to give them to me.”
“Are you sure you’re doing this right?” Will asked timidly.
“Don’t know, I’ve never done this before,” Twain replied. “Question number one, have you ever committed a felony or serious crime?”
“No.”
Leaning forward, Twain asked, “Have you thought about committing a felony?”
“Does that count?”
“It does in Canada. Question two, have you ever thought about defrauding your employer of all of his money, fleeing the country and spending the rest of your life living in luxury in Jamaica?”
“Uh, no.”
“Hmm, wouldn’t last a day working here,” Twain said bluntly as he scribbled something down on a sheet of paper. “Question three, have you ever eaten an entire block of cheese in one meal?”
“No,” Will said. “What does this have to do with a job as a manager?”
“Excuse me, but I’m the one with the list of questions,” Twain said peevishly. “Question five—”
Confused, Will asked, “What happened to question four?”
“Broke both legs while skiing. Silly fool went and ran into a tree. Question five, in the event of a nuclear disaster, would you pray to the Almighty God, run and hide, or blame a coworker for causing it?”
Exasperated and more than a bit confused, Will said, “I don’t know. What sort of a question is that?”
“Apparently a good one.”
Will didn’t think the interview was going well at all. Twain wasn’t making any sense, and when he did he was abusive. Will figured Twain was nuts, or drunk, or he used to teach gym class in high school.
The questions kept coming. “Question six, were you born under the astrological sign Pisces, Virgo, Sagittarius, tiger, dragon, ox, banana slug, tree sloth or Ford Pinto?”
Will opened his mouth, then paused to collect his thoughts. “Wait, some of those are western zodiac, some are eastern zodiac and the rest don’t make sense.”
“Very little in life does make sense, Mr. Bradshaw, and then only because it’s lying. Question seven, how many people have you eaten?”
“What? Wait just a minute!”
“I’d love to, but I have a pressing appointment later today. Come on, how many?”
Will stood up and folded his arms across his chest. “I haven’t eaten anybody! What kind of a question is that?”
Twain gave him an exasperated look. “Mr. Bradshaw, I’m sure someone told you it’s perfectly all right to lie during an interview, but it’s simply not true. You are most certainly a cannibal. It’s written all over your face.”
“I am not!”
“Fine, if you’re going to play games with me I’m going to have to make an educated guess. I’m putting down five.”
“Give me that!” Will said as he tried to snatch the paper from Twain. Twain slapped his hand away.
“No!” Twain shouted. He grabbed a rolled-up newspaper off his desk and swatted Will with it again and again. “Bad applicant! Bad! Bad!”
“Stop that!”
“Question eight!” Twain shouted as he climbed up onto the table and leaned forward into Will’s face. Will stumbled back into his chair. “Have you ever found yourself in an abandoned warehouse in Sydney, Australia, only two bullets left in your gun and no less than three rabid mountain gorillas armed with wiffle bats coming right at you!”
“No!”
“Thank God for that,” Twain said and got back into his seat. “Happened to me once and I barely made it out alive. All right then, I think you’ll do just fine.”
“Fine?” William demanded. He was trying to keep his temper and failing. “Fine for what? I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing for you!”
“Oh the job isn’t with us,” Twain said and stood up. “Cickam, Wender and Downe is acting as a headhunter for a special client with very specific needs. You’ll be working for them.”
“Oh,” William said, feeling very relieved he wouldn’t be near Twain ever again. “How long does the job last?”
“You’re young and reasonably healthy. I think you’ll last a few weeks.”
“What?” William asked. Twain walked around the table and helped Will up, then wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Still smiling, he walked Will to the steel door.
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Bradshaw, and I’m sure you’ll be exactly what our client is looking for. If you ever find yourself in need of legal help, remember that our law firm wants absolutely nothing to do with you whatsoever and may send hired goons after you if you try to contact us. Now, if you’ll walk through this door, our client is eagerly awaiting your arrival.”
Twain grabbed the doorknob with his free hand, stopped, then leaned over close to Will and whispered, “Mr. Bradshaw, a word of advice?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t scream. It doesn’t help.”
With that, Twain opened the door to reveal a chamber with rough cut-rock walls and a pit easily ten feet across. Tree roots grew into the sides of the pit and small unwholesome squirming things with lots of legs crawled around the edge. The pit seemed to go on forever, its bottom so far down Will couldn’t hope to see it.
And then Twain pushed him in.
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