Smith's Monthly #17 Page 4

  But Conrad didn’t much care if she was backward and had a weird last name. Tani tended to spend most of her days in the nude and as time went along Conrad stopped drinking, lost weight, and gained stamina that he hadn’t even dreamed of as a teenager.

  Tani just never quit smiling.

  Then one day about a month after Tani moved in she said, “Mating cycle has started. Are you ready?”

  She stroked his arm and he touched her fur-covered naked back and he was as ready as he always was.

  That was the last night of sex.

  On the second day he asked her what happened and she said, “It is forbidden to have sex until the child is born.”

  She would explain no more, so he left the apartment without her and went back to the Golden Dragon.

  “Wow, are you looking good, friend,” John said. “Tani getting you in shape, huh?”

  Conrad decided to not talk about what had happened with the sudden lack of sex and talk of a kid. So he had two drinks and went home.

  Tani was nude, and now clearly pregnant.

  He stood staring at her, his mouth open, then just pointed at her stomach. “What is that?”

  “Our child,” she said, nibbling on a box of chocolates while watching The Price is Right rerun.

  “When did that happen?” he asked.

  She looked at him, puzzled. “Two nights ago, of course. He will be born in two days. My 44th child, but my first with an Earthman. You should be honored.”

  Conrad just opened his mouth and not a damn word came out. He just couldn’t think of anything to say.

  He turned around, went back out the door and back to the Golden Dragon. John managed to get him home at closing, but he was so drunk he just stumbled into bed.

  The next morning a very, very pregnant Tani awoke him, still nude.

  He took a shower, looked at her one more time, then said, “Let me know when this nightmare is over.”

  He again drank himself into a stupor, took a cab home, and woke up the next morning to the sound of a crying child.

  And Tani was back looking like her normal self.

  “Would you like to see your son?” she asked, carrying him to the side of the bed for Conrad to see.

  The kid looked cute, as most babies do. He had Conrad’s slightly thin nose, but like Tani was covered in a fine layer of hair.

  How the hell did he have a kid? He had never wanted a kid, and he had only been playing around with Tani for less than a few weeks. Maybe a month at most.

  A moment later two strange-looking women with flat faces and black dresses who smelled of mothballs appeared in the bedroom right out of thin air.

  “I’ve got to stop drinking again,” Conrad said.

  “Say goodbye to your child,” Tani said to Conrad.

  “What?”

  Tani stood and took the child to the two faceless women.

  The both held their palms over the child, then nodded. “You risked a great deal, Tani,” one of the women said without any sign of a mouth moving anywhere that Conrad could see “to mate with such a primitive creature. But the baby is fine.”

  Tani nodded and handed them the baby.

  A moment later the two faceless women in black and the baby vanished.

  Tani turned to Conrad, completely nude. “Now that’s finished, let’s have some fun.”

  She jumped on the bed, yanked the covers off him, and sat on his crotch.

  “Hold on, hold on,” he said, taking her by both arms and keeping her from moving on him. “What just happened?”

  “Our duty, of course,” Tani said, smiling. “Wonderful isn’t it, helping our different races survive and mingle.”

  She started to move again and his crotch started to respond again, being a traitor, but he needed more information.

  “Different races? What do you mean?”

  Tani smiled. “I told you, I’m from Lind.”

  “I have no idea where that’s at,” he said.

  “About a hundred thousand light years from here,” she said, still moving on him even though he was holding her two wonderful-feeling arms.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I am not joking,” Tani said, smiling at him. “I am very different from you. I am from another planet.”

  “John put you up to this, didn’t he?” Conrad asked.

  Tani again smiled. “Would you like to see my actual form?”

  “I would love to,” he said. “I have no idea what just happened with that baby thing and I need some answers.”

  She sort of shrugged. “I was warned that you might not be able to understand my original form, which is why I have maintained this body.”

  “I like this body,” he said, stroking the fur on her arms. “But it’s always better to know the real person.”

  Again she shrugged.

  And a moment later a huge, fur-covered spider with eight legs, two eyes on stalks, and large green lips with rows of teeth behind them was straddling his naked body.

  The last thing he remembered before waking up screaming in the hospital was Tani saying, “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He couldn’t stop screaming for a very, very long time.

  Two months after being committed to the State Mental Hospital, a small spider crawling down the wall near his bed caused him to have a heart attack and he died at the age of thirty.

  FIVE

  Tani-Areas-Fol-Dan-Peet floated into the Doorways Bar and saw her two friends just getting their drinks on this first day of their vacation. It felt wonderful to see them again. She had so much to tell them about her adventure of the cycle.

  “How did the mating go with the primitives?” Kreble asked after the ritual greetings were finished.

  Tani smiled, her eye-stalks swirling. “They are wonderful playthings and produce adequate children.”

  “But…” Too said, leaning in and matching one eyestalk with Tani’s. “I hear a reservation.”

  “They ask too many questions,” Tani said. “I showed Con-Rad my original form and he ran from me so I had to find another mate for the second child of the cycle.”

  “Are you going back?” Too asked.

  “No,” Tani said. “I had wonderful adventures I can share, but I want to keep exploring.”

  Both of her friends looked and acted relieved. “So where are we going first this vacation?”

  “I hear there is a little planet of ocean-swimmers that might be fun.”

  Both Too and Kreble pretended to be shocked by swirling their eyestalks and twisting their front legs together.

  Tani smiled. She knew they were as excited about the idea as she was. Sex with creatures with four sex organs and ten arms under a mile of ocean could promise many, many good times.

  She sipped her last Screwdriver from the planet Earth and nodded to her friends. It was good to be home.

  In the last of four parts, Poker Boy and his team must confront the worst enemy they ever faced. The dreaded Slots of Saturn once again.

  But the Slots of Saturn died years before. How could they be back?

  The sequel to the novel The Slots of Saturn, this short novel appeared first in Fiction River.

  THEY’RE BACK

  A Poker Boy Short Novel

  Part 4 of 4

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Planning the Past

  Patty and I sat there sipping our vanilla milkshake. It had partially melted while we were on that last visit back into our shared nightmare, but it was still good. And neither of us cared. We were both just trying to get some energy for whatever came next.

  The fries were still just warm enough to eat, so we munched on a few of those as well.

  I could tell from Patty’s hand on mine that she had been drained by helping Sherri and slowing time even more when we were back in time.

  Suddenly, across from us, Sherri, who had been sitting, mostly staring at her milkshake, grabbed her head and bent over in pain.

  Screamer instantly had h
is arm around her and Patty leaned across the table and touched her as well.

  I couldn’t believe it. The damn slot machines were back again.

  I stared at the three of them, wishing I could do something to help.

  Stan just sat there staring as well. If a god was helpless, what could I expect to do?

  After a moment, Sherri opened her eyes and sat up. Patty leaned back next to me and through the touch in our shoulders I tried to feed her some energy.

  “Where are they?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  “A rundown casino out on the old highway,” Patty said. “The Golden Jackpot Casino.”

  “We don’t have police on that one,” Stan said.

  Instantly he and I both jumped to the old casino.

  The energy of the evil slot machines pulsed over me like a wave of desire, working to draw me in with the promise of richness and fun, all for a nickel.

  An overweight, middle-aged woman, with dyed-brown hair piled far too high for even the 1960s, was headed for the deadly machine. She had on skin-tight green Capri pants that from the back should have had a warning sign attached that told a person to never look. She had a plastic bucket of coins tucked against her left breast and was about five steps from the machine.

  Another, even heavier and shorter middle-aged woman dressed in even tighter brown Capri pants was one step behind her.

  That was a sight I was never going to get out of my mind, and if it hadn’t been for the pulsing Slots of Saturn machines beyond them, I would have turned away.

  Stan and I both jumped again, appearing in front of the women.

  We acted like security guards, both holding our hands up for them to stop.

  Both women did stop, shocked expressions showing through the layers of makeup coating their faces.

  Before they could ask where we came from, Stan said. “These machines are broken.” His voice echoed through the casino like only a god can make a voice echo.

  “They look fine to me,” the first woman said, looking past us both. “I love old slot machines.”

  “Reminds her of her dearly-departed husband,” the other woman said, somehow smiling without cracking the layers of makeup.

  “He never had a crank like that one,” the first woman said, pointing to the long handle with the black nob on the side of the machine.

  Both of them laughed.

  I shuddered.

  “Yeah, you could wish,” the second woman said to her friend, and again they laughed.

  Behind me I could feel the intense pull of the machines, demanding that someone sit down and feed them.

  In front of me were two women who really did belong in the past, but a past far before 2004.

  “What can one pull hurt?” the first woman asked, giving Stan a smile that I swore should have broken a couple of layers of caked-on makeup. Her teeth were yellow from too many cigarettes.

  “More than you know,” Stan said.

  He waved his hands at the two women and they vanished.

  “Where did you send them?” I asked, looking around to make sure no one had gotten in behind us.

  “To the buffet, paid lunch,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s what they needed,” I said, shaking my head.

  We spread out a little and for the next three minutes we stood there, backs to the machines, telling people the slots were damaged, as the power of the slots drew people toward them.

  Finally, the machines started pulsing bright to dim and then back, more and more, faster and faster, until finally with a flash they jumped back to the warehouse in the past.

  They had left empty.

  Around us the old casino went on, an occasional bell going off, an occasional yell from a drunk at one of the gaming tables. Without the pulsing energy of the old slot machines, the casino suddenly felt worn and tired. And it smelled of old cigarettes and spilled whiskey on the worn blue carpet.

  “Lucky we had Sherri to tell us the slots were here again,” I said.

  He nodded. “But while you are in the past, she needs to stay here to keep watch.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  We both jumped back to my office where Sherri looked like she was just recovering from the jolt of the machine’s last jump.

  And Patty looked even more tired than before.

  I just hoped that at some point this would be over and Patty could rest.

  Not that I worried about her or anything.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Plan

  We knew that the other eleven people from the future all came back out of the slot machine in just over an hour period as we rescued everyone. We knew that time exactly.

  And we knew who they were and what they looked like, so we could intercept them on the way out of the warehouse to the police that we had stationed outside that first time.

  But Hank had arrived in a window that the Bookkeeper could only knock down to four hours.

  Four hours to find him and get him back, a couple hours to get everyone else back.

  Six hours.

  We had eight hours until the time loop locked in and trapped us forever. And not even Kronos, the God of Time, could save us.

  That was cutting it very close.

  Too close for my tastes.

  Laverne appeared and nodded to Stan, then to her daughter, then to me as she sat down. She was now dressed in casual clothes. Jeans and a tan sweatshirt that said, “Believe It” on the front.

  “Great job stopping yet another one,” she said.

  “Sherri knew where it came in,” I said. “Stan and I just stood guard.”

  Laverne nodded. “Good team work. So, who is going back with me to stop this madness?”

  I looked around at my team and sighed. I had given this a little thought and I knew I was right. But both Patty and Screamer were not going to like it.

  “I think you and Ben and I should go back,” I said to Laverne. It felt weird giving Lady Luck instructions, but she had asked after all.

  One of her dark eyebrows actually went up at that suggestion, telling me it wasn’t what she expected.

  Both Screamer and Patty started to object and I held up my hand and they stopped.

  “We need to keep Sherri here in case the machines come back. Screamer, you and Patty need to be here to help her through that. In the time we’re gone, the slots might come back more than once.”

  Sherri didn’t like the sound of that, but she nodded.

  I turned to my boss. “Stan, you need to be here to jump to stop anyone else from getting sent back if the machines do come back again.”

  Stan nodded.

  “That’s critical,” Laverne said, “because we don’t have time to figure all this again.”

  Screamer nodded and so did Sherri.

  I looked at Ben and he smiled.

  “Ben knows exactly what each person looks like,” I said, “so we’re not trusting my memory completely. And he knows which casino they came from in this time, and when, so they can be transported to that same spot close to the time they left. That way they will never be reported missing.”

  Lady Luck smiled, but Patty didn’t look happy.

  “I’ll work with my friend Johnny in the past,” I said. “He was the local cop friend that helped us. He can help me pull out the right ones and keep them from going outside to the police. We’ll jump them out from back in the shadows of the warehouse.”

  And then I looked at Lady Luck. “And you get to do all the transporting through time to where Ben says they need to go.”

  “A sound plan,” Laverne said. “We need to get going, we’re cutting this a little close.”

  I turned to Patty and kissed her.

  She kissed me back, then said, “Make this work.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, smiling at her. Then as I pulled away I said, “Just have the raspberry soap ready to go.”

  “Oh, damn you two,” Screamer said.

  Sherri blushed and Patty blushed and
Ben just shook his head.

  It made me smile.

  A moment later, Lady Luck transported me and Ben and herself ten years into the past and into the middle of a dark warehouse full of old and creepy slot machines stacked in rows that seemed to go on forever.

  All of them dead, looking very much like tombstones in a graveyard in the dim light.

  To one side of the warehouse was a very dangerous set of slots pulsing, sending off a light that made the big warehouse seem even more daunting and huge.

  And then with a bright flash, the warehouse went completely dark.

  “They jumped,” I said.

  “And as soon as they come back,” Ben said in the dark, “we’ll know if we are in the right time window.”

  “I hope so,” Lady Luck said, her voice beside me in the dark. “We have very little margin of error.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Finding Hank

  While the machines were gone I teleported to the front of the warehouse where I remembered a light switch being, and flipped it on.

  Overhead lights clicked on, showing the gigantic size of this slot graveyard. It had to be at least two football fields long and another one wide, and the slots were stacked on shelves a good twenty feet over my head in long rows from front to back.

  Laverne and Ben joined me and we went over to one side at the head of the aisle where the slots were. I pointed to a tarp that still seemed to be covering something, only if you looked hard, there was nothing there. The tarp just seemed to be floating in space. Some part of the machine never left the warehouse when it jumped.

  “My gut sense is that riding on the outside of this thing isn’t going to be a pleasant experience,” I said. “Hank will appear under that tarp, more than likely knocked out cold.”

  Both Laverne and Ben nodded.

  “I’m going to check the other doors to make sure none of them are unlocked or broken open from the inside,” I said. “I know he didn’t go out the front door because it had a padlock on it when we arrived the first time.”