SFSD-X Short Story Smackdown

4.3 Riding Hood

"Do I really have to wear this?" the skinny guy, who went by the name of Sticks, asked. He had a knitted, forest-green hood and wrap on his head and around his neck. The color made him look nauseated.

I shrugged. "Well, what would you prefer? Yellow spandex? My granny made it, and if you want to be my side-kick, you'll wear it."

"Yeah, Okay, that's cool. So this is where you live. I didn't imagine it quite like this. What's with the squirrel bodies?" Sticks picked up a stuffed squirrel frozen in the act of eating a nut. There were squirrel heads decorating the walls and a couple of raccoons standing by the fireplace. Grandmother practiced her taxidermy on all the animal carcasses I brought home. She had them scattered throughout the house, even on her crocheted doilies that I wasn't allowed to touch.

"I seem to have a terminal effect on squirrels and other forest animals. Unfortunately, that power doesn't extend to animals the shape of people."

"That bites. Do you kill them on purpose or does it just happen?"

"The little animals keel over and die if they get too close. The big ones, like deer, I have to catch them with my eyes. I'm not an animal killer at heart, though. I stick to the town and try to avoid them."

"What else can you do? Weave baskets?" He asked this as we walked downstairs to the basement where Grandmother kept our worktable covered in small wicker baskets.

"No, another one of my grandmother's hobbies. The night is flying by and I don't want to waste it. Tell me about the SnowBlower's snow-cone factory."

"He's got a 6 story building on Main, disguised as an insurance company. This afternoon, Mr. Frosty walked into my office where I work during the day and took me to the factory at gunpoint. The SnowBlower needs a new computer whiz after his last one wound up in the paper shredder. I tried to convince him that I was incompetent, but he must have a file on me. When I refused to join his workforce, he asked Mr. Frosty to dispose of me. That's when we ran into you at the alley."

"What kind of building? Concrete with a metal frame?" I asked. I pulled out a chair, tossed some baskets on the floor and put my feet up. My knees were still killing me.

"Yeah, from the 80's most likely."

"I need the street number and everything you can tell me about security."

"Street number...twenty-four, and security...they had two guards inside the side entrance Mr. Frosty used with me, and like a ton of cameras. There was one outside and in every single hallway." He used three baskets to juggle.

"I wonder how he's kept it secret all this time. So what about the SnowBlower himself? More guards, weapons, what?"

"A couple of dogs. Big, scary f'in wolf-dogs. He had a gun on his coffee table, but no guards when I was there."

"We need a way to scramble the outside cameras and create a distraction for two minutes without detection. Is there anything you can do?" I asked.

"I can take out the cameras. I've got some nice tech at my house. I'm not sure about the guards or a distraction, though. Could I ask, what's your vendetta, anyway? The SnowBlower's not any worse than the last drug lords running this town."

"My parents were brilliant scientists who had their own lab for experimenting here when they weren't doing work at the university in the city. Two years ago, the SnowBlower kidnapped them, like yourself and tried to force them to work for him. He had a recipe for a new drug called snow-cone, but it was too expensive to market on the streets. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but they were killed a few days later and their bodies thrown in the river. It's what sparked the riots. A lot of people died and this town was ripped apart. That's my vendetta."

"Geez. I'm sorry. If you hadn't stopped Mr. Frosty, the police would've been pulling my freaking body from the river, so thank you."

"Get me to his building. I need two minutes of physical contact to rust the metal throughout the whole thing and weaken the concrete enough that it will crumble, burying the SnowBlower and his snow cannons once and for all."

"That's your other super power? You can make metal rust?"

"Basically," I said. No need for specifics for a guy named 'Sticks.'

"Can I ask like just one last question? How did you get this way? What happened? Was it radiation, exposure to an alien life form?"

"Remember what I said about my parents? Some of their experiments went south. But I'm not complaining, not anymore. This accident," I said, pointing to myself, "is about to unleash some serious consequences on an evil man."