Gums of Our Lives: Episode 3

This episode is brought to you by Fallout: New Vegas

Just Desserts was blasting Tag Team as he worked, readying his apartment. Thisismynightmare was coming! Everything must be perfect. His couch was freshly fluffed and his argyle cardigan freshly ironed. Adjusting his sunglasses in the mirror he smiled to himself. “Party people! Yeeeeeeeah!” he shouted to the heavens. He looked down at his watch. He still had half an hour. Plenty of time to play some “Fallout: New Vegas.”

An hour later Just Desserts looked at his watch again. “Oh no,” he thought. “I’ve been playing this amazing follow-up to IGN’s 2008 Game of the year for so long I’ve lost track of time! If only the open world wasn’t so limitless for exploration! If only the first person shooter action wasn’t so engrossing! But wait. Where is Thisismynightmare? She should be here by now.”

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Just Desserts jumped up with a start. He ran over to the mirror, adjusted his dreads, sprayed some banaca in his mouth, and went to answer it. Taking a deep breath he swung open the door. “Hey, Thisismynightmare. Fancy seeing you he—“ But it wasn’t Thisismynightmare. It was something worse. A lot worse.

**************

BabyFriday opened her front door, her face stained with tears. “Sister,” she cried, “Thank you for coming.” She fell weeping into Thisismynightmare’s arms. “Still no word about your husband?” Thisismynightmare asked. “No. Nothing,” she replied. “It’s been eighteen hours with nothing. I’ve called the police every thirty minutes demanding answers, but they won’t give me any.”

“It’s ok. I’m here now. Let’s go inside.”

They stumbled into the apartment, nearly tripping over a dog skeleton. Thisismynightmare always wondered why they kept that by the front door, but now was not the time to ask questions. “I began to worry late last night,” BabyFriday began. “We have a standing date every Thursday night to play ‘Fallout: New Vegas.’ It’s his favorite game and he never misses an opportunity to play. He was two hours late and I hadn’t heard anything, so I turned on the news, and then… then I saw…” She burst into tears. “It’s ok,” Thisismynightmare comforted. “We’ll hear something soon.”

As if on cue, the phone rang. BabyFriday ran over and answered. She was silent for an interminable amount of time. Finally she said, “Ok. I’ll be right down.” She hung up the phone. “They found something. They need me to go down to the police station.”

“I’ll drive,” said Thisismynightmare.

They arrived at the police station and were greeted by a detective. “Hello,” he greeted them, “I’m detective Werttrew. I’ve been assigned to your husband’s case. Will you come with me, please?” He led them into a small room, and laid out a series of evidence bags on the table. “I understand this must be hard for you. But can you please tell me if you recognize any of these items?”

BabyFriday slowly passed her eyes over the table, hoping against hope that she would not recognize anything. Suddenly her eyes came to a stop on a large bag. She collapsed to the ground. “Nooooo!” She screamed, clutching the bag. In it was a charred tweed sports coat with leather patches on the elbows.

***********

A Serious Monster stared at the RSS feed on her computer. “Explosion at the University of Internet Science and Blog Technology,” read the headlines on her news aggregator. “Note to self,” she thought, “Look into possible connections between the explosion and the rash of missing people.” “Actually,” she continued, “I should probably actually write a note because otherwise I may not remember.” Digging out her notebook, she scrawled it down. Above it was her previous note. “Check into The Narrator re: Thisismynightmare’s disappearance.” “Wow,” she thought, “Good thing I wrote this stuff down. I really need to cut down on my drinking. Note to self. Cut down on drinking.” As she began to write that down she saw that she had already written it, several times. “Oh well. Fourth time’s a charm.”

She began to comb through everything she could find on The Narrator. His graduation from the top of his class in the field of Commenting Science. His immediate acceptance as a tenured professor at the University of Internet Science and Blog Technology, and his subsequent dismissal after a horrible accident in his lab. The details were sketchy, but apparently he had tried to create some sort of hybrid commenter with disastrous results, and a nuclear meltdown was narrowly averted. “Wow,” thought A Serious Monster, “that reminds me. I gotta go play some Fallout: New Vegas.”

********************

Dr. Principal Enchman arrived back at his office. His secretary greeted him. “Welcome BACK. YOU have TWO people WAITING FOR you,”

“I thought I told you to cancel my appointments, An American Patriot.”

“I TOLD them you WOULDN’T BE in UNTIL later, but they INSISTED THEY would WAIT.”

Two people stood up behind him. “Dr. Principal Enchman,” one of them started. He spun around and saw a giant blue monster and Norma Shearer. He was about to speak when the monster held up his hand.

“Dr. Principal Enchman. We need to talk.”