Apex Book Company

Tommy sat in front of his computer.

“This sucks,” he said. That seemed to be all he ever said nowadays.

His pet monkey sat on the couch near by, drinking a beer and ignoring the drivel that was always coming out of Tommy’s mouth. He’d thought of warning Tommy about the demon, but he’d decided that Tommy’d find out on his own soon enough. Every time the monkey tried to tell him anything, Tommy just yelled for him to “Shut up, you goddamn monkey!!” so now he just stayed quiet.

“I can’t believe what a waste of time this has been.” Tommy whined and whined, as usual, “I just sit here and try to write something interesting, anything, and all that comes out is crap! Crap!” He began to sob uncontrollably. The monkey took another swig of beer and rolled his eyes. Every day, this same old routine.

One thing was different about today though, and that thing was just behind the door of Tommy’s room right now. The monkey could smell it out there. It was just sitting, waiting for Tommy to come out so it could devour him, or something equally gruesome. The monkey was beginning to like this idea more and more as time went on. It was drinking the beer as fast as possible so that it could demand a refill and send Tommy out to the kitchen and his certain, horrible death.

“Why, Mr. Shrieky?” Tommy sobbed from where his head rested on the keyboard, “Why is everything I do utter crap?”

The monkey only made an irritated grunt and gulped down more of the terrible warm liquid. It was probably light beer, the monkey thought with disgust. That bastard deserved what was coming to him.

Tommy slowly collected himself and sat upright once more. “Ok, I must calm down.” He sniveled pathetically, “Surely, I have more of a purpose in life than just creating one form of crap after another. If there is any kind of god at all, he wouldn’t keep me alive for such a worthless reason!”

The monkey stifled a laugh.

“Thus, if I am still alive, then there must still be some useful reason for me to be here!” Tommy’s eyes shone
with newfound determination. He reached slowly and dramatically to the keyboard once more and began to type.

The monkey had almost managed to chug the god-awful beer and was just about to live up to his name when the door suddenly exploded inward. A seething mass of black substance somewhere between liquid and gas poured into the room, lashing out and grasping Tommy’s limbs with a multitude of writhing tendrils. Tommy let out a girlish shriek as he was lifted into the air and twirled about. The monkey sat back and dealt with his last few swallows of beer, enjoying the beverage for the first time.

“Thomas Who Doesn’t Warrant a Last Name,” a deep, Satanic voice emanated from somewhere within the oily black cloud, “your time has come. You have been deemed a drain on the universe, and are scheduled for termination at 11:03 today.”

“Wait! Wait!” Tommy squealed, “I’m useful now! I swear! I’m going to be a writer! My work will inspire people across the globe! You can’t just terminate me!”

“Oh really?” There was humor in the beast’s voice “Read me a passage from what you’re writing now.”

“Um…ok…” The black tendrils tilted Tommy so he could see the screen. “It was then that the professor realized
what he had done,” Tommy read, “as he saw his sweetheart lying there on top of the pile of corpses, he was gripped with sudden overwhelming remorse. His throat tightened with sorrow as he fell to his knees, reaching up to the sky, his bony claws clenching and unclenching in the air. ‘Why?!’ he sobbed ‘Why must my creation kill someone I love? Why can’t it just kill people I don’t really know?!’ He collapsed completely to the floor then, trembling. As the full consequences of his actions slowly became more and more real in his mind, he was filled with a black despair. His eyes burned with the fires of hell. His stomach was filled with the poison of a thousand liquefied salamanders. His heart froze like an Icee brand slush beverage, and there…he died.”

The room was quite for a moment.

Um…” Tommy spoke finally, “Well, maybe I could be a poet instead…”

A hellish roar burst from the depths of the churning black mass, and the tendrils began to tear madly at Tommy’s flailing body. Blood sprayed everywhere as Tommy’s limbs were stripped from his torso, his organs yanked from his abdomen, and his flesh torn from his bones. These remains rained down about the room, and finally there was silence.

The black cloud turned slowly to where the monkey sat, stunned, on the couch. He stared at it wide-eyed, furry little paw still clutching the beer can.

“Don’t worry, my little friend,” The demon spake unto him, “monkeys aren’t expected to do anything in particular.” With a tremendous rush of air, the cloud shot out through the mangled doorframe, smashed through a window, and dispersed in the air outside.

The monkey sat for a moment, surveying the gory scene that Tommy’s room had become. He climbed slowly down from his couch and began to pick his way through the mess. Here lay Tommy’s wallet, here his spleen, here his watch. The monkey picked up the wallet, passed over the spleen, and went looking for his car keys. He was going to go buy some real beer, dammit.