They Ate the Waitress Read online

  They Ate The Waitress?

  D. N. Schmidt

  Copyright © 2019 by D. N. Schmidt

  All rights reserved

  A Brief History of the American Free Territories

  The Old Days came to an end with the Washington Riots. People finally grew tired of the endless wars, the ever-increasing taxes, and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that refused to sell you anything. So, for the second time in the nation’s history, the capital was burned to the ground. According to eyewitnesses, the first of the fires were started by Mitch Deslin and his men. They stood watching, silent, as the politicians fled.

  No one seems to know exactly how Deslin became the head of the freedom fighters. Some say the government’s last breath was spent destroying vital historical records. Others say the revolutionaries hid the truth themselves, embarrassed that their leader was a game show host. Regardless of the reason, one thing is known for sure: it was Deslin who first suggested killing the president.

  President John Solano’s assassination was not the first one to be filmed. It was not even the first to be shown live on national television. However, it was certainly the most entertaining. On the day of the Washington Riots, the Secret Service attempted to rush President Solano and his wife away to their bomb shelter, but Deslin’s men were already waiting by the helicopter. The band of freedom fighters quickly gunned down the Secret Service, and then Mitch Deslin, the host of It’s Your Lucky Day, shot the president in the head. As for Mrs. Solano, no one knows what happened to her. Seconds after her husband was killed, the station cut to a commercial.

  Soon, politicians were hunted into near-extinction, like the snow leopard, the bison, or the teacup Chihuahua. The federal government declared bankruptcy and disbanded. Texas and Alaska became independent nations. The rest of the country forswore politics forever, becoming known as the American Free Territories.

  The death of politics was the birth of a new American Dream. It was far better than the old American Dream, which was to die before your creditors found out where you lived. In the new America, hardworking individuals would finally get to keep everything they earned. No one would have to work forty hours a week, only to see half of their paycheck stolen by Washington. On the other hand, if anyone actually enjoyed wasting money on useless things, they could still go to college.

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  Security patrols across the American Free Territories trust the Mark 9 Laser Stunner to take down suspects quickly and safely. Not on a patrol? The Stunner is great at teaching pets to keep off the furniture![3] Troubled by unruly, disobedient children? A quick blast from the Laser Stunner makes any child[4] easy to handle!

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  Chapter One

  When Nick Wergild regained consciousness, he was hanging from the third story window of a whorehouse in Beaver Creek, Montana. Forty feet below him was an ornate, concrete fountain that looked like a rather uncomfortable place to land. The only thing keeping him from the waiting embrace of gravity was a pair of handcuffs, a heavy, silver chain connecting his wrist to that of Quentin Fairbanks, former politician and current lunatic. Realizing where he was, Nick decided that opening his eyes had been a horrible mistake.

  Quentin Fairbanks was a sizeable man, both in height and in girth, with all the charm and sex appeal of a young Joseph Stalin. He was seventy-three but appeared to be around forty. His wealth gave him access to advanced anti-aging medical treatments that most people only knew through rumors and urban legends. He had an odor like old milk, which he concealed with cologne that smelled like old fish. On this particular day, he was wearing a rumpled tuxedo, a black cashmere overcoat, and a smile like a crack in the surface of a frozen lake.

  “So, the brilliant manhunter is finally awake! As much as I’ve enjoyed our little time together, I really must cut things short.” Fairbanks reached into his jacket with his free hand, producing a rusty, chrome hacksaw.

  “The only thing worse than being murdered,” Nick thought, “is being murdered by someone making bad puns.” Calling up to Fairbanks, he said, “The handcuffs are spider steel. Impossible to cut. Why don’t you saw through your arm instead?” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He had forgotten the most important rule of manhunting: Don’t taunt the crazies. Fairbanks removed his belt and jammed it in his mouth, scowling determinedly. He pressed the saw to his wrist and let its teeth eat away at his flesh.

  “Oh, holy hell,” Nick thought. “I’m finally going to die. I wonder if my life will flash before my eyes. – No, I’ll be dead too soon. Maybe just the highlights: birth, first day of school, losing my virginity on a tugboat…” His reminiscing gave way to horror as Fairbanks’ blood began to fall. “I can’t keep living this way. No amount of reward money is worth this!”

  Fairbanks was the one remaining evil from the Old Days, the last of the politicians. He had worked in the capital for years, right until the end. He would have kept working after that, but once the government collapsed, he stopped getting paid. It was hard for the government to pay for much of anything, once IRS headquarters had been burned to the ground. He had been in hiding since the day of the Washington Riots, using various aliases, forged documents, and fake mustaches. Apparently, he still had a lot of enemies. Even after all those years, they would still give a lot of money to see him behind bars. Or beaten with a tire iron. Either one, really. They weren’t picky.

  With no government to collect taxes, there were no police. The criminal justice system and protection services were now the domain of insurance companies, private security firms, and manhunters. Manhunters like Nick were a special breed of private detective, experts in solving crimes, tracking down fugitives, and hand-to-gun combat. (It was easier than hand-to-hand combat, especially if you were the one with the gun.)

  If criminals couldn’t be found by the security patrols, the victims offered a reward to the first manhunter who could. The reward for Fairbanks’ capture was the highest Nick had ever seen. After several weeks of searching, Fairbanks remained elusive. Finally, Nick had a stroke of inspiration. (For Nick, inspiration always felt like a stroke.) He found a way to get Fairbanks to come to him: he would marry his daughter.

  ◊

  Melinda Fairbanks came from a wealthy family, but her father’s years in hiding had left her nearly penniless, forcing her to take a job transcribing audio books for the deaf. Her mother had given birth rather late in life, making her not too much older than Nick. Still, this did not make him feel any better about what he had to do. Melinda was a thin, nervous sort of woman whose prominent nose and bizarre hairstyle made her resemble a malnourished Shetland sheepdog. However, if you had a few drinks, took off your glasses, turned off the lights, and gouged out your eyes with a spoon, she could be almost pretty.

  Nick met Melinda at a charity auction in Seattle. A security firm was auctioning off the estate of a serial killer and donating the proceeds to his victims’ families. Unfortunately, most of the killer’s possessions were vending machine toys, old romance novels, and eerily realistic ceramic clowns. To encourage bidding, the auctioneer offered to personally deliver each item, either to the winner’s home or to the local dump.

  Nick arrived at the auction, lit a cigarette, and cornered a waiter. “Excuse me. D
o you see that woman sitting by herself, at the table in the corner? I would like to buy her a drink.”

  “It’s an open bar, sir,” the waiter replied. “Drinks are free.”

  “In that case, send her twelve.” He waited for the drinks to be delivered and then strolled over to Melinda’s table. “So, are you drunk enough to think I’m cute, or should I come back in an hour?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. My name is Nick Wergild, and I’m a billionaire with a heart condition.”

  They were soon engaged. Mr. Fairbanks sent a video mail, saying that he would pay for the wedding. It would be an expensive ceremony, with limo service for all the guests, a live orchestra and, at Nick’s request, an ice sculpture of a grizzly bear playing the banjo. Melinda insisted that the wedding be held in Billings, Montana, where she had been raised. Her entire family would be attending, save for her sister, who was out of the country, and an uncle who thought there might be something good on TV that day.

  Nick was in the men’s room, changing into his tuxedo, when Fairbanks arrived. As Nick had requested, the limo driver announced his arrival with two sharp blasts of his horn. Hurriedly, Nick pulled on his jacket and rushed outside, meeting Fairbanks in the church’s small, gravel parking lot.

  “So, Fairbanks, we meet at last.”

  “Nicholas, my boy, we’re about to be family! Please, call me ‘Sir.’”

  “Actually, that’s the problem. I’m not getting married at all. This was just a ploy to bring you out of hiding.” Nick reached into his jacket and drew his laser stunner, aiming the black, metal tube at Fairbanks’ head. “A lot of people are dead because of you, people whose families have waited a long time for justice. Also, there’s a reward and I could really use the cash. Turn around and put your hands on your head. You’re coming with me.”

  “My god,” Fairbanks moaned. “You’re leaving my daughter at the altar? She’ll be heartbroken! Or she would have been, if she weren’t marrying you for your money. Of course, if you’re really a manhunter, you don’t have any… But still, I imagine she’ll be disappointed. Probably. I suppose.”

  “Forget about her,” Nick said, locking Fairbanks in handcuffs. “Get in the car. I have to take you back to Vancouver to get my reward.”

  “Canada?” Fairbanks gasped. “Can’t you just shoot me?”

  “Oh, god, no. The good Vancouver, in Washington.” Nick shoved his prisoner into the rental car and hopped into the driver’s seat. “Get comfortable. It’s going to be one hell of a long drive.”

  “Can I listen to the radio?”

  “No. Be quiet or I’ll make you ride in the trunk.”

  Nick took a moment to punch in an address into his navigation system before continuing on his way. After taxes were eliminated, the roads became privately owned. No one wanted to drive on roads full of toll booths so, instead, most roads were funded by advertising. The ad companies soon lined the nation’s highways with twelve-foot-high, flashing billboards. If you didn’t know exactly where you were headed, it was easy to get lost. Billboards didn’t make very good landmarks. In just a few hours, what was once a billboard for “Cannabliss Cigarettes” could become a billboard for “Holy Spirit Church, Inc.”

  After an hour of driving, Nick found himself in Beaver Creek. He pulled into a rest stop, parking in the grass next to the restrooms. “Come on,” he said, “I have to pollute the groundwater.”

  “I don’t,” Fairbanks snapped. “Sorry about that. I know how you girls like to go to the bathroom in groups.”

  “Well, that was hurtful. However, I can’t leave you sitting in here alone. This isn’t a security patrol car; you can open the back doors from the inside. That’s why I’ve been driving ninety miles an hour all this time, to keep you from opening the door and jumping. Well that, and because it’s fun. If you drive fast enough, the blood rushes to the back of your brain and you see the strangest things…”

  Nick dragged his prisoner into the restroom, handcuffing him to a pipe hanging from the ceiling. He stepped into a stall and sighed, exhausted. The restroom hadn’t been cleaned since the early Mesozoic Era. Thousands of travelers had passed through, leaving behind various smells, stains, and bodily fluids. Just above the toilet paper dispenser, someone with a red marker and shaky handwriting had written “Are you paranoid, or is that just what they want you to think?”

  He read graffiti for a while, chuckling at the dirty limericks. Suddenly, filthy, brown water seeped under the stall. Opening the door, he found that the water pipe was broken and Fairbanks was gone.

  “Oh, holy hell.”

  He rushed outside just in time to see Fairbanks dash across the highway, artfully dodging speeding cars. Nick chased after him, holding traffic at bay with his badge and laser stunner. Horns blaring, motorists greeted him with obscene gestures and hurled fast food containers.

  Fairbanks ducked into a large, Victorian house. The building had crimson lights hanging from the porch and a flashing neon sign identifying it as “Aphrodite’s Temple,” a brothel. By the time Nick made it inside, Fairbanks had vanished.

  The walls of Aphrodite’s Temple were dark wood engraved with scenes from the Kama Sutra. The floors were marble tile covered with shaggy, burgundy rugs. An ornate chandelier swayed gently; apparently some guests upstairs were shaking the floor. Near the door, a video screen on the wall was playing a documentary on the history of the brothel.

  “…since the days of government, when prostitution was illegal. However, the women of Aphrodite’s Temple were able to get around the law. Customers were given sex for free, but charged three hundred dollars to leave without cuddling.”

  The front hall was an immense, two-story passageway with a desk at the far end manned by an AutoGreeter. The Schlock Products™ AutoGreeter was a low-end variety of mechanical receptionist. The top half of the machine looked like a well-dressed, young woman, but the bottom half resembled an abstract sculpture thrown together from surgical tubing, transistors, and old air conditioner parts. An AutoGreeter was supposed to be capable of the same variety of facial expressions as a real human, but this one could only manage two: “smiling” and “mild stroke.”

  “Hello,” the android chirped, “and welcome to Aphrodite’s Temple! May I show you our menu? We have very pretty girls!”

  “No thanks,” he said, scanning the room. “I’m just looking for someone. I’ll only be a minute.”

  “Welcome to Aphrodite’s Temple!” the android repeated. “May I show you our menu? We have very handsome boys!”

  “I’m looking for a man in handcuffs,” Nick explained, annoyed. “Did you see which way he went?”

  “Handcuffs are on sale in our gift shop! Welcome to Aphrodite’s Temple! Would you like to see our menu? We have boys that look like pretty girls!”

  Nick stormed past the malfunctioning machine. The hallway ended in double doors. Pushing his way through, he found himself in a small kitchen. A large, steaming roast was sitting atop a doily-covered counter. A plump, white-haired woman in a floral print apron was pulling a pie from an oven. Needless to say, he was stunned. It was like finding a Norman Rockwell painting hanging in an outhouse.

  “Yes?” the woman asked, placing the pie on a windowsill. It smelled like blueberry. “Can I help you with something, son?”

  “Did you see a fat man in handcuffs run through here?”

  “Oh no,” she laughed, wiping her hands on a tattered dishtowel. “Did your playmate get away?”

  “It’s not like that. See, I was engaged to his daughter, but only so I could get to him. – Wait, that doesn’t sound right. …Just forget it.” He turned for the doors, but stopped suddenly. “I have to ask you something, or it will bug me for the rest of the day. Why does a brothel need a kitchen?”

  “It’s for the messy lovers, mostly,” the woman said. “Some of the boys like to cover the girls in pudding or whipped cream. Back in my younger days, I knew a nice man who loved to pour hollandaise sauce all over my body. I
would have preferred béarnaise, but I wasn’t ready to share such a personal secret with him…”

  “I’d really better go,” Nick said, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. He left the woman to her reminiscing and headed upstairs.

  The second story held endless rows of “guest rooms.” Most of them were identical, with a hot tub, waterbed, and a mirror on the ceiling. Other rooms were built around a particular theme: medieval dungeon, Roman bathhouse, dog kennel. Most of the guest rooms were occupied and, of course, locked. Nick searched the vacant rooms, gradually working his way down the hall. He accidentally walked in on a few couples but, fortunately, none of them were doing anything strange. At least, nothing stranger than what he did at home.

  Opening a door, he saw that there was no bed in the room, just a stack of mops and cleaning supplies. It was either a storage closet or another theme room. Plastic shelves in the back were filled with cases of “Liquid Codpiece,” a spray-on prophylactic. The spray formed a protective layer that was thinner than a traditional condom and transferred heat better. The only downside was pulling it off.

  A soft squeak from down the hall. He poked his head out of the closet just in time to see Fairbanks duck into an empty guest room. Nick sprinted down the hall and threw himself at the door. The door slammed open, knocking Fairbanks to the floor, his head bouncing painfully off the marble tile.

  “Get up!” Nick yelled. “Slowly.” Grabbing a nearby bedpost, Fairbanks pulled himself to his feet. He was still wearing Nick’s handcuffs. “I can’t risk you getting away again. You’ve forced me to chain myself to you. I hope you’re happy.” Nick unlocked one of the cuffs and snapped it on his own wrist and then pushed Fairbanks down the hall to the stairs. He seemed almost eager to go, taking two steps at a time. “Slow it down, Fairbanks.” But Fairbanks leapt down the stairs four at a time, dragging Nick behind him. Suddenly, Nick lost his footing. He slid down the stairs, crashing into a wall.