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Written by Robyn Goodfellow
Duncan was off in New York spending time with Conner, Nikki was in St. Louis with her blonde Frenchman, and everyone else was on vacation somewhere or other. Robyn had one encounter with a deranged werewolf earlier in the week, but nothing had happened for a while, and she had run out of things to do. Looking at the stars through the leaves, Robyn realized exactly how boring things could be when there was no one around to talk to. She wasn't often bored, or lonely. With the attention span of a six year old, she could generally entertain herself quite easily but she'd promised Duncan she wouldn't commit anything that could be considered a misdemeanor, so repainting the fire hydrants was out. And tampering with parking meters was out, since the city was starting to suspect something. They'd had mountiecops watching the bar since the last incident with the kid named Eric, even though the kid had exonerated the patrons. Ah well. The bar was almost renovated, and in another week everyone would be back from their vacations. A soft chime from the back of the garden alerted her that someone was coming. Robyn wondered who it was. Most of the people who had access to the upper levels of the building were, strangely enough, accounted for. Flashes of purple and red hair through the trees gave her a good idea of who it was, but she waited a until they were beneath her branch before revealing herself. One of the two had short purple hair, and wore a short blue tank-top and black jeans with her leather bike jacket. The other had shoulder length, flame red hair, and wore a white t-shirt with blue jeans and a jean jacket. Not many people would have noticed the wide, nylon strap peaking out from one shoulder of the jacket. Even fewer would have known what it was for. Robyn wasn't worried though, these two were friends. As they walked underneath the branch on which she sat, they looked around for her. Robyn dropped out of the tree just as Kryn and Callen were about to give up their search. Robyn landed silently on the grass just as the pair turned. "Hey guys, I didn't expect to see you this week," she gave each of them a hug. "Well," Kryn said. "We heard you were all by yourself for a while, and we thought we'd come keep you company. We brought videos and munchies." "Yeah," Callen said. "We left them on the counter when we came up here to look for you." The pair looked around the rooftop garden that looked like a forest grove. "How on earth did you do this Robyn?" Kryn asked. "This doesn't look like the top of a pub." "I had a lot of help, but it turned out nicely. I never expected the trees to grow as well as they have." The three women walked back through the door hidden in a small clump of bushes near one end of the rooftop. It wasn't long before the three friends sat in Robyn's spacious apartment with an open bag of Cheetos, watching Humanoids from the Deep. They laughed uproariously as the mutant salmon people tried to attack the carnival in a small fishing village. Most of the movie was spent catching up on old times. It had been a while since Robyn had seen either of them. They didn't get to Lucky's very often, and Robyn had been kind of involved in other things this year. As they watched, they became aware of a strange noise coming from outside. Pausing the movie, they all went to the third story window that overlooked the Lucky's Bar'n'Grille parking lot. A group of people stood in the parking lot, waving torches and chanting "Monster go home!" As they gained control of their laughter, the girls ran to the stairs, and appeared a moment later at the front door of the bar. "What on Earth are you yelling about?" Robyn asked, staring pointedly at the man at the front of the crowd. When confronted, mobs seemed to fall apart. "Well," the tall bushy haired man hemmed and hawed. "There was some kind of a fish monster attacking girls down by the river, and when we tried to save her, it came this way" "River?" Robyn was confused. "There is no river around here." "Okay, the creek." "You mean Joseph's creek? The one with half an inch of scummy water in the bottom?" "Uh, yeah." "And what exactly prompted you to come here?" Robyn gave the man a withering look as the rest of the crowd shuffled their feet and tried to hide their pitchforks behind their backs. "Well it's a monster in't it?" The crowed murmured in agreement. "And there's always weird stuff goin' on round your place." Again the crowd voiced their ascent. "And you assumed that it was something I had conjured up?" Robyn sighed. "What have I ever done? I have customers that are a little strange sure, but do they hurt anyone?" A few voices could be heard murmuring 'no.' "Aren't I always there to help out when something bad happens?" 'Yes miss' could be heard from the odd person in the back of the crowd. "And what about that boy that was here a few days ago? Didn't I help him out, and get the people who'd hurt him sent to jail?" "Yes m'" the man at the front said. "All right then. You can all go home. Put out those torches, and gather up your families in your houses," Robyn fixed the crowd with an angry stare. "I'll look after this marauding fish monster. And if you ever come around here like this again, you won't ever be allowed into this establishment again. Quickly and silently the group dispersed. Lucky's was the only venue in town for the really big entertainment groups. Even the new Recreation Complex hadn't been able to book the Blues Brothers. No one knew who Lucky was, or how Miss Robyn was related to him, but they knew he had to be someone big, since he had all of the best contacts. 
"Fish monster?" Robyn, Callen and Kryn sat down on the leather couch in Robyn's living room at looked at the
mutant salmon thing paused on the screen.
"Nah," Robyn said. "I mean, sure, I'm pretty sure I had a transdimensional portal to hell in my humidifier, but I had that looked at. I can't possibly have some kind of reality-breaching gateway in my television. Honestly, I've barely had it two months, and now I have to have the damn thing exorcized." "Bummer Robyn. But what're we going to do about the fishy things?" Callen asked. "Well," Kryn said. "We know it hasn't spawned yet, I mean the movie's less than two hours long, and it can't have been around any longer than that. So we've got a bit of leeway. "All we need to do is find it, and hit it over the head with something. One of the major evolutionary benefits of walking around with your brain on the outside of your head." "Yeah," Robyn said. "Real smart. Well, we know it'll be somewhere where there are just oodles of scantily clad females." "Okay, where's that?" Kryn wanted to know. "Well since this isn't that big a town, there's only one strip club. That's my bet. C'mon let's go." Arriving outside the newly reopened Purple Pussy club, the three girls walked up to the door. "Sorry ladies, I can't let you go in there." The burly bouncer blocked their path. He was quite big, and he blocked out the light coming from the open door. "Marlow," Robyn spoke softly. "Oh, I'm sorry Miss Robyn," the man was instantly contrite. "I didn't recognize you in the dark. Please, go on in." "That's all right Marlow. I just wanted to know if there's been any kind of a ruckus here tonight?" "No Miss, not really," Marlow's forehead scrunched up in thought. "Oh, wait. One of the girls was yelling about someone looking in the back window about ten minutes ago, but Mr. Joseph said everything was okay. Is that what you wanted to know Miss Robyn?" "Yes Marlow," Robyn spoke to the large man as though he was a child. "That's very good. Thank-you." "You're welcome Miss Robyn." "Miss Robyn?" Callen looked askance at her friend. "Why does everyone keep calling you Miss Robyn? It sounds like we're in the middle of a western." "Yeah," Robyn sighed. "It can get on your nerves really fast. But it's just the way some of these people think. At least they've stopped calling me names. That was just aggravating.' The trio walked around the back of the club, looking for signs of the Salmon creature. After a moment, they found it, a tacky slime under the window to the girls' dressing room. "Well, we know it's around here somewhere." "Yeah, but where. What if it's gone somewhere else?" "We'll just wait for it. This isn't the kind of place where guys let their daughters out at night. Not if they're good little girls anyway. It'll be back if only because this is the only place where there's anything it wants." A moment later, Robyn's prediction was validated as something shuffled towards them out of the darkness of the alley. In a few seconds it was surrounded by armed women, bent on its destruction. Robyn stood to one side, sword in hand, watching for an opening. Callen stood off to another, her Desert Eagles out and ready for action. Kryn made the third point of the triangle, a full bladed reaping scythe held in one hand, and a bottle of tarter sauce in the other. The creature turned warily, looking for some sort of weakness, someone it could grab, some way to escape. It found none. As it turned its back to her, Kryn threw the bottle of tarter sauce, catching the exposed brain with the heavy glass jar. It spun to face her, anger making it react. All three women acted in concert, stopping the monsters charge in a single instant. Robyn's razor sharp sword sliced across it's back, severing it's spine, as a bullet from each of Callen's semi-auto's pierced its chest. Kryn's scythe removed its head in a single, well placed slash at its almost non-existent neck. The owner of the club rushed out the back door of the building, wondering about the noise. He found three very calm young women standing over the body of a well-ventilated fish thing. Without much coaxing, he was convinced that the police need not be called, and Kryn, Callen and Robyn somehow managed to get rid of the corpse without much trouble. After availing themselves of the clubs facilities, three now clean young women made their way back to the third floor apartment above Lucky's Bar'n'Grille. Robyn sighed, staring up at the sky lightening to dawn. "Well, at least I'll be able to take my TV in to be fixed soon. I wouldn't really want another one of those walking around town." "Umm, Robyn?" Callen asked? "Yeah?" "Could we watch The Mummy first?" ~Fin~ |