A
Murderous Hangover
Francis woke the next morning with a jackhammer pounding away at the
inside of his skull, exactly where his horn nestled into itself. The
pain was to be expected, what with him slamming his head into that
girl the day before. His horn might be a deadly weapon, but it by no
means meant there was no repercussions for him to wield it.
Stretching, Francis 'Bud' kicked his legs over the edge of the bed,
his cloven feet clicking against the gleaming tiles. Fredrick might
be a lot of things, but messy wasn't one of them. He insisted his lab
be kept spotless and expected Francis to comply.
Smell, however, was another matter. The beakers on the table still
bubbled away, giving off little bubble pops full of sickening odors.
Overnight those smells had matured from the dog poop and old gym sock
mixture to the more pungent fish-left-in-the-sun. Francis held his
breath and hurried past the table to the medicine cabinet in the far
corner.
The horn extended from his forehead, hardened hairs twisted
together. Most people mistakenly believed a unicorn's horn was made
of bone. It wasn't. Francis' horn was merely stronger, thicker
strands of hair, twisted to a point. Occasionally the golden threads
would break, much like a fingernail snaps off. Losing pieces of his
horn didn't hurt and most times he never noticed it happening.
The mechanics of the horn extending and contracting were lost on
Francis. All he knew was the horn extended when he became angry,
frustrated, or excited and folded up like one of those plastic
camping cups he had as a kid whenever he was calm.
Francis popped a couple of aspirin and grabbed a bottle of water
from the small refrigerator next to the sink. After making sure it
was a new, unopened bottle from the store, he chugged half the
contents in one go.
“That wasn't my Veggie Glow juice, was it?” Fredrick's
unexpected entrance startled Francis. The half-full bottle of water
bounced across the floor, spilling its contents down the drain.
“It was water. I checked before I drank.” Francis sighed as the
bottle emptied. He hadn't seen any other unopened bottles in the
fridge and he didn't trust the tap water in the lab. Tonight he'd be
forced to go shopping, as long as Fredrick didn't have other plans
for him.
“Good. No telling what the Glow juice would do to you. I'm all for
experimenting, but you're enough of a guinea pig as it is. Horn and
hooves make enough of a statement, no need to start glowing in the
dark, too.”
Francis returned to his cot, his head cradled in his hands. Aspirin
took much longer to affect him as an unicorn than it did when he was
human. The jackhammer in his brain had recruited a friend and both
were thumping along happily in time to Fredrick's complaints.
“News has been quiet about that nosy girl you offed last night.
Thought I'd be coming into work and passing gossips and news-sellers
blabbing all about the mysterious death. Nothing. Everyone quiet.”
“You should be glad of it. Do you want the police poking around
and finding out what you're doing here?”
Fredrick shook his head. “Nah. Better this way.”
A fresh beaker of sludge blurped and plopped away on the table.
Fredrick added a few drops of something pink. The blurping and
plopping stopped and steam rose from the congealed mess.
“No, no, no. That isn't right at all.” Fredrick scribbled
something in a notebook before dumping the rejected experiment down
the drain. “Stay away from the sink, Bud. No telling what that
stuff will do to you.”
Francis snorted. The snort came out more like a whiny. He was going
to have to start watching that. Every day he felt himself sliding
closer to unicorn-hood and farther from human. He needed a cure and
fast.
Fredrick, however, didn't possess the same sense of urgency as
he lifted a new beaker and randomly threw a handful of power into it
without bothering to measure. The scientist grabbed one of the
overnight mixtures from nearby and poured half the contents in with
the powder. A flash of light accompanied a loud bang, and the beaker
was no more.
“Can't be giving you that mixture, can I?”
A knock on the door and a jiggling of the handle sent Francis
scurrying for the sewer.
“Everything okay in there, Doctor?”
“Fine, fine. Nothing to worry about, Beatrice. Small
miscalculations error.”
Footsteps moved away from the door and down the hall to where
Beatrice's lab was located. Francis could hear them clicking above
his head. He counted to twenty before lifting his head back through
the grate. Fredrick stood with his back to him, mixing something else
at his table.
Fearing another explosion, Francis ducked back into the sewer. It
was quieter down here. A much better place for a nap to get rid of
his headache. A better place for Fredrick to forget about him when he
made his to-do list for the night.
Francis curled up on a pile of ragged blankets and let the
jackhammer in his skull knock him into unconsciousness.
