Dan and Frankie and the End of Everything Read online

  ALSO BY RICHARD LANGRIDGE

  Dan and Frankie series

  Dan and Frankie Save the World

  Non-fiction

  How to Not Die (According to Movies)

  DAN AND FRANKIE

  AND THE END OF EVERYTHING

  By

  Richard Langridge

  A Dan and Frankie novel

  (#2)

  DAN AND FRANKIE AND THE END OF EVERYTHING

  Copyright © 2016 Richard Langridge.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First edition February 2017

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ASIN: B01MXR050A

  www.richardlangridgeauthor.com

  For Vicky. Again.

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  Do you fear death?

  Are you obsessed with your own mortality?

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  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1: AMERSTOW’S MOST WANTED

  INTERLUDE PART 1

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  PART 2: SMALL FUCKING WORM, BIG FUCKING HOOK

  INTERLUDE PART 2

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  PART 3: A MELEE OF MONSTERS

  INTERLUDE—PART 3

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  INTERLUDE—PART 4

  EPILOGUE

  DID YOU ENJOY THIS BOOK?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FOREWORD

  Dear Reader,

  I would like to apologise in advance for the things you are about to read—all of which may or may not be true, depending on the strength of your bullshit detector. And before you descend upon me like a pack of rabid, sex-starved flying monkeys, please note I am only as responsible for the things portrayed in this book as a mentally ill person is for the feces he smears along the walls of his padded cell. We can’t help playing with our shit—it’s just what we do.

  That being said, I hope you enjoy.

  (Just don’t say you weren’t warned.)

  —Rich

  October 10th 2016

  PROLOGUE

  “Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.”

  —Terry Pratchett

  PART 1

  AMERSTOW’S MOST WANTED

  INTERLUDE—PART 1

  DR PETER NATHANIEL LAKE was an average-looking man. He was my height, maybe an inch taller, with short, neatly trimmed hair the exact shade and colour of an overcast sky right before rain. I put him around early fifties. He wore a shit-brown corduroy jacket, with elbow patches that looked like they had been hand-sewn by small fingers—for reasons I could not explain. The word nondescript came to mind. He was the kind of man that could walk through a crowded room without a single person noticing. I thought he would have made for a brilliant spy.

  ‘So tell me, Mr Pratt,’ he said after a long pause, leaning back in his chair to better regard me over his clasped fingers. ‘What exactly is it I can do for you today?’

  I took a moment to observe my surroundings. Lake’s office was a single room on the third floor of a dingy little building near downtown. Like Lake himself, there was very little of note. It had a large desk near the back by the window, possibly but not necessarily oak, behind which Lake himself sat, me on the other side. All along the walls hung dozens of framed certificates and diplomas that I had the feeling were probably of things very respectable and important. By the desk to my right stood a plant of whose name I did not know, and next to it, sitting dumped on the desk like some kind of huge, elaborate paperweight, was a rack of little silver balls—a metronome.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d been expecting the guy’s office to look like. More of those long psychiatrist’s chairs, for sure. Whatever you call those. But the guy didn’t have a single one. I wondered exactly how well being a psychiatrist paid, if it would have been rude to ask.

  Lake must have caught my hesitation, because he suddenly tilted his head.

  ‘Mr Pratt?’

  I took a steadying breath.

  Here goes nothing.

  ‘Do you believe in curses, doc?’

  ‘Curses?’

  ‘Yeah. You know, like how some people seem doomed to have the same bad shit happen to them over and over again?’

  ‘You mean fate.’

  I shrugged. ‘Fate, curse. Whatever you want to call it.’

  He took a lot longer answering than I would have liked.

  ‘Do you believe you are cursed, Daniel?’

  ‘I dunno. It’s just that, even from when I was little, weird things have always seemed to happen to me.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘How so?’

  Well, there was that whole “alien invasion” thing that one time. Not to mention that other thing that happened recently...

  I shook my head. ‘Just... weird. You know—not normal.’

  ‘You feel you’re an outlier.’

  I fidgeted in my chair. On the desk before me, the metronome continued to clack away. Man, who knew therapy would be this hard?

  I sighed. ‘Have you ever seen Titanic, doc?’

  ‘Of course. It’s a very famous movie.’

  ‘Right, well, for most people, they see it as a love story. An example of how love conquers all, even in the most impossible of circumstances.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s right. It was very moving, if I recall.’

  I leaned forward. ‘Want to know how I see it, doc?’

  He held his hands out to the sides. ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s a horror movie. Think about it; the fear, the devastation, all those countless lives lost. Those that don’t drown immediately quickly freeze to death in the Atlantic’s icy waters. Tell me that isn’t a horror story—and it’s like I’m the only one who sees it.’

  ‘Well, I guess that’s one way to look at it—’

  ‘And don’t even get me started on that fucking floating door.’

  Lake was silent a moment as he considered this.

  ‘You feel as though you’re different from most people—that you’ve been singled out?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Man, this guy’s good.

  ‘By whom? God? The universe? Because if what you say is true, that would mean somebody must be behind it—the architect of your misery, so to speak.’

  Actually, doc, she goes by many names. Nidreth. Khavhu. Yithyla. They say to look upon her is to go mad.

  I shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

  There was another long pause. They were s
tarting to piss me off.

  ‘I sense there’s something you’re not telling me, Mr Pratt,’ he said, when the silence had finally run its course. ‘Therapy only works if all parties fully commit to the healing process.’ He smiled faintly, in a way that wasn’t patronising at all, and leaned forward in his chair—a chair I suddenly noticed looked a lot more expensive and comfortable than mine. ‘Please. You’re safe here. Tell me what’s really on your mind.’

  I sighed.

  Fuck it. You want to know what’s really on my mind, doc? You got it.

  I leaned back in my seat. ‘So I guess it all started that day over at Lake Fairburn...’

  ONE

  IF THERE’S ONE THING you need to know about Amerstow, it’s that Amerstow is not like your ordinary city.

  We have a funny name—that’s the first thing. We’re bigger than a town, but smaller than a city, though the “powers that be” supposedly had to call us something, and thought “city” was the most fitting. We have more missing persons per square foot than any other city in the state—and that’s without taking into account all the countless homeless people that disappear annually, too, but that nobody seems to care about, because they’re homeless. Unemployment is a real issue. We’re a city that is famous for having literally nothing famous happen here in all the hundred and fifty years of its existence.

  Of course, then there’s that “other” stuff.

  If you’ve lived here for any amount of time, you’ll have probably already heard the whispers. In the waiting room at the doctor’s office. The local cafes. Hushed chatter from people of various ages and walks of life, all of strange things happening the instant the sun goes down. Things stirring in the darkness. People disappearing, always under suspicious circumstances, never to be heard from again. Of course, if you were to ask anybody outright, they’d deny any knowledge of it. As a people, it’s not something we like to openly talk about.

  Let me give you some examples.

  So remember that time Ronald Reagan was almost assassinated? Well, a week leading up to it, the residents of our fair city were inundated one night with phone calls from, and I quote, “wheezy sounding men”, who warned them that somebody was going to make an attempt on the president’s life, and that he or she needed to be stopped. This went on for approximately four hours, until, as inexplicably as they’d begun, the phone calls suddenly ceased, leaving everybody dumbfounded as to exactly what the hell was going on.

  Then there was that time it rained popcorn for a solid week.

  Yes, you heard me. Fucking popcorn—salted caramel, to be exact. It started on the Monday and ended on the Friday, leaving the streets looking like the morning after at a frat party that had included lots of popcorn for some reason—not that you’ll find any record of this anywhere. Like I said, as a city, we really don’t care to talk about it.

  To say that weird shit happens here is an understatement.

  So with all this in mind, I really shouldn’t have been surprised then, when, slipping behind the wheel of my Accord whilst on my way to work one Monday morning, I found my burrito stalker sitting on my backseat waiting for me.

  A little backstory:

  It had all started in those first couple months following the whole Belmont Grove incident. Burritos. I’d find them in weird places—my shoes, my chair, sitting on my desk at work. Wherever I went, they were always there, fresh and piping hot and delicious. At first I thought little of it, that it was probably just one of my coworkers playing a prank. Ha-ha. Very funny, Ted.

  But then I’d started finding them in other places—on my doorstep, shoved through my mailbox, or sitting on the front seat of my Accord.

  Suddenly things hadn’t seemed so funny anymore.

  Then, just as I was beginning to think I had a genuine burrito-stalker on my hands, the offerings (if that’s what they were) suddenly stopped, leaving me confused and angry and scratching my head as to what the purpose of it all had been.

  That had been weeks ago.

  Now, I’m not sure whether I saw the burrito lying on the dash first, or whether I just got the feeling that something here was about to go terribly wrong.

  All I know is, one moment I was reaching for my keys, preparing to slip them into the ignition like I’d done on a countless number of mornings before, the next strong hands were gripping me by the ears, pulling on them with such manic force I thought they were going to tear them clean off my head.

  I jolted in surprise, sending the coffee I’d been juggling between my knees spilling all over my crotch and a wave of hot agony searing through my loins, effectively making what was already a bad situation even worse.

  I tried to spin around—

  Something cold and hard pushed itself up against the side of my head.

  I suddenly went very, very still.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, my voice coming out in a register I would have to misremember later if I wanted to maintain my dignity. ‘I don’t have any money, but if you want, I can—’

  My head rocked jarringly to the side as whoever holding the gun suddenly bitch-slapped me like a disobedient hooker—which, all things aside, is one hell of a way to start your day.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Now, are you going to be a good little boy and sit still, or do you need me to slap you some more?’

  I shot a glance up into the rearview.

  He looked a lot less like a car-jacker than I had been expecting.

  Handsome guy. Slicked-back hair. Cheekbones so sharp you could have cut light with them. He had his eyes narrowed to slits, like someone had just blown smoke into his face, and he really didn’t appreciate that a whole bunch. A coat like the type detectives always used to wear in movies back before they realised how impractical and ridiculous they were concealed his frame from view.

  I blinked.

  I’m getting car-jacked by Columbo. Holy shit.

  ‘But I—’

  He nudged the gun into my temple—which actually wasn’t a gun, I saw now, but rather a block of what looked like very old wood, carved into the rough shape of one.

  So that wasn’t strange at all.

  ‘Ah-ah. No more talking. Just listen. Understand?’

  Slowly, I nodded.

  ‘Attaboy. Now, pay attention, Mr Pratt, because I’m only going to say this once. A war is coming. The darkness has found its way past the light. The defences have been overwhelmed. You’ve been dragging your heels for too long now. If you’re going to stop what’s coming, you’re going to need to be on your A-game.’

  Ah, that sensation again. That feeling of reality shifting around you, warping before your very eyes like when you look into those mirrors they always have at the fair where everything’s all twisted and ugly and not as it should be. The feeling of everything you’ve ever known—or thought you knew—going screaming out the window, and you not having a damn thing to say on the matter.

  Somebody really needs to come up with a name for that.

  ‘But I don’t want to stop what’s coming,’ I said. ‘And who the hell are you, anyway? How did you get in my car?’

  He frowned. Holy shit, those cheekbones, man. ‘Didn’t you get my burritos?’ He shook his head. ‘Huh. Guess they must not mean the same thing here.’

  Here?

  The man leaned forward. ‘Never mind that. Who I am isn’t important. What’s important is that you prepare yourself.’

  ‘Prepare myself—for what? What the hell are you talking about?’ I thought it over a moment. ‘Wait—do you mean the Phonies?’

  “Phonies” is the term Frankie and I use for the body-snatching aliens currently running round putting slugs into people’s brains. Think of them like your everyday house-slug, only bigger, and uglier, and with an agenda to take over the world. Did I mention they were slugs? Yeah—they’re pretty gross.

  I shook my head. ‘But... we beat them. They’re gone now. We haven’t heard from them in months.’

  This was true. After the whole incide
nt back over in Belmont Grove, we hadn’t heard a single peep out of them. I was hoping they’d all just gotten bored and gone away.

  The guy actually laughed. ‘Beat them? Seriously? Do you honestly believe the O’tsaris would simply let slide the fact you killed one of their best men?’

  ‘Well, since you put it like that—’

  He held up a hand. ‘No, Mr Pratt. We’ve been watching over you. Keeping you safe. Think of us like your guardian angels. You’ve kept us pretty busy these last few months. These guys really want you dead.’

  At least that explains why everything’s been so quiet on the Phony-front lately...

  ‘But—why?’ I said. ‘Why would you do that?’ A man carrying a leather satchel made as if to walk past the car, took one look at what was going on inside, and backed slowly away again. ‘What’s it to you?’

  He rubbed his face with his hand and sighed. I noticed suddenly how tired he looked.

  Who the fuck is this guy?

  ‘Look, it’s complicated, all right?’ he said. ‘Let’s just say there are certain parties out there invested in your continued existence.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ I said. ‘Like, literally, none at all.’

  He pulled the not-gun away from my temple and leaned back.

  He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘So long, Mr Pratt. Stay safe. And remember—we’re all counting on you.’

  ‘Wait—what?’

  But he was already on his way out the door.

  There was the familiar clunk of metal as the rear driver’s side door quickly slammed shut behind him.

  Trench Coat stepped up to my window.

  He gave me a thumbs-up.

  Good luck!

  Then he vanished into the many shadows that comprised my building’s underground parking facility, his trench coat billowing out behind him like a cape, despite there not being any wind in order for it to do so.

  I sat there for a good five minutes, breathing heavily, hot coffee pooling in my lap like so much diarrhea as the heat from the burrito on my dash quickly fogged the windshield.