(Part One by Nathan Stout)
[INT – DAY – TRUCK]
(Nathan finishes touching up the corpse, cleaning all the mess away, and strategically placing the hat over the hole in his head. He then calls out to Miguel.)
NATHAN: OK, come on.
(Miguel climbs into the driver seat, trying not to look at the corpse.)
NATHAN: Chris said we were way north, so head that-a-way.
MIGUEL: Okay.
(Miguel pulls out of the gas station, and passes an old man collecting cans on the roadside. The man looks up to see his buddy and waves. Nathan raises the corpse’s hand up and wiggles it a bit, as he and Miguel both wave at the same time as well.)
MIGUEL: We are so going to hell.
NATHAN: You don’t believe in hell.
MIGUEL: I think it just popped into existence when we decided to do this.
NATHAN: Don’t worry about it. He WAS rude after all.
(Miguel pulls onto the highway.)
MIGUEL: Let’s just hope we don’t get pulled over.
(A highway patrol car starts pulling them over.)
MIGUEL: Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!
NATHAN: Okay…
(Nathan has to shove the corpse back to see Miguel.)
NATHAN: Just remember what we talked about. Stay calm.
(Miguel starts to panic. He opens his mouth to scream out, and Nathan flicks an anxiety pill across the corpse’s nose into Miguel’s mouth.)
NATHAN: Breathe.
(Miguel breathes, and breathes again, as he pulls over. The highway patrol eventually comes up to the open window.)
5-0: May I see your license and insurance, please?
(Miguel hands his license, and Nathan raises the corpse’s hand up by the elbow with the insurance clasped between its fingers. Miguel’s eyes widen, as he had not been expecting to see this. He grabs the paper and hands it to the officer.)
5-0: Did you hit something on the road today sir?
MIGUEL: Huh?
5-0: There is some sort of animal matter on all over the front of the truck.
(The officer sees the splatter inside the truck’s cab.)
5-0: What’s that?
NATHAN: Uh, I’m not sure, sir. It’s Hector’s truck.
(The only two living people in the truck point to the corpse.)
5-0: Can you explain all this?
(There is a long, long, long pause. Then Nathan presses his elbow against the corpse’s stomach, forcing air out of its mouth. Then Miguel takes over with his power.)
CORPSE: Yes officer, I hit a dear. It was pretty nasty. I’m taking it to have my nephews clean it.
(Nathan and Miguel exhale loudly in relief.)
5-0: Alright. I just thought I should check.
(The officer leans in a little more and sniffs.)
5-0: Yeah, it’s got kind of a dead smell in there.
(Nathan slipped his hand up the corpse’s back and tugged at its hair, making it nod.)
5-0: Have a nice day.
(After the highway patrol drives off, Nathan and Miguel just sit there staring forward, not able to say anything for a long time. Miguel finally breaks the silence, a full three minutes later.)
MIGUEL: I think I shit my pants.
(End of Part One)
(Part Two by Chris McGinty)
(Nathan and Miguel drive back into Fort Worth in silence. They get pulled over seemingly every five minutes, and have to go through their “Weekend at Hector’s” routine over and over again. They get pretty good at it, and start considering doing it as an act at nursing homes, figuring they could end the act by saying, “Just remember ladies and gentlemen, you have more life in you than our friend does.” But after a few more times getting pulled over, Nathan finally gets tired of it. Recognizing that they are close to the shop, where they started, Nathan tells Miguel to exit. They drive the truck to Lake Como, and put it in neutral. They push the truck, and Hector’s body, into the lake, never to be seen again.)
NATHAN: I still think we should have gone and got your car first.
MIGUEL: My wife would flip out if I brought a dead body to the house.
NATHAN: You don’t think she’s going to flip out once she finds out everything that’s happened?
MIGUEL: You forget that part of my power is the ability to obscure the truth.
NATHAN: Then couldn’t you have obscured the truth about the dead body?
MIGUEL: Um… We can just get a cab, ok?
(Thirty minutes later, the cab pulls up. Miguel climbs in, but before Nathan can get in, the cab driver stops him.)
CAB DRIVER: You’re the guy who disrespected cab drivers everywhere. You get no ride.
NATHAN: I’m not the only person to ever talk bad about a cab driver.
(The cab driver holds firm.)
NATHAN: Nevermind. I’ll just take the bus or something.
MIGUEL: I’ll go with you.
NATHAN: Nah, take the cab. Get home. I’ll figure out something.
(The cab drives off with Miguel in it. Nathan pulls out his phone and tries to call Chris. He gets voicemail.)
VOICEMAIL: Sorry I can’t answer now. I’m moving faster than the speed of sound. Leave a message, and I will definitely call you back… unless you’re Nathan. Then I definitely won’t.
(Nathan hangs up, and starts walking. After about forty minutes, he finds himself at the wreckage of the shop. He walks around looking for anything that can be salvaged for sale on eBay, intentionally ignoring the light cycle. There are “Magic: The Gathering” cards everywhere, in all states of burnt or bent. He finds some models of the vehicles from various Japanese anime. In most cases, the plastic is melted, making the model useless. He finds and old Munchie shack menu that he had put in the bathroom for reading material. He finds some odd, wall mounted shark that Chris had bought at a garage sale. Chris wanted to use it as decoration in the shop, until Nathan pointed out that the term “shark” has a negative connotation in business. Then he sees the compilation CD Chris made him. It’s broken in half.)
VOICE (from above): Ahoy down there!
NATHAN: Who the hell says ahoy?
(Nathan looks up and sees the Re/Max balloon making a landing.)
NATHAN: Dentre?
(The balloon lands. Dentre steps out of the gondola.)
NATHAN: Here to survey the damage?
DENTRE: No. Once a property is sold I no longer concern myself with it, but I thought that if you and Chris survived, you might come back here to salvage some of your merchandise. I guess Chris didn’t make it?
NATHAN: He made it. He got mad at me about something, and is avoiding me now. Thanks for asking about Miguel.
DENTRE: Oh, was that his name? Dead I presume.
NATHAN: Married.
DENTRE: Oh. Listen, Nathan, I’m sorry to say that Paul has betrayed the realty brotherhood. He’s in cahoots with the professor now. We have intelligence reports saying that they are holed up in a secret location somewhere planning an evil plot that will start with a crime spree to spread the law enforcement too thin, and then they will launch a major crime attack on the city that will lower the real estate market to the point that recovery may not be possible.
NATHAN: No offense, Dentre, but I’m not really all that concerned with whatever the professor is doing. And the value of housing in my neighborhood has dropped so far that another drop isn’t going to really hurt that much.
DENTRE: You may not care about the professor, but I know for a fact that you have a vendetta against Quincy the Glassbreaker.
NATHAN: Yes.
(Nathan’s eyes narrow, as though he is remembering something unpleasant.)
NATHAN: My first business was an expensive glass collectibles shop. Quincy came to me looking for a job. He said that he had a keen interest in glass, so I hired him. It turns out that his keen interest was in the sound that glass makes when it shatters. I came back from the post office one day to find everything shattered, and Quincy nowhere to be found. I ran a search on the internet, hoping to find a social networking site, thinking that maybe he might check in his location from his cell phone. Instead, I found an old news story. It was Greenly Meadows talking about Quincy the Glassbreaker. It turns out I wasn’t his only victim. He has broken into houses to destroy China collections. So many expensive plates he’s destroyed. He’s knocked over liquor stores. And when I say he knocked them over, I don’t mean that he robbed them. I mean that he pushed over the shelves. So many glass liquor bottles he’s destroyed. Greenly Meadows even let it slip that Quincy once broke Greenly’s glass crack pipe.
DENTRE: Our intelligence reports show that Quincy the Glassbreaker is heading up the crime spree. If we can stop Quincy, we can stop the real estate prices from dropping.
NATHAN: Then count me in.
DENTRE: Since Chris is gone, you will need a partner.
(Dentre makes a call on his cell phone.)
DENTRE: Send Agent Carpeting to 6585 Dentre, please.
NATHAN: Carpeting?
DENTRE: Shag Carpeting. He’s one of our best agents.
NATHAN: You’re kidding, right?
(But fifteen minutes later, Nathan sees something flying through the air. It’s an aerial hovercraft, and hanging from a lowered rope ladder is a tall, muscular blonde man. His hair is frizzed into a blonde afro. He’s wearing a bellbottom jumpsuit with an open chest, revealing a well tanned chest, fully grown over with blonde hair that is acting as a buffer zone between his skin and the gold chains around his neck. He wears platform shoes that turn out to be jet pack boots, as he jumps from the ladder and floats to the ground. All the while, there is a stereo in the aerial hovercraft playing a song that sounds like someone trying, but failing miserably, to sound like Isaac Hayes.)
STEREO: Who is the man who lays it down real thick? Shag! Damn straight.
NATHAN:
(Sorry, Nathan seems to be speechless.)
NATHAN:
(He’ll get to it in a minute.)
NATHAN: Why didn’t he come in a balloon?
DENTRE: He’s Century 21. They have the all the coolest gadgets.
SHAG: Hey, party people!
NATHAN: I am so not a party people.
SHAG: They once had a recording studio for DJs here. They had more vinyl than my furniture collection.
NATHAN: But probably not more vinyl than is hanging up in your clothes closet. Dentre, please tell me that his looks are deceiving.
DENTRE: You’re looking at one of our best agents, Nathan. He’s a bad mother…
SHAG: Shut your mouth.
(Shag and Dentre laugh heartily… Shag a bit more heartily. Then Shag starts to walk toward them. He moves in a weird glide that is a combination of a shimmying, shaking, strutting, macho, disco, and swaying.)
DENTRE: Shag! Watch out!
(Shag notices the wall mounted shark. His glide turns into a strange unbalanced, tipping, goofy, still swaying flail. He gets control long enough to jump over the shark landing on the other side where he stumbles a little, and then starts to move in the glide again. He laughs and speaks to the shark over his shoulder.)
SHAG: Hey, hey buddy. I didn’t see you coming. Ha ha.
NATHAN: Funny, because I saw that one coming a mile away.
SHAG: What a total wreck!
NATHAN: The building that used to be here? Or the plot of this story?
DENTRE: Right then. Load into the balloon, guys. We’re going back to my office to discuss this situation.
(End Episode Fourteen)