The Firebug of Balrog County Read Free

Mack.”
    â€œHey. You home already?”
    â€œYeah. Called it quits early today. Everybody was hung over.”
    Dad worked for a health insurance company in Thorndale and was friends with all the pale, pudgy dudes who worked t here. The night before had been Thursday, t heir big poker night. They drank Heineken, snacked on pretzel thins, and called themsel ves the Fallen Deductibles.
    â€œHow was school today?”
    â€œThe usual blasted, gimp - ridden wasteland.”
    â€œWhat about work?”
    â€œI sold a pack of saw blades to a hottie. That was something.”
    â€œReally? Good for you. My son the salesman.”
    â€œDid you know your socks have holes in them? You should get those darned.”
    Dad pulled the lever at his side and the footrest folded into the recliner’s base with a gunshot crack. “I’ll give that some thought. How about pizza for dinner?”
    I raised my hands above my head and clenched my fists. “Friday night!”
    Dad grinned, humoring me. “That’s right, Big Mack. Nothing but the best for us.”
    â€œCheesy garlic bread?”
    â€œSure. Why not?”
    â€œFuck yeah.”
    Dad shook his head sadly. “You know, Mack, if your mother was here, she’d wash your dang mouth out with soap.”
    â€œSorry. I meant heck yeah.”
    Dad’s eyes slid back to the TV. He thumbed the remote and reintroduced the noisy drone of the evening news to the room. He’d obviously forgotten it was my birthday, but I didn’t take it personally. Birthdays had been Mom’s big thing. He’d remember sooner or later and slip me some cash.
    I went upstairs and entered my bedroom. As usual, I immediately stubbed my toe on a stack of books, one of many scattered around my bedroom floor like literary land mines. I’d gotten into reading real, non-electronic books back in the day and over the years I’d gone from connoisseur to straight-up hoarder. Not only was my bedroom crammed with five overloaded bookshelves and a dozen random book stacks, but I’d put several boxes of books in the spare bedroom and hidden eight more in the basement nobody else even knew about. I had my own personal ten - percent discount at the two used bookstores in Thorndale and their owners smiled happily when they saw me.
    I shoved the toe-stubbing stack of books against the wall and flung myself onto my bed. After staring at the ceiling for a few restful moments, I picked up my writing notebook from my nightstand and opened it.
    Story Ideas
    - Man befriends chipmunk. Relationship soon sours.
    - A humble plumber marries into a rich family in New England. Sleeps with every member of the family.
    - The Mississippi River dries up. A man starts walking down it from Minnesota and a woman starts walking up it from Louisiana. They meet in the middle of the river and discover they both are related to Mark Twain.
    - A talking baby squid appears in a toilet one day, offering free advice. The advice is terrible.
    I grabbed a pen and started to ponder. It’d been a while since I’d written a new short story and none of my current ideas seemed too great. I liked writing stories but I always had a hard time coming up with an idea that didn’t seem derivative. Part of the problem with reading a lot of books was finding out how lame and unoriginal you were in comparison to every other writer who’d ever lived.
    Flashing upon a new idea, I wrote:
    - A n extraordinarily pale girl moves to a small town. She discovers everyone is an asshole zombie and must fight her way back to freedom using only her wits and her incredible paleness, which allows her to hide in the moonlight.
    I tapped the notebook and looked around my bedroom.
    Why not?
    I rolled over onto my stomach, turned to a fresh page, and started writing. The world fell away.

    Dad called us down to dinner an hour later. I stopped writing and listened for sounds of rustling in the room next