Bogeyman Weather

Conversation tends, particularly on long winter evenings like these, to drift toward matters of the supernatural. My hockey team and I were gathered around the fireplace in the locker room enjoying our post-game brandy and smoking our pipes while debating whether a soul was capable of remaining on this Earth after departing the body. Many of us answered staunchly in the negative, while some conceded the possibility, however unlikely, but it was Ashburdle who had this to say: "Gentleman, you will not find a less superstitious person than I, and yet, the incredible events I am about to relate are not superstition, but fact!" We continued listening as we were wont to do when one of our number was speaking. "Years ago, on a night much like this, except the air was full of thunder and lightning, rather than snow, for it was summertime, you see, I found myself driven by the storm to seek shelter at a lonely inn well out in the country. The food was terrible and not l

I remember the accident clearly: the screeching of the brakes, the smash of the windshield, the steering column crushing through my chest, through my spine, and out my back, the release of my bowels. Then nothing... ...Nothing until I found myself in an operating room with a high pitched tone shrilling in my ears. Strangely, I was standing amongst the doctors and nurses, looking down on a patient who bore an uncanny resemblance to me. Why, in fact, it was me! I had just realized this when the doctor pronounced me dead. Dead? I, who was standing right next to him, the way a living person would? "But doctor!" said I, "There must be a mistake! I've never felt better in my life! Look at that gaping chest wound, the grizzly soup of organs and vertebrae, and yet I here I stand! Surely, the sign of a healthy, living person!" But the doctor seemed not to hear me. In fact, no one in that room acted as though they could hear me, which seemed frightfully rude, if not downr

You've probably heard some phony cop on TV explaining how, in real life, we don't call suspects 'perps.' Well, I'm a real cop, a homicide detective, and we do call our suspects 'perps.' It stands for 'Potentially Eligible for Rehabilitation Program' which is also short for perpetrator, but we don't know what the 'etrator' stands for anymore because that part of the manual got blood on it from the last smart guy who started smarting off about what real cops do or do not call their suspects. The perp waiting for me in the interview room was a shabby-looking hippy type, all long hair and scraggly beard, and the headache that had gripped one side of my head all morning squeezed a little bit tighter when I saw what was in store for me. "Alright, Mr. Mann, we know you were the last person to see Matthew Scribner alive. Start talking." "What would you like me to talk about?" he said, the very picture of innocence. &qu

Everybody knows me. Everybody knows Johnny Large Print. At least that's what they call me. But I'm not here to tell you about my nickname. I'm here to tell you how the skill that got me that nickname saved the 1955 World's Fair and cancelled the 1956 World's Fair. But in order to do that, I guess I better tell you about my nickname. When I was a kid, the only thing I hated more than reading was writing. My pops knew this but his old man eyes had trouble reading the tiny print in the newspapers. So every morning, as soon as that paper hit the sidewalk, he made me run out to get it and start copying every single article in letters big enough so as not to strain his eyes.  At first, it took me so long I wouldn't even have time to eat breakfast before I went off to school, but pretty soon I got so good at it I'd have time for two or even three breakfasts. When word eventually got out (the garbage men in Grover's Holler were notorious gossips), that's

“I cracked it! I finally cracked it!” shouted Dr. Gloria Phanblomb, leading light of the physics department at M___ University. Her usual dry, scientifically detached demeanor shed, but only briefly, in her moment of triumph, “Come see, Pete!” Pete Postelwharton, Gloria’s live-in barbecue adviser, heaved himself off of the couch where he’d been absorbed in a fascinating article about using a blend of pine and redwood chips instead of hickory.  “What is it now?” he said, coming down the stairs of the split-level home and into the den where a bizarre and complicated contraption blocked the patio door so that Pete had to go out the front and around the house whenever he wanted to use the grill.  In the center of the machine, the air rippled like on a hot day and beyond that, a bottomless hole spiraled off into the unknown. “I have perfected my Time Tunnel! I have opened a doorway to the year 10,000!” “Nice.” “Any minute we’ll have our first contact with the future!” “Ask them

As I entered the study of Percival Flordigan, World’s Most Renowned Detective Ever In The History Of The World, I immediately saw that he had not moved an inch since I had left hours ago. Considering the gravity of the case we were working on, I found this shocking and did not hesitate to tell him so. “My dear friend, far be it from me to question your methods, but there is a murderer afoot, and a most prolific one at that. Yet you haven’t budged since breakfast!” He looked up from his jigsaw puzzle and said, “Nonsense. I have been to the toilet several times.” “But what of the murderer?” “Ah, Wamsbly, don’t you see? This is an extraordinary murderer which calls for an extraordinary plan of action.” “From what I’ve seen so far, I hardly think ‘action’ is the right word. What is this plan, then?” “Elementary. Eventually, the murderer will run out of victims and a simple process of elimination will reveal his identity. In fact, I’d wager even you will be able unmask him your