Mort

I shambled down the two steps out of the pizzeria and walked around the building a few steps. It was a peaceful morning, the overcast sky a mossy-green. I had a smile on my face as I made the turn back behind the building. I didn't have any real destination in mind, but it felt good to stretch my legs. Not that I can really feel my legs all that well—it just felt good to get out of the pizzeria.

Suddenly someone called out, “Fore!!!” And before I could turn to look, I was flattened to the ground by something really hard and fast.

And it freaking hurt.

I heard clomping footsteps run past me, and then I pulled myself up fast enough to see those big clomping feet run back to where they came from. I sat up and squinted at the two figures standing in the yard beside the pizzeria.

Green skinned, not very tall, but topped off with large heads—heads made even bigger looking by huge, poofy, multicolored hair. And they were both girls. At least, I think they were, from the frilly A-shaped sun dresses they were wearing.

The littlest one handed the small boulder she was carrying over to the larger girl.

“That was a strike,” the smaller girl said.

“Yeah, I just love Bowling for Gnomes.”

I checked out their stats, and saw that they were troll mobs. They were both pretty high leveled, 46 and 43, respectively.

That was bad.

I staggered, pulling myself back up to my feet. That was when the larger troll let loose with the boulder again, and I got smacked down into the ground again.

“That's a hole in one,” the larger troll calls out, pumping her fist in the air.

“Jesus Christ,” I said, irritated. “You guys are mixing your sports up.”

The two troll mobs stared at me, blinking their large, comically glassy eyes at me. “Who said the gnome-pin got to say anything?” The smaller troll said.

“It's just that you're using golf terms for bowling,” I said, incredulous. I looked at their bare, rather large feet. “Plus, you're not wearing the right shoes. You're not wearing any shoes at all.”

At least one good thing was happening while I was talking to them, they were confused enough that the younger, smaller troll didn't come over and grab the boulder again. My head was spinning after that second clobbering.

“Dean says that gnomes aren't real, and should never be talking,” said the smaller troll.

The larger troll rolled her eyes. “Dean again?”

The younger troll turned her head toward the larger. “Don't even start on him!”

“Well,” the larger troll said, and I started to think that she was the mother of the duo. And that the younger, smaller one was her daughter. “It's not like you guys are going to be going out once you're in Troll College.”

The younger one stomped her feet. “He's going to the same school I am!”

The mother scoffed. “Not likely, with the bone weaving I've seen him do, I don't see him getting into a good school.”

That's when it hits me, these two trolls really remind me of something.

The Gilmore Girls.

Mother-fuck me straight to hell!

Back when I'd been Ellie's boyfriend, I’d had to endure hours of watching that show. It was the only thing I didn't enjoy doing with Ellie. On the most part our interests were in tune. Except for that freaking show.

And now, like a cosmic joke, this sadistic game had produced to super ugly troll variance of the Big Heads. (That's what I called Rory and Lorelai.)

I was just about to pull my frying pan out of my inventory, but then I realized the two had fixated on each other, and weren't paying a bit of attention to me. Maybe I could sneak away, back into the pizzeria without them noticing?

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

But that's when an arrow lodged right into the side of the larger troll’s head. The two trolls stood there, perfectly still for a moment, and then the smaller one looked up at the larger one's head.

“Someone shot you with an arrow!”

The larger one shook her head. “Is that what that was? I thought I was having a stroke.”

I looked behind me to see Teddy standing there, a second arrow pulled back and ready to go. But then I shook my head at him, and started to move backward toward him. By the time I got to him, the two trolls were working on dislodging the arrow from the larger one’s head—which seemed to be completely non-lethal. “I think if we go back to the pizzeria,” I whispered, “I think they'll just forget about us and go away.”

The mother troll was bent over, and her daughter had a hold of the arrow, trying to pull it out, even having one of her feet pressed against her mother's head.

“But they're dangerous,” Teddy said, though he followed me as I backed away.

“Yeah, well there's two of them, and they're both level 20 and above.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said, frowning. “That would be a lot of effort, not to mention time consuming.”

Time consuming…

Something about those words seemed to spark something in my head. Something I only half remembered.

“Would it be difficult or time consuming?” the voice said. It was the voice that I remembered from when I was dead.

Was that a memory, or a dream? And what were they talking about?

Teddy and I made our way back into the pizzeria, and then went to the boarded up window that faced out to where troll Rory and Lorelai still were. We watched them dislodge the arrow from Lorelai’s head. The younger one stabbed it into a tree, breaking it off at the head, and tossed the shaft to the ground.

“I can fix that,” Teddy said.

And then, without any fanfare, the two trolls wandered off, bickering to each other as they walked away. Maybe we should have killed them. But there was just something about them, how easily distracted they were by… well, pretty much anything. It kind of made me feel sorry for them.

“What did they want?” Wood said as a stalked in through the front door.

“Where have you been?” Teddy said, ignoring Wood’s question.

Wood pointed towards the retreating trolls, ignoring Teddy's question right back. “You two just let two trolls walk away? What, were you kids planning a playdate or something?”

Teddy looked like he was ready to burst.

“No,” I said, “they used me as a bowling pin, hit me with a boulder.”

A hint of a smile crossed Wood’s face.

“They just seem kind of confused,” I said. “Like the big-heads off of Gilmore Girls.”

Wood snorted, but then he acted as if he hadn't laughed at my observation.

“The end of the freaking world,” Ellie said from right beside me, “and you're still bitching about The Gilmore Girls?”

I jumped, not expecting her to be standing right beside me. Then I gave her the eye. Did she remember how many episodes, hours of my life, I’d wasted watching that freaking show with her?

I opened my mouth, just about to tell her off, when Wood said, “He was just saying those two-big headed trolls over there, who are walking away scot-free and alive, remind him of the mother/daughter off of Gilmore Girls.

Ellie squinted as she stared out the space in the window, and then she turned her gaze on me. She was pissed.

“They tried to kill Mort by using him as a bowling pin, and using a boulder as a bowling ball,” Teddy volunteered.

She glanced over at Teddy, her eyes getting this comically weary look. “You're kidding, right?”

Teddy pointed out the boulder-ball they’d left behind on the sidewalk. You could see where there were actual finger holes somehow drilled into it.

Ellie started to laugh. Then she really started to laugh, sounding a little deranged, as she leaned over for a second, putting her hands on her knees, and shaking her head.

I was still feeling kind of jealous of anyone who could still shake their head.

She stood back up, glancing out at the trolls who were now turning off onto Wabash Avenue, and then turned around herself, walking back toward the kitchen.

“It's not funny…” I said, incensed.

Teddy put his bow and arrow back in his inventory. “Yeah, it kind of is.”

“Hey,” I cried, “that's only funny when we use it against Ellie!”

Wood started to follow Ellie back toward the kitchen.

“Hey!” Teddy yelled to his brother, “you didn't say where you went!?!?”

Wood glanced back over his shoulder, a happy grin on his face. “I know.”

There was a pregnant pause, and Teddy looked ready to explode.

“What. The. Fuck.” He seethed.

I reached up and touched his elbow with my terracotta hand. I would have patted his shoulder, but… well, I couldn't reach it.

Teddy flinched, and then looked down at me. The look on his face was—well, I had no idea what he was thinking. He closed his eyes and then he shook his head, and then he looked at me again. “He always tells me everything.”

“No one tells anyone everything.” I said.

“He told me when he broke mom's Waterford Crystal vase. He told me when he couldn’t poop for three days, in detail each day, and then and even more detail when it resolved itself.”

Teddy looked from the open door of the pizzeria back to me again. “He even told me when he… when he… prematured? You know, with Amy Goldsmith.”

“Yeah,” I said judiciously, “I think you two share a little too much.”

I started to walk backwards, my hands out as if I was that Weights of Justice Lady you see in front of courthouses. “I think we should go out and kill something. Some nasty, completely palate cleansing monster.”

Teddy rolled his eyes, but he did start to follow me. “You know it's probably got something to do with that Georgina girl.”

“Probably,” I did a little spin on my heel so that I was facing the right way as I walked. “But, given how much he’s shared with you in the past, do you really want to have all your questions answered?”

Teddy stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide, his mouth hanging open for a moment. When he snapped out of it, it looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

“Point taken,” he nodded.

“Let's go kill something.”