Washington Horror Blog

SEMI-FICTIONAL CHRONICLE of the EVIL THAT INFECTS WASHINGTON, D.C. To read Prologue and Character Guide, please see www.washingtonhorrorblog.com, updated 6/6//2017.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

The Troubled Holiday Parties of Washington

Chloe Cleavage, a derelict staff attorney at Prince and Prowling, had accidentally become a high-priced call girl months ago, but she knew she had really hit the big time when she was offered $25,000 to attend a holiday party being held at Trump International Hotel.  Selling all her ovaries years back had been a much simpler way to get the money for a condo, but she had found that, with alcohol, she could cope with even the ugliest and kinkiest of all her clients, and salt away a lot of money for the around-the-world trip she was vaguely planning in her mind.  But she did find herself a little unnerved by the large number of Russian "businessmen" in the rented suite, and the very young women who were trying to talk to her in some Slavic language.

"I just speak English," she said.

"Americanski?!"  The women were amazed.  (They had thought her blond hair meant she was Polish or Ukrainian.)

"Yes," said Chloe, starting to feel uncomfortable.

"He nice?" one asked.

"Who?" replied Chloe.

"You man?"

"What man?" asked Chloe, but then she noticed one of the girls (could she be more than 16?) turn towards the light, and it was obvious there was a large bruise on her face under the makeup.  "Oh, my God!" exclaimed Chloe.

Then a burly fellow covered in facial hair approached the young women with a scowl on his face, and they quickly dispersed.  He smiled at Chloe.  "You the American girl, ya?"

"Sputnik," she said, shaking her head and backing away.

A few miles to the east, the Bicameral Anti-Zombie Caucus was enjoying a subdued holiday party.  They had all survived reelection, and even knocked off their highest-profile zombie target of all--Paul Ryan's zombie chief of staff.  Nonetheless, there was a lot of anxiety about what was in store with a Trump Administration.

"If he won't even listen to intelligence briefings on global and cyber security threats, he's certainly not going to notice a zombie threat!" said their leader, Congressman Herrmark.

"I think we might have to put our work against the Zombie Caucus on hold until we eliminate the Russian threat," said Senator Rand Paul.

"Oh, no!" said one of Congressman Jacques Javert's staffers.  "It could take a long time to eliminate the Russian threat!  We cannot let the Zombie Caucus grow!"

"Well, I agree with that," said a woman from the Holier Than Thou Caucus.  "And we have to give President Trump the benefit of the doubt, since he's a Christian."

"A Christian?!" several caucus members exclaimed in unison before bursting into the first real laughter of the party.

"Hating Muslims does not make you a Christian," said Herrmark's Chief of Staff, Ann Bishis (who secretly prayed to Hera and Glaucos, and had only introduced her boss to the Holier Than Thou Caucus in a desperate bid to expand his anti-fracking coalition).

"Are there any zombies in the Electoral College?" a Midwestern Congresswoman suddenly asked, which sent the party back into a funk of anxiety.

Meanwhile, Clio, the White House butler, was putting finishing touches on the holiday decorations for the upcoming staff holiday party.  The gardener, Bridge, had promised her that Donald Trump would never set foot in here, and she had been trying to read up on the news about the revolt in the Electoral College, but she had no real hope.  Half a dozen staff had already quit because they were so afraid of an epidemic of groping and racial discrimination coming.  Sometimes she thought about quitting too--finally saying goodbye to this place where she still saw the ghosts of her dead twins, Reggie and Fergie.  The truth was that she didn't know where to go:  she had been living here and doing this a long, long time now.  She sat down for a moment to rest.  The HIV medication kept things somewhat under control, but covering for the understaffing had made her extra tired.  Life seemed like an endless struggle to hold the darkness at bay.

Bridge stopped by to check on her.  "That wind is pickin' up now.  It was nice to be outside for awhile there."  She nodded, and he silently picked up where he could see she had left off.  "Don't push yourself so hard."

"I want it to be a nice party," she said.  "Next year most of us might not even be here."

"Or we'll be offered a straight-up Christmas party, take it or leave it, no room for Jews or Muslims or anybody else."

"We could try to get a job at Camp David," Clio said.

"No staff openings there," said Bridge.

"Maybe we have seniority?"

"We have seniority here," he said.  "We need to stay and keep this House for the American people."

"I know," she said, but she was so tired.

The ghosts of her twin preschoolers hovered out of her sight because Bridge had told them that Clio go too upset when she saw Regina and Ferguson.

"But maybe we should tell her what we have planned for Trump?" asked Fergie, with a naughty wink.

"No!" said Reggie, smiling.  "It will be a surprise!"

A couples miles to the west, triple agent Charles Wu was hosting his own holiday party in a conference room of the Mandarin Oriental--where he was assuring many guests that China was not as thin-skinned as Trump, and valued trade relations with the United States very much.  What he was not telling them was that China had more and better hackers than Russia could ever dream of, and if Trump didn't understand the consequences of his actions, he would eventually be paying in spades.  "Trump simply needs to be better educated about China," was what Wu kept repeating, and he had said as much to his State Department contacts repeatedly.  Nonetheless, the political volatility of the United States had shaken the self-confidence and astronomical chi which had granted Wu so much success in the past.  And his best agent, Angela de la Paz, remained out of commission.

In the corner, sitting in a chair with her eyes closed, Angela was back in the Dreamtime again.  Her boyfriend (who had attended the most depressing holiday office party of his life at the FBI only a couple days earlier) nodded to Wu, who was looking over at them again.  Dulles Samuelson thought Angela kept returning to the Dreamtime to hide from the real world, but visiting the spirits of the ones she loved was slowly rebuilding her spiritual strength.

"This too shall pass," said her mother again.

"True patriots always win in the end," said the father of her child.

"Only love can conquer hate," said abuela.

Then she found her son--the only one she could visit in both the physical world and the Dreamtime.  "I love you!" Lucas said.  And Angela knew hope remained.

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Washington Water Woman!
Faith, hope and love:  the greatest of these is love.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Poisoning the Umbilical Cord

The CIA and Ghost CIA had never agreed on much, but they were now united in (1) their outrage that Donald Trump was obviously planning to run the country as a vassal of Russia and (2) their disdain for the FBI's absolute refusal to atone for their malfeasance in letting things get to this point.

Forget the damned laws! Ghost Henry was shouting at the CIA Director.  It's time to interfere in domestic affairs!

The CIA Director poked at his ear to try to get the weird humming noise to stop, but to no avail.

Gaaa!  The former CIA agent had been fairly intelligent about certain things, but he still had a lot of trouble communicating with the living.  This is a waste of time!  Ghost Henry was furious at himself for thinking Trump would be easily manipulated by intelligence officers, as it was now looking increasingly likely that Putin was holding serious blackmail against Trump.  Frantic, he flitted off to consult again with the spooks of the Ghost CIA on ways they could stop this Molotov cocktail from blowing up the White House.

"I'm not going to let this Molotov cocktail blow up the White House!"  CIA Director John Brennan suddenly blurted out after the ringing stopped.  He was in the middle of another emergency briefing with his deputies about the intelligence deep dive going on concerning Russian interference in the Election.  "God damn them all to Hell!"

"Yes, sir," said a deputy.  "Why don't you go home and get some rest, and tomorrow morning we'll--"

"There might not be a tomorrow morning at this rate!  If we can't stop Vladimir Putin, where does that leave us?!  China will be the only superpower left standing!  And I've got Deplorables on Twitter saying I'm the one running ISIS!"

"Well, on the bright side, nobody's really a Communist anymore."

"That's not the point!"

"Yes, sir!"

"And everybody's under suspicion!"

"Sir?"

"The next Russian mole I find in this agency or in the FBI is going to be personally eviscerated by me!"

"Well, he wants Tillerson functioning as a public mole at the State Department, sir.  We're in uncharted waters."

"To Hell we are!" fumed Brennan.

"These are not uncharted waters," said the Jesuit priest a mile away.  "The Founding Fathers warned us about emoluments and foreign intrigue and--"

"You're asking me to kidnap members of the Electoral College so that you can deprogram them from voting for Donald Trump!?" exclaimed Solomon Kane.

"'Kidnap' is such a strong word," said the Rabbi, while other members of the Seekers nodded.  "We just need to get their attention."

"You only had about a 50-50 success rate with the voter exorcisms," said Kane.  "What makes you think this is the way to go?  Aren't other people trying social media and legal tactics to persuade the Electors to exercise their discretion?"

"Trumpism is primarily a spiritual affliction," said the Buddhist.  "We need to free their minds and spirits to be receptive to what the energies of the universe are channeling."

"What my esteemed colleague is trying to say," said the Muslim cleric, "is that logic and logical tactics are no match for this kind of evil."

"An evil so insidious that millions of people still view it in sheep's clothing!" added the Methodist minister.

Solomon Kane suddenly had a strange nostalgia for being John Boehner's bodyguard...and wished somebody would just hire him for an old-fashioned hit.

(If Ghost Henry could do something that simple, he would.)

A mile north in upper Georgetown, Golden Fawn and Marcos Vazquez were hosting a potluck dinner for a partially reassembled Coalition.  It was the Warrior who had first alerted them that Ardua of the Potomac had returned stronger than ever and that Angela de la Paz was so demoralized by the demonic resurgence that she was currently out of commission.

"How can we defeat Ardua without Angela?" asked Sebastian L'Arche.  "I can't begin to tell you how ugly it's gotten in the animal world."

"Maybe there's another way to go about this," said Charles Wu.  "A lot of lawyers and political organizers and journalists are working hard to make sure Trump never takes office."  (He didn't mention hackers--like his own Tarantula--who were boosting intelligence to expose the Russian interference and all of Trump's other dirt.)

"Is that what you think this is about?" asked Lynnette Wong.  "A lot of evil is needed to raise up somebody like Trump, and just look at the disgusting people he's picking for the Cabinet!  We have to fight evil influencing all these people!  Politics is just a side effect."

"But that demon fed off the Nazi energy out there," said the Cheyenne known to most as "the Warrior".  He had seen a lot of politics come and go in his 400-plus years of life, but he had never seen anything as evil as Nazism.

"We have to deal with everything," said Marcos Vazquez, a Coast Guard office who spent more time near Ardua than anybody.  "I don't think there's a silver bullet."

"But we have to prioritize," said Golden Fawn.  "The assault on Mother Earth that is coming from this Administration will be like poisoning her umbilical cord to all of us."

"Earth can survive," said L'Arche.  "The assault on civil rights is already getting people attacked and killed."

"Surely the priority is to prevent Trump from taking office?" asked Wu.

"He did win the Election," said Wong, afraid of any action that was undemocratic.

"You can't defend him just because your parents were Taiwanese!" exclaimed Wu.

"I'm not defending him, but you can't subvert democracy just because you're Chinese!" she retorted.

"I'm from Hong Kong!" said Wu, testily.  "My attorney explained about the Electoral College, and we need to do everything possible for him not to get elected at all."

It was then that Golden Fawn fainted dead away.  Later they would conclude it was because she was pregnant; even later than that, she would learn of the recurrent breast cancer caused by the crazy herbs her mother-in-law had hidden in her food to get her pregnant.  But for now, the Coalition members were all chastened that they had argued like this in her home, and promised her and her husband Marcos that they would, in fact, try to deal with everything.

Outside the dining room window, a flock of starlings took wing to report in to Ardua.

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COMING UP:   The most frightful 
holiday parties in the country!

Sunday, December 04, 2016

Shiny

And just like that, triple agent Charles Wu was golden again at the State Department!  Desperate to smooth the Chinese feathers ruffled by Donald Trump's phone call with Taiwan, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope (the ADAfH) had pleaded with Wu to explain to Beijing that Trump was a moron but the U.S. would not be jettisoning decades of Chinese policy so that Trump could build a Taiwanese golf course.  Beijing was still warning Wu it would recall its loans keeping the U.S. Treasury afloat if the proper diplomatic gestures were not made, but Wu had assured him that his sources were indicating Trump would be reined in from serious foreign policy shenanigans.

What Wu could not determine--despite the fleet of computer bugs the Geek Squad "Chimera" had deployed for him all over Washington--was whether the GOP Congress was already preparing maneuvers to oust Trump and install Mike Pence.  Various campaigns were underway concerning the Electoral College, and more than a few Electors had resigned or hired bodyguards, but that game could still not be called.  The rumors of quick impeachment hearings also could not be confirmed.  The problem was, despite an almost universal loathing of Trump in DC, there was no consensus on what could or should be done about it.  Even Condoleezza Rice and the Heurich Society were playing a long game rather than attacking Trump directly.  Wu was now neglecting everything else to determine what was coming next, and had every spy he could muster deployed.

This included Angela de la Paz--who, though aware from the Dreamtime visit that Trump had no soul, still did not feel inclined to kill him.  "Charles, the world's had a lot of greedy leaders, and even had a lot of evil leaders.  I cannot intervene willy-nilly.  I need to use my gift as it was intended."

"People are committing hate crimes in his name!" Charles Wu replied.

"Is that's what's really bothering you?"

"He mouths off against nuclear-powered China because of a red carpet fetish!"

"You have sold nuclear secrets yourself!"

"I have never sold nuclear secrets!"

Angela looked up from her Lauriol Plaza enchilada in surprise.  "But you always said--"

"I always said what served me best!  But now...."  He paused to drain his beer glass.

"Now you worry about your daughter's future," Angela said.  Her employer looked at her without answering.  "I'm worried, too," she said.  "But I'm not sure I'm the one to fix it.  I'm waiting for a vision."

Also waiting for a vision was Glenn Michael Beckmann.  The Hunter-Gatherer Society was in complete disarray--in a mass of confusion about whether to support or oppose Donald Trump.  Their secret president, Sarah Palin, had endorsed him months ago, but then just attacked his Indiana HVAC deal as sinful crony capitalism!  Bill O'Reilly was for Trump, then against Trump, then for Trump, then against Trump.  The babes at Fox were sending confusing signals.  The CB trucker chatter had never been more profanity-laced, and it was all about Hamilton's compromise for the Electoral College!  What did that mean?

Then a sign finally appeared:  a distraught father emailed the Beckmann's Bad Asses security firm for assistance in retrieving his daughter.  "She ran away because of her stepdad, that piece of shit!  And I think I finally traced her!"

Two hours later, Beckmann was armed to the hilt, eager to shoot up a bunch of hippies in the rowhouse they were approaching.  (He had already jumped to the conclusion that Brittani had joined a cult.)  "Stay behind me!" whispered Beckmann.

"Like Hell I will!" declared Brittani's father, Randy "Bubba" Blaylock.  "I only hired you for back-up!"  Bubba kicked in the back door without knocking, and stormed in with his shotgun aimed in front of him.  Beckmann cursed the loss of the element of surprise but followed his client in.

They landed in the kitchen, where a pot of chili was cooling off on the stove and dirty dishes were soaking in the sink.  "Slow down!" whispered Beckmann, who was surprised not to be hearing some type of Sunday night fruity guitar sing-a-long from the living room.

"Clear!" shouted Bubba, who always saw soldiers saying that in the movies.  "Clear!" he shouted again from the living room.

"Doesn't look like a cult lives here," said Beckmann.  Then they heard it:  sounds coming from the basement.  "Wait!" hissed Beckmann, but Bubba had already shoved Beckmann aside to run through the door leading down to the basement.  Beckmann heard shouts and raced down the stairs.

"You son of a bitch!" Bubba was screaming at Kevin "Monkey" Mundy, who had dropped to his knees with his hands in the air.  "I'm gonna kill you!"

"Daddy, no!"

Bubba turned to look at his daughter, locked up like an animal in a cage, then turned back to knock out Monkey with the butt of his gun.  He ran over to the cage, where Beckmann was already pounding at the lock with his genuine imitation Thor hammer.

"There's a key!" exclaimed Brittani, pointing her father to the hook.  And then she was free.

"What happened?" asked Beckmann, a little disappointed no mouth-to-mouth resuscitation had been required.

After Brittani told them some of the story (she didn't want them to think she sounded crazy!), her father marched over to the now awake and moaning Monkey and started bashing his head against the floor repeatedly.

"Daddy, no!  Let's just go!"

"Just go?  Not until we take everything this bastard has, starting with this!"

"Daddy, no!  It's evil!"

But it was too late:  Bubba had pulled the shiny, gold, cursed Rolex off Monkey's wrist and put it on his own.  "Look who's a fine gentleman now, sweet pea!"

Out on the river, Marcos Vazquez trained his Coast Guard cutter floodlight on the mysterious oily sheen that had arrived in Washington and which had already been sampled by EPA scientists.  But this is only the surface, he thought, knowing Ardua of the Potomac lurked below him.  The demon is back.

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COMING UP:  
An anxious Coalition reunites without Angela.