Action in Words

The Moon Man: Every Man’s Hand

How could you break into a combination-locked, steel safe with only a piece of glass to aid you?  The question defied all logic.  It was one of those ridiculous riddles that appeared to have only a trick as its answer.  Professional burglars would only scratch their heads in response.  Physics professors would drive themselves crazy trying to find a solution to such a question.  Policemen would label such a problem as moot, saying that it simply could not be done.  But none of those people were The Moon Man.

The weird entity took his name from his head…or, rather, where his head should have been.  Instead, there was a silvery globe, with dark mottling around it.  Even at a relatively close distance, the sphere that shimmered in the light of the real moon appeared as a miniature copy of the actual planetoid.  Occasionally, if one were to look closely as the Moon Man moved, they might be able to catch a glimpse of a body moving beneath the radiant ball.  Their perception would have been difficult owing to the completely black clothes and cloak that he wore, which allowed all but the seemingly floating curvature to blend effectively into the shadows of the surrounding night.

To see the Moon Man at work, one might have discerned a clue to the, ostensibly, impossible puzzle.  As the ebon-clad prowler spun the floating tumblers, he rested his globular head against the door of the burglar-proof safe.  If that same witness could have pictured an actual man’s head inside the round headpiece, they might also have imagined that the strange helmet would act as a small echo chamber, accentuating the subtle clicks given off by the lock’s mechanism.  Only then, could anyone have come up with a viable answer to such an illogical question.

The globed helmet worked best in quiet.  And such was the case on this night.  The expansive study, like the rest of the mammoth mansion, was soothingly dark and quiet.  While the Moon Man would never permit noise, commotion, or pressure to affect his nerves, there was a relaxing element to performing his self-appointed task in peace. 

Doctor Satan: Demons and Druids

The glow of the lantern was devoured by the ever-hungry dark.  Brick-arched burial chambers gaped like open mouths ready to swallow anything that got too close; they were, apparently, reserved for those of substantial import.  Commoners, and others not of entitlement, lay scattered in piles all around on the ground.  Bands of tin and lead lay in rectangular shapes.  The wooden coffins they’d bound, long since dissolved into the soil.  The same could not be said for the entirety of their contents.  To honor the departed by not stepping on them meant going no further.  And ‘Hard Luck’ Harry had already gone too far. 

But what else could he have done?  When you’re out of work, cold, and hungry, you’re willing to do just about anything to make even a minor improvement.  And this was his chance.  When that ‘Bostiff’ bloke had stopped him on the way back to the shelter and offered him a thousand pounds, he followed his instincts and told him to, “Bugger off!”  Then he watched Bostiff do the irresistible: pull out a wad of ten-pound notes and hand five of them over, easy as you please.  It had been so long since Harry had seen that much, let alone been able to call it his own.  His instincts were immediately supplanted by visions of whiskey and, maybe if there was enough left over, a new coat for the winter.

Harry consented to meet with the source of this sudden windfall and decide his fate only after he’d heard the proposition in full.  As they started down the street, Harry was startled by his companion’s condition.  Bostiff had been leaning against a streetlamp and, although he was substantially shorter, Harry hadn’t given it much thought.  Until he saw Bostiff propel himself down the street with his hands.  To Harry’s shock, Bostiff had no legs.  Harry estimated that, were he intact, the man leading him would have been well over seven feet tall.  But Harry’s night of surprises was just beginning.

Secret Agent X: The Gemini Dilemma

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.  Since his first assignment, the man known to all but a scant handful of top secret government officials as ‘Secret Agent X’ knew that he would be killed by the forces of evil that he set himself against.  His job of independently combating crime, from foreign terrorists to neighborhood thugs, would be a death sentence.  It was simply a matter of the odds.  Even a master of disguise, mimicry, psychology, and technology can only be in the gunsights of the underworld for so long before someone’s luck trumped all of his skill.  But, considering the strange and powerful foes that X had defeated, he always envisioned his life ending at the hands of one of those twisted scientific geniuses gone wrong.  Or perhaps a criminal business mastermind, bent on a mad, power-mongering scheme.  Not by a half-dozen ratlike goons in a dingy blind alley.

            It had taken four of them to shove him into the high-walled dead end.  A pair of thug-driven sedans immediately cut off the only way in or out.  The cars’ headlights outlined the brick walls, already stained dark with the blood of many others before him that had been put ‘on the spot.’  X heard the sounds of cruel merriment and harsh laughter beyond the north wall, inside the bar where he’d been caught. 

            While blinded by the cars’ beams, X heard the distinctive sound of a pair of Thompson Sub-Machine guns’ bolts being snapped into readiness.  He looked around in his efficient, calculating manner for some means of cover or escape.  But, this time, there were none.  X still had his gas gun, loaded with anesthetic cartridges but on what was a simple reconnaissance mission, he hadn’t felt that his .45 automatic was necessary.  His attackers were well out of range of his sole weapon and the biting wind that swirled through the death-de-sac would negate the gas’ effectiveness even if he were close enough to use it.

            A rasping voice sounded from the cover of bright lights and steel sedans.  “Let ‘im have it, boys.”

            The heavy, staccato chatterings of the ‘typewriters’ corresponded with a horizontal eruption of brick shards and masonry dust.  The lines of bullets started high and wide, then proceeded in diagonal swaths, crossing themselves at their target.  X howled in agony as the slugs ripped into his chest.  As his scream died out and he slumped to the garbage-laden asphalt, the sound of cheers from inside the bar echoed down the alley.  As the dust settled, a giant ‘X’ that had been bored into the brick wall became visible, labeling the corpse that lay beneath it.  Two of the more literate gunsels chuckled at the macabre irony.