Free Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish by Andrew Buckley Page A

different every time he looked at it. Perfect muscle structure, pale complexion. No wait, tanned complexion, nope, darkish, pink . . . .
    Dr. Ranja's head began to throb, and he rubbed his temples as his frontal lobe laughed at him.
    In Dr. Ranja's professional experience, neither he, nor anyone else he'd heard of, had ever come across such an individual. He'd been examining him for five straight hours. The doctor had to keep leaving on one such emergency or another, and upon leaving the room, he would forget all about the figure lying in the bed, so it came as a completely new shock to him every time he walked back.
    He'd noticed something new on examination this time. There seemed to be a profound lack of pulse to the gentleman. And although it was obvious he was alive, because he kept moving and talking in his sleep, technically, he was dead. It wasn't long after the pulse discovery that the doctor found that the man was also lacking in another considerably important area. He had no genitals. Of any kind. There was just nothing there.
    Well, this was obviously a discovery of woolly mammoth proportions; it needed documenting, it needed reporting. He could just picture accepting his Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to society by discovering this new form of human. Aside from all this dead not dying business, this could be the new foundation upon which mankind would be built. A new independent being, maybe even extraterrestrial.
    The question of how the creature planned to have sex crossed the doctor's mind, as obviously, it lacked the correct equipment for the job. But no, he was getting too far ahead of himself. He wandered around the bed a few times, seeing if he'd missed anything. No, he decided, first things first. This all hadto be written down.
    Dr. Ranja left the examination room and walked down the hallway.
Oh what a magnificent day this was turning out to be
. It had seemed like such a bad day at first. He woke up to find his wife had not come home again; maybe he was overreacting but taking two weeks to fetch milk was a bit much. Dr. Ranja was currently in denial of the fact that his wife had left him for a Polynesian midget.
    Everyone knew, including himself, he just chose not to acknowledge the fact. People would ask him how she was doing, and he'd smile and tell them she was doing great; he'd even begun regaling people with made up stories of things he and his wife hadn't done the night before. At first, the stories amused others, but his denial was quickly becoming disturbing. The doctor did not care; he had just discovered something big, something huge, something of mammoth proportions.
    Only he couldn't remember what it was. He remembered going to fetch a pad and pen, he knew that much. And he planned on writing something down, but wasn't sure what. Maybe it was a grocery list? He was running low on milk, as he was still waiting for his wife to bring some back from the store. That must have been it. He strolled back down the hallway, passing an examination room with a tall man dressed in dark robes lying on the table.
    Hmm, wonder what this is all about?
Dr. Ranja decided to check out the interesting looking patient.

    Thousands of miles away, the cat formerly known as Fuzzbucket, who was now an Earthly vessel for the Prince of Darkness, sat quietly on top of a garbage can and systematically licked himself.
    "Urrgghhh," came the sound from the semi-conscious Animal Control agent.
    Being a cat proved exhausting; the licking, the sleeping, the licking, the sleeping, the insistent feeling of having to bury his own fecal matter.
    "Ermmffgg," said the Animal Control agent as he struggled to regain consciousness.
    Lucifer the cat spent a good chunk of the morning interrogating would-be henchmen. The task at hand proved next to impossible for a mere furry feline. He needed some hands, and more than anything, a driver. The underground railway system in London was one of the great mysteries of the world and