My First Mission: The Dark Lord Vigoda

My First Mission is a regular feature in M-Forcer magazine where M-Force Agents talk about their first M-Force assignment. This installment comes from Bucky Manitoba, a Nashville journalist who's been with M-Force since 2010.   I wasn't actually an M-Forcer yet when I went on my first mission, just a hack journalist doing a story about the organization. While I hanging around the office digging up background material, an agent named Zak--a young culinary transportation specialist with lots of "Shaggy from Scooby Doo" energy--asked if I wanted to join him while he invesitgated a possible monster sighting. When I asked whether taking a civilian along violated M-Force's policies, he assured me that he'd cleared everything with the Agent In Charge.   "The call came from Lawrence," Zak explained. "He calls us a couple times a month and so far none of his monster sightings had led to an actual monster, so there aren't any serious safety concerns here. I'll go grab the truck. Meet me out front."   Lawrence lived in a smallish 1950s-era house in a blue-collar neighborhood. The house was in good repair with a neatly manicured lawn and a garden knome standing guard at the front stoop. Nothing about the house said "Warning: Crazy Person Inside." Zak led the way to the door and run the bell.   Lawrence was probably in his sixties with a bit of a beer gut and large glasses that I suspect he stole from Charles Nelson Riley. Other than his choice of eyewear, nothing about him raised any alarms Quite a far cry from the wild-eyed loon with goggles and crazy Einstein hair that I was envisioning. He spoke in a deep baritone that sounded far too much like a nightly news weatherman to belong to a connoisseur of tin foil hats. "Oh, thank God you're here. I was beginning to worry."   "Hey Lawrence," Zak said, "Remember me?"
  "Of course I do," Lawrence smiled. "You're that nice young man who took care of those pixies in my garden. Jack, right?"   "Close. It's Zak. Mind if we come in?"   "Of course. How rude of me. Come on in and have a seat in the living room. Would you fellas like some lemonade?"   "Sounds great, Lawrence," Zak answered as we went into the living room and sat down.   While we waited for Lawrence to come back with the drinks, I looked around. The inside of the house also looked perfectly normal, right down the pictures of Lawrence and a woman I assumed was his wife--probably "ex" or "late" given the lack of doilies and 20 year-old hard candy on the end tables. I didn't notice a single thing out of the ordinary until I glanced through the open bedroom door and saw what looked like hoarder central.   The bedroom was cluttered with stack of newspapers, occult-looking paraphenalia, and old books, some of which looked like props from movies where bored teenagers meddle with mystical forces beyond their understanding and die gruesomely. The wall above an antique wooden desk was practically covered in news clippings, photographs, hand-scrawled notes, and at leat a few candy bar wrappers, all joined together with an elaborate web of multi-colored yarn. Perhaps most strangely, all the pieces of yarn seemed to converge on an autographed head shot of TV's Abe Vigoda.   Zak sawa me looking into the room, caught my eye, and mouthed "you'll see" right as Lawrence returned with our lemonade and a plate of cheese and crackers. "Here you go, fellas," he said as he setteled himself, old man style, into a ratty old recliner.   "Thanks, Lawrence," Zack said as he took a swig of lemonade. "Now, my report says that you saw something strange at the McDonald's down the street. Care to tell us about it?"   "Well, last night I was up late and got a tad peckish, so I decided to treat myself ot a hamburger and some apple pie. When the person at the drivethru repeated my order back, it sounded like several voices speaking just a little out of unison. Even through we all know that's how demons sound, I wrote it off as a problem with the speaker. But then I pulled up to the window and for a second it looked like there were horns coming out of her head. Then she turned to me and I saw her eyes glow with bright red fire and she snarled at me. That's when I knew she was a demon, probably from the fourth or figth level of Hell. I ended up throwing the food away and going to Denny's. I was afraid she might have put something in it that would let her control my mind."   He said all of this in the same measured, newscaster voice with which he'd greeted us.   "Good thinking, Lawrence," Zak assured him with a straight face. "You can never be too careful when demons handle your food. You know, from your description it soudns like this might be a case of demonic posession. When the night shift comes in, I'll get a team down there to check things out, maybe get a priest in case we need to do an exorcism. Now, if our gal isn't working tonight it might take a few days to track her down, so it's probably best for you to steer clear of there for a little while just to be safe. She might have realized you were onto her."   "I don't go there very often, so that won't be a problem." Lawrence lowered his voice and leaned forward, "He Zak, do you think she's working for him?"   Zak shook his head. "I don't know, Lawrence. That doesn't really sound like his MO. Besides, we're not even sure that he's still alive."   Lawrence frowned. "Oh, I assure you that he's alive, and his plans are in motion. Last night I was going over this book I picked up on eBay, and I'm fairly sure I've found another piece of the prophecy. If my translations are correct, he's about to expand his army tenfold." His voice started to rise: "Under the light of the bood red moon, he will deliver the annointed one to the great horde! When the annointed one is transformed, the horde will rage across the land and FEAST ON THE FLESH OF MEN!"   "Ok, we're officially in Crazytown," I thought.   Zak maintained his relative professionalism. "We'll certainly look into that, Lawrence. We'll deal with that demon as soon as we track her down and I'll call you once we've got things under control. Thanks for the lemonade."   While Zak was talking, Lawrence regained his composure. "Well, I appreciate that. You boys be careful, now."   When we were back in the truck and I was sure that Lawrence was safely inside, I started laughing. "So, who exactly does he think is recruiting an army of monsters?"   Zak smiled, "Oh, come on. You saw the wall, You know."   There was really only one possible answer, but actually saying it made me feel ridiculous. "Abe Vigoda?"   "Ding!Ding!Ding!" Zak yelled, finally loosing his composure. "He's convinced that Abe Vigoda is some kind of demon lord that's going to try to take over the world!"   "Well, I guess that makes sense, if you're insane. So you guys just humor him?"   "Pretty much. From what I hear, the first handful of agents tried to convince that he was seeing things and needed to get some help, but it just didn't work. Anybody who told him he was nuts just got pegged as a monster or one of Abe Vigoda's mind-controlled servants. Eventually we just sort of adopted a policy of pretending to take him very seriously in hopes of making him think everything is under control. Hopefully if he thinks we're handling things it'll keep him from snapping and hunting down 'monsters' on his own."   "So you never really cleared the pixes from his garden?"   "Not any real ones," Zak said through giggles, "I think he must have seen that one Harry Potter movie or something, so he called us over and pointed out the pixes in his garden. Not only were there not any pixies, dude doesn't have a garden! I grabbed a bottle of window cleaner out of the car and told him it was an iron solution that repelled fairies. When I started spraying it around his back yard, he started yelling things like 'that's right, get out!' and 'don't come back!'" Zack was barely able to talk through the laughter at this point. "So I guess it worked."   After Zak stopped laughing enough to drive, he pulled back on the street. I was a little surprised when he pulled into McDonald's.   "What are we doing here?" I asked.   "I'm just going to go in and ask the manager a few questions, make sure the employee working the drivethru last night has been acting strange."   "Do you honestly believe there's something to what Lawrence said?"   "Of course not, but M-Force policy is to investigate every report. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, better safe than sorry, all that kind of thing."   We went inside and talked to the McDonald's manager. When we left, Zak was confident that demons hadn't inexplicably starte taking late-shift McJobs.