Fashionably Dead Down Under Read Online Free Page A

challenged,
“do you have any hobbies you’d like to share?”
    Janet took a deep breath, regained control of
her shaky little body and got back up in the saddle. “I too enjoy
taking other peoples money, but I really enjoy working in
television. I spend all of my free time, plus some of the time I’m
supposed to be stoking the Hell Fires, following news trucks around
and appearing in the background of live news reports!”
    “She’s been on TV at least forty-two times in
the last three months alone,” Myrtle gushed, giving Janet a high
five.
    Did Hell have its own TV stations?
    Janet, gaining confidence from the high five,
proudly shouted, “All of the local stations have taken restraining
orders out on me!”
    “Interesting,” the mean ho-bag therapist
droned. “Have you ever attacked a reporter or shouted obscenities
on live television?”
    Janet was crushed. “No. I haven’t.”
    “I thought not,” Miss Meanie replied, writing
in her notebook. “I’d like to point out that Muffy the
Contortionist is no longer part of our group. She has graduated.
She blew up a Dairy Queen on Earth last night. Apparently she felt
she had been overcharged.”
    “Lucifer’s Bouncing Balls, I hadn’t even
noticed her absence! Was anyone hurt?” Janet gasped and pulled on
her beard in distress.
    “Unfortunately, no,” the icky therapist said,
“but we hope she makes better choices next time.” She took a pause,
giving each of the group the evil eye through her bandages while
still ignoring me as if I didn’t exist. “Myrtle, you’re next.”
    Myrtle fidgeted in her chair. I figured she
had to be a couple of hundred years old like Janet, but she looked
like she was about fifteen. Most Demons, like Vampyres, stopped
aging somewhere between twenty and thirty, so it was difficult to
determine true age. I wasn’t sure why Myrtle looked so young.
    “Um . . . well, I enjoy going to Earth and
playing dead in public places. When I’m surrounded by humans I take
perverse pleasure in jumping up and scaring the fucking shit out of
them as they wail in anguish over my perceived death.”
    WTF? These Demons were nuts.
    “Have you caused any heart attacks or strokes
doing this?” Miss Bitchy Shrink grilled Myrtle.

    “No, I can’t say I have. A couple of them
have wet themselves,” she offered meekly.
    “Anything else?”
    “Ummm, sure.” I watched Myrtle wrack her
brain. “I do enjoy kidnapping people’s dogs and cats. I groom them
and dye their fur so they resemble wild animals. I then return them
to their rightful owners in the dead of the night. I derive huge
amounts of satisfaction watching our citizens walk their tigers,
skunks and panda bears around town.”
    Everyone was speechless. That had to be one
of the weirdest things I’d ever heard.
    “Do you ever eat any of the animals you
kidnap?” the therapist asked.
    “No, I’m a vegetarian,” Myrtle informed the
group.
    “A vegetarian Demon?” the bitch from hell
shrieked, her eyes turning blood red.
    Myrtle cowered behind the chair she’d
formerly been sitting in. Janet started crying and braiding her
beard, Carl looked mighty uncomfortable and Dixie looked like she
wanted to do some damage. I suppose a veggie-Demon was an anomaly,
but this shrink was a hag.
    “I’ve heard of that,” Dixie piped up,
ignoring the look of hatred from the therapist. She tried not to
fidget, but I could tell she was lying from a mile away. I was
actually enjoying myself. These people were fucking crazy. “Those
Demons get their protein from soybeans.” Dixie had a captive
audience so clearly she decided to elaborate. “I’ve heard of
Veggie-Demons destroying thousands of acres of soybean fields on
Earth just for an appetizer.” She had to have yanked that whopper
right out of her rear end.
    Myrtle glanced over at Dixie gratefully. The
lovely therapist looked as if she wanted to nail my cousin’s ass to
the wall, but she didn’t dare. Dixie might have issues, but