Master of Plagues, D. B. Reynolds [best books to read fiction .txt] 📗

me?”
“Yes, I forgive you, David.”
David stood up and found his way back to the middle of the group.
Prudence Cundy made her presence known before Stuart. “Stuart, spreading the slimy compound gook on the floor inside that motel was just God awful. Back where I now call home, these human-sized talking bats, they attacked me inside my school classroom. They worked me over pretty good and bit me in the rear. To almost repeat what the others have already said, these bats explained how they’d been sent by their master to plague me. Before I go back to Milwaukee, will you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“My heart has found room to forgive you, Prudence.”
Prudence stood and found a spot near the end of the ranks.
Last, John O’Connor, the one-time culprit who’d initiated contact with the other conspirators in the plot, crawled forward with the saddest look drawn on his face. “Stuart, Taylor pretty much said exactly what I wanted to say. Us driving you over to that God-forsaken rathole motel in the South Bronx wasn’t fair. Back in Washington, D.C., I got a visit from this mean hurricane inside my office at the hospital. This huge hunk of water and winds gave me a real good working over, then stung my backside with gallons of water. It came to my home and bothered me and my wife. Whether or not you’re the master, this hurricane told us who it’d been sent by. I just wanna apologize for taking part in the prank.”
“First, I’m not a master of no one,” Stuart blantly denied. “Second, I find it in my heart to forgive the eight of you. Listening to all of your stories, it sounds like you’ve suffered some serious devastations. To quote The Holy Bible back to you: ‘Whatever measure ye meet, it shall be measure to you again’. We all grew up hearing that whatever ye sow, so shall ye reap. The master who sent these creatures and forces of nature to plague you, this person must possess remarkable powers. With respect to exclusitivity, the eight of you seemed to have come out better people with more scrupulous principles.”
One by one, the group once dubbed the “egomaniacal eight”, all hugged and shook hands with Stuart. Boy, how good it felt. The eight of them went from being injured in their own backsides to literally kissing the backside of one Stuart Irwin Duffelmeyer.
Stuart got tickled on the inside with much joy.
Laura got hit with the joy he felt.
Pet World employees couldn’t believe how the eight of them crawled to Stuart on their knees.
Anthony stepped up to Stuart and whispered in his ear. “In case you don’t believe it, it’s true that the eight of us suffered damage to our backsides. It happened just like you predicted before we left out of the motel room that night in the South Bronx. Whether or not you’re the master who sent those creatures to plague us, it’s something we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out.”
The eight former NYU students filed out of Pet World with a humble demeanor.
Stuart returned to his office with Laura left petrified.
She squeezed between the back of his desk chair and the wall to give him her best womanly massage. “Stuart, I know why those eight people came back to apologize to you. You gave me some insight when we were still in Las Vegas. But, what’s this razzle dazzle crap about some master inflicting his plagues on them?”
Stuart leaned back to curl his hands around the top of her’s. “Laura, never underestimate the mastery of the Universe. Plagues are just like the people that they’re committed on, they come in different shapes and sizes and colors.”
He swung her around and paid close detail to the expensive diamond ring he bought her several days earlier.


Imprint

Publication Date: 05-29-2011

All Rights Reserved