The Book

I’m not really sure how Murphy came to be in possession of The Book.

I picture him walking down a dark alley between two buildings, furtively looking over his shoulder, paranoia seeping from his pores, until he comes to a nondescript door and goes in. He approaches a figure clothed in darkness.

“Do you have it?” he asks.

The figure says nothing, merely hands him The Book.  It’s bound in dark, thin leather, old and stained.  The pages inside are made of parchment and covered with odd incantations in the form of some weird kind of computer code that nobody has ever seen.  Murphy looks it over, nods his acceptance, and hands a wad of cash to the dark figure before exiting the building.

But that’s just my overactive imagination.  Most likely, Murphy just found The Book online somewhere.  Probably in one of those geeky World of Warcraft chat rooms or something.  In any case, The Book sure worked, although, maybe not quite the way Murphy intended.  

You see, Murphy wasn’t well liked, and the feeling was mutual.  He was the stereotypical Geek; tall, lanky, with a mop of greasy hair and persistent acne.  His wire-rimmed glasses perched lopsided on the bridge of his nose.  Every conversation anyone tried to start with him would get a response peppered with jargon from World of Warcraft.  Most people just learned to avoid him altogether.  He noticed.  And judging from current circumstances it looks like he decided to get even.

Using The Book, he managed to craft the ultimate computer virus.  It would reel you in with a deceptively intriguing piece of spam email.  Once you opened it—just for curiosity of course, I mean, who really thinks they can get a bigger penis?—you were a goner.

Upon opening the email, an electric buzzing sound started emanating from the computer, followed by tendrils of blue light, snapping with some kind of ethereal energy that would climb up the hands of the hapless victim.  Soon they would be enveloped, and before they knew what hit them, they were transformed.  

Into what, you ask?  Well, it depends.  Seems the point was to transform the victim into what he—or she—most feared.

                                                                                                                                ###

I sat mute for a moment, staring at my now slightly larger hands and wondering how I was suddenly wearing a black leather jacket and a t-shirt instead of my dress shirt and tie.  I blinked a few times, but to my chagrin the scenery did not change.  Curiosity overtook me then, and I wanted to see if anyone else had been affected, and how.  So I stood up in my cubicle.

I found myself face to face with Chris, the guy—or at least I thought it was a guy—who sat in the cubicle next door.  Chris was one of those androgynous types who nobody was entirely sure what sex they are.  The usual ways to tell had eluded us.  There was no significant other and the bathroom in the office was unisex.  All attempts by my coworkers to ask leading questions to try to figure it out had failed.  What stared at me now was of no particular help either. 

I was looking at an androgynous clown.  Crayon red wild hair stuck out in all directions.  It had the usual clown face, capped off with a large red nose.  I wondered if the nose was the kind that would squeak.  I decided to find out.  I reached over and gave it a squeeze.  Sure enough, it emitted a loud noise like you get from a squeaky dog toy.  What I was unprepared for however, was the look of abject horror on Chris’s clown face.  He—I’ll just call him he for simplicity from here on out—opened his eyes wide, looked down at his hands and presumably the rest of his body, let out a howl of terror and made a run for the bathroom.

I watched him until he disappeared through the doorway, then realized most of my coworkers were also standing up in their cubicles looking around with interest.  I chuckled to myself for a moment, as it’s not every day you get to see this particular group of people and things in one location together and then it occurred to me to check on my best buddy Mike, who had the cubicle behind me.  

I turned around and performed an immediate double-take.  What—or rather who—stood in place of my buddy came as quite a surprise.

“Mike?  Really?” I said.

“Like you can talk,” he replied.

“Yeah, but at least I’m still male.  Pamela Anderson?  Come on, what’s scary about her?” I said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.  Then, brightening up a little, he followed with, “These are nice though.”  He looked down at his new enormous tatas and gave them a squeeze.

Shaking my head, I decided to take a look around.  I walked out into the aisle and headed to my right a bit, until I came to the cubicle of Jerry, one of my other coworkers.  He was sitting down, looking dejected.  He looked up when I stopped in the doorway.  I almost busted out laughing, but managed to hold it in, at least until he stood up and tried to speak.

“I vant to suck your blood!” 

That was all that would come out.  No matter what he tried to say.  The poor sap looked like the caricature of a vampire.  He had slicked back black hair with a widow’s peak, pasty white skin, and wore a black tuxedo with a cape lined in red satin.

“Geez, couldn’t you do the sparkly vampire thing?  I mean, at least then you’d be popular with the ladies,” I said.

He, of course, responded with, “I vant to suck your blood!”

“I feel sorry for you man,” I said.

He responded by sitting back down and performing a facepalm. 

At that moment a shriek rang out as a very wet androgynous clown went running down the aisle.  

“AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE.”

“I guess he just discovered the makeup wouldn’t wash off,” I said, directed at nobody in particular.  “I would think it would be hard to run in those shoes.”  I shrugged, and with one last look at the forlorn vampire, continued on my walk.

The next cubicle gave me a start.  Looking up at me sweetly from the chair was the most adorable fluffy kitten ever.  I approached cautiously.  Was this the kitten from Hell?  Would it eat my face if I got too close?  I glanced at the name tag on the cubicle.  “Suzie?  Is that you?”

“Meow,” was her only response.

I reached for her slowly, watching for the first aggressive move, but it never came.  She let me scoop her up into my arms and nestled up against me purring.  So Suzie was afraid of fluffy kittens.  Go figure.

Suddenly my attention was shifted to the server room at the end of the aisle, which was emitting a familiar buzzing and popping noise.  This was the room where Murphy lived; he was the IT guy, in charge of network maintenance.  At this time we didn’t know he was the cause of all of this, we would figure that out later. 

In a few seconds, Murphy’s greatest fear emerged from the room, to the collective gasp of the staff.  He was a giant chicken.  Yep, you read that right.  A giant chicken.  He was buff colored and walked on unsteady legs, trying to flap his wings for balance.  He looked around the room and tried to speak.

“Cluck?” he said.  “Bwaaaaak?”

We couldn’t help but laugh.  

He didn’t like that at all.  He started jumping up and down, trying to stomp his unsteady chicken feet.  Then he started to rampage down the aisle.

At that precise moment, a blue light flashed from the office of the boss, which was part way down that very aisle.  What came next happened almost too fast to react.  

As Murphy barreled down the aisle a large shadow fell across the inside of the boss’s doorway.  What followed that shadow was a very large being, large enough that he had to duck to get under the doorway.  He was built like a Mack truck, with thick, heavy legs and arms that reached his knees.  Those arms were topped with nasty claws.  His skin was covered in something green and glistening.  His mouth was huge and filled with sharp teeth.  I figured I was looking at the Bogey Man.  And the Bogey Man was hungry.

As Murphy continued his rampage down the aisle he ran smack into the Bogey Man, who promptly scooped him up and ate him in one gulp.

There was silence for a moment while the rest of us contemplated our next move.  I personally didn’t want to become Bogey Man food, and I’m pretty sure my coworkers didn’t either.  But not being familiar with Bogey Man behavior, I wasn’t sure if running would be a good or bad idea.

Our problem was solved though, by the fact that something was rotten in Murphyville.  Apparently he gave The Bogey Man a tummy ache, for the poor fella turned even greener than he was before and, clutching his stomach, he ran for the bathroom.

                                                                                                                               ###

     After everything settled down, the company performed a full investigation of the incident.  They found The Book in the server room among Murphy’s things, but alas, nobody could decipher the code to change us back.

Murphy never intended to be affected by his own virus, but he miscalculated.  He thought the virus would only send out spam that would say something like “You know you want a bigger penis!” or “New Weight Loss Pill, Guaranteed!”  But the virus was smarter than that.  It sent out emails to each individual that it knew they would open.  So when he got one that said “Newly discovered cheat codes for World of Warcraft!” he opened that baby right up.  It was still open on his computer in the server room when the investigators went in.

                                                                                                                                ###

So what happened to everybody, you ask?  Well, let me see…

I decided to keep Suzie with me.  Funny thing, she doesn’t age.  Seems she is going to stay a fluffy kitten forever, the perfect pet.

My buddy Mike is still spending most of his time playing with himself.  When he’s not doing that, he’s working as a stripper.  Hey, a guy’s got to make a living somehow.

The last time I saw Jerry he was sitting in a bar looking forlorn while drinking bloody marys.  Apparently he doesn’t actually have a need to drink blood, but he still can’t say anything but the previously mentioned phrase.  Makes it hard to pick up chicks.

Chris is still running from himself screaming.  Must be quite a work-out.

The Bogey Man disappeared.  No, really.  When we went to check the bathroom he was gone.  You might want to check your closet before you go to bed.

Me?  Oh yeah, I never told you who I turned into.  Well, I’m David Hasselhoff.  I decided to make the best of it.  That’s why I’m currently getting plastered on a plane headed for Germany.  You see, I hear German chicks really dig me...