Fiends stick together
By Stas' Wiatrowski

Another dinner party and here they all were, another bunch of attractive twenty-somethings with great haircuts, designer casual gear and witty post modern TV deconstruction conversations.

Only Freddy was missing, but that's because Freddy was on a mission. He'd been sent out to get the June issue of Modern Movement, since Emily Peeled (the one the boys all went for) had an account of her recent trip to visit her Aunty Emma in London published in that magazine.

Trent Hatchet, the goofy, intense intelligent one of the group, was plainly concerned about Freddy's lateness. He ran his hand through his brushcut and had a little moan.

"What could be so difficult in picking up a free paper for Christ's sake. I mean, it's free. He's probably been hit by a bus." Trent had a gloomy side, not surprising given his job as the youngest Coroner in the State.

"They might have, like run out of copies due to Freddy's karma. And then he got hit by the bus," said Judy Trask, all blond ringlets and crystals, with that barely hidden nasty streak common to so many New Age Folk. "Maybe he tripped and watched the wheel coming right for his head.

"Judy worked as a waitress in the same Titty Bar that Freddy spruiked for. She figured all the guys who went there would receive terrible karmic punishment for ogling her bosoms.
      Dash, the edgy Public Servant of the group, lifted his head up from the huge comfy couch - one of two big comfy couches they were always sprawling all over.

"Listen, this dinner is supposed to be for Freddy's birthday. Let's not forget that."

"Let's not forget the crush you've got on Freddy, replied Emily Peeled. Emily had a half smile and a way of brushing back the hair from the side of her face that turned all men into idiots. She was rich and beautiful and was determined that one day she would try to live without her parent's vast fortune. One day.

"I think we're all jumping to horrible conclusions," said Suzy De Clerk, the sad obsessive one. Suzy was between jobs at present and had spent three days preparing a feast for Freddy's birthday. She had a secret crush on Freddy. Right now she was flipping plates around the table like a Frisbee Champion. And then the door opened, and Freddy finally arrived.

"Hey guys!" he called out.

"What are you all doing here?"

"Your birthday dinner, remember, boofhead? And anyway, since when are we ever anywhere else, except maybe the coffee shop?

" Dash smiled at the rest of the group. Freddy's dimness was legendary.

"Hey that's right! We're always pissing in each other's pockets." Freddy said listen

"I had the best news today. The guy who runs the club says he can get me into movies as an actor!"

"And what kind of movies would these be?" asked Dash, who shared a flat with Freddy and sometimes stood over his bed at night, wondering whether to strangle him or give him a big secret smooch.

"Well the guy said they're for adults only, so they must be pretty intellectual or something." Emily sidled over to Freddy then.

"Enough talk about your paltry aspirations Freddy. So where are you hiding the magazine?"

"What magazine? Oh that magazine, the Mod one. Well, here's a funny thing, what with all the good news about me being an actor again, well I nearly forgot to pick up the magazine."

"Nearly forgot?" asked Emily, voice very cool.

"Yeah. Remember I was supposed to do it at lunch time? Well, by the time I went to look around, all the copies had gone, can you believe it? I bet if I'd gone there at lunch they would have still been there.

"You idiot" Emily shouted.

"That had my fucking story in it! This was my chance to really break free from my parents, become a proper journalist. I wanted to show it to some of Daddy's friends in telecommunications!"

"It was just a free paper for fuck's sake" Freddy said.

"Nobody's going to actually read it." It was at that point that Emily snapped. Years of training in Kung Fu at her parents' expense took over and she swung her right leg out and caught Freddy hard in the jaw, just as Suzy was bringing in the carving knife for the Roast Turkey.

Freddy fell on Suzy, which meant that he fell on the knife, and then onto the table. Blood poured pretty quickly after that.

"Oh my spread" Suzy screamed and for a moment all of the fiends were on their feet running around in everdiminishing circles, all-screeching. Only Freddy was silent now. Very silent. Then Trent, the coroner, leaned over Freddy and touched Freddy's neck.

"He's dead"

"I killed him! Suzy screamed.

"God strike me down! Look at all the blood, what a mess! What am I going to use to get the stains off the table cover!" Trent gave Freddy another look over.

"Nah, you didn't kill him Suzy. See the angle of his head in relation to his shoulder? When Emily kicked him she snapped his neck. He was history before he fell on the knife.

"So it's my fault now?" Emily asked, looking at her nails and brushing back her hair.

"Yes," Trent said.

"Yes it is your fault."

"I'II just ring Daddy, get him to take care of it the way he did that awful Polo accident."

"Doesn't anybody care that my best friend has just died?" Dash was fighting back the tears.

"Well I guess there goes that shower together you were always fantasising about," Emily replied.

"You, you witch woman" Dash said.

"Why I ought to... I ought to...

"Ought to what Chunky Boy?" Emily was back in a Kung Fu stance.

"Did you hear that? She kills my best friend and now she's making fun of my weigh!" Dash stumbled and fell behind the couch.

"Hey where's Judy?" asked Suzy. Their crystal loving fiend had left the room during the pandemonium.

"You don't think she's calling the police?" For the first time Emily looked worried.

But right then Judy came back in the room, holding sticks of incense.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Dash.

"Purifying the place."

"I thought you might be calling the cops," Emily said, sounding more than a little dangerous, which she often did - she just couldn't help it.

"Me call the cops? With this stash in my bra? Not likely Murderer Girl. And anyway, any hippy will tell you, incense keeps the cops away. Everybody knows that"

"But we have to call the cops," Suzy said. "It's the right thing to do.

"We're all going to go to jail," Dash said.

"There goes my chance of making section head at work!"

"You'll be worrying about different head in prison." Emily said.

"Can we all focus for a minute?" Trent shouted.

"None of us wants to call the cops, that's a given. We have to think up a plan."

"Oh God, his parents are arriving tomorrow, to take him to the zoo."
Suzy started a fresh bout of weeping. Freddy was one of nine children; well actually had been the only surviving child, until now. His elderly parents doted on him, treated him as if he was six years old. Which had suited Freddy just fine.

"First things first," Emily said.

"We have to get rid of the body."

Everybody looked at Trent the Coroner.

"Oh right, this is my job now is it? Years of necrophilia jokes from all you arseholes, nobody ever taking my job seriously, nobody even remotely interested in the finer points of forensic examinations. But now I'm the most popular guy in the room!" Trent paused.

"Okay, first things first. He's going to be hard to conceal and move with those arms and legs and head dangling everywhere. We need to make a more tidy package. Dash, get Freddy's woodworking tools.

"Are you suggesting we take Freddy's tools and carve him up on this table like the Turkey he was looking forward to?"

"No, we're going to drag him into the bathroom first. Now move it" It was hard, bloody work. Judy insisted on chanting excerpts from The Book of the Dead to help Freddy's soul find its way to the next life. By the time they'd finished, they had placed Freddy in four separate bin-liner bags, which they threw in a number of different miniskips across the city: skips chosen for their odour and the fact that nobody ever seemed to bother to take them away. There were quite a few hilarious mishaps along the way, but by the next morning the flat was spic and span.

At eight o'clock all the friends were huddled together in the apartment. The door buzzed and a frail couple walked in.

"Look," Freddy's mum said.

"All of Freddy's fiends are here for his birthday. Would you all like to come to the zoo as well?"

"No thanks," Trent said.

"We're all too busy.

"I'd come." Judy said,

"but in a former life I was a caged baboon."

"That's nice dear," Freddy's mum said.

"And where is our wonderful son?" Freddy's father asked.

That's when the gang of wacky layabouts realised that they hadn't discussed an excuse for Freddy's absence.

"Uh, he's indisposed," Dash said.

"Actually," Emily said,

"I think we should tell Freddy's parents the truth."

"Oh yeah?" Trent said.

"And which truth would that be?"

Emily took something out of the pocket of her red suede jumpsuit.

"I have a note here, from Dash's computer, that uh, Freddy typed himself.

She handed the note to Freddy's parents, and here's what the note said:

Dear Mother and Father,
I am sorry I'm not here to meet you today, but my country needs me. You see, I am working as a secret agent, protecting this fine land from the horrors of Communism. I may never see you again, but I remain your loving son...
Freddy.

"Our brave son." Freddy's mum sobbed.

"This is the best birthday this family has ever had." His dad was getting pretty weepy too. Brains did not run in Freddy's family.

For years afterwards Freddy's mum and dad received strange word-processed notes from Freddy, from all the corners of the world. What they never knew was that these locations coincided with where Emily and the other friends were taking their overseas holidays. But hey, what's a bunch of fun-loving, good looking young people going to do when they accidentally murder one of their own?

One final point: that particular issue of Modern Movement was never found.

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