Warnings: This is old.  Very old.  This is the first short story I ever wrote, but I don’t think it’s all that bad considering how much my style and skill have improved since then.  There is some violence, but not as much as I originally thought.

Disclaimer: I do not own “Hannibal,” and I make no profit from its mention.  The two recipes (for pranks) are real, but I hold no responsibility for any trouble you might get yourself into trying them out.

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The Violent and Disturbing Adventures of Cobalt, the Green Gnome

(The author would like it noted that “green gnome” is an example of alliteration when you write it, but not when you speak it)

For: Debbie F.

She is my other half like no one else has ever been, and the minute she stops being sick, I’m going to kick her butt for being away for so long.  Much love, ‘Balty!

Cobalt’s feet skittered across the blue and white tile of the kitchen floor as the small monster raced to find a hiding place.  Smirking evilly as he rounded the corner of the island counter, the seaweed-shaded sprite was cocky, even as the increasing volume of the footsteps in the hall signified his nigh imminent capture.  After finding purchase on the drawer handles that rose ladder-like on the side of the counter against the wall, Cobalt slithered upwards like a child scrambling to its precariously balanced tree house when bath time had come around.

For a bath of his own, our fearless imp quickly bounced into the large marble sink and then hid under a food-encrusted pot.  The exact breed of encrusted food was uncertain because the owners of the house were still attempting to coerce their own monster--a teenager--into doing household chores, so the sink had been full for two weeks.  Now, with a concealed perch and easy access to munchies--mysterious as they were--Cobalt settled back on his haunches to watch the show.

The man of the house burst in second, following the more formidable woman of the house.

“Dearest!  Please calm down, you know how stress irritates your ulcer,” whimpered the scrimp of manly virility.

“Don’t suck up to me now!  You know perfectly well that I’ve been the true disciplinarian in this household.”  She wheeled around to face the opposite wall and threw her hands into the air in a mock petition to God.  “Heaven forbid that you should ever grow a spine and learn to punish your daughter!  Do you realize how long it’s been since the dishes were cleaned, or the laundry was done?”

Though he trembled with terror, the man managed miraculously to speak without stuttering, “I'm so sorry pet, and I know you do so much with Carole.  I try to make my punishments stick, but she always seems to turn me around until I don’t know which way is up.  She’s very clever, she gets that from you of course.”

From his countertop hidey-hole, the grass-coloured troll of diminutive proportions bordered on impatience as he tallied the seconds left in the intermission.  The first two acts had played out with the expected measure of success for such a talented agent of chaos as Cobalt, but after setting the stage for the second half of the performance, he knew he wanted more than what was expected.  Besides, the only thing more fun than setting the traps, was watching the hapless prey stumble into them.  Or maybe it was the death rattle of the doomed quarry as its last bit of life slipped out and stained the floor red that really enchanted the verdant mini-Loki.  Actually, any kind of suffering was enough to bring the roguish gnome near orgasmic bliss, and only his inner-hedonist allowed him to enjoy the calm before the storm.

Cobalt tensed as the woman--arms still a-waving--moved farther away from her husband as if to escape the vacuum-like suction power of his sycophantic words.  She had inadvertently wandered into an area of the kitchen where the floor had been treated with what our charming goblin friend affectionately called “Snap Powder”.  The explosive, made from iodine crystals and ammonium hydroxide, was pressure sensitive and a real surprise to the unsuspecting victim when it got underfoot.

“I swear I have no idea why you aren’t in a puddle on the floor like any other spineless jellyfish.  Do you realize how disgusting you are to me when you- Shit!”  The expletive that exploded from the woman’s delicately lip-sticked mouth was almost as loud as the bang that sounded as her blue, low-heeled shoe trod upon the Snap Powder.

The man’s reaction was belated, shocked as he was, so it was a few seconds before he regained his voice to yelp, “My goodness sweetums, are you okay?”

After dancing a bit more on volatile floor, gunshots of noise and flashes of purple tracking her movements, the now hysterical woman had slid against the wall onto a clear space of tile.  Her hands clutched against her ears and tears streaked black with mascara and eyeliner down her frightened-white cheeks.  She remained oblivious to the query about her condition.

Cobalt, on the other hand, was paying rapt attention to the proceedings and answered the man in his head, “No, and not for a while yet.”

Jagged claws trembled with the desire to rip into something and soon, but the sanguinary scamp with the glowing green eyes contented himself to quietly bury his talons into the marble surface he sat upon.  There would be plenty of time later for more interactive fun, he reminded himself, and it would spoil the game if he were to be discovered by these giant flesh-bags.

In a chivalrous display, the woman’s husband grabbed a chair from the table beside him with the intention that she would sit in it and resume her composure.  However, pulling the chair out had the amusing consequence of removing vital support from the precariously balanced table, whose sawed-through legs were courtesy of Cobalt.

After losing its last bit of structural integrity, the charming oak tabletop slid off its useless legs, turning over the remaining chairs in the process, and dropped onto the floor in a slightly less graceful manner than the distraught woman beside it had so recently done.  The whole operation provided, even without the aid of Snap Powder, a loud and heart-stopping slam, and our Master of Malevolence was fervently hoping a cardiac arrest or two would befall the senior occupants of the neighbouring dwellings, just as icing on the cake.

The moment after the table crashed mightily to the kitchen floor, another bang indicated the opening of the cupboard doors on the side of the island counter facing into the rest of the kitchen.  The doors had been attached by thin wire and small pulley to the table, and their opening was thus caused by the furniture’s collapse.  The domino effect continued as the doors ripped open the cloth bag attached to them from the inside, spraying glitter into the room.  At the same time, a large mason jar that had been poised unsteadily in the cupboard was knocked over, and so smashed onto the now sparkly tile of the much-disrupted room.

The jar itself was the pinnacle prank.  Although it was not as startling as the powder or the table, nor was it as visible as the glitter, its spilled contents would permeate the house and its inhabitant’s lives for a long time.  A mixture of Drano, egg whites, Methylene Blue, and water, the stink bomb was a masterpiece, truly a stench to behold.

Chair in hand, the man was the clichéd deer frozen in the headlights of an oncoming truck, his mouth gaping open like a fish waiting for a worm.  His wife was by then curled on the floor in a fetal position, bawling and screaming, and vomiting as the disgusting odor assailed her senses.  This was too much for him, and he broke away suddenly, darting out of the ruined kitchen, the slammed doors behind him tracing his path out of the house and the telltale “vrrrrm” of an expensive import backing out of the driveway became a monument to his cowardly flight.

Cobalt was giddy with excitement, it had definitely gone better than expected, the traps springing with a precision of luck even the Road Runner couldn’t match.  Creeping as softly as he could, although his blood-red claws clacked on the floor despite his best efforts, the beast with cold jade eyes made his way over to the shaking mess of a woman, who was still visibly in shock.  He caressed her glitter-dusted hair gently, then grabbed the whole mass near her skull, and twisted.  Her sobbing finally finished, the woman remained in a position similar to her previous one, only now her head hung at an unnatural angle.  The serpent-green monster made a mental note to bring the body with him when he left--she would make a good meal for his minions.

Finally, it was time for the fourth and concluding act.  Slipping though doors, hallways, and rooms, Cobalt made his way back up to young Carole’s room.  He peeked his viridescent head through the doorway and spotted the girl’s feet hanging off the edge of her bed, clad in cheap, yellow tennis shoes.

“Hmm?  Whose there?”  As the girl stirred and sat up, she rubbed her eyes with fisted hands then looked with foggy eyes at the partially hidden gremlin.  “Hey!  You’re that funky little dude with the good beer!  Man, I feel so messed up still.”

Cobalt smirked, the young lady had been “messed up” when he had first found her, stoned out of her mind.  It hadn’t taken much coaxing to get her to imbibe some of his special homebrewed ale.  In a bit, the unusual side effects of the brew would begin to take place and the pint-sized evil incarnate could begin his real work.

Sure enough, the girl lay down again quickly as her limbs began to fail her, forcing her into a motionless state.  As he withdrew the pocketknife found earlier, tucked in a pair of jeans lying discarded under the teen’s dresser, Cobalt moved from the doorway, across the floor, and onto the bed.  He traversed the mattress clumsily; trying to avoid catching his clawed toes on the blanket, and came up to sit next to Carole’s head.

You know,” he whispered into her ear, his breath rotting and repulsive, his teeth sharp, and his voice chilling, “I gave Harris the idea to do this in his book.”

The first glimmers of fear entered the girl’s expression as she glanced at her copy of Hannibal, by Thomas Harris, lying tented on the floor by the closet, but she was still too far gone on the unique blend of alcohol that raced through her system for real comprehension of her situation.  Still, the little demon was satisfied by her reaction, knowing that soon enough her eyes would shine with true horror as the last effects of his chemical revealed themselves.  As her muscles became less responsive, her nerves would waken fully, allowing her to feel every drag of the dull knife through her skin.

Speaking of which, Cobalt pressed the blade against the soft skin of her forehead, then pushed the edge completely in and began to pull it around her face, removing the precious bits of flesh, harvesting the secret ingredient of his ale.  As he worked, he placed the precious tissue in a Ziploc baggie he’d snagged from the kitchen when he mounted the mason jar stink bomb.

Carole began to scream then, though nowhere near as loudly as her mother, but only because the muscles in her throat and tongue were so weak.  Whistling a cheery little tune in a minor key, Cobalt mentally congratulated himself on a hard day’s work--then licked a bit of blood off his arm.