Basil Baxter pours a new driveway

Written by Basil Baxter

It was early in the morning. Outside the birds sang. It was going to be a sunny spring day. Basil had just disconnected a phone call from the contractor; his cement truck was due to arrive in three hours. He sat down to finish his breakfast. (Kitten with pancakes and syrup.)

As he wiped the last bit of fur from the corner of his mouth, his doorbell rang. Ah, right on time, he thought as he started up Polly, his trusty, rusty, chainsaw and headed for the door to answer.

At the door stood a dishevelled looking man with long hair, wearing a dirty, threadbare beige raincoat. 'Are you Basil Baxter?' he asked.

'I Love You.' Basil Baxter answered.

The man nodded. 'I got your note.'

Basil Baxter opened the door even wider. 'Good.'

'Pinning it to the chest of my assistant was a bad idea.'

Basil Baxter looked nonplussed. 'Why? She was dead already.'

The man reached behind his back and produced a long, gleaming, sword. 'That was another matter I wished to discuss.'

Basil grinned. 'You think garrotting all your friends and then decorating your house with their entrails was a bit much?'

The man just glared. 'And you threw my dog off the building.'

'Only to kill that screaming little girl. Nothing personal.'

The man shook his head to get his long, unwashed, hairs out of his face. 'Are you stepping outside?'

'Oh, right, even my temple counts as holy ground, doesn?t it?' Basil Baxter replied, innocently, as he stepped over the threshold.

The man swung his sword, but Basil had anticipated this and Polly, his trusty, rusty, chainsaw, swung up and sideways, connecting with the blade in a trail of sparks. The sword snapped in two like a second-rate matchstick. Then Polly swung back down, and forward, neatly cutting the man in two halves that fell, twitching and spraying blood, on the ground.

The man screamed. Then he laughed. 'You fool! I am immortal, you cannot kill me.'

Basil stood over him, Polly humming in neutral by his side. 'You know, I thought about that. It was a challenge. But you know what?'

The man gritted his teeth against the pain. Already his wounds were starting to close. 'What?'

'I can hurt you. And if I hurt you enough, you take time to heal.' He put Polly in overdrive and sawed through the screaming man's chest until it was nothing more than one gaping wound.

Later, much later, the man regained consciousness. He was on his back. His hands and feet were tied. The remnants of his sword were embedded in his head. He looked up to the sky from the bottom of a shallow pit. At his feet Basil Baxter stood, grinning at him.

'Ah, you are up. Now I can continue my story. You see; I cannot kill you. I know that. So I decided to keep you out of the way until I find a way that I can.' Basil pulled something closer; it looked like a dirty pipe. 'Sayonara McLoud of the clan McLoud. There can be only one, and until you are that one, you are staying right here.' Concrete started to pour from the pipe.

Remember: Never go swimming on an empty stomach. If a police officer asks you whether you have a gun, tell him straight away that you are not afraid to use it or he is compelled by law to take it from you.

Basil Baxter Loves You.

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