The Trouble With Litches
His name is Zanifzabar.
I know this because he left a bookmark with his name on it in a book of mine he was reading.
You see, it has long been my habit this time of the year to read a bit and have hot tea and a snack out on the front patio during midday, so that I might take in some of the mild autumn weather while it lasts, and, as the patio is well covered, I usually just leave my book outside until the following day, then take up reading where I left off.
At first I thought nothing of it, finding the book lying face down and open at the wrong place in the story when I went out for my daily read. But as the days passed by, I began to wonder at this strange recurring phenomenon. Surely no one was coming unbidden onto my front patio and reading my book! That’s just crazy.
“I think I’m losing it,” I said to myself, and laughed the whole thing off.
Until one day, I approached the book and saw what could only be a black bookmark of some sort wedged between the pages. I knew damned well it wasn’t mine.
I stared at the book for a brief second before snatching it up and opening it where it was marked. I took the bookmark out and looked it over. It was silky to the touch, not like paper at all, yet of the same approximate stiffness, and it had writing on one side.
The letters were in an old style calligraphy done with some type of red shiny ink. The bookmark read;
Zanifzabar
Evil Lichdrow
Infernal Underdark, Prime Material Plane
Springfield MO. 65803
1-800-Bad-Lich
“Aww ha haa” I laughed “Ha ha ha! Somebody got me!”
I went through a list of people who might be inclined to pull a subtle joke like this and concluded that it was likely either my brother, who pops in and out all day, or my buddy ‘Mooch’, (real name Doug.) who is always giving me hell about that “Hairy Potter crap” I read. That's what he labels anything in the genre of sci-fi or fantasy.
(I generally take such derision in stride from my buddy Doug. It’s the least I can do. I am, after all, the one who mockingly dubbed him ‘Mooch’ in front of the gang one night when he bummed a beer from me at a party. I thought it was funny because things usually are the other way around between us. Everybody else thought it was funny because Doug, being fiercely self-reliant, took umbrage at the jest, saying, “Now look, I’m a lot of things, but I am not a Mooch!” and to really drive his point home, he pointed his finger up with a ludicrous flourish, raised up to his full height of six foot five, and struck a drunkenly self-righteous pose.
There was a small space of silence as everybody in attendance at the party looked side long with a grin at the person next to them, and then, as if they had rehearsed at length for this moment, they all cried out in a unified voice, “Mooch!” and traded high fives amidst uproarious laughter. Perversely, he has been stuck with the nickname every since.)
“Yep, has to be the Mooch,” I said to no one in particular, and looked back down at the bookmark.
I noticed several designs at the bottom done in dark gray, barely noticeable against the darker background. They looked cool, much like the Celtic runes I had read about in passing.
Curious, I moved off of the patio and into the sunlight to get a better look, but the instant the card came into direct contact with the rays of the sun, it began smoking and became hot to the touch. I dropped it just before it burst into flames, making a small keening sound it as fell, as if the thing were alive.
“What the hell!” I exclaimed with keen savvy, and stared off at the ashes as they wafted away in the gentle breeze. Damned weird.
I immediately whipped out my cell phone, called the Mooch and told him what had just happened. He laughed and said, “You’ve been into that ‘Harry Potter crap’ again, haven’t you?”
He also told me to lay off the mushrooms.
After ascertaining that Moochy was not involved, I hung up with him and called my
brother.
My brother listened to my story with a bit more pause. Being my brother, he knows better than anybody what I sound like when I’m lying, and what I sound like when I’m really serious, and he picked up on my earnest puzzlement at the whole thing. He told me that no, he hadn’t had anything to do with it, wished he had, and suggested that I try to catch the prankster in the act.
“Let me know how it turns out. Oh, and find out how he did that burning card trick. Sounds like a cool trick. Later.” He then hung up his phone with certain telltale glibness only he could manage.
Well, that didn’t sound like a half-bad advice, but it would have to wait for another time, because I had plans to spend the evening with my girlfriend, and would likely stay the night at her place.
As it turns out, I did just that.
The following day I drove into my driveway with a stupid dreamy smile on my face as I reminisced about the night before. I killed the engine, got out of the car, and hopped up the steps of the patio and thinking of calling the florist and sending that girl of mine some flowers. I had the house key out and was ready to unlock the door when I glanced toward my lawn chair sitting on the patio and saw the book sitting atop it with a black parchment stuck in the pages.
There was also a broken flowerpot beside the chair.
I walked over to the book, retrieved the note, and read these words, again scrawled in old style calligraphy;
DO NOT LOSE MY PLACE AGAIN, HUMAN, OR YOU WILL FEEL MY
TERRIBLE WRATH! AS PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR EARLIER TEMERITY, YOU
WILL HENCEFORTH PREPARE FOR MY EVENING READING PLEASURE A
FINE PASTRY, (OR SOME TASTY CHIPS WITH MILD SALSA,)
EVERY EVENING UNTIL THE NIGHT OF HALLOWEEN.
LEAVE MY TREATS BY THE BOOK, AND DO NOT FORGET,
OR I SHALL MAKE OF YOU A LOATHSOME MOCKERY OF A MAN.
Very Sincerely,
Zanifzabar
Evil (and you better believe it) Lichdrow.
For the first time during this whole affair, I began to feel a bit …unnerved. I felt it was still likely some elaborate joke, but this seemed just a bit much.
And my broken flowerpot! Did the bastard do it on purpose or by accident? Seems he could at least have cleaned it up.
Well, I am no stranger to practical jokery myself, and as I stood there with that note in my hands, staring at my broken pot, I began to devise a plan. But first I needed to do a bit of reconnaissance.
So that night, I played along. The first part of my plan required finding out when the rascal made his visit, so I put some chips and dip out by the book that evening, and left some dark colored towels positioned around the patio with unwrinkled sheets of aluminum foil folded up in them, to get a footprint from the perpetrator should he step on one.
When ten o’clock rolled around, I turned out the patio light as usual and snuck out the back door. I then circled around to the front of the house and hid in the hedges with a six-pack of beer and a pair of night vision goggles I had borrowed from my buddy Nathan (Nathan has the peculiar habit of collecting camouflage outfits, water purification kits, night vision goggles, gas masks and things of that nature. Otherwise he’s perfectly normal and makes a hell of a camping buddy.)
At eleven thirty, I went back into the house, got another six-pack of beer along with a can of Off, and returned to the bushes.
I was fishing my second beer out of the six-pack and getting pretty damned tired of hiding in the bushes when I suddenly detected movement out near the far edge of the yard.
My heart raced as I put the beer down and glanced at my digital watch.
Twelve o’clock.
Midnight.
I slowly lifted up the night vision goggles to get a better look.
What I saw in the grayscale world of the goggles was a lean, robed figure with a deep cowl draped over its head, completely blocking its face from view. Pretty much a grim reaper without a sickle.
At first it just stood there as if were contemplating the evening breeze, then it did something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The figure glided, not walked, but glided toward the patio like a ballet dancer or a ghost.
Or a lichdrow.
Who was this character?
When he reached the steps he flowed right up them seemingly without so much as a bending of the knee and glided over to the reading chair where he gracefully sat back and kicked his feet up.
He grabbed up the plate of salsa and chips I had laid out.
I listened to several minutes of chomping and lip smacking as the robed figure munched and crunched on the snack. When he was finished, he let out a loud belch, leaned to one side and suffered a few healthy (or not) episodes of flatulence, chuckling all the while in a raspy voice, like a heavy smoker who had just heard some clever joke.
He then sniffed and muttered something about “stale chips” as he picked up the book and started flipping through pages in the dark.
What a weirdo.
Having found out what I had set out to learn, I sneaked away to the rear of the house and entered through the back door. About an hour later, I went back out to take a look, and saw that the fellow had left the scene.
I went to the patio and checked the foil in the towels for footprints. Nothing. He must have stepped over them.
Or floated…
I shook my head. True, the way this ‘lich’ guy moved was uncanny, but there are mimes
and dancers in the world who could achieve a similar effect, especially with their feet shrouded by a long dark robe.
But why all the fuss? Did he know someone was watching and put on the act for the benefit of spectators, or was he just one super weird dude?
Certainly weird enough to leave a bookmark that burns up and squeals at the light of day.
“Whatever the case may be,” I said in a low voice as I collected the dirty plate from beside the book, “tomorrow, I’m catching a lichdrow.”
As I went back into my house, I realized I had forgotten all about ordering flowers.
The Trap
The following day, I recruited help.
Nathan, the Mooch and I crowded around the workbench in my garage. There I had laid out the following items for inspection:
One large tube of Krazy Glue
Two paint ball guns
A coiled up water hose
A boom box with an old Nazareth tape in it
Three flood lights
A long dark green extension chord and several shorter brown ones
A camera with a flash
Two walkie-talkies
Three rolls of black electrical tape
A package of firecrackers
An electric toaster
Nathan’s night vision goggles
A cool remote control on/off power outlet I picked up at Radio Shack
And a large bottle of fingernail polish remover
I also had the lich’s note laid out for all to view. They both got a kick out of reading it.
“So let me get this straight,” Mooch said as he puffed the cherry tobacco in his briarwood pipe and considered the odd assortment of stuff.
“You knuckle heads are gonna lure this lich nerd onto the patio with cookies so that you can super glue him to a lawn chair,”
He pointed his pipe at the Krazy Glue,
“Scare the hell out of him with fireworks,”
He motioned to the firecrackers,
“And flood lights,”
He indicated the lights,
“And Nazerath,”
He nodded to the boom box,
“Shoot him with paint balls,”
His eyes got a bit large at that last bit.
“And then you want me to hose him down with a garden hose,”
He took a long swig out of his beer, belched, crushed the empty and threw it into the trash bin.
“Oh, and then Horatio is going to jump out and take his picture for his buddies on the Internet. Well, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” He rolled his eyes. “Horatio, pass me another beer, would’ya?”
“Here Mooch. Want one Nate?”
Nate shook his head “No, not yet. Horatio, something about the way you describe this guy makes me wonder. Do you think he’s dangerous? I mean, what if he’s just some crazy nut and has a gun?”
Trust Nathan to turn the conversation around to guns. The gods were cruel to Nate when they gave him poor eyesight. He couldn’t shoot worth a damn, but he had the heart of an old western gunslinger.
On second thought, maybe the gods were showing my friend a kindness. From what I understand, gunslingers don’t live long.
Nevertheless, I considered his words. “No, I don’t think so Nater. I mean, it’s got to be somebody playing a trick on me. And even if it is some nut, I just don’t think he carries a gun. Just seems wrong for this cat. But there is something I’d like to show you guys.”
I picked up the lich-note from the table and unfolded it. “Remember what I said happened to that bookmark when I took it into the sunlight?”
Nate nodded “Yeah. Do you think this will burn up too?”
I shrugged. “Lets see.”
So the three of us walked to the open garage door, where I stopped and unceremoniously
threw it into the sunlight. And it just sat there.
Mooch sniggered. “Impressive.”
But then it started. At first with a small whine, which developed into a shriek as the parchment started smoking and writhing, (yes writhing,) about on the ground.
“What the hell?” Mooch brilliantly exclaimed.
“Sh*t!” Nathan astutely replied.
We all just stared at the coal black ashes when it was over.
“You didn’t say that the bookmark did all that,” Nathan said.
I raised my eyebrows. “It didn’t. But it was a lot smaller.”
“Cool trick. Think I’ll take that beer now.”
“Right.”
And so the afternoon was whiled away with the three of us having beers, shooting the bullshit, and setting lich traps. (This last part was mostly done by Nathan and I while Mooch provided moral support by fetching beers, smoking his pipe and treating us to ample amounts of his sardonic wit and light hearted derision.)
“Nathan, you look like some kind of mongoose or ferret climbing up there like that.” Mooch observed.
Nate is a tall, thin, lanky sort who climbs around on building rooftops and ceilings all day, insulating pipes for a living. Being the youngest of our trio by ten years or so, he was also far more energetic and agile than the Mooch or myself.
I looked up at Nathan taping electric wires to the roof of the patio for the floodlights and had to agree with Mooches assessment.
“Half man, half ferret. See the ferret-man!” I said, sounding like a carnival barker for a freak show.
Mooch grunted. “The giant, mutant ferret. He’s fearless though.”
“Fearsome ferret.” I said as I got up from the old electric toaster hidden under the reading table. I had just wrapped the fuse of the firecrackers around the heating element in the toaster so that they would go off seconds after I activated the remote control power outlet at the end of our hidden extension chord. The same outlet would turn on the hidden stereo and floodlights as well. I grinned as I considered our handy work. This should scare the hell out of anybody if we pulled it off right.
“Well, I think I have the firecrackers squared away. Hey fearless, you gonna need more tape up there?”
“Nope. I could use that staple gun though.”
I tossed him the staple gun.
“So how are you going to get the Krazy Glue on the chair at the right time?” the Mooch asked.
“Well, that’s the critical part.” I said. “I’m counting on the chair to slow him down so you can give’m the hose and I can pop him with the paint gun.”
“Yeah, I,m gonna pop him too!” Nate chimed from the roof as he pushed his Coke bottle-thick glasses higher up on his nose.
“Um, right,” I said “So anyway, if we put a good amount on the chair, we would probably have a drying time of about three minutes. Not much of a window, but I really can’t think of a way to apply the glue from a distance. I guess we are just going to put it on there by hand and count on him being a punctual lich.”
“Well, you’re the lich expert.” Mooch mocked, and went inside the house, presumably to get a beer.
Nathan shimmied down from the roof. “Let’s try it out.”
“Just a minute.” I went and unplugged the toaster oven. Then I grabbed a paint gun and walked over to the bushes where I would be hiding. I crouched down.
“Can you see me from the patio?” I said
After a pause, Nathan said “Nope, especially not in the dark.”
I pushed the button. The floodlights came on and the stereo boomed out ‘Hair of the Dog’ with a jarring loudness.
I rose up from the bushes and took aim where I would be shooting. I had a fine shot. Just then Mooch came running around the side of the house with one of my bed sheets over his head, armed with the garden hose.
“I’m the lich! Here’s a water spell!”
He then awarded Nate a healthy libation of pressurized tap water from the hose.
I laughed like hell and shot the Mooch with a paintball. Then I had to flee from his riposte as he liberally reciprocated in kind,
These actions lead to what can only be described as a fifteen-minute front yard melee. We really let each other have it.
But eventually, the Mooch got tired of being shot, and we got tired of getting squirted, so we stopped, grilled out and drank more beer instead. The night was shaping up well. When it came time to deal with the lich, we would be ready.
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