This is my second attempt at fkfic. Usual standard disclaimers etc...apply. comments, criticism(constructive) etc...gratefully appreciated. e-mail: bp116@freenet.carleton.ca Chain Letter By Lara Sandala Thursday evening, Feb16 8pm -- LaCroix's apartment "'....copy this letter 25 times and mail them to other people within 3 days or Something Awful will happen to you.' Bah! What utter nonsense!" LaCroix growled and strode over to the fireplace, tossed the offending letter in and watched it burn to ashes. With a grim nod of satisfaction he sat at his desk and perused the rest of his mail. Most of it wa s junk. It was a shame, really, that killing the messenger that brought bad news wasn't the 'in' thing to do any more. Sunday evening, Feb19 10pm -- CERK radiostation LaCroix hobbled into the radio station, favoring his right foot, walking on the heel, only. Determinedly glaring straight ahead, he silently challenged anyone to comment about the stench emanating from his right foot. As he entered the men's room and began scraping the pooch-grenade off the bottom of his boot, he made a mental note to A) Watch where he landed next time, and B) Kill the idiot who was in charge of cleaning the parking lot^. Monday morning Feb20 2:30am -- The Raven After work, LaCroix decided to visit Janette at her club. Walking past the chain link curtain, he stood stock still and looked around in utter amazement: It was ! Everything was pink - the whole room was pink, the bar was pink, the patrons were wearing various shades of pink, they were drinking pink drinks! Even worse, the entire place was festooned with little red cut-out paper hearts stuck on every available surface. The customary blaring goth/punk music was missing and in it's place was gooey-sweet saxophone music. The kind played in hard-boiled detective movies when the hero tries to seduce the heroine, or possibly it was the soundtrack from 'Miami Vice', he couldn't tell which. And were those wafting from the ceiliing? He walked thru the bar in a daze, trying to find Janette to explain this affront to good taste, when one of the patrons turned and saw him. "Oooooooo!" she squealed in delight. "It's hiiimmm!" Immediately the roo7 exploded into a gaggle of [D [D [D Immediately the room exploded into a gaggle of ooo-ing, squealing people - vampires and mortals both. "He's mine!" "I saw him first!" "He's so and !" "Oh baby, puh-leez suck my blood!" "He's cuter than a !" His breathing came in erratic gasps. Luckily, Janette chose that time to appear - the adoring fans were trying to take souveneirs. She battled her way thru them and lugged him off to her private office. "Janette, what the devil is going !" She sighed deeply and batted her lashes and looked at him doe-eyed. "Ma cherie, we think you're so ! It doe-eyed. "Ma cherie, we think you're so ! It was unanimous - we all voted you "P 'Pookie of the year'. All of your adoring fans decorated the bar in your honor. Do you like it?" she asked, while running one hand over his chest and the other thru his hair. "Oh bay-bee," she crooned, "is mother's wittle pookie-pie enjoying himself?" She started purring and rubbing her body against his provocatively, and he began thinking maybe this wasn't so bad, after all, when the determined pounding of several pairs of fists began beating on the door. "No fair hogging him!" "We want him too!" "Give him to us!" Suddenly it sounded like the mob was using a battering ram against the door! "Janette!!" Crash! "Help!" Crash! No, not a batttering ram, they were using Miklos as the battering ram, slamming him head-first into the door! "Janette!" Crash! "I didn't sign up for" Crash! "a mosh pit!" Crash! "Hhhelllp!!!" Crash!!! The door started to give way and LAaCroix decided he'd better get the hell out of there before he ended up a wet smear on the ground from this display of 'affection'. He pried Janette off, "Sorry, pet, I've got to, you know, ahem, call of nature and all that..." She loosened her stranglehold on him and said "Of course, precious, the bathroom is right thru there." He hightailed it into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door. That wouldn't hold them long - and pried open the small bathroom window. "Blast!" He didn't fit! Just then the office door gave, and his groupies started pounding a whimpering Miklos head-first against the bathroom door. Well, then, he would himself fit! Taking off his jacket and shirt and tossing them to the floor as a sop to t the masses, he started pulling himself head-first out the window into the alley outside. Maybe he'd make it after all! He could hear the door behind fly open as his ttrousers caught on the window sill. He was stuck! He began to frantically claw at the outside brick, trying desparately to free himself from the window frame. "Oooo, his shirt! His Jacket! Mine!" "No mine!" ripping and tearing sounds could be heard from within the room. "His shirt's off! He's bare-chested! " "Oh, s--t!" he moaned as grasping hands started hauling him in. Riip! "Eeee! His pants came off!" "Oooo he's got cute legs!" "Nice tush!" Without the impediment of his pants, he was able to climb the rest of the way out and took off for home. He He heard a screech from the ground. "Streaker! Flasher!" he looked down to see a group of little old ladies pointing and staring up at him. Oh, no! Without his customary black clothing his pale skin stood out perfectly at night! He dove for the park. Wearing only his skivvies, he darted from tree to bush trying to figure out how to get home with a minimum of public exposure. He felt a pitter-patter on his head, and looked up and got a drop of water in his eye. It had started to rain. "Well, at least it isn't a..." FLASH, CRASH, SIZZLE!!! BOOM! "...thunderstorm." he finished lamely. It was bad to stand by a t tree in a thunderstorm, wasn't it?, he thought weakly. A lightening bolt hit the ground 3 feet away from him as he began to run. The storm was taking pot shots at him, sometimes missing by no more than a few inches. With the lightening at his heels, he zigged and zagged the rest of the way home. The doorman goggled at his disheveled appearance - he was too exhausted to hypnotise hhim. He wanted desperately to crawl into bed and never wake up again. Miserable, wet and dripping and weary to the bone, he sloshed into his apartment, and into bed. When he woke up, it was around midmorning. He sat up, or tried to, but the room swam out of focus and his ears were ringing. Overwhelmed by diz ziness and nausea, he sank back into the pillow and moaned. Or tried to... all that came out was a wheezing croak. He swallowed experimentally, and found tha t he had a sore and swollen throat. His nose had begun to drip, also. LaCroix swipped at it with his hand and stared in disbelief at the bloody mucus that came off it. He had caught a cold! Running around in his underwear, for miles in a thundershower had given him a cold. He crawled out of bed and on hands and knees, made his way to the kitchen. Pulling open the refridgerator door, he moaned. He was down to his last bottle of blood. Oh, well, better than nothing he thought and reached for it. All of his joints ached, A nd his hands shook as he fumbled at it. The bottle slipp ed and fell as he tried to catch it, but it broke open upon th e floor. He started to whimper, it was too much. What was he to do? He couldn't go out for at least 7 or 8 hours, and he that blood so he could heal. There was only one thing to do, he decided - he'd have to lap it up off the floor like a dog. Monday Feb20 mid-morning, 10:45am After he had finished the blood, he felt a little better. He decided to check out his e-mail on AOL(AmericaOnline). He logged on and typed in his password. It didn't work. He tried again, it still didn't work. He called up Aristotle. "Aris, I seem to be having trouble logging onto my AOL account," he wheezed. "Oh? What screen name and password are you using?" "I use the name '2Bad2Bgud', my password is 'Malice'." "Oh! That's what's wrong, then! I changed it." "You what?" "Yeah, Janette told me you wanted it changed - so I changed it." "What is it now?" LaCroix growled ominously. "Well, uh, the screen name is now 'SweetBaboo' and your password is 'PookiePie'." "I have tolog in as <'SweetBaboo'>?!!!" The ensuing dead silence that followed on LaCroix's end made Aristotle'ss flesh crawl. "Uh, I can change it back, but it'll take some time. That department is down for maintence. Uh, I have to go now, I'll call you when it' done." Aristotle hung up quickly. LaCroix buried his face in his hands. It couldn't get any worse, it couldn't get any worse. Could it? He gave a deep sigh that came from the depths of his soul and decided to bite the bullet. Grimly typing in 'SweetBaboo' and 'PookiePie' he logged on. "You have mail." the chipper computer voice said. He clicked on the mailbox icon. 147 messages were showing. "Oh, no, don't tell me I've been spammed!" Resignedly he began plowing thru the pile. To his sickened disbelief he realized that most if not possibly all of them were from his fans at the Raven. Methodically he began deleting them one by one. Out of curiosity he opened the one from Janette. "'To my Sweet Baboo, Is-ums playing hard to get? Please stop by toniteX so many people want to meet you, cherie. Don't wait too long, my sweet, or the rose petals will wither from the dark rain of our anquished hearts as we forlornly await the arrival of our Sweet Baboo!'" Gack! LaCroix choked in horror and fury. He sent a reply to Janette; "I am your SWEET BABOO!!!!!!" Finally cleaning out the last of the spam, most of it signed by lovelorn LaCroix groupies calling themselves Cousins, he got to the last message which he saw was from his accountant. "Dear Mr. LaCXroix, an unprecedented came up in the stock market and I decided to innvest all of your assets in one company - it's a stable sound investment, low risk, high yield, I didn't think you'd mind, and since I couldn't get hold of you, I went ahead with it. You now own controlling interest in 95% of the world's feminine hygiene products - one product specifically..." LaCroix's jaw dropped in dismay as he continued reading and realized he'd just become "Lucien LaCroix, Tampon King". Monday evening Feb20 10pm -- CERK radio station FInally it was time to go to work. LaCroix sat down in his chair behind the control board. His voice was still a bit raspy from the effects of the cold, so he decided toplay some music first. Putting a CD into the player, he pressed play. Relaxing back into his chair, he settled in to hear the beginning strains of Melissa Etheridge's 'Like the way I do'. Instead of throbbing guitars and hoarse, impassioned wails, what he heard was: I am a hoppity boppity little bunny kid, I like to hoppity boppity bop with you. I am a hoppity boppity little bunny kid! I hoppity B opity hoppity boppity hoppity bahh-ppity BOO!" The sqeakky high-pitched voice sang it over and over and over again. LaCroix just sat there, dumb-founded. One of his techs puttered around the equipment. "It seems someone is over-riding our signal using a high- frequency sattelite dish. The bad news is we can't stop it, or shut down, ourselves." the tech waited for a reply. "There's actually news?" LaCroix asked skeptically. "Uh, the good news is, at least they're not playing 'Achy Breaky Heart'." Tuesday morning Feb21 3am - Flying over Toronto La Croix decided to take refuge with the one person who had not yet taken part in this demented 'open season on LaCroix' the universe seemed to be indulging in. Luckily it was Nicolas' night off. Tuesday morning Feb21 3:30am - Nick's loft. "Would you mind repeating that?" LaCroix focused steadily on Nick who stood there, arms akimbo. Surely h I could not have just heard Nicolas say what he thought he just had. Nicolas sashayed closer to him and pouted. "I said... 'I'm gay!' I just realized it this morning, Schanke and I were just coming off shift and he put his arm around my shoulders and gave a little squeeze and said 'Have a good night off.' and then I realized how much I wanted him and it wasn't just a blood thing and..." LaCroix's eyes bugged out and glazed over in horrified shock as Nicolas babbled on about his newfound discovery, while giving LaCroix suggestive looks. "AAARRRGGHHH!!!!!!" La Croix howled and dove out the open window and flew home like a, well, like a bat out of hell. Back home, tearing wildly thru his escritoir, he dug out pen and paper and frantically began copying. ".....copy this letter 25 times and mail them to other people within 3 days or Something Awful will happen to you." There, the last one. He'd tak e them to the post office right away. That list of Cousins came in handy, after all. THE END Well, hope you liked it! Any comments, criticism(constuctive), are gratefully appreciated. E-mail: bp116@freenet.carleton.ca