A story involving a leprechaun-enjoy!

“I’m being chased by a leprechaun.”

Stephen sat there trying to figure out if he heard his friend Clive correctly. Stephen hadn’t used in months, but he thinks, my mind is still all too eager to play tricks on me. The bag of Chinese food that arrived two minutes before Clive did: large red letters stenciled over the image of a dragon chasing its own thorny tail, proclaiming it to be from “Holy Chow’s,” sits squarely on the dining room table between the two friends. This room was only the “dining room” by default; the apartment has only three rooms in it, one with a couch (which Stephen also uses as his bed) and a television, a bathroom, and lastly a kitchen, with all normal kitchen amenities, and a table surrounded by three wooden chairs: the “dining room”. The smell of Cantonese chow-mien, chicken balls, and fried rice are drifting out of the bag masking Clive’s smell of sweat, nicotine, and marijuana. Jesus Christ, did he ever smell like sweat, Stephen thinks, what the Hell’s wrong with him?

“I beg your pardon, Clive, are you high? You smell like shit man.”

“I know dat it might sound crazy, but you gotta listen to me; Bobby and Craig are both dead…both killed.” It’s been less than three weeks since the two men have seen each other. In that time it looks to Stephen as if Clive has aged at least ten years: he now has deep blue and purple bags beneath his eyes, his once predominantly brown hair is now mostly white, and his facial hair looks as if it hasn’t been trimmed since the last time they met.

“By a Leprechaun, like from a box of Lucky Charms?” Stephen quips.

“I don’t expect you to believe me, but I know…oh I know.” Clive looks off into space for a minute leaving Stephen to believe that he’s lost his train of thought, just before Stephen can interject Clive continues …. “what happened to them, I saw da bodies…no man could have done dat to ‘em. I only came here ‘cause I’m leaving town before he, no, it can find me. I just wanted to say goodbye before I left.

Clive reaches across the table and opens the bag of Chinese food. A light mist of steam rushes out of the bag briefly enveloping his dirty face; when the steam dissipates fresh tears are running down the sides of his cheeks.

“You were right Steve. You always said dat one day we’d end up stealing from the wrong person and have to pay for it. Bobby and Craig paid for it, paid for it with their lives.”

Clive picks up a chicken ball with a fork that Stephen had laid out for himself and dips it into the container of sweet and sour sauce. The cuff of his Raptors sweater skims the top of the sauce; he places the fork in his opposite hand and brings the shirt up to his mouth to suck on the future stain.

“And you honestly believe that wrong person was a …a leprechaun?”

Clive slams his fist down onto the table top knocking over the container of sauce in the process. It spills onto a picture with the title “Daddy” on top in large crayon lettering: in the center of the drawing is a crudely drawn picture of a man who looks at least nine feet tall. The sauce runs across his long and slender torso.

“Careful man! That was a gift from Bekka; you got sauce all over it.” Stephen turns the container back upright. “And stop eating my food, I’m starving and can’t afford to order more after you leave.” He picks up the picture and carries it over to the kitchen counter, he gingerly dabs at it with a napkin, when he’s done he grabs an extra one, and on the way back to his seat he pins up the now ruined picture on the fridge with a banana magnet. When he sits back down he lays the extra napkin over the spilled sauce.

“You think I give a shit ‘bout yo’ picture? Aint you been listening to me-?”

Stephen cuts in before Clive can successfully finish articulating his thought. “Yeah, I heard, you’re being chased by a Leprechaun, which understandably could be a very scary thing, oh wait, wait a sec … there’s just one thing. They don’t exist!” Stephen wipes the table clean of sauce then tosses the used napkin next to the container.

Clive stands up and yanks his wallet out of his back pocket and begins to pull out money; which he then starts throwing at Stephen: a fifty dollar bill lands in the container of sweet and sour sauce, loose change scatters about the table, a quarter bounces of and rolls beneath the stove.

“Take some money then! This shit is cursed anyhow!”

Stephen sits staring at his friend: the friend he made back in elementary school, the friend he smoked his first cigarette and joint with, and of course the friend he started doing heroine with and he thinks, Christ, this could have been me; if I didn’t quit using when I did, it could be me sitting at a friends house ranting about Leprechauns, he shudders at the idea, I should listen to what he has to say, try to keep him here until the drugs where off so he’s not such an easy mark for the cops to make.

Clive slowly eases himself back into his seat, runs his right hand through his greasy, sweaty hair, and begins to drum his fingers on the tabletop as he begins.

“Bobby’s cousin is a bartender at the Firkin. Whenever some high-rolling cat comes in and starts throwing his money around he makes sure that he gets really hammered. At the end of da night when the guy wants to leave, Bobby’s cousin refuses to let him drive home and offers to call him a cab. He gets the guys address then gives it to Bobby, for a small finder’s fee, and then we go rob tha guy blind.”

“Sounds like a safe enough plan”, and so far no mention of a leprechaun, hopefully the effect of the drugs are waning, “so go on, you got the guys address then what?”

“Later in that same week, the guy shows up to the Firkin again, so Bobby’s cousin gives us a call and tells us that his house might be empty. We took the opportunity to check it out, there seemed to be no one there, there wasn’t even a little security sticker on his front door or nuttin’ so we broke in through his back door. This cat was loaded! In the master bedroom we found a chest hidden in the back of his closet, behind Armani and Versace suits that looked like they were designed for a child. So anyhow, in the chest there was wads of money, some jewelry, and even some gold pieces…we of course, took ‘em all.”

“Behind Armani and Versace suits that looked like they were designed for a child,” He robbed a midget and now in his drug induced state thinks it was a leprechaun, of course, what an idiot. A thin smile spreads across Stephen’s face as the thought comes to him. He nods his head towards Clive indicating for him to continue.

“Once we got back to the car we quickly split everything up three ways, it wasn’t exact, but that’s always how we do it.”

“So if the cops catch one of you at least the other two will have something left to bail him out with, no doubt. Sorry, Clive, go on with your story.” Stephen uses his fork to pick up some of the Cantonese chow-mien, twirling it around the noodles as if he was eating spaghetti, and shovels it into his mouth. The chopsticks that came with the meal sit untouched beside the food container.

“Normally after we split everything up in the car, the two guys who aren’t driving, usually me and Craig, would get out and go our separate ways. We’d meet up four days later; after all the heat died down to split everything up more equally. Four days passed, so I went to the spot where we normally hook up: the abandoned factory on Sixteenth Avenue.” Clive runs his right hand through his tangled mess of hair again, as his left continues to drill on the tabletop: the tapping sound now replaced by a dull thud, as each finger comes down harder than before.

Stephen stops eating, arm frozen, elbow resting on the table, fork suspended inches from his mouth, and he thinks, he’s gone mad, that look in his eyes isn’t the look of someone who’s high, it’s the look of someone who’s wrestling with their sanity, and losing.

Clive speaks in a conspiratorial tone. “That’s where I found Bobby’s body…. that’s where the leprechaun got him.”

“Clive, listen, the man that you stole from wasn’t a leprechaun. Judging by the designer suits in his closet he was just a rich guy, a midget or a dwarf sure, but a man nonetheless.” Clive lunges across the table, narrowly avoiding knocking over the sauce again but succeeding in knocking the fork from Stephen’s hand, and grabs hold of his wrist.

“It was a leprechaun.” Conspiratorial tone now gone, replaced by a deep voice full of anger and conviction. “Bobby’s insides were ripped out of his body, and that bastard used a ton of his blood to leave a message on the wall. It was only a single word: ‘thief’, now you tell me that a man did that!” Clive lets go of Stephen’s wrist and slides back into his seat, he rests his face in the palm of his hand and begins to weep copiously.

Stephen stands up and walks over to his friend, puts a hand on his slumped shoulder, his smell so much stronger now that he’s right next to him, and asks. “Clive I need you to be honest with me, are you on anything? This all sounds so crazy are you sure you didn’t just hallucinate that?” Clive lifts his sobbing face out of the palm of his hand, and looks his friend directly in the eyes. ”I know what I saw. I wasn’t high then or now, and I’m not crazy either.”

“C’mon,” says Stephen, “you can finish your story in the other room; I’ve lost my appetite.” Stephen helps Clive to his feet and the two of them exit the dining room with Bekka’s ruined picture hanging crookedly on the fridge, the food unfinished on the table, and the money that Clive threw scattered about.

The two friends sit down on the couch (the very same as Stephen’s bed) in front of the television. Clive resumes the same position he had in the dining room: face enveloped by his hand, shoulders slumped, only this time is free arm is dangling over the arm of the tattered brown couch, his four fingers barely grazing the floor. He lifts his face slowly out of his hand, like a reluctant sun rising to vanquish the moon, and says.

“I’m going to tell the rest of what happened quickly, then I’m ghost, I can’t sit for too long.” Stephen nods his head.

“After finding Bobby’s body, I ran. At first I didn’t think I was heading anywhere specific, but then I found myself at Craig’s doorstep. Maybe it was my sub-sub, what’s the word, sub-con-chance?” The question must have been rhetorical because he gives Stephen no time to answer. “I knocked on his door and there was no answer, then I pounded on his door hoping maybe he was just sleeping, but there was no answer still. I knew that he kept an extra key in one of the empty flower pots on his top step, so I fished it out and let myself in. As soon as I opened the door I knew that I was too late. The smell of blood was thick in the air, and I swear I could hear his tormented screams bouncing off the walls even though the loudest thing in his house was my labored breathing, from all that running I did to get there. I went straight to his bedroom; the phantom scream in my head getting louder with every step like it was guiding me, like it wanted to be sure that I saw what it had done to Craig, as soon as I opened the door his screaming was replaced by my own.” Clive’s eyes open extremely wide and he swallows hard as if he just downed a double shot of vodka, fighting back more tears he says in a strained voice. “He got it even worse than Bobby. His limbs were all over the place: an arm on the floor lying next to where I was standing by the door with the tips of his fingers gnawed off, a leg in a pool of blood soaking through his mattress, I even think I saw his severed cock in one of his bongs, that or his tongue, it was too bloody to tell.”

“Clive, just try to relax.”

“Relax?” Clive replies in a whine. “There was graffiti at Craig’s house to…my name was written on the wall in his blood. C-L…” he traces the letters in the air with a shaking hand as he recites them, but instead of drawing the letter i, he points to his own puffy red one. “Craig’s eye was there instead of the letter, but it was fucked up, there was no nail or anything through it, it just hung there staring at me. V-E.” He concludes writing his name in the air.” I’m next. I know I am. That’s why I have to keep running.” Clive springs to his feet, like a man who has fallen asleep on the TTC only to open his eyes and realize that the subway is about to depart from his stop, and rushes towards Stephen’s front door.

“Stop!” Stephen hurriedly walks over to Clive, whose hand is already on the door handle. “You can’t honestly believe all of this? Why not stay a while longer and maybe have a nap, it might clear your head a little bit.” Then in a soft pitying voice, “leprechauns don’t exist.”

Clive looks up from the door handle releasing his grip on it; he makes direct eye contact with his friend, eyes bulging with fear. He jumps towards Stephen and embraces him in a hug. “I wish you were right, but you aren’t, not this time. Take care of yourself.” With that, Clive breaks the embrace, turns around and runs out the door and up the street. Stephen watches him until he’s out of site, like a parent watching their young child walk alone to school for the first time, and he thinks. What the Hell was that? If he isn’t high now then the drugs must have rotted his brains completely. Stephen closes his front door and goes back to his couch. Insane-he’s insane- leprechauns, ha! And with thoughts of leprechauns in his head, he stretches out on the couch and falls asleep.

He was having the most vivid dream: He, Clive, Bobby, and Craig (Stephen had actually never seen either Bobby or Craig in person, but he knew in that instinctive way you have in dreams that’s who his mind had cast to play the roles) were all children and were running through a dark forest. They were celebrating as they ran, they had finally done it, they had stolen the leprechaun’s lucky charms. Stephen is to busy running to notice the little figure drop from the shadows and snatch first Bobby, and then Craig. He was too elated with joy to notice that Clive was no longer by his side when he hopped over a fallen tree; gnarled and brittle twigs sticking out like little arms, trying to impede his progress. After a moment, he turns to face his friends and is greeted by complete darkness. The smell of the woods is gone, as is the forest floor: he is standing on nothing, surrounded by nothing: black everywhere; to severe to be night. He sees a bright little green hat and suit materialize as if from out of nowhere. At this moment, Stephen realizes that he is no longer a child in the dream, but adult like in his waking world. Whether the face of the leprechaun materialized out of nowhere, like the suit and hat did, or the glowing green outfit was now bright enough to illuminate the horrid little figure, he didn’t know; all he knew was that he was petrified. Standing in front of him is the “lucky charms” mascot in flesh form. Identical to the figure on the cereal box except his blue eyes are now a bright blood red, razor sharp claws extend from his fingers, and jagged little fangs protrude from his open mouth. “They’re always after me lucky charms.” Says the cartoon character that was no longer a cartoon character, in the same Irish voice Stephen had heard in the cereal commercials since he was a boy. In a blinding movement of green, the leprechaun is now just inches away from Stephen and with his clawed hands it swipes at his stomach ripping him open. Glowing little pink marshmallow hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers rush out instead of his intestines. The leprechaun shoves them greedily into his mouth, as he bites down on the colorful shapes blood oozes out of them.

Stephen awakes in a cold sweat, a scream about to be lodged from his throat, when a knocking sound at his door helps him to regain his composure. In the time it takes him to wonder about who it might be, probably Clive come back for that nap, the dream vanishes from his memory. The knocking sound comes again prompting Stephen to stand up and answer the door.

At first he thinks that maybe he is on the receiving end of some children’s game; “Nicky-Nicky nine doors” perhaps, because when he opens the door he sees nothing save the street and his neighbor, Mrs. Robinson, riding by on her bicycle. Just when he is about to close the door he hears a little cough from beneath him. He casts his eyes downward and sees a little man standing there.

He stood no more than three and a half feet, which might have been boosted by the black top hat he was wearing. Tucked away safely in its brim was a four leaf clover, the vibrant green contrasted by the deep black makes Stephen feel uneasy, although he is unsure why. His suit, also black, hangs off his little body perfectly and Stephen has no doubts that if he were to check the tag it would say either Armani or Versace on it. His bright blue eyes look upwards to meet Stephen’s that were still looking down.

“May I help you?” Stephen asks in a voice that was a little softer than he planned on using, a little shakier.

The little man cocks his nose in the air, sniffing the space between the outside world and the open door. A slight humorless grin appears on his miniature face. “Sir, I believe that you can.” He extends his hand out towards Stephen, he reciprocates the gesture engulfing the little visitor’s hand in his own; the two men shake as if they were closing a business deal.

“Firstly, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lenny. I have had the recent misfortune of being robbed.”

“I don’t-“before Stephen can continue Lenny cuts in. His voice was gentle and slightly high pitched. Despite the four leaf clover he speaks with no Irish accent.

“I ask if perhaps I may enter, this humble docile of yours, to discuss this matter more thoroughly. I assure you, it won’t take up much of your time.”

“Well actually, I’m pretty busy right now could you maybe come back later?”

Lenny’s nose ascends to the sky once more and he inhales deeply through it. “I’m afraid that I must insist, sir, I am quite a busy person. I’ll be coming in now one way or another; I just thought that I’d try to be civil about it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that you got robbed, but that has nothing to do with me. Now, get off my property.” Stephen takes a half-step back and slams the door in Lenny’s face. When he turns around the little man is standing three feet in front of him in his living room.

“How did you-?”

“You want me off your property, but oddly enough it is my property that brings me here. I will have it all back.”

“I-I didn’t take anything from you.”

“No, not directly you didn’t. Are you familiar with the term ‘guilty by association’?”

“I-I don’t understand.”

“Your friend, Clive I believe his name is or rather was, as the past tense is so much more adequate in describing people that we used to know, people who used to exist.” Stephen opens his mouth to say something, a look of shock on his face, but no words come out. “Oh yes, sorry to break the news to you but your thieving friend suffered a fatal accident, much like the king of your rock and roll music he died on the toilet, no more than twenty minutes ago. Sadly his heart just leapt out of his chest. I do wonder where it could have gone to …” Lenny’s eyes open wide and he cups his right hand around his right ear, as if trying to listen closely to some far off sound. “Shhh … do you hear that?” He asks Stephen, “Do you hear the incessant beating of that heart? I wonder where it could be coming from …” Lenny starts patting himself down, like a smoker looking for his lighter, when his left hand makes it into his pants pocket his eyes light up and a smile appears on his diminutive face. “Ahh here it is, of course, how silly of me.” When he pulls his hand out of his pocket it is clenched around a bloody heart.

Stephen can’t believe what he’s witnessing. I’m going insane, there’s no way this is real, it can’t be an actual heart ,Clive’s heart, besides it’s much too big to have ever come out of that pocket, and look at his clothes, not a single drop of blood on them. The heart is dripping blood, a small puddle of it has formed beneath the spot where it’s being held, Stephen squints his eyes trying to see it better, trying to make some sort of sense from it. Oh my God, it is beating, Stephen thinks, it’s beating in his little hand, Stephen screams.

The grin on Lenny’s face grows wider; he lifts the beating heart to his mouth and crams it completely in, as he bites down on it blood sprays everywhere, except for on his suit, a light mist covers Stephen’s face.

Stephen runs into the dining room, if for no other reason to avert his eyes from the horror which had invaded his house. Once he gets there he quickly starts going through his cabinet drawers, I need something, he thinks, a steak knife, a butcher’s knife; anything at all. The best that he can find in his current state of hysteria is a rolling pin. He turns around to defend himself, when he sees the container of sweet and sour sauce on the table: the fifty dollar bill soaking in its contents, change scattered all about the container.

As Lenny walks into the room, Stephen shouts out. “There is your money! On the table there, take it and leave … what … whatever you are.”

“Whatever I am?” Lenny replies in an incredulous voice. “I’m a leprechaun; even your dim witted thieving friend could deduce that much. Doesn’t the four leaf clover just scream it out?” He takes his hat off and bows gracefully, and then he leaps onto the table hat still in hand and pulls the fifty dollar bill out of the container. He puts the soaked bill in his mouth then pulls it out again, the bill looks as clean and as crisp as if it just came out of an automated teller machine. The bill gets tossed into his hat; he scoops up the change and tosses them in as well. He places the hat back on his head and hops back off the table.

“So you’ll leave then?” Asks Stephen, “You have what you came for.” He releases his grip on the rolling pin, it hits the tiled floor and rolls away a couple of feet.

“Very clever sir, that’s very clever indeed. I’m afraid that I’m onto your game however; I’ve seen it all a thousand times before. You give me the bulk of my property back, hoping it will be enough to make me leave the premises, hoping it will be enough for me to spare your life. Then once I leave you uncover the rest of my loot, which I can still smell mind you, and you spend it someplace like a little boy in a candy shop.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No matter, you had your chance.” And with that he started to change. It isn’t like watching a werewolf change in a movie, it isn’t so severe; it appears to never happen when Stephen has his eyes on him. Every time he diverts his eyes from the little man whether it is to blink or wipe the tears that are forming and clouding his vision there would be a new horror to look at. Lenny’s once blue eyes are now completely black, his teeth have become more fang like, and his once finely pedicured nails become as sharp as little razors.

Stephen tries to get away but his back is met by his fridge. He is cornered. The leprechaun swipes at his torso with a little clawed hand tearing apart Stephen’s shirt and midsection. He slumps down to the floor, Bekka’s picture flutters down off the fridge and falls beside Stephen in a pool of blood that was quickly forming. The leprechaun saunters over to the stove, bends down, and runs his hand along the top of the floor and the bottom of the machine. When he pulls his hand out sitting in a field of dust, mouse droppings, and a couple dropped cheetos is a quarter that Clive threw at Stephen. He picks it up and walks back over to where Stephen lays on the floor dying. Lenny bends down on one knee so his face is just inches away from Stephen’s.

“I’d love to stay and dine on your flesh,” a thin smile spreads across his little face, “I’m sure your intestines would taste …”he rubs his chin with his left hand as if pondering some important question, “I’m sure your intestines would taste magically delicious.” He breaks out into a roaring laughter. “I am however, like I told you before, a very busy person. This isn’t the only place your friend has thrown my money around.” He takes off his hat, once again, and flips the coin into it.

Standing outside Stephen’s front step Lenny stretches his little arms towards the sun; enjoying the warmth on his once again human looking face he sniffs the air. He has a busy day ahead of him, indeed, but he wont stop until he gets back every cent that was rightfully his, even if it means burning down every convenience store, bar, and restaurant Clive had visited while on the run. He sniffs the air once more and trots off down the street.