The Plight of the Terrorist

The Plight of the Terrorist
by Rosemary French
one hot summer day, back in the eighties, a jihadist injured by shrapnel took cover in a nearby cave.
he was discovered by a plucky young radical, who expertly tended to his wounds.
these two non-conformists quickly became the best of buds.
they cut their thumbs with a jagged rock
and pressed the open wounds together
as a symbol of their everlasting friendship.
years later, the once-injured jihadist inherited millions of dollars, which he funneled into the creation of his own terrorist organization.
he spent his life scheming ways to murder the innocent.
the terrorist millionaire became adept at hiding from the law,
but eventually the Americans found his poorly disguised mansion.
the American army’s first step was to build a replica of the mansion to allow them to practice their infiltration strategies.
after three months of rehearsal, the Americans barged into the terrorist ringleader’s mansion and found him sitting at the head of a long dining table, in front of a steaming plate of beef stroganoff.
the terrorist millionaire leaped from his seat and whipped out two tiny pistols, one in each hand.
his wimpy weapons gleamed in the red laser beams that projected from the American soldiers’ helmets.
the Americans calmly aimed their machine guns at the millionaire’s invisible third eye.
the millionaire squealed and charged the soldiers while firing off aimless rounds.
he was taken down instantly.
satisfied with their work, the Americans wrapped the dead millionaire’s body in the tablecloth from his own place setting
and grinned at each other.
suddenly, a dark shape swooped down from above
and snatched up one of the unsuspecting soldiers.
it fluttered up to the rafters, and started viciously biting the soldier’s neck.
the captured soldier flailed about and howled in pain, but was unable to escape from his attacker’s iron grip.
the other soldiers were stymied by the situation, as they had already used up all of their ammo on the millionaire’s corpse and as festive air shots to commemorate their success in completing the mission.
once it had drunk its fill of blood, the dark shape finally raised its ashen head from the soldier’s corpse, and one of the men below recognized the morbid beast as none other than the infamous best friend of the recently deceased millionaire.
the cave doctor had since turned into a vampire.
The vampire cleared his throat in preparation for a speech.
the American soldiers stood silently in awe below the vampire’s perch on the rafters.  The vampire had a deep, booming voice.
“You have made a grave error in murdering my blood brother, as now you will be forced to deal with the likes of me.”
and with that, the vampire disappeared from thin air.
the American soldiers stood there silently for a while, unsure about how to proceed.
their companion’s body hung limp from the rafters.
one of the soldiers eventually broke the silence, and they agreed to leave the vampire part of the story out of their report to the president.