Friday, July 9, 2021

"Door Knobs" - A Headless Series Fanfic

                                                                      “Door Knobs”

written by Dan Sjöström


It was a dark and stormy night. Yeah, not the most original beginning for a story, rather the complete opposite. But if I told you that during this night, a hunchback was knocking on the door to the home of a headless horseman, that ought to stir things up, right? There we go! So anyway, the door opened and the headless horseman, known as The Headless Horseman, looked out. I suppose he did, somehow. In front of him stood the hunchback who had been knocking on his door, although he hadn’t noticed that his visitor was a hunchback until now. I mean come on, it’s a lot to ask of him to be able to see in his condition, is he supposed to have X-ray vision on top of that?

“Hi”, the hunchback said awkwardly with a raspy, gravelly voice. “Sorry for bothering you this late at night. For all I knew, you could’ve been brushing your teeth or something…”

The Headless Horseman made a confused gesture with his hands, aiming them at the empty void between his shoulders. Luckily for him, this was when Ichabod Crane joined him at the door.

“Uh, hello?”, he greeted, unsure why a man with a hunchback, wearing a dark hoodie, was standing in front of him. “Can we help you with something?”

“You’re Ichabod Crane, aren’t you?”, the stranger asked, receiving a “Yes” for a reply. “Oh, you are? I wasn’t sure it was you. I’ve been told you were quite butt ugly.”

“Hey now”, Ichabod objected as sternly as he possibly could. “Manners.”

“My name is not Manners”, said the stranger. “Actually, it’s…”

“Mark!!”, yelled a third voice angrily. Suddenly, another stranger walked up to the door. A gentleman with an intense stare from his ghastly pale face dressed in a black suit meant to look a lot more fancy than it really was. He had a cheap bowtie around his neck and an even cheaper cape hanging behind his back. He began speaking with a peculiar tone, like a combination of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee’s portrayals of Dracula. His voice also carried an echoing resonance, as if he was standing in a big chamber inside of a stone castle. “Please, forgive my roommate for his insolence. You cannot expect somebody with a two-bit mind such as his to address his betters more appropriately.

“It’s fine, I guess”, Ichabod stammered as he gave the Headless Horseman a puzzled look and was met with a big shrug. “Sorry, I really don’t know who you are or what you want.”

“Then allow me to start all over again”, said the second stranger, revealing even more than his Scandinavian/Eastern European accent already had, that English wasn’t his first language. Probably not even his second or third, honestly. “Greetings, I am Count Spatula. I have travelled very far to reach Sneezy Hollow.”

“Sleepy Hollow”, Ichabod said politely.

“Whatever”. The Count was clearly irritated about being corrected. “I need help getting rid of a trespasser. Somebody taking up my precious space and leaving me scarcely any privacy.”

“If this Mark fellow or whatever his name is bothers you so much, why don’t you just throw him out?”

Mark was getting worried as he felt the gazes of three people and two faces turning to him. He swallowed nervously and pulled the brim of his hood over his eyes.

“Trust me, were he the problem, I could handle that in a heartbeat. If I had a heart, that is. I could throw him, punch him, stomp him, drop him from a great height, break his bones, tear off his limbs, pull out his…”

“Alright, enough of that”, said Ichabod, patting the Headless Horseman’s shoulder, noticing the growing nausea caused by the visitor’s morbid rant. “So if it’s not him, what is it?”

“Guten Tag!” The much more upbeat, German-ringing tone also came from Count Spatula, whose face had gone from its grim, stony expression to a borderline demented glow. “I did not expect the people of Sleepy Hollow to be awake this late, ha ha ha! Nice to meet you, Professor Crane und Mr. Horseman! My name is Count Kinderfleischer!”

Ichabod knew what the words “kinder” and “fleischer” meant, since German was one of the many languages he knew. It was now his turn to feel nauseous, to Count Kinderfleischer’s delight.

“We have just met und we are already making you absolutely disgusted! Das ist wunderbar!”

The other Count came back to protest. “You see what I have to deal with on a nightly basis? To not have my body for myself, but being forced to share it with something so vile and repulsive!”

“I agree, it’s bad enough to deal with one vile and repulsive dude”, Mark interjected, gesturing at Counts Spatula/Kinderfleischer. “Now I have to deal with two of them.”

“So what are you going to do to help us?”, Spatula demanded.

“Honestly?”

“Go on.”

“Nothing.” Ichabod tried his best not to stutter his answer.

“Warum?”, asked Kinderfleischer, happy that the plea for help had been denied.

“We’re kind of busy with everything else in this town. For a place with the word Sleepy in its name, I don’t get much rest around here. I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Believe me, you are not even half as sorry as you are about to-“, growled Spatula, until his threat was interrupted by the Headless Horseman walking out to the doorstep.

Mark had been wondering if the Horseman hadn’t spoken because he was unable to or if he just had never had a chance to. At this moment, it seemed like he preferred to use actions rather than words to make his point. And the point was at the end of a longsword being pulled out of its scabbard.

“Cooool!”, Mark gasped, evidently impressed by the sword’s shiny metal and the broad hilt at the top.

“Is that a new sword?”, Ichabod asked curiously and adjusted the bright rims of his glasses.

“How dare you?” Spatula was livid. “Is this the way to treat us for coming to your home at this late hour unannounced with our personal troubles, expecting you to solve them for us?! Put that shaft back in its vagina at once!”

Ichabod and Mark couldn’t help themselves. Mark burst out laughing like the man-child he was. Ichabod had the courtesy to turn his back and put his hand over his mouth. Even the Headless Horseman had trouble standing up straight and put his free hand on his stomach. Mark could swear he heard a noise coming from the Horseman’s neckhole similar to somebody blowing into the top of a glass bottle. Spatula was not laughing, however. But soon enough, Kinderfleischer did.

“Ach du Lieber! That is hilarious, because even though he easily could’ve said sheath or scabbard, he-“

“We know, Captain Obvious”, said Mark, whose laughter started to fade out. “Way to kill the mood.”

“I am always in a great mood when I get to kill something”, Kinderfleischer said with a big grin.

“Well, it is true”, Ichabod pointed out, clearing his throat. “It is in fact the Latin word for a sheath, but also… that other thing.”

“I suppose since you know that, you must be quite the cunning linguist.”

Kinderfleischer’s quip made Mark once more howl with laughter. The Horseman’s body shook even more wildly than before. Ichabod normally wasn’t fond of that type of humor, but that didn’t stop him from cracking up.

Spatula was still not laughing.

“Enough!! I didn’t come here to endure this infantile buffoonery. If all you have to offer is to make utter fools of yourselves, we shall leave at once!”

“Really, bro”, said Mark “I’m surprised you didn’t leave once Double-H held up his sword like a crucifix.”

“Crucifix?”, Spatula repeated, not understanding until he saw that the Headless Horseman’s sword was making the shape of a cross with the hilt pointing upwards. He hissed furiously, covering his face with his tiny cape, which wasn’t more than the edge of his chin.

“Oh, right”, said Ichabod. “Vampires. That’s just another of a reason not to let you in. Like I said, we have enough things to deal with already. Please, go away.”

“Auf Wiedersehen!” Kinderfleischer waved cheerily, already walking away. “No hard feelings. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have come here to begin with. Such a complete waste of time. Gute Nacht!”

“Oh, tell me about it”, said Mark as he and the vampire(s) were leaving. “Man, I told Count Spatula this was a bad idea, but nooo! He thinks one Kickstarter video is enough to think he’s found someone to cure his multiple personality disorder. Like, that guy is just a total-“

“Mark”, said Kinderfleischer. “Halt die Klappe.”

The Headless Horseman would’ve both shaken his head and rolled his eyes if he could. He finally closed the door as he and Ichabod walked back into their home. Ichabod gave the Horseman an appreciative nod. The Horseman responded with waving his hand at him, as if to say “Oh, don’t mention it.”

“Wow, what a bunch of…” Ichabod was still too polite to use an American expletive to describe their unwanted guests, so he chose to resort to British slang. “…knobs.”

 

THE END

 

Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman are characters from Washington Irving’s story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. These incarnations in particular are based on the webseries Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story from Shipwrecked Comedy.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ShipwreckedComedy

Count Spatula, Mark and Count Kinderfleischer are creations of Dan Sjöström, who has played these characters on his own YouTube channel
http://youtube.com/user/dakostro