Mr. Porcupine’s Trial: The Alcatraz Escape

“Nine months later, the guard came running toward our cell, completely frantic.

“I completely forgot nobody monitors this wing. I am so sorry. Okay, here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to open this door, you guys are going to get on the ferry, and here’s a little gift card so you can pick up some Alcatraz souvenirs on your way out, maybe get something with your names on it. Then you’ll return to your lives, and we’re all going to agree this never happened. This was just one big, fun roller-coaster fever dream. Understand?”

“We’re going to leave this whole thing behind us, just like all your DNA all over this cell.”

He stopped.

His eyes went wide.

The wad of chewing tobacco fell straight out of his mouth and hit the floor.

He counts us twice.

“HOW ARE THERE FOUR OF YOU NOW?! THERE WERE TWO OF YOU!”

“Well, there’s no TV in there,” I said as I walked past him with one baby in my arms.

And that other little one has wings and fangs!” he yelled.

“Luckily, they don’t have tails,” the mysterious man told him.

Suddenly

“AAACHOOOOOO!”

I jolted awake at the sound of a whale sneezing outside the cell.

“Oh, thank God,” I whispered. “It was all nothing. Nothing but a fever dream.”

I looked down at the bunk below me.

“We have to get out of here tonight.”

“Every Alcatraz escape needs a decoy,” I said.

“What are you thinking?” the mysterious man asked. “Mermaid hair and a dead sword-hammer shark?”

“No. The smell would give it away.”

“Then what?” he asked. “Are you gonna use our doppelgängers?”

“No. Mine is currently filling in for me at a funeral convention.”

“Not even your doppelgänger is normal.”

“I have an idea!”

“Oh, no.”

“We’ll put the succubus and incubus in our bunks and use them as decoys.”

How are your going to convince them?

“I won’t. You’re going to invite them in, one at a time, and I’m going to put them in a sleeper hold.”

“You actually know how to do a sleeper hold?”

“I took a self-defense class.”

“Why?”

“A grandmother tried to scam me.”

He stared at me.

“So you took a self-defense class?”

“The fraud-prevention class was already full, and I still needed an elective.”

“I wish you’d be normal. Normal people who do normal things live longer.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I don’t want to be the one who has to press the cremation button, wait six hours for your remains, and then spend the rest of the day wondering if they’re actually yours as I feed them to a fish and then eat the fish.”

“WHY?”

“So you could always live within me.”

“As stubborn belly fat.”