The Brothers Grimly Page 2 of 4
In The East Rooms . . .
Zimme reflected upon the coming Fool’s Day as he shaved. The razor wasn’t as sharp as he remembered, or maybe the shaving cream wasn’t as good–he wasn’t sure which. He fought back a smile, thinking of the competition to come. Wouldn’t do to cut himself–he had to look his best as he leered at his brother after winning.
Zimme was pretty sure he had it this year. He’d caught a glimpse of Zall sneaking out of his bathroom. It had taken him all of ten minutes to turn invisible, to sneak in to swap that brand new razor and high quality shave cream back into Zall’s bathroom, and to take back his own shave cream and slightly dull razor. Whatever Zall had done to it would simply not happen to Zimme. Zall would know instantly, of course. So they were starting early. Zimme smiled fondly as he rushed through breakfast. He knew that the movie-morphing he planned for Zall would be very scary. It had been a lot of work to prepare the combined illusions and projections and trigger them onto the television remote. Zall would need to be healed quickly, of course. Zimme finished the healing spells, laid out the remote, turned on the television, and boarded up a window hurriedly. Then he passed through the door. Suddenly he found himself in an unfamiliar room with wrong-sized furniture. There was a small couch, an over-sized statue, and shelves of books. “Hah!” he thought, “A door spell. He’s swapped me to another room. Not bad, but not very scary.”
He had just had time to realize that the books were oddly painted fakes when a zombie with Zall’s face burst into the room, guts dripping onto the floor. Zimme tried a simple protection spell, but Zall kept coming. Zimme turned and ran sideways out of the room, barely noticing the odd, slippery surface under his feet until he came to the edge. Zall repeatedly tried to bite Zimme while tackling him and all the way through the long fall to their death.
