The Chocolate Monger

Robert Mumford had always loved chocolate. He had chocolate every day in as many different ways as he could. Chocolate donuts at breakfast. Chocolate soda at lunch. At dinner, he had chocolate milk and chocolate cake for dessert. Mumford’s Chocolate Limited did a good business selling refined chocolate concentrate syrup to manufacture chocolate masterpieces. At Mumford’s, a huge tank of chocolate syrup did not wait long to distribute its contents to manufacturers that turned the sweet liquid into money.

It was not a fairy tale business. Robert had to fight his way to the position he was in now. There were lots of offers for his business. Many people had hard feelings over Mumford’s business dealings.

The one who hated Mumford the most was Stanly Hanson. Mumford had crushed him out of existence. His family business was destroyed by not being able to compete. Stanly took to drinking and would get roaring drunk. When he got drunk, he would talk of revenge against Mumford. He never did anything, so people ignored him.

There was an old mine that Stanly knew of in the mountains outside of town. He had heard through the grapevine that there was dynamite left at the site. It was hidden below the floor of the supply shack. It was put there because the old owner thought he would be back in a month or so. That was ten years ago.

Stanly took two-Fifths of cheap whiskey with him to check out the rumor. His navigator took him down the dirt roads right to the locked front gate of Ace Mining. Stanly took the chain cutter and removed the chain. He opened the gate, took the last swig in the first bottle, and threw it out the window. Then he drove to the main buildings.

Once there, he went to the supply shack. He got out of his car and walked to the supply shack. The door was locked. He took an ax to it and chopped a hole in the door. He forced his way into the room. It was empty. He walked over to the place where the boards were not very even. With one hit, all the boards moved in the corner. He picked at the boards with the ax, and they came up. Just buried in the loose dirt was a wooden case. Stanly freed the case and set it down on the good part of the floor. He opened the top and inside, ten glistening sticks of dynamite, ten initiators, and attached fuses. Stanly closed the box a laughed to himself. Unfortunately, Stanly did not know about dynamite sweating nitro making it unstable. He put the box in his car and drove home. He read on the net how to prep the dynamite with the initiator. It was two in the morning when he finished the last bottle and drove to Mumford’s with his package. By the time he got in the yard, it was close to dawn.

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Robert had a bad week. There was a glut of chocolate on the market. His tank had never been fuller. He went home wondering what he was going to do with all that syrup. He was so distressed he could not eat his chocolate cake after dinner. He went to bed troubled.

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Stanly staggered over to the wall of the tank of chocolate sauce. He took the dynamite out of the bag he had been carrying it in to transport it. He was very drunk, and as the dynamite came free of the bag, it slipped free of his hand, and he ended up fumbling the bundle of ten sticks of dynamite. As the bundle hit low on the side of the mammoth tank, it exploded.

Stanly was close enough to the explosion that not a very big piece of him was left. The side of the tank was ripped open. A six-foot wave of chocolate sauce headed down the street. A few dogs and cats ran ahead of the tsunami of chocolate. Cars were covered. The buildings along the street channeled the wave as it crashed into the busy cross street. Trucks and cars were thrown about like an angry child’s toys. People on the street had no chance. The wave knocked them down, and they could not free themselves from the thick covering and drown. The people in cars had their windows burst and their cars filled with chocolate. They could not escape. In all, twenty-six people were chocolate-covered to death. No piece of Stanly big enough to identify was ever found. They knew that dynamite had caused the explosion, but that is about all they knew.

The news said that several cars were chocolate-filled, killing their drivers and pedestrians by chocolate coating them to death.

The insurance paid off. Robert actually made money. He put his empire together better than before. Now every year, on the anniversary of the disaster, they sell chocolate-covered cars.