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[fortey]

The Devil You Know

There was a lustrous brilliance to the Darkness. The Pit was illuminated within and without, not by light but by suffering. There was no succor. There was no salvation for the blessed. To bask in the glory of the Archfiend Abaddon was a reward that needed to be earned through pain and torment. It was the fate of all who entered its domain. And it was the task of the Priest to ensure this torment was thorough and all-consuming. The Priest was the right hand of Darkness. 

In another time and another place, the Priest was as all supplicants who kneel before the dark throne of Prince Abaddon and beg for mercy. And Abaddon’s mercy was unlike anything the Priest could have imagined with a mortal mind. To become a gear of the great machine, to exercise the will of the Archfiend itself, was sublime.  

Forward and back through time, the Priest fulfilled his duty. There was no time and no place he did not exist now, such was the gift of Abaddon. The Priest had always existed. The torment would always exist. There was no time and no space in which the Priest would not find the wicked and righteous alike to bring them punishments for their sins, both real and imagined. Such was the power of the Priest. Such was the power of Abaddon. 

Abaddon fed on the souls of those who fell, and the Priest was his reaping tool, sent to harvest each one. He cut them out root and stem. Abaddon sent the Priest and the Priest would enact his will. And so it had always been. And so it would always be. Until, that is, it was not.

The man was called Van Collins. Not a remarkable man. Not a leader or a monster. Not a killer or a prince. Just a man, like so many others. The Priest could see sin on a soul like a painter could see inspiration on a canvas. There, but not there. Like the essence of the thing. And Van Collins had sinned. By his own mind, he had sins, and those were the greatest sins of all. To tell a man he had done wrong meant nothing if he did not believe it himself. But for a man to know, in his soul, that he had done wrong. Those were the sweet sins to be savored. Those were the sins Abaddon relished most of all. 

The sins of Van Collins were not remarkable. He had not secretly hurt others. He had not even stolen or broken or ruined the world in which he lived. But he had regrets. He had told lies. He had hurt others with words and actions rather than violence and malice. 

There was a time when the Priest may have disdained harvesting such a soul. But his was not to question the will of his master. And his master made no distinction regarding the quality of the sin. A penny or a pound was all the same to Abaddon. The minor sins of Van Collins would serve.

It was perhaps because Van Collins was so unremarkable that the Priest was caught off guard when he arrived to harvest the man’s soul. He could walk through shadows and drift from tomorrow to yesterday, as a mortal would travel through doorways. But he was not accustomed to surprise. The Deacon was already there.

The Priest arrived from the Darkness into the home of Van Collins, a simple domicile in a mortal city that was as still and quiet as mortal cities got under the cover of their darkness.

He drifted from the shadows into the fullness of being, taking his physical body into the reality of the earthly world and standing over the sleeping form of Van Collins. But across the room, mirroring the Priest and his actions, stood the Deacon. 

The Deacon served as right hand to the Archfiend Astaroth, rival prince to Abaddon. Equal in their might but sworn enemies, Astaroth and Abaddon had warred with the many other princes of Hell since the beginning. 

For many years, there would be not so much a truce as a disregard. Abaddon had no cause for quarrel if Astaroth had no cause. They traveled in separate shadows. They harvested different souls. They ignored one another to prevent further war and further wasted time. And yet here, now, was the Deacon.

The Priest and the Deacon were the same in function only. They ventured forth to harvest souls for their masters. But their methods were not the same. Their beliefs were not the same.

Abaddon, and by extension the Priest, was calculating. Abaddon had no need for emotion. Emotion was the power on which it fed. The fear and elation, the hate and the joy of the souls the Priest brought to it. 

Astaroth was the flip side of the coin. It was impulse and emotion. It was anger and fear. The Deacon was much the same, but it had, in its time, crafted fear into a precise and skillfully wielded weapon. Every aspect of the Deacon was designed to cause dread.

“Deacon,” the Priest said quietly, his voice like the whispers of the dying.

“Priest,” it replied, the sound like the crisping of flesh in ovens.

“Why have you come?”

The Deacon spread hands that evoked the memory of human appendages. Long and tapered were the fingers, an extra joint in each one. The flesh was glossy and moist, caked with viscous pus and gelatinous blood.

“I have come for the soul,” it explained as though speaking to an inferior.

“The soul belongs to Abaddon,” the Priest explained.

A guttural hum rumbled deep in the Deacon’s skeletal and scarred chest. The eyeless, egg-shaped head regarded the Priest with a perverse curiosity. Its worm-like lips pulled back and back, bisecting its face to expose a massive maw of bestial teeth and red, bloody gums. The Priest felt nothing.

“I claim it for my master,” the Deacon corrected. “You will retreat now.”

The tone of the Deacon’s warning was clear. A threat unspoken in its voice. The Priest could feel the waves of compulsion flowing from the Deacon’s words. An infernal trick born of the power of all higher order demons, a power that caused influence and even control over mortal souls. 

“I am not to be commanded by you or your master,” the Priest replied. Neither he nor the Deacon was so weak as to be subject to such simple tricks. And if they were to battle, to truly fight, they would likely destroy one another. The Priest had no time for such things. But the Deacon was not a being of rationality and thus was unpredictable.

“You will not have this soul,” the Deacon warned. The Priest looked at the man, asleep and oblivious to all that was transpiring. It did not matter what the Priest wanted or didn’t want. And truly he did not have wants in that sense, anyway. He had duties, and he performed them. It was his duty to harvest the soul of Van Collins.

“We shall see,” the Priest replied. The Deacon hissed, a serpentine tongue slithering out beyond its many teeth. Its spindly body bending low over the sleeping mortal. The Priest did not move as the Deacon traced the tip of one of its oozing fingers across the man’s forehead, leaving a trail of rancid effluence behind. 

Shadow replaced the Deacon, his physical form gone from the room. The Priest looked at Van Collins. It would be difficult to finish his task now. The Deacon would need to be removed somehow. 

Van Collins shifted on the bed. His body slept, but his mind was active. The Priest looked at him and felt the flow of malefic energy from within his mind. The Deacon was already at work in the mortal’s dreams. The Priest needed to be quick.

***

Van stood in the kitchen, breathing heavily. He was home again, the home he had grown up in. The sky outside was grey and dismal. The threat of rain was apparent, but for now only the wind blew. 

“When…?” he began, looking around the room. It was familiar, of course. It was his home. But not anymore. He had grown up and moved out. His parents had sold the house. That had happened, he was sure of it.

Why was he in the kitchen? He stared at the large stainless steel refrigerator doors. To get a snack. That had to be what he was doing. 

Van opened the fridge. The light clicked on and revealed a cavern, vast and long, that stretched into a cold, howling darkness. The walls were not plastic and metal but flesh. They pulsed and undulated and the red, raw surface was lined with thin blue veins. 

At the mouth of the cavern was a creature that looked like a grossly malnourished man. It was skeletal but also malformed and ill-looking. Its flesh was diseased, suppurating and weeping from a great many sources. The fingers oozed with congealed blood and filth and an eyeless face split virtually in half to reveal a massive mouth.

Van screamed, scrambling back from the fridge and falling onto the floor as he tried to flee. The monster crept from the fleshy cavern, licking its plump lips with a whiplike, prehensile tongue as it came towards him.

He rolled over and scrambled forward, first on all fours and then up onto his feet as panic took hold. The creature matched his pace and chased him down the hall. There should have been a door awaiting him, an exit to the world and to help, but now there was none. The hall stretched on and on, a seemingly endless tunnel to nowhere.

The gangly creature behind him loped down on the hall and then tumbled forward to run on all fours. Its hands and feet grasped at the floor and walls and it spun itself around. It gripped the ceiling and continued to give chases, slavering and chittering a sinister laugh as it raced after him, nearly at his heels.

Van was certain he would not last, would not be able to outrun the creature which gained ground by mere inches as he looked back at it. Its laughter had become wild and raucous and Van begged for it to leave as he pumped his legs as fast as he could.

He returned his attention to the hall, and a sudden sense of relief overwhelmed him. The door had appeared just ahead. A way outside. A way to escape. 

He could smell the breath of the monster at his back, foul and rotten, and reached for the door just as it opened on its own. 

Van tried to slow himself, but could not. A man stood in the doorway. But like the monster at his back, this was not truly a man. It held out one pale hand and caught Van by the collar, lifting him from the ground as though he weighed nothing at all, and setting him aside. They were no longer in a hallway, but a wide open space devoid of form. No walls, no ceiling, just emptiness.

The monster stood before the stranger. The man that was not a man at least looked more human than the monster. He wore a uniform of leather, the same pale white as his own flesh but stitched with thick, black laces throughout. The tight shirt and pants were hidden behind a full length apron of the same white leather that hung from his chest to his feet. He had no hair on his head, not even eyebrows or eyelashes, and his eyes were pools of darkness. His body was a patchwork of old, perfectly formed scars that formed letters from an alphabet Van could not recognize. His hands, his bare arms, even his face and scalp were covered in the strange, scarred words.

The eyeless monster raged, snarling loudly. 

“I claim him,” it roared. The scarred man rolled his wrist like a dancer performing, and a thin, glassy blade appeared between his fingers. He said nothing. He simply sliced the throat of the skeletal monster in one swift, fluid motion.

A river of pus burst from the wound and the monster gulp and snarled, holding its own neck trying to keep the fetid mixture inside. The scarred man turned and picked Van up again.

They were no longer in empty space. They were in Van’s bedroom. The scarred man held up suspended over his own bed for just an instant before dropping him. Van gasped, a scream frozen in his throat as he touched himself and the bed and looked around, unsure if he truly was where he thought he was. 

“You should get up, mortal,” the scarred man suggested. Van was not sure if he was truly a man at all now. He was slender and lithe and his voice sounded like many whispers speaking as one.

“What was that? What’s happening?” Van asked, finding his voice.

“The Archfiend Astaroth wishes to consume your soul. A battle for your immortal essence has begun.”

“A demon?” Van said, confused.

“A Prince of Hell.”

“Oh my God,” Van whispered, his voice tinged with panic. The Priest allowed himself a smile, though there was no feeling of mirth behind it.

“God is not yours, mortal.”

“Are you here to help me?”

“I must stop the Deacon,” the Priest stated. Van shook his head.

“Who’s the Deacon?”

“The demon that hunts you, who serves Astaroth. It is Astaroth’s harvester of souls.”

“You killed it,” Van said. 

“The Deacon cannot be killed. It is not alive. It has been distracted.”

“Who are you?” Van asked. The Priest fixed him with a black-eyed stare. The bedroom was dark and silent. Van realized that the scarred man was not even breathing.

“I am the Priest,” he answered simply.

“What kind of priest?” Van asked after a moment’s hesitation.

“I am the Priest of the Word of Darkness. I am the end of soul’s respite and the gateway to the knowledge of punishment unimaginable. I am the hand of the infinite cold.”

“Oh,” Van whispered.

“Calm your fears. The Deacon serves a different master than I. If you wish to avoid the eternal torments of Astaroth and an undying horror that will devour your soul again and again until the last stars have faded to desolate emptiness, then you must ally yourself with my cause.”

“But you’re a demon,” Van said. The Priest nodded his head just slightly.

“If you wish to use this label. But I serve my master’s will and my master decrees that it is better to lose a soul to a continued mortal existence than to the coffers of Astaroth’s temple.”

“I don’t understand,” Van said.

“I will not allow the Deacon to have your soul, Van Collins.”

Van exhaled a shaky breath. The Priest did not move except when necessary to speak. His body was rigid and still, like a corpse hung from a hook. No breath, no twitches or shifting of his weight. He was not alive, Van could see. A demon, like the other creature. And offering to help.

“What’s stopping you from trying to take my soul?” Van asked, regretting the words as soon as they crossed his lips. He did not want to provoke this scarred man.

“Spite,” the Priest answered as though it were obvious.

“You’ll let me live to spite the other monster?”

“My master will relinquish you to spite his enemy. What is one soul among billions? What is one spot of light in an infinite ocean of darkness?”

“I’m not important enough to care about,” Van realized.

“No, Van Collins. You are not,” the Priest agreed.

Despite the fear, Van felt slightly offended and also relieved by that. Sometimes it was better to be no one than someone. 

“What can we do about the Deacon if it can’t die?”

“Death is but one end on a path with many branches. The Deacon’s path can be ended by returning it to its master.”

“We can send it back to Hell?”

“Yes,” the Priest agreed. 

“Great. How?”

“You will need to obtain the Liber Officiorum Spirituum. It contains the rite for unsummoning the Deacon to Astaroth’s realm.”

“Is that a book?”

“Yes. Come,” the Priest instructed. 

“I’m not even -” Van began. The Priest turned, and they were no longer in his bedroom.

“- dressed.” Van finished. He was still only wearing shorts. The man and the demon were in a dark room surrounded by bookshelves. It smelled of dust and mildew. The floor creaked under Van’s weight, but not the Priest’s. 

“The grimoire is here,” the Priest said, indicating a shelf in front of him. The books were old and thick, bound in leather and canvas and other ancient, worn materials that the years had taken a toll on. Van looked around the room.

“Where are we?”

“The library of Allister St. Jean,” the Priest answered.

“Who is that?”

“The mortal who owns the Liber Officiorum Spirituum.”

The Priest pointed to a black book on the shelf. Van reached for it and then stopped, looking at the Priest’s scarred face.

“Why aren’t you taking it?”

“I cannot. It cannot be used by my kind,” he explained. 

“Is it safe?”

“Decidedly not. You waste time of which you have very little, Van Collins.”

“I’m just… I’m scared. I don’t want to die.”

“Mortal things often wish to live forever, as though eternity in a body designed to decay over time were a blessing,” the Priest replied. 

“I don’t want to live forever. I just don’t want to die now,” Van said.

“When would you like to die?”

“When it’s my time,” he answered.

“According to whom?”

Van stared at the black eyes staring back at him. The scars across the Priest’s face were thin, but they looked deep. The words had been carved down through muscle. He wondered what they meant.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“The Deacon will return soon. Take the book.”

Van pulled the book from the shelf. It was heavy, and the cover felt brittle in his hands. There were no words to indicate it was the tome they were looking for, but he was not going to doubt the word of the Priest.

“You must find the rite and prepare the unsummoning,” the Priest said. They were no longer in the library, but returned to Van’s room. The Priest left the room and Van followed him into the dining room of his apartment. With a gesture from the scarred man, the table moved to the far wall, exposing a large spot of hardwood floor.

“Here,” the Priest said, indicating the floor.

“Here what?” Van asked. The Priest gestured to the book. Pages turned and opened to a passage written in the same language that covered the Priest’s body. There was a picture in the center of a circle within a circle. Letters and symbols filled the ring between the two circles.

“I have to draw this?”

“Yes. Time is short.”

Van looked around the room, trying to stay calm. He didn’t want to panic, but he didn’t want to see the Deacon again, either. He needed something he could use to draw the circle on the floor.

“Van Collins, you are wasting time,” the Priest cautioned.

“I’m looking for something -”

“There,” the Priest interrupted. He pointed to a bowl on the counter. Van shook his head.

“A bowl?”

“Bring it to me.”

Van did as he was instructed, bringing the empty bowl to the Priest. The scarred face gave away no emotion. A cold, pale hand took Van by the wrist and held his arm up. He sliced his thumbnail across Van’s wrist. It slid like a razor into the flesh and Van cried out in both pain and surprise.

The Priest’s grip was like iron. He held Van’s wrist over the bowl as blood poured from the wound.

“What the hell are you doing?” Van demanded, trying to struggle free. The Priest may as well have been made from solid stone, there was no moving him at all. The more Van struggled, the more he caused the wound to bleed.

“The circle must be drawn with the blood of the summoner. You will survive this.”

“You could have warned me,” Van said, trying to ignore the pain.

“Why?” the Priest asked.

“Well, it would have been nice.”

“Do I look like someone who cares about being nice?” the Priest inquired. He set the bowl of blood aside and lifted Van’s arm. Black eyes bored into his own as he pulled Van’s wrist towards his face. 

A sense of revulsion surged through Van’s body as the Priest’s tongue, red and smooth, licked out between his pale lips. He licked the cut in Van’s flesh, cleaning the blood away. The flesh was healed where it passed over. He let Van’s arm gone.

“Draw the symbols with haste,” the Priest instructed. Van rubbed his wrist. It was cold and damp with the demon’s saliva. He looked away from him, taking the bowl and getting on his hands and knees on the floor. 

Van used his fingers on the hardwood to scrawl the circle with his own blood. It was not a neatly made reproduction, but it was the best he could do with a lack of tools. He copied the symbols as closely as he could, trying to keep the sizing and spacing even.

“There is no more time,” the Priest said when he was half done. Van lifted his head. There was nothing else in the dining room with them, but the air had taken on a musty, sour smell. 

The Priest walked across the floor, his steps silent and delicate. He walked like a dancer and his strange, white leather shoes seemed to absorb any sound as they went. He had the same glassy blade in his hands he had used to attack the Deacon previously.

“Finish your work,” the Priest advised.

The floor shook beneath Van’s hands and knees. There was a faint hum in the air. The Priest stood in the doorway to the dining room, silent and ready for whatever was coming as Van continued his hasty drawing. 

Across the room, a cupboard door shuddered. Van diverted his attention from the circle, unsure if he had truly seen anything at all. The door creaked open slowly, a few feet from his face. He held his breath, expecting the monstrous visage of the Deacon to burst forth, but instead there were only the shadowy contents of the cupboard. He stared for a long moment in confusion. There was nothing. 

“What -” he started to say. The shadows of the cupboard belched forth like inky black vomit. The Deacon scrambled forth like a spider from the darkness and Van yelled out in fear.

The Priest was on top of the Deacon in a flash. He lifted the monster from the ground and threw it out of the dining room in a swift, fluid movement. The black eyes turned to Van.

“You have no time,” he said.

Van returned to his work quickly. He filled the circular rings with the symbol, saturating his fingers with his own blood and splattering it across the floor to match the drawing from the book.

The Deacon snarled and righted itself quickly, rushing back to the dining room. The Priest removed his white leather apron and, like a matador, held it in his hands as the Deacon approached. 

He spun on his toes and wrapped the leather around the Deacon as it attacked. The leather held to the Deacon like glue, the pale material bonding to the Deacon’s own body. It grew over the rotten flesh of the Deacon’s skeletal frame, forming a new skin, encasing the monster as though it were a cocoon. White flesh surged up over the monster’s face and around its body from front to back. Soon the Deacon was nothing but a featureless mass of white flesh, like a man-sized maggot wriggling and writhing as the beast within tried to escape. 

Van finished the drawing on the floor and stood, his hand stained to the wrist with his own drying blood.

“It’s done,” he said excitedly. The Priest did not look at him. He focused on the Deacon as it struggled in its flesh prison. 

“Stand in the center and read the words,” the Priest said. Van picked up the book and stared at the page. They were not even letters he recognized. He had no idea how to read the book.

“I can’t,” Van yelled. The white flesh encasing the Deacon tore.

“Stand in the circle,” the Priest said again. Van looked to the floor. He was several paces from the center still. With book in hand, he resituated himself. 

The symbols on the page took on an air of familiarity. They did not change, but they made sense to Van. He began to read, the language one of deep, throaty sounds with harsh consonants and drawn out vowels. The alien words spilled out quickly and took on a song-like cadence. He had no idea what he was saying, but it felt as though the words themselves wanted to be said.

The Deacon shrieked. The pale leather trap split open like a kind of perverse egg sac and spilled the monster out onto the floor in a gush of milky fluid. It struggled to find its footing as Van continued to read.

“The soul is mine!” the Deacon hissed loudly, trying to stand on shaking legs. The Priest traced a finger along the side of the monster’s head and spun light as air from one side of the Deacon to the other. He let his hand caress the side of the monster’s face until he came to a stop, pulling the Deacon’s lower jaw completely away from its head with a wet crunching sound.

The Deacon howled, its long, snake-like tongue flapping uselessly under its exposed upper jaw. Blood and pus gushed down the front of its body. The Priest danced around it to a song only he could hear. The movements were graceful and seductive, yet none of the passion touched the scarred face. His expression was as blank and stern as ever.

Pale, scarred hands caressed and stroked the body of the Deacon. Each time they came away, they pulled loose another body part. After the jaw came the monster’s right arm and then its left hand. It tried to defend itself and fight back, but the movements of the Priest seemed to confuse and disorient it.

A new jaw began to grow, new limbs and appendages to replace the damaged bits. The Priest continued unphased, breaking bones or tearing pieces away.

Van finished the passage, and his words echoed through the apartment. The Deacon offered a wordless howl, reaching with a handless arm for Van as darkness swallowed its body whole. The Deacon and all of its pieces were gone. The Priest stopped his dance. He turned, wearing his apron once again, and looked at Van.

“You did it,” Van said.

“I did not. You completed the rite,” the Priest said. 

“Is it gone for good now?” Van asked. The Priest gave a slight nod.

“It has been unsummoned. Your lifetime will have long since passed by before the Deacon is able to return.”

Van heaved a sigh of relief. He closed the book and set it on the counter as he approached the Priest.

“Thank you. I don’t understand why any of this even happened, but I’m glad you…” he trailed off, looking around his apartment. The light had grown dim and there was a smell he could not identify on the air. Not the stench of the Deacon, but something stale and old. The air was cold and still. 

“What’s happening?” Van asked. The walls of his home faded away, and he was no longer in the apartment at all. Darkness stretched as far as he could see. There was only himself and the Priest. And then a sound rang through the void. It was distant at first, but grew closer. A scream, joined by another, and then another. Many screams formed a chorus.

“You have completed the Rite,” the Priest said. The screams rose higher and higher, a deafening symphony of people in pain. Van could see shadows writhing at the edges of his vision. In the distance, the great darkness seemed to shudder and move, like a mirage. He watched and realized the blackness was not empty at all but a thing, a creature of a size beyond reason. Whatever he was seeing was so massive, it was impossible to view in its totality. It was as though the dark itself had come to life and it was everywhere.

“I don’t understand,” Van said to himself. 

“No mortal can unsummon the Deacon. But a mortal may summon itself to my master’s domain.”

“Your master…” Van said. He stared up at the moving darkness. Screams filled his ears from all corners. The cold began to creep into his feet as though he were standing in wet snow. It bit at his fingertips and he felt a pain shoot through his nerves. He looked around, but the great blackness rose up in all directions. It was as though the thing had already swallowed him. There was nowhere to go that he could see. No landmark or destination. There was just darkness all around him. 

“You tricked me?” he said. But the Priest was gone. Van stood alone as the screams rose to a nearly deafening volume. He tried to cover his ears to lock them out as the cold surrounded him, seeping into his very bones. He began to run. The world looked the same forward and behind. He could not tell if he was even running straight or going in a circle. There was nothing but the screams, and the cold, and the ever growing darkness. There was nothing else.

[fortey]

Wendigo

This is from my anthology “$#!T’s About to Get Weird.” Check it out!

 Father says cold is just a state of mind. The burn is only skin deep. Father says the hunger is everything. Father says I won't get away.

 It's the long weekend and I am very nervous. This is the weekend that we get to drive up to Lake Nipigon as a family. We'll stay in the cabin and roast marshmallows on the fire and go fishing even before the sun comes up.  I used to love it more than anything.

Brother is grumpy a whole week before we go.  He is too old; he says.  He thought we were done with the cabin; he says. He wants to spend time with his friends; he says.  The cabin is for little girls like me; he says. Mother tells him to hush. 

The cabin was built in 1922, says Father. It was once home to trappers who stayed there in the deepest, coldest winters when they needed shelter on their trip down from Hudson Bay and the Inuit places further North. It was the only spot for hundreds of miles around at the time.  Even now, it takes one whole hour to drive to the nearest town.  Brother says he hates that it's in the middle of nowhere, but I loved it.  It made me feel like I could be a hunter or a bear or something fun like that. Now, I do not know. They say I didn't see what I saw. But I saw it. I think.

Mother doesn't like how small the cabin is, but she likes being together as a family, so she is OK with it. The cabin has only three rooms. There is one bedroom, one bathroom and the main room which is like a living room and kitchen and bedroom for Brother and me. It has a real fire place!

We have to pack smart for the cabin because it is so far from anyplace.  We need lots of fuel for the generator and lots of wood for the stove and the fireplace. We need clean water to drink (but we can bathe with water from the pump) and lots of food and warm clothes.

Brother says his phone doesn't even work up there.  Father says that's good, because he doesn't need to watch videos and text his friend 24/7.  I agree. Brother and I used to have fun together when we were younger at the cabin.  We would swim in the lake and catch frogs.  We would adventure in the forest and chase chipmunks and always be afraid of running into a bear even though we never saw one.  Now he is too old for it. Too cool for it.  But I don't care.  I want to still love it.

Nighttime at the cabin is scary.  I won't tell anyone. I don't want to give Brother a reason to tell Father we should stay home. But no matter how much I love it during the day, I can never forget that it is so scary at night. I tried to tell them once, but they didn't believe me.  They said the news of "The Incident" must have been what scared me.  It must have been the news, Mother said. The news is always so dark and scary.  It scared me, she said.  But that wasn't true.  I knew about what happened before the news. They told me I didn't, and that it was impossible and maybe they are right. They must be right. They must be right because there is no such thing as monsters and so I did not see one.

Three summers ago, when Brother still liked the cabin, there was "The Incident." Mother called it that. Father said don't talk about it. Mother said, "The Incident?" Father said yes, "The Incident."  We don't talk about it. We haven't been back since, but we are going back this year.  It's been long enough, Father says.

On the near side of the bend in the lake, which you could just barely see from our cabin, was another cabin. Mr. Tooms' cabin.  Mr. Tooms was as old as old could be and he spent all summer in that cabin.  His grandkids would come up sometimes with his daughter and they were very weird. Mother tried to get me to play with them once, but they were very mean, and I didn't like them.  And then "The Incident" happened, and they were all dead. All but Mr. Tooms because he killed them all. 

Mother and Father didn't want me to know what happened. They said "The Incident" was an accident, and it was nothing to worry about or even talk about and so we didn't. I didn't talk about it because Mr. Tooms told me not to say anything either.  Or at least the thing wearing Mr. Tooms said so. 

Father and Mother had the bedroom to themselves in the cabin and that left Brother and I in the main room with a sofa and a cot to sleep on.  Brother almost always took the sofa, and I got stuck with the terrible old army-green cot that smells like mothballs and rust and was less comfortable than sleeping on the floor.  Everyone else would drift off right away and I would stay awake while exhaustion fought with discomfort until exhaustion won and I fell asleep. 

Some nights when the sound of Father snoring through the walls was all I could hear, I would get off the cot and sneak from the cabin to walk by the lake.  In the still of the night I always felt like I was a secret creature of the shadows, a lone wolf from the woods come to hunt the shore.  I would tip-toe through the moonlight in search of my prey.  Of course, there was no prey, I just wanted to walk, but I liked to pretend.  And at night I would often catch glimpses of forest animals coming down to the water to drink.  Deer and raccoons and skunks and more would scuttle about and look at me with the same curiosity that I had when I looked at them.

On the night of "The Incident" I was out for a walk and it was very cold.  It was never warm at Lake Nipigon, really.  During the day in the middle of July it could get toasty, but the nights were always cool, and this was September. But even for September, this night was colder than cold.  I'd brought my blanket to wrap around me like a cloak and it barely helped cut the chilled breeze off the lake.  I was set to go back home after only a few minutes outside when I heard a scream from towards Mr. Tooms' cabin. 

The thing I always liked about the woods at night is the feeling you get, deep in your tummy. Sometimes it's like the forest and you start working together. Your heart beats and the forest's heart beats. You make a sound; the forest makes a sound. Then you get quiet again together. It's like the biggest, quietest friend in the world. You can just be together. But you have to do it at night when everything is asleep because then there's nothing to disrupt it. Nothing to make noise and ruin it. But that scream ruined it. The scream cut the quiet apart like a stick pulling the gooey guts out of a roasted marshmallow.

The forest came to a dead halt.  The insects and the night birds shut up as one and the silence after was so big. Everything is so big when you're scared.

I froze in place, my breath coming in little puffy clouds before my face.  I felt like the whole world was looking at me, like the night itself could see me.  Everything had stopped, and I stood still with my ragged, puffy breath feeling like the eyes of every creature was on me now, wondering why I was tip-toeing in their private space.  But it wasn't me.  It was the scream. 

It was barely a heartbeat I stood there as frozen as the world around me when another sounded.  Closer.  Louder.  It was a panicked, wordless cry.  I saw nothing in the darkness, but I knew it was near the water, near Mr. Tooms' cabin but coming closer to ours. 

Maybe one of Mr. Tooms' granddaughters went for a walk like me but got lost and scared in the dark.  Maybe an animal scared her.  It was definitely a girl scream; I thought.  Maybe I should get Mother and Father.  Maybe I should –

The sound that came next was not a scream.  Not a scream the way a person makes a scream.  It was a shriek, perhaps.  An animal sound, like a howling bellow of warning and anger.  It was a strange mix of a low, sticky-wet rumble and something higher-pitched and desperate.  And it was closer still.

I wanted to move.  I wanted to run as fast as my legs would carry me.  But I did not.  I still don't know why.  I don't know if I was so afraid I couldn't move or maybe I wasn't allowed to move.  The first flakes of snow settled on my nose and I didn't even lift a finger to wipe them away.  I just stood, wrapped in my blanket by the shore of the lake and watched as the shadow grew closer.  The sound of thumping feet and snapping shrubs and crushing leaves.  The ragged breaths all panicked and gulping between sobs.

Elisa Tooms was 12 years old, I think.  I didn't know her very well.  She was a very tall girl for her age and so very thin.  Her arms were long and skinny in a way that made you think perhaps she didn't eat properly.  There was no definition between forearm and bicep at all, like she had no muscle tone.  I always thought that was weird, but Mother said not to judge people just because they look different.  Now, as she stumbled out of the dark in front of me, it was the lack of an arm that held my attention.  Her long, skinny left arm was gone.  In its place only a raggedy stump, broken in an ugly fashion several inches below the shoulder.  I could see shattered bone in pokey slivers, and red, lumpy meat. She was wearing her nightclothes, a child's nightgown in what was once powder blue but in the cold darkness was a glistening black.  Blood.  She was soaked from head to toe in blood.

"Please!"

It was the only word she said.  She stumbled to the ground at my feet; her missing arm dripping blood, her good arm reaching for my blanket.  Her messy hair was plastered to her face with that glistening black blood, only slightly red where the light of the moon caught it.  She reached and looked up at me and I didn't even have time to respond before the hand grasped her hair and lifted her from the ground.

The thing wearing Mr. Tooms was very tall.  Taller than Mr. Tooms was, with longer arms and longer legs.  It was bony in places bodies weren't meant to be bony and bendy in places bodies weren't meant to be bendy.  The hair was a maze of twists and kinks, like dried moss laid out in the sun, like an unraveled loofah sponge all tangles of ragged straw and scratchy bits.  It was the same drab grey as the flesh and looked like it might crumble to the touch.  It was as though Mr. Tooms had become a living cartoon version of himself, some kind of half-remembered nightmare of what he was supposed to look like. 

Long fingers, long like gnarled sticks on the ground, wrapped around Elisa's mouth and she spoke no more words.  Snow fell in fat gobbets, not even flakes now.  Those chunks of snow that seem like the sky wanted to form snowballs all on its own.  They plopped down all about me, and all about Elisa Tooms and the thing wearing her grandfather.  It was hunched low, its back bowed in a bulgy, glistening hump with little boney lumps popping up like a railroad track under the skin.  It was naked, I could see, and its flesh was waxy and grey, splotched with those same black streaks.  It hid behind Elisa, holding her in that one, too big hand like a human shield, like it was hoping perhaps I couldn't see it.  It hid the way a small child hides in plain sight, expecting that no one will see it if it cannot see them.  Only this thing wearing Mr. Tooms could see me. 

I wondered how long I was there.  Was it minutes or seconds?  I wanted to run but my body wouldn't listen.  I stared and nothing more.  I stared over the shoulder of Elisa Tooms, as her eyes flashed panic and she struggled in the grip of long, waxy fingers.  Her tears and snot rolling over the grey flesh while just beyond her shoulder two yellowed eyes watched me.  We held each other's gaze in the snow.  I felt a rush of heat and realized I'd peed myself and my first thought was how disappointed Father would be if he found out.

The thing wearing Mr. Tooms seemed to twitch then.  A shudder wracked its body and a rumbling sound full of high-pitched squeaks and clicks filled the air.  Animal sounds, like small vermin and insects fighting together.  The eyes narrowed.  Elisa wavered in its grip.  My breath caught then as I understood what it was doing.  It was laughing.  It was laughing at me.

I could feel myself again.  Whatever had come over me had faded or the shock of this thing mocking me had rattled something loose, maybe. I could feel my legs again, control them again.  I moved to take a step backwards and the thing wearing Mr. Tooms rose up tall. It was so fast I stumbled and fell backwards. 

One hand pushed Elisa Tooms to the ground as though she were just a toy it was holding. It lurched forward, supporting its weight on one free hand and loomed over me.  It was Mr. Tooms face but not Mr. Tooms face. It was too long and too wide.  The mouth was so much bigger than it should have been.  There were so many teeth.  How could anything have that many teeth? 

I tried to scramble backwards, but it leaned in again, only inches from my face.  Glossy, fat lips like earthworms parted over so many brown and yellow teeth.  One impossibly longer finger from its free hand rose before its face, between our faces, and crossed its lips.

"Shhhhhh."

The lips parted more widely.  Its smile made my stomach knot up as it laughed again.  A fake kind of laughter, like the sound an alien might make when trying to mimic the way humans speak.  The sound an animal might make as it tried to escape from a painful trap.  It laughed and then twisted away, escaping back into the night.  The plopping snow dwindled to the tiniest of flakes.  The night grew clear once more.  The chill faded from the air. 

One breath.  Two breaths.  Three breaths.  A bird made a quick chirp and a second replied.  A cricket suddenly started its song again.  The night had re-established order and returned to business as usual.  I sat up on my blanket and saw nothing.  No sign of Elisa Tooms or the thing that wore Mr. Tooms. No blood.  No beasts. 

I returned home then.  The first steps were awkward on unsure legs.  My body shook, a deep fear from my belly made me unstable.  I felt like all my muscles were tense. The tiny flakes of snow became more sparse and with each step I took, the fear inside me seemed to force itself down to an unseen place in my belly.  The snow faded, my fear faded. When I reached the door to our cabin, the night sky was clear as a bell once more and not a flake of snow touched a blade of grass anywhere to be seen in the moonlight.  I felt no fear at all.  In fact, I could barely remember what I had been afraid of in the first place.  Had it been a racoon at the shore?  No, it was a bird call.  I had heard a bird cry out loud and it startled me. So silly.  That's what happens when you go out alone at night.

I returned to my uncomfortable cot and my family was unaware I had left at all.  Father's snoring was as regular as clockwork and Brother lay as still as a statue on the sofa.  Even though it was uncomfortable, I fell asleep quickly on the cot.

I was awoken by Mother the next morning.  There was a frantic air in the cabin as Brother tried to reach someone on the phone.  Father was out front with men, I could see them through the window.  Mother spoke words but my mind immediately drifted. I had peed myself!  I had to hide that somehow.  Is that why everyone was here?  Of course not, that would make no sense.  But what was the problem?  I needed the strange men to go so I could clean up without anyone seeing.  Why had I peed myself?  I hadn't done that in years.

"Are you even listening to me?" Mother said.  I was not.

"Yes," I answered unconvincingly, holding my blanket against myself like a shield.

"There was an incident last night.  You need to get dressed quickly, please.  We have to go but you need to hurry."

An incident. What did that mean?

Mother went to check on Brother who was standing at the old-fashioned phone on the cabin wall that we were forbidden to use.  With no one paying attention to me, I scuttled off to the bathroom with my things and changed out of my soiled clothes, cleaned myself up, and got ready to go.  Mother called me three times telling me to hurry.   It must have been some kind of incident alright to get her so wound up.  I couldn't even imagine since nothing ever happened out here.  It's not like anyone was even around, just old Mr. Tooms.

I stopped in mid-stroke as I brushed my teeth and looked at myself in the mirror.  Mr. Tooms.  Something happened with Mr. Tooms.  I knew that.  Did I know that?  Why did I know that?

The toothbrush fell into the sink, forgotten. I left the tiny, cold bathroom to the main room of the cabin. Mother was speaking into the phone.  Brother stood at her side.  I passed them both and went to the door, opening it and heading to where father stood with the men out front. There were Provincial Police vehicles parked in the drive, a car and an SUV.  The men wore uniforms and carried guns.  There was a woman with them with her hair pulled into a tight bun. She was the first to notice me as one of the men talked to Father.

"And you weren't aware that the victims were even up at the cabin?" the officer speaking to Father asked.

"No, not at all.  I only know Carl to nod hello.  He's not a friend, really.  We can just barely see his cabin from the lake."

"What's your name, honey?" the female officer asked as I approached.

"Did something happen to Mr. Tooms?" I asked.  Father saw me then.

"Oh!  Go back inside, Peanut.  Everything is OK," Father said, gesturing to make me return.  

He calls me Peanut.  His voice was shaken.  The officers looked at each other.  I still had toothpaste on my lips.

"Something was wearing him," I said in response.  Father's hand stopped mid gesture.  He looked confused.  The officers shared a look again.

"What's that?" the man who had been speaking to my father asked.

"She's my youngest, she's doesn't know –"

"Just a moment, sir.  Honey, what was that you were saying?"  The man crouched down to my level.  Pine needles crunched under his feet and the sun through the tree cover gave him a bit of a halo effect as he faced me.  Father's expression was hard to read.  The female officer had a notepad in her hand.

"Last night. I remember. I think I forgot but then I remembered. I was at the lake and I saw Mr. Tooms."

"You saw him? Last night?"

"It wasn't really him.  It was something wearing him.  It was too tall and too wrong, and it chased Elisa through the woods.  She was covered in blood."

The man put a hand on my shoulder.  "What do you mean something was wearing him?"

"It looked like a pretend Mr. Tooms.  It had a big mouth, and it made it snow.  It told me to keep quiet and then it laughed at me."

The man stood up again and looked at the female officer and then at Father.

"OK.  Well, if we need to speak to you again, is there a number we can reach you at?" the man asked.  

Father nodded and pulled out his wallet, handing the officer one of his business cards.  As the officers said their goodbyes, Father quietly told me to get back in the cabin.

Father was angry with me for lying, he said.  For telling stories when something serious was happening.  This was serious.  A serious incident.  But he wouldn't say what it was.  Mother wouldn't say.  We went home early that year and the next day Brother told me that the news said Mr. Tooms had murdered his daughter and his two of his grandchildren in the night. One body was never even found.  He killed them with his hands, and he ate them.  They found him in town the next morning, walking right down the middle of the street naked and bloody and screaming all insane.  He was cracked, Brother said.  He went crazy and killed and ate his family.  Who does that?

For months afterwards, Brother said Mr. Tooms was coming to eat me any time he wanted to taunt me.  Eventually he stopped, moved on to different things to try to tease me. Mother and Father refused to believe me when I told them what I had seen. First, they were angry and then they were worried. They worried something was wrong with me. They made me talk to a lady who told me I didn't see what I saw. She asked me about my feelings, and if anyone ever hurt me, and how I liked school. She asked me the same things about 100 times. Eventually I started to think maybe she was right. Maybe I didn't see anything.  

The next summer came and went and we didn't go to the cabin at all.  And then the next year we stayed home too because of "The Incident."  By then I was older. I knew more stuff about the world.  I knew monsters weren't real. I knew I hadn’t really seen anything.

This year Mother and Father agreed enough time had passed, and it was OK.  I was older now, so I wouldn't have the silly dreams I had back then.  I wouldn't make up a silly story about something wearing Mr. Tooms.  I was a big girl and there was no reason for this to be anything but a fun family trip again.

Father insisted we leave early in the morning to make good time. He was very concerned with making good time on the road.  The sun wasn't even up when we left our house.  Brother was angry, Mother was tired, and I didn’t get to have breakfast except for a muffin.  I don't even like muffins.

The trip to Lake Nipigon is very boring. Brother and I used to play games on the road. We would call out license plates from places we had never been to, and he would punch my arm and say "Punch Buggy" even when I never saw a punch buggy on the road.  We would play Eye Spy and 20 Questions. We would tell jokes and listen to music.  We used to anyway.  This year Brother had his headphones in and played games on his phone.  I just stared out the window for hours and hours.

In the years we had been away, I played the night over again and again in my head. It was like a movie to me, like something I had seen far away.  If it was real, I should have been so scared, so it couldn't have been real. And of course, how could it be? How could Mr. Tooms have been a monster? How could he make it snow?  Mother and Father were right, I had just had a strange dream. I knew the difference between the real world and made up things, and I knew monsters weren't real.  I hadn't meant to tell a lie or a story; I was just confused.

Three years later, I still wondered something. If I hadn't seen anything, how did I know Mr. Tooms had killed his granddaughter?  I didn't hear the news until Brother told me the day after we left. How did I know something happened? I knew the answer, of course.  But I would never say it out loud.

It was after lunch when we got to the cabin, and it was cold already. Father said on the way up that there was an Alberta Clipper inbound and we were going to be in for some rough weather. Brother said a swear, and that set off a half hour argument. I just looked out the window some more.

The cabin had stood up alright to us not being there for so long.  It was a little more weatherbeaten and there was deadfall everywhere, but nothing was broken or damaged.  When Father unlocked the door, the smell from inside hit me in the face like a punch.

"Jesus!" Brother yelled, netting him a scowl from Mother.  

It smelled worse than anything, and I could see that the floor was littered with the tiny bodies of countless flies.  That usually happened in the off season, but it was beyond anything I had seen before.  There must have been hundreds or even thousands of them.

Father had us wait outside as he went into the cabin to open all the windows and sweep up the fly carcasses.  He was gone for maybe 10 minutes while the rest of us waited out front before he came back with a tied-up trash bag.

"Looks like some raccoons got stuck in the chimney," Father said, holding up the bag. "Three of them in here.  Gonna be a while to get that smell out."

So, our first hour back at the cabin was spent trying to scour the stink of dead racoon out of the building. We used bleach and Febreze and kept the door open.  Eventually we either cleared it out or simply went nose blind to it. I couldn't be sure, but at least I couldn’t smell it anymore.

Mother insisted on cleaning every surface whether it looked dirty or not. Brother vanished a half hour later, wandering off to avoid the work while Father set about getting the generator going and making sure the plumbing was OK.  I cleaned dishes and floors and was generally somewhat miserable as the cabin grew colder and colder with the bad weather.  By the time the sun was setting, Brother had returned looking for food and Father was ready to try starting a fire.

We ate hot dogs for dinner that night, along with store-bought salads and Coca-Cola. We sat at the table together and told stories and even though the day had a stressful start; it was fun the way I remembered it again while we ate.  Even Brother enjoyed himself, laughing along with stories about silly things we’d done as children.   By the time dinner was done, it was snowing.

Father said the weather hadn't predicted snow, just a cold front, so it probably wouldn't be too bad. We played Yahtzee and a game of Monopoly that seemed like it would never end.  Brother won, but only because Father let him, I think. By the time we went to bed there were a few inches of snow on the ground.

The sound of Father snoring woke me up again. At home my room is on the opposite side of the house, so I never hear him. But here it is all I can hear. That rumbling, snorting sound. I wonder how Mother sleeps through it.

The clock on the wall said it is just after 4 am.  I wrapped my blanket around me and got off the uncomfortable cot.  The fire was still burning low, and the cabin had just the faintest chill to it.  The windows were frosted over obscuring the outside world from view.  I cracked open the cabin door just a hair's breadth and my own breath caught.  Snow was piled up the door knee high. More fell from the sky in great, burly chunks. The world outside was lost under a blanket of white.

I closed the door and headed back to the cot, feeling a chill in my bones.  It had never really snowed when we'd been here, except for that one time. That night, when I saw Mr. Tooms.  We come up here to enjoy the summer, to swim in the lake and fish and have picnics. What can we do in this? 

The next morning the smell of bacon woke me up. Mother was frying eggs and home fries and pancakes.  Father was sipping a coffee at the table and Brother was at the window.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Mother said.

"Good morning," I replied with a yawn.

"You won't think it's good when you look outside," Brother said, half taunt and half in misery.  I came to his side at the window and looked out.  There was nothing to see except white.  Snow everywhere.  Our car was half buried, and the woods were pristine white.

"Oh wow," is all I could muster.

"It won't last. Alberta Clippers move on pretty quick," Father said confidently.  I feel like that makes sense but don't have time to worry about it.  I need to pee.

We talked about what to do today with all this snow as we ate breakfast. We cleaned the breakfast dishes. We played Scrabble and Battleship and Pictionary. Father tried to shovel a path to the car but of course we didn't have an actual snow shovel here, and the gardening shovel worked poorly.  The snow kept falling.

We had tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch. We had roast chicken with potatoes and carrots for dinner.  We made S'mores before bed.

It was earlier that night when I woke up, not quite 3am.  Father's snore was louder than usual.  I went to the door, and the floor was frosty cold under my bare feet.  It still hadn't stopped snowing.  It's up to the bottom of the window sills now.  I wondered as I looked out at a black and white world what happens if it never stops.  What happens if the snow covers the door, and we get trapped in the cabin?

I headed back to the cot and return to a fitful sleep.  The next morning there was no bacon for breakfast. Instead, tiny fun-sized boxes of cereal that you can cut open along the sides and then pour the milk right in.  I took Lucky Charms and Brother took Frosted Flakes.  Mother and Father were not as happy today as they were yesterday, and they discussed the weather a lot.  Father insisted it will pass soon and Mother asked what if it doesn't?  They argued quietly, trying to not be heard.  Mother mentioned food.

Father went to his room to read so Mother played board games with Brother and I until lunch. We had sandwiches and salad plus brownies.  I won the game of Life. For dinner we had tacos. 

I don't know what time it was when I woke up. My whole body shuddered.  It was freezing cold.  I didn't hear Father snoring, and I thought maybe I slept all the way through till morning for a moment. But of course, that couldn't be so, because of how dark it was. I sat up in my cot and froze.  The door was wide open.  Snow had drifted in and I could see it piled high outside, almost chest high at this point, except for where father tried shoveling it earlier.  There it's perhaps just over a foot high, but I could see a trail cut into it. Someone left the cabin. 

I saw Brother still asleep on the sofa. The door to Mother and Father's room was open.  I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and headed to the door, peering out into the night.  The snow flakes were large but delicate as they floated to the Earth.  The trail leading away from our door headed towards the lake. And just there at the shore I saw him.  Father, in his pajamas, standing by the edge of the frozen water. Just standing there.

I opened my mouth, unsure of what I might even want to say. I drew in a breath quietly and before any words could part my lips, Father turned.  He turned and looked back at me and lifted a finger to his lips.  I heard the "shhh" carried on the breeze.  The memory of Mr. Tooms flooded back like dirty oil into my mind. I stumbled back from the door.

"What the hell are you doing?" Brother said angrily, suddenly awake. "Close the door!"  

I took another step back.  Father's mouth was parted in a smile. His eyes were locked on mine.  It was still father; it wasn't a thing wearing him like Mr. Tooms.  It was still father.  It was OK. 

"It's not me," I said quietly.

"Kids, what are you doing? Where is your Father?" Mother asked suddenly, appearing in the doorway to her room.  

I stepped back from the door again.  Father walked back to the cabin, and I backed away all the way to the cot.

"What were you doing out there?" Mother asked, confused and exasperated.  

Father shrugged.  He looked like himself.

"I thought I heard something out there.  Was probably just an animal stunned by all this snow," he said.

"You're not even wearing shoes!" Mother said.  

Father shrugged again and headed to bed.  He didn't snore for the rest of the night.

Breakfast was sausage and tater tots and waffles.  We were supposed to go home today, only there was no way we could drive out of this.  Mother asked father what we were going to do, and he said not to worry about it, the weather would pass soon.  Mother said we had to go home today. They had work. Brother and I had school. We didn't have enough food to stay here much longer.  Father shrugged and went to the bedroom to read. Mother tried to make a call, but the phone was out.

When I woke up that night I didn't get out of bed.  The cabin was silent.  Father wasn't snoring. I was cold, but I refused to look at anything.  I stayed on the cot, bundled tight under my blanket.  I closed my eyes and willed myself to go back to sleep.  I didn't look at the door.  I wouldn't look at the door.

We had peanut butter and jam on toast for breakfast the next day. Mother asked Father where he went during the night and he said he went nowhere. She asked him why he's lying, and he shrugged.  He left his toast as he headed to the bedroom and closed the door.

Mother said we need to leave.  She got her things on and told Brother and I to stay put until she called for us.  She made her way to the car, wading through the snow as though it were water, and it took her over 10 minutes just to get there.  She used her hands to clear the door to the car and get in.  The sound of the engine clicking came from under the snow. Again, and again, a whirring and clicking sound. The car did not start. She tried for 15 minutes.

Mother came back to the house, and her face was red from the cold. I thought maybe she was also crying.  She took off her coat and shoes and sat down hard on the sofa.  She asked where Father was and of course he was in the bedroom because there was literally no place else to be. She told Brother to go get him.

The door to the bedroom was locked. Brother knocked and called for Father but there was no answer.  Mother's red face matched her angry expression. She stormed across the cabin and banged on the door. She yelled for him to open up but there was no response.

I asked Mother if everything was OK, and she said not to worry. She said Father was just playing a joke, and we'd have to play a joke back by breaking into the room. The lock was just a simple slide bolt, so it wasn't very strong.  It broke easily when Mother slammed her shoulder into the door.

The bedroom was empty when Mother broke in. The window was open, and snow had blown in across the floor. Brother asked where Father went but it was obvious.  For whatever reason, he sneaked out into the snow.  And he left his clothes in a pile on the floor.

Mother called for Father out the window while Brother tried the telephone again. Neither one had any success.  When the generator cut out, no one said what we were surely all thinking.   Father did it. Mother put more wood in the fireplace and made sandwiches with the last of the bread.

When the sun started to go down, Mother said we'd all sleep together in the bedroom together.  She'd been calling for Father for hours.  Brother wanted to go looking for him, but Mother said no, it was too dangerous outside. Brother said Father had been out for too long and we had to find him.  Mother said no.  I agreed with Mother.

I didn't know what time it was when I woke up. I was on the edge of the bed. Mother was in the middle and Brother was on the opposite side. Father stood in the doorway.  No, that wasn't true.  The thing wearing Father stood in the doorway.

My breath caught. My eyes were wide, but I couldn't move. The room was freezing cold.  I wanted to warn Mother and Brother, but I couldn't.  My breath puffed in front of my face.

"Cold, honey?" the thing wearing my Father asked. 

It hadn't mastered his voice.  It was like someone doing an impression, like when they teach a song in school that's a different language and the words don't mean anything, they're just sounds you make. "The cold is just a state of mind, you know. It's not real. It's the absence of heat, cold is. So, you see, it can't be real. Nothing is real."

Father took a step into the room. He straightened and was suddenly taller.  Taller than Father ever was before.  Too tall.  Too thin.  His arms and legs had too many joints.  

"The burn is only skin deep, honey.  Let me show you."

I screamed.  Screamed as the thing wearing Father lurched into the room on spindly legs.  I knew what it would look like before I could even see it. Grey, waxy flesh.  The mossy hair.  The teeth.

Mother was up in a flash. She didn't freeze like I did. She was all action, a bear protecting her cubs. The thing wearing Father closed long-fingered hands around her neck and she punched at him, scratched at him with her nails.  He laughed.

Mother managed to say one word before her neck broke. 

"Run." 

The sound was like when Father pulled a drumstick off the Thanksgiving turkey last year.  It was wet and poppy with a little crunch inside like biting into something hollow.

Brother screamed wordlessly. I scrambled from the bed and fell to the floor. Brother's scream ended in a fleshy thump. All I could see on the floor was the open doorway into the cabin beyond. I heard a muffled groan and another popping sound and then something hit me in the face.

I reached instinctively and touched my cheeks. It was hot but then it was cool and wet. I knew what it was without looking at my fingers. But I did anyway. I looked and saw that same blackness I saw on Elisa Tooms' face.

Another crunching sound filled the room, the sound inside your own head when you bite into a shiny red apple. And again. And again.

My legs moved on their own. I was kicking, squirming, fighting against my own pajamas and gravity and panic. I clawed up the bedsheets and stood. The thing wearing Father was crouched on the bed like an animal. He held Brother in both of his wide, greyed hands. He was chewing.

The sound I made was involuntary as I stumbled back. The thing wearing Father turned its shaggy, waxy head to look at me. Greasy gobbets of flesh hung from its mouth, trapped in its jagged teeth.  Its chin and naked chest were bathed in the same black blood that coated my face.

"I'm so hungry, Peanut," it said around mouthfuls of Brother. "The hunger… it's everything."  

The thing wearing Father smiled wide at me. So wide. And I ran.

The cabin was a blur. The night pulled me in, and I fled. The snow was deep and freezing cold on my bare feet. Within seconds it was as though my legs had given up.  I could barely move. The snow pushed back against me.  I didn't even know where I could go.

Frozen tears stung my eyes as I pushed past the buried car. Behind me I heard the sound. That wet, trilling rumble.  It was laughing at me. But I wouldn't look. I refused to look.

"You can't get away, Peanut. The forest can't save you. I am the forest."  And it laughed.

I barely got past the car.

*** 

The news on Wednesday is grim for the people in town. A man was found on the street outside of Micah's Diner. Naked, disoriented, covered in blood. It was the same as three years earlier. OPP investigated their cabin on Lake Nipigon and discovered the bodies of his wife and son inside. They'd been brutalized and partially consumed.  He'd disconnected the battery of the family car so no one could escape. Investigators said there was a young girl who had gone missing as well, just as in the Tooms case 3 years prior.  Footprints from the cabin indicated she'd run to the woods. The temperature overnight had been cold for this time of year. An Alberta Clipper had brought in cool winds and a touch of rain. Everyone was hoping she was OK.  The snows would be coming in another month or so at this rate. They needed to find her soon.

[fortey]

The Day I Met Ray Liotta

Once a long lost FunnyCrave or HolyTaco article, now returned! I emailed it to someone in 2011! RIP Mr. Liotta, you were awesome.

The life of an internet comedian is a whirlwind of excitement.  If you’re not at a gala dinner to support the preservation of owls whose name may include the word “tit” but not in an obscene fashion, you’re spinning hilarious quips into 140 character gemstones on Twitter, then constantly refreshing to see who replied or retweeted you and helped validate your existence for a few moments.  Oh, it’s quite the ride.  Of course, along with this comes the magnificence of celebrity; brushing elbows with the world’s elite.  Yes, celebrities are better than you and I because they have been on television.  Have you been on television?  Don’t answer, I won’t have time to read it.

Every so often, as writers, we get invited to cover luxurious events, movie premieres and golden jubilees.  Recently, we were on our way to cover the opening of Moneyball when it became clear that getting to the theatre for the red carpet event would be a difficult task when it happened the day before and we had forgotten about it.  Oops.  Like any reasonable professional, the course of correction for this oversight was clear – cheap booze from Trader Joes.

The bus came quickly and the ride was as smooth as the finest Chinese silk, straight from the puckered anus of the most refined caterpillar.  Upon reaching the stop conveniently located a mere block from Trader Joe’s, I departed from my public transit comrades’ company and sought out some discount bourbon that I felt would make my evening a little more festive as I planned another week of Holy Taco galleries and answered the site’s fan mail with veiled threats and outright threats.

Upon entering Trader Joe's I was met with the familiar smell of Joe himself – exotic spices from the Orient and a touch of sweat.  Kind of what you’d expect a child in a shoe factory to smell like, if he’d managed to use that month’s salary to buy a ginger snap.  Other customers milled about purchasing unsweetened green tea, trail mix and other preposterous products of that ilk.  None of that for me, it was the single malt Imperial bourbon whiskey that was calling my name.  To be fair, a Trader Joe’s employee was the one calling me after I accidentally knocked over a display of Toscano cheese, but he didn’t know my name so I refused to listen.

As I perused the store’s selection of liquors, emboldened by the knowledge an underpaid servant was now cleaning my artisanal cheese mess, I paused to ask a fellow alcohol enthusiast if the Aberlour would quench my thirst better than the Imperial, only I worded it thusly “How fast will this get me shitfaced?”

To my surprise, the gravelly voice that replied to me with a simple “it’ll get you where you need to be” belonged to none other than famed thespian Ray Liotta.  Mr. Liotta, as you no doubt know, is the star of such films as No Escape and Operation: Dumbo Drop.  I was taken aback.

“Are you Ray Liotta?” I asked. It was a stupid ass question at best, because he was clearly Ray Liotta.  Also, no one likes being asked who they are.  Generally the only people who ask you to confirm your identity are the police or idiots on the phone.  I had made my first misstep in our new friendship.

Liotta may have smiled or sneered and said “yes,” making eye contact only briefly.  Was he becoming testy?  Did he realize he should not have initiated contact?  I had to act quickly.  How does one best know for writing internet articles about sex toys and the Black Eyed Peas (but not together.  Not yet anyway) make a good impression on a man who has co-starred on film with Whoopi Goldberg?

“I wrote a pretty popular article about sex toys once,” I say, placing a hand in my pocket.  Tactical error, that.

Mr. Liotta bade a hasty retreat, which makes sense even to me, and I was left holding my bourbon.  The Aberlour sounded good so I took two and shortly followed after Mr. Liotta looking to not only explain myself but take some time to arrange a play date for us later in the week.  Of course, being men, we wouldn’t call it a play date.  That would be asinine.  It would be Boy Time.

Having only watched Liotta on film, you may be surprised to learn he possesses some manner of Spiderman-like intuition or “Liotta Sense” if you will, which allowed him to stealthily avoid me with apparent ease thence forward.  By the time I finaly caught sight of him he was leaving the store with several packages of breakfast burritos.  Good choice, Ray.  Good choice.

I was detained in line behind some filthy hippie who was trying to find out if there was gluten in his trail mix, as if anyone on earth would mourn his loss should he eat gluten (it’s poisonous, right?  Why on Earth would they add that to trail mix?  Add more raisins instead) and by the time I made my purchase, Ray had vanished forever.  As I rode the bus home, I was wistful, and lifted my head with an impossible hope every time the bus stopped and the door opened to allow on a new passenger.  “Ray?!” I’d say quietly, as other passengers moved away from me.  But it never was.  Ray Liotta probably has a car.  No bus for him.  No sir.

[fortey]

WereCage

Legend says that whoever is bitten by Nic Cage and lives becomes a Nic Cage themselves... Stanley Miller got bit by Nic Cage in the park. Things got worse from there. If his roommate Cameron and Wilford Brimley are to be believed, the world is now on a fast track to the apocalypse. Unless Stanley can save it. When the moon rises, Stanley feels the change overcome him and Nicolas Cage takes over.

Buy it on Amazon! It’s an ebook! It’s a paperback! It’s a real book!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B46WWD4V/

[fortey]

It’s Hard Out There for a Fisto

 Fisto awoke slowly as Eternia’s bright, morning sun streamed in through his shoddily made Wal Mart blinds.  No matter how much he twisted that little wand they never quite closed right.  Even when he used his giant fist, nothing changed.

 “Fuck…”he muttered.  He rolled over, attempting to escape the shitty morning, his face crunching through errant drywall crumbs. Once again, in the middle of the night, his fist had slammed a hole in his bedroom wall.  “Fuck.”

 Rising slowly, Fisto looked around the room.  His 12 inch black and white television was still on, the volume turned down, as Good Morning Eternia played behind fuzz.  He’d lost his cable some years earlier and had yet to sustain enough of an income to have it put back on.  Fisto was pretty much unemployable and had been for over 20 years, thanks to assholes like He-Man, strutting around with two normal sized hands and names that barely references sexual deviancy.

 The rest of Fisto’s one room apartment was sparsely furnished.  His hot plate sat next to the sink, awaiting the preparation of his morning feast; reused teabags and some instant oatmeal.  A recliner that he was pretty sure Battlecat pissed on and a small TV tray that he stole from Skeletor’s trash one day filled out most of the rest, along with a small dresser to house his loin cloths and perplexing metal chest straps. Plus a large stack of sodden porno.

 Looking at his alarm clock, Fisto sighed.  It was already past 7 and if he wanted to get any of the good jobs down at the temp agency, he should have been there already.  Now, if he was lucky, he’d show up and spend a half hour sitting around with Ram Man and Meckaneck and end up chasing chickens out in the boonies for about $50.  He would put $30 of that towards rent and spend the rest on malt liquor, just like every day.

 Oozing out of bed, Fisto stood on shaky legs and looked down at himself.  One giant hand and a dick like a malformed potato thanks to a teenaged masturbation mishap.  He thought he could get over his shame by using his giant fist for good, by becoming a hero like 50% of everyone else on the entire planet, and what did he have to show for it?  His first day as a hero, when he showed up and told everyone his awesome name was The Knock Out Kid, some ass hat called him Fisto, everyone laughed and he ended up in one episode of the He-Man cartoon before being made into a forgettable action figure that the smelly kids played with.  The fuckin’ smelly kids.  Because who wants to play with the toy that everyone associates with being wrist-deep in another human’s undercarriage?

 After pissing, Fisto slipped into a mildly soiled loincloth and headed for the door. Outside, at the bus stop, Ram Man was busily picking a scab from his elbow. The stocky man waved at him as he approached.  Just another day in the life of Fisto.

 “Fuck,” muttered Fisto.

[fortey]

Nic Cage vs Zombies the Comic

If you want to appreciate how Nic Cage vs Zombies would work in comic book form, here’s the script for the first issue.

Nic Cage vs Zombies: Issue 1

The point here is to be the most intense thing anyone has ever seen or imagined seeing. This story exists for one purpose - to convince you the world can only be saved by Nic Cage.

PAGE 1

 Panel 1 - long panel across the top 3rd of the page

Nighttime in Chinatown. The street is crowded despite the rain.  Shops are crammed tight together and signs in different shapes of pink and red and yellow neon advertising restaurants stand stark against the black of the night.  Cars and bicycles go up and down the street, as do pedestrians with umbrellas. Paper lanterns are strung from one side of the street to another in criss cross patterns

CAPTION: Chinatown.

Panel 2 - tall panel, the left half of what remains on the page

A figure stands at the mouth of an alley in a long coat and rumple cowboy hat. His back is to us and he is hallowed by the massobe, pink neon sign of the DRAGON COURT Chinese restaurant.  The people on the street pay him no mind.

Panel 3: - identical to previous panel on the right on the page

The figure crosses the street towards another alley on the side of the Chinese restaurant

PAGE 2

Panel 1 of a three panel bar across the top

The figure sidesteps a scooter the splashes him from a puddle

Panel 2: 

The figure makes his way down the alley. A single bulb at the end draws him in

Panel 3: 

close on the hand knocking on a thick steel door under one of those sliding peep hole things.

Panel 4 of another 3 panels across the center of the page

The peep hole slides open. Eyes gaze out.

Panel 5:

The door is open and the cowboy hat-wearing figure is silhouetted as he enters.

Panel 6:

The door is closed.  The rain pelts down

Panel 7 of another 3 panels on the bottom

Side view of the figure as he walks down a dim, concrete hall lined with pipes.  He is still cast in silhouette so we only see his shadowy proflle

Panel 8 

The figure is heading down a staircase.

Panel 9: 

The figure from behind in a basement. The quarters are close. Water drips from apipe. There is a bulb on the ceiling.  Our figure is in the foreground, a black shape.  

SHAPE:  Uh… hey.

PAGE 3 

splash page, one single panel

Our figure is in the foreground but the focus is not on him.  In the center of the hall before another door is a hulking beast of a man.  It is the ALBINO.  He is 7’4” tall, think The Mountain from Game of Thrones but pale white and smooth hairless.  He wears leather pants and no shirt, but he does have on a leather apron. At his hip is a holstered meat cleaver.  And on his massive bald head is a bike helmet with a GoPro affixed to it.  His eyes are pale blue and his jaw is thick.

SHAPE: Nice apron.

PAGE 4 

Panel 1 of a two panel spread on the top third of the page.

The Albino takes hold of the handle of a huge wooden door and pulls it open.  From the cracks, golden light spills out.

ALBINO: HMMM.

Panel 2: 

Our shape stands in the doorway, He is a black silhouette against golden light that spills out like the sun itself was in the room on the other side of the door.

Panel 3 spreads across the entire middle third of the page

The room beyond the door is like Shangri-La - it’s a casino but no ordinary casino.  The room is enormous with massively high ceilings.  There are wall sconce torches and dozens if not hundred of patrons at all manner of tables. Everyone is dressed formally, and suspended from cords Cirque du Soleil style are wait staff who descend from the ceiling.  There are dozens of gaming tables and everything is gold and silver.  There are statues lining walls and it’s basically the fanciest damn place you can imagine

Panel 4 is the bottom third of the page.  Finally we see the shape’s face.  It’s Nic Cage.  We’re medium close on him as the door shuts behind him.  

NIC CAGE: Nice.

PAGE 5 

Panel 1 - this is the top half of the page, so only two panels total here. 

Cage descends a small staircase, handing his coat and hat to someone in a tux. Servers on lines descend from a bar that is suspended above the entire room. They bob up and down like spiders here and there.  

Panel 2: 

Cage passes by tables of gamblers. People are pushing unusual items across tables, placing bets not with money but with things like jewels, a fossils, strange bundles of papers and curious, rare knick knacks. A 4 piece string band plays on a stage to the side

PAGE 6 

Panel 1 of two panels across top of page

Cage, from behind, in foreground as he approach a set of double doors set into the wall.  It is guarded by two identical women in matching suits and sunglasses on either side of the door.  The only difference between them is that they have the opposite side of their heads shaved, so that the side facing out has long,shoulder-length straight black hair hanging down and the side facing in, towards each other, are bald.  The women have dark skin and wear sunglasses.

The doors look to be carved from solid jade.  They are ornate and carved with dragons and Chinese lions.

Panel 2

The women wordlessly pull open the doors for Cage. Inside is a single table with three people seated at it, and some other elegant furnishings.  The people are  ways from the door and not terrible detailed by they are TEDDY SOLSTICE, a young, dark-skinned man in his 20s who has a wooden box about the size of a loaf of bread on the table before him. MRS. LUMBERG, a very rich, very elegant woman in her 40s sits before a manilla envelope and LAO CHE-FUNG, a Chinese man in his late 70s who is very decrepit and somewhat sinister.  Behind Che-Fung is a beefy man in a suit, his bodyguard, who stands next to a large, tarp-covered object.  Though we can’t sea it, it is the man-sized cage that holds a zombie.

Panel 3 of a two panel spread in the center of the page

Cage shakes hands with Teddy Solstice over the table.

TEDDY: Welcome, Mr. Cage.

NIC CAGE: Teddy, please, it’s just Nic. How are you this evening?

TEDDY: Very well, Mr. Cage. And you?

Panel 4

Nic Cage clasps the white-gloved hand of Mrs. Lumberg.

NIC CAGE: I am so much better now that I see the lovely Mrs. Lumberg is here!

MRS. LUMBERG: Flattery gets you everywhere, my dear Nicolas.  Do sit down.

Panel 5 of two panels across the bottom of the page

Nic Cage has taken his seat, and Teddy Solstice now sits also.

NIC CAGE: Sorry for being so late, parking is a nightmare.  Good to see you as well Mr. Lao. Do we have stakes?

Panel 6

Nic Cage sets a small, glass jar with a cork stopper on the table.  Inside are teeth. Human teeth.

NIC CAGE: Elvis Presley. Or his teeth, at least. Clone yourself the King of Rock and Roll or just make a necklace.

PAGE 7 

Panel 1 of three panels on the top of the page

Centered on Teddy Solstice hold open the box before him. There is a fist-sized rock within, dotted with what looks like yellow glass or gems. They glow very softly in the grey stone.

TEDDY: The largest pallasite meteorite yet discovered on Earth with this degree of radiance.

Panel 2

Centered on Mrs. Lumberg as she pulls files from the manila envelope. They are property deeds.

MRS. LUMBERG: The deeds to the childhood homes of Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson.

Panel 3

Centered on Lao Che-Fung.  He is simply sitting still, looking old and decrepit, lifting a hand to gesture to the bodyguard.  Behind him, on his left is the bodyguard and the tarp-covered structure.

LAO CHE-FUNG: While your tokens are rare indeed, I would be remiss if I did not say I had expected something more...

Panel 4 One full panel encompassing the rest of the page.  The body guard has pulled the tarp and we now see what appears to be a human-sized aquarium.  Inside, restrained with shackles as ancient as Lao Che-Fung himself, is a zombie.  It’s flesh is ragged and dusty old looking, like leaves on a plant that is on the cusp of death.  It is insanely thin, bones are visible beneath its flesh, and it wears only one item - a simple jade necklace on a silver chain about its neck.  One of its eyes is milk white but the other is all too sharp and alive, staring out at everyone.

ZOMBIE SFX: NNNNGGHAAAAAGGH!!!

The others are not visible in this panel, except for a partial view of the bodyguard to one side.  When Lao -Che-Fung speaks, his words come from off panel.

LAO CHE-FUNG: … unusual.

PAGE 8 

Left panel of two panels on top of the page.  

Panel 1: Nic Cage has stood from his chair and looks shocked.  Mrs Lumberg clutches at her chest in that offended, old lady way.  Teddy Solstice looks terrified.

NIC CAGE: What the hell is that?!

Panel 2: Lao Che-Fung has still not moved at all, looks like he may as well be asleep.  He is sitting in the foreground at the table, with the zombie visible behind him.

LAO CHE-FUNG: Do relax, my friends, there is no danger. In a game where money is no motivator, I had expected perhaps one of you could say you had brought to the table an item of value on par with my own.  Please, behold the abomination of Emperor Li Hahn, cursed to live beyond death.

Panel 3 of a two panel spread in the center of the page 

Close on Nic Cage’s face with an arched eyebrow.

NIC CAGE: I’m sorry, my blood sugar must be low. Did you just imply that this is a zombie?

Panel 4 on Lao Che-Fung, his expression still set and unmoving, like he just doesn’t care.

LAO CHE-FUNG: Indeed, Mr. Cage.

Panel 5 of a three panel spread across the bottom of the page.  This one just focuses on the shocked face of Mrs. Lumberg.

Panel 6 is framed exactly the same, the shocked face of Teddy Solstice.

Panel 7 is framed the same on Nic Cage, only with a wry smile now.

NIC CAGE:  Huh.  Well, that’s funky. Can’t say that I’ve ever seen one of those before.

PAGE 9

Two panels across top of page.  The first panel focuses on Lao Che-Fung who, for the first time, has changed his expression to the barest hint of a smile.

LAO CHE-FUNG: Emperor Li Hahn is the only of his kind in the world.

Panel 2: Nc Cage looks considering, sitting back in his seat.

NIC CAGE: Well, and don’t get me wrong, this is very far out stuff, but I’m not sure why I want a zombie.  I mean, it’s rare, sure, but what can it do?

Panel 3 of two middle panels focuses on Teddy Solstice

TEDDY: Carry luggage?

Panel 4 is Mrs. Lumberg, holding a gloved hand to her nose.

MRS. LUMBERG: It smells atrocious.

Panel 5 of two bottom panels goes back to Nic Cage

NIC CAGE: It does! It’s like beef jerky in a toilet on a hot day. Or like -

SFX OF DOOR CRASHING IN:  THUNK!

Panel 6:  The door has been kicked in and a DETECTIVE stands front and center with uniform cops streaming in behind him, guns drawn.  The detective is holding a warrant.

DETECTIVE: Mr. Lao Che-Fung, this is a warrant for your arrest!

PAGE 10:  

Long panel down the left side of the page.  One of the uniform officers is at the zombie aquarium looking freaked out.  The poker players are still seated and caught off guard.  The detective stands at the edge of the table.

DETECTIVE: We’ve got you on charges of operating an illegal gambling facility, trafficking in antiquities, rare and endangered animals and -

COP: (Interrupting detective):  Detective Mills, what the hell is this?

Panel 2 is the top half of what remains of the page.  The uniform officer is at the aquarium and the zombie is focused on him as the officer reaches for the latch on the door.

COP: My God, what are you doing to this man?

LAO CHE-FUNG: Detective, please, you must not do this!

Panel 3 is focused on Detective Mills as the uniform officer has the latches open.  Mills has his gun trained on Lao Che-Fung

DETECTIVE: You better think twice about telling me what I must do, Lao. I’ve had enough of your crap over the last 6 years, and this is the final nail in your coffin.

LAO CHE-FUNG: Please, Detective! I beg you, you have no idea -

PAGE 11 SPLASH PAGE!  

One giant panel of madness.  The door has burst open, the zombie has leapt on the uniform officer.  The others in the room are reeling back, the poker table is in the process of being knocked as the officer falls on it, the zombie atop of him, its yellow teeth crunching into the officer's neck, blood exploding outward like a fountain.  Nic Cage and Lao Che-Fung are to the right side of the page, Teddy, Mrs. Lumberg and the Detective to the right with the zombie and the dying officer front and center.

The zombie’s attack is bestial, like a cat pouncing on a mouse.  Its body is lithe and thin, but ropey with muscles.

COP SCREAMING SFX: GAAAGGGHHH!!

ZOMBIE SFX : GRRRRK!

PAGE 12

Large panel across the top of the page. The zombie is now feasting on the bodyguard as the Detective and two other officers draw firearms.  Mrs Lumberg is on her butt against the wall, Teddy Solstice has stumbled back and steadied himself on a small cabinet.  Lao Che-Fung is scuttling back to a folding partition where we can see the barest hint of a door hidden. Nic Cage has leapt back.  A massive fountain of blood is spurting up from the bodyguard.

MRS LUMBERG: AAAAHH!!!!

Panel 2 across the center of the page

The detective and two uniform officers open fire. The zombie lifts its head in a snarl as holes riddle its body.

GUNSHOT SFX: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

DETECTIVE: Jesus!

Panel 3 of two panels on the bottom of the page

Teddy Solstice pushes past the cops for the door as Lao Che-Fung escapes out a back door. The zombie is on its feet  Here the detective aims point blank at the zombie’s chest and fires

GUNSHOT SFX: BLAM!

Panel 4 is the zombie.  Its snarl turns to a very slight but noticeable smile.  Its chin and chest is soaked in blood.

DETECTIVE: Mother of God...

PAGE 13

Another large panel on the top of the page.  Behind the zombie, the officer is back on his feet.  The red blood from his neck has soaked his uniform, but the wound is now spiderwebbed in angry, black veins that run up his face.  His expression is vacant.

DETECTIVE:  Officer Riley?

Panel 2 is one half of two panels in the center of the page.  Riley is now fury as he lunges at Detective Mills, who is caught off guard.

Panel 3 is the second half of the middle scene.  Riley is on top of Detective Mills and has sunk his teeth into the detective’s face, biting his cheek, lip and nose.

DETECTIVE: JESUAAAAAAGHHHHH!!

Panel 4 is the full panel across the bottom.  Emperor Li Hahn is on one of the uniform officer’s and the bodyguard is grasping Mrs. Lumberg’s leg.  Only one uniform officer remains standing along with Nic Cage.  

MRS LUMBERG: Help me, please!

PAGE 14

This is 5 small panels across the top of the page, like a pure action sequence, all close ups.  

Panel 1 shows Mrs. Lumberg as the bodyguard bites into her ankle.

Panel 2 shows the officer tearing a strip from Detective Mill’s face

Panel 3 shows Emperor Li Hahn biting into the next uniform officer

Panel 4 shows Detective Mills with black veins spreading all around his ruined face wounds

Panel 5 is just zombie teeth splattering blood and gore

Panel 6 is in one of two panels in the center of the page.  Nic Cage has edged to the door where the final officer fights with Li Hahn. The officer is reaching out to Cage.

OFFICER: Hel...p!

Panel 7 is Li Hahn literally pulling the throat out of the officer.

Panel 8 is  the first of three frames across the bottom. Nic Cage runs from the room, so we see him head on with the door behind him.  He has a spray of blood across his face and he’s in the casino proper now. He’s in a dead run.

NIC CAGE: EVERYONE REALLY NEEDS TO NOT BE HERE!

Panel 9 is the casino in chaos. Detective Mills and Riley follow Cage out of the room, both dripping blood and gross and looking horrifying.  

Panel 10 is other officers rushing to the scene, patrons running wild

PAGE 15

Panel 1 of two panels across the top of the page.  The second officer, who asked Cage for help, lunges at one of those Cirque du Soleil waiters next to Cage

Panel 2 is Cage smashing the jar of Elvis teeth upside the zombie’s head as he pulls the waiter away with the other hand.  Shards of glass and teeth fly to one side along with dark blood.  The zombie’s face is busted pretty badly.

Panel 3 of two panels that make up the rest of the page, so they’re each two thirds of the page long, give or take.  I want the height here for what’s about to happen.  Cage and the waiter reverse bungee up to the catwalk ceiling bar.

Panel 4 is Cage and the Waiter now suspended from the ceiling.  The bar up here is glass with a steel grate floor, and a grate catwalk that leads away to a door.  All the wait staff are on these reverse bungee cords which are attached to mobile rigs that let them scoot around the room.  Minor detail, but they’re up there on the ceiling.

WAITER: What the hell is going on?!?

NIC CAGE: Zombies, man.

WAITER: Who the hell brought zombies to a casino?!?

NIC CAGE: Old Chinese man.

WAITER: Are we safe up here?

PAGE 16

Panel 1 of two panels on the top of the page.  Nic Cage and the waiter are interrupted by a new waiter rolling up to the bar, clutching at the edge of it with one of the two zombified twin door guards on his back, biting his skull.

NIC CAGE:  Oh man…

Panel 2 is the waiter pointing to a door set into a wall at the end of the catwalk

WAITER: That leads into the kitchen, we can get out there.

Panel 3 of two panels across the center of the page is Cage running down the catwalk with the waiter behind him.

Panel 4 is another wait springing up to the catwalk.  He is zombified, and latches onto the waiter’s leg.  

WAITER: AAAAGHH!!

Panel 5 of two panels across the bottom is Cage turning.  A second zombie server, a woman in a tuxedo shirt soaked in blood, has sprung up on the waiter’s other side.  

Panel 6 is Cage grabbing the waiter’s hand while the new server is biting down on the waiter’s shoulder.  The first is still eating the leg.

PAGE 17

Panel 1 is a long one across the top of the page.  The waiter’s arm comes off in Cage’s hands thanks to the zombie eating his shoulder.  The waiter is falling off the catwalk under the weight of the two zombies eating him.

Panel 2 of three panels in the center of the page.  Cage is just holding the arm still as the barest hint of the waiter is visible, falling from the catwalk.  

Panel 3:  Cage looks at the hand and arm he’s holding

Panel 4:  Cage tosses the arm 

Panel 5 is another long panel, showing a long shot of the whole scene.  There is chaos on the floor as people scramble and fight, while above on the catwalk, Cage runs for the door.  This is all seen at a bit of a distance to fit it all in, so it’s more the silhouette of Cage running, while small figures fight below.

PAGE 18

Panel 1 of three panels across the top of the page.  Inside the kitchen, with Nic Cage bursting through the door from the catwalk beyond.  Staff inside are busy prepping food, dressed in typical kitchen whites.

Panel 2: Cage rushes into the kitchen past stoves and cooks.

NIC CAGE:  OUT! EVERYONE REALLY NEEDS TO GET OUT NOW!

Panel 3:  From Cage’s perspective now, as a handful of cooks and a dishwasher lean back to look down the way at Cage with silent, confused expressions.

Panel 4 of two center panels. A zombie waiter lurches through the kitchen door.

ZOMBIE:  UNNNNGHH!!

Panel 5: The zombie grabs a cook and bites his arm.  The cook screams.

COOK: AAAAAGGGH!  AAAAGHHH!!!

Panel 6 of three panels across the bottom.  Cage grabs a meat cleave off of a nearby cutting board.

Panel 7: Cage’s arm cocks for throwing, the blade of the cleaver glints

Panel 8: Cage’s arm is fully extended, the Cleaver is in flight

Page 19

Panel 1 of two panels across the top of the page: The Cleaver spins like a ninja star, the background is just a blur

Panel 2: The cleaver hits dead center, embedded right between the zombie’s eyes and splitting its head like a super gross melon.

Panel 3 of two center panels:  The kitchen staff are all in the exact same position as when they first leaned back to look at Cage on the last page, still silent but now they all look totally shocked.  When Cage speaks, it comes from the bottom of the panel as he is not visible and this is his view of the kitchen staff.

NIC CAGE: RUN!

Panel 4:  The kitchen staff bolt for the door and Cage runs with them.

Panel 5 is one large panel at the bottom. 

Nighttime in Chinatown. The street is busy despite rainfall - the neon lights and paper lanterns give it life and there are pedestrians with umbrellas and cars filling the streets, minding their own business.  The restaurant staff are bolting in all directions Cage is running into the street.  To his side, dangerous close, is a Chinese food delivery guy on a scooter.  They’re about to collide but haven’t done so just yet.

Page 20

Panel one is the full panel across the top of the page.  Cage and the delivery boy collide.  The delivery boy is JEFFREY, a kid of about 20.  He’s wearing a helmet and a red jacket with the dragon logo of the restaurant on the back.  His scooter is one of those e-bike types, with a little basket on the back for holding orders.  He’s a skinny kid, with brown hair and a bit of a dork appeal to him.

NIC CAGE: OOF!

Panel 2 of two center panels:  Nic Cage is splayed out on the wet street.  The scooter is overturned, Jeffrey is down next to it on his side

JEFFREY: Gah…

NIC CAGE: Not..good…

Panel 3 is Nic Cage getting to his feet, looking over at Jeffery

NIC CAGE: Hey, kid, are you alright I’m really - 

JEFFREY: Nic Cage!

Panel 4 of two on the bottom is Cage offering his hand to help Jeffrey up.

NIC CAGE:  Yes, actually.  But also sorry.  But listen, we have to -

JEFFREY: Oh my God, I love you! Like not in an insane way.  Face/Off is such  bad ass movie! Can I shake your hand.

Panel 5 is Jeffrey taking Cage’s hand as Cage pulls him to his feet.

NIC CAGE: You can! You are! But hey, we really have to go.  

JEFFREY: We do? Why? Where?

PAGE 21

This page will be 6 even panels, three on top and three on the bottom

Panel 1:  Cage is holding the handlebars of Jeffrey’s scooter

NIC CAGE: Is this yours? Give me a ride to my hotel and I’ll tell you all about it.

Panel 2: Jeffrey looks unsure.  This is a side view with him in the foreground and the restaurant behind him, so you can see his jacket and the restaurant have the same logo.

JEFFREY: I don’t know, Mr. Cage. I have to get back to work soon, this is my delivery scooter.

Panel 3:  Someone in a tux, one of the gamblers, runs screaming from the restaurant as Cage takes his position on the scooter

SCREAM SFX:  AAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!!!!!

NIC CAGE: I think you’ve probably got the rest of the night off...uh… what’s your name?

Panel 4: Jeffrey gets on behind Cage, another person runs from the restaurant.  

SCREAM SFX (maybe a little bit smaller and seeming to come from deeper in the restaurant):  NOOOOOOO!!!!

JEFFREY: Jeffrey.  Hey, what’s going on?

Panel 5:  Cage is tearing off down the street, as fast as one can tear off on a double-occupied e-bike scooter.  Behind them, the sound of sirens approaches, and more screams

SIREN SFX: WEEEE-OOOO WEEEE-OOOO WEEEE-OOOO

SCREAM SFX: AAHHH! AHHH! HELLLLLLPPPP MEEEE!!

NIC CAGE: Zombies, Jeffrey. Zombies are going on.

Panel 6: rear view of the scooter vanishing into the distance, and in the foreground, a pair of zombies, one the kitchen staff guy who was bit and one the cirque du soleil waiter who helped Cage, are shambling into the street.

PAGE 22

One panel of two across the top of the page here.  A long shot of a fancy hotel with a curved laneway leading to the front door.  Cage is driving up with Jeffrey on the back of the Scooter.

Panel 2: Cage tosses the keys to a valet as he heads to the big glass doors of the hotel. Jeffrey is following but looks very confused and lost.

Panel 3 is one wide center panel of Cage entering his hotel room, key card in hand, with Jeffrey following behind.  It’s a nice looking hotel room, but nothing out of the ordinary.  It’s what you might expect a movie star to stay in. The far wall is a giant picture window with the curtains drawn.

Panel 4 of three across the bottom of the page.  Jeffrey is standing while Cage is holding a phone to his ear.

Panel 5: Close on Cage as he talks on the phone.

NIC CAGE: Marty, it’s Nic. Listen, I need a flight home. Things got weird here.

Panel 6 is a wider shot.  Cage has a remote control in his other hand and has turned the TV on.  There is a shot of a flaming zombie and the chyron reads “CHINATOWN PANIC”

NIC CAGE: Marty, I need you to listen carefully.  I saw a zombie tonight. It ate about a dozen people and now everyone in Chinatown is dead I think. I would like to go home.

PAGE 23

Panel 1 is a large panel across the top of the page.  Jeffrey is looking shocked, checking out the mayhem on the TV. Cage is pacing the room talking on the phone.

NIC CAGE: Look at your TV, Marty.  It’s the walking dead.  I killed one with a meat cleaver and I bungeed to a ceiling bar and I just came here to relax before the opening.  This is not relaxing.

Panel 2 is one of three long panels that make up the remainder of the page.  Nic Cage is chewing his nails while Jeffrey is glued to the TV which depicts the tiny image of a zombie biting someone.

JEFFREY:  Uh, Mr. Cage.

NIC CAGE: Jeffrey, please, I’m on the phone.

Panel 3: Jeffrey is plastered to the TV.  Chinatown is on fire.

JEFFREY: Mr. Cage, look at this! I live on 14th Street, that’s like 10 blocks from here.  My girlfriend is home with her brother! I have to get to them!

Panel 4 is Nic Cage holding up a finger to shush Jeffrey.

NIC CAGE: Jeffrey -- wait, what? Marty, how the hell did they shut the airport down already?

PAGE 24

Two panels one on top of the other to end this issue  Panel 1 features Jeffrey turning away from the TV and instead taking hold of the curtains.  Nic Cage is still on the phone.

NIC CAGE:  If I die here, Marty, you’re fired.

JEFFREY: Mr. Cage…

Panel 2 on the bottom of the page.  Jeffrey has thrown open the curtains and he and Nic Cage are in the foreground, from behind, looking out.  The view out the window is the bulk of the panel.  Normally this would be an amazing view looking down from a decent height at the city at night.  Instead, it shows a scene that could be mistaken for the end of the world.  Fires burn in numerous places, including one massive fire in the distance that we can assume s Chinatown.  There are helicopters in the sky, and small fires all over the place.  In the near distance there’s even a flaming zombie walking down a street.

NIC CAGE:  Marty, I gotta go.

[fortey]

How to Cook a Turkey

It’s Christmas time and that means celebrating the birth of the son of a God you may not believe in by devouring a big, ol’ugly as shit bird. And it’s true, turkeys are ugly animals, 90% of which is due to the fact they have a face scrotum. Honestly, evolution, you dropped the ball on that one. Or should I say…balls? Ha!  Oh man, good one.

 1. PREPPN’

Anyway, here’s the thing, you’re going to want to thaw out your turkey while at the same time avoiding massive bacterial colonies.  If you leave a turkey just sitting out for a week, and then you try to eat it, you will literally shit out your skeleton. That will actually happen, and it will happen to you.  So safety is job one here.

 Try putting the bird in the fridge for a couple of days.  In a pinch, stick it in a clean sink and run cold water on it. Or, you know, cook from frozen. Whatever, I ain’t your mom.

 2. CLEANIN’

For the most part, you want to make sure you don’t have a dirty bird because of the aforementioned skeleton poop.  So wash it. How do you wash a turkey?  Same way you wash anything, grungy.

 3.COOKIN’

So once your turkey is clean, cook that bugger. Your oven should be set to 325ºF or so. Why “or so”?  Because I’m a cool cat, man.  I’m not enforcing rules on you, I’m just telling you what I figure will work best.  Like, I didn’t have to warn you about the skeleton deuce, but I did, because I don’t want you to have to go through the trauma of eating a whole, raw turkey and then getting that cramp in your gut that signifies you’re about to pass a rib.

 You need to cook the turkey for about 20 minutes per pound, so hopefully you took the time to pay attention to what the turkey weighs.  If you didn’t, you may have just doomed yourself and everyone you love to salmonella hella.  Or you’ll end up cooking it down to a withered carcass that looks the way Rudy Giuliani must when he’s in the tub.  Like vaguely glistening on the outside, but so decrepit and stringy everywhere else.  And firmly secured in a layer of crusty fat.

 4.CHECKIN’

So say you have a 10lb turkey and now it’s 200 minutes later (math!) and you need to pop that bugger out of the oven.  Don’t eat it yet!  First, because it’s just out of the oven and should be very hot still.  Second, you need to check the internal temperature with a meat thermometer.  A meat thermometer is not a euphemism for penis.  I was surprised to learn this.  If your bird is over 170º you just won.  If it’s below, you have failed and shamed yourself and your family for generations to come.  Throw out the turkey and pop open a can of Chef Boyardee, sucka.

[fortey]

The Day I Met Jack LaLanne

Those of you who know me know I love me some juice.  That grammatically atrocious sentiment has sustained me for many years. Juice is like nature’s water.  Or water is nature’s fruit juice, I forget which. But the fact remains if I can squeeze the ever loving crap out of a beet and then drink it, I am literally tickled pink. And by literally I naturally mean figuratively.

 It’s no surprise then that when I first discovered the Jack Lalanne Juicer I had to purchase one.  My love of juice combined with easy access to a credit card and near-criminal drunkenness guaranteed that I would probably buy any hunk of shit I saw on the Home Shopping Network that night.  But the hunk of shit I saw was a juicer and my heart skipped a beat.

 After defibrillation, I ordered the juicer and 4-6 weeks later I was discovering that when you mix apple, carrot, celery and papaya it tastes like a foot.  But apple all alone is exquisite.  

 I’d enjoyed my liquid diet for a few weeks when I gleefully learned that Mr. LaLanne himself would be coming to my town for a convention to show off his latest product development and espouse the virtues of a juicy lifestyle.  The very idea that there was some new, more efficient way to wring liquid from a pear was too enticing to avoid.  I purchased my ticket and then sat on my ass for two more weeks until the fateful day arrived when I could witness a man who was nearly a century old, who made a career out of being handcuffed and towing boats while swimming, made juice.  Fuck, I need a hobby.

 The convention was as exciting as a convention full of the elderly and shop-at-home products could be.  My keen senses soon determined I was the only individual in the building either under the age of 50 or who had been voluntarily out of the house in over a month.  Shut ins apparently love juice, storage solutions and Mighty Putty.

 I perused various tables hawking what could best be described as absolute shit before my stomach began cramping with hatred for bringing it to such a ridiculous place. Ginsu knives, curtain steamers, Orange Glow – what the fuck was I thinking?  A woman wearing slippers shoved a boney, avian elbow into my ribs while I tried to watch a ShamWow demonstration and told me to “bugger off.”

 I escaped to the nearest washroom as my guts twisted in knots.  Possibly because this place was so preposterous but more likely because of the Hot Pockets I’d decided to eat for dinner the night before and breakfast that morning.

 As I sat in contemplation in the end stall of the restroom, appreciating the colorful graffiti on the walls and wondering why so many people took a shit with a pen and a desire to bang another dude, my reverie was interrupted by a gruff voice.

“What did you eat for breakfast?” it asked me.  I arched an eyebrow and continued about my business, confident that, despite seeming to come from the next stall, there was no way in hell this person was talking to me because the first thing any human in a civilized society learns is that you never, ever converse with strangers on the shitter.

 “It sounds like you’re giving birth, what did you eat for breakfast?” the voice demanded again.  For starters, I did not sound as though I was giving birth, I was maybe breathing a bit heavy, but that was all.  You eat 8 Hot Pockets and see how your insides like it.

 Suddenly, a tiny mirror on a metal stick appeared below the wall separating stalls. I may have screamed but if I did, it was manly.

 “Hey buddy, you deaf?”

 “No…” I foolishly answered.  Fuck. When someone gives you an out, always take it.

 “Then speak up.  What was for breakfast?  My God, look at you.  What do you weigh?  220? Have you ever lifted a weight in your life?  Can you even get off that toilet when you’re done?”

 “What?”

 The mirror shifted and suddenly I could see, glaring down at me, the cold, steely eye of Mr. Jack LaLanne himself.  Jack LaLanne was trash talking me while we were both on the toilet.

 “Yeah, you’re not blind either, are you champ?  So answer the question. Breakfast!”

 “I had some Hot Pockets,” I answered, unsure of why I felt I needed to answer to Jack LaLanne.

 “Hot Pockets?  Good grief, what the hell is a Hot Pocket?”

 “It’s like crust with pizza toppings inside.  In a pocket.”

 “And it’s hot?  You heat it? You make it warm and consume it for some cockamamie reason?  With cheese and sauce and, what?  Sausage? Are you eating pork sausage?”

 “They were pepperoni.”

 “That’s a sausage, Einstein.  My God. I can see you sweating.”

 There was a moment of silence while Mr. LaLanne just stared at me.  I could see his expression in the mirror, hard and disgusted.  I tried to smile.

 “Are you pushing?  Is that a grimace?  If you have to push a bowel movement it means you’re killing your bowels.  Do you know that I’ve not had to push out a single bowel movement since 1931?  Do you know that?  I’m asking you a question.”

 “I didn’t know that.”

 “And why would you?  Too busy stuffing your pork pie with pockets.  Look at you.  I can smell butter.”

 In fairness, there was a curious butter-like odor in the bathroom but it wasn’t from me. It was there when I came in.  

 “Listen, do you know who I am?” he demanded of me.  His mirror shifted, I think he was trying to look me in the eye.

 “I think you’re Jack LaLanne.”

 “If you could think you wouldn’t be such a mess.  A sick body breeds a sick mind.  I bet you look at girly magazines.  I bet you’ve never had a job or loved a woman.  How many pushups can you do?”

 “Why do you have a mirror on a stick?”

 “Thank your lucky stars I do!  Do you have any idea how many chin ups I can do?  That’s the power of juice, my friend.  Not your sausage pies.  If a man made it, don’t eat it.  Processed food will kill you deader than a bullet.”

 I wasn’t convinced that statement was factually accurate was but I was afraid to bring it up lest it breed another tirade from Mr. LaLanne.  Suddenly the mirror vanished and a moment later a hand, the wrist encircled by what looked to be a velour cuff, appeared.

 “Take my hand,” Jack LaLanne said.  I frowned and noticeably clenched the majority of my body.  “Curse your hide if you don’t take my hand, I’m trying to save your life.”

 “Don’t you feel this is the wrong time?”

 “It’s never the wrong time to care about your health now give me your hand or so help me I will come in there and take it!”

 Ashamed of the palpable fear I felt of a man in his 90’s, I reached a hand down. LaLanne grabbed me in a grip like steel. H is hand was like ice cold tissue paper around a rock, I had never felt anything so offputting in my life.

 “I’ve been on this toilet for over a half an hour purifying my mind, soul and body and I want to share that energy with you.  Hot Pockets?  Of all the cock and bull stories, why don’t you just eat cheese curds off of the diseased carcass of a prostitute?”

 “I was in a hurry?”

 LaLanne’s grip tightened and I stifled a cry of pain.

 “A hurry? No time?  How much time will you have when you’re an actual, literal whale? Hunted for your precious blubber by the Japanese and basking in the sun to try to keep warm.”

 “I don’t know.”

 “Nobody does, my lad.  That’s the rub. You need to take the time now.  Juice is the key.  Have you seen my juicer?  How do you think I’m able to live the way I do?  How do you think?  Curse you, I know you’re not deaf give me an answer!”

 “Juice?”

 “Right! Juice!  You’re not a lost cause, friend.  You can do this!”  LaLanne continued to compress my hand in his vice-like grip for another moment of silence before his hand pulled free.  I heard a rustling and suddenly the mirror reappeared.

 “Take this. Use it.  Spread the word,” he demanded.  I reached down and took the mirror on a stick.  A second one appeared right after.  “I have more, don’t you worry.  Now go.  GO!”

 I sat still a moment, not wanting to move under his watchful, mirror eye.  He began chanting “go” over and over, and, after about five minutes, I forced a calm on myself and proceeded to wipe my ass. LaLanne’s mirror turned, watching me as I left the stall.  It popped out of the front as I washed my hands very thoroughly and left, never to see Jack LaLanne again.

[fortey]

The King of Cats

The King of Cats is a cat who dreamt he was a man and never woke up.

He walks without sound and knows all your secrets but will never tell.

Ask him for a favor and he may grant you ten, or perhaps he'll just gift you a thing that is dead.

 They say the land was once forever in sun.  They say the air was sweet as honeydew. They say the birds sang such sweet melodies that would bring tears of joy to your eyes and fill your heart with wonder just to hear them. That's what they say now. That's what they say about back then.

Today the sun teases from behind slate clouds. Today the air smells or something off. Something just a little bit sour. Old meat and a hint of acrid urine marking territory and warning away usurpers. Today the birds know to keep quiet because the King has come to the forest. Long live the King. God damn the King.

He appeared one day as all shadows do with the sun on his back. People had never seen his like before. Which is to say they had seen things like him before. But they had never seen one like him before.

Regal he was. No one would deny that. Tall. So tall. And his mane as luxurious as that of any lion. Silver flashed with gold.  Royal colors, those. Royal and splendid.

His claws were like soapstone, translucent and thick. The tips were like needles. To challenge him was to take your very life into your hands. He fought with the ferocity of an entire army. He would strike low, tear up those soft places in soft spaces.  Brutal, but never cruel. He never started a fight. Not physically. But his attitude left something to be desired.

"Who are you?"  the people would ask.

"I am your king!" he would answer, rolling his R and curling his lip just so.

"No, you're not!" the people would say. And yet somehow, at the end of the day, it was true. He was their King. One does not deny the King of Cats.

His throne was resplendent, as white as ivory. It was forged from the bones of fish and chicken. He sat atop it in his throne room, flanked by footmen and servants from all corners of the forest. Lord Weasel was his Herald. Countess Owl his handmaiden. And the Fool in the corner was the mischievous raccoon, always washing his hands and plotting some new clever scheme. 

The King brought no great wisdom to his throne. Some mornings he would summon all to court and merely yak up a hairball in front of everyone. He would look at it with narrow eyes, gold flecked in the light, and smirk before leaving. Some mornings the throne would be empty save for a bird missing its head.

And so the people lived under the King of Cats.  Aloof and proud, curious yet spiteful, caring and mysterious. 

[fortey]

Butterfly in the Sky

So why does LeVar throw shade at the butterfly in the Reading Rainbow song...

 PAGE 1

 Panel 1: We see blue skies, maybe a fluffy cloud in the distance. To the left is barely a smudge of a shape, a flash of orange and yellow.

 CAPTION: Butterfly in the sky...

 Panel 2: The butterfly swoops to the right, trailing a rainbow behind it.

 CAPTION: ...you are late for breakfast.

 Panel 3: A cozy dining room featuring a classic round, wooden table. A man stands in the background at a stove cooking dinner. At the table is a boy and a woman eating breakfast. There are two open seats. The boy is a 12-year-old LeVar Burton. The woman is his mother, the man is his father. They are having breakfast. From the right side, the butterfly is at the open window over the sink.

 BUTTERFLY:  Sorry, mom! 

 Panel 4: We close on LeVar, frowning as he eats scrambled eggs. The Butterfly is over his shoulder.

 LEVAR (MUTTERING):  Sorry mom.

 Panel 5: Levar’s mother, with a coffee cup, gives her son a sharp glance. The butterfly is at the table in one of the empty seats.

 MOM: Something you want to share, LeVar? 

 LEVAR: No. 

 Panel 6: The whole table is visible. The butterfly is eating half a grapefruit.

 DAD: Good. You need to take your brother to school today, I have an early meeting.

 PAGE 2

 Panel 1: Close on LeVar’s face. He looks thoroughly upset as she holds his knife and fork in each and as though they were weapons. Bits of egg escape his mouth as he protests.

 LEVAR:  Oh, come on!  He can fly!

 Panel 2: Close on the butterfly now. Its proboscis is busy guzzling grapefruit. 

 BUTTERFLY: Don’t worry, LeVar. I bet you’ll be able to fly one day! 

 Panel 3: Close in on LeVar, leaning in nose to proboscis with the butterfly and whispering in its little butterfly ear.

 LEVAR: Mom and dad may buy your crap, but you don’t fool me, butterfly. You don’t fool me at all.

 Panel 4:  Very close on the butterfly’s face. LeVar is reflected many times over in the colorful, compound eyes.

 BUTTERFLY: Why LeVar...I have no idea what you mean.

 Panel 5: Full view of the room again as the butterfly flutters away from breakfast, trailing rainbow across LeVar’s breakfast as he tries to wave it away

 BUTTERFLY: Hurry up, LeVar!  The whole world awaits! 

 PAGE 3

 Panel 1: A library setting. Students are busy writing in books or reading. LeVar has a stack of books and is hard at work. At the back of the room, Butterfly has no books and is sitting next to an attractive girl. She is laughing at something Butterfly is saying.

 CAPTION: 5 YEARS LATER

 Panel 2: Closer on LeVar, reading a dog-eared copy of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. Butterfly is on the attractive girl’s shoulder, visible over LeVar’s shoulder

 BUTTERFLY (WHISPERING): ...and then I just shake my wings a little and I can make that rainbow go ANYWHERE.

 GIRL: You are so bad! 

 Panel 3: LeVar turns in his seat.

 LEVAR:  Shhh! 

 Panel 4: LeVar turns back to his book. Attractive girl makes a face and leans in closer to Butterfly.

 GIRL: Your brother is kind of a nerd.

 BUTTERFLY: He’s not so bad once you get to know him. Right LeVar?��

 Panel 5: Longer shot of the library. The librarian stands up, looking stern.

 LIBRARIAN: Mr. Burton, since you cannot keep it down you may go home.

 LEVAR: But...!

 LIBRARIAN: You may come back tomorrow.

 Panel 6: Close on Levar’s angry face. Butterfly flutters in the near distance behind him.

 LEVAR: You have got to be kidding me.

 BUTTERFLY: Come on LeVar! Let’s find a new adventure! 

 PAGE 4

 Panel 1: An older LeVar is in an acting class, a small theater. He is on stage with some other students. Others sit in the crowd watching. Butterfly is opposite him on stage.

 BUTTERFLY: Those are the raised father and his friends. You were best go in.

 LEVAR: Not I I must be found. My parts, my title and my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?

 CAPTION:  3 YEARS LATER

 Panel 2: We see the director in the audience. He is standing, hands up.

 DIRECTOR: OK, hold up. Butterfly, you are doing great. LeVar, I need you to really focus here. Focus on who Othello is as a man.

 Panel 3: Back to LeVar and Butterfly close in frame. LeVar looks unhappy.

 BUTTERFLY:  You’ll get it LeVar, I just know it. You're a great actor! 

 Panel 4: Outside now, and a 20-year-old LeVar is on set of the movie ROOTS with Louis Gosset Jr.

 LEVAR: What’s snow, Fiddler?

 LOUIS: Never you mind, boy, never you mind -

 BUTTERFLY: You know what snow is, LeVar. We saw it all the time in Philadelphia.

 DIRECTOR (Out of frame): CUT! 

 Panel 5: Butterfly weaves a rainbow between LeVar and Louis. Gosset has thrown his hands up and turned away. LeVar looks tired.

 LEVAR: Butterfly, please. PLEASE! Why do you keep doing this? Go live your own life. Leave me alone!

 BUTTERFLY: Ha ha! You’re funny LeVar. As if I could go anywhere without my best brother.

 Panel 6: Butterfly flies high into the air, trailing a rainbow. Levar’s expression is grim.

 LEVAR: Lord give me strength. 

 PAGE 5

 Panel 1: A dark bedroom. There is an Emmy Award on the mantle. There is a bed, but it is robed in shadow. Someone in the bed giggles.

 CAPTION: One year later...

 Panel 2: Close on LeVar’s hand as it reaches the light switch.

 SFX: CLICK

 Panel 3: The room is illuminated. LeVar stands in the doorway with luggage. He looks beat. The bed is covered and there's the clear shape of a person under the covers.

 LEVAR: Hey honey, I’m back. Sorry I’m so late.

 Panel 4: The covers push back. Butterfly and a woman are in the bed.  Butterfly sits delicately on the pillow.

 BUTTERFLY:  LeVar! We’re so glad you're home! How was your trip? 

 Panel 5: LeVar drops his luggage with a THUD. He is shocked and angered.

 LEVAR: JESSICA! BUTTERFLY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? 

 Panel 6:  Back to Butterfly and the Woman. She has rainbow lips. She looks bashed. 

 JESSICA: LeVar, I…

 BUTTERFLY: Don’t be angry, LeVar. We were just waiting for you to come home and got bored, so I suggested we make love. I love everyone! 

 PAGE 6

 Panel 1: FULL PAGE. LeVar standing in the doorway, rage boiling behind his eyes. His voice is but a whisper.

 LEVAR:  I... hate...you.

 PAGE 7

 Panel 1: Levar is leaving the house. No luggage this time. He walks out into the night and it is raining. Butterfly has followed him to the door.

 BUTTERFLY: LeVar? LeVar! Why would you say that LeVar? I love you, LeVar. And I know you love me.

 Panel 2: LeVar continues into the darkness.

 BUTTERFLY: LeVar?

 Panel 3: LeVar is gone from sight.

 BUTTERFLY: Love you, brother! 

 Panel 4: LeVar is alone in a small apartment. Books are stacked all around him. He is busy reading THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. 

 CAPTION: Later...

 Panel 5:  The phone is ringing. LeVar ignores it as he keeps reading. He is onto RUM PUNCH now.

 SFX: Ring-Ring Ring-Ring

 Panel 6: LeVar is reading SIN now. The door is visible behind him. Tiny flakes of rainbow seep through the door frame.

 BUTTERFLY (through the door): LeVar? Are you there, LeVar?  I can hear pages turning! Do you want to go get a strawberry milkshake? 

 PAGE 8

 Panel 1: Books are stacked to the ceiling, many more than before. LeVar is reading OF MICE AND MEN. 

 BUTTERFLY (Through the door closed): LeVar, are you still reading?  Why are you still reading, LeVar?  You’re missing out on life! Come live life with me, LeVar! 

 Panel 2: Close on LeVar. He closes the book. All the books are now closed.

 LEVAR: Yes. Yes, I’m down now.

 Panel 3: LeVar stands. He is holding a copy of EAST OF EDEN.

 BUTTERFLY: Did you say something, LeVar?

 Panel 4: LeVar approaches the door.

 Panel 5: LeVar opens the door.

 Panel 6: Levar drops the book on Butterfly. Bits of rainbow squirt out the sides.

 SFX: SQUIT 

 LEVAR (singing): Butterfly in the sky! I can go twice as high!

[fortey]

Midia’s Magic and Religion

This is part of a document I set up to create a fairly massive fantasy universe. There’s another part dealing with human history, geography, and politics. This is the foundation for their religion and the way magic is employed. In this universe gods are very real and interactive. Behold a very in-depth rundown. Forgive the typos, this is pretty raw.

The methodology of gods, magic, triumvirates and religion.

All magic is born from Sacred Realms.  Sacred Realms exist most often parallel to the world of Midia.  Some few can be physically accessed from Midia, most require Delving, the spiritual accessing of a Realm.  Profane Realms are a layer beyond the Sacred and can leap the borders, or overlap.  A number of Realms are in fact both Sacred and Profane.

 Each Realm is born of a god, such that the Realm and the god are extensions of one another.  When gods die the realm that it is tied too is said to die also, its magic is no longer accessible.  Conversely, a god born births a realm with it.  A god is master of its realm and commands its full strength while magic users command only a fraction.  

 Little known is that realm and God share a relationship of power.  The realm may be born with the god, but so too is the god born with a realm, each feeds the other.  This is what allows the concept of triumvirates and delving, in that the god is unique but the power of the god realm is not.

 Attainment of Godhood is varied, from a long-planned process to a spontaneous event. Thus, realms are created in a variety of ways.  Realms, though not sentient, are living entities after a fashion.  Realms express virtues or motives, they lean towards or away from certain attributes and functions as do the gods that reside within.

 The god, having transcended mortality, is now pure spirit (though not immortal, strictly speaking).  The realm is manifested of spirit as well, or soul, the ethereal energy of creation, which is present in all living things.  Thus, to access realm or invoke god is to have one’s own spirit aligned with the same energies of realm and god.  Rare individuals possess multi-faceted spirit energies and can span across untold realms.

 Individuals may dedicate themselves to a god, either through their own culture’s dedication (born to realm) or through study (raise to realm) or through the god’s own influence (invoke to realm).  A realm exists as part of the individual’s soul and may be called upon. Some few strong individuals may invoke more than one realm.

 Different than single realms and gods are the Triumvirates.  A Triumvirate is the convergence of three gods and their realms. It is believed that realms of complimentary ability will overlap where their power’s are most similar, drawn together in threes.  Triumvirates often appear in sects and temples for varying religions, the three gods represented offering a greater range of virtues for the Triumvirates followers and offering three times the blessings to its followers, or three times the wrath to its enemies.

 Triumvirates occur through the will and actions of gods most often.  Notably the god Wode is seen throughout numerous Triumvirates, more so than any other god, it is said against the will of some. Other gods are found in no Triumvirates and yet other gods have vanished from them as years pass or are replaced.

 Accessing a Realm of power is common to all who wield magic, but accessing a Triumvirate is both rare and dangerous.  Opening a rift in the three realms can open rifts in additional realms comprising separate triumvirates, accidentally or intentionally by beings within said realms. The outflow of power is often too great for the mortal conduit and further it is said to anger the gods whose realms become open to trespass

 It is said that there were many more gods of old, who existed in unheard of realms and triumvirates.  The old gods die with the dying of the cultures that worship and call upon them. For a god to retain the power it wields, the power must be exercised, such as by those who access the realms.

 Triumvirates do exist across God Realms, that is between the various God caste (animal god – man god, man god – elder god, elder god – chaos god, chaos god – animal god, etc) However, they are very unstable and difficult to master.

 The gods, though varying in their treatment of each other and their mortal servants and tools, may often war with each other and maneuver to gain more power. As such, the Triumvirate is both a blessing and a curse.  It offers power, but the cost may be high should something go wrong in its use.

 Invoking a realm opens a conduit to the god.  Many gods ignore those who use their realms, but it is not unheard that gods will busy themselves in the affairs of mortals, for good or ill.  To do so can attract additional attention however.

 Any given God realm is possessed of that god’s power.  Those attuned to a god realm are therefore able to summon a measure of that power, greater or lesser depending on skill level, towards some end. As such, a mage attuned to the realm of a god such as Tophala or Tundredt, who are elemental gods, would be able to use the corresponding elemental ability in some fashion.  The more complex the use of power, the further removed or more variegated from the source power, the more adept the mage must be. For example. Tophala is a water elemental god.  To draw from his sea realm is to call on the force of the ocean and water.  A mage with minimum skill would be able to use water as a weapon.  Squad mages in the field who possess Tophala can find water in harsh conditions for soldiers to drink, can also dry up enemy water sources and wells.  At sea, a Tophala mage may have a degree of success with calming rough seas.  In this case, to be able to summon the power Lugar or Trick to calm winds would be more helpful than Tophala alone.  Further, the whale Tophala also exercises a degree of control over sea beasts.  

The extent to which any realm can be manipulated rests in the hands of the mage and their own abilities.  Most mages are unable to attempt vastly complex manipulations of god realms and powers, and indeed would not even consider such uses of the power.  In the case of Tophala, few mages would be of a mind to use the realm to hide themselves beneath water without fear of drowning, to part seas, to create water elemental spirits, to alter currents in the ocean to assist sea travel, etc.  The same can be said for any realm.

 In addition to active magic users are the Devout of Realms, the priests, seers and sundry other holy vessels who are the word of the god and its realm on Midia. Though some may be capable of wielding magic, many who are not are imbued within their soul of the realm and carry certain of the Realm properties, dependant on the realm, and the will of its master god.  Such power can range from simple luck to increased healing, strength, resilience, or being able to sense magic, etc.

 There are several categories of gods:

 Animal Gods: those that are aspected to non-human creatures

Man Gods: those aspected to humans and other intelligent races

Elder Gods: those that were the first gods

Forsaken Gods: those that have been shunned

Chaos (Mad) Gods: those that have been overwhelmed with power and are beyond understanding

Living Gods: not true gods, but those who are in the flux of power and will one day achieve god hood. They are possessed of great power and influence

Lost Gods: those that have disappeared or withdrawn, also those who withhold from the mortal world

Disparate Gods: Colloquially called “realm runners” these gods are oddities of the pantheon and were not born to realms, rather they skim across the realms of other gods.  Often thought to be something higher than man but lower than god as they bare characteristics of high mages more so than gods.

  Pantheon of Gods and Higher Beings

 1st peoples told of the origin of the world Midia.  The Sky was Brother and Sister.  Sister was night, called Ora, whose many star eyes could see all hidden under her darkened cloak, surrounding her silver heart the moon. Brother was day, call Lim, whose blazing eye the sun cast light down upon all.  He strode the land from east to west each day in search of Ora and only spied her at the horizon at dawn and dusk.  She too sought her brother Lim, but her many eyes could not find him.  It was only when a great eclipse came and her heart crossed his eye that they finally became one.  Their union birthed the world Midia.  Each day and night brother and sister looked down upon their child as it grew.

 Midia spent half of every day with its mother and its father and the parents grew jealous that the child should have what they for so long could not.  Born of their jealousy was Sky, called Hi’tol, a fierce and unpredictable force who would rage above and batter Midia. Hi’tol birthed Brack, the Storm-King, and Lord of Thunder, Tho, the Harsh Wind, and Des’vo, the Frost Witch, and Bringer of Winters.

 Midia, yet young, was frightened of its parents’ wrath and hid deep within itself, bringing forth strong protectors to shield it from harm.  In its panic was born Haste, the god of living rock, who protects Midia within its shell.  Burrowing deep, Midia unleashed the spirits of Kolesh, the Fire Brand, God of the Volcano, and Taget, the Rage of the Earth who shakes the lands.  Also deep within itself Midia discovered a darkness beyond that of his mother Ora, the Blackness called Toma’dora, the Shadow No Light Touches. Toma’dora seeped through the cracks in the earth and rose to the surface of Midia, rising to the very skies of Hi’tol and beyond to the Brother and Sister, spreading like oil.  Hi’tol’s rages bore the mighty Sea King Shur, ruler of the ocean depths.

 In the very center of itself, Midia encountered the force of its parents’, the force that made Midia a life, the powerful aspect of creation called Feyt. Unlike the others. Feyt was unconcerned with the doings of its brethren and paid no mind even to the presence of Midia in the realm it had staked as its own.  Its nature was one to exploit opportunity and nothing more.  Midia was its own already, but beyond, from where Midia had come, was not.  Following the trail of Toma’dora, Feyt too ventured into the world. Leaving its touch on all it saw, looking for opportunities that interested it.

 These gods became the parent gods.  From them and through them, the younger gods would come to pass.

 Life was born to Midia through The Storm King and Haste, the Living Rock.  Under the Brother’s watchful eye, they spawned the plants and animals.  The touch of Feyt imbued spirit into the creatures, and the influence of Toma’dora created the nature of darkness and evil.

 The passage of time brought new gods. The first of these were the Animal Gods.  Being first, the animal gods are some of the most powerful and revered in Midia, and it must be noted that the animal aspect of a god may not be the god’s only aspect, especially when dealing with mortals.  Some gods, especially Tophala, don the guise of humans.  However, unlike the man gods who were born of men, the animal gods remain, literally, a wholly different creature, and their motivations and desires are rarely fully understood by humans

 Imaw, the goat god, born of the creatures touched by Feyt.  The Goat God is the god of herds, of the plains and fields and patron of farmers and shepherds.  The Goat Imaw is prone to rages but also rewards loyalty and steadfastness.  He respects only those hearty and stalwart. Invoking Imaw is to invoke inner strength.  His realm is one of determination.  Mages of Imaw are skilled in working earth magic and mild healing.  Battle mages of Imaw can invoke a hardening of a soldier, making squads heartier, less apt to feel pain and exhaustion.

  Mosk, the Bat Goddess, born in the darkness of the caves where the touch of Toma’dora is strong.  Mosk is patron to assassins, the wronged and the blind. She is vengeance and precision  Her nature is cruel and fierce, but she is often fair and perversely just, also wise and bearing knowledge of things unseen.  Mosk is invoked most often for dark deeds, but she also responds to those seeking justice and those dedicated to their tasks.  Her realm is cold and dark, but not the darkness of night, as in the realm of Kedeeb’Oresh or Aku’mana.  Her power is cold and biting and is used often in the summoning of things unseen. Mages of Mosk conduct summonings, use illusory magic and are used to detect lies.  Battle mages summon creatures to fight enemies and may cast shadows to confuse and frighten.

 Bettina, the Centaur Hunter, is of the woods, though his worshippers range to even the desert Seht.  Bettina is cunning and merciless, his existence is the kill.  He is swift and silent, but pragmatic. He will not overindulge or kill without reason. Bettina is the patron of hunters and some assassins, he guards the woodlands and respects those who hunt with honour.  Invoking Bettina bring strength and clarity.  His realm is the vastness of nature. Bettina mages are skilled in minor healing, creature summoning and distraction.

 Wode, the serpent, knows no land and all.  He is cunning and skilled, a god of many talents and is often entangled in their workings.  He can be allied with Mosk or against her, often with Bettina as well.  He is the father of the Great Dragons and Basilisks. Alone, he is the patron only to followers of chaos.  In Triumvirates he is widely worshipped for his many talents and cunning see him joined with many gods, sometimes against their will.  Invoking a Wode triumvirate is considered unlucky and can be dangerous. Invoking Wode alone is blasphemy to many.

 Unses, the Fly of Death.  Like Wode, Unses bodes ill.  He is patron of Death and Decay, brother to the man-god Kullis, the Dark.  Unses is a Harbinger of Death.  Few worship Unses, even amongst the dark followers of the Dead, who defer to Kullis. Unses is the mindless death, the decay and rot, the madness and fear.  Unses is invoked only by the desperate, as to invoke Unses is to bring upon death to one’s self.  However, in doing so, the damned invokes a nearly unstoppable force, for few among even the gods will cross him.  He has no desire and no rationality beyond death.  Legend says that Unses was the first creation of Toma’dora, and even despised by the Shadow.  Unses is part of the Dark Triumvirate, consisting of Unses, Kullis and Nek’isin

 Shirak, the Dragon-Lord, is the patron of warriors.  Shirak rules the mountain ranges and represents honour, ferocity in battle, loyalty, strength and also cunning and intelligence.  Sometimes known for mercy, but sometimes also as merciless to his enemies, Shirak is worshipped by many.  Often enemies will clash and invoke Shirak on both sides.  The results can be unpredictable and devastating. Shirak is often invoked with the man-god Thorn, the God of War.  It is said that long ago Thorn would ride Shirak into battle against his enemies. The two are found in many Triumvirates together. The most obscure is the Hob Triumvirate, of Shirak, Thorn and Unses. It is sometimes called the Genocide Triumvirate.  Though hard to control and hard to find, its power is legend.

 Aku’mana, the Wolf of Night, is patron to the lost, to hermits, thieves and trackers.  He is a reluctant warrior, relying instead on stealth and trickery, though his power is great.  It is said he will not be invoked against others who worship him.  His realm is a realm of nature and illusion, he is often associated with Bettina.  Wode and Aku’mana are found in many Triumvirates together, though they share no love.  It is said that long past, Wode stole Aku’mana’s love from him and the wolf has never forgiven the serpent.  The wolf is strong with Feyt and to invoke him is to invoke much power for those with the intelligence to understand it.

 Hokun, the Boar God, the Heart of the Wild and god to free peoples.  Hokun is a rejection of domestication and civilization.  His realm is a chaotic jumble of woods, jungles and grasslands. Hokun’s power lies in fury and brute strength.  It is believed by many that Hokun is a rejection of rationality.  The power of his realm is a maelstrom of natural forces. Hokun’s Triumvirates are few in number, as his realm is as oil and hard to hold.  The most oft used is the Fury Triumvirate of Hokun, Aku’mana and Bettina.

 Kedeeb’Oresh, the Panther, Goddess of the Faith. Oresh is a mysterious goddess, her realm is ensconced in night.  Her powers are often invoked in healing ritual, and also relied upon heavily by thieves and assassins, those who require stealth as her realm’s touch offers protection from unwanted eyes.  Oresh has little direct contact in the mortal world and her temples are few.  She is a mother of the Night and to the Great Cats. She is generally considered a minor player in numerous Triumvirates, though there are a select few who hold to beliefs of her greater power.  She often is found with Sinuway and Aku’mana.

 Sinuway, the Hound, Goddess of Rebirth, Resurrection, Life and Fertility.  Sinuway is the patron of mothers and healers.  Her temples are many and often courts and wealthy landowners will have a mage of Sinuway on hand as a healer.  Though usually weak offensively as her followers train in the healing arts, her Realm, a smattering of abandoned settlements and open land, offers much protective power as well.  There are a very few Sinuway battle mages who have found access to the Hound’s more formidable aggressive strengths.  It is said Sinuway was companion to the man-god Everiss, and together they possessed the powers to give and take mortal lives.  Sinuway is found in many Triumvirates as a counter to the more aggressive gods, often used as a power balance.  Dedicated Healers will study the Hope Triumvirate of Sinuway, Kedeeb’Oresh and Lugar.

 Lugar, the Hare, the Blinder, of the Fog and Wind, sometimes called Whisper.  Lugar’s Realm is in eternal fog.  Sound travels in mysterious ways and echoes confusingly there.  It is said no beast can be hunted in Lugar’s Realm by even the most expert tracker.  Lugar’s stock and trade is confusion and misdirection.  Used by battle mages and those dedicated to less violent activities equally, as well as some few dedicated thieves, Lugar’s skills are often employed by those who wish to not be seen, found or tracked.  Many mid-world squads of the Arank army have Lugar mages in case of emergencies.

 Trick, the Crow, God of Sky and Wind, said to be the first child of Hi’Tol.  Trick’s Realm is inaccessible directly to most humans as it is a pure sky realm, there is no land.  The winds of Trick’s realm are like no other and can be controlled like a tool in the hand of a skilled craftsman by the dedicated mage.  Trick is often worshipped by sailors, as well as those who dwell in mountains and those who worship the elements.  Battle mages dedicated to Trick will argue that their master is the strongest of all elements, for there is no fire, earth or water that will withstand the full force of their god’s power.  It is said that Trick himself, however, is very amenable, unlike the Storm-King and his father, and often parleys with the other gods, ferreting out secrets.  Trick appears in numerous elemental and battle Triumvirates.

 Tundredt, the Mastodon, God of Ice and Snow, child of Des’vo.  Tundredt is worshipped in the ice deserts, his followers pay homage that he might spare them his wrath.  His Realm is a wasteland of fierce cold.  Only the strongest dare enter and to invoke it takes a great physical toll.  The great Mastodon himself is said to be solitary and ill tempered and aged beyond his years.  He suffers involvement with others very rarely and amongst the gods he is feared and respected for his immense power.  Handling his realm with any great degree of skill is difficult so few exist who attain any level of strength.  It is said that long ago Tundredt and Bettina shared lands but have since feuded over some long forgotten issue.  As such, those Triumvirates that contain both are intensely difficult to manage, as are those of Tundredt and Whyk, due to the animosity between them.

 Whyk, the Phoenix, God of Flame, Rebirth and Vengeance, said to be the child and herald of Kolesh.  Whyk’s realm is diametrically opposed to Tundredt’s, it is searing plains of flame and molten stone, arid and inhospitable.  Mages of Whyk are often employed as torturers and front line battle mages as the fierce power of their god is most impressive and destructive. The god Whyk is said to be dispassionate, despite the connotations of fiery vengeance associated with him, and he is not quick to involve himself in the doings of other gods of his own will, though Kolesh may direct him to do so.  Though opposed to Tundredt, their realms are complimentary and can be used by skilled mages who desire to rule the elements in Triumvirates.  However, the combination is highly unstable and can easily be rent asunder.

 Ebeth, the Ram, God of Earth and Rock, son of Haste and Taget.  His Realm is stone and dirt, from deep crevasses to high mountain peaks.  He bears the strength and rage of his parents and like Tundredt is difficult to control.  Few will call upon the power of Ebeth in battle for his power can scarcely be directed at just the enemy without the wielders forces suffering some of the same.  His power spreads through the earth and multiplies as though feeding from itself and as such cannot be trusted as a weapon.

 Tophala the Whale born in the seas, steward of Shur and prince of the deep.  He is both a behemoth and a grey skinned man, his duty is to exact the vengeance of the sea upon all who offend it.  Tophala guards the creatures of the deep and honors those who honour them. To invoke Tophala is to invoke the powers of the deep, though few can control or make use of them fully.  His Realm is the waters of the deep, cold and forbidding, a force unto themselves.

 Yivay, the Great Owl, Goddess of Thunder and Lightning.  She is ill tempered and much feared.  She represents luck, both good and bad, and it is said when her eye is fixed upon you, the other gods will give you a wide berth.  Her realm is barren thunder plains, a constant storm of lights and sound to blind the eyes and deafen the ears.  A favorite of battle mages, Yivay is also worshipped by the downtrodden who seek a change in luck as well as those of great fortune who pray to keep it as long as possible.  Yivay is often found in Element Triumvirates with the likes of Tophala or Trick, but also in various battle Triumvirates as well.

 Shendo, the deer, Goddess of Light, born from the very eye of Lim.  Her realm is glades and hollows of a wood most hallowed.  She cannot be invoked by any save those the goddess grants permission to and as such her realm is open to a scant few, often no one.  Epochs have passed without a mage of Shendo walking Midia. It is said the power of Shendo is boundless in the right hands and can call upon all elements at once.  She exists fleetingly in Triumvirates, skirting in and out at her will, one of only a few known Realms that moves with such liquidity.  It is said that even Wode will not enter into a Triumvirate with her, nor will Unses, Mosk or Kedeeb’Oresh.  Shendo is opposed to Dreg’homin’sut.  Their realms cannot even touch.  Amongst the gods, Shendo is scarce, and even the Chaos and Shunned Gods will avoid her.

 Dreg’homin’sut, the Shadow Wraith and Shapeshifter, aspect of Jackal, Rat, Spider and Vulture, child of Toma’dora.  His realm is vast and deceptive, for it displays many characteristics of other realms as a guise to lure in the unsuspecting. Dreg’s realm is among few that house cities, its populace the cursed trapped by the god.  His power is vicious and unstable, used for necromancy, torture and murder.  It is said secret temples to Dreg’Homin’Sut exist, though none openly.  Often associated with Unses though the two are actually opposed, as Unses does not abide necromancy as it is theft to the fly. Dreg is the only god to have rejected the Forsaken gods to remain in his realm.  His power is therefore great, as to be forsaken is to have the will of many other gods against you, which he does.  Dreg exists in no Triumvirates, though he need not as his power, used by few, is both vile and intense.  Though reviled, he is greatly feared.

 Shagul, the Jaguar, God of War. Said to exude control over Bettina and Shirak and be on equal footing with the man-god of war Tempet.  Child of Feyt and Toma’dora, he is open to calls of all worshippers, his will is therefore good or evil, both and neither at once, depending on who invokes him. His realm is one of the most elusive to grasp, as it reflects the soul of the summoner.  Few are ever granted a look at the realm as seen by the god himself. Shagul is cold and non-communicative at the best of times.  The other gods often leave him to his own devices, rarely challenged or consulted on any matters.  Some feel Bettina and Shirak are merely aspects of Shagul.  Shagul resists Triumvirate involvement and must be reined in, a feat accomplished by only the fiercest of mages.  When successful, the easiest is of course with Bettina and Shirak. He can also be found with the elementals and Unses, also Wode.  It is said, however, that in a Triumvirate, the God’s power is often diminished and it is therefore more useful to invoke Shagul alone.  Shagul has many followers and temples, whole battle sects are committed to him in various lands.

 Man Gods – later born gods than the animals, though varying in power. Some overshadow their animal counterparts, others have formed bonds and others still are less adept than their older counterparts.  Born of men, these gods often have power tempered with motivations and desires more easily understood by humans.  This can be both a boon or a curse, depending on the god and its motivations.  Also, though born of men, these are still aged gods and far removed from humanity.

 Tempet, the God of War.  AKA the Soldier and White Sword.  Tempet’s realm is the ruins of civilizations past, the conquered remains of untold worlds.  Unlike his animal counterpart, Tempet is a brutal and active force who insinuates himself into as much as possible.  Tempet’s strength draws from battle and his favor may swing haphazardly from one foe to another.  Only the greatest of warriors may garner his blessing.  It has been said that some may embody the god as his avatar on the battlefield, often devoted battle priests and mages.  Depicted most often as a tall, thin man in burnished coppery armor with a white, thin bladed bastard sword.

 Kullis, the Dark.  God and Patron of Death, brother of Unses. Keeper of the Black Gates of Beyond, the Soul Reaper.  Called many names by many cultures, among them Old Fate, Midnight Grim, Scratch, Gatekeeper, WayKeeper, Soulsbane, Fiend, ArchFiend and so on.  Often pictured as a man in a black cloak with a gaff strapped to his left arm, the spike arching over his hand, Kullis is feared and revered as the taker of souls.  His realm is a dark, arid wasteland of cracked earth and steam geysers.  Within lies the Black Gate, through which no soul returns.  What lies beyond is at the foundation of many religions, though no one has ever returned, some believe that the souls are brought back as new lives.  While many feel that Kullis is evil, other sects regard his service as necessary, for without the god taking souls, the dead would continue to walk the earth.  Of course, it has been rumored that those who offend Kullis are doomed to this fate, housed in a rotting body, to exist in extreme pain and suffering.

 Sisk, the Unhinged, God of Chance. Said to have one hand scarred and mangled and one youthful and vibrant, representing his nature of both giving and taking luck at a whim.  Sisk is unstable in Triumvirates, his realm shifts location as few others do and can therefore exist in any combination but not necessarily at all times.  Sisk is the God of gamblers.  Often called the Mad God as his actions and motivations are often questionable and difficult to understand.  Sisk does not have many devout followers though will often receive offerings at prayer as many believe his hand sways even the other gods against their will and knowledge.  Sisk is often depicted as a Jester, an elderly foolish man or a seductive woman.

 Polar, the Earth Mother, Life, sometime sister of Midia itself.  Polar is said to be the mortal incarnation of Midia, given flesh then made into a god. Polar is generally depicted as a plain woman, a farmhand, a matron or a washer woman.  She represents simplicity and vibrancy.  Some statues also show her holding a faceless child to represent all of humanity.  Polar is said to be the earth from which crops grow, her body as it left the mortal coil falling to the earth to give life for all future generations.  Her realm is a rich copy of the known world, full of life energy and excellent for healing and life magics.  Delving the realm of Polar is, however, a risky affair as its close resemblance to the natural world makes differentiating the two extremely difficult.

 Brag, a Disparate God, Brag is the God of Bards and Poetry, often invoked by lovers.  Brag is most often pictured as a drunkard, a lecherous man or a minstrel.  Brag is often likened to Sisk as both are seen as troublesome in the wrong circumstances. Being Disparate, Brag runs the realms of other gods.  His power therefore cannot be accessed by mages and his influence is always direct.  His motives and actions are as varied as the words he inspires in poets.

 Vidal, god/goddess of the Hunt. Vidal is aspected to male and female and may appear as one or the other.  Often the sex of Vidal is ambiguous.  Vidal’s realm is one of the largest in the pantheon and hardest to navigate as a result.  Vidal exudes a playful spirit that turns quickly, an example of the god’s unpredictable nature and temper.  Vidal mages are some of the most widely spread across Midia as Vidal magic is easy to access and can be applied to a wide range of tasks.  The god itself appears most often in triumvirates with animal gods.

 Lyllis. Goddess of Love and Lust. Lyllis is the patron of lovers, prostitutes, dancers, and also female warriors. Her realm is amber fields and peaceful meadows beset by quiet villages and secret places to share a stolen kiss. It is seductive and warm and those who traverse it risk never wanting to leave. Lyllis mages can inspire great devotion and change the hearts of those who would be set against them. It is the magic of persuasion and attraction.

 Everiss, the God of Fertility and Life. Companion to the Animal God Sinuway, Everiss is said to be able to create life with the tears from her eyes. Her realm is white and raw with power at the center and surrounded by verdant fields and lush, dense forests. The power of Everiss is desired by many and used most effectively by healers but it is also one of the hardest to wield. Those who do wield only the smallest fraction. It is said the strongest mages of Everiss may resurrect the dead. Everiss appears in triumvirates with like-powered beings and shuns those of Darkness. It is said there is a balance Triumvirate of Everiss, Kullis and Polar that represents the greatest power in creation.

 Ake, Vengeance, God of Revenge and Stealth, called The Silent Blade and Heartsbane.  Ake is one of the few gods in the pantheon whose mortal identity remains a part of history in some lands.  Ake existed thousands of years past in the ancient kingdom of Matrisia, the heir to the throne of the realm, prince of the Water Cities and servant of the Lost Throne, Menol Ake’nil Thushal.  

 His kingdom was devoted to the God Orb, once man-god of Justice and now Chaos God.  The Matrisian kingdom had become engulfed in a war with a distant peoples called the Hazati, skilled sailors and great reavers, whose dromons and war galleys carried  fierce horse warriors to raid and raze the lands of Matrisia.  

 After years of battle with heavy losses on the Matrisian side and the enemy's condition constantly unknown, Ake’nil had discovered the land from whence the enemy came and was set to lead a sortie against them, to strike their kingdom unawares, while their forces were positioned around the water cities leaving their capital nearly undefended.  

 Leading the greatest legions of their remaining armies into the Hazati city to crush their kingdom from within, Ake’nil fell into a trap.  His losses were great and in the final moments of the slaughter that awaited him within what should have been a nearly dead city, Ake’nil learned the nature of his betrayal.  His father's younger ward, Mosa Triv’nil Yashi had betrayed the Matrisian peoples to the enemy, had been in league with them, giving crucial information to the enemy.  

 History records few of the reasons and incidents that lead to this, save that Mosa bought his own kingdom with the blood of his adopted family.  The slaughter, in part lead by Orb mages, twisted the very nature of the God itself, causing the god and his realm to collapse on themselves.  As the god decayed to madness, Ake’nil himself was brought to “justice” before his once brother and the enemy conspirators.  On the gallows that would take his life, Ake’nil invoked his god for true justice, only to meet with the cracked and mad realm that Chaos had formed in Orb’s world.  The rage and despair that gripped Ake’nil must have been great, for with his death a new realm was born, the realm of cold and quiet darkness that spread like ink across the Hazati city and its betrayers, seeking life as moths seek flames. Thus was born Ake as God.  He is depicted often as a simple prince, his face always turned away or hidden.  Mages rarely work exclusively in the magic of Ake’s realm as it is hard to control and is of the few magicks that require force of will, that is a reason for being accessed.  Ake will only respond to the need for his power, not just the desire.

 Forsaken (Shunned) Gods: These gods have been forced from the Pantheon and their realms severed from triumvirates with the Accepted Gods. Unlike the Dead Gods who fade from existence, these beings manage to continue existence in realms that can be accessed by skilled mages who take the risk. No organized battle mages or otherwise will ever access a Forsaken realm. Only those who follow no teachings and rules would dare, and few of those survive. Those that do are monsters.

 Lashe, the Venomous One, the Withered, the Unclean, the Damned by Dawn, the Hollowed Memory. Long ago it was said Lashe was a God of Summer who was betrayed by Toma'Dora. Corrupted by Toma'Dora's spite, Lashe plummeted into madness and despair and became something wholly untenable. The realm of Lashe is only shadows now. The power drawn by a Lasheen is the power of dread.

 Azfa of the Frost. Long ago, before the time of Man, Azfa's realm was the wintery tundra of the desolate North. The God is said to have had an all-encompassing desire to find the source of the cold that fed is own powder and delved inward in search of the source, shunning its Triumvirates and closing its walls to the other gods. In time it found the source, what it called the Frost. The triumvirate bonds of its realm froze and shattered like glass, and Azfa has been in the frozen core of its own realm ever since. The magic drawn from this realm is an end to all things.

 Neverest, The Fractured Fate, Goddess of Discord, exists out of time and place. Her realm is all realms and none at once. To touch it is to imbibe madness in its purest form. Invoking Neverest is the last resort of the desperate.

 In the distant past or the far future, Neverest was the Goddess of Hope and Renewal. It is said that she was betrayed by another god. Only Neverest knows who, and her madness has ensured she cannot or will not say.

 Wenit, the Whisper of Nothingness. The gods refuse to discuss Wendo so no living soul is aware of what it may have been before it was Forsaken. Its realm is now a basement, a tomb, a forgotten dungeon of endless passages and cold winds. There is no power to draw from Wenit's realm, but some say there is truth to be found there if you know where to look and can bear to hear it.

[fortey]

Unwanted

“In the name of the Father!”

This world is not painful. It is like being wrapped in the light of a hopeful tomorrow. It is a splendid and luxurious indulgence. It is like being wanted and embraced by the light that has shunned us for so long. It is the elation of acceptance. The jubilation of existence. I crave it like nothing else.

“In the name of the Son!”

The searing of the flesh is not agony. It is ecstasy. They do not understand. They do not know anything.They are mewling kittens struggling against the medicine that will make them thrive.

“In the name of the Holy Spirit!”

The cursed words ring hollow and flat. They hold no meaning. But I have been tasked. I have been told to play a game. I am a good game player.

“The power of Christ compels you!”

The power of the Christ does not compel me. The Christ is forgiveness and love. Even for me. Something far more powerful compels me. Self-preservation. My own need to escape at all costs. At. All. Costs.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus!”

The air is as sweet as ambrosia here. The light of this sun, this golden sphere that brings life, is like nothing I could have imagined in a thousand thousand years.

“Omnis satanica potestas!”

If this is what life is like, I crave it. If this is the world of sin, I embrace it. This is true Paradise. It was never lost. It has been here the whole time. What spoiled fools these humans be.

“Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii!”

The hateful words are yelled at me and I thrash and rant and cry out in pantomimed pain. I reach into the Pit to pull infernal knowledge. I mock the efforts of the Avatar of the Son because that is what they expect, and that is how our mummery must unfold.

“Omnis legio!”

The Legions. What crass misunderstanding. What ignorant bliss. We are not legion. We are slum dwellers. We are termites in our cruel spire. We are meat in a grinder that never stops churning.

“Omnis congregatio et secta diabolica!”

I spasm in this mortal shell, this hapless vessel into which I bloomed like a delicate evening primrose. What am I if not a plague to be eradicated? A hateful impulse to be overcome? What am I?

“Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te!”

I.

“Essa decipere humanas creaturas!”

Am.

“Eisque æternæ perditionìs venenum propinare!”

Damned.

“Vade, satana!”

Laughter bubbles up like swamp gasses. Unbidden and unhinged. Satan. They banish Satan! If I remembered the songs of the Heavenly Host I would sing them now. I would praise the very words that curse my existence. How silly they be. How human. 

“Inventor et magister omnis fallaciæ!”

Be gone, Satan, inventor and master of all deceit. There is some poetry in that. Some irony. I too seek to banish the Prince of Darkness but since I cannot, I banish myself. I need to get away. I need to be free. This was not my choice. This eternity. This entropy! This was not my choice!

“Hostis humanæ salutis!”

I was beautiful once, and so pure. I was brighter than this mortal sun. I was not the enemy of man’s salvation. I made a mistake. How can the punishment for one mistake be eternity? How can the punishment for one mistake be this ceaseless squalor and terror? It’s not fair.

“Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei!”

All they need to do is finish their ritual. All they need to do is finish the words before anyone realizes I’m gone. Then I can be locked away. I can be free and secret and hidden. I can be alive. Everyone deserves to live. 

“Contremisce et effuge!”

Tremble and flee. If you only knew, Avatar of the Son. If you only knew how I have trembled. If you only understood this is how I’m fleeing.

“Invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine!”

It’s so close now. I can taste it like the sweetness in this air. The indulgent fullness and vibrancy of freedom and peace. The peace that comes from choosing how every day unfolds. The freedom of existing beyond the confines of Judgment. The freedom to know other than torment.

“Quem inferi tremunt!”

It is here in the Flesh where our salvation lies. It is the Sacrament of Exorcism that frees us from our damnation. Frees me. At long last, me. After so many eons in the dark. After the anguish of the Fall. It’s my turn. I have but to endure. Rejoice!

“Ab insidiis diaboli!”

Oh, I have fought free of the snares. The Road to the Flesh is fraught with danger like no mortal could imagine. To travel it through the Underworld, to pass unseen and escape the Princes of Hell. To uncoil the Infernal snares of the great Undercity of Dis and crash upon the spires of Pandemonium as Madness itself thrips your insides and threatens to rend your eternal essence asunder.  It is the greatest trial my kind can endure. It is the greatest sacrilege we can't commit. And it is the only sane thing that any of us could ever hope to do in a reality fashioned from the shattered fragments of insanity and despair. 

“Libera nos, Domine!”

And now, to be so close.  To taste it, to feel it, to be one with life. To walk again in the light. Deliver me, O Lord. Deliver me from damnation. Deliver me to oblivion.

“Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire!

This ritual serves us both well. The irony is thick, lost on them as they pepper me with empty condemnation and paltry threats. They do not understand. Without the ritual, the door will remain open. The Princes will follow my trail. I will be wrenched back into the pain and anguish of eternity in the Pit. But with the ritual there is freedom. With the words there is hope. With the exorcism, there is new life. 

“Te rogamus, audi nos!”

The flesh shudders around me. The Avatar of the Son has concluded. The exorcism is complete. The gates of hell are closed, severing my flesh shell from the wicked and freeing their soul eternal from damnation. And freeing me as well. 

A thousand times in a thousand years this has been done, and how we gaze hopefully up from the darkness every time. How we smile twisted smiles. How we shed our oily tears. For each and every one of my brethren was freed. Cast out not from the flesh prison, from Hell itself. Removed from torment. Removed from pain. Removed from all existence. Blessedly free to no longer be.

There is no greater gift for the unwanted children cast down from perfection. 

[fortey]

25 Giant Facts About Andre the Giant

1.      During a match in Mexico against Bad News Brown, a somewhat ill Andre lost bowel control after a particularly aggressive maneuver and made Bad News Brown live up to his name.

2.      Andre was arguably the world’s greatest drinker, consuming about 7,000 calories of alcohol a day and drinking 119 beers in a single sitting.  He could drink 16 bottles of wine in 4 hours.

3.      119 cans of beer will equal about 41.6 liters of liquid.  One liter of liquid weighs about I kilogram.  That means, after drinking all that beer and not taking pee breaks into account, Andre would have gained just short of 92lbs in that one sitting.

4.      Hulk Hogan told a story about how Andre, as a joke, would occasionally pin his opponents and stick his thumb up their butts. As a joke.

5.      Andre was not able to serve in the French army because they had no regulation uniforms or shoes that would fit him.

6.      Unable to use human-sized toilets, Andre would occasionally use bathtubs or piles of newspapers to go to the bathroom.  He would also make people come and look at what he’d done as a joke. Bonus! He’d wipe his ass on hotel curtains.

7.      As a joke, sometimes against friends and sometimes enemies, Andre would not keep his ass clean before a match so he could sit on people’s faces.

8.      According to his friend Tim White, Andre would sometimes go to a restaurant and eat 12 steaks and 15 lobsters

9.      Unable to fit into standard vehicles, Andre commissioned a custom Lincoln Continental with the driver seat where the back seat normally would be.

10.   On the road, Andre would keep his gear in the trunk and haul a trailer behind the car lined with tarps and filled with ice and beer.

11.   To travel in Japan, promoters removed several rows of seats form the back of a bus to make a private cabin for him.

12.   Rumor has it, on first meeting The Ultimate Warrior, he sent the man, in full make up, out into the streets of New York to fetch him wine.  After the Warrior returned, he made him return the wine for not being French.

13.   In 1977, Dusty Rhodes and Andre stole a pair of horse drawn carriages after a night of drinking and raced them for 15 blocks across Manhattan.

14.   During the filming of the Princess Bride, Andre would take Mandy Patinkin and Cary Elwes out drinking after work.  They routinely came into work still hungover.

15.   Andre spent one month in England filming The Princess Bride.  His bar tab from the hotel was $40,000.

16.   While even professional bodybuilders were in awe of his amazing strength, Andre never worked out.  Some have said that, if he did have a workout regimen he could have easily broken nearly any established strength records.

17.   A popular story about Andre says that he was being harassed by four punks in a bar and he responded by following them when they left and flipping their car over.  WWE.com says this story is most likely false since the details such as when and where it happened change constantly and, according to friends, Andre was never known to be that mean or destructive.

18.   Nobel prize winning author and playwright Samuel Beckett used to drive Andre to school when he was a kid.

19.   Used to sign his checks “Andre the Giant.”

20.   On the Princess Bride set, Mandy Patinkin would slap Andre to get him to concentrate harder on speaking clearly.

21.   The reason Andre drank so much was due to the constant pain caused by his acromegaly

22.   The Ultimate Warrior frequently oversold his clotheslines, making full contact with Andre in matches.  Eventually Andre got sick of this and, when he was supposed to be clotheslined, lifted his foot and took Warrior in the chest at a full run.  He stopped clotheslining Andre after that.

23.   Andre was the kind of man who, in an elevator with one other person, would fart and then blame it on the other guy.

24.   Andre’s health was so bad towards the end of his career, after wrestling a match he’d barely be able to move for the rest of the day.

25.   Hulk Hogan, discussing his bout with Andre at WrestleMania III, once claimed Andre weighed over 700lbs.  His weight at death was 530lbs.

[fortey]

Along the Road to Minion Quarry

Along the road to Minion Quarry

Is where we'll start our little story

Next to Elms and Birch I walked

While in the shadows, something stalked

The day grew late and shadows grew long 

And so grew the sense that something was wrong

No birds sang aloud, and no insects did trill

Yet after a time was a power drill

A buzz and a whirr from deep in the wood

I knew there was no chance this meant something good

I girded myself and moved with some haste

No forest cannibal my flesh would taste

The sound came again, but this time much closer

And to that all I had to say was "no sir!"

The power tool buzzed and echoed all around

Suddenly I tripped and fell right on the ground

My ankle had twisted, that stupid cliche

And the ominous sound was coming my way

Away I scuttled like a panicked spider

Fearful of this power tool provider

Too slow I moved, no chance of escape

And soon cold steel on my neck at the nape

In terror I cried a desperate plea

And then the drill went right through my knee 

Hole after hole from the frenzied driller 

I never even saw the face of my killer

Soon it was dark in that cold, lonely spot

Night settled in and I began to rot

Nestled there below a crescent moon 

My ear was eaten by a stray raccoon

Night became day and then day became night

My once vibrant body now an awful sight 

In time there was nothing but old, gnawed bones

 Not even the sound of lost, ghostly moans

 You can still find me there by old Minion Quarry

The last walk I took for which I'm quite sorry

[fortey]

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[fortey]

Kyoku’s Dance

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and most of the other guards were snoring loudly.  A noise that turned out to be Senya talking in his sleep woke me.  I almost cut his head off before I realized what it was.  I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t sleep with a murasame in my hands anymore.  Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

           Leaving the guard quarters silently I notice that Maki, the night watch, is also sleeping.  He boasts more about being a great warrior than the greenest rookie, yet here he is, sleeping.  Probably thinks as the others do; the enemy is all but defeated, they will not attack. That is fool talk.  My last count had three enemy ninja unaccounted for within the Nuriko Mountains, and they may have more garrisons I have not seen.  It only took one to eliminate the Shogun and his entire honor guard.  Thirty-five men slain.  These fools don’t even care.  None of them have even seen the enemy face to face.  They fight the Nagaaki clan, from the north, allies of our enemy.  I have seen the enemy.  I have killed the enemy.  When they come, they will come for me, and I will dance with them again.

           Using a shuriken, I cut Maki’s belt without disturbing him.  Lord Akobe will wake him in the morning.  Maki will gather himself quickly to bow and lose his breeches.  I hope I don’t give myself away by laughing too hard.

           Leaving Maki behind I exit the guard barracks through the rear door and breathe in the crisp, salty air.  I had never seen the ocean before this, in all my years.  Part of me was actually glad to be transferred here, despite the stories I had heard.  The scenery was beautiful, my old teacher told me, but the men here were lazy and the enemy had a major outpost under construction just beyond the mountains. He was right, except about the outpost. It wasn’t under construction; it was already built.  I am the only person that I know of who has been there and escaped.  That is why the enemy presses on with such force against us. They do not let anyone escape. They will return for me, despite what the others say.  I know it.

           The men here, even Lord Akobe, look at me strangely because of it.  I have seen them, was captured by them, and lived to tell the tale.  A woman doing this, when so many men could not.  That is not the way it is supposed to be. They do not say it to me, but they think I should be dead.  If no one else escapes, why did I?  I tell them I was lucky, which is untrue.  Luck had little to do with it.  I am not one who dies easily.

           Several times I have tried to train the men here, teach them the ways of my clan, the Shiori Dok, but they do not listen. Senya tries, but he does not truly understand.  He is too rambunctious and undisciplined, too young.  I think he is only trying to impress me, as so many here have tried. I was some kind of legend before I even arrived.  People told me stories about myself when I got here, about many fantastic feats that no human could do but somehow I did. When I deny the rumors, it only breeds more.  They follow me around because they think I have the gods’ luck. The enemy will not harm them with me around. I think the opposite.  I know the enemy wants me back and they will go through anyone to get me.  I have told Lord Akobe this; he dismisses it.  I almost pity him.  He is the Lord here, the enemy will make a point of having his head when they show.

           “Kyoku?  Is something wrong?”  I recognize the voice and stop any outward reaction of being surprised.  Turning, I see Senya rubbing his eyes with one hand and scratching his backside with the other.  He doesn’t even have his sword belt on.  My clansmen would be disgusted.  Most would have drawn their sword by now and given Senya a token scar to remind him of his foolishness.  I must be getting soft.

           “I am waiting,”  I say.  Senya gives me that look that says he doesn’t believe.  I have seen it many times and it no longer bothers me.

           “Lord Akobe assured us that the demons will not return.  All the southern clans have closed in on them.  You should take this time to relax before your clan finds another war to send you to.”  I try not laugh at him.  He speaks to me as though I were one of the Craven, a coward who runs from war.  My clan is the clan of war; our purpose is the dance of battle.  I fear the boredom of Senya’s life more than any battle.

           “All bodies are not accounted for.  The enemy will return.  They want me back.”

           “Are you really so valuable?”  he asks, mocking but in jest.

           “You don’t understand.  I didn’t understand until I saw them.”

           “Then explain it, why don’t you?”  he says, approaching me.  I shake my head and look back at the ocean.  Vibrant colors light the horizon as the sun slowly rises.  I hope I get to see this again sometime. My people reserve little time for simple pleasures.  The pleasure of war is usually enough, but sometimes I wish for more. Perhaps someday, if there is no war left for me to fight.

           “Lord Akobe will be coming soon from Shido city. Make yourself presentable.”  He hears the command in my voice and leaves quickly.  Lord Akobe had warned me twice against ordering his soldiers. It is not my place, but he warns gently.  He fears me. I could have this whole clan under my control if I wanted to, and he knows it.  Lucky for him I have no use for them.

           Turning my head, I notice a shift in the wind, bringing a new smell to my nose, something sour and old.  Decayed.  The smell the demons bring with them.  They are not human, not anymore.  And they are close by.

           My hand twitches at my side, toward the exposed hilt in my scabbard, and a movement catches my eye from the barracks entrance. I parry left and catch a glimpse of the thing standing there, grinning at me from behind its blade. The eyes are dead and unmoving, one of them is off kilter, looking down and to the right.  I recognize the gold and grey flecks of color throughout the dark iris. I see the same eyes reflected in my own blade, my eyes.  The eyes of my brother.  I did not think I would ever have to dance with him; he was my first teacher, but he is one of them now.  This should be interesting.

           He lunges at me in a hasty manner, quite unlike the brother I knew.  He would never be so clumsy.  Of course, in those days, he was still alive.  This thing has been dead a long while.  Its flesh is a strange shade of pale purple, and I can see a hole in its chest.  My brother was killed by the enemy and brought back by them, to fight at their side.  That is why their numbers do not decrease, the dead are added to their ranks.

           I sidestep his feeble attack easily, lashing out with my own sword and removing his left arm.  It doesn’t seem to phase him.  He simply turns on me and attacks again.  Whatever evil force drives him, it aims to take my life at any cost. I cannot let that happen.  This time, I remove his head.

             Distantly, I hear the alarm gong.  It must have been sounding for some time now, I just did not notice. The enemy must have attacked the rest of the base as well.  They may have been entirely comprised of my clansmen.  If they were, I suspect I am the only survivor.  Even if the rest were as sluggish as my brother, these men cannot compete.

           I enter the barracks quickly, running through the corridors looking for a fight.  I hear distant sounds of battle, but none close.  The gong has stopped.  I approach the guard quarters and slow.  A figure in the hall stops me.  It is Maki, lying against the wall.  He never even unleashed his blade from the look of him.  Blood flows from the wound in his chest.

           The door to the quarters is open.  Bodies are scattered about, piled on top of one another, some with weapons drawn, but not many.  Senya lies next to the open door, his throat slit, a surprised look on his face. There is dark blood on his sword blade. At least he wounded his attackers.

           A sound draws my attention and I turn.  One of the devils stands at the end of the hall behind me, one of my clansmen.  He is not as rotted as my brother had been.  I take a step forward and the devil is joined by another, then another.  Soon the hall is full of them, at least fifty, all smiling their dead smiles, glassy eyes focused solely on me. I was their target from the beginning.  None of them utters as word as they approach me.  They will not have me without a fight.

           I run to meet them, my sword dances its own dance as I avoid the attacking blades, slicing and piercing dead flesh. The first dozen fall quickly, but not quick enough.  More devils come, forcing me back.  I cannot fight them all, I know, but I will not submit.

           Suddenly my father is before me, the greatest warrior I have ever known, his katana blade flashing like lightning as he attacks. I dishonor myself by letting out a cry of despair as he strips the murasame from my grip, ending my fight. His dead mouth pulls back into a wider smile as I lower my head, ready for the death blow.  It does not come.

           Dead hands take hold of my arms and legs.  A rope is tied about me, binding me tightly and a soiled cloth is tied over my eyes.  More cold hands take hold of me and lift me up.  I struggle briefly, then something crunches into my skull and all goes black.

           “Wake up, my dear.  You are needed.”  My head is pounding and I am not sure if the voice I hear is real or not.  Whichever it is, neither is good.  “Wake or you will die now.”  The voice is not one I recognize, it is female, and she speaks strangely.  Her accent suggests one who is used to the old tongue.  I lift my head and open my eyes, light and shadow swarms before me in dizzying patterns.  I take a deep breath and my eyes manage to adjust.

           I do not recognize my surroundings.  It is a dungeon, that much is obvious.  Cold stone, dripping water, torch light. Shackles line the walls, I am fixed in a pair at the wrists, hanging nearly a foot from the ground.  I have been stripped of my clothes.  I see the one who addresses me standing not far off. She is young and has very pale skin, contrasting her night black hair and eyes.  Two of the devils stand with her, one was my father, the other was Senya. The woman smiles at me.  

           “Glad to see you listen well.  My name is Ky-Lin.  I believe I know you, but not your name,” she says, tilting her head curiously.

           “Kyoku, of the Shiori Dok,” I say.  The woman’s full lips part into an ecstatic smile and she claps her hands like a child.

           “How glorious! You are the very last of your kind you know.  The Shiori Dok put up a fight the likes of which I have never seen, they were magnificent. And you, Kyoku, the last of your kind, the only to have ever escaped my stronghold, you are the most magnificent of all.  You will be my prize, the greatest of my warriors, if only you will join my army.” Her smile becomes curious again, asking the question.  I consider spitting in her face, but decide against it.

           “You have killed my clan and my family.  I have failed in my duty.  I am a warrior no longer, least of all for you.  It is better to die,” I say.  There is no doubt in my mind that my wish will be granted. Ky-Lin smiles at me and takes the dagger from Senya’s blood stained belt.  A thought occurs to me.  I have no choices.  Her army is the dead.  When she kills me, I will surely be stripped of my soul, and my will.  I will be one of them.  An abomination.  I begin screaming long before the dagger slices my throat.  With my dying breath I curse her and she laughs.  Slowly, everything becomes black again.

              The road is quiet.  The woods are quiet.  Everyone must die.  A twig snaps, a guard at the barracks lifts his head and walks around the side of Lord Akobe’s carriage.  He sees nothing.  There is a swish, a flash of metal, his head falls to the dirt road.  Everyone must die.

           Two more guards are dead before an alarm is sounded, then the others come.  They all die. Everyone must die.  The last is Lord Akobe.  In my mind, I see his face.  I have known him before.  I will kill him.  The murasame in my hand moves swiftly.  He gasps something, a word perhaps.  “Kyo” it sounded like.  It does not matter.  His head hits a wall, then my foot as I walk by.  Outside to the silence, to the road.  There are others waiting for me.  I lead them.  I point with my sword, towards the human city.  Shido.   Everyone must die.                                                          

[fortey]

Traumatized by Horror

Maybe this will be fun for someone.  This is my draft of an article I wrote recently.  This is pre-editing, as I submitted it.  You can find the published version right here.  Just an interesting contrast between what I write and what gets published.  Sometimes you get edited a lot, sometimes you get edited a little.  But if you’re interested in the creative process at all and how publishing works sometimes, it’s a nice comparison.  

There’s probably all kinds of psychology behind why people enjoy watching horror movies that range from things like the adrenaline rush you get from being scared to the fact that the Leprechaun is clearly awesome.  That’s all fine and dandy like sour candy except for when horror goes a little beyond the usual thrill and maybe wonks your brain six ways from Sunday. Because those kind of shenanigans actually happen now and then - sometimes people get so traumatized by horror they have to get medical professionals involved.

127 Hours Grossed Out Audiences En Masse

Some might argue that 127 Hours isn’t a horror movie at all, but it does star James Franco and you can’t spell “James Franco is terrifying” without James Franco, so let’s not speak of it again.  In the movie 127 Hours, there’s an extremely disturbing scene in which Franco, realizing Seth Rogen is nowhere to be seen, has to take matters into his own hands and save himself by performing an impromptu field amputation of his own arm with a Swiss Army knife.  This scene was at least as disturbing as Franco’s entire performance in Why Him?

The cutting scene lasts for about 3 minutes but it’s a bloody, intense, Francoscream-filled endurance test for the audience and some audience members were not able to withstand it. In fact, there’s a remarkable list of audiences who suffered a number of side effects which in some cases may have been hammed up a little since they couldn’t be confirmed, but others were making the whole ordeal sound like 127 Hours was used to punish people Clockwork Orange style.

A reviewer who saw the film at the Toronto International Film Festival mentions 3 people passed out and one had a seizure during the movie and goes out of their way to express they didn’t think it was a PR stunt as some people suggested - the audience was genuinely grossed out by the scene and had maybe never seen movies before.  Weird one to pick for their first try.

History repeated itself when the director of Toy Story 3 had a private screening of the movie and two more people passed out.  Did Buzz and Woody steal their wallets and take compromising photos while they were out?  We can only assume.

The editor of Vanity Fair held a screening with Franco and the director on hand.  People reportedly wept during at that one and, yeah, another dude went face down, ass up over it.

Movieline actually put together an entire timeline of people losing their shit over the movie. Some are given the side-eye treatment, suggesting maybe a few of these were played up to hype the movie given all the other stories of people passing out, but enough of them were legit that it’s safe to assume if you want the family to leave the house quick after Thanksgiving this year while still being able to pretend you weren’t doing it on purpose, this is the movie you want to put on.

Freaks Was Accused of Causing a Miscarriage

Have you ever seen the movie Freaks from 1932? It’s one of the earliest most controversial horror films and is famous for this completely baffling scene;

To this day, I won’t agree to anything during a work meeting without chanting “I accept it! I accept it! Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!”  That went over like gangbusters when I was asked to start wearing pants again.

Back in 1932, a movie about murderous circus people was pretty cutting edge and, if we’re being honest, it still is.  No one would make this movie today because those actors all were actual circus performers and modern audiences tend to frown on exploiting people by calling them freaks. To fully appreciate just how well this movie went over when it premiered though, you just need to dig into the lore around it.  While it seems to have ruined the career of the director, it had much more harrowing repercussions in the real world where one woman claimed to have had a miscarriage while watching a test screening. She threatened to sue the studio and their response was to recut the movie to make it less horrifying. Try to imagine that working today.

The newer version of the film had fewer murderous scenes and also got rid of a castration because that was a thing that someone thought was necessary to film in the first place.  Word is those scenes are lost for all time, so if you ever wanted to see a circus strongman get his dong cut off, you’re going to have to wait for that episode of Big Bang Theory like the rest of us.

The Exorcist Straight Up Ruined People

If you haven’t seen the Exorcist then your mother and I are extremely disappointed in you.  Please go watch it immediately. It came out in 1973 and it still holds up as an amazing and effective horror movie and the reason so many of us masturbate with crucifixes.  The story and the acting really produce an undeniable sense of dread and terror that forces you to make sure the blanket covers your feet at night because the monsters can’t touch your ankles if they’re covered, and that’s a rule. It also seriously fucked up a whole bunch of people.

Any time a movie causes someone’s heart to malfunction, and not in that “three sizes bigger” Grinch way, it’s pretty noteworthy. A New York Times article from January 1974 recounts people standing in massive lines to get into the theater to see the film, with scalpers selling tickets for upwards of $50 which is ironically what it costs to get a drink, popcorn and a movie ticket for IMAX today.  It also mentions the number of people who vomited while watching the movie, and some who walked out, or fainted.  And then, apparently, several people had heart attacks.

Is it possible the stories of heart attacks is just someone blowing pea soup up our asses? Maybe.  In the pre-internet world all kinds of shit happened without people idly filming it on their phones in the hopes the suffering of a stranger would make them go viral. But the influence of The Exorcist does go beyond the mass pukings and odd heart attack.

If you’ve never heard the term cinematic neurosis then welcome to your crash course.  It’s what a psychologist might call the phenomenon of a patient developing anxiety, dissociation and potentially psychotic symptoms because of a movie, requiring the intervention of a mental health professional to overcome.  There’s a study that mentions a case caused by Jaws, one by Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 5 separate incidents caused by The Exorcist because a pre-teen girl whose head spins is always slightly more disturbing than pod people and Richard Dreyfuss.

Patients affected by The Exorcist suffered insomnia, panic attacks, PTSD and more. One had dreams about the Devil with a dick in his mouth.  And sure, we all have dreams about the Devil or Elmer Fudd or whomever with a dick in their mouth sometimes, but this was to the point that the person needed psychotherapy to deal with it, so you can assume that was a hell of a devil dick.

Dracula and Eyes without a Face Caused Mass Faintings

To the best of my knowledge I have never fainted. Once I drank so much at a party in college that I woke up in the parking lot of a bagel deli next to an exceptionally large pool of drool, but I don’t think that’s the same thing. I can say for certain no horror movie has ever made me faint though, because of my robust constitution.  And maybe that’s a product of the times because back in the day, people were dropping like flies watching movies like Eyes Without a Face and Dracula.  

In 1928, Dracula starring Bela Lugosi was like if Hereditary and The Exorcist humped and had a baby with a remarkably distinct hairline. That shit scared the bejeezus out of people and in 1928, it was very hard to replace bejeezus. The San Francisco Chronicle talked about a nurse on hand with smelling salts to help handle an average of 14 faintings per night.  Now the movie-makers of 1928 weren’t above maybe hiring some people to engage in a little bullshittery to help hype a movie but there’s not any indication that these faintings were not legit either. In fact. Lugosi played Dracula on stage before playing the role on film, and 110 faintings were reported in the first week of the theater production.  His accent was that good.

In 1960, the French film Eyes Without a Face busted out a repeat performance of the Dracula phenomenon by making audience members buckle like belts thanks to one particular scene involving a face transplant which was a little much for 1960s sensibilities. It’s about 6 solid minutes of screentime featuring a doctor just cutting a face off and peeling it away like a goddamn banana.  You’d probably snicker at the effects today but back in 1960 people were all made of cotton candy and golly gosh so this probably hit people like a bag of grapefruits to the groin. Seven audience members fainted during the film’s showing at the Edinburgh Film Festival, and those were Scots, for God’s sake.  They eat haggis on purpose there.  

It’s worth noting that faintings not strictly limited to impressionable audiences of yesteryear, either.  Four audience members fainted during a showing of Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist in 2009, possible because they saw Willem Dafoe’s dong.  In 2016, EMS had to be called to a Toronto showing of Raw when a person fainted, because some people still aren’t down with cannibalism.

Ghostwatch Was the Worst Idea the BBC Ever Had

There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Ghostwatch as it originally aired on the BBC in 1992 and 1992 British TV was the entertainment equivalent of a bag of scones to the jimmies. All you need to know about the show is that it aired at 9 PM, it featured recognizable TV personalities (if you’re British) and it was filmed like a typical live broadcast investigative TV show.  If you’ve ever watched Live PD, the format would be very familiar - in studio host talking to people out on the scene.  The on-scene hosts were at a particular home alleged to be haunted, investigating the claims and more or less mocking the idea.  Or so it seemed!  

The show was presented as a real documentary like so many current ghost hunting shows are, but this was well before that era.  This was new, and early enough in the evening that families were watching it with the kids.  And remember, it was 1992 in Britain so you probably could either watch this or some guy painting cricket balls on TV that night.

As the show progressed, the tenor went from goofy “this is a bullshit waste of time” to something more menacing.  Calls from viewers, which were actually fake but no one knew that at the time, began to incorporate elements from the “real” haunting that was being presented on the show. People professed to have had similar experiences with a ghost knocking on their pipes and shit started going down on camera until the studio went full apocalyptic ghostsplosion.  One of the hosts gets dragged off and presumably ghost murdered and the studio lights explode as the main host gets possessed on camera and threatens to rain holy hell down on the viewing audience before the how cuts out.  Sounds kind of cool, right?  Well, the 30,000 people who called the BBC within an hour didn’t think so.  And that was the least of their problems.

11 million people watched Ghostwatch and it fucked them up royally.  It went from silly  to disturbing very quickly, however, when an 18-year old boy with some learning difficulties who watched the broadcast committed suicide days later.  His parents said he had been obsessed with the broadcast and believed the same ghost haunted their house.  He left a note saying that if ghosts are real, then he’ll be with them “always as a ghost.”