Angel of Chehalis

VERSE 1

In the city of burning crosses

We’ve suffered so many losses

In the town of blind-eye bosses

We were figuring out the causes

But you were the one constant

As I laid down watching for comets

Could you be the Angel of Chehalis?

Would stealing your kiss be tasteless?

CHORUS

You made me believe in love

When I gave up and had enough

You brought me out of the dark

Angel of Chehalis, take my heart

VERSE 2

You flew away in the dead of night

Deprived this city of your radiant light

I carried my burden with all my might

It’s my cross to bear, no love to share

I walked the earth, but saw no sign

Of the angel from the burning ley line

Are you still the Angel of Chehalis?

Or has this damn city left you jaded?

CHORUS

You made me believe in love

When I gave up and had enough

You brought me out of the dark

Angel of Chehalis, take my heart

VERSE 3

Finding heaven in the strangest places

Finding angels in the saddest faces

Finding the living in permanent stasis

Finding the dead lonely and wasted

In the city of burning crosses

I walk away and cut my losses

Until we meet again, Angel of Chehalis

Until this world is a photograph faded

EXTENDED CHORUS

You made me believe in love

When I gave up and had enough

You brought me out of the dark

Angel of Chehalis, take my heart

Take my body, take my soul

Take my mind, take total control

Fill the chasms and the black holes

Why must this memory take its toll?

Ancient Spirits of Evil

CHORUS
Ancient spirits of evil!
Souls of skeletal people!
This earth will not heal!
It’s all of theirs to steal!


VERSE 1
Death and decay is what they bring
To every hunk of land and living thing
In eternal pain and suffering we scream
Nightmare fuel for an innocent dream
Man, woman, child, it means nothing
To ancient spirits not known for loving
Lightning and shadows is their currency
The world is theirs for all damn eternity


CHORUS
Ancient spirits of evil!
Souls of skeletal people!
This earth will not heal!
It’s all of theirs to steal!


VERSE 2
They harvest the souls of those in power
Rain down on the poor with a fiery shower
Playing politics like it’s a game of D&D
Ripping the land from under you and me
This shit has continued for many centuries
Yet we look at each other like brutal enemies
What the fuck is happening to our dying world?
When will the ancient ones’ flags unfurl?


CHORUS
Ancient spirits of evil!
Souls of skeletal people!
This earth will not heal!
It’s all of theirs to steal!


VERSE 3
The ghosts of this earth will never rest
We constantly put this planet to the test
Smog, war, hunger, it’s all the same
This is what it takes to make us tame
Digging in the dumpster for a peach pit
Climbing to the top, you’ll never reach it
History teaches us that we never learn
Ancient spirits of evil watch us all burn


HOOK
This isn’t something you can teach at college
Nobody else gives a damn about knowledge
Wisdom has always been in short supply
We’re left to the vultures to feast and fly

Vote With a Flamethrower

VERSE 1
If you can’t stand the way this place is
Burn it down, douse the flames with piss
Mark the graves with a pile of ashes
Mark the living with fiery slashes


CHORUS
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Vote with fire!
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Pyrocratic justice!


VERSE 2
The glass ceiling is coming down on us
While the fortunate ones lick their lips with lust
Cash is worthless if it’s burning to pulp
Let’s torch this shit and get out of this cult


CHORUS
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Vote with fire!
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Pyrocratic justice!


VERSE 3
The apocalypse was a long time coming
There is no sense in turning and running
The rebel souls have fire in their hearts
They’d love nothing more than tearing shit apart
The rage was building up for hundreds of years
We tried to extinguish the fires with our tears
But in the very end, all ashes look the same
When they’re caught up in a whirlwind of flames


HOOK
Fear, hatred, zeal, and sorrow
There truly is no tomorrow
All they had to do was knock off the bullshit
Now all that’s left is a smoldering lava pit
Could things have really been different for us?
Depends on the voices we could actually trust
Insulting debates are no longer a must
The world we know is burning into dust!


EXTENDED CHORUS
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Vote with fire!
Vote with a flamethrower!
Vote! Vote!
Pyrocratic justice!
Vote with a flame thrower!
Vote! Vote!
Breathe in the smoke!
Vote with your heart’s desire!
Vote! Vote!
Watch the world catch on fire!

Born to Die

“Clear your mind. Let your thoughts flow from you like water. Be as still as the mountains.” India Malakar heard every peaceful mantra ever told by his martial arts masters. Even so, none of these calming chants could keep his blood from boiling or his mind from exploding. His fists were clenched with anger, his teeth bit down hard, and his eyes were full of emotional fire. He didn’t look like a serious monk at that point, but his teenaged years were evident in the lack of wisdom his pose showed.

Then again, since he was standing right outside the entrance of the Jackrabbit Marine Bar with drunken mercenaries laughing their asses off, it was hard to remain cool. These same mercenaries implanted thoughts in India’s brain of them burning his village to the ground while asking where the hell their protection money was. The Born To Die Mercenary Guild may have been protectors at one point, but money was their only creed and humanity was in short supply.

India tried to push the angry thoughts of violent retribution from his mind. He tried to forget the traumatic ghost that filled his thoughts with fiery huts, bloody corpses, and laughing soldiers. The harder he pushed them down, the stronger they came back up. A wiser monk would have made peace with even the closest memories of the past. India was barely out of high school and wisdom wasn’t his best feature. His fists, feet, elbows, and knees, on the other hand, looked like they were ready to do some ass kicking. The pissed off monk took a deep breath in and out (as if it would actually calm him down) and entered the bar without a second thought.

The Born To Die squadron was in full force at the Jackrabbit Marine Bar. With spike armored, camouflage clothed, and rifle-wielding mercenaries cheering her on, the leader of this pact, a giantess of a woman named Jill Henderson, was chugging a glass of beer that was so tall it came up to her waistline. Despite the ample volume of alcoholic liquid, Jill chugged it all like a dam busting open down her throat. The mercenaries cheered as she slammed the tall glass on the bar and ordered the bartender to pour her another one.

Except the bartender wasn’t focused on Jill Henderson’s drinking habits. He was focused on India Malakar’s rage and age. Everyone went silent and stared at the young monk when the horseshoe-pattern haired barkeep said, “Hey there, little guy. Are you sure you’re supposed to be in here? This place is for grownups, not for little kids. So take your skinny ass outside. We don’t want you here.”

Instead of doing as he was told, India shouted at the mercenaries in swear words that were from a foreign language. Nobody could make out what he was saying, so out of sheer ignorance, they laughed at his attempt at hurling insults.

Jill shoved her beer glass off the counter and let it crash to the floor (the bartender couldn’t give two shits about it). She slowly approached the tight-muscled, sash-wearing monk and leaned her massive frame down to his level. She then proceeded to insult India in her own made up racist language when she said, “Aso, aso, aso! Ching-chong teriyaki! Yuki-yuki sooki! Cawpet munchah!” Her “comedy” got a good laugh from her compatriots.

The one person who wasn’t amused was India, who threw a hard slap across Jill’s face with the mercenaries “oooing” in the background. Despite the loud impact, the slap didn’t even cause the seven-foot tall mercenary to flinch. She instead smiled her nearly toothless smile at the little kid and said, “Bitch, you’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Here, let me show you how it’s really done.”

In one brutal motion, Jill smacked India across his face so hard that the adolescent warrior was knocked over a table where a mercenary was sitting, who then proceeded to shove him onto the floor. The laughter was even louder and more obnoxious than before.

“Let your actions flow like the river,” said the sagely voice inside India’s head. “Let your enemies come to you. Seek justice, not vengeance. Choose peace over war.” With the kid lying face down on the floor while everyone is laughing at him, it was even harder to allow peaceful justice to take over his mind. This was a stupid idea. India was vastly outnumbered and much weaker than most of the people here.

He tried to crawl on his hands and knees out of the bar, but he felt a stiff boot come down hard on his spine, holding him still and causing him extreme pain at the same time. That boot no doubt belonged to Jill, who stared at the back of India’s head and said, “You ain’t got the balls, son!” The monk then felt beer washing over his pony tailed hair and suffocating him at the same time. And then more annoying laughter boomed over the bar.

Jill grabbed India by the scruff of his neck and threw him out onto the street with such force that he rolled several feet. “And stay out!” yelled the giantess warrior before getting back to her night of partying.

With India lying in a pile of garbage bags and newspapers, this would have been the perfect time to tap out and cry the night away. Wallowing in self pity and mourning the loss of his villagers and family seemed reasonable considering it was one versus all from the very beginning.

But then a strange feeling came over Mr. Malakar. The trash bags he was lying in happened to be stuffed full of shredded paper from an office building, which felt remotely like his own comfortable bed. This feeling of softness took him back to his childhood years when peace, love, and understanding were easier to achieve. Drinking his mother’s milk, playing around with his father, getting pushed in a wheelbarrow by his older brother…and then the feeling of harmony washed over him once more.

“Are you still here?” said a mocking female voice. India slowly opened his eyes to see Jill Henderson towering over him with her fists clenched and brows furrowed. The monk must have been passed out for hours, because the sun was now underneath the horizon and the moon and stars were out.

Despite the rude awakening, India still had that feeling of calm wash over him from sleeping in softness. His calmness would be tested once more when Jill pulled out the rifle that was slung over her shoulders and cocked it with the intention of finishing off the stalwart monk.

“You know something, my little Kung Pao chicken shit?” said Jill. “I haven’t had this much fun toying with someone in a long time. Usually when me and my men are out on a mission, we have to kill a whole bunch of moronic civilians before we have any fun burning shit to the ground. But now playtime has taken on a whole new meaning for me. Now that your pathetic villagers are rotting in the ground, I just have one question for you, little man. Where do you want me to shoot you: in the head or in the chest? Maybe I’ll blast your tiny dick off first.”

Jill expected that string of insults to rile up the little teenager. Instead he smiled the most beautiful smile his overly whitened teeth allowed. India said in a calm and cool voice, “You don’t understand, Miss Henderson. I don’t need vengeance. I need justice.” With one well-placed kick, he snapped Jill’s leg in half and caused her to accidentally fire her rifle in the air. The surprised mercenary dropped to the ground clutching her torn knee and screaming in agony.

India slowly picked himself up and dusted himself off. He looked around and saw that the other mercenaries in the Jackrabbit Marine Bar had gone home for the day. This couldn’t be more perfect. He picked up the rifle off the ground and said, “Only a coward would ever use one of these!” He broke the weapon over his own knee and discarded the remains in the pile of shredded paper where he was sleeping.

Jill’s broken leg was causing her to roar like a wounded bear. She tried to calm herself with quick raspy breaths, but they did nothing to ease the pain. They did allow her enough room to speak, though: “Go ahead! Kill me, you little prick! You got what you wanted! Now do it! Kill my ass!”

India leaned his face into his opponent’s and said, “You’re wrong, Jill. I don’t have what I want. Like I said, I want justice, not vengeance. Killing you would free you from your punishment of having to think about all of those innocent people you’ve murdered, many of them members of my family. I don’t want your life. I want your career and your thoughts!”

India made a peace sign with his first two fingers and then in one fluid motion ripped out both of Jill’s eyes. Her screams and howls were raised a few octaves as her sockets were bleeding profusely and her broken leg was still killing her. India took a look at the eyeballs in his hand with scorn and then squished them in the palm of his hand.

As soon as Jill was able to listen, India had only one thing to say to her: “Your career as a murderer for hire…is over!”

Flipped Off

A massive red pickup truck pulled in slowly in front of the rickety three-tier house on top of Claymore Hill. On the outside the house looked like it was used every Halloween to scare the shit out of little kids. Cobwebs, broken windows, loose doors, shoddy construction, basically this place looked like a nightmare to live in.

When Ivan Savage and his heavyset buddy Mickey Ryder got out of the truck dressed in blue jeans, stained white T-shirts, and black combat boots, that could have only meant one thing: it was time to go to work on this puppy.

Ivan ran his gloved hand through his messy brown hair and said, “This feels wrong. This feels very wrong.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mickey.

“What do you think I mean? Didn’t you hear on the news who this house used to belong to? Angelo Crockett. Not just any Angelo Crockett, but the same guy who used this house for a goddamn rape dungeon. He kept anywhere between twenty and thirty underage girls here. If I start talking about what he did to them, I’m going to vomit. We should just get back in the truck and get out of here.”

Mickey made a flat tire noise and said, “Dude, what did you expect? You bought this house sight unseen at a flea market. A flea market, for shit’s sake. Hell, there are probably a bunch of fleas living in there right now. But you know what? This is the kind of work we get paid to do. As flip men, we have certain obligations and though they may seem cruel and unusual, they do include flipping houses and getting them ready to be sold at a high price.”

“Hey, I have no illusions about what I do for a living. It’s just that this is the most disgusting assignment I’ve ever had to do.”

“You think I feel any better about it, Ivan? You think I condone what that bastard did to those kids? That’s why we owe it to those young girls to clean this place up. Trust me, buddy, by the time we’re finished, Angelo Crockett’s name will be long forgotten about. Let’s get inside and see what we’ve got to work with.”

Mickey waddled his fat ass up the stairs and into the house while Ivan shook his head and reluctantly trailed him inside. The outside and the urban legend surrounding this house was vomit-inducing enough. But the inside was a disaster. The floors were covered with blood, puke, and feces. The walls were covered in even more sickening bodily fluids. The kitchen was so caked in urine and dirt that eating anything from there would be certain death. The bathroom reeked so badly that stepping one foot could mean a gut-busting assault on the nose. The basement? Well, that was easily the most sickening part of the house since it was everything the above two tiers was multiplied by ten.

Despite the horrific condition of this lonely house, the stench of it all was something Ivan and Mickey were both used to. They were flip men after all and remodeled houses as bad as this all the time. In fact, Mickey was already on the attack when it came to his plans to fix this house up.

“Alright, so here’s what I’m thinking. The carpets and the linoleum both have to be ripped up from the ground. There’s no saving them. In their place will be wooden floors. We’ll have wooden floors all around the upper two tiers and even the staircase will be like that too. We’re also going to use wood paneling for the walls, which are going to be painted afterwards, probably in the neighborhood of greenish blue. The bathroom will be a different story; it’s going to have square tiles both on the floor and on the walls. The appliances will all have to go from the sinks to the oven to the refrigerator to the toilets to the tubs. We’re going to buy brand new appliances and put them in their respective places. The cupboards are also going to have to be replaced with new wood. And finally, those light fixtures above us are going to have to be replaced with ceiling fans. You think we can do all of this, Ivan?”

Ivan gave his friend an “Are you kidding me?” look and said, “That’s all fine and good, but did you forget that this place used to be a goddamn rape dungeon for small children?!”

If either flip man needed a reminder of that, all they had to do was look on the kitchen floor next to the burned out stove. Ivan knelt down and picked up what appeared to be a porn magazine. He dusted off the cover and gagged when he saw what the book was titled: “Sexy Teenagers Weekly”.

“I’m going to be sick! I’m going to be sick! I’m going to be sick!” Ivan kept saying to himself as he dropped the magazine, ran out the front door, and retched all over the lawn. He shook hard as he tasted his McDonald’s breakfast sandwich from earlier that day. His decade-long experience of being a flip man didn’t prepare him for this.

“I’m going to go ahead and survey the basement. You can feel free to join me once you’re done throwing up,” yelled Mickey from the inside. Ivan was huffing and puffing while struggling to make it to his feet. As soon as he wiped the vomit from his mouth, he heard his construction buddy let out a blood-curdling scream followed by the sounds of fire and shredding.

Ivan slowly turned his head around and said, “Oh dear lord, no…Mickey!” He bolted inside and visited all of the rooms in the house in search of his friend. No sign of him. The one place he hadn’t looked was the basement aka Satan’s port-a-potty. Ivan swallowed a glob of barf-flavored saliva and shakily ventured down the stairs into the dark basement.

He struggled to find a light switch, but eventually found one at the bottom of the world’s longest stairs. He flipped it on and saw the ashen and shredded remains of what was once his best friend Mickey Ryder. “What the fuck?!” yelled Ivan as he rushed to the middle of the dingy basement to check on his friend. Once on his knees, tears formed in Ivan Savage’s eyes.

His sadness would be blended with fear when he heard the whispers of small children all around him. There they were: the ones responsible for the soul-stealing death of Mickey Ryder. They were the ashen souls of the thirty raped girls, who were forming a large circle around Ivan by holding hands and dancing around him.

“Please!” begged Ivan. “Please let me out of here! I never wanted to be here in the first place! I don’t even want to be a flip man anymore!”

In demonic, unified voices, the ghosts of the girls said, “Your friend had to pay the price! He wanted to use our deaths as a way to make money! He wanted to exploit us just like Master Angelo did!”

Disturbed by the fact that these girls just called their rapist “Master Angelo”, more tears formed in Ivan’s eyes when he said, “Listen…that man will never hurt you or anyone else again. He’s behind bars and he’ll never get out. He’s probably being stabbed to death in the showers right now.”

The ghosts said, “As well he should be! But that doesn’t solve the problem of you, my friend. You came here for the same reason as that giant sack of protoplasm over there. You wanted to exploit us for some easy cash! We’re not going to let you nor anyone else get away with that!”

“Please! You have to believe me! I wanted no part of this! I’ll do whatever you girls want! Anything you want!”

“…Anything?”

“Anything you want! Name it and it’s yours!”

The ghosts stroked their chins in mock contemplation before dancing around in a circle again and closing in on Ivan, who was curled in a little ball waiting to be murdered. But then the girls picked him up off the ground and made their conditions known. “You want to live, money man? Then you set us free right now. You will not flip this house. You will instead burn it to the ground. No one shall make money off of us again! Nobody! Do you understand?!”

“I…I…I…” Ivan swallowed hard. “I have a gas can and some matches in my truck. As soon as you girls let me go, I’m burning this place to the ground. Just like we promised.”

The next time the girls danced, it was in a celebratory ballet style. They hugged each other and spun around in happiness while Ivan ran past them, up the stairs, and out to his truck to do what he promised.

He scrambled in the back of the pickup truck for that gasoline. He panicked when he almost didn’t find it, but there it was buried underneath the lumber. The matches he got from the glove box. Ivan took a few deep breaths and steadied his nerves before slowly approaching this former rape dungeon to do what he wanted to do all along. He splashed some gasoline on the walls, lit a match, and watched the fire consume the entire house.

Before the fire could get too out of hand, Ivan hopped in the truck and drove away in a hurry, easily doing 80 miles per hour. Sooner or later, someone would call the fire department and the rape dungeon would be nothing more than cooling ashes. Knowing it was all over gave Ivan a sense of relief, therefore he slowed down his driving speed and breathed a sigh of relief. All he needed to do at that point was come up with a little white lie to tell his superiors when they ask him about what happened to both the house and Mickey Ryder.