Scotty's Got a Gun

VERSE 1
All the talent in the world couldn’t save his sorry ass
When his sanity and dreams shattered like church glass
Beautiful colors scattered across the wooden floor
Heart of gold tainted and rotten to its frozen core
All the needles and bottles couldn’t erase his pain
All the nights of incest drove him bat shit insane
Calling it love doesn’t change the simple fact
That Scotty’s revolver is about to click-clack

CHORUS
Scotty’s got a gun! X4

VERSE 2
There’re only two choices for the rapist in his bed
Shoot a bullet in her chest or a bullet in her head
Give her one last chance to confess her mortal sins
But she says a prayer like God will actually let her in

CHORUS
Scotty’s got a gun! X4

VERSE 3
No one ever believed a word of Scotty’s story
Except for the parts that were intentionally gory
Matricide is the buzzword that makes the paper
To give that bold headline some extra spicy flavor
A villain to a world that never gave a goddamn
If it didn’t happen young, it would’ve happened as a man
There’s no such thing as a happily ever after
When the whole universe needs some laughter

EXTENDED CHORUS
Scotty’s got one left in the chamber
Scotty’s got some residual anger
Scotty’s got some scorpion venom
Which one of you fuckers wants to go to heaven?!
Scotty’s got a gun! X4

Come With Me

Grayson Joseph scanned his ticket at the arena entrance and felt everything as soon as he entered. Every drunken laugh. Every aggressive conversation. Every playful shove. While none of these actions were directed towards him, they all rented space in his mind, swirling in his nervous system at a million miles an hour. He tucked his head as he made his way to the general admission pit in a vain effort to make himself invisible. Were these people casting off their stones at him? No matter how many times Grayson told himself otherwise, his mind would feed him more lies and more psychosis.

Once he found his position in the pit, Grayson kept his head tucked and his eyes averted. For all he knew, he could have been the most noticeable person in the crowd. His skinny build, greasy blond hair, oversized Linkin Park T-shirt, and baggy green khakis would have ordinarily helped him blend into the concert environment, but his mind shoveled more self-hatred and lies into his system. Grayson held his stomach and let out a small burp as his knees grew weaker. He wished Halestorm would just get onstage already and close out this social experiment. He sarcastically thanked his mother for the concert tickets in an effort to further kick himself for his “weakness”.

After a while of socially anxious thoughts and tingles, the lights went out in the arena and the audience cheered their heads off. They clapped, chanted, and roared in anticipation of Halestorm taking the stage. Grayson tried to let out a cheer of his own, but all that came out was a small pop in his throat. This social experiment was not working. Although, he cheered up a little when Lzzy Hale and company took center stage. The band greeted their audience with one of their classics, “American Boys”.

The shredding guitars and Lzzy’s raucous voice helped put Grayson at ease. He found himself bouncing his head up and down to the tune. He relaxed some more and bounced around harder. The more he enjoyed himself, the less judgmental he found the eyes of his fellow audience members. He could take on the world. He could take on an army of moshers. The demons of hell could drag him to the underworld and he’d still be having a night of fun.

But that was only because his confidence went largely unchallenged. The intense fright jolted his system once again when a soft, long-nailed hand brushed across his shoulders. Grayson soon found his hands tenderly gripped by those of an attractive female, dressed in her heavy metal best with the black leather skirt, gothic boots, and pink halter top. Her dyed blue hair and cherry-colored lips completed her seductive look. Grayson didn’t know whether to admire this woman’s beauty or be terrified of her, so he silently took both roads.

The temptress danced in Grayson’s arms, twirling around, dipping backwards, swinging to the left, and swinging to the right. He didn’t reciprocate one single dance move, instead opting to freeze in fear despite the woman’s coaxing. She danced with him some more and Grayson had a knot in his intestines the size of a medicine ball. He also had a tingling sensation in his penis and testicles, so he scrunched his legs together to hide a potential involuntary boner.

What started off as an innocent dance turned dirty in a swift minute when the seductress slowly grinded her butt against Grayson’s groin. His vision grew blurry as he detected several smiles and camera phones lighting up around him. He remained frozen with fear. What was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to like the attention? Was he supposed to pull away? Why him? Why not more attractive men?

As the questions pooled in his racing mind, the tingling sensation in his groin reached its fever pitch. Sticky liquids crashed against his pants and oozed down his legs, causing his dance partner to jump backwards and cover her mouth in disbelief. Grayson looked down at his pants in an effort to avoid the judgmental stares, but all he got was another reminder to do his laundry the next day. His pants were soaked in his own sexual fluids. Were the people around him laughing or was that his mind playing tricks on him? Were people recording him on their phones or were they recording Lzzy Hale? Grayson touched his pants and wiped his hands on his Linkin Park shirt. He was that drenched and that embarrassed.

“How could you?” he mouthed to the dumbfounded dance partner before running out of the arena as fast as he could. His legs were weak from the orgasm, yet they took him far out of sight. They created distance between himself and the judgmental eyes and laughing voices. He didn’t notice security personnel asking him if he was okay. His tunnel vision took him out of the arena and down the streets of Paulson City, where the ferry terminal was waiting for him.

Grayson’s lungs burned like acid. His chest and ribcage didn’t expand far enough for his comfort. His eyes grew wetter than his pants. His breath intensified into a whirlwind of exhaustion. Yet he continued to run down the street. Neither the psychotic homeless people nor the laughing street thugs could slow him down. His legs matched the speed of his racing mind. Even with his skinny body, he should have had a heart attack with the pace he was going.

When he made it to the terminal, that’s when the acidic feeling in his torso and the numbness of his mind took over. He doubled over and sucked down enough wind for a marathon sprint. His breaths were raspy and squeaky, which drew the attention of the terminal personnel right away. Did they too have judgmental eyes? Did they see him only for his messy pants and not his messy mind? Grayson took a seat at a nearby bench and huddled over to further catch his breath.

“Sir, are you okay?” said a fellow terminal worker decked out in an orange vest and blue uniform. No response. “Sir?” Grayson lifted his head. “Are you okay?”

With a shaky voice, a pink face, and teary eyes, Grayson lied when he said, “Yeah, I’m fine. I just…Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Do you need a glass of water or anything like that? I can get you one if you want.”

“Nah, that’s okay. I’ll be alright. I swear.”

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Sure.”

As soon as the worker walked away, Grayson was truly left alone with his paranoid thoughts. The confusion between arousal and terror. The dangerous beauty. The seduction that led him to his downfall, not unlike the sirens he read about in horror and fantasy books. “Why me?” he asked himself. “Why not somebody else.” Grayson wiped away a lonely tear and for the first time noticed how badly his hands and legs were shaking. “I look awful…I am awful…”

These thoughts pounded in his head like Arejay Hale’s drum kit, a sound he couldn’t listen to ever again without being reminded of his molestation. No more Halestorm. No more rock and roll. Worst of all, no more rock concerts. “I should have just stayed home and read more fantasy novels.”

“What was that?” said a nearby worker.

“Nothing.”

Grayson spent so long in the psychotic doldrums that he just then noticed a large crowd of former concertgoers filing into the ferry station. They wore T-shirts of their favorite bands and smiles on their intimidating faces. Did these people record his humiliation and post it online? Did these people want to judge him some more? Did these people find comedy in his pain? He could feel it all as they walked past him. Some looked down at his khakis in disgust, others in pity.

A gentleman in a Metallica T-shirt and short brown hair approached Grayson and the latter could feel his stomach aching and twisting yet again. The man asked, “Do you know that chick?”

“No…I have no idea who she is.” Grayson’s eyes couldn’t even meet this stranger’s face.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. After you ran out of the building, the security tossed her out on the streets. They weren’t having any of it. Lzzy was pissed too.”

That didn’t bring him any comfort. It just made Grayson tuck his head further into himself. “I’m so fucking embarrassed right now.”

“You’re embarrassed?”

“Yeah…I don’t even want to get on the ferry with these people…I want to go home and get changed, but…”

“Want a glass of water?”

Grayson smiled sadly and joked, “Do you have a cyanide pill I can swallow with it?”

Waving his hand, the stranger said, “Nah, don’t do that shit. It ain’t worth it. Yeah, there were some jackasses laughing, but it ain’t everyone. Come on, the ferry’s going to be here soon.”

The stranger extended his hand and Grayson allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. The latter said, “I didn’t even buy a ticket yet. I should probably do that.”

“Nah, you don’t have to buy squat. It’s Earth Day. Public transportation is free. Did you already forget today was Earth Day?”

“Trust me, I won’t be able to forget today no matter how hard I try.” The two of them boarded the ferry together amongst the crowd of metal-heads. Grayson almost thought of this kind stranger as a shield from the terrifying eyes and lit phone screens around him. “How come you’re not laughing at me right now?”

“Because that shit ain’t funny,” said the stranger. “It wasn’t funny when it happened to Chester Bennington, may he rest in peace, and it wasn’t funny when it happened to you. I see you got the shirt on. Nice! I’m Steve, by the way.”

“Grayson. Nice to meet you.”

The two of them shook hands, though Grayson worried that he got sticky stuff on Steve’s palm. Steve said, “We’re metal heads. We got to look out for each other. We’re one big family.”

“I just hope the guys on Rock Feed and Loudwire’s You Tube videos feel the same way when they see what happened to me.”

“It’s the internet. There’re going to be a few assholes here and there. But you know who’s not going to be ashamed of you? The guys in Halestorm. They don’t think that shit’s funny either.”

“That’s wonderful, but I don’t think I can listen to a Halestorm song again without thinking of…you know…” said Grayson referencing his stained trousers.

“I wouldn’t give up on rock and roll so easily if I were you. It’s brought you peace and comfort this far into your life. It might save your life again. Think about that for a minute.” Steve patted Grayson on the back before heading off to the ferry’s bathroom.

Grayson would take him up on thinking about that. He did so in a faraway corner of the ship where the shadows covered him up from the masses. “What a night,” he said as he sat down huddled over, his mind still racing. How long would it take for his mind to slow down? How many laundry cycles would it take to get the splooge out of his pants and underwear? Would the femme fatale be arrested for her actions or would Grayson become a laughing stock to the police too? The only reason his mind stopped asking so many damn questions was because he fell asleep in his chair. A temporary vacation was just what he needed. He could think about it tomorrow. But tonight, it was all over…at least for now.

Dark Skills

“Tonight, tonight, tonight, hot damn tonight!” chuckled Matt Singleton while he was playing pocket pool in the empty streets. The closer he treaded towards Michelle Woods’ apartment, the harder he masturbated. With a jacket hood over his face, baggy sweat pants to mask his perverted activity, and not a cop or security camera in sight, he could easily get in and out, both literally and figuratively.

He ascended the stairs to Michelle’s apartment and overheard the sounds of a motor running coinciding with a feminine black voice’s cries of pain. Matt stroked himself even harder and got a sadistic, bloodthirsty grin on his face. The feminine voice’s screams were reduced to M noises and Matt’s smile widened to Cheshire Cat levels of terror. “I had no idea she was into that!” he chuckled to himself.

When he saw that the door to Michelle’s apartment was slightly ajar, his quarter moon grin flattened as did his perpetual hard-on. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said while pulling a hatchet out of his coat pocket. Knowing nobody was coming to save his newest victim, Matt kicked the door open and pulled back his hood to reveal disheveled blond hair and missing teeth. “I don’t believe this shit.”

Matt Singleton’s twisted imagination was justified, but not in the way he had hoped. Rather than screams of pornographic pleasure, Michelle’s pain was as permanent as the tattoo being etched into her lower back. Carl Howard had once again beat Matt to the punch and stuck his nose (among other things) where it didn’t belong. The chubby biker decked out in black leather was the one writing “Dark Skills” into Michelle’s skin while the sobbing victim was bent over the couch with a rag in her mouth.

“Carl!” whined Matt for a prolonged period of time. “How many times do I have to tell you to mind your own damn business and get your own kills?! I saw Michelle first! I actually did my homework on this bitch!”

Carl tossed the tattoo pen aside and hissed, “Homework? As in taking photos of her through the window like a fucking stalker? That’s not homework. That’s just you being too much of a pussy to talk to women yourself. Michelle and I are already on a first name basis. Isn’t that right, baby girl?” The last sentence was punctuated by Carl lightly slapping Michelle on her pink panty-wearing ass, to which she gave another muffled cry.

“Good job, dumb-ass!” said Matt while mockingly applauding with the hatchet in his hand. “She could have called the police any time and had you arrested! You stick out like a nun at a porn convention, my friend. You think intimidating her is going to be enough to keep her quiet?”

“Nah, but the rag in her mouth is,” said Carl as he once again tapped Michelle’s ass. “Besides, if you actually had a brain in that busted up skull of yours, you’d know how important mind games are. She ain’t going to tell anybody. Are you, baby girl?” Once Michelle shook her head, she got another slap, but this time on the thighs.

Matt shook his own head and snickered, “So this is where our conversations always go, isn’t it? You always steal my victims and then you justify it with some bullshit excuse. I know this comes as a surprise to you, but I haven’t gotten laid in a while, buddy. I’ve been picking out victims left and right…” He tiptoed up to Michelle and stroked her long hair with the yellow streak. “But there’s nobody quite like her. She’s got the beauty. She’s got the brains. Hell, up until I kicked open the door, I thought she was getting ready for some kinky shit. And then you show up, Carl…you, the hard-on assassinator. I’m sick and tired of this shit, Carl. I need my fix!”

“You want your fix?” asked Carl as he shoved Michelle to the floor. “You want to get laid? Shit, man, all you had to do was ask. But I’m not the one you should be asking. Why don’t you ask that uncle of yours to bend you over some more? You see, Matt…I do my homework too. You’ve pissed me off so many times that I actually took pride in my studies. That uncle of yours…he did some things to you, didn’t he? Things that involved you having a permanent case of diarrhea, if you know what I mean. Congratulations, Matty-Boy: you’re a walking commercial for Huggies diapers!”

As Carl hyena laughed at Matt’s miserable past, Matt himself clutched his skull and rocked back and forth while fighting the traumatic memory. He could feel the dirty, pus-filled limb going in and out of him. He remembered how his “permanent case of diarrhea” mixed with chunks of blood and splooge. The rancid smell of Uncle Singleton’s crotch. The bloodbath sewage smell of his own dumps. They all came flooding back to him like a tidal wave of life juices washing over his once young and innocent face. Carl’s laughter made those thoughts rush even faster around his explosive mind.

“Shut the fuck up, you fat piece of shit!” roared Matt before jumping across the couch and attempting to slice open Carl’s head like a watermelon. The chubby biker grabbed his assailant’s wrist to prevent the blow, but the two of them wrestled to the floor anyways. As Michelle screamed through her gag on the floor with them, the two serial killers struggled to push the hatched blade to each other’s faces. Carl, being the stronger of the two, was able to inch it towards Matt’s face and peel of a layer of his cheek.

Licking the blood off of Matt’s face, Carl said, “Is this what you wanted, lover boy? Is this the Freudian excuse you were looking for?”

Matt head butted Carl in his thick skull and bust his own forehead open more than he did his opponent’s. Matt’s horny smile suggested a lack of fucks given. He head butted Carl again. And again. And again. Blood washed over Matt’s face in an unholy baptism while Carl’s own forehead formed a tiny rip. “I could do this all day, motherfucker!” chimed Matt. “My fucked up mind is feeling pretty good right now. A little dizziness is good for psychological trauma.”

Carl managed to rip the hatchet out of Matt’s hands and stand over his opponent like a barbarian over a rotten carcass. “Don’t worry, you little pansy. Close those pretty blue eyes of yours. Here comes a lovely little lullaby for an anxious child!” Carl raised the blade over his head and brought it down with brutal force. Any shot that powerful would have decapitated not only an elephant, but the entire jungle kingdom.

But not Matt Singleton. In his blood-drenched dizziness, he found the tattoo pen and jabbed it in Carl Howard’s eye, while the hatchet was only centimeters away from Matt’s nose. Matt ripped out a chunk of brain from Carl’s skull and the chubby killer plopped backwards on the floor, spilling his blood all over the shag carpet. Matt’s head continued to gush like a geyser of violence, spilling his own juices over the floor as he sat up to face a trembling Michelle, who spit out the gag a long time ago.

Not even the silky pink underwear on a beautiful black body could revitalize Matt’s horny attitude. He stood up and wobbled on his way over to the victim he worked so hard to claim. “You think this is funny, Michelle?” he asked as blood oozed onto her lap.

Michelle shook her head and sobbed, “No, there’s nothing funny about it. Please let me go!”

“Sure, no problem,” said Matt as he spit a glob of red juice onto the couch. “I’ll just let you skedaddle out the front door like nothing happened. Go on. Leave. I’ve got no use for you now that my hard-on’s not coming back anytime soon.”

“Sorry for your loss,” stuttered Michelle as she slowly stood up to try and exit.

Matt grabbed a hold of her hair and yanked her back to the floor. “What did you say about my loss? Huh? You trying to be a comedian? You think rape is funny?! You think this is all just some Freudian bullshit?!” he yelled while Michelle sobbed loudly. “There are things in this life worse than death! If I could die right now, I’d be one smiling motherfucker! But you, Michelle…you don’t deserve to get off that easy. I came here tonight and had old wounds reopened, bloody forehead aside. Now I’m going to leave you with something more permanent than an uncle’s dirty dick!”

Matt retrieved the tattoo pen and cleaned the blood off of it with his jacket. He then threw it to the side and said, “You know what? Tattoos are for pussies! They can be lasered off for a few hundred bucks! But a hatched job…that’s something that truly lasts forever!”

The killer retrieved the blade, grabbed Michelle by her hair, and bent her over the couch kicking and screaming. “Shut up!” he belted while reading the tattoo job on her lower back. “Dark Skills, my ass! Carl ain’t got shit for skills! Let me show you what the real mark of the beast looks like!”

Slowly and painfully, Matt Singleton carved the number 666 into Michelle’s lower back, completely erasing the tattoo job from earlier with permanent scars and a river of blood.  The viscous mess gave Matt a rush of adrenaline that not only sped up the bleeding in his own forehead, but also the blood flowing into a part of his body he was sure he’d never use again. It stood up proudly. It beamed with life. Matt could smile again. Then the killer blacked out from the blood loss and fell on his ass, dying with a smile on his face and a hard-on in his sweatpants once again. Michelle Woods was alive and kicking, but Matt Singleton took her soul to the grave with him anyways.

Shadow-Pie

For Lance Bradley, driving out to the Ophidian Valley Desert was the longest journey he had ever embarked on. It had nothing to do with how much gas his white Honda used to get there. It had everything to do with his mind racing even faster than his vehicle. With his father’s ashes in a golden urn in the back seat, why wouldn’t his mind be racing at a hundred miles per hour. His pale face hadn’t seen a smile since the day his father passed. His pony tailed brown hair was a disheveled mess. His black rimmed glasses did a piss poor job of blurring out the tears forming in his eyes.

It was a thirty minute drive to the desert with a lifetime of sorrowful thoughts and heartache to go with it. When he parked by the side of the road, he shook and staggered his way to the back seat to get his father’s ashes. Stepping out into the desert sand was even more of a chore for his aching body. Who knew depression could hurt so badly in more places than just the mind. After a while of dragging his heavy feet, Lance finally dropped to his knees and let the urn crash onto the ground, though the soft sand kept the golden container from breaking. The tears were coming much more rapidly and his face was turning beet red.

“You must be Lance Bradley,” said a sagely voice. The grieving son picked his burdensome head up and saw that an elderly black dog with hints of gray fur and an Indian head dress was the source of that voice. Lance had the urge to go over and give her endless belly rubs and ear scratches. Hearing her actually form words with her dog muzzle made him reconsider. This wasn’t an ordinary animal. This was the shaman of the Ophidian Valley Desert, Shadow-Pie.

The sagely dog went on to say, “My condolences for your loss, Mr. Bradley. I’m sure he was very special to you.” The pawl bearer cringed and shivered as he stood up with the golden urn in hand. Shadow tilted her head to the side and asked, “Did I say something offensive?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that…well…I wasn’t expecting a dog to carry out this ritual. No offense,” said Lance without making eye contact with Shadow.

“None taken, my child. I get that kind of reaction no matter who comes out here. That golden urn of yours. Bring it here so that I may perform the ritual. I take it you don’t want to spend the whole day out here. Let’s get this done so that you can go home and rest,” suggested Shadow.

Lance stumbled over to the talking dog with the urn clutched to his chest like a child’s teddy bear. Something was bothering him other than the fact that his father was dead. Not even a wise being like Shadow could make out what it was. The pawl bearer set the urn down in front of the sweet-hearted beast and unscrewed the lid.

“Are you absolutely sure you’re okay, Mr. Bradley? Is it just grief from the loss of your father or is it something else?” asked Shadow.

An agitated Lance said, “I told you, Shadow, everything is fine!”

The elderly dog barked at her charge and said in a stern voice, “That’s not the way you talk to a shaman, young man. I was merely trying to figure out if everything was okay. You don’t need to take your aggression out on an animal spirit like me!”

Lance stuffed his hands in his tan khaki pockets, looked down at his feet sheepishly, and said, “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“If it means so much to you, then we can discuss this later. Until then, I have a ritual to perform. Stand as far back as you can, because the air is about to get dusty. Wouldn’t want a fine young man like you to have a sore throat,” said Shadow.

After the grieving son stepped backwards as he was told, Shadow stuck her snout into the urn and breathed in the ashes deep within her system. A few more deep breaths later and the ritual was underway, which consisted of her blowing the ashes out into the desert in the form of a high speed wind. The black cloud eventually turned green. The high winds became even more powerful. Spiritual chanting could be heard from Shadow’s throat as she simultaneously blew the ashes.

The green smoke began to form a dark circle around Shadow and Lance, making the latter of the two shiver and dart his eyes from side to side. If he wasn’t scared before, he was now that the shaman dog’s eyes were dark red and her currently razor sharp teeth were trembling in anger.

Lance tried to talk down the normally friendly dog by saying, “Good girl. She’s a good girl. Would you like a belly rub?” The possessed Shadow barked angrily at her charge and growled at him with white spittle running down her jowls. “Okay, um…how about some beef jerky! I have a whole bag of it in my car!”

The diplomacy of the dead man’s son was unconvincing to the ferocious beast as she leapt through the air and landed on Lance’s chest, pinning him down and barking relentlessly in his screaming face. Lance stopped screaming for a moment when Shadow spoke to him in his father’s gruff voice: “It’s about time you dragged me out here, little boy. There’s nobody around here to save you this time. No cops. No social workers. Not even your clueless mother! I’m going to enjoy every single bit of this torture I have planned for you. The first thing I’m going to do is bite off each of your little fingers one at a time!”

As Shadow slowly went for the first bite, Lance’s pants-pissing fear was replaced with a berserker’s courage. “Screw you, Dad!” he yelled as he landed a palm strike on the possessed dog’s nose. Shadow stumbled backwards long enough for Lance to stand up and put his dukes up.

But this wasn’t going to be an epic fight to the death. A dog’s nose was the most sensitive part of the beast’s body. Instead of charging at the dead man’s son with bloodlust, Shadow began to suck in air quickly before sneezing a hurricane of green spiritual energy. Lance was blown backwards into his car, where the back of his head bounced off of the hood and knocked him temporarily unconscious. As his vision was going black, all he could see was the green energy of his dead father cursing at him with venom in his voice.

It felt like an entire year had passed since this incident took place, but only because Lance Bradley had a monstrous headache as he awakened from his TKO at the hands of Shadow. The sky was a dark blue and the golden sun was setting underneath the horizon. Just exactly how much time did pass? Lance didn’t care. He rubbed the back of his sore head as he was coming around. He had a little bit of a bump there, but nothing more.

Shadow seemed a bit wobbly herself as she waddled over to her client, who sat against his car door with his butt on the desert ground. Shadow also seemed a little upset with Lance as she stared into his eyes with a little bit of a furrow in her brows. “Is there something you’d like to tell me, Mr. Bradley? Is there a reason why the spirit of your ‘loving’ father caused me to nearly kill both of us? I want answers, Lance. I want them now!”

“I can’t talk about it, Shadow. I just can’t,” said a whimpering Lance.

“Listen to me, son,” said the sagely dog. “You came all the way out to this desert for a reason. Someone obviously sent you out here to carry out your father’s final wishes. But your father’s final wishes weren’t necessarily yours, were they, Lance? You don’t have to give me all the details of your father’s sins, but maybe a surface-level description would satisfy me. I need to know why I transformed into that horrible beast.”

A teary silence befell Lance before he finally mustered up the strength to say, “I was…I was…”

“You were what? Don’t run away from your past, my dear. Face it head on and create a better future. You were almost denied that future when I inhaled your father’s spirit. Are you going to let him do this to you from beyond the grave?” said Shadow.

After taking a few deep breaths, Lance Bradley spilled the beans on his father’s transgressions. “I was only eight years old. You don’t make an eight year old do those things. You don’t make him taste those tastes. You don’t make him feel embarrassed like that. You don’t touch your own son that way!” The last sentence was shouted with all of Lance’s pent up frustrations. The tears were pouring like rain at this point.

“Do you feel that?” asked Shadow. “Inside each of those tears is the spiritual energy of your past agony. They’ve stayed within you for so long. You were afraid to let them out for fear of reliving those days. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to live those days anymore, my son. The truth set you free. You set your father’s soul free. And I am right here beside you. I always will be. Dogs like me were put on this earth to give comfort to those who need it. I am giving all of my comfort to you. Keep those floodgates open and learn to love again.”

Shadow nuzzled her soft head against Lance’s chest while the sobbing son wrapped his trembling arms around his new doggie. “Your fur is so soft. I could pet you all day long. Is it okay if I pet you?” asked Lance.

“You don’t have to ask me, my child. You can pet me for as long as you want to. Take your time and don’t let up until you’re ready to hit the road again,” said the loving Shadow-Pie.

The petting session, the flowing tears, and the heartache of it all lasted for hours that night. The sun had gone to sleep for the day and the full moon glowed brightly for the sagely animal and her new owner Lance. Peace and tranquility had come to Ophidian Valley once more.

Sonya Jade

NAME: Sonya Jade
AGE: 18
OCCUPATION: Student
CANON: Beauty and the Barbarian


As humans looking for a loving companion, we owe it to ourselves and our partners to find a balance between romance and shallowness. We all have shallow instincts whether we want financial stability or physical beauty from our significant other. And then you have a woman like Sonya Jade, who recently got “fired” from a short story that was included in the now defunct anthology Dragon Machinegun, “Beauty and the Barbarian”. Her claim to fame would have been the fantasy genre’s most shallow woman if she actually rose to that level of notoriety.

Sonya was the beauty, obviously, and the barbarian was a super handsome gentleman named Ogre Bladefist. Sonya found herself in trouble no matter where she went. She was almost molested by a group of goblins after leaving a tavern drunk as a skunk. She was also bloodily spanked by a group of teachers and schoolmasters at a religious college. Who would rescue her from both of these brutal assaults? Ogre, no less. In addition to being easy on the eyes, he was also a vicious fighter who shattered bones with the laziest of efforts. A muscle-bound stud with ponytail hair and overly protective fighting skills? Cha-ching! Sonya scored big time!

Sonya would have spent the rest of the night in bed pleasuring herself if it hadn’t been for Ogre sneaking into her cottage and…(clears throat)…”giving her a hand with that”. The orgasm of the century was on the horizon until a bitchy old witch named Rose Lovelace tracked Ogre down and turned him into the most hideous monster she could think of. Brown razor teeth, shit-covered fur, constant green drool…basically, all of the things in a monster that gave Sonya nightmares and nausea fits. Could she still love her man after all of this?

Therein lies the question of the day. If she was really the deep thinking, three-dimensional character we all want to get behind (in more ways than sodomy), then she would have stayed with Ogre until the very end. But she didn’t. She immediately demanded that her man sneak into Rose Lovelace’s castle and abscond a cure for his ugliness. After an uphill battle with the nearly indestructible Rose, Ogre found the cure, but chose not to stay with Sonya after she showed her true colors. To be honest, I couldn’t blame him for the choice he made and my readers probably couldn’t either.

So there you have it: a harsh way of telling my audience to choose everlasting love and a beautiful soul over something as temporary as good looks and an oversized bank account. As someone with a round tummy and no employment history, I’ve been preaching this message for a long, long time. Am I biased? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean the message can’t have any meaning. Unfortunately, due to the piss-poor writing style I used to write “Beauty and the Barbarian”, it never saw the fame and fortune it could have potentially had.

Besides, what could I truly do with a woman like Sonya Jade? Her shallow point of view doesn’t make her very sympathetic. But her beauty could be an asset to someone for reasons other than animalistic sex. She has long purple hair, milky white skin, rose red lips, and irises that live up to her last name. That, and she happens to be a passionate lover. I could see Sonya Jade being a seductive rogue character in a D&D campaign. She could use her beauty and passion to make men (and lesbian women) fall in love with her while Sonya steals their riches right from under their noses.

And then to really make her three-dimensional, she could donate her treasure to a worthy cause such as protecting animals from being abused or giving shelter to rape victims who want to run away from their own abusers. As my lovely beta reader Marie Krepps once said, “Talk dirty to me!” Of course, she wasn’t trying to come on to me; she was merely suggesting that my ideas were good. I hope she likes this idea as well!

　

***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“There are millions of fine-looking women in the world. They won’t all bring you lasagna at work. Most of them will just cheat on you.”

-Silent Bob from “Clerks”-

Scary Nonfiction

Expanding my repertoire beyond the Carl Hiaasen thrillers and the Lilian Jackson Braun mysteries is something I should probably be doing when book shopping. Having said that, there are also certain books on the market that I simply will not touch. It’s not because I don’t support the authors, it’s because their stories would disturb me for days. Maybe even weeks or months. Imagine that: a guy who promotes violence in his fiction is complaining about books being too disturbing. In this case, the books I’m talking about are what I like to call “scary nonfiction”. It’s bad enough that they’re riddled with child molestation, false imprisonment, beatings, rapes, and a general lack of justice. They also have to be true stories. That makes them even more gag-worthy. Now that all of my worst fears are on the table, it’s time to cite two examples of scary nonfiction that come to mind: “Waiting To Be Heard” by Amanda Knox and “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard. Both of these books involve news stories that pissed me off to no end. I would always go for my morning walks with stomps instead of strides, my teeth would be constantly clinched, and my eyebrows shot downward into steep inclines. That’s how mad I was about these stories. In case you’re in the dark, let me refresh your memory. With Amanda Knox, she went over to Italy to study and was falsely accused of murder and sentenced to life in prison. It’s bad enough that they discriminated against her American heritage, but the abusive cop interrogating her was suing her and her parents for slander when Miss Knox claimed she was beaten. Amanda Knox was eventually set free five years after her original incarceration after the jury found out that she, surprise, surprise, didn’t commit the murder. But when it comes to pissing me off, Amanda Knox’s story of a kangaroo court system can’t even hold a candle to Jaycee Dugard’s story of being molested and raped for 18 years straight by a sick-ass sociopath named Phil Garrido. Imagine that: 18 years of misery and torture from ages 11 to 29. In that lengthy period of time, Phil Garrido stole her sanity, her virginity, her education, and her life. When Jaycee Dugard was rescued in 2009, her captor received over 400 years in prison time, which means he doesn’t stand a chance of being released again like he was before. As I write the summaries of Amanda Knox and Jaycee Dugard’s, my blood is boiling like volcanic magma and my head is splitting open like a coconut. If I feel that pissed off about writing their stories, imagine what I would be like if I read them. I think I would suffer a myocardial infarction after the first page…of the forwards! In short, don’t ask me to add scary nonfiction to my blog or my bookshelf. It’s simply never going to happen. Ever.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“You think you know, but you’re horribly blind. You think you know how this story’s defined. You think you know that your heart has gone cold inside. Fine. You think you know, but it’s all in your mind. You think you know just whose fate has been signed. You think you know just whose heart has gone cold this time. Mine.”

-Device singing “You Think You Know”-