Marcus Brock, Dirty Detective from "Virtuous"

 

Angel's Share

The rift between Alex Macintosh and her so-called “lord and savior” grew with every bigoted slur that came out of a preacher’s mouth. It was already a yawning chasm from an early age. Now it was a dark black hole that sucked all of the life out of her. Going to church wasn’t as fun as she remembered it being. The fairytales weren’t as fascinating. The loving spirit wasn’t as warm. Everything in this mega church full of enthusiastic worshippers revolved around money these days.

How much money could Pastor Shawn Hawkins swindle out of his followers? How much of it would actually go to the poor? How much of it would fund his vacation in Neo Hawaii? The deeper Alex dug into his bank account, the more obvious the answers became. There she was in a shadowy corner of the church tapping away on her smart phone and thumb drive. Her dark trench coat and equally dark scarf around her face made hiding in the shadows that much easier. It also helped matters that the thousands of people packing the arena were too busy praying for things they’d never get on their own.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” shouted a young man into the microphone. His voice temporarily jarred Alex out of her hack job, but ultimately she thought nothing of it and went back to work. “Put your hands together for the messenger of God himself! The angel from the heavens above! The warrior of worship! The preacher of perfection! Here he is: Pastor Shawn Hawkins!”

The raucous clapping and lurching from the congregation once again snapped Alex out of her work. They were so obnoxious with their zeal that she failed to concentrate on what was most important: getting Pastor Hawkins’s ill-gotten fortunes back into the hands of those who needed it. Just a few more bars of code…just a few more clicks…”Damn it!” she whispered to herself. She quickly covered her mouth considering where she was saying it, but still nobody paid attention to her.

As the audience clapped and some of them did back flips and cartwheels in the audience, Pastor Shawn Hawkins descended from the ceiling dressed in flowing red robes. He really was an angel from heaven with his feathery wings gently flapping and lowering him to the stage. “I’ve seen better wings on a plate of KFC,” murmured Alex as she struggled to focus on her hack job.

The raven-haired, thick-bearded Pastor yanked the microphone out of his hype man’s hand and motioned for his congregation to sit down and shut up, which they gladly did. Alex couldn’t believe the smiles on their faces, the tears in their eyes…and the dollar bills folded up in their hands. “Here we go…” she muttered.

Taking a karate stance in the center of the stage, Pastor Hawkins belted his sermon into the microphone like a heavy metal singer moonlighting as a fat-shaming fitness guru. “Sinners! All of them! Each and every damned soul outside of this church today will have no such access to the pearly gates! They choose not to come here and choose not to give their welfare money to the heavens above! They are vile! They are rotten! For every penny they pinch, they are keeping the Christian revolution from taking place! That will not happen on my watch! Can I get an amen?!”

“Amen!” said everybody not named Alex Macintosh, who still thumbed away on her smart phone, still chipping away at Shawn’s bank account.

Pointing his hairy finger out into the crowd, he shouted, “You see that?! The sinners and nonbelievers call that fanaticism, but I call it reality! God is your reality! This world we’ve created for ourselves inside this church is the only thing that’s real to us now! Forget the vegetable-munching hippies! Forget the rock and roll niggers! Forget the transgender fags! They hold no power of us!”

That last slur had Alex’s eyes watering with rage as she looked up from her screen to unleash a hellish look upon her tormentor. He couldn’t see her even as he flapped his wings and floated around the church, but she saw him with tunnel vision, so much so that she forgot to keep cracking the code. She wanted so much to rip his tongue out, but also knew that Shawn Hawkins was a martial arts expert and often used his trade to intimidate “sinners” into giving him money.

“I fly around this room today and I see heavenly beauty!” As if right on cue, congregation members grinned up at him and held out their wads of cash. “You’re not just giving me your hard-earned money. You’re buying something with your dollars. You’re buying a revolution! You’re buying paradise! You’re buying a weapon against the darkness of hell!”

Alex shook her head and got right back to work cracking the code. Pastor Hawkins’s words began to blend together in a cacophony of screaming and prejudice, so much so that Alex didn’t even notice him flapping directly above her until she saw his reflection in her screen. “Come on, damn it!” she whispered as she grew closer to cracking his password.

“Who said that?! Who in God’s good name said that in my church?!” roared Shawn. Alex dropped her phone in panic and almost shattered the screen. She crab-walked against the wall in an attempt to hide from her accuser. She even held her knees to her chest to make herself small. But there he was descending upon her, the flaps of his wings creating deafening whooshes, the anger on his reddening face palpable and tense.

“Come to me, harlot,” said Shawn as he held out his hand. Alex couldn’t. She was frozen in fear. “I said come to me, you devil’s whore!” He stomped over to her and her phone crunched beneath his army boots. The congregation stared at her with wide-eyed shock while Shawn picked up the remains of the phone and instantly deciphered what Alex was trying to do.

“It appears we have a thief in our midst, my children. Stealing is a sin! Stealing from the lord is a MORTAL SIN!” Shawn stared hellfire into Alex’s soul and she could do nothing but cower in the corner and shiver. He ripped off her scarf and revealed another “sin” to the congregation. The blond hair extensions, the white makeup, the poorly smudged blue lipstick, they all led him to one conclusion. “Transgender whore!”

Alex could feel the boos and “Whore!” chants radiating off the congregation and piercing her skin like daggers. She tried to stand up, but her legs were too wobbly and her head was swimming laps around this church. She eventually found her equilibrium by holding onto a stair railing. “Please!” she begged in a low, trembling voice. “Just let me go…I’ll never bother you again…it’s just that I…”

“Silence!” barked Shawn as he punched a hole in the wall next to her head, causing her to trip over her own quaking fear. She couldn’t even crawl down the stairs without Shawn placing his boot across her ankle. The harder he pressed, the louder she screamed. “You dare steal from a house of worship?! You dare steal from the lord almighty?! That is inexcusable! I shall send you to hell myself, you filthy whore!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, just take my flash drive and take your foot off of me!” She blindly chucked the flash drive at him hoping he would catch it. However, her heart and brain pumped her with so many chemicals that she miscalculated how hard she threw it. It bounced off of one of his feathers and exposed wiring underneath. The hacking properties of the device caused even more sparks to shoot out of what was now revealed as his mechanism. The congregation gasped in shock while Shawn’s hardened facial expression grew soft with worry. He even took his foot off of Alex’s leg.

Trying to regain her breath, Alex pointed at the fake mechanical wings and said, “You see that, everyone? He’s not even a real angel. His money isn’t being used for a Christian revolution! He fooled you all! Thou shalt not bear false witness, anyone? He tricked you all into becoming bigots! He tricked you all into giving away your money to what will eventually be his expensive vacation! If you don’t believe me, look on that flash drive! Look on whatever’s left of my phone! The more you hate people like me and the other so-called ‘fags’, the richer he becomes and the poorer you all become!”

Shawn kneeled down beside his victim and smiled at her. “Don’t you get it by now? These people don’t care about any of that. They don’t care about you. Did they care when our president said he would grab a certain part of the female anatomy? No. Did they care when a certain Supreme Court justice was accused of doing much worse to said anatomy? No. These people know who the real enemy is and who their friends really are. They want entry into heaven. They know they’re not going to get it by listening to a transgender thief whore like you!”

“Is…is this true, everyone?” asked Alex. Her answer came in the form of angry stares from the congregation, not at the one swindling them, but at the one they were told to hate. Their hatred hurt her badly. She could feel her heart racing and her mind numbing to the violence that would become of her very shortly.

Shawn slowly stalked Alex as she crawled down the staircase. As soon as she moved too fast for everyone’s comfort, the congregation and their Pastor charged after her in a screaming rage. She almost tripped over her fear again when she tried to get up, but this time she bolted out of the emergency exit and set off a blaring fire alarm. Fire sprinkles set off even more sparks on Shawn’s mechanical wings and his congregation crawled on top of him to put out the electrical storm. Alex used this distraction to dash down the street, her legs trembling and aching the whole way.

She ran until she couldn’t do so anymore. Her lungs burned, her heart exploded, and her eyes dripped with wetness as she hunched over on the street corner. “How could they not care?!” she mumbled unintelligibly. “How could they not fucking care!” She stomped her high heeled boot on the ground and broke said heel in the process. “Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

“Excuse me, Miss!” said a homeless man with sunglasses. “Can you spare me some change?”

How about that? He actually said the right gender prefix. But such a small victory was nothing to celebrate as Alex wiped away burning tears from her reddened face. “I don’t have a dime,” she confessed. After a silence hung between them, she pointed at the mega church and said, “But they do. Why don’t you go ask them yourself?” Alex walked away hoping at least one person got the message she was trying to send.

Incelbordination, Chapter 18

Oswald Crow didn’t sign up for college just so he could sleep through the whole thing. He didn’t lose his parents to a drunk driver pretending to be a born-again Christian so that he could run into another fruit basket with the macho name Antero Magnus. College was supposed to be a learning experience, yet he saw his teachers not as mentors, but as obstacles. Maybe there was some truth to what Valerie Sand had been saying to him this whole time. Maybe she shouldn’t have had a piece of gym equipment named after her. Maybe…just maybe he really was loved in this world.

Rather than reflect on his many nights spent in the hospital (where his toes were surgically reattached and his ribs were held in place with Canisteo tape), Oswald wanted to go right back to work on his homework assignments. No misogynist criminals were going to hinder his process. No lack of marijuana was going to cloud his mind. It was do or die for the dwarf and he wanted to graduate as soon as possible. Summer was almost upon him. He needed to fix that C- paper. With a little more life experience under his belt and some hardcore Googling, his aching fingers danced across the keyboard to produce something he could actually smile about, even if only sadly.

He emailed the corrected paper to Valerie and sat in his computer chair staring at the medical boot on his surgically repaired foot. “Goddamn, that’s going to cost me,” he said. “Where the fuck is all this money supposed to come from?” Even successful authors needed extra employment every now and then. Oswald couldn’t picture himself sweeping popcorn off of movie theater floors or dipping frozen fries in boiling oil. Then again, he knew he had to start somewhere. The bottom of the ladder would be a welcome place if he could ever find it. He had weeks to think about it since graduation was on the horizon.

As Oswald trudged across campus with his medical boot and his cumbersome trench coat, he couldn’t help but notice the ghostly faces of everyone around him. No doubt that trauma was tearing them apart from the inside. “Goddamn you, Antero,” the dwarf said to himself. Even he felt like a wraith haunting the college grounds. One minute he was a hero and the next he was a part of this graveyard-like background. These people couldn’t cheer for him because they didn’t have the psychological energy to. As much as depression tried to tell him otherwise, he wanted to be understanding rather than dismissive of their “ignorance”.

The glass door from Valerie’s classroom was still in shambles, but the inside had improved quite a bit since Oswald was last here playing the role of hero. New desks were brought in. Wheeled chairs from the computer lab were also part of the furniture. There was even one lucky lady who got to sit in a fuzzy recliner chair. That lucky lady was none other than Nikita Johnson, whose black eye healed quite nicely over the past few days. She still had golden patches here and there and she tucked her chin to show her psychological frustration, but she was otherwise okay. Oswald wanted to take a seat next to her and tell her it would be alright, but ultimately left well enough alone when he sat in the back like he always did.

Valerie Sand stood at the head of the classroom also with her chin tucked, but was the only one brave enough to speak first. “Good morning, class. I know I don’t say this often enough, but thank you all for being here today. It’s been a bad few weeks as you can tell from the smashed door and whatnot. Some of our classmates couldn’t make it here today, either because of their traumatic experiences or because they’re no longer among the living. For those of you who were fortunate enough to live through these terrorist attacks, I have three words for you: life goes on.”

She wrote those words on the chalkboard and underlined them for extra emphasis. “It never ceases to amaze me what kinds of events bring people together. It could be music. It could be comedy. It could be theater. But in this case, as sad as it may seem, it took a war to bring us together. It’s because of our collective strength that we can truly say life goes on. We give each other the strength to push forward. We cannot divide each other at a time like this. Yes, Antero Magnus is finally behind bars. Yes, this is the first terrorist attack we’ve had on campus and we were wildly unprepared for it. But life goes on. It went on after 9/11. It went on after the various school shootings that took place around the country. Life goes on because we refuse to let negativity reign supreme. We are here for each other.”

Pointing her finger around the classroom, she said, “Each and every one of you.” She then looked Oswald dead in the eyes, “You included, Mr. Crow…you are all loved. If you have to find that love in the comfort of strangers, so be it. But it is there if you look for it. Help awaits you if you want it. It’s never too late to take care of yourself and each other. Look around you, ladies and gentlemen. These people are your friends. They’re your secondary family. Antero Magnus and the rest of Incelbordination failed to see that and they paid the price for it. Could they have been helped? It’s a debatable point, but I’d like to think we’re all capable of being helped at one point or another. I want to see the good in everyone. I want to believe that Antero wasn’t always a psychotic murderer. Something inside him snapped and he became this monster we know today. Don’t ever stray from the path of love. It’s never worth the pain.”

The entire classroom’s eyes, Valerie’s included, welled up with tears, but no sobbing took place. She thanked her students and they all applauded for her, including Oswald even though he still had sore hands. Making sure his teacher’s words were appreciated was more important than minor physical pain.

Once the clapping died down, Valerie said, “And because life goes on, it just so happens that I have your papers graded. I see a lot of improvements among you, some more than others, but then again, this is not a contest where the best grade wins. All that matters to me is that you’ve learned something from being in my class. I don’t care what grades you get after college is over. I’m more concerned with what kind of people you all will become. And that, my friends, is the biggest improvement of all.”

Oswald couldn’t help but give a sad smile at that sentiment. There was hope for him after all. There was hope for this world. There was hope for the future. The difficulty of believing his elders had finally been lifted from the dwarf’s shoulders. Valerie passed the corrected papers back to all of her students and of course, because Oswald sat in the back, he got his last. His anxiety bubbled up just a little bit, but it was more like a cup of tea rather than a raging lava pit. What he wouldn’t give for a cup of tea right at this moment. Such a relaxing thing to drink on a ghostly day like today. Maybe it would help his mental illnesses if only for a little bit.

The good news for Oswald was that upon receiving his paper, he was no longer a bastardized C- student. Instead that minus sign had a slash through the middle and his sad smile turned into a look of despair. He went from a C- to a C+ after Valerie just gave a speech about how everybody improved so much. Oswald’s inner voices told him to just tear the paper in half and toss it in the garbage, maybe spit some mucous onto it first…or piss on it right in front of the rest of the class.

But he did none of those things because he knew such reactions would prove nothing to a teacher who already made up her mind about him. Oswald felt no need to alienate himself further from his peers, so he quietly tucked the C+ paper into his backpack and maintained a stoic expression. If what Valerie said was true, then the C+ would be nothing compared to the feeling of becoming a new person. But was it true? Did Oswald really learn anything from being wrapped around Antero’s finger this whole time?

While Oswald’s mind didn’t race nearly as hard is it normally did after receiving a bad grade, he did find it hard to concentrate on that day’s lecture. He still didn’t participate in the conversation, but then again, not a lot of students did that day. This wasn’t just candles burning at both ends. This terrorist attack truly did take its toll on the student body. But life goes on as Valerie wisely said. Life goes on…

By the time Oswald could gather his wits together, Valerie was already dismissing her class. One-by-one they filed out of the room, but the dwarf just sat in his desk in silence. The teacher said his name several times, but didn’t get his attention with a sharp tone this time around. Instead she told him, “It’s good to have you back, Mr. Crow. This place isn’t the same without you.”

All the dwarf could do about that was nod like a bobble-head and gingerly leave the classroom. The garbage bin was right there. He could rebel against the system once again if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He walked right passed the teacher and her bin and gazed into the pink clouds, which looked lovely in an environment where the student body were paranoid and peaceful at the same time.

Incelbordination, Chapter 4

Oswald wiped the rainy weather from his face long enough to see another reason to cry his eyes out if he so chose: Antero Magnus with a book of matches. Clearly, a compromise had to be made. Or did it? “Why the fuck do you keep following me everywhere I go? Are you some kind of lost puppy dog or some shit?” In a brazen move reminiscent of last night, Antero swiped the ready roll from Oswald’s hand and lit it himself before taking a few puffs. “Excuse me?!” said Oswald with big red eyes. “That’s not yours to smoke! I need that shit for my depression!”

Handing the marijuana roll back to its rightful owner, Antero spit out a cloud of green and said, “Let me ask you something, Oswald. How many times have you puffed the shit out of that roll and found permanent happiness afterwards? The answer is zero, because as powerful as that shit is, it’s only a temporary fix to a much bigger problem.” The incel took a seat next to his charge and patted him on the shoulder. “You already know what the bigger problem is, don’t you?”

Taking a puff and spitting out an even bigger cloud than his lungs would allow, Oswald said, “Yeah, I know what it is. It has something to do with a weirdo in a trench coat taking hits of my Mary-Jane. Seriously, what could you possibly see in me? I’m not what you’re looking for. I don’t blame my insecurities on other people.”

“Which is precisely why you punched a muscle jock in the dick and why you ran away from a smooth-legged English teacher.”

Wide-eyed yet again, Oswald exclaimed, “Dude! You’ve got to stop following me everywhere! That’s fucking creepy!” Antero chuckled and removed his sunglasses, revealing those horrifying cyan-colored eyes. “Ah! Put your glasses back on! Put ‘em back on!” screamed Oswald while shielding his face with his hands.

“As you wish,” said Antero before complying with his “friend’s” request. “But I must warn you, there are scarier things in this world than weirdly-colored eyes. There’s a conspiracy against us. And when I say us, I mean you, me, and every other Supreme Gentlemen who’s had the deck stacked against them their whole lives. We don’t look like the normies. We don’t talk like the normies. We don’t wear the same kind of hats they do either. That bothers them. So what do they do? They commit social genocide.”

“Okay, okay, okay, this is getting fucked up,” said Oswald with his hands raised. “Social genocide? You’re using the G-word to describe not being able to get laid? How in the hell do you…”

“I don’t expect you to understand right away,” said Antero while readjusting his sunglasses. “Some lessons take longer to learn than others. But to answer your question, the G-word isn’t all about getting laid. Anybody can get laid. Surely, there are enough sex surrogates and prostitutes to go around. It’s love that we seek and can never find. We give it all away and none of it is returned. A simple thank-you would be enough for some people. Me? I want a little bit of interest with my investment.”

Oswald’s mouth became O-shaped at the statement he tried so desperately hard to digest. Antero dug through his own trench coat and pulled out his wallet. “You know what? I can tell you’re not convinced just yet. That’s okay. College is a time for learning, right? Well, you’ve got a lot to learn about the way the world works against us.” Antero handed Oswald a thirty-dollar McDonald’s gift card and said, “Two words: McDonald’s prostitute.”

Flipping the card over and over again in disbelief, Oswald stared at the meal ticket like he was holding a severed head. “Mc…Donald’s prostitute?”

“That’s right, little man,” said Antero before patting him on the back. “Everybody’s got a price tag on them. For the women down at Mickey D’s, all they ever wanted was a little bit of loving and a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. That’s how shitty our economy has gotten. When you’re too broke for a basic McDonald’s meal and you have to turn to sex to get one, that’s how you know shit’s all fucked up. Of course, I don’t know how in god’s name a Quarter Pounder could taste good when there’s splooge sloshing around in their mouths.”

“This….this…this is sick, Antero. This is fucking sick!”

“I know it’s sick, Oswald. I know. But sometimes you can’t take the highroad forever. You want someone to love you, right? You want to experience that cherry pop for the first time? All you have to do so come bearing the gifts of French fries, nuggets, greasy meat, and…well….greasy meat!” Antero chuckled at his own joke.

Finally peeling his terrified eyes away from the gift card, Oswald said, “Dude…you’re not funny. Nothing about this is comical. This is wrong. Really wrong!”

“You’re a good man, Oswald. Ordinarily, being a good human being has its rewards. But not in this Stacy-dominated world. You’re desperate enough. I can see it in those bloodshot eyes of yours. You’ll either have the most romantic night of your life in a McDonald’s parking lot…or you’ll get a lifelong lesson that no sexy-legged teacher could offer you. Either way, I just gave you the keys to the city. It’s up to you now what it is you want to do with them.”

Antero patted Oswald’s back and walked out of sight. The little guy turned his flabbergasted attention back to the gift card. It was so wrong, yet so right at the same time. There was something seductive about the way Antero talked. There was a reason he led so many people down their destined paths. He made so much sense in that one oratory.

Having those dark thoughts jolted Oswald awake, causing him to accidentally drop the gift card on the table. “What the fuck was I thinking?” he asked himself while holding his head in his hands. “I can’t do this. This isn’t right. No, no, no!” The three no’s were punctuated with the dwarf lightly banging his head against the table.

Once the forehead pain became too much to bear, he took a look around the commons for any signs that Antero might be right. Sure enough, this place was swarming with examples. Men and women holding hands while walking together. “Chads” and “Stacys” making out on the grassy lawn. Oswald even saw one guy holding his crying girlfriend’s head in his lap while he stroked her hair. What the lonely dwarf would give for the chance to be touched like that.

That Mickey D’s gift card started him straight in the face with lust and seduction. It was such an easy solution. Antero could have been his savior in that one moment. His own personal Jesus Christ, to use yet another Matrix quote. Oswald finally made the decision to scoop up the gift card and tuck it away in his wallet. If nothing else, he could at least enjoy a good meal, one that made him feel better than any roll of green ever could.

Oswald walked away from the commons huffing and puffing on his roll of weed. He kept feeling his scraggly beard and lengthy hair while contemplating if he should clean himself up for this meeting with a McDonald’s prostitute. Maybe throwing his pot-smelling coat in the wash machine would also be a good idea. Then again, did he really have to change himself for someone who was only in it for the nuggets and the burgers? There was thirty dollars on the card, which meant he could get extra goodies to make himself more enticing. The shave and haircut could wait another day…if that day ever came.

The dwarf put his headsets on and played “Bless the Wings” by The Moody Blues on his MP3 player. Was that song a little too romantic and sappy for what was about to happen that evening? Perhaps. Was Oswald expecting too much when he contemplated a potential relationship with this McDonald’s girl? He thought so. But as long as he was high on pot and already depressed from the day’s events, a little lovey-dovey psychological cinema was perhaps the right call.

Judging from the stares he got from “normies” walking by, any kind of vicarious romance would have been welcome. He certainly didn’t get it from the “Chad” he bumped into when he wasn’t paying attention. Oswald landed right on his ass while the guy said, “Hey, what the hell?!”

The dwarf picked himself up and apologized profusely to the young man and his girlfriend. He thought that would be the end of that, but then he noticed the couple walking away with their noses in their shirts, presumably from the pot smell. Oswald was tempted to go back there and punch the shit out of both of them. But it was more tempting to just take a shower and wash his clothing rather than get himself expelled for stupid shit. Maybe he did have to change himself after all. But for a McDonald’s hooker? So much debating took place in Oswald’s mind, all of which was settled with a few more puffs of Mary-Jane.

Defamation

“You want it? You got it. This is the Dan Stone Show. Welcome to the machine!” said a demonically distorted voice over the underground radio waves. The heavenly contrast of Gregorian chants echoed throughout the dark studio while Dan Stone bathed in the minimal light of his Christmas tree and computer screens. Even when being surrounded by nyctomantic pleasures with nobody else in the room, Dan always wore his trench coat, fedora, and skeletal mask.

“Good evening, revolutionaries,” said Dan into the microphone, his voice still distorted with devilish effects. “As many of you have seen in the mainstream media, I’ve made a lot of enemies. These enemies can be anybody from the sexual predators at Cluster Fox to the idiot politicians with Umpa-Loompa skin to the whiny CEO’s who’d still be mad if they won the lottery, you know, because they wanted one million one dollars instead of just a million.”

Dan cleared his throat in an ogre-like tone and said, “I obviously take great pride in my work of pissing off the spoiled brats of America. The ones who have five hundred summer homes and two hundred winter homes. The ones who pay next to nothing in taxes and still need more money. The ones who disenfranchise the poor in this country and wonder why those same working-class people can’t reach the top.”

The radio host clicked his tongue several times before continuing with, “I’ve said some venomous shit over the many years this show has been on the air. Shit that made my targets want to sue me for everything I’m worth. The same well-to-do motherfuckers who tell young people to toughen up and stop being snowflakes, they’re the ones who can’t take criticism and because of that, they want to see Dan Stone in the defendant’s chair.

“There’s just one problem with that: Dan Stone doesn’t exist. You can’t sue somebody if you don’t know who the fuck they really are. Dan Stone is an alias. This radio station is so far off the map that no GPS can find it. I get my mail at…actually, it’s none of your fucking business where I get my mail. All you need to know is that these politicians, these corporate welfare kings, these officials in suits, they all want a heavy chunk of my bank account

“It is Christmas after all. They do deserve something for the holidays. But my true identity isn’t one of them, let alone any form of payment for their lost tears. For all of you overpowered suits out there who can’t stop smearing your tan job with your tears, I’ve got two presents for you. One of them is a middle finger big enough to see from space. The other present is something you desperately need: facts. Cold hard facts that can’t be disputed by even your craftiest lawyers.

“You see, you’ve gone after me all these years looking for yet another corporate handout, yet there are still many more radio show hosts out there who go untouched. Hosts who are even more offensive than me. Rush Limbaugh says offensive shit on a day-to-day basis. Yet you go after me! Howard Stern accused Roger Waters of bigotry even though Mr. Stern constantly tells his female guests to take their tops off. Yet you go after me! Tim Allen calls college students snowflakes and then bursts into tears at the sight of a burning flag. Yet you go after me! You know what I think? I think this is a conspiracy.”

“No, Mr. Stone,” said a feminine voice, which was followed by a gun clicking. “It’s not a conspiracy. It’s a crime. Jackie Thomas, PCPD. Put your hands where I can see them. You’re in so much shit it’s almost unbelievable.”

Dan raised his gloved hands in the air and slowly rose to his feet. Even in the dim lighting of the Christmas tree, he could make out Detective Thomas’s features: Marlboro lines in her face, blond hair in a ponytail, and a pants suit worthy of a certain former democratic presidential candidate.

“Are you seriously the only one here, Miss Thomas?” asked Dan. “Shit, I’ve always envisioned my arrest coming at the hands of a SWAT Team or something like that. I guess defamation suits don’t really warrant that many armed cops. Or maybe there’s another reason you’re all alone. You want to be the only one who can claim you’ve shut down Dan Stone’s radio show. You want the fame and fortune that you couldn’t get by a hosting a show of your own, or doing something else that’s actually commendable and creative.”

Jackie fired a warning shot and barely missed Dan’s ear. She said, “You’d better watch that silver tongue of yours, Mr. Stone. Insulting an officer is seen by the law, for better or worse, as being just as bad as taking a swing at one. You really don’t need more charges on your record.”

“Yeah, I get you,” mocked Dan. “But before you take me to the courthouse to face my accusers, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for proving my point about how fucked up our defamation laws are. Thank you for proving that conservatives are just as worthy of a milk bottle and diaper change as the so-called snowflakes they target. I guess you’re going to have to pile on more charges, Miss Thomas.”

“I guess that’s the case indeed,” said Jackie. “Turn around and place your hands behind your head with your fingers interlaced.”

As the detective was ready to make her arrest and Dan turned around to comply, the radio show host pulled an electrical cord with his foot and the Christmas tree came crashing down upon the detective. The bulbs broke over Jackie’s face and the studio drowned in complete darkness. Dan hid underneath his desk while Jackie kicked, struggled, and swore trying to get the giant tree off of her. Once she was free, a beam from her club-like flashlight illuminated a minimal amount of the room.

“Alright, smart ass!” she belted, little streams of blood dripping from her already nasty face. “I was actually planning on letting you live tonight. Well, you don’t have to worry about being sued any longer. You can’t sue a man named Dan Stone…if he’s fucking dead! No where are you, you little shit?!”

Dan desperately felt around for anything he could use as a weapon. His hands worked faster as Jackie’s booted footsteps grew louder, crunching on fallen Christmas bulbs and kicking pieces of tree out of the way. Dan’s search involved him quickly unscrewing something from his computer with the bolt digging deeply into his fingers despite the gloves he wore. The bolt came loose, but a singular drop of finger blood splashed on the floor, the tiny sound effect giving away his biggest secret.

“Ah-ha!” Jackie yelled with the gun pointed in Dan’s face. “That better be you or else I’m shooting up this whole fucking studio!”

Dan had one chance to get away and he took his leap of faith by throwing his unscrewed computer part at Jackie: acid from the storage battery. Jackie gripped her melting face and screamed loudly enough that she could have broken more bulbs, boots or not. Out of instinct, she fired random shots in the dark while Dan ducked down low and ran across the studio. And then the liberal firebrand dropped to the floor after a final shot in the dark, clutching his throat and wheezing desperately.

Jackie’s screams of pain turned to grunts of rage as she stomped over to the source of the hacking and coughing. She shined her light all around the studio thinking it was here or there. She belted, “You’re one dead son of a bitch, Danny-Boy! One less tree hugging hippie! We don’t need smart-asses like you talking shit about our finest citizens! They earned their billion dollar salaries by working their fingers to the bone! That’s how this country works, Dan: the harder you work, the more money you make! It’s common fucking sense! Being a loudmouth radio show host isn’t hard work! It’s bitching at its worst! And now matter how much you cry or whine, nobody’s going to bring the system down!”

Jackie’s flashlight beam shone upon Dan’s booted foot and slowly made it’s way up his body. Dan could feel the light burning a hole in him like a demonic stare. His goose was cooked and cooking couldn’t happen without some degree of deadly heat. All of the hard work (that Jackie easily dismissed) and all of the sacrifices (which she also dismissed), they were all for nothing. Then again, clutching his throat and feigning a gunshot wound was also considered laziness since he was technically laying on the floor doing nothing.

“What the fuck?” snapped Jackie, just then wishing her flashlight had shone on Dan’s other foot. That other foot was the one that jerked the cord on the Christmas tree some more, tripping the cop and landing her on the back of the neck. Her gun danced across the ground and seemed miles away. She reached for it, but instead got a boot sole clamping down on her hand and her flashlight taken away. Dan ground his boot into Jackie’s hand some more until her screams and her bones crunching created the perfect symphony to his ears.

The radio host shone the light underneath his masked face as though he was telling a campfire ghost story. “Truth is, you crazy bitch, this isn’t the first time one of you copper-toppers came after me. You may think you’re dealing with an amateur, but I’ve been in this business since I was old enough to have my first beer. I’ve had to change studios a few times. I’ve had to buy new computer equipment. But the message has been the same. It’s the same message I’ll take with me when I move to yet another dark studio.”

Dan pulled off his fedora and mask to reveal that his face had been surgically replaced with metal parts, much to the wide-eyed horror of Jackie, who was still huffing and puffing in pain. “I got my ass kicked by the cops once. That’s why I needed this surgery. But I got sued anyways because I somehow caused those cops a great deal of undue stress. You know how much those fuckers in blue wanted? Ten million dollars. Ten fucking million! But as you know by now, Dan Stone doesn’t give away ten million dollar handouts to crybaby conservatives. Why? Because Dan Stone doesn’t exist. Welcome to the machine, bitch!”

The final part of his broadcast featured him beating Jackie over the head with the flashlight several times until her skull exploded into a sea of brains and blood. He didn’t have to work hard at killing her since her face was already softened from the battery acid. In fact, he had an unfair advantage this whole time. “So this is what it feels like to taste the silver spoon,” Dan said to himself before he wiped two fingers across Jackie’s bloodied head and sucked them down. “Peace sells, but who’s buying it?”

The Audiomancer

Fully automatic pistol? Check. Blue trench coat? Check. Badass shades? Check. Nasty attitude? Double check. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, Edge Spider whistled a playful tune as he ascended the busted-up wooden stairs of the Neon Neighborhood Apartments. Through the mirrored shades resting underneath his afro do, he glared at the janitor at the top of the stairs, an old man in gray overalls mopping the floors. Edge reached the second floor and the elderly custodian never took his scowling eyes off of the cybernetic thug.

“Dude, what the fuck you lookin’ at, old man? I’ll kick your ass if you don’t take them eyes off of me! Keep mopping that dirt and don’t pay me no mind, bitch! Jesus!” threatened Edge as he scurried down the hallway to the apartment of his choice. He never turned around to see if the janitor was still glaring at him. All of his attention was on the number on the scratched up wooden door in front of him: 4B. “That’s the one.”

Edge knocked on the door several times and said, “Hey, Lisa! Come on, baby girl, open the goddamn door!” No reply. He knocked even harder this time and said, “Open the door, bitch! I ain’t got all day!” Still no answer. He then pulled a small wire from his trench coat pocket and fiddled with the lock until he heard a click. He chuckled to himself and said, “Bitch, you’re making this too easy.”

With one harsh swing of the door, Edge burst inside the shabby apartment and yelled, “Here’s Johnny!” in a prolonged voice. Not even the gangster’s obnoxious tone was enough to awaken Sgt. Lisa Baker, who sat hunched over at her computer lightly snoring with thick headphones on her ears. “Damn, that must have been some powerful shit.”

Shutting the door behind him with a loud thud wasn’t enough to startle Lisa, but slapping her in the back of the head and knocking her headphones over was. The blond ex-marine in a ratty pink bathrobe held the back of her head while stretching her sleepiness out with her other arm.

“Wakey, wakey! Eggs and bacey! Rise and shine! It’s breakfast time!” said Edge in a quasi-playful tone.

“Hey, Edge. How’s it going?” said Lisa in a languid, zonked out voice.

“Well, babe, I wish I could say things were going great, but they ain’t. I’ve been lookin’ at my bank account today and it’s getting pretty damn low. That might have something to do with you being late on those payments. So where’s my money, bitch? You obviously love them audio files I gave to you. Now you gotta pay for them sum-bitches,” said Edge while hovering over her.

“Listen, man,” said Lisa as he rubbed the exhaustion from her eyes. “Those files have done wonders for my PTSD. I’m grateful to have them, I really am. But I’m having a hard time coming up with money, okay? Ever since I came back from the war, I had a hard time finding work. Just give me a few more weeks and you’ll get your money.”

Placing a hand on Sgt. Baker’s shoulder, Edge said in a sarcastically comforting tone, “Okay, baby girl. I’ll give you a few more weeks. And then I’ll give you a few more weeks after that, a few more weeks after that, and a few more weeks after that. I could give you enough time for me to be in a fucking nursing home and I still wouldn’t get my money. Them audio files are making you lazy, bitch. You know how I feel about lazy people.”

His feelings were confirmed when Lisa’s head drooped over and she fell asleep again. “Oh, no, you didn’t. I know you didn’t just fall asleep on me.” The marine’s response was even heavier snoring than before. Edge gritted his teeth, grabbed Lisa by her shoulders, and tossed her across the room, all while yelling, “Wake up, asshole!”

The soldier slowly stirred from her slumber and gazed up at Edge with foggy eyes and a crooked smile. “Hey there, big boy. What can I do for you today?”

“Oh, you know damn well what you’re going to do for me! You’re going to break out that checkbook and give me what I came here for! If I have to throw your ass out the window, I’ll fucking do it! I’m telling you, you’re hooked on them audio drugs! I’m cutting your ass off until I get my money!” shouted Edge while pointing an accusatory finger at his victim.

Lisa made a flat tire noise and torpidly said, “Audio drugs? Babe, that wasn’t an audio drug I was listening to.”

“Oh, don’t gimme that bullshit! You was snoozing like a lazy little dog! I saw you myself!” snapped Edge. For full proof, he put the headphones on for a quick listen. His pissed off expression softened as he announced, “This ain’t no audio drug. This is just some new age piano shit.” He threw the headphones across the room and yelled, “Where the hell are my audio drugs, bitch?!”

Lisa’s laughter suggested that she was never tired to begin with as it was full of energy and gusto. When asked what she was laughing about, she said, “Word of advice, Edge Spider, if that is your real name: when you give painful audio drugs to complete strangers, do a better job of wiping your personal data off of them. Then again, it’s not really your fault, is it? You did everything you could. It’s just that my team was better!”

“Team? What’s all this about a team?” asked Edge before his confused expression turned into a full-on quivering lip. “You ain’t no marine with Pussy-Traumatic Stress Disorder! You’re a cop! You set my ass up!”

“I sure did,” revealed Lisa. “Somebody had to do something about those audio files crushing people’s brains. You’re no healer. You’re just a common scumbag drug dealer, Edge. Every file you gave me has been uploaded to the police database. If I were you, I’d run like the wind.”

Instead of taking that wise advice, Edge chuckled evilly, pulled his automatic pistol from his pocket, and aimed the Freudian weapon at Lisa with a cocked barrel. “They ain’t gonna take me if I have a hostage. You look important enough to them folks at the po-po station. So come on, baby girl: on your feet. Put them silky smooth hands of yours behind your pretty little head.”

Lisa did as she was told, but did so with a wicked grin of her own. “Okay, sweet cheeks. You win!” She pulled a knife from her thick hair and threw it with a blinding quickness at Edge’s gun, shattering the weapon into pieces.

At first the gangster looked down at the metal parts with fright, but then threw his arms in the air and smiled as he said, “Nah, nah, nah, cutie pie. You’re the one who wins this time.” In one swift motion, Edge threw a roundhouse kick at Lisa’s face, spinning her around in the air before she tumbled onto her shag carpet floor. Edge yelled, “I ain’t gonna spend my life in no federal prison! Fuck this shit, I’m outta here!”

Just when Lisa was stirring, Edge booted down the apartment door and sped down the hallway with every ounce of athleticism he possessed. The janitor was still glaring at him with viper-like eyes. “Damn, dude! The hell’s wrong with yo ass?!” shouted Edge as he shoved the janitor out of the way. It seemed like he would have a clear path to freedom with an empty lobby and an empty stairwell.

And then the drug dealer felt something hook his ankle, causing him to roll down the stairs and bang his body on every sharp corner of the stairs. By the time he reached the lobby, he was holding his ribs and head while whining in pain. Some of his blood painted the stairs and the railing on the way down.

Once his vision cleared up, Edge looked at the top of the stairs to see that the old man had a hook at the end of his mop before he concealed it again like a switchblade. Lisa held her bruised face as she joined the janitor, who then hugged her and asked, “Are you alright, Baker?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for the assist, Private. I’ll put in a good word for you at the station and we’ll see about getting you that promotion you’ve always wanted,” said Lisa. She looked down at the battered and broken gangster and said, “Here’s another piece of free advice, shit-head: treat the janitor with the same respect you give to the CEO.”

Edge spit out a wad of blood in a poor attempt to hit either Lisa or the undercover cop. “He ain’t no motherfucking janitor! Goddamn you two!”

The two cops trudged downstairs while the “janitor” ripped his wrinkly skin off to prove that he was actually a lot younger than his character suggested. Lisa rolled Edge on his stomach before cuffing his hands behind his back. “Edge Spider, I still don’t know if that’s your real name, but you’re under arrest for distributing illegal audio files. You have the right to legal counsel, which you’ll probably need since you can’t put together a decent sentence yourself.”

The Undertaker

The bitter taste of wheat beer slid down Heath Danielson’s throat like a flash flood of numbness. It was like drinking horse piss, but it was effective at making him forget how badly his father was screwed over when he lost his bakery to the bank. Heath also forgot that he was supposed to behave in a gentlemanly manner when drinking at this particular bar.

When he fell asleep, his face landed right into a neighboring woman’s chest. All of her screams and slaps across the head were like flies buzzing: a mere annoyance. It was the beefy bouncer who grabbed Heath by his scraggly brown hair and floppy arm that finally made him realize how fucked up he had become. Being tossed out on the streets and landing firmly on the unforgiving concrete was not a mere annoyance. The scrapes and bruises were proof of that.

In his brain-dead ecstasy, Heath managed to pull himself up off the ground using a parked car as leverage. Staying up would prove to be harder as he stumbled and crawled his way down the sidewalk. He occasionally let out an obnoxious burp and everybody in his vicinity scurried away from him. Cars began honking at him as if their horns were enough to awaken him from his drunken nightmare.

All Heath really wanted to do was find a nice place to empty his bladder, which was the size of a snow tire. He couldn’t go back to the bar or any other place of business since he was too drunk to read their signs. He did however find a nice shade of darkness where he was convinced he was the only one there. Perfect!

Heath waddled and stumbled into the darkness until his forehead hit a brick wall and temporarily woke him up. He had a lump where he smacked his head, but it was as good a place as any to drain the lizard. He struggled to find his jeans zipper, but eventually unzipped it and let the urine pour from his system like the floodgates of bliss. This simple bodily function put a stupid grin on Heath’s face, as if it was the only form of happiness he could experience since his father had to close his bakery.

Once his bladder was drained, Heath tucked his thingamabob back in his pants and unwittingly gave himself a zipper injury. The spark of pain got a yelp out of him as well as the temporary ability to read what was in front of him. The drunkard’s eyes grew wide and his body was shaking violently at what he saw. He just pissed on the memorial of Zell “The Undertaker” Jardine.

“Oh, shit!” Heath said to himself. Before he could turn around and run away, a trench-coat wearing arm rose up from the grave and grabbed him around his throat, squeezing with the strength a silverback gorilla. Even without significant oxygen and a brain full of booze, Heath could easily make out this zombie’s features: an old man with white horseshoe hair, muscles upon muscles, and a trench coat that carried god knows what. Zell tossed Heath on the ground and allowed him to hack and wheeze what little oxygen he could back into his body.

As soon as the lush was breathing normally (albeit with raspy overtones), he had the urge to relieve himself once again when he saw Zell pull a long, bloody, and jagged machete out of his trench coat. “I’m going to enjoy every minute of this,” said the former war hero. “Which one of your limbs should I cut off first? Your arms? Your legs? Or maybe I should make that zipper injury feel like a paper cut and hack off your tiny dick!”

Heath crawled backwards and waved his hand defensively as he tried to plead his case to someone nicknamed “The Undertaker”. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know that was your grave!” The lush let out another sickening burp. “I’m just really pissed off tonight. You see, my dad just had to close his…”

“Silence!” shouted Zell. Heath’s breaths were getting faster and deeper with every step The Undertaker took towards him. The sounds of militia boots hitting the pavement were loud and clear to even someone with drunken vision. “I didn’t spend ten years in a government prison getting tortured half to death just so I could have disrespectful faggots like you pissing on my grave! All I want is a little peace and quite and you can’t even give that to me! You and your disgusting burping; it’s damn insulting!”

Heath’s eyes were cascading with tears when he said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Jardine. I’m really sorry. Please don’t kill me. I’m fucking drunk as a skunk right now. I don’t even know where the hell I am right now. I’ll give you your peace and quiet if you’d just let me go.”

Zell’s demonic eyes rolled backwards when he reached down and grabbed Heath by his shirt collar to hoist him up, holding the jagged machete to his throat in the process. “If you have any brain cells left in that thick skull of yours, then you’d better start begging for your life a lot better than that. I’ve cut up many demons and undead warriors with this machete and it would be an honor to take your head off as well. Go ahead, you little bitch! Scream for your life!”

“I’m sorry! I’ll never do it again! Please let me go! My father needs me!” shouted Heath in a pathetic voice, prompting Zell to release his shirt collar and allow him to drop to the ground. The demonic zombie still had the machete pointed at his would-be victim. Heath waved his hands defensively and said, “Look, man. I’m just the son of a baker. I used to be before the goddamn bank took everything away. You just said you were in a government prison for ten years. Didn’t you feel like doing…you know…something drastic?” That last sentence was punctuated by another burp.

“Every damn day I felt like doing something drastic!” shouted Zell. He allowed that comment to hang in the air for a few long seconds before putting his instrument of destruction back in his trench coat. “Every damn day,” he said with more compassion. “Even when I got out of that prison and we eventually won the war, things were never the same. The story doesn’t end just because the author puts his pen down. I had nightmares when the war was over. Sometimes I’d wake up and wouldn’t know where I was. And yes, I did a lot of drinking during that time, even more so than you.”

Heath looked up at his now calmed down assailant with compassion of his own. And then he turned his head to the side and puked his guts out. Some of the flowing stomach acid managed to dirty up Zell’s boots, which once again put a sadistic frown on the war hero’s face. After wiping the bile from his mouth with his jacket sleeve, Heath realized what he just did and said in that same pathetic voice, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! Please, don’t kill me!”

Zell’s eyes rolled back and he this time picked Heath up by his unwashed hair before pulling the machete back out to hold it to the drunkard’s throat. Mr. Danielson cried like a little baby with his tears coming as quickly as his puke. The zombie warrior shouted, “Shut up! Stop your blubbering, little boy!” The tears had dried up. “So that’s how your story’s going to end, huh? You’re just going to let these corrupt banks do whatever they want with your father’s business? One that he worked so hard to obtain?”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” said a whiny-voiced Heath.

The Undertaker pressed the blade against Heath’s throat even harder, drawing a little speck of blood and causing the raspy breaths to come more rapidly. And then Zell turned the blade over and put the handle of the weapon in Heath’s shaking hands. “I have no more use for this now that I’m dead and gone. But for you, my friend, it’s not too late. Take this blade and show those asshole bankers that you’re not one to be fucked with!”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t just attack them like that!” said Heath.

“You’re right,” said Zell sarcastically. “They’re just going to give your father’s bakery back to you like civilized gentlemen. Because that’s how the real world works: everything is handed to you and nothing has to be fought for. That’s why I have my own tombstone where I’m resting more comfortably than I would in a Hilton Hotel.”

Heath could feel the cold steel in his hand. It was such a simple weapon of war with jagged edges and many lives claimed. A prolific war hero was passing down his instrument of death to a mere drunkard who never thought he could change the world with a bloody slash. This blade made Heath Danielson feel powerful. It made him feel revolutionary. Those suit-wearing jackasses at Babylon Bank didn’t stand a chance against him. They could have all the beefy security and all the brutal cops they wanted and they would all fall down one by one. A sea of blood would overtake the streets as the souls of those claimed by this machete would be burning in hellfire for all eternity.

“You can count on me, Mr. Jardine. Nobody steals from the Danielson family! Nobody!” shouted Heath…right before he puked up another meal on Zell’s legs.

“For God’s sake, man, don’t ever drink that much alcohol again!” shouted the zombie before shoving the drunkard down on the ground.

Blood Brawl, Chapter 2

Horace, the host at the Dragon Wings Orc Bar, wasn’t giving into any racial stereotypes of being an aggressive brute. On the contrary, he felt weak after the previous night’s events, which were fresher in his mind than a gushing slash wound. The interior of the bar had been reduced to ashes by that…thing. There was hardly any furniture left and the few tables and chairs that survived the assault were covered in blood and ashes. The counter was among the survivors and looked no better than the rest of the furniture.

The distraught bartender stood at the counter absentmindedly running a dirty dish rag along the insides of the same mug for ten whole minutes. With his only customers turned to worm food, it didn’t matter to the public what his state of mind was at the time. His traumatized brain was about to be flooded with cold numbness when he saw a figure standing in the doorway in a black trench coat and a hood wielding a scythe. Horace dropped to the ground and cowered in fear thinking he really was dead after all.

Horace’s heart thumped in his chest and his body had gone cold with dripping sweat. Not another trauma, damn it! And then the orcish voice said, “It’s alright, Horace, it’s me, Ivan. The bartender slowly stood up and saw that the voice indeed belonged to Ivan Blackstone, an orc warrior who for some reason loved to dress up like the grim reaper and carry a scythe to boot. Ivan casually said, “Yeah, I know, weapons aren’t allowed.” before depositing his blade on the ground.

The bartender was both relieved and argumentative at the same time when he continued wiping his mug and said, “Listen, I don’t need a lecture about what happened last night. I’m not in the goddamn mood for another scare. So if you’re not going to order anything to drink, I suggest you take your soapbox somewhere else.”

Ivan slammed his palms on the counter (which spooked Horace into a little jump) and drummed his fingers while giving the barkeep a despising glare. “What did you think was going to happen when you allowed those two to fight each other? Does anybody take kindly to having their head shaved after getting their ass kicked? Do I also need to remind you that Gargoth Trencher, the one who lost that ‘wrestling’ match, was not just this ‘death angel’ everyone’s talking about; he was my best friend.”

“If you consider that monster to be your friend, then you’ve got some fucked up social skills, kid.”

“Anybody who runs a wrestling league from their bar doesn’t have the right to criticize other people’s social skills. Besides, all this death angel chatter is news to me as well. Gargoth didn’t look anything like that when I tried to talk him out of coming here. No warning signs at all. An arrogant prick? Maybe. Hardheaded? Absolutely. Death angel? Never would have guessed it in a million years.”

Still wiping down the same mug, Horace said, “So you think there’s some hocus pocus bullshit going on here? Hell, I’d probably learn some magic too if someone was bold enough to shave my head. That death angel gig can be pretty nice after losing a wrestling match.”

Ivan grabbed Horace by his shirt and pulled him closer for an even more intense stare down. “If you’re suggesting that Gargoth did this on purpose, then you’ve got more problems on your hands than a messed up bar. You’ve got a pissed off best friend to deal with!”

Horace’s initial fear was replaced with screaming anger when he said, “Best friend?! You call that monster your best friend?! You’re actually making excuses for someone who’s beyond redemption?! I always knew you were loyal to your friends, Ivan, but this is downright evil! Take a look around you, buddy! Look at all those burned corpses! Look them in the eyes and tell them your little theory about how Gargoth Trencher is an innocent man! I’m sure if they were alive today, they’d completely understand!”

The trench coat-wearing orc found himself unable to argue with that point and let go of Horace’s shirt. The bartender went right back to cleaning his glass when Ivan finally pointed it out to him: “You realize you’ve been wiping that same glass since I got here, right? Do you even know where the hell you are right now?”

The frustrated host threw the glass on the ground and stomped on it several times, “Of course I know where I am. I’m in hell! And there’s no way out! Come to think of it, you’re in hell too, my friend! It’ll only get worse when your so-called best friend lays those fiery eyes on you and turns you to shit with just one stare!”

“Trust me, Horace, I’m ready to scour the earth for Gargoth. This isn’t just about friendship. This is about getting the answers that I deserve. Maybe your dead patrons won’t like my innocence theory very much, but they probably would like some answers, at least their families would.”

Horace made a flat tire noise and said, “Okay, so you think you can find him before every other bounty hunter does. That’s right, buddy. If I know King Lovelace like I think I do, he’s probably offering hundreds of thousands of gold pieces just for that bastard Gargoth’s head. He doesn’t offer that kind of money unless the bounty head is really goddamn hard to find. So, not only do you get to play chit-chat with your little butt buddy, but you also get to make some money off of the whole thing. If I had that much money, I’d stop walking around dressed like the grim reaper.”

“Money? You think I give two shits about the money?” said Ivan Blackstone in an angry whisper before clutching Horace around the throat and squeezing with his muscular hand. “I swear on my mother’s grave, Horace, if you make one more shitty comment about my friend like that, I will rip out your liver!”

The bartender would have passed out if Ivan didn’t release his grip shortly after hearing a noise from upstairs. Horace sat on the ground coughing up spittle, snot, and blood while sucking in every last breath of air he could. Ivan picked up his scythe and tried to make his way up the stairs to the attic when Horace stopped him with harsh words.

“That’s right, Ivan! You keep on defending that piece of shit! You keep telling yourself that he’s being controlled by someone else and this whole death angel gig is just a ruse! I’m sure even you will believe it someday!” Horace sucked in deeper breaths and said, “But know this…although I could never beat your ass in a fight, there’s someone out there who will have had enough of your bullshit and will rip YOUR liver out!”

Instead of engaging in another heated struggle with Horace, Ivan frankly said, “We have a spy in our midst. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to be able to find whoever’s up there!” The scythe-wielding badass stormed up the stairs and into the attic, where the light, fast-paced footsteps confirmed to Horace what Ivan just said.

By the time Ivan made it to the top, he scoped around the dingy and dusty cluster bomb of whiskey barrels, but whoever was up here before was giving him a good slip. The squirrel-like footsteps sounded off from seemingly in all directions. Ivan’s eyes shot around everywhere until from out of the corner of his right eye, a pair of booted feet flew toward him and smashed him in the face. The orc was knocked backwards by the stinging, possibly bruise-forming kick, but he didn’t fall on his ass until tripping over a barrel.

Ivan was only slightly dizzy from that drop kick, so while he was lying on the ground, his vision was clear enough to spot a young female human rogue dashing toward the glass window and throwing another drop kick to break it open and make her escape. Such a powerful kick would have been enough to keep normal men down.

But this wasn’t any normal man. This was Ivan freaking Blackstone. He may not have been an orcish stereotype, but one thing he acknowledged as part of his race was his ability to endure beatings. He got up instantly, grabbed his scythe, and ran toward the window after whoever was spying on him and Horace. He screamed, “Get back here, you sneaky bitch!” and then jumped out the window himself in pursuit of this mysterious lady.

The Four Horsemen of D&D

These four characters aren’t submitting job applications, though they may be used in future stories. Instead, they’re going to listen to my obituaries. I talk all the time about how in 2010 when I binge-played Dungeons & Dragons with Heather and TJ, four different player characters died under my watch. Every time one of these deaths happened, tears formed in my players’ eyes and RPG life wasn’t the same without them. Their spiritual essences would haunt the PC’s dreams and bring back traumatic memories as they entered their next battlefield thinking the next one could be one of them. As they say at the beginning of every episode from the Law & Order franchise, “These are their stories.”


NAME: Chris Bryan
LEVEL: 3
CLASS: Fighter
RACE: Human


Chris and his cousin Wade made a pact to be lifelong vegans after running away from their farm home due to the bloody treatment of innocent animals. To sustain themselves, they both signed up for the Middlesex National Guard. Both cousins graduated, but at different times in their careers. Wade went on to be a personal bodyguard for the lead PC Darthania Gaveston (controlled by Heather) while Chris joined much later. The cousins and their new PC friends were inseparable. And then one night, their world turned black (not that it already wasn’t in a crime-infested place like Middlesex). Middlesex Fighting Championship, the main MMA enterprise of the D&D campaign, was blocking traffic because ticket sales to their most recent event were skyrocketing. In a fit of road rage, one of the MMA stars, Glenn Allen, tried to run over several innocent people while honking at them. It took Chris, Wade, and an elf paladin named Windham Farrell to subdue Mr. Allen. Unfortunately, Chris was the recipient of several unanswered kicks to the ribs and died of suffocation. Wade was so devastated by his cousin and best friend’s death that he thought about quitting the bodyguard business until his mentor, Zell Jardine, convinced him to do a commercial promoting National Guard membership on the basis that they rescue animals from their abusers. Wade did as he was told, but described it as the most sobering experience in his life. Poor guy.


NAME: Gerard Killings
LEVEL: 3
CLASS: Fighter
RACE: Human


NAME: Kurt Blades
LEVEL: 3
CLASS: Fighter
RACE: Panther


Zell Jardine, the founder of the leftwing terrorist organization The Trench Coat Militia, trained a lot of people in his lifetime into becoming badass soldiers with his ruthless drill instructor mentality. But of all those people, he only had four he considered his best pupils. Gerard and Kurt were among those four people, the other two being a human fighter named Ethan Stryker and a troll fighter named Michael Heaven. Together, the Trench Coat Militia changed the city of Middlesex from a dictatorship to a democracy, but not without shedding a shit ton of blood along the way with their machetes. But when you bring about change with violence, you can expect more violence as you can guess from the deaths of Gerard Killings and Kurt Blades. Both warriors died defending different MMA events from terror organizations and criminal gangs. The difference between the two deaths is that Gerard had a 19-year-old son named Jason who signed up after his father died. Kurt Blades had no family and died in obscurity. Kurt even visited one of the PC’s, a half-orc barbarian named Agrusk Xis (controlled by TJ), in his dreams and asked a profound question, “Why, sweet God, why?!” Agrusk couldn’t come up with an answer even if he was awake and alert.


NAME: India Malakar
LEVEL: 2
CLASS: Monk
RACE: Elf


Considering the fact that India was an elf with a negative constitution modifier and a warrior class, his death shouldn’t have come as a surprise. What was really surprising was how this guy became the longest reigning MFC Welterweight Champion of all time before losing the gold to Agrusk Xis? A negative constitution modifier is detrimental to the work of a mixed-martial artist since most of what they do centers around their conditioning. In gaming terms, India was a level two character with only 7 hit points. This made absolutely perfect sense at the time I played with him, but it doesn’t make sense anymore. Before turning to MMA as a source of income, Brutus Warcry (a human barbarian that I controlled) along with his wife Darthania (Heather’s half-elf wizard) and best friend Agrusk Xis (TJ’s half-orc barbarian) needed help capturing wanted criminals around Middlesex and turning them in to the authorities for bounty money. These criminals could blow the shit out of populations with nail bombs or they could just slash everyone they see to pieces. They were too dangerous for one person to take on alone. India gladly lent his help and surprisingly did a good job of it. But when bounty hunting became too much of a dangerous chore, India was the one person who recommended Brutus, Agrusk, and Darthania become involved with mixed-martial arts, which is much safer and much more regulated by comparison. Brutus became the MFC’s Heavyweight Champion, Agrusk as I’ve said before became the Welterweight Champion, and Darthania became the Vice President of the company. They did well for themselves, unlike India who while helping his new friends fight off terrorists died after having his throat slit by a rat warrior. India’s death was the first to take place among the official PC’s, so everybody in the game took it hard. Even Agrusk, a macho half-orc, was blubbering as he tended to India’s dying corpse.


Four dead player characters from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in 2010. But death is only the beginning. The greatest thing about being a fictional character from another canon is that there are always extra chances. Instead of rotting in the Middlesex Cemetery, these four are in the unemployment line of my imagination. But don’t worry, they’ll find work soon enough. They always do.

Terrato Matrix

When I was a kid watching TV, a commercial would come on for Taco Bell and their “crunchy supremes” or whatever the hell they were called. The tagline of those commercials was “Crunch so big, crunch so low, so everybody eat tacos!”

Around that same time, my brother James was playing Final Fantasy VI on the Super Nintendo and there was a monster in the game called Terrato, a giant snake who when summoned would cast a spell called Earth Aura and did a shit ton of damage to the enemies. Putting two and two together, I said, “Crunch it high, crunch it low, let’s all eat Terrato!” James, being the clever comedian he was, said in a mocking voice, “Let’s all eat a poisonous snake!”

If it hadn’t been for that small moment of childhood bliss, I wouldn’t have a fascination with the name Terrato and the character in question (Terrato Matrix) would have probably been named something else.

The Matrix part of his name was easy: he wore a black trench coat and sunglasses, just like Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus from The Matrix. Nearly a decade and a half after the moment of childhood bliss, I put two and two together once again and came up with the main character for a movie script I wrote called “Tower of Heaven”.

In “Tower of Heaven”, disgusting monsters called Intimidators took over the earth and the only safe sanctuary was an aura-protected tower named after the title of the movie. Terrato Matrix’s job was to find as many innocent people as he could and bring them safely to the Tower of Heaven until somebody could find the solution to this Intimidator apocalypse.

If anybody was qualified for the job, it was Terrato. He carried a machete everywhere he went, but he was more than a slasher. Most wizards carried wands, but when Terrato was slinging his machete, he was casting badass spells from fireballs to tidal waves to lightning bolts to shadow spikes to poison thorns. If “Tower of Heaven” didn’t end up sucking so badly and having a Deus Ex Machina ending, Terrato Matrix wouldn’t be unemployed right now.

Another job opportunity came for Terrato in the form of a dark fantasy novel called Zeromancer. He was a member of the story’s first act, though he didn’t get that much time in the limelight. He was embroiled in a rivalry with his brother Baraka over a marine chick named Jet McCammon. Terrato and Baraka both wanted her and the war between them got so heated that Jet was believed to be dead at one point. The two machete-wielding, trench coat-wearing brothers dueled it out until the fight ended in a draw and the main character of that act, Kento Bladecaptain, was left with fewer allies to fight the real threat to the world, a dragon barbarian named Atlas Venom. Way to get off track, Terrato.

That’s okay, because Zeromancer didn’t stand much of a chance either. It was written in 2011, a time where I thought it was acceptable to abuse hyperbolic comparisons and to write paragraphs a full 8.5 x 11 page long. To say Zeromancer was beyond repair would be putting it mildly. To say it was a fucking mess would be vulgar, but more accurate.

To show you how much Terrato meant to me during both 2008 (Tower of Heaven) and 2011 (Zeromancer), listen to this. He wasn’t just another character I could throw away willy-nilly. He was slated to be the next Deus Shadowheart when it came to popularity.

When I first introduced Deus in 2002, everybody at the Final Fantasy-themed MSN community he was a part of was excited to see him (except for a few douche bags who thought I was stealing from Starcraft, but that’s beside the point). Deus is still fresh in the minds of guys like James Howell, Kenny Flynn, Robert Hatfield, and many others who were old enough to remember. While Terrato didn’t reach that level of popularity, I was at least hoping he would. Don’t worry, Terrato: your turn for fame will eventually come. I hope.

　

***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“We’ve had our eye on you for quite sometime, Mr. Anderson. It appears you’re living two lives. In one of these lives, you’re Thomas Anderson. You’re a program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number. You pay taxes. You even take out your landlady’s garbage. In the other life, you’re alias hacker Neo. You’re guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future. The other does not.”

-Agent Smith from “The Matrix”-