Last Man Standing? Not Anymore!

 

Imagine the shit fit MAGA would throw if Joe Biden got this show axed, yet they're perfectly fine with Donald Trump getting Stephen Colbert axed and Jimmy Kimmel suspended. Tim Allen is a hack, plain and simple.

C.C.H. Ground n' Pounder, Queen of Barbarians

 

Rusty

VERSE 1

It’s been too long since my last dance

Never gave my tired soul a single chance

To rest and unwind in the easy chair

While complaining that this isn’t fair

Fifteen hundred words sung like birds

The most drunken shit you’ve ever heard

Colored pencils on a blank white canvas

Muscled orcs swinging big fucking axes

CHORUS

Not a problem, it’s just a little rust

Blow the pages into a cloud of dust

Clear the cobwebs from my head

Thank the universe that I’m not dead

VERSE 2

Three days coming, three more going

Ran out of gas, showing signs of slowing

Can’t concentrate worth a good goddamn

Can’t be your Adderall addicted superman

A candle that burned at more than two ends

A streak of sadness growing hard to defend

The lowest of lows and the lowest of blows

Is when everyone cares, but nobody knows

CHORUS

Not a problem, it’s just a little rust

Blow the pages into a cloud of dust

Clear the cobwebs from my head

Thank the universe that I’m not dead

BRIDGE

How much more can I do today?

How many obstacles are in my way?

How many hours must I spend in bed?

To not feel like I’m the walking dead?

VERSE 3

Complaining about it doesn’t feel right

When others have a much bloodier fight

Keep my chin up and ball up my hands

I don’t expect the world to understand

I don’t expect the world to forgive me

For this rusty life that I’m truly living

I don’t expect the world to bow down

I’m tapping out in the final round

CHORUS

Not a problem, it’s just a little rust

Blow the pages into a cloud of dust

Clear the cobwebs from my head

Thank the universe that I’m not dead

King of Elves and Trees

Every strike of the axe against the Black Forest trees sent a shiver of rage up and down Saito Kabaka’s spine. The gigantic lumberjack’s swings created the deepest wooshing noises and seemed capable of tearing off a person’s head with one slice. But instead of human heads, the massive battleaxe chipped away quickly and efficiently at the thick redwoods. Saito watched from the bushes with a contorted frown, dying on the inside with every chop. This was ecocide. This was murder. The lumberjack wasn’t just chopping down trees; he was violating the spirits of this very forest.

After a while of nausea and gritted teeth, Saito couldn’t stand idly by any longer. When the elf samurai chucked one of his daggers, he forgot instantly that this man-beast was twice his size and ten times as lethal. The dagger missed its mark, but the flannel shirt and jeans wearing titan stumbled back a few paces and sucked in air at a rapid cadence. Saito’s fiery eyes bore a hole through the giant’s nervous baby blues. Decked out in golden leather armor, donning a glowing green crown of plant roots, and drawing his slender katana, the forest guardian made his presence and fury known.

“I don’t intrude into your home and eat your food. I don’t laze on your bed and fuck your wife. I don’t snatch your valuables from underneath your booger-encrusted schnoz. So why then do you believe it’s acceptable to come to my home and cut down my trees?” asked Saito while pointing his blade at the lumberjack. He slashed at the air and continued his slithery oratory with, “This forest is not your urban dystopia. It doesn’t exist so that you could build fancy hotels and burger joints for overfed human scumbags! Take that piece of shit you call a weapon and leave this place before I rip your intestines out and lynch you with them from the same tree you tried to cut down!”

The baldheaded beast of a man’s eyes darted frantically in every direction while cold sweat poured down his forehead. And then the shtick was over when he laughed his ass off and slapped his thick knees with an echoing thud. “Are you kidding me? A teeny tiny elf like you is going to lynch me with my own intestines? Goddamn, you’re a funny motherfucker!” The yuks poured out of his mouth like verbal diarrhea as he struggled to say, “Listen, man: that environmental bullshit is overrated. Take off that stupid hat; it looks fucking ridiculous on you! You might as well walk around with a salad bowl on your head!”

The lumberjack’s chuckle-filled tirade was cut off by a flying shuriken that narrowly missed his ear. But instead of feigning fear again, he dropped his axe and gave an even less sincere double slap on his cheeks with a wide open mouth.

“Perfect timing, Tifa, as usual,” smiled Saito. Floating down to the dirt like a feather was the silken dress wearing, golden haired female elf counterpart Tifa Croft, armed with claw bracers around her wrists and wearing a plant root crown like her fellow guardian. The two of them shared a peck on the lips much to the overdramatic coughing dismay of the seven-foot lumberjack.

“You guys actually fuck in this forest?” the man giant asked. “Is that how these trees grow, by the two of you sprinkling your seeds all over the ground?”

Tifa folded her arms and treated the lumberjack to a ball-shrinking death stare. “You have the sense of humor of a fucking five year old and probably the intelligence of one too. Saito here is the King of Elves and Trees and I am his Queen. Respect the crowns, you ignorant little shit!”

The lumberjack waved his arm dismissively and scoffed, “Well, I see a whole lot of trees out here, but very many elves, so I guess this ugly ass forest could do with some urban development.” He heaved his axe in the air and pointed at various parts of the forest with his weapon. “We can put a Mickey D’s over there, a Chicas Bonitas over there, and maybe a school all the way over there. You liberal whack jobs like schools, right?”

Saito swung his katana in the air and slithered, “And what do you plan on teaching this new generation of ignoramuses: how to eat a whole bucket of fried chicken in less than thirty seconds? Maybe that’s something you can teach the elves of this forest, who will be here sooner than you think.”

“You’d better hope those little pointy-eared fags run for the hills,” smirked the lumberjack while leaning his face into Saito’s. “I wasn’t planning on committing genocide today, but I just might change my mind if the two of you don’t fuck off and leave me to my work. I’m getting a lot of money for this project and I’ll be damned if you two hippies rip it away from me and my family! Remember the name of Rudiger Seran, but fuck it, you two are going to call me Daddy by the time I’m done with you!”

Rudiger threw the first swing of his axe and would have covered the whole forest in blood if Saito and Tifa didn’t duck out of the way in time. The two elves rolled and flipped their way out of every slash that the giant threw. They bounced off of trees hand in hand and found refuge at the top branches. They smiled down upon Rudiger while the lumberjack shouted, “You two cowards better get your asses down here and fight me before I cut this fucker down!”

Saito whispered in Tifa’s pointy ear, “You’ve got the supplies up here right?”

The lovely assassin brushed her hair away and pulled several pinecones out of an otherwise empty bird nest. She grinned, “It wouldn’t be the same without them.” With a wink, a nod, and a kiss, Tifa threw one of the pinecones down upon an unsuspecting Rudiger. The biomass exploded in a flash bang upon making contact with Mr. Seran’s thick skull. The giant hopped and head-banged in pain while belting every swear word known in the English language.

“You’re the best queen a man could ask for,” grinned Saito as he and Tifa threw more flash bang pinecones down upon their assailant. Rudiger tried to smack some of them away like he was playing baseball and managed to hit a few homers out in the distance. Others bounced off of his massive arms and legs while popping like firecrackers. The mighty Seran had struck out and his body ached with redness and scars. The King and Queen hugged each other and laughed like children.

Bruised skin wasn’t the only reason Rudiger was seeing red. He growled through clenched teeth and smacked himself on the cheek so many times he actually bled. His rage became evident in the way he swung his axe at the tree, ripping larger chunks out of the redwood and creating deeper wooshing noises. “Uh-oh!” Tifa quipped while she and Saito held hands and leapt to the next tree just in time for Rudiger’s ecocidal victim to crash to the ground.

Saito’s heart pounded in his chest like a war drum and the cold wetness of Tifa’s hand brought chills racing through his own body. She shook slightly and prompted the king to ask, “Are you okay, my love?”

“I…I think so,” Tifa stuttered before the branch underneath her cracked and crunched, causing her to drop to the forest ground with a resounding thud  Saito tried to hold out his hand and grab her, but all he could do was yell, “No!” as his wife crashed and burned. She lied there in the dirt breathing heavily and coughing up a geyser of blood.

Rudiger hung his battleaxe over his shoulder and strutted around Tifa with a shit-eating grin. “I guess that vegan diet isn’t helping you lose enough weight. And people call me a fat ass!” joked the lumberjack while slapping his knee and chuckling again.

Watching Rudiger Seran belittle his wife clouded Saito’s mind with scathing, bloody thoughts. As defenseless as she was, she still threw her claws around in the air hoping to hit something. Her weakness multiplied when Rudiger stomped on Tifa’s hand and crunched it so that it sounded more violent than when he whacked down the tree. Her screams of agony and shame echoed throughout the forest and caused nearby birds to fly away in fear. She tried to slash Rudiger’s thick ankles with her other claw, but that got stomped on too until there was just a bloody heap underneath his work boots.

Saito tried to remain calm and wait for his perfect opportunity to stealthily strike. But Tifa’s screams filled his gut with nuclear heat. Rudiger’s arrogant laughter filled his nerves with flaming gasoline. The more his heart pumped diesel, the more he forgot about the importance of his samurai training. With katana firmly grasped in both hands, he screamed like a demon and leapt on top of Rudiger with the intent to slash him in two vertically.

Saito could feel the ground hurtling at him at a million miles per hour. The landing was going to break his ankles, but not nearly as badly as he was going to break every bone in Rudiger’s body. And then the lumberjack swung his axe and snapped Saito in two from the waist down. The elf samurai could hear his wife roaring his name in pain as his vision went black and his wrecked body bounced off the tree with a deafening splat.

Even as what was left of him slid slowly and slimily down the tree, he could recall Rudiger asking in a mocking tone where all of the elves were at. The now pouring rain soothed Saito’s burning wounds, but it was already too late for the King of Elves and Trees.

The plant root crown slipped off of his sloppy skull and buried itself into the earth below. The rain poured down violently enough to represent the emotions of Mother Nature herself. She continued to weep as Rudiger thoughtlessly cut down more and more of her trees with vicious whacks while mocking her with cries of, “Where are your elves now, bitch?!” Tears of ecocidal agony turned into monsoons and floods. The crowns formerly worn by Tifa and Saito were drenched with nutrition as they began to take root underneath the forest.

The more Rudiger laughed his ass off, the more the roots spread across the ground. Even in the chilling rain, the arrogant giant chopped and chopped like his paycheck was that important too him. Trees crashed to the earth with sickening pounds, so much so that Rudiger was almost done with his work. But as he jokingly wiped away forehead sweat, he took a look around him and saw that his work was only just beginning.

“What the fuck?” he whispered as the tree stumps grew even more beautiful plants. Not redwoods, not roses, not berry-covered bushes, but the one species Rudiger kept asking for this entire time. Ask and ye shall receive in the form of naked green-skinned elves with blistering red eyes and thorn-covered swords. One by one they blossomed from the stumps and groaned like an army of zombies. Rudiger dropped his axe and cowered on the soaked ground, shivering for reasons other than the temperature.

The pathetic display did nothing to back off the hungry doppelganger elves as they chanted in monstrous unison, “You will feed us! You will feed us! You will feed us!” They closer they marched, the brighter their neon red eyes glowed and the more Rudiger shivered and quaked in his clumsy body. And then, the King and Queen’s beloved army of avengers dined upon the giant’s flesh like the entire menu at one of the lumberjack’s planned Mickey D’s. Rudiger’s flesh tasted more delicious than chocolate cake, meatier than a twenty-pound steak, and juicier than a bottle of Ocean Spray. So much for that vegan diet that Tifa Croft always enjoyed.

Lionize

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Lionize Entertainment’s fiftieth anniversary of the Lion Cup Tournament! My name is Andrea Lovell and I am the CEO of Lionize Entertainment! We’re going to have a fucking fun night of blood and death tonight!”

Hearing his boss echo those words throughout a coliseum full of roaring fans made Dargoth Destroyer sick to his stomach and set his aching brain on fire. The barbarian warrior firmly believed Andrea only had her job because she looked like a million bucks in a short skirt and high heels. She was easy to fantasize about, but hard to love.

Dargoth was too busy loving his own wife and kids back home. He loved them so much that he would rip the limbs off of any opponent who dared stand in the way of a paycheck and beat them to death like little bitches. With his wrecking ball muscles and volcanic temper, he could do just that to pretty much anybody.

Then again, so could Dargoth’s opponent for the evening, Zeal Cottonwood. The rotten-smelling, blue skinned zombie towered over the barbarian with a skyscraper height and muscles that might as well be registered as deadly weapons (even the small and insignificant ones). Zeal stared down into Dargoth’s eyes with neon-colored madness and smiled with rusty-nail teeth.

The barbarian, having already had visions of blood and brutality locked forever in his brain, refused to give even an inch of trembling to this undead beast with greasy long hair. The two opponents were so laser-focused into each other’s menacing eyeballs that they tuned out the crowd and Andrea Lovell’s nails-on-a-chalkboard voice completely.

It wasn’t until Miss Lovell, who sat at her golden throne in a skybox above the coliseum, snapped into the microphone, “HEY!” that the two combatants gave her their undying attention with wicked glares. “Are you two ready to put on a hell of a show for these rowdy animals?! Give ‘em hell!” Rowdy animals became the understatement of the year when the beer-drinking, T-shirt and jeans wearing crowd’s cheers bored into the combatants’ eardrums like a power drill. Even Zeal Cottonwood couldn’t help but grunt lightly at the sudden explosion of volume.

“Ready to get your ass whipped, little buddy?” growled Zeal in a monstrous tone. He leaned his sour milk-fragranced face in closer and whispered, “Between you and me, I wouldn’t worry too much about that wife of yours. I hear she’s banging the shit out of a hotter version of you. That lucrative contract of yours is going up her nose and in her G-spots!”

Zeal’s demonic cackle prompted the angrily trembling Dargoth to head butt his opponent in the nose. Both men clutched their noggins in pain and groaned minimally, but Dargoth was the only one between the two who staggered after such a brutal move. Zeal chuckled, “Is that all you got, little man? No wonder your wife’s sleeping around. That spaghetti dick of yours couldn’t satisfy a bitch like her anyways!”

Dargoth’s fiery adrenaline was smothered in kerosene, causing the hefty barbarian to spear tackle Zeal’s gut so hard that the seven-foot zombie flipped in the air like a pancake and flattened to the ground like one too. The barbarian’s muscles tightened as tough as steel with every brick-like punch he threw at the zombie’s already decrepit face. Teeth flew everywhere, pimples popped like grenades, blood splattered across the dirt floor, but through it all, Zeal never lost his smile and Dargoth’s hands reddened with electrified pain.

Zeal Cottonwood pushed Dargoth Destroyer in the air with his booted feet and nipped up in time to catch the smaller warrior in a military press. The audience “oooed” and “ahhed” like a herd of sheep while Zeal did strength training repetitions with Dargoth’s 300 lb. body. The barbarian tried to rake and punch at his opponent’s eyes, but the zombie wouldn’t relent. He tossed the smaller opponent across the dirt arena and caused him to bounce up and down along the way, forming bruises the size and disgustingness of rotten tomatoes.

Everything in Dargoth’s body felt as though he had been stepped on by Godzilla and rubbed across the asphalt. Yet the mental images of his beautiful wife and his two sweethearted daughters sent a rush of hot lava through his veins. This kind of money would keep them fed forever.

It would give the daughters an education they wouldn’t have dreamed of having in the ghetto neighborhood. It would give his wife a life of happiness and stability. If he didn’t get up and fight at this very moment, they would think of him as a failure and they’d most likely die from hunger in such a downtrodden economy. It was such a distasteful way to make money, but in Dargoth’s mind, there was no such thing as too much hard work.

By the time the barbarian heaved his clumsy ass off the ground, he peered up through bloodshot, dirt-covered eyes to find Zeal had a live chainsaw roaring to life in his hands. There were weapons scattered everywhere on the bloodstained ground from staves to swords to axes. Dargoth picked up an axe in his sore hands and then in a surprise move broke it over his knee to send a message: “Weapons are for pussies! If you want to fight like a pussy, I’ll treat you like one, Zeal! Come on, bitch!”

The gargantuan zombie rushed towards Dargoth swinging his power tool like a deranged samurai while Dargoth egged him on with a “come at me” hand gesture. The chainsaw blazed and buzzed all around the barbarian while the muscly warrior dodged and cartwheeled to safety despite losing a lock of his own sweaty hair.

Dargoth saw his opening when he ducked a decapitation attempt and went for a hard uppercut to the jaw. Zeal staggered backwards in dizziness and dropped his weapon. The barbarian continued to pummel his opponent with hard-hitting, rapid fire strikes that connected with thuds, cracks, and explosions. The primitive warrior tucked his head underneath Zeal’s crotch and hoisted the hefty warrior on his shoulders before slamming him down on his back with a shotgun blast thud. Even more cracks and bursts echoed throughout the arena as did the obnoxious cheers of both the audience and Andrea Lovell, who sat at her throne mockingly clapping for her independent contractor. “Finish him, Dargoth! Finish him now, you sick son of a bitch!”

The barbarian stared at the scantily clad, leggy CEO with cyanide in his eyes and iron in his gritted teeth. Winning the Lion Cup Tournament would guarantee him all the money he wanted for his family, but he would still be locked in a contract that put him in danger with every match. His body ached twenty-four-seven. He threw up his meals nightly. If he got the chance to go home at all, he would look like a monster to his family and scare them off. Maybe Zeal’s harsh rumors of infidelity would be completely justifiable at that point (if they were true). Surely, there had to be other ways of making lucrative money with his skills. Maybe there was…

Dargoth’s iron will wouldn’t be broken. One more death to go. Just one more. His target was in plain sight. The Lion Cup and everything that came with it would be his forever. He glanced at the live chainsaw and heaved the heavy machinery over his head with the intent to rip and shred. The audience roared and bellowed for Zeal’s bloody and disgusting death. He was just laying there ready to be dissected. Dargoth smiled a sadistic smile and approached Zeal with slow movements while the zombie rolled around and groaned in horrific pain. And then…the barbarian tossed the chainsaw like a boomerang.

But instead of grinding zombie meat, he chucked the whirring blade at Andrea Lovell so many feet in the air. The CEO gasped in horror before tucking and rolling out of the blade’s path. The audience gasped as well at the sight of the chainsaw embedded in the golden throne still buzzing.

After straightening her hair and fixing her skirt, Andrea stood back up with a queen’s posture and glared with hellish hatred at the menacing barbarian. She picked up the microphone and sneered, “So that’s how you plan on getting out of your contract, huh? By killing me?” Dargoth nodded and the audience booed him with plenty of bass in their voices.

The CEO scolded, “It’s a good thing your children are being well-educated with all of this money, because their daddy is the biggest dumb shit to step in my coliseum! Sure, you can kill me and rob me of the rest of your earnings, but you won’t be solving a damn thing, my friend. Ever heard the phrase power vacuum? Without me, all of your worst enemies will be gunning for my position. If you thought fighting to the death for my entertainment was bad, try fighting for the power I wield on a day-to-day basis. You already know what ISIS looks like. Try and picture the Lionize Entertainment version of ISIS! My corporation will last until the end of time, but your misery will be forever, just like your contract! You didn’t think this one through very well, did you?!”

Dargoth clenched his fists so tightly that his bloody fingernails dug into his palms and he didn’t give a shit about the pain. He didn’t want to admit it, but she was right: cutting off the head of the snake would create a hydra, not a corpse. A contractual slave like him couldn’t even dream of the power it took to run a whole corporation. What havoc had he brought upon himself? What danger did he put his beloved family in?

As he contemplated the consequences of his “easy way out”, Dargoth felt a tight presence squeeze around his torso until his body was pencil thin. His head turned purple, his veins grew to the size of tunnels, and his ribs were cracking like Rice Crispies. He peeked up and saw that Zeal Cottonwood was the one squeezing like a motherfucker, much to Andrea’s laughing delight. She even chimed in, “Squeeze harder! Pop him like a pimple! Make him suffer!”

Listening to that wasp-like voice sent Dargoth into rampage mode when he stomped on Zeal’s foot with the force of a jackhammer and head butted him in the jaw. The barbarian staggered around in dizziness and rasped for oxygen, but the zombie had released his grip and stumbled backwards himself.

As soon as Dargoth’s lungs no longer felt like he swallowed a battleaxe, Zeal went for an overhead strike. Dargoth ducked underneath and transitioned behind the zombie with an arm choke. The barbarian squeezed with enough force to pop more pimples and blood vessels on Zeal’s face. He even loosened a few rotten teeth. But the minute the zombie’s eyeballs popped out of his head, his brains leaked onto the floor and he was limp as Dargoth’s “spaghetti dick”.

As soon as Zeal plopped over dead, Dargoth Destroyer raised his fists to the sky to declare victory. The audience roared like jungle cats in approval and high fived each other while chanting Dargoth’s name. Even Andrea gave him a little golf clap while saying into the microphone, “I hope your wife is watching!”

Indeed she was watching. From the comfort of her soft, silky-sheeted bed, Mrs. Destroyer watched the violence with a satisfied, teary-eyed smile on her face. “Thank you so much, my dear! Thank you!” The other man who was grateful unwrapped the towel from his muscular waist and climbed into bed with her with a silver tray of cocaine in his hands. The wife smiled lovingly at her paramour before rolling up a dollar bill and snorting sweet candy right up her slender nose. The paramour snorted some too before the lovers got it on underneath the sheets.

Little did they know that from the crack of their bedroom door, two teary-eyed girls watched the whole thing. The daughters hugged each other tightly and smeared their salty eye fluids across their Winnie the Pooh pajama sleeves. “I miss daddy,” one of them whispered to the other while a night of hot cocaine-laced sex was unfolding before them.

Wal-Martians

“Tell me again how this is different from any other day at Wal-Mart?” asked the metal-armored Amazon Alexis Lee as she stamped the butt of her spear into the pavement.

“You’ve been making that joke for hours, Alexis. Knock it off. Yes, we’re well aware that Wal-Mart has been taken over by these…creatures, if you want to call them that. We know how ironic it truly is. We still have a job to do whether you think it’s hilarious or not,” said the aura-covered paladin Micah Fireborn as he swung his sword in the air to warm up his muscles.

“Can we just get in there and rescue Lady Sakura already? This place gives me the fucking creeps,” said the muscle-bound, kilt-wearing barbarian Cain McLeod, who sharpened his double-edged axe with a stone. “Not one more joke out of you, Alexis!”

“Please? Just one more? What do you call a bunch of zealots who will die for a supermarket? Wal-Martyrs!” chuckled Alexis while her two companions sighed and held their faces in their free hands. “Come on, you have to admit that was good!”

“The hell I do!” belted Cain. “Can we please just start the damn mission and get that fucking religious nut out of there?”

“Fine, fine, you guys win. I guess killing will be funny enough,” frowned Alexis.

The three warriors marched their way through the parking lot knowing the fun and games were over and the ass beatings were about to commence. They pounded their weapon handles, let out short roars, and slapped their own faces to psych themselves up. When they reached the automatic double doors, they gagged and wheezed at the sight of green alien goop sealing the hinges together. “I got this,” said Micah Fireborn as he ignited his sword with an aura of fire and chopped through the slime with ease, splattering some on Alexis and Cain.

Alexis could barely tolerate the rancid stench, but Cain spewed his dinner all over the pavement while the Amazon giggled and the paladin shook his head at him. Cain wiped his mouth off with his leather gloves and pointed at Alexis before commanding, “Don’t you start with those jokes again! I mean it!”

“Okay, okay, Jesus, I won’t make anymore puns. You happy now? God!” whined Alexis. The three warriors kicked down the glass doors and chopped away at any remaining slime paste. Cain nearly emptied his bowels yet again when he saw that a drained human was underneath one of the slime piles. Micah grabbed him by the arm and jerked him into the store.

“See? What did I tell you guys?” asked Alexis rhetorically as the three fighters took in the surreal scenery of the invaded superstore. Skeletons and green slime decorated the floors, walls, and ceiling while the actual food items had mushrooms growing out of them. Legos were scattered across the floor and had blood sprinkled over some of them, most likely due to somebody stepping on them in bare feet. The assault rifle rack was useless since the barrels were dripping with this awful snot-like substance.

The warriors treaded lightly around the store and made sure to huddle together so they didn’t get separated. So far, no sign of the enemy, just lots and lots of snot, shit, and urine flooding the store. Just a tiny drop of this viscous substance landed on Cain’s nose and he immediately dropped to his knees dry heaving his guts out.

“For the love of God, Cain, get it together!” snapped Micah. “If you don’t like the smell of this stuff, why did you agree to this mission to begin with? You’re a barbarian, for shit’s sake! Suck it up, buttercup!”

“Trust me, Micah, he won’t be sucking that stuff up anytime soon,” joked Alexis, who afterwards raised her hands defensively when Micah and Cain scowled at her.

The stomach juices were really going haywire when the slime moved across the floor to various clothing items, whether it be ‘Murica T-shirts, jorts with holes in them, or Make America Great Again baseball caps. Micah, Alexis, and the newly recovered Cain backed up against the wall with home improvement tools and stood strong as the goo filled up these clothes until they were in the shape of alien creatures. Their whip-like tongues and tentacles swung from side to side in anticipation of their human meals.

Cain wasn’t vomiting anymore, Alexis wasn’t cracking jokes anymore, and Micah…well, he was the only serious one around. The three warriors stood their ground while Cain used his free hand to signal the aliens forward. “Come on, you fucking Wal-Martians! Let’s make ass-kicking great again!”

The aliens swarmed on the three heroes and were treated to high speed and high power chops, slashes, and pierces from each of their weapons. Alexis stuck her spear into one giant tub of goo and slammed the creature into others, creating a tidal wave of sick fluids in her wake. Cain spun around like a buzz saw with his axe and cleaved through hordes of aliens, turning their bodies into puddles of gelatin. Micah’s fiery sword cut through even more hordes of aliens and melted them to the point of boiling and steaming over the already thick Wal-Mart air.

“Is that all you got?!” taunted Cain while an alien wrapped its massive tentacle around Alexis’s legs and dragged her screaming across the filthy floor. When she dropped her spear and yelled for help, the barbarian shouted back, “I’ll save you, Alexis!” and dove after her. His end result was getting tackled in the ribs and sent flying across a shelf full of Lego sets.

Micah stabbed his flaming sword into the aliens repeatedly until they melted into a river of trash. His back was turned for one small second and an alien wrapped its tentacle around his throat before dragging him across the floor kicking and gurgling, leaving his blade behind. In the midst of his capture, he could see another tentacle wrapping itself around Cain’s body and pulling him as well.

The mass of alien humanity melded into one gigantic squid-like being, complete with more tentacles, more razor-sharp mouths, and more sickening slime that had Cain sticking his tongue out and heaving once again. Through this pool of disgust, not one warrior could get a good look at who was commanding this gigantic creature. All they heard was a raspy voice command, “Join us! Join my army and let us ride into heaven together!”

“You call this heaven?!” shouted Alexis. “I’d rather have the devil himself shove a fiery trident up my ass than go to your version of heaven!”

The tentacles squeezed harder around her legs and caused her to shriek in mind-blowing pain. The creature said, “So you must be the funny one of the group. You’re the one who likes to laugh at other people’s beliefs. You’re the one who likes to laugh at the prayers of the holy ones! I will not have such blasphemy in my church!”

“Church, my ass, you sick freak!” shouted Micah as he pulled some of the slime away from his neck. “Sakura Divine is more of a priest than you’ll ever be! She’ll be the one who guides us to heaven! Last time I checked, heaven didn’t look like a big ass used Kleenex!”

“You’re absolutely right!” belted the creature as she cinched the tentacle tighter around Micah’s neck. “Sakura Divine is quite the leader. She has the answers for us all. You’ve been listening to them the whole time!”

The faces of the warriors grew sullen as they realized what had just been revealed. Cain murmured, “No…no, it’s not true! You’re Sakura Divine?! You’re the one we came to save?!” After a demonic laughter from the slimy creature, Cain roared at Micah, “This is all your fault, you fucking altar boy! I told you we shouldn’t have trusted this religious whacko!”

Insulted by the “blasphemous” display, Sakura squeezed her tentacle around Cain’s ribs even harder than before while other tentacles joined in to squish him like a grape. Alexis screamed and hollered for mercy, but Cain’s body exploded into jelly once the constriction became too tight. “You sick little bitch!” Alexis shouted. “How could you do this to us?!” She too was squeezed by multiple tentacles until her body went kaboom like a nuclear warhead.

“No!” Micah shouted while struggling to break free from Sakura’s grip.

“Don’t fight it, Micah!” ordered Lady Divine. “You’re a noble paladin, a warrior of the light. You should know better than anybody how good heaven will feel once you walk past the pearly gates. End the struggle, my dear friend. Let the magic of heaven flow through your veins.”

“I’ll never join you!” shouted Micah.

“Don’t think too hard about your decision, paladin!” mocked Sakura. “I crushed your two friends because they were not worthy of such a trip into space. But you, Micah, you were destined for greatness. As of right now, you have two options: you can rot here forever in your own personal hell, or you can join me in my spaceship and we can rule over heaven together!”

Micah stopped struggling for a moment and actually had to think about this decision. He replayed both of his friends being crushed into gelatin in his head like a nagging schizophrenic vision. His mind went numb, his eyes became teary, and his body was relaxing. Being pasted to the ground of an already joked-about store like Wal-Mart was the true definition of hell. What if Sakura was right? What if heaven was waiting for him in that space ship?

“You know what, Sakura? I’m with you on one thing. I don’t want to go to hell tonight. But you will!” roared Micah as he activated his fiery aura to melt away the tentacle around his throat. Sakura screamed while the rancid goop melted down Micah’s nose and throat. He coughed and vomited several times, but he could feel the flame surge through him. He could feel his insides burning with passion and holiness. He stood up and shined his flaming aura even brighter until the entire store was covered in it. Sakura’s gelatinous form liquefied like butter…but only because that was what happened during hallucinatory trips.

In reality, Micah’s insides were burning for a much different reason: he swallowed the acidic mess. His brain cycled through different parts of the slimy battle whether he was in danger or fighting alongside his friends. His head was pounding with agony so badly that it felt like he was being smashed with a sledgehammer. His chest and stomach felt like he was going to through up so badly that he would turn himself inside out.

This was what it felt like to betray his religion and follow his own path. He was going to hell no matter what. But even with all of this pain wracking his body, he felt like he was already in heaven since he would be joining Cain and Alexis soon. They could crack all of the jokes they wanted and nobody would break them. Sakura may have shredded their bodies, but their souls were free. Was it worth the pain? Always. Even in death, Micah, Cain, and Alexis would make the afterlife great again.

Wolf's Cannonball

Little Red skipped and hopped through the forest with a wicker picnic basket in hand and a sunshine smile on her face. Her red cloak and hood flapped like a flag in the morning wind while goose bumps formed on her arms from the chilly weather. After a lengthy summer of boiling hot weather, a gentle breeze was most certainly welcome. By the time Red reached the top of the hill, she gazed into the distance with a star-struck expression and said, “My, what big eyes you have! You dead bastard!”

Her innocent aura was replaced with a menacing scowl as she pulled the hood over her face and knelt down to unload her picnic basket. Instead of delicious treats for grandma, Red pulled out pieces of a sniper rifle and assembled them with military quickness. She laid on her stomach and peered through the scope to acquire her target. Even with so many trees standing in her way, the target was as clear as the morning weather. “That bounty money is as good as mine, motherfucker!” she said with a sadistic grin.

Within Little Red Sniper’s crosshairs was the Big Bad Wolf himself, the hairy beast moving gracefully with martial arts movements. Every spin kick and palm strike would have made the legendary Bruce Lee proud. One of his spin kicks managed to slice one of the trees down. The thunderous crash to the ground made Little Red Sniper giggle and shake her head. “Pathetic. That’s what it is,” she said under her breath. “All that kung fu BS won’t mean a damn thing with a bullet in your head.”

After performing his kata, the Big Bad Wolf stood still and breathed intensely to relax his body while he spread his palms out. This wasn’t the kind of breath that could huff and puff and blow somebody’s house down, but it did let Little Red know that he worked hard to perfect his craft despite her unimpressed stare through the scope. The innocent-looking sniper focused her crosshairs right between Wolfie’s eyes and she took the perfect shot.

As the thunderous blast rang out through the forest, Little Red Sniper got up and celebrated her perfect shot with arm swinging dances and moonwalk shuffles. She giggled as she peered through the sniper scope to see just how badly Wolfie’s head exploded. “No fucking way,” she said to herself. “This is some sugar frosted bullshit!”

Wolfie had caught the bullet with his fangs and spit it out like chewed bubblegum. Instead of splattered brains, all she got was a tiny trickle of blood running down his furry chin. The martial arts genius’s deadly grin showed a dark side of him that the public was used to seeing. Even Little Red had been quivering in her boots upon seeing such a vicious expression.

With her rifle still concentrated on the Big Bad Wolf, Little Red slowly backed away while stuttering uh’s repeatedly. The further she backed away, the closer Wolfie got as he power walked across the forest to go in for the kill. Little Red kept backing away until she bumped into a muscular figure behind her and dropped to her knees, losing her rifle in the process.

When Little Red reached over shakily to pick up her weapon, she felt a death grip around the nape of her neck as it yanked her off the ground kicking and screaming. “Put me down, you big oaf! I’ll pop your head open once I get my rifle!” she threatened.

The massive hand turned her around and now she was face to face with yet another razor sharp mouth and bloodlust glare. The orange flannel shirt, the baggy blue jeans, the black combat boots, and the blood-covered axe, not to mention the filthy green skin: they all spelled the presence of Hacksaw the grumpy lumberjack. The orc leaned his face closer to Red’s and said in a throaty voice, “You ain’t gonna do shit!” before tossing her aside easier than a beach ball.

After Little Red bounced off of a tree stump, Hacksaw kicked the sniper rifle away into the nearby bushes while the Big Bad Wolf leapt onto the battlefield with grace and dexterity. Wolfie did some marital arts punches and tornado kicks in the air to warm himself up, but only received a belly laugh from an indifferent Hacksaw. “You think any of that shit’s going to matter once I chop your goddamn head off?” he mockingly asked. “I don’t give a damn about your big bad reputation; that money is mine!”

Hacksaw charged at Wolfie and swung his axe like a barbarian possessed by eye-bulging rage. While that battle was going on, Little Red wiped the dirt out of her eyes and slowly crawled towards the bushes where her sniper rifle was kicked. “Almost there…” she said weakly before Hacksaw accidentally stepped on her hand and made it sound like he walked on packing peanuts.

“Yeouch!” hollered Little Red as she pulled her hand out and felt it pulsate with redness like she was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. “Watch where you’re stepping, you giant sack of turds!”

Hacksaw grabbed Little Red by her crunchy wrist and slammed her against Wolfie, sending him flying backwards against a tree, which crackled and smashed upon impact. After tossing Little Red aside once again, Hacksaw raised his axe to the sky and shouted, “Yes! That bounty money’s mine! Ha-ha! I did it! Woo!”

Little Red once again attempted to crawl towards her weapon, broken hand and all. This time she was sure she would retrieve it. It was inches away from her good fingertips. Victory would be hers and bullets would fly everywhere in this god forsaken forest. Her fingertips were on the barrel when she felt a hard boot come down across her spinal cord. She yelped in pain and howled like a puppy while Hacksaw pulled her up by her blond locks.

“I’ve had just about all I can stand of you, you crazy bitch!” grunted Hacksaw with his axe raised in the air. “All I wanted was a nice beachside vacation for my family and you’re out here trying to take that shit away from me! That pretty little head of yours is coming off today!”

Little Red spit out blood and protested, “Beachside vacation?! You’re doing all of this to get sand in your ass?! My grandmother has cancer, for god’s sake! Hell, there are lots of guys out there who need that bounty money more than you do! There will always be time to get salt water in your nose and sand in your G-string! My grandmother has six weeks to live! I need this money, damn it!”

“Ah, who cares about that old hag?!” grumbled Hacksaw. “She would have been dead even if she didn’t have cancer! She’s probably so old that she has Jesus on speed dial!”

“So this is it, huh?” said a familiar grunting voice. Once Hacksaw recognized it as an arm-folded Big Bad Wolf, he released his grip on Little Red and allowed her to scoot away while holding her lower back. Wolfie continued with, “You two are finally going to be the ones who take me to jail for a crime I didn’t commit? Of course they’re going to pin it on me. I’m a fucking wolf! Never mind that the two of you are killing each other over some ill-gotten reward. Never mind that children go missing every day around here. Never mind that not one body was found out in these woods. Not one fucking body!”

A beat of silence befell the bounty hunters as their expressions softened and their shoulders slacked. Wolfie wasn’t done yet. “I know how the so-called justice system works. It can’t be called justice at all. The guy with the sharpest teeth and the martial arts skills is automatically guilty despite there being no fucking evidence of any crime. How dare you judge me based on a fake reputation! How dare you come at me looking for a shallow reward! If I wanted to waste my time with you guys, both of you would be dead as fried chicken by now!”

Wolfie stroked his chin and as a light bulb went off in his head. “Come to think of it, there is one technique I’d like to try, but it might actually kill me, it’s so powerful. I’ve been working on it for years. If I could get it right, both of you would be dead ass motherfuckers and I could finally live in peace. Yeah, that sounds about right…I call it the Wolf’s Cannonball!”

Holding her hands up in defeat, Little Red pleaded, “Now listen, Wolfie-Pie: you don’t need to do that shit. Both of us will get out of here and leave you alone. Hell, we’ll probably start a petition to get that bounty off your head. Right, Hacksaw?”

“Wolf’s Cannonball, my ass! I ain’t gonna help him with a damn thing! He needs to die and if you’re too much of a sissy to collect that bounty, I’m going to do it!” shouted Hacksaw as he charged at Wolfie with his axe yet again despite Little Red’s protests.

In defense the Big Bad Wolf backed up Hacksaw by curling into a ball and spinning in the air with mystic blue energy surrounding him. Little Red crawled on the ground like a snail while Hacksaw tripped over everything in fear until he was on his knees crouching into the fetal position. The faster Wolfie spun in the air, the wider the blue energy spread and the tighter Little Red and Hacksaw clutched their prone bodies. In a moment of desperation, the two hunters even hugged each other knowing their financial wishes wouldn’t come true and their lives would be over.

In a blinding flash of blue light, a jet engine wooshing noise flew past Little Red Sniper and Hacksaw and had them screaming like torture victims in hell. They screamed even louder as their skin boiled and their hairs stood up. The energy got hotter and the light was bright enough to damage eyes worse than a solar eclipse. And then…total darkness. All that remained of Little Red and Hacksaw’s pain were migraine-sized headaches and pulsating eyeballs.

“You can let go of me now, Hacksaw,” said Little Red Sniper in a sheepish voice. The orc lumberjack obeyed and the two of them slowly rose to their feet while dusting themselves off. Once Little Red popped her spine back into place, she and Hacksaw saw that the Wolf’s Cannonball had left a deep trail beneath them and that trail was leading into the city. They could see the castle from here as it exploded into a bright blue fire before being sucked up in a gigantic energy beam blasting into the sky.

“So that’s the Wolf’s Cannonball. He didn’t want to use it on a couple of bounty hunters. He wanted to take down the justice system. Eh, makes sense,” said Little Red with shrugged shoulders.

“I bet that castle as a shit load of gold in it somewhere. Government buildings usually do. There’s probably enough in there for both of us to get what we want,” said Hacksaw.

“Are you suggesting that we loot the castle?” asked Little Red in minor shock. Once Hacksaw smiled and winked at her, she smiled back and said, “For the first time in my life, I like the way you think!”

The two bounty hunters wrapped their arms around each other and walked from the scene. Hacksaw asked, “Don’t you want your sniper rifle?”

“Meh. I’ll just buy a new one. Maybe I’ll get a rocket launcher, who knows?” said Little Red nonchalantly.

“I also like the way you think!”

Demon Axe, Chapter 9

“Daniel! March your butt right back here! Now! Open your goddamn ears for the first time in your life! Get back here, you big baby! Come on! Move it!” None of these energetic threats from Raven could slow down the clomping thuds of Daniel Mercer’s boots. Determined that his newfound “weapon” was still just at toy, the rock god marched back to the portal to the “real world”.

“You can run away all you want to, but Roger is eventually going to hunt your ass down!” shouted Raven, who was floating through the portal space with him. “And then what will you do? Are you just going to give up? Are you going to kneel before the same son of a bitch who murdered your friends in cold blood?!”

Daniel was more distracted by his own angry thoughts than he was by the colors and wavelengths of the portal world. Raven’s words snapped him out of it and earned her a vicious glare from a stone face. “Be angry all you want!” she said. “But if you don’t channel that anger towards bringing justice to your friends and your audience, then you’re just a heavy metal hypocrite.”

“You want to know what a real hypocrite is, Raven?!” roared Daniel. “A hypocrite is someone who has an entire army of soldiers to hunt down one guy, yet still claims to be powerless to do anything about it! Your father is a typical politician: full of empty promises and full of bullshit! Who the hell voted for him to be king?! Seriously, what is he doing with all of those soldiers?! Are they just a bunch of paper-pushers with medieval weapons?!”

The allies were so busy bickering that they failed to realize that they had been shot out of the portal and onto the grassy field of the outdoor arena a.k.a. “the real world”. They stood back up (without each other to lean on) and dusted the grass blades and dirt off of their clothes.

Raven shoved her finger in Daniel’s face and said, “Listen to me, you fucking jerk! I don’t ever want to hear you talk about my father like that again! Some things are out of his control, but he knows exactly what he’s doing by sending you out to fight Roger Zee. Whether you like it or not, you represent this human world. You have its entire weight on your shoulders. If you humans don’t learn to help yourselves, then nobody else can help you either. This is my father’s way of teaching you pathetic humans self-reliance! If you can update your fucking Twitter page, you can goddamn jolly-well learn to catch a terrorist!”

Daniel leaned closer to Raven so that they were face-to-face and said in a hushed, yet angry tone, “There’s a huge difference between self-reliance and complete abandonment. Not only is Roger Zee a product of YOUR society, but the only thing I have to fight him with is…” He swung his “magical” axe microphone in the air and sprinkled more gold dust around. “Tell me how any of this is supposed to make sense!”

“When was the last time any tragedy in this world made sense?” asked Raven rhetorically. “When was the last time that a zealot thought rationally about what he or she was doing? Sometimes things don’t make sense at first, Daniel. Sometimes the best answer to all of this is there are just too many assholes out there. But you…you make more sense than a lot of people from your culture, and that’s saying a lot given your affinity for drugs and alcohol.”

“Then riddle me this, Batman,” said Daniel. “How exactly is a stage prop supposed to slash the head off of someone who can do the same thing to me with just a flick of his fucking wrist?”

“That’s the million dollar question, Mr. Lord of the Pit!” said a gravelly, demonic voice only a few feet away from the conversers. Daniel and Raven looked at each other fearfully and gulped saliva before slowly turning their necks to see that the voice belonged to an enslaved Johnny Vega, his partner Sonia Marquez flanking him. They stood there with arms folded, muscles thumping, veins protruding, eyes glowing, and teeth bared.

Raven took notice of the crowns of thorns on the assailants’ heads. “These wrestlers don’t know what they’re doing. The Order of the Spider once used those crowns to glean information from prisoners. Roger has found a way to use them for complete mind control.”

Daniel patted Raven on the back and said, “Well, Mrs. Warrior Princess, this is your cue then. You’re the only one between the two of us with an actual weapon, so why don’t you just…”

Raven was knocked backwards so far that she rolled across the grass field, all because of a flying martial arts kick from Sonia Marquez, who proceeded to crack her knuckles after such an accomplishment. Daniel trembled as he watched his ally holding her stomach and gasping desperately for air. Sonia mockingly patted him on the shoulder and said in a succubus-like voice, “Well, what are you waiting for, honey-bunny? Why don’t you try that new weapon of yours on me? I promise I won’t bite…hard!”

Daniel looked down at his “toy” and gripped the handle with a warrior’s resolve. His trembling of fear turned to trembling of anger. He glared with deadliness into Sonia’s demonic eyes and said, “Die, you motherfucker, die!” With reckless abandon, he hacked and slashed with his magical axe like a battle-hungry berserker. He slashed at her neck, arms, ribs, and legs while screaming every swear word imaginable until his veins burst like dynamite sticks. By the time his vicious attack was over, he doubled over in exhaustion and wheezed hard while spitting acidic bile onto the grass.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to be nice to your toys?” said Sonia, who didn’t have a single scratch on her, not even a small bruise of sorts. She stood with her arms folded and her smile arrogant. Daniel on the other hand whimpered so gently that Johnny Vega couldn’t help but give him a “comforting” shoulder squeeze.

“It’s alright, you big baby girl,” said Johnny in a mocking bass voice. “It’s not your fault that you hit like a two-year-old…or cry like one. You probably should have brought a gun with you of some kind. But then again, those are big boy toys and you’re just a little bitty baby. Maybe you should have one of those rifles with a wooden cork at the end of it.”

Sonia and Johnny were laughing it up in their monstrous voices while Raven was squirming on the ground like a snail, trying to get back into this battle, but hurting badly. She was the only one who had true fighting experience and she was easily vanquished. Daniel didn’t think he had a chance in the world. To him, this was truly a shitty way to die. He didn’t know what the minions were going to do to him, but it probably would have involved a shattered skull or a snapped spinal cord. Hearing them laugh about it brought angry tears to Daniel’s eyes.

The Lord of the Pit grit his teeth hard as he thought about Roger secretly laughing about slaughtering his band mates. The trauma of their severed heads came rushing back to him, the voices blaming him for being a failure and running away in cowardice. His adrenaline was heating up like molten steel. His muscles twitched and ached. His heart felt like a bomb vest ready to explode. With one final outburst, Daniel yelled, “Shut the fuck up!” into the microphone like the true heavy metal god he was.

The sound waves of the throaty growl knocked Sonia and Johnny back like human cannonballs. Their crowns of thorns showed small cracks in them as well. Everybody on that battlefield good or evil showed shock on their faces with wide eyes and deep breaths. “Holy shit,” said Daniel softly.

The initial shock wore off and was replaced with vitriolic, passionate fire from the Lord of the Pit. Instead of imagining his band mates as floating heads, he imagined them as full bodies, in their costumes and masks, playing behind him like they were at a concert. Vulture Man strummed his guitar like a wild motherfucker. Pig Man slapped his bass guitar like a pimp who was owed money. G-Pac bashed the drums and symbols with enough anger to put dents into them.

“Alright, motherfuckers!” the Lord of the Pit shouted into the microphone yet again. “You want a battle? Here’s a war!” That last word was prolonged with a raspy roar as he imagined the grinding music in the background. The louder Daniel yelled, the tighter everybody around him gripped their ears in pain. He wasn’t even singing a real song; it was just a firestorm of hateful, disgusting swear words from “cocksucker” to “motherfucker” to “prison bitch” to “Jesus Christ”.

The sound waves from the microphone blew past everyone like a hurricane and smashed their eardrums like G-Pac on his kit. The crowns of thorns formed more cracks. And more. And more. Then the artifacts of control shattered like glass and blew away in the heavy metal tornado. Johnny and Sonia’s heads were bleeding, but not profusely and they were still awake. Raven was shaking her ears with her fingers, trying to get the buzzing out. The Lord of the Pit looked around at what he had done and dropped his microphone in disbelief. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said.

Chunky Puffs

That Crescent Moon Party was some badass shit. Lots of drinking, lots of dancing, lots of fucking, and not one werewolf in sight. And then Nick Savage wondered why the hell he was tied to a barbecue rack out on the beaches with a spitfire underneath him. He wondered why the hell he had a golden delicious apple in his mouth like a ball gag. The biggest question of all was why were two chubby cannibals with afro hair and grass skirts looking on at him with the most romantic eyes. They made Nick shiver like a naked Eskimo when they licked their fat lips.

In the end, none of those questions mattered to Nick. All he had to do was get the hell out of this contraption before daybreak. With his vampire fangs, he chewed through the apple and swallowed it whole, giving off an obnoxious burp after enjoying his snack. He looked at the confused cannibals with a crazy smile and said, “Well, you know what they say: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. So as soon as the two of you are done checking each other’s prostates, I’d like it if you’d untie me.”

The cannibal on the left started screaming in a tribal language while his friend was holding him back. During their petty argument, Nick could hear them call each other Soa and Tufu. He laughed like an evil clown while the one called Soa angrily asked, “What’s so funny, you pathetic little creature?!”

“Nothing, nothing at all,” said Nick. “I just didn’t think my night was end with me getting eaten alive by two idiots named Soda and Tofu. I suppose that can’t be worse than Gwyneth Paltrow naming her daughter Apple, but hey, who am I to judge?”

Soa was even more aggressive with his thrashing and tribal screaming, but Tufu was there to hold him back. As soon as Soa calmed down, his cohort pulled him aside and the two of them talked in their native language out of ear shot of Nick.

“Hey, retards!” Nick shouted. “If you’re going to try and eat me, do it already! I have a nice juicy ass that you could nibble on. Or if you’d like an even bigger slice of meat, flip me over and I’ll be happy to help.”

Soa and Tufu came back with a gigantic pot of brown gravy with a ladle inside. While Soa was rubbing his hands together and smiling deviously, his friend drizzled the brown sauce all over Nick’s bare chest.

“Wow, that looks appetizing,” said Nick. “You know, if you feed me some Taco Bell, I could do the same thing to the two of you in about half an hour.”

Tufu slammed the pot of gravy down on the sand and pinched Nick’s cheeks together with his massive thumb and fingers. “You want to be a smart ass, little man?” said Tufu. “Keep talking. We’re still going to devour every square inch of your pathetic little body!”

“Every square inch?” asked Nick sarcastically. “Including…you know…those places? This wasn’t exactly how I envisioned getting laid tonight, but if you two want to lose your virginities that bad, I guess there’s nothing I can do.”

Tufu raised his meaty fist in the air and brought it down upon Nick’s mouth. The vampire spit out a fountain of blood in his captor’s face. The two cannibals grinned evilly at their prey while Soa said, “I think our meat needs to be tenderized. We’ll see how tough he really is. Punch him again! Knock those disgusting fangs out of his smart little mouth!”

The second time Tufu went for a punch to the mouth, Nick chewed through the cannibal’s hand and started drinking his blood. While Tufu screamed, Soa tried to pry the vampire’s fangs off of his cohort’s hand. Instead of releasing his alligator grip, Nick took one last bite at his captor’s wrist and swallowed the hand whole. Tufu fell backwards and rolled around in pain while blood squirted from his stump like a volcano.

While Soa knelt beside his friend to try and stop the rapid bleeding, Nick thrashed and struggled in his bonds. He could feel the ropes coming slowly apart with every jerk and twist. Tufu shouted at his partner, “Never mind me! The little bastard is trying to escape!”

Soa looked into Nick’s eyes with fire, fury, and tightly clenched teeth. As the vampire wriggled around, the cannibal picked an axe off the ground and slowly marched toward his victim. Soa drooled so much that he was aggravating the fire underneath his victim. Nick hollered as the rising flames scorched his bare back and burned holes in his blue jeans. The tribal warrior raised his axe and roared like a lion as he brought it down for one death blow to the gut.

While the rising flames turned Nick’s back crispy, they also weakened his bindings. As the axe came down, the vampire hastily brought his now liberated knee into Soa’s hand and caused him to drop the blade into the fire. While Nick’s back was completely blistered and red, the last few ropes were weak enough to break easily. He jumped off the barbecue rack and got in a rapid fist fight with Soa.

The two warriors smashed each other in the face so many times that they bled and bruised instantly. Fists turned to elbows. Elbows turned to knees. All eight limbs were being used to smash the shit out of each other and the resulting bursts of blood built up the fire even more.

The tickle of fire caused Nick to jump into Soa’s arms. Though slightly dizzy, the cannibal looked bloodily and romantically into his victim’s eyes. Nick looked at his tormentor the same way. When both men leaned in to take a bite, it was the vampire who clutched a hold of the cannibal’s jugular vein and drank blood like he was doing a keg challenge at a frat party. Soa’s body became as limp as a noodle, thus signifying his death.

After treating his victim’s blood like an open bar, Nick stumbled around clutching his chest while saying, “I don’t feel so good. I think I’m going to…I think…Jesus Christ…” He coughed violently before dropping to his knees and eventually plopping down on the sand chest first. The coughing became softer until he could no longer move.

Tufu, who had scrambled off to the side with a pile of leaves covering his stump, had finally gotten his bleeding under control to where he was no longer screaming in pain. He looked down at the lifeless Nick Savage with heavy breathing and clenched teeth. Little by little, he trudged over to the corpse while on his knees and started ranting under his breath.

“What’s wrong, little man?” said the last remaining cannibal. “Did you drink too much? Did you have a heart attack? That sucks for you. Too bad there’s nobody out here to give you CPR. I’d give it to you, but your mouth smells like shit and I don’t want to taste it. If you want a kiss so badly, give it to one of your gothic vampire boyfriends!”

Nick began to stir ever so slowly as he reached his hand for his chest once again. “Please…take me to the hospital. I’m having a heart attack. I’m dying!”

“Oh, you’re going to die alright. There may be a crescent moon out tonight, but that doesn’t mean I’m going home hungry. Crescent Moon Party? How insulting is that? We would have hunted your kind down no matter what the skies forecasted!”

The vampire breathed weakly and looked at Tufu with a confused expression. “You’re…you’re a werewolf?”

“Surprise, surprise, little man!” said Tufu with a hearty chuckle. “Just because I don’t walk around with fur everywhere, doesn’t mean I can’t chow down on your disgusting body anytime I want. I’m sick of waiting around for a full moon! If Mother Nature doesn’t give me what I want, I’ll just take it from her filthy, rotting hands!”

A tired smile formed across Nick’s face as he said, “Thank you, Tofu. Thank you…for giving me Soda as a delicious meal…and for showing everybody here what idiots you werewolves really are. Crescent Moon Party? Give me a fucking break. We’re not scared of you. On the contrary…” The suddenly healthy vampire floated in the air and aligned his feet with the sand to stand upright. “You should be scared of us!”

Tufu looked around in the fiery light and saw that Nick’s vampire friends were surrounding him in a circle. The trench-coat donning creatures of the night licked their lips and bore their fangs. Some of them started touching their own bodies in a sexual manner to signify how hungry for blood they really were. A fat-ass like Tufu would feed them well.

“No…no, no, no! This is ridiculous! I’ve been set up!” shouted the fearful werewolf.

“You’ve been set up alright, Chunky Puff. Let me ask you a question: who’s the real cannibal around here? Creatures of the night, dinner is served!”

Ottie-Doo

The Skull Hammer Cult walked the Earth in search of the ultimate paradise and somehow landed in the backwoods area of Paulson City. Their official church was an old schoolhouse from the 1800’s, a one-classroom compound with broken pieces of wood holding it together and stale red paint coming off in flakes. There used to be a beautiful golden bell at the top of the steeple, but it had since been replaced by the symbol of the Skull Hammer Cult, which was an iron skull minus a jaw with a sledgehammer going through its cranium.

Inside this official church, children ranging from little ones to teenagers were sitting in their desks praying and dancing around like creepy little puppets, waiting for their master to return. Randy Fender, the cult master in question, dredged through the front door carrying what appeared to be a dead cat. Its mouth was bleeding and one eye was hanging out of its socket. Instead of being frightened by this, the children’s eyes lit up like Christmas bulbs as they clapped their hands happily at their masters arrival.

Randy, dressed in a smelly blue mechanic’s jumpsuit and a black demon mask, approached the center of the schoolhouse and laid the dead cat on the altar, its rancid corpse making the ugly Skull Hammer symbol even worse to look at.

Mr. Fender looked among the children and said, “Do you see this? This, my brothers and sisters, is what we’ve been looking for this whole time. Not just a source of tonight’s delicious meal, but this wicked creature holds our key to salvation. This cat is imbued with magical powers, powers that once possessed can make us stronger than we’ve ever been. No mere mortal shall stand in our way to paradise. Wait no longer, children. Take the first bite!”

The hypnotized children waved and wiggled their fingers over the cat’s corpse, as if to anticipate how this magical feast will taste to their young palettes. And then the cat’s body began to glow in a mystical purple aura, which made the little ones even more excited than they already were.

They were forced to take a few steps backward, however, when the cat corpse came to life and stood on all four paws. After letting out a long-winded yawn and popping her eyeball back in its socket with her fuzzy paw, the kitty looked around the schoolhouse to see what all the hubbub was about.

“Yes! This is exactly the proof we needed!” shouted an exhilarated Randy. “I knew I picked the right one! I knew it the minute I laid eyes on this poor tortured pussycat!”

The cat gave a confused look and said, “What the hell are you talking about, you whack job? I’m not a poor tortured pussycat. I’m the kitty sage Ottie-Doo. Call me Ottie for short.”

“Wow!” said one of the children. “She can talk!”

Randy grabbed the kid by the back of the neck and sternly warned him, “Remember what I said when I first met you: don’t speak until spoken to, little one!”

“Put that boy down, you monster!” yelled Ottie before she waved her paw and threw a green lightning bolt at Randy Fender’s hand, the sharp pain causing him to yelp and let go.

“So, you’re not only a magical kitty who can talk, but when you do talk, you’re a total smart-ass! I don’t like your attitude, little kitten. These children know better than anybody what happens to little smarmy-mouthed wise-asses in my Skull Hammer Cult. Children? Show this precious feline what I’m talking about!”

“Wait!” shouted Ottie. “Do you children really want to listen to this man? Look at him! He’s less than human! I’m a dingy old cat myself, so that’s saying a lot! Seriously, what do you young ones see in this disgusting man?!”

No response from the children, only wild red eyes and drooling mouths. Randy said, “You were saying, little kitten?”

“Do what you wish to me, demon man, but no harm shall come to these children!” threatened Ottie-Doo.

The kids laughed in throaty, monstrous voices as they closed in on the kitty with their arms stretched out like zombies. The witch kitty floated in the air with pink stardust fluttering underneath her. The kids stared in awe as she flew around the schoolhouse showing off her magical powers. Her biggest trick yet was forming a ball of orange electrical and fiery energy in her paws and chucking it at Randy Fender’s demonic face.

If the cocky cult leader wasn’t wearing a mask, he would be showing off his creepy confidence as he grabbed a nearby child and used him as a human shield. The magical ball exploded the small child, but not into blood and guts. Instead the little boy turned into a pile of maggots, worms, and beetles. It was a sight that made Ottie-Doo watch on in shock and horror as she floated near the ceiling.

“You can’t save these children, witch cat,” said Randy. “They’ve been converted to my minions a long time ago. So many tearful parents are wondering right now if they’ll ever get their children back. Maybe they will someday. But then again, when your body is loaded with parasitic creatures, would any parent want you back in the first place?” The evil cult leader laughed his head off.

The louder and throatier Randy laughed, the angrier it made Ottie-Doo. Her fuzzy paws were curled into fists of fury and her old lady teeth were cracking underneath her jaws. A cyclone of blue lightning and wind encircled her as she prepared for her next magic spell. Randy was already one step ahead of her when he knelt down to peel back a floor board and pulled out a gigantic battleaxe, which was also glowing with blue energy.

“Just to show you how far gone these children are, Miss Ottie-Doo, let me show you just how much they’re willing to sacrifice to make me stronger!” With that said, Randy held out the glowing battleaxe and one by one the children dissolved into a puddle of worms. The worms crawled all around Randy and were gathering around the metal axe, the blade absorbing their spiritual essences. This horrific sight struck even more fear and doubt in the heart of Ottie-Doo as her magical energy was dwindling and she was sinking to the ground below.

She hung her elderly kitty head feeling like a failure to these poor children. Then again, if they were made of worms and maggots, maybe their childlike forms were merely a mind game. So many thoughts raced through her mind as she tried to wrap her head around what this Randy Fender asshole was doing.

She couldn’t take too long to think, however, as she dodged out of the way in the nick of time when the blade came crashing down. Big Randy swung that battleaxe like a berserker, shattering every piece of wood he hit into sawdust. Ottie bounced around and dodged every single shot. She even found herself running along the walls just to avoid getting slashed with this magical weapon.

“You’re gonna die, bitch! You’re gonna die badly!” screamed Randy when he took off his demon mask and revealed the face of a hideously scarred and tattooed psychopath. The sight of his hideous face made Ottie curl up into a ball of fear as her eyes leaked with salty tears. She didn’t feel like she could fight such a monster anymore. He was too big, too fast, and too monstrous. Ottie was just an elderly cat who literally slept like a corpse.

Randy charged over to a cornered Ottie with the blade held high. With one final swing, he was going to break this “annoying” cat into a million pieces. But just as the blade came crashing down, Ottie had one last hope for victory. Randy’s attacks were relying solely on reckless momentum. Therefore, Ottie used telekinesis to use his own momentum against him. Instead of cutting through the elderly witch kitty, the axe took a magical detour into Randy’s stomach.

The cult master never saw this coming behind his own rage. The spirits of dead children were flying out of his body and out of his axe while the ultra-evil Randy Fender melted into a puddle of maggots and worms himself. The parasites dissolved into little puddles of blood and the last of the children spirits flew away into the night sky. With just one small opening, Ottie-Doo ended this battle.

But at what price? Those kids were beyond help. Whatever Randy Fender did to them would put a strain on the parents forever. All Ottie could do was tuck her head and meow softly to herself. She won the battle, but lost the war.

Just when she was about to spend this evening in a crying slumber, she felt a gentle touch on top of her kitty head. Ottie looked up and saw one of the spirit children smiling a beautiful smile at her, just like all children should. In no uncertain terms, the child spirit had only one thing to say to her savior: “Thank you!”