Black Tar Kiss, Chapter 4

 

You ever hear that phrase snitches get stitches? Well, in my case, that’s provided I even make it to a hospital to begin with. That ambulance had to be haulin’ ass and doin’ all sorts of Motocross tricks across the highway to get me there on time now that word probably got out the minute I stepped on the concrete. Somebody would have heard about me ratting on Scar Tissue and White Snake. Whomever had their eardrums pounded with that information first would be the ones shanking me to death or putting bullets in whatever was left of my messed up brain. If it wasn’t going to be Scar Tissue and White Snake themselves, who would it be? The Bad Faith Actors Guild? The Monkey Slayers? The United States of Hitler? Any number of incel gangs rooting around in Bull Rope?

 

Nah, man. I didn’t see anybody in fedoras wanting to stick a knife in my guts. What I saw made me want to die. I’d been wandering around the city for a while not really paying attention to my surroundings until I found myself in a homeless district. A whole sidewalk lined full of ordinary people who lost every ounce of hope in their decaying bodies.

 

I saw a teen momma with a face full of dirt trying to bottle feed her little crotch goblin, if only he’d stop cryin’ his baby blue eyes out. Lord knew he had a lot to cry about not only in the present, but if he survived poverty and somehow made it into the future without dying of starvation.

 

I saw an old lady sittin’ in a scraped-up rocking chair trying to bundle up with every piece of fabric she had. Nothing would be thick enough to cover her skinny-ass body and she shook hard. The shaking might have had less to do with the chilly weather and more to do with drug withdrawal. I trudged a little further trying to hold back that stinging saltwater in my eyes.

 

And then I saw a pair of blistered and cracked feet hanging out of a cardboard box. I could barely see a chest rising and falling in there, but even that wouldn’t last forever in this frosty mess that we call weather. He didn’t have nothing but a torn up T-shirt on his back and a little paper cup with change jingling around in there. I wanted to give him a big wad of cash that I earned from wheeling and dealing with Black Tar Kiss, trading for ingredients to make that magical chewing tobacco. A wad of cash had nothing on a good homecooked meal and my heart sank to the bottom knowing it was already too late for him.

 

Seeing some shopping-cart pushers, some little kids in knockoff coats freezing their butts off, some old grandpa slumping around with a cane and not a single thing on his naked feet, not only did seeing these people put my weary eyeballs through hellfire and torture, but they reminded me of a meme I saw on the Book of Faces one time. It said, “You’re closer to being homeless than you are to being a billionaire.” A broken heart was the least of my worries. That meme was looking more like a reality the more I realized my money wouldn’t last forever. I could stay at a cheap-ass motel for a few nights, but then what? Right back on the streets to meet my new neighbors.

 

This wasn’t a neighborhood. It was a graveyard for people who still had something resembling a pulse. Old people and kids were among them. Old people and kids! My stomach growled and ached at the thought of these homeless folks dying a slow and agonizing death all because nobody would give them a bite to eat. They probably heard the unwanted advice of, “Get a job!” even though they already took it and still couldn’t afford shelter. Bull Rope ain’t no hippie paradise. This place was a death camp with no guards. Smelled like one, too. Made me wonder if the coroner had a steady supply of nose clips to go around, that was if he wasn’t too busy blowing snot out of it from all the tears he shed beforehand. Making a coroner or an undertaker cry took talent, but none of them talents translated into success in the job market. Squandered potential everywhere, though someone probably squandered it for them.

 

Speaking of squandered potential, as I was dragging my frozen carcass across the newspaper and plastic jug-covered sidewalk, who else but Scar Tissue popped up in my swimming head. Swimming was an appropriate way to describe it, because I just about sold my own pal up the river. This wasn’t just some wannabe thug who couldn’t cut it in the Mexican Mafia. Hell, he had no business in Black Tar Kiss anyways. This was a dude who played multiple instruments and had a love for heavy metal and hard rock. This was a dude who should have opened for Slipknot one year and headlined his own show many years down the line. He should have been slapping that bass and beating them drums all over the world from Italy to Japan to Brazil to back here in the US of A.

 

Why would a guy with all the promise in the world want to throw it all away just to hang out with incel thugs? During our time together while we were out of earshot from White Snake, he told me why. Truth was, he didn’t throw any of it away. His momma did. His batshit bipolar ass-beating momma decided her own hijo was a worthless piece of crap and smacked him around with her rubber slipper, damn near every night. Grades too low? Smack on the arm. Didn’t do his chores? Smack on the ass. Couldn’t get a part-time job at the pizzeria? Double smack on his thighs. Couldn’t walk on water like Jesus Christ? Breathed in and out? Dared to make a little bit of a fuss? Thwack, thwack, thwack! Apparently, physical punishment was a big part of Latino culture. It was so normal to his family that he would hear Mexican comedians on TV joke about it and think it was a high bar for parenting. If he complained about it, it would just bring about more beatings with the slipper. Or a leather belt. Or an open hand. Or a copy of the 2,000-year-old fantasy novel that my dad read a lot.

 

Speaking of Christianity, God bless Scar Tissue’s soul, because he tried to find an outlet for his trauma. Lots of them, in fact. He already told me he learned how to play drums from listening to The Warning. What he also told me was that he was a little bit lovesick for them three chicas. Every night he’d go to bed and have these intense fantasies about them girls. Sometimes he would open for their shows. Sometimes he would have dinner and lunch with them. Sometimes he’d hold hands with them and walk down the streets talking about this and that. And then there were those nights where his fantasies were…let’s just say, a little more involved. He was in love with all three of those sisters even though he never had the chance to meet them. Not once did they come to his home town. When Scar Tissue took the last beating he was going to take from that slipper smacking his bare ass and stinging the piss out of him literally, he knew The Warning weren’t coming to save him. He felt betrayed by three girls who never knew he existed. The sting of his ketchup red flesh outweighed the beauty of his lovey-dovey fantasies. When he first started communicating with White Snake over the internet, he jumped at the opportunity to run away from home and into the arms of an “alpha male”.

 

Everyone thinks gang leaders and Black Pillers like White Snake are just brainwashing and torturing random kids just so he can send them into battle to live out his own perverted fantasies. It was brainwashing, but he did it by giving us what we wanted and telling us what we wanted to hear. Before we joined Black Tar Kiss, we were nothing. No different from the gum stuck to someone’s shoe. No different from the diarrhea dumps in a public bathroom stall. No different from the tampons that soaked up more blood than we could dream of spilling in a gang fight. But once we joined up with him and got our names, we became badasses. We controlled the narrative. And if we worked hard enough in his ranks, we’d get better gangbanger names and all the money and chickies as far as our tear-stained eyes could see. All we had to do was reinvent ourselves. Get hard. Get tough. Pump that iron. Max those looks. Flex those muscles and macho man ourselves into the gang world. If anyone disrespected us, we would make them pay. If any woman turned us down, they’d be laying down and we’d be getting down.

 

Remembering Scar Tissue’s origin story must have been like taking a skewer to the eyeballs, because they were hurting like hell at this point. I wasn’t about to let out a whimper in case any of them thugs from The United Staes of Hitler or the Black Dragon Machineguns lurked around the corner. And then…some little lady did my whimpering and crying for me. Snapped me right out of my eyeball-murdering trance and made me realize I had been walking this whole time not paying attention to where I was going. My phone was buzzing like crazy, but I wouldn’t have answered it even if I was alert and alive. I had to give my dad credit, though: he wasn’t about to give up on the last of his bloodline. Maybe he should have, ‘cause I’d already given up on him and prepared myself for life on the street. A cardboard box was small potatoes compared to the spring mattress with the volume turned up to eleven.

 

After I had gotten my bearings, I turned my head and saw a group of chicks in yoga pants crouching on the ground attending to someone who shook and cried like she had just seen holocaust footage…in real time. These Stacies were supposed to be my enemy. This was a perfect opportunity to up my alpha male game and make them all obey. Lay them down and lay them good. Then my tummy got sour as I remembered all the misogynistic and pedophilic rhetoric that spewed from White Snake’s mouth like word vomit. Why the hell was I going to bat for him anyways? I never liked him past the point of getting me out of my hellhole of a home. These girls needed help and I needed a redemption arc in the worst way. I ran right over to see what the hell was going on.

 

Once I asked one of the women, she screamed, “There’s a guy going crazy in there! He just started wailing on us and yelling a bunch of nonsense about Black Pills! I don’t know what the hell is wrong with him!” Her speech got more frantic and she started stuttering at a million miles an hour as she held up her phone. “I can’t get any reception around here to call the cops! He’s still in there!”

 

She was spitting out information while my fried brain worked overtime to process it all. And out of the corner of my eye, I see that whoever was in there ranting and raving like an idiot had dropped his wallet, also like an idiot. I picked that sucker up and rummaged through it, hoping to find something resembling useful information. In between all the dead credit cards and dollar bills, there it was in all its glory: his driver’s license. That was definitely White Snake’s face on it, which looked like a prison mugshot with his wild eyes and serial killer frown. You know what else was on it? His government name. He never used it because he didn’t want me and Scar Tissue using ours. Our gangbanger names were our identities moving forward.

 

And speaking of moving forward, guess what bad decision I was about to make with my immature teenaged cerebral cortex? I tucked the wallet in my pocket and dashed into the yoga studio where all the chaos was happening and no copper could do anything about it because the reception sucked. Them yoga-hosers tried to plead with me not to go in there or do anything stupid, but selective deafness was a bitch and White Snake was about to become mine.

 

The yoga studio had exercise equipment strewn all over the floor like a stampede of horses just rushed through here. Busted windows, benches smashed in half, the reception desk had its cash box spilled all over the floor, and wouldn’t you know it, there was the devil himself. You’ve seen this movie a thousand times, so what did you think White Snake was doing with the chick in pink yoga shorts and blue sports bra when he had her by the brown ponytail? He repeated exactly what he saw at Battleground Park with Me Encanta Femicidio: he bent her over a bench that hadn’t been completely wrecked and spanked her apple bottom something fierce. Even the dialogue was relatively the same. SPANK, SPANK! “Naughty girl!” SPANK, SPANK, SPANK! “Bad, bad girl!” Repeating cycles was normal in his neck of the woods, obviously.

 

I could have ran over there and spear tackled him to the ground, maybe break a few ribs in the process. But I decided to hit him where it would hurt even worse. “ALLEX!” That got his attention in a heartbeat. He even let go of the chick he was spanking and she booked it out the shattered glass door. Getting shards between her toes and stuck in her soles was the lesser of two evils when the alternative was getting one more wallop on her butt.

 

“Allex Broker! That’s the name your momma gave you, right?!” And just like that, he stared at me like he wished he had a sniper scope in front of those coldblooded eyes of his.

Black Tar Kiss, Chapter 3

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Black Tar Kiss, Chapter 1

Well…now that I’ve got y’all’s attention and I ain’t letting it go anytime soon, you’re probably asking to nobody in particular, “What the hell is an incel?” You spend more time touching grass than most of us do, so kudos to you, cowboy. Bonus points if that grass is a slang term for something else. Speaking of slang, an incel is a portmanteau of “involuntary celibate”. Most of the dudes who call themselves this are a bunch of pissed off nerds who couldn’t get laid with a blow-up doll.

 

But if you join a street gang that calls themselves incels, you’re a different kind of dangerous. That’s what the three of us were. White Snake was our main man, Scar Tissue was his first pupil, and then there was me, Dogmeat, who got in the Corvette and pissed off from Sweetwater. Goodbye, Elijah Canterbury, welcome aboard, Dogmeat. Young, pissed off, and horny as hell. Can you think of a more dangerous combination than that? I guess Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms would be a close second place. Do those three things really belong together?

 

Yeah, it all sounded pretty good on paper during that three-month grace period. A bunch of horndogs looking for love in all the wrong places, who hoped to one day stick our Johnsons in the wrong places too. We weren’t about to let a bunch of neckbeards get in the way of those plans. We were the Alphas. The badasses. The trigger fingers that would make them all obey. Again, it sounded good in theory. But once you listen to White Snake run his mouth for three whole months, ranting and raving about women like a psychopath? It makes you wonder why this guy hasn’t gotten the 51/50 treatment. He was long overdue for a straitjacket, but maybe an orange jumpsuit was more of his style.

 

This is the part of the story I was least looking forward to telling, but in the interest of show, don’t tell, I guess I’ll have to suck it up and power through it. White Snake loved talking about what he’d do to a woman if he got a hold of her, all alone somewhere in a dark lobby. It’s simple, really: duct tape her mouth shut, pinch her nose until she was out of breath, wait for her to hit the ground unconscious, and once she was in dreamland, pull his jockey shorts down and…well, you do the math from here. Math isn’t a very popular subject among the student body these days, but even an “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” contestant can get this one right. And then you’d ask yourself, how would a fifth grader know this?

 

Speaking of people who aren’t old enough to join the army yet, another thing White Snake couldn’t stop running his motormouth about was “pranking” little elementary school girls by chasing them down the street and laughing like a lunatic. Eventually, the little ones would fall and scrape their knees, but it wouldn’t be nearly as painful as listening to White Snake repeat something he heard on a Tik Tok video once: “I CAN’T MOVE ON! I CAN’T MOVE ON! I WON’T ALLOW MYSELF TO MOVE ON FROM YOU, BECAUSE YOU’RE ALL I WANT! I DON’T WANT NOBODY ELSE!” And just like that, the little girl would do something not even my old man could do: break the sound barrier with her screams of horror. You’re damn right she was scared! What’s she supposed to do, put a ring on it? White Snake might give you a different answer to that question than what a rational human being might give.

 

And then we segue from pranking to spanking. Remember, incels couldn’t get laid if they held a pimp for ransom. So what do they do to relieve their horniness? You know, when they’re not too busy harassing women and beating up other Reddit chuds? Pull it out and crank it up. I’ve done that a few times in my life and I’m pretty sure that was the reason for the fracas with my daddy. More on that later. But at least I had the sense to do it to women who had more qualifications than being legally able to smoke a cigarette and drink beer. White Snake had no shame. He dove to the bottom of the barrel like he was in the pervert Olympics. How low could he go? Low enough to where they can’t wear anything but a diaper and say little more than “goo-goo-ga-ga”. I actually said to him one time, “You know those are kids, right?” And he was like, “No shit, Scooby-Doo!” I don’t know what was more offensive: his hard-on for kids or the fact that he butchered the easiest comeback in the world.

 

Yep. This was our guy. This was the guy that would lead us to the promised land. The land of milk and honey, though his ideal girlfriend couldn’t produce milk yet. This was the guy who drove the Corvette down a freeway blasting bro-metal while Scar Tissue and I were sitting in the back chillin’ like villains. Every time I was trapped in a car with White Snake, I could have sworn some creepy crawlies were running up my arms and legs.

 

But Scar Tissue at the very least had something resembling potential. While White Snake was blasting that bro-metal from the stereo, Scar Tissue air-drummed along like he was loving life again. And this wasn’t just casual air-drumming. Scar Tissue actually looked like he knew how to play the drums. He did the tom fills. He pumped those bass and high-hat pedals. He drum-rolled on that imaginary snare. He crashed them cymbals at the right time. Made me wonder what he was doing hanging out with a couple of losers like us instead of playing in a heavy metal band.

 

I asked him on the spot, “Where the hell’d you learn to play like that, bud?”

 

He gave me the world’s cheesiest grin as he waxed poetic. “Three chicas, homie: The Warning! I got a hold of their CD’s, took ‘em for a spin, and let Pau-Pau beat them drums like they owed her dinero. They don’t teach that kind of drumming at my school, homes. You listen long enough, you figure it out.”

 

“Self-taught, huh? I respect that! You still got any of them CD’s?”

 

Scar Tissue shook his head. “Nah, man. Started to get the feels for them chicas, so I had to ditch them. I don’t simp for nobody, essa. They don’t give me the time of day. Too busy or something like that. So now I’ve got some old school Drowning Pool in my collection. Tear Away is a classic! Goddamn, I love me!”

 

Of course he says, “I love me”, because nobody else would. It was true for the songwriter and it was true for Scar Tissue unfortunately. That’s rule number one in incel ideology: when it comes to a woman’s love, you’re in the back of the line. You think we picked out these names Dogmeat and Scar Tissue? Hell no. White Snake gave them to us to keep us “black pilled” and keep us in line. You get too confident, you might actually get caught by one of these black widows. What’s more heartbreaking than a demeaning nickname like Dogmeat or Scar Tissue? Those are the kind of names that make you feel ugly. Maybe we WERE ugly, I don’t know.

 

And in case we forgot about that, White Snake turned his head towards us and said, “Hey! You guys making gay porn back there or what?”

 

“Sorry, essa. Won’t happen again.” Scar Tissue shrugged his shoulders at me while I just rolled my eyes. Gay porn? Really? The guy who pounds his pud to diaper-wearing kids is judging other people for making “gay porn”? I didn’t tell him that. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Remember, Black Tar Kiss was a gang. You mess with the leader or try to run away, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. Once you’re locked in, you’re locked in for life. It can’t be the same as before.

 

And speaking of things not going back to the way they were before, you’ll never believe who tried to send me a text message on my phone: Ben Canterbury a.k.a. my old man from Sweetwater. I pulled the phone out of my garbage bag of this and that just to see if it really was him. No question about it. He had been trying to contact me for a long time now and every time he did, I just let the call go to voicemail or delete the text entirely. Yeah, life with White Snake wasn’t so great, but going back home wasn’t an option, because that would suck even more. At least with Black Tar Kiss, I could make a little money and get a little honey. Can’t say that with a mechanic’s salary in little old Sweetwater.

 

“Who was that, Dogmeat?” White Snake asked.

 

“Nobody. Just someone I used to know,” I told him I the most pathetic tone imaginable. I guess we all had someone like that in our lives. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be joining street gangs. We’d be at home playing videogames or building Legos, at least that’s what I’d be doing. Kind of hard to play videogames when your old man says they’re rotting your brain. And it’s kind of hard to build Legos when your old man keeps calling you out to the living room to do some mind-numbing chores. I can’t even put on a heavy metal CD without my dad’s voice drowning out the guitar work.

 

Black Tar Kiss wasn’t a great option. It was the only option. That was made abundantly clear to me when White Snake got off the exit ramp and started driving towards Battleground Park, where our first real test as a gang would take place. Me Encanta Femicidio was waiting for us there. I had no idea how many of them there were or what they were going to bring to the fight. I didn’t even know how many of us there were. Were there other Black Tar Kiss members that were going to meet us or was it just us three? Do we at least have some guns or something? I don’t need an AK-47 or a Styr Aug or anything like that. A nine-millimeter would have been just fine.

 

Pardon me for having a million questions running through my mind before this battle took place, but…if I’m keeping it a buck with you guys…my heart was pumping, my blood was colder than a fishing creek, and the rumbling my stomach was worse than if I ate some bad fish from that same creek. Want some plain English? I was scared to death and I wasn’t about to tell Whtie Snake or Scar Tissue about it. Me Encanta Femicidio didn’t scare me nearly as much as White Snake did. And if I lost my rapport with Scar Tissue, that was it, man. If there was a god up there in heaven, I know I wasn’t well-behaved worth a damn in them pews at church…but I hoped he was looking out for me.

Rainbow Ranch, Epilogue

If this had been a feast on any other day, Lucy would have wolfed her entire plate down in record time. Every meal after that would have seen that record broken tenfold with even more food on her plate. But ever since the events of the past few days, pork sausages and gravy-smothered turkey weren’t at the forefront of her thoughts. She started those few days as a skinny little weakling who would shake and shiver at the thought of being obliterated by a sorcerer’s fireball. The destruction of her once beloved tennis ball nearly sent her spiraling off the deep end. But ever since finding the latent courage she always knew she had, there was a major decision she had to make. Would she continue to channel that courage into her newfound role as a soldier in the Shut Up, Stupid Dog squadron or would she return to a life of comfort and belly rubs?

 

The Chiweenie warrior scanned her bulging paranoid-looking eyes across the dining hall and saw that most of her brethren had chosen to return to the comfortable lives they once had. Gone were their humanoid features. In their place were the animal bodies that made them charming and vulnerable in the first place. Cats and dogs sitting at the long dinner table and slurping up chunks of meat with their tongues instead of forks and knives. If they had lips, the sounds of wet smacking would echo throughout the castle. King James Gaines sat at the head of the table with his own plate of mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and ham slices. To his left was Razor Ripley, an ironic choice for a dinner guest considering skeletons literally didn’t have the guts to eat a gigantic meal. Ripley’s magic was responsible for changing the animal guests back to their original forms, so it was only right that he joined this celebration of victory.

 

Lucy couldn’t find it in her heart to blame these animals for choosing comfort over duty. Ozzie and Callie were well past their prime years and deserved to enjoy a bowl of broth together as the couple they once were. Loki had no business being involved in Harrison’s war at all, so to see him munching down on juicy steak was a long time coming. Every last member of the Shut Up, Stupid Dogs squadron never wanted to be a part of the war either; they were victims of circumstance. Rainbow Ranch was never meant to be a warring nation. It was built to be an animal’s paradise, a second chance for animals who never knew what love was. In Lucy’s mind, that all changed the minute King Harrison decided to bastardize what he and his brother worked so hard to create together. In Lucy’s mind…never again would this be allowed to happen…

 

“Something troubling you, Lucy?” asked King James. “Your plate has gone untouched throughout this entire event. This is your celebration. What ails you?”

 

And just like that, Lucy’s mind was made up. She hopped out of her golden chair and scampered over to where James and Ripley were sitting. She cleared her throat in her usual skittish manner, bowed to her masters, and stood up straight with her paws behind her back. “Your majesty, I have something to say. I want to continue fighting for the Shut Up, Stupid Dogs!”

 

James and Ripley’s eyes widened at the revelation, while the dogs and cats continued to munch on their meals like dogs and cats were always meant to do, no involvement in human affairs whatsoever. Ripley asked, “Are you sure this is what you want? You looked so terrified out on the battlefield, like you couldn’t wait to curl up next to the fireplace once it was all over. Why put yourself through such misery again?”

 

“it’s not miserable!” said Lucy defensively. “I believe in my homeland! I believe in everything we stand for! If another jumbo jerk like Harrison wants to take it from us, he’ll have to go through me!” She punctuated that sentence by jumping high in the air and raising her clenched paw. “I’ll teach the next generation of puppers everything I know about courage and strength! Together we can beat anything that comes our way! We’ll give them the old one, two, buckle your shoe!” The spinning motion was easier to do without her hammer, therefore she landed perfectly on her metal-booted feet.

 

“Your enthusiasm is a breath of fresh air, Lucy the Hammer,” complimented King James. “You do realize that training a new generation of animal warriors is a big responsibility, do you not? It takes a lot of patience, much more wisdom, and the heart of a champion. You’re putting an entire squadron’s lives on your shoulders, which means you’ll have so many expectations to not only meet, but exceed. Are you prepared to take on that role?”

 

“Yes, sir!” The overly-excited Lucy spun around in the air once again and landed like a graceful dancer. “Give me everything you’ve got, your majesty! Let me at ‘em! We’ll be the best squadron ever and nobody will beat us! All hail the Shut Up, Stupid Dogs!” James and Ripley’s shoulders sagged as though Lucy had said something wrong. “Huh?”

 

“About that name…” said Ripley. “It’s officially retired. It was a rather cruel way of keeping you and your brethren in line. You and your new recruits deserve so much better than to be yelled at by an old codger like me. We need something that represents the spunky spirit of our animal soldiers. Something uplifting. Something worthy of their new leader’s excitement and zest for life. Something like…The Tennis Ball Gang!”

 

Lucy and James looked at Ripley as though he had worms crawling out of his mouth, which were probably stuck in his brain somewhere to come up with an idea like that. “Hear me out, you two.” Ripley cleared his throat. “Lucy…that tennis ball was more than a toy for you. It represented something deep within your childlike soul. It represented all the positivity you had despite being placed in a terrible situation that was not of your own making. There were many sad times during your journey, but all they did was lock the positive spirit away until it was needed the most. And when that beloved tennis ball was destroyed in combat, you knew your enemy had made a grave mistake. That tennis ball wasn’t just a toy. It represented passion.”

 

King James patted Ripley’s bony hand. “The sentiment is not lost on me, but outside of our royal circle, no one would know what that meant. Suppose another enemy comes along and threatens our homeland. What if he hears the name Tennis Ball Gang and finds nothing but amusement?”

 

“Let them laugh, your majesty!” Lucy’s excitement took over once again. “Those buttheads can have all the comedy they want, but we’ll see if they’re still laughing after losing to a scared little Chiweenie! Nobody will live down taking a loss at the hands of The Tennis Ball Gang! We’ll be remembered forever! History teachers will love us! Our enemies will learn to fear us! And nobody will mess with our precious fur babies ever again!” Lucy spun around in the air even higher this time, once again sticking the landing like an athlete.

 

James and Ripley stared contemplatively at each other for a while before nodding in agreement. James stood up with a goblet of wine in hand, a proud declaration on the horizon. “Very well! If that’s what you desire the most, it shall be done! Lucy the Hammer, you are now the official captain of The Tennis Ball Gang! You and your charges will work with other squadrons to ensure the safety of our precious homeland! When we say never again, we mean never again! Congratulations, Lucy! An honor well-deserved! Cheers!”

 

As King James took a drink of his wine, Lucy ran circles around his ankles thanking him over and over again like she consumed a handful of pixie sticks. Excitement came naturally for Lucy no matter what the situation, but it all came rushing out at once at the prospect of this new role she had been given. It was indeed an exciting time to be alive. Rainbow Ranch really did give second chances and Lucy took full advantage of those opportunities. Even Razor Ripley couldn’t help but crack a proud grin knowing that his once weakest link was now his strongest ally.

 

What did the cats and dogs think of all this? Were they every bit as excited about this new era for Rainbow Ranch? Were they looking forward to a bright future where happiness was the norm and love ruled over all? Nah. They were more interested in chomping on their plates of meat and licking their own buttholes, not necessarily in that order. What a bunch of divas.

Rainbow Ranch, Prologue

Loki repeatedly slurped his canine tongue across Razor Ripley’s bony toes, half-expecting them to taste like they used to have meat on them. Even that was better tasting than the dried kibble in his metal bowl. What the brown and black Labrador really wanted was some scratches behind his ears and maybe a few rubs of his belly. Ripley certainly had the sharp nails on his fingers to achieve such a blissful massage.

But this was far from the night to be asking his master for love and affection. The skeletal necromancer’s mind was somewhere else, far away from the borders of Rainbow Ranch. The same thing could be said about the king sitting across from him at the chess table. The stone pieces hadn’t moved in what seemed like ages. These two lovers of doggies everywhere were growing old sitting in these wooden chairs. Then again, growing old explained the presence of most of the “clients” in this funeral home. Loki curled up against Razor Ripley’s sandaled feet to provide him with warmth, but it was his heart and soul that needed warmth the most.

“I’m growing impatient,” growled Ripley, gesturing with his skeletal fingers for King James Gaines to move one of his pieces.

“I’m sorry, Ripley. I can’t focus tonight.” King James squeezed his temples with his gauntlet-covered hand. “It’s hard to get anything done these days knowing my brother is in that coffin.” He jerked his thumb to the next room, the temporary resting place of his younger brother Harrison. He wiped the wetness from his eye and breathed a sigh.

“I understand where you’re coming from, my liege. But your brother made his decision a long time ago. He couldn’t let go of his obsession with revenge, even though our animal friends already did. He made them human-like, for god’s sake. It was never the mission of Rainbow Ranch to give these poor creatures human responsibilities. Harrison made a grave mistake. I’d say he has to live with it, but he’s clearly not doing a whole lot of living.”

“I know. Trust me, Ripley, I know. I just wish things could have been different. Maybe if I convinced him to seek help for his madness…Look…it doesn’t change the fact that I still miss him. He’s my brother. This is not the same man I grew up with. He was hurting.”

Razor Ripley placed his hand over King James’s and spoke in a much more sympathetic tone. “I miss Harrison too. But he has changed so much over the years that he’s hardly recognizable. It’s time to let his spirit go to the next world. The funeral is tomorrow. I’ll have the Shut Up Stupid Dogs primed and ready.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t call them that, Ripley.”

Loki finally got his desired pettings upon sniffing Ripley’s robed crotch. But there was something off about his master’s strokes. They didn’t feel right. They didn’t feel like true affection. Loki whined before stumbling off to the nearby wall and laying down in a donut circle.

Ripley continued. “I call them that, because that’s what they respond to. They don’t seem to mind.”

“I know, but it just feels…wrong.”

“If it pleases your majesty, I’ll ponder another name shortly. But for now, this is what my squadron of soldiers will be called. Do you wish to forfeit this game of chess?”

King James nodded and languidly knocked over the stone pieces before Ripley began disassembling the board. Loki’s eyes grew sore as he watched his masters in this much pain. The death of King Harrison hit them like a war hammer to the gut. Loki could hardly blame them for their slow zombie-like movements, but the Labrador still wanted his love and affection. He still wanted to be called a good boy. But in that regard, he was glad he was never made human-like by Harrison’s magic and called a Shut Up Stupid Dog by the bony wizard who was supposed to love him. Loki whined and whimpered as his masters shuffled out of the lobby, presumably back to the castle to deal with the logistics of Harrison’s funeral.

Loki could just lie there all night and let his puppy soul drift away into the universe. Maybe somewhere out in the stars, he could hear Harrison’s voice calling him over for the pettings he wanted. Maybe Harrison would have a sausage link ready to wolf down in a matter of seconds. If dogs could purr, these thoughts would get Loki’s throat motor running. Maybe the dream world would be kinder to him than a couple of royals whose minds were somewhere else. Loki knew they wouldn’t be like that forever, but why did this cycle of grieving have to take so long?

“Loki!” said a sinister throaty voice that only the funeral home dog could hear. His head perked right up and he looked everywhere. “Loki! Loki-Pokey! Loki J. Pokicus! Sweet gee-nee baby!” There was only one person the dog knew of who would use such a hideous, yet endearing baby voice. But it couldn’t be him. He was dead! Ozzie the Wise made sure of that with a storm of lightning bolts! Loki whined and wailed as the hypnotic voice from beyond continued to haunt his mind.

“Loki-Pokey! Into the coffin room, Loki! I have a treat for you! Come get some din-din!”

The dog pranced and galloped into the coffin room where Harrison’s body was being kept. There it was among rows of beautiful pink wildflowers. There it was among stands of burned out candles. There it was smelling of death and fried meat: Harrison’s corpse resting in a golden casket. He wasn’t moving. He gave no indication that he was alive. But that voice was unmistakable. That grizzly-bear-like voice that was reserved for the sweetest of animals. “Come to me, Loki! Eat something other than dried food!”

Could Loki do it? Did he dare do such a thing to Harrison’s corpse? Yes, he was a dead body that should never have been violated…but his burned flesh reminded Loki of strips of bacon. The saltiness made him drool. The fattiness made him pant and smile. He had stars in his eyes the likes a depressed necromancer and king had never seen before. Could he do it? Loki slowly approached the casket licking his lips. He sniffed Harrison’s burned skin. Oh, that salty stench that only grew more powerful with the increasing loudness in Loki’s head.

He took a bite of crispy bacon flesh. He swallowed it down in a rush. He took another bite. And another. And another. This desecrating act soon turned into a god-like feast. Loki couldn’t stop eating. The meat was so delicious and tender, so crispy and salty, so juicy and fatty. It didn’t take long at all for Harrison’s corpse to be reduced to an empty shell of black bones. For good measure and good flavor, Loki licked the bones clean until their savory benefits were gone. The dog’s tummy was fatter than a hot air balloon. His colon was gassier than industrial smoke.

But more importantly, Loki’s eyes were brighter than Ozzie the Wise’s lightning spells could ever be. The eyes glows bright green while the light in the back of his throat projected red energy. Loki convulsed and twisted, rolling around on the carpeted floor and knocking over some of the flowers and candles. He also knocked over a sacred religious tome that Razor Ripley kept for such occasions. His stomach bulged and his anus blasted.

A shield of thunder enveloped Loki’s body until he had become just like any other experiment Harrison worked on: human-like. His body was no longer his own. His thoughts were at the mercy of spiritual puppet strings. The voice in Loki’s head grew louder until it was the only thought he had. The disgraced King Harrison Gaines had complete control of Loki’s body. He was alive and well once again, back from the dead and hungry for the vengeance he wished the animal society had earlier.

“Loki…you are my vessel…you are my slave…you will do what my worthless human carcass couldn’t do the first time around. You will kill Ozzie the Wise…and you will kill anybody who hurts our cause, whether they come from within Rainbow Ranch or far beyond. You will use my magic. You will obey my commands. And if you’re a good boy…I will give you all the love and affection you deserve in the afterlife!”

Harrison’s wicked laughter echoed throughout Loki’s acid-washed mind, but also blasted out of the dog’s mouth along with drool and magical energy. Vengeance would come whether James and Ripley wanted it to or not. That would go double for the “weak” animals who were “too lazy” to find their own justice after being abandoned on this island.