HR Pufnstuf: Teaching Children Corporate-Speak Since 1969

 

Make It Stop

It seemed like the world’s cruelest April Fools joke to live every day in a place like Meat Grinder City…except April Fools wasn’t just limited to one day of the year. At least the flames around the buildings and streets weren’t as tall as they once were. At least the sausage puppets walked normally down the sidewalks instead of jiggling around like lynched corpses. 

When their cyclopean eyes popping out of their mouths gazed harshly into Joel Upton’s soul, the sensation was only mildly chilling across his already sour stomach. He pulled the hood up on his thick rain jacket and tried not to draw too much attention to himself. Then again, he was already under this unforgiving city’s microscope as someone with no permanent residence outside of a garbage dumpster here and there. The smell wouldn’t come off no matter how hard it rained.

It wasn’t the sausage puppets walking past him that set Joel Upton’s brain on fire. It wasn’t the smaller-by-comparison fires that jolted his brain like a paper clip in a light socket. It was that laugh. That deep, throaty, horny laugh from behind that caused his heart to pump intolerably fast. The only breaths Joel could muster reeked of dumpster residue and rancid ashes. He slowly turned around and his worst tormenter towered over him as though Joel was dog shit underneath somebody’s shoe.

He almost snapped his own neck in half just to gaze upwards into the heartless eyes of Chainsaw Fist, a bulky, piss-stinking ogre with a metal jaw, an apron covered in blood, a necklace pieced together with skulls and intestines, and of course, a chainsaw/drill combination that just had to constantly be on fire in order to solidify the overkill of Meat Grinder City.

“Make it stop,” Joel whimpered. “Somebody please make it stop…”

Chainsaw Fist bellowed so hard that his garbage breath almost bowled his victim over. “Nobody’s going to make it stop, you weak little piss stain! Your writing career was a joke from the start! Nobody loves you, not even your own family! Why don’t you just quit like a little bitch!” He revved his flaming chainsaw. “I will make you tap out one way or another, you slimy sack of whale shit!”

Joel didn’t even have time to react before Chainsaw Fist tackled him to the ground and drilled his weapon into his victim’s gut, releasing a tidal wave of blood and spiritual energy. The sausage puppets drank the vile fluids like dogs lapping up garden hose water. The volcano of blood just wouldn’t stop. It kept exploding and destroying everything in its path. The spirits flying out of that festering wound laughed at Joel the entire time. And then…

“You’re weird,” said a little girl holding onto her father’s hand. The father mildly reprimanded her before the two of them left a writhing and screaming Joel to his devices. And just like that, Meat Grinder City was Seattle. Ordinary, urban Seattle with rainy weather, urban sprawl, and non-sausage puppet citizens wondering what the hell was wrong with Joel.

Having snapped back to reality, Joel rolled over onto his knees and frantically searched his raincoat, pulling a broken needle out of his breast pocket. “No…no, no, no…” he whined to himself. “I need more…where is that goddamn pharmacy?” He searched his coat again, this time for money, but all he could muster up were a few pennies and some broken lug nuts. “Make it stop…just someone please make it stop…”

The rain came down so hard upon Joel’s back that he flinched in pain. And there was his answer: they weren’t rain drops. They were scorpion tails. “Not again.” Scorpion tails continued to pound and stab him before he was thrust right back into Meat Grinder City, the flames around the buildings bursting sky high while the cutest of cute kids jiggled around like the sausage puppets they really were.

A familiar beefy hand pulled back Joel’s hood and slashed his skull open, laughing like a demonic pervert yet again. Once his brain was exposed for the whole world to see, the scorpion tails morphed into little gray kobolds with blade-like fingernails and childish cackles. They laughed and hee-hawed as they jumped into Joel’s head wound and started bouncing around behind his face. The headache was so intense that he covered his eyes out of fear of them popping out. They did anyways, but not without snake tentacles holding them in their mouths.

“Give up your career, you waste of shit and piss!” Chainsaw Fist roared. “This world hates you! Hell doesn’t want you! Heaven is disgusted by you! You’re a fuck-up of the very worst kind! You deserve to die like the pile of diarrhea that you are!”

“STOP IT! LEAVE ME ALONE! MAKE IT STOP!” Joel screeched, holding his aching head while the snakes and kobolds partied in his brain.

“You want to quit, you little bastard! Do you want to quit! Then quit like the little bitch baby you are! Tap out!”

The kobolds, sausage puppets, snakes, and Chainsaw Fist himself formed a circle around Joel and chanted for him to quit. The flames of Meat Grinder City grew to their maximum limit and caused Joel to suffocate on the ashes. Chainsaw Fist continued to slash and murder his lone victim. The kobolds made incoherent jokes about his suffering and laughed like hyenas on crack.

“…I quit…”

“I’m sorry, what was that? What did you say, you little cum guzzler?!”

“I QUIT! I QUIT, I QUIT, I QUIT!”

Joel’s broken body could finally relax even though he ached literally everywhere, even in places outside of his flesh suit.

“Wow…you really are pathetic, Joel. You really are the weakest bastard I’ve ever met. Let’s go, quitter!” Chainsaw Fist wrapped his intestinal necklace around Joel’s throat and dragged his exhaustively bloody body across the ashen cement. He was too destroyed to care. He had lived in Meat Grinder City for far too long. There were several moments during his homelessness where he could have quit. He wanted to believe there was still life left in him. But if there was, he’d put up at least a little bit of a struggle against his worst critic.

“You can’t quit mental illness, Mr. Upton,” said a throaty, yet gentle voice that belonged to a hairy demon with spikes all over his body. The room Joel found himself in was still covered in flames. But these were warm flames that glowed like an outdoor campfire. They hurt like hell. They burned down the last of his brain cells. But even in Meat Grinder City’s loneliest prison cell, Joel knew he could relax.

Then again, he had no choice since he was chained to a wooden table. He also had his head shaved and a metal helmet strapped to his naked scalp. The furry demon used his talon to jot down a few notes in his wizard’s spell book. “You probably don’t believe me right now, but this is the safest place you can be. The streets should be nobody’s home.”

Entering the prison cell were three porcelain mannequins, all of which had snakes growing out of their heads. One of them had muscles etched into his torso, another had the feminine features of a Greek goddess, and the third was a child no taller than an average human’s waist. The woman’s sweet voice struck a familiar chord with Joel. “Everything will be okay, honey. We still love you.”

Tears welled up in Joel’s already bloodshot and battered eyes. “Wendy? Is that you?” The face of the woman he fell in love with all those years ago formed behind her gorgon façade. And then the face of his daughter broke free from porcelain permanence. But who was this strange man who accompanied them?

Wendy held Joel’s hand while the snakes in her hair smiled at him. “You’ve been gone for so long ever since you had your breakdown. We never forgot about you. Yes, I have remarried, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore. I was so worried about you. Our daughter had nightmares.” The snakes wrapped around Joel for a hug. And then the daughter’s snakes wrapped around his legs. And the new husband’s snakes gave him the warmest grins.

“Wendy…I’m so sorry I didn’t seek help earlier. I didn’t want to quit what I poured my heart into for so long. I was so obsessed that it drove me insane…All I had to do was quit…”

“You don’t have to be strong anymore,” said Wendy with tears in her own eyes. “It’s okay to quit when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Nobody’s ashamed of you.”

“But what about those jerks on the street who laughed at me?” asked Joel through a stuffy nose.

“Fuck ‘em” said the new husband, which earned a round of laughter from everybody in the room.

Wendy and the daughter broke their embraces. The gorgon mother of his child said, “We’ll visit you for as long as we need to. If you need anything, we’re always a skip and a hop away.” She kissed her palm and waved goodbye, the daughter waving as well while the husband gave a thumbs up.

Joel’s tears accumulated as he watched his old family walk away, leaving the hair-covered demon doctor to do his duty. He pulled a snake fang out of his fur and attached it to a miniature spinning chainsaw. “You desperately need a vacation from your mind, Mr. Upton. And when you awaken, we can try some cognitive behavioral therapy. But for now…relax…and enjoy the darkness…”

Joel didn’t even try to fight the injection into his arm despite the fact that the needle resembled Chainsaw Fist’s favorite toy. Fire and poison flowed through his body, but they were just formalities to a much-needed vacation from a schizophrenic mind. He switched between Meat Grinder City and the psychiatric ward of the Seattle hospital while simultaneously drifting off into sleep. The furry monster became a friendly old man before morphing back into his nightmarish form. 

Back…and forth…back…and forth…the transformations resembled the motion of a baby in his mother’s arms…back…and forth…back…and forth…until darkness and snoring were all that remained of Meat Grinder City. Joel’s snoring did sound like a revving chainsaw, but that nasty ogre was nowhere to be found in such a black void of relaxation. No dreams. No hallucinations. Just hours of nothing. Getting lost in the nothing was a better vacation than Hawaiian beaches or Canadian architecture, both of which would have burst into flames anyways.

He Hates His Penis

He hates his penis and all that it stands for

He hates his tastes, wants to be a sad bore

If anybody knew what kind of shit he liked

He’d be locked in darkness without his rights

A broken lamp, but there’s no genie inside

No way to get rid of the parts he must hide

Take a razor blade and cut his dingus off

And the sack for which he turns and coughs

The thoughts don’t stop, he wants to drop

Before he gets his ass beat by the keystone cops

Throw the TV out of his window pane

Before a Huggies commercial drives him insane

No where to turn to, no one to talk to

Want to stab him to death? He won’t stop you

He never asked for his brain to be fucked up

Nobody would choose it, it’s just tough luck

Where does he go from his lowest point?

Does he just light up yet another joint?

Numbing his pain with drugs and food

He lived another day, stabilized his mood

He’s a monster without the claws and fangs

A warmonger without the guns and tanks

A devil without living in the hells below

That shit’s on earth, in case you didn’t know

Time's Up

OPENING LINE

I see your gaslight and I raise you a scorched earth!

VERSE 1

The nightmare in her head

Isn’t limited to the bed

Never forget the shit they said

Never forget they wish her dead

CHORUS

Time’s up, you filthy animals!

Time’s up, sexual cannibals!

Time’s up, you phony god!

Put down the staff and rod!

VERSE 2

Call it witch hunt if you’d like

Carry your torches and your pikes

Thump your bible, preach your sermon

You’re still a bunch of toxic vermin

Your brutal past isn’t going away

No matter how many times you pray

Face the music or go fuck off

Her life is not yours to rob

EXTENDED CHORUS 1

Time’s up, you filthy animals!

Time’s up, sexual cannibals!

Time’s up, you phony god!

Put down the staff and rod!

Time’s up, Mr. High and Mighty!

Time’s up, Mr. Gaslighting!

Time’s up, Mr. Law and Order!

Time’s up, Mr. Sexual Torture!

VERSE 3

As long as you’ve got the magical R

It doesn’t matter if you’ve lowered the bar

Your sheep will follow, continue to swallow

Your bullshit until the inside is hollow

EXTENDED CHORUS 2

Time’s up, you filthy scum!

Justice for all, a free pass for none!

Time’s up, you barbarian!

None of this is hilarious!

Time’s up, you cockroach!

The plank is yours to approach!

Time’s up, nowhere to run!

Time’s up! Time’s up!

Silent Warrior, Final Chapter

“Good morning to you…good morning to you…good morning, dear Alan…”

“G…g…good morning to you!”

“Alan, why are you so sad?”

“Why wouldn’t I be sad? This isn’t good morning. It’s fucking dark in here, Ally! I don’t see any sunshine! I don’t hear any cock-a-doodle-doos! Instead all I hear are screams. It could be another prisoner screaming in pain. It could be a guard screaming bullshit instructions. Or it could be me screaming ‘cause I’m constantly in fucking pain! Why, Ally? Why all the worms and maggots?”

“I’m a biologist. I deal with such creatures on a daily basis. I’m not going to just sacrifice my life’s work because you find earth’s critters disgusting. Everything in this world has its own special place. It could be a bat eating mosquitoes. It could be a pack of wolves hunting down deer. It could even be something as natural as a mother bird regurgitating worms into her babies’ beaks.”

“Cut the bullshit! You know how disgusting you really are! Scott had it right all along and I didn’t listen to him! He’s got more common sense than the two of us put together!”

“Don’t you talk to me that way, little boy! If I wasn’t a hallucination, I’d wash your chubby mouth out with soap! I left Scott George on his own for the same reason I left his father Carter. They rejected me, just like you’re rejecting me now. I tried to keep the peace between you and Scott. I even showed up at his trial to put in the best possible word for you. But you threw that all away when you tried to stab him in your cell. Now you’re in the darkest part of jail and you’ve no one to blame but yourself!”

“It should be Scott in this room, not me!”

“Then prove it, Alan! Scott became the man he is today because he fought for everything he believed in whether it was right or wrong. Now’s your time to fight. You may be under lock and key, but your war with Scott is far from over. As long as your mind continues to destroy you from the inside, you have all the reason in the world to fight. You don’t want these images and words, do you? Forget the worms and maggots for a minute. Your real enemy isn’t anything that can be found in the animal kingdom. It’s your own weakness!”

“Weakness? I’ve been beating ass since the day I was born and you have the gall to call me weak? What about all the crybabies on the playground who threw a fit because they couldn’t hang with me? What about all the teachers who care more about precious self-esteem than they do about the real world? Why aren’t you calling them weak?”

“Because they’re not weak, Alan. They have the kind of strength you could only dream of having: strength in numbers. You’re only one man trying to fight an entire world. But if Mr. Simpson has taught you anything, it’s to pick apart the army one soldier at a time. Mr. Simpson may have softened over this long exhausting semester, but that doesn’t mean you have to. I want you to take every ounce of your insanity and use it as a weapon. Fists alone have achieved nothing.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m in solitary confinement! You even said yourself you’re a fucking hallucination! Who am I supposed to use this weapon on? There’s nobody here with me! Even the guards have tuned me out, for Christ’s sake!”

“You can’t stay in solitary confinement forever, Alan. Even the strictest prosecutors know this to be true. For what you did, you won’t even be in jail forever. You may be a destructive bastard, but you’ve never once murdered another human being. Implanting suicidal thoughts in someone else doesn’t count. I’m talking about the worst kind of murder there is. I’m talking about animalistic rage that can only be forged in darkness like this. Channel that rage and don’t let the world get away with locking you up like this!”

“…You want me to survive this place…by beating the shit out of everyone here? You want me to find my exit by pushing around people more powerful than me?”

“This isn’t the sandbox, Alan. This is jail. If you don’t stand up for yourself here, nobody else will. The guards aren’t here for your protection. They’re here to make sure you conform. They’re here to use you as a punching bag whenever they damn well feel like it. You’re not going to let that happen, are you?”

“…Never…I never wanted to be a part of society…I never wanted to follow anyone’s rules…Why should these assholes in uniform be any different? Is it because they have keys? Is it because they have so-called training? Is it because they’re tougher than me?! I don’t fucking think so!”

“Good! That’s what I want to hear from you! That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear from you since I married your father! Nobody pushes my baby around! And when I say baby, I’m not talking about that ungrateful snake Scott! I’m talking about by one true baby. The one I’ll forever cherish. The one I’ll forever spoil and love. Alan…this is your time. Don’t screw it up!”

Alan Young awoke in his solitary confinement cell with rough stubble on his chin, razor sharp hairs poking out of his bald head, and his heart beating a combination of fire and nitro glycerin. He breathed heavily like a wounded animal. He lusted for violence and aggression with bloodshot eyes. He smiled so hideously that he could smell his own sour breath.

Only a small patch of light illuminated the room through the barred window to the outside. Even though the sun was barely rising over the landscape, Alan still had lost track of how much time he spent cooped up in here. No clocks, no indication from the guards, only the occasional shitty meal which was inconsistent with the rest of the feedings.

Alan stood his clumsy body up and grabbed hold of the bars while staring out into the horizon. He held his stepmother’s words deep inside him until his very core was hot enough to melt away the last of his sanity. What once was a heart was now a heap of ashes. What once was a racing mind was now a zombie’s rage. The urge to kill had taken over his entire body. Just one taste of blood…anybody’s blood…

Surely another prisoner would satisfy his violent appetite just fine. He even believed some of the guards deserved a few undead thrashings. But the ultimate dessert at the end of this blood-soaked meal would be none other than Scott Marcus George. All Alan needed was one opening to strike. One tiny mistake made by another occupant of this hellhole. The rest would come as naturally as breathing.

“Scotty-Boy…I’m coming for you…and not even your marsh-dwelling girlfriend will be able to save your skinny ass this time!” Alan ranted as he shook the bars like a steroid-pumped professional wrestler. “I’m coming for you, motherfucker!”

THE END?

Silent Warrior, Chapter 6

“I was beginning to think you actually served your thirty minutes with my dad,” said Adrienne with a cute smile as she held Scott’s sweaty hand in hers. While the two of them walked down the street together like a cuddly couple, Scott’s hand wouldn’t stop perspiring and his face wouldn’t stop glowing with strawberry redness. The more embarrassed he looked, the more Adrienne held onto his hand and smiled at him. “You don’t need to be nervous around me, Scott.”

“I know, I know…it’s just that…” Scott sighed as he searched for his words. “It’s been a while since somebody held me hand like this. I mean, are we…uh…what are we, exactly?”

“We can be anything you want, Scotty-Boy. We can be friends. We can be good friends. We can be really, really, really good friends. For all the world knows, we could be dating right now.” That last sentence really brightened up Scott’s tomato-colored cheeks. “You’ve never had a girlfriend before, have you?”

“Actually, I had three of them before you,” explained Scott, his eyes tucked low and not meeting Adrienne’s. “They didn’t work out too well, though. They were a lot like your dad in the sense that they didn’t give a crap about my introversion. Either that or they didn’t know it was a real thing. Constant phone calls, twenty-four seven, right in the middle of homework.” Adrienne gave him an accusatory look and placed one hand on her right hip. “That doesn’t mean that…” Scott stuttered. “I mean, you can call anytime you…oh, no…”

“I’m just screwing with you, Scott, you can relax now,” said Adrienne while swinging Scott’s liquefied hand. “Truth be told, I actually get a lot of what you’re saying. Sometimes you’ve just got to have your space, that’s all. But even with all that space, there still can’t be secrets between us. You have to find a balance between those things, you know?” A beat of awkward silence hung between them. “So tell me the truth, Scott: did you have anything to eat today?”

He sighed, “No, I didn’t. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t show up for our walk right away. I was at the gas station eating a microwavable pizza.”

“Lift up your shirt, Scott,” demanded Adrienne. Scott swallowed a nervous gulp and questioned his girlfriend before she asked him again to lift up his shirt. When he did so, he revealed that his ribcage was slightly visible. “I knew it,” she said. “You’re not getting enough to eat these days. That’s not good for you, honey.”

“Thanks, Mom,” snickered Scott.

“Scott, I’m serious. Didn’t you take health class in middle school? You would have learned all about anorexia if you actually paid attention.”

“I’m not anorexic!” snapped Scott, to which Adrienne’s accusatory eyes widened. “Sorry about that. You’re right. I should be eating more often than I do. It’s just that…it’s this goddamn dream I keep having every night. It won’t go away.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s like…having an acid trip every night. There’s this puppet teacher and she’s always covered in worms. So are her students. And every time I try to take a bite of food, all I an see are those worms just crawling around on my plate. It took all the strength I had just to eat that gas station pizza. Goddamn, what the fuck is wrong with me?” Scott placed his head in his free hand and rubbed his temples, as if the face massage would actually ease his permanent pain.

Adrienne let go of Scott’s goopy hand and instead wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “I get it, Scott. School is a shitty place to be. It always has been. But if you don’t eat on a regular basis, you could die. And don’t even try telling me that’s a better option than living.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Every time I have something to eat, it’s just worms and maggots. I can’t put it out of my mind. I can’t see a shrink or else they’ll lock me up in a loony bin.” A little tear splash plopped onto the sidewalk, Scott hurrying to wipe his eyes away.

“I have an idea. How about instead of worms, you imagine something else over it. It’s like mental censorship. If you’re eating mashed potatoes, imagine gravy instead of worms. If you’re eating pizza, imagine more cheese and pepperoni instead of maggots. It takes a lot of time to master, but that’s true with pretty much any skill. That’s what being healthy is, Scott: a skill. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Scott let out a deep sigh and said, “Okay, I’ll give it a try. If it’ll keep me out of the nuthouse, I’ll do it. By the way, how do you know all about this?”

“I see a therapist every Sunday morning.” Scott’s dewy eyes widened as if this therapist was a true alternative to the nuthouse he saw in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. “It’s true, Scott,” said Adrienne. “You get to sit on a comfy couch and talk about your feelings for an hour or so. It’s good for the soul.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…You always seem so happy all the time. I mean, why would you…you know…”

“You of all people should know that what happens on the outside has little to do with what happens on the inside. My therapist got me through the divorce proceedings between my mom and dad. There was nothing happy or joyful about any of what happened between those two. I’m still hurting over it. I get that my dad can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s still my dad. He should have protected me…”

A small tear welled up in Adrienne’s eye and Scott gently wiped it away with his shirt sleeve. He said, “Now we’re even,” referencing their shared moment in the cafeteria. She gave him a little smile and his heart pulsated with life once more. For the next twenty minutes, the two of them walked together in silence, just admiring each other’s company.

Scott still couldn’t help looking down at Adrienne’s bare feet in those sandals. He tried his damnedest not to get a boner in front of her as he admired those pink-painted toenails of hers. He even titled his head backwards so that he could see her soft and silky soles, which were his favorite part of the female foot. Adrienne thought he was staring at her ass and playfully swiped him away before giggling.

“Is this your house?” Adrienne asked. Scott nodded and the two of them stopped in the lawn while holding each other’s hands. They gazed in each other’s eyes and Adrienne couldn’t help but giggle again, while Scott’s shy guy smile was a little more attractive than his slasher smile in the locker hallways. “I had fun walking with you today. I learned a lot about you.”

“Yeah, uh…same here…heh…”

“Goodnight, Scott. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” Adrienne grinned sweetly at Scott before slowly bringing her face closer to his and planting a kiss on his already flaming cheek. The senior’s eye’s widened as his newfound girlfriend kissed him on the lips and swirled her tongue around his mouth. For good measure, she kicked off one of her sandals and rubbed her sole against his calf while kissing him deeper and deeper.

This was the first time in a long time that Scott’s oral activities didn’t involve worms and maggots. Adrienne’s lips and tongue tasted more heavenly than Crème Brule despite the fact that she had eaten a crappy school lunch just hours before. This was Scott’s instant vacation from reality, if only for a few seconds. He could stay in this beautiful kiss forever. He thought to himself, Fuck you, Mrs. Striker! Fuck you, Mr. Simpson! Fuck you, Alan! Fuck everybody…

“Oh my god!” said Adrienne as she broke the kiss with shocked wide-eyes. Scott began to kick himself once again as he assumed he was talking out loud the whole time. But how could he form a coherent sentence with another woman’s tongue in his mouth? And then Adrienne pointed down at Scott’s crotch and the offender stood proudly in the air.

Scott used his backpack to cover up his aroused manhood and profusely apologized to Adrienne, who just stood there not knowing what the hell to do. Any smile she once had was minimal at best. Instead of throwing more useless, “I’m sorrys” her way, Scott ran inside his house and bolted upstairs to his bedroom, where he threw the backpack on his bed and locked the door. He hoped in all of that turbo-charged madness that his own mother didn’t notice the wood jutting through his sweatpants. Otherwise, he’d have to kick himself even harder than before.

Scott placed a hand on his chest and kept telling himself to settle down before taking a seat on the bed and breathing heavily. “It’s just a boner. It’ll go away. They always do.” His breathing intensified as he laid back in his bed and pounded the mattress with his fists. “Goddamn it, why did I have to be so stupid!” He tried to say it softly enough so that his mother didn’t hear him. Lord knows she didn’t need to see Scott giving her a one-gun salute after a hard day of work. “I’m so fucking embarrassed,” he whispered while his breathing intensified yet again. He wiped the sweat off of his face and hands and closed his eyes for a while, hoping the boner would flatten sooner than later.

Silent Warrior, Chapter 1

With the third grade classroom dimly lit in shades of purple, puppet children on strings danced and twirled their way through the door. The girls wore pretty red dresses and had their blond hair in pigtails. The boys wore elegant blue tuxedos and were shaven completely bald. This waltz of perfect conformity was accompanied by the PA system’s glorious soundtrack of the Moonlight Sonata. The rhythm carried the puppet children to their desks one row at a time so as not to cause unnecessary disorder. Once they had taken their seats, the puppets slouched over with their pale white faces and rosy cheeks touching their desks.

Their strings jerked them to the upright position while another puppet descended at the chalkboard in a heap. With another tug of the strings, the clown lady with rainbow hair, a distorted face, and a frilly white dress reassembled and proceeded to write her name on the chalkboard. As she wrote, she sang a “happy birthday” style rendition of her class greeting in a condescending, Shakespearean voice. “Good morning to you. Good morning to you. Good morning dear children…”

She signaled for her students to speak up with a wave of her hand. And true to form, they completed the song in perfect unison with, “Good morning to you!”

“Very good, dear children!” said the teacher while curtseying, still using her hammy stage voice. “My name is Aloysius Striker, but you may all call me Mrs. Striker. And my, don’t you all look lovely today! All smiles, tight strings, and not a single misstep in the morning song. No disorder among you all. Do you know why? Because we are all part of something much greater than ourselves. We have the same dreams. The same desires. We are all part of…a community!”

Mrs. Striker quickly erased her name from the board and wrote in its place the word of the day, community. “Now class, would any of you like to tell me what a community is? Don’t be too shy to speak up. Your grade depends on it!” The last sentence was punctuated with a mock whip strike with her piece of chalk.

All at once, the puppets rotated their heads three hundred sixty degrees and said, “A community is a gathering of people who have something in common!”

“Excellent, children! You’ve made me very proud already! But what are some examples of communities? Oh, do please speak up. We’re all part of a community, after all!” sang Mrs. Striker.

“Churches!” said the puppets, to which Mrs. Striker gave a celebratory, “Yes!” and quickly chalked it on the board. Other examples the children gave were shopping centers, police departments, congress, and yes, even school. That last answer sent an orgasmic chill throughout Mrs. Striker’s puppet body. She even gave a sing-songy laugh.

And then the teacher’s demonic smile turned to a saggy frown when she saw one student in the back corner of the class with his head tucked firmly in his hands. No puppet strings, no puppet face, no handsome tuxedo, just a shadow silhouette and glowing green eyes. Mrs. Striker tiptoed towards this lonely student like a ballerina and towered over him with a vengeful sneer.

“Look who decided to join us today, class. Mr. Scott George, the so-called introvert! The so-called shy guy! The little boy who hasn’t crackled a smile since the day he was born! Let me show you how it’s done, Mr. George!” The children’s heads turned one hundred eighty degrees and their puppet strings morphed their faces into insane grins with monstrous teeth and worms in the backs of their throats. “See? It’s not so hard, little Scotty! But in all seriousness, why haven’t you spoke up with the rest of the class? Don’t you want to be part of a community?”

Surveying the ghastly smiles around him, Scott brushed his teacher off with his hand and said, “Not really.”

Mrs. Striker’s elongated nose touched with Scott’s forehead before she chirped, “Well, that’s tough cookies, Mr. George! Your grade depends on your participation! Your ability to get a job depends on your sociability! You are indeed part of this society whether you want to be or not!”

The teacher clutched Scott’s wrist with a death grip as she dragged the shadowy student kicking and screaming towards the chalkboard, all while the puppet students pointed and laughed at him. By the time Scott made it to the chalkboard, Mrs. Striker grabbed him by the scruff of his neck to pull him up and placed the piece of chalk in his hand. “Now then! This is your next assignment, Mr. George, and you shall not screw this up for your fellow students, but most of all, for me! I want you to write on this blackboard another example of a community! Post-haste! Chop-chop!”

Scott George shivered and cowered, barely able to keep the chalk in his hands while the students giggled at him through their noses and closed mouths. Sweat poured off of him like rain while the purple lighting turned to a single bright halogen spotlight on him. He swallowed hard and stared at the chalkboard like a monkey doing a math problem. All of these examples of a community and he couldn’t come up with one…until he piggybacked off of the shopping center answer.

With slow precision and squeakiness that made the puppet children squint and hold their ears, Scott wrote something on the chalkboard without actually seeing what it was. It seemed as though hours went by and a whole tidal wave of sweat poured off of his body. But then he finished writing what he was going to write and breathed an anxiety-crushing sigh of relief. The pregnancy-sized knot reformed in his stomach when Scott saw the children laughing their asses off as well as Mrs. Striker staring at the blackboard in wide-eyed horror. “Shopping carts?!” she cried in disbelief. “Shopping carts?!”

As the laughter got louder and Mrs. Striker’s dramatic sighs grew more obvious, Scott’s crippling anxiety morphed into white hot rage. His boiling blood gave third degree burns on his tender flesh. His neon green eyes bulged out of their sockets. Every vein in his arms and forehead looked like a stick of dynamite ready to blow. His fists were clenched tightly enough to turn even the strongest metals into powder.

In one volcanic scream, he belted, “Shut up!” before picking up a text book off of a student’s desk and smashing him over the head with it. The teacher and students alike gasped in horror as the unfortunate student’s head exploded into a pile of worms and maggots, his body limp and lifeless. The puppet strings had no choice but to pull him into the heavens while Scott watched in horror at his own sins. Students cried maggots out of their eyeballs while Mrs. Striker sobbed blood.

“Oh, Scott! How could you do such a thing to your own community?!” asked the teacher. “Now the whole system is going to crash down upon us! Why, oh, why! WHY?!” With his head hung and his voice sheepishly low, Scott muttered a nearly incoherent apology before Mrs. Striker burst into flames and clutched his wrist with purpling tightness yet again. “Oh, I’m afraid an apology’s not going to be enough, Mr. George! You’ve been causing grief to my class for far too long! Your refusal to obey even the simplest commands makes me sick to my stomach! I’m afraid there’s only one thing left to do!”

The puppet strings yanked every child back into the heavens while the classroom burst into a fiery hell all around Mrs. Striker and the convulsing Scott George. The teacher smashed every desk into splinters with one punch and in their place ascended a torture chair with leather straps and a ball gag.

“No, Mrs. Striker! Have mercy on me! I’ll be a good boy! I promise!” pleaded Scott, who was bound and gagged to the chair with constricting tightness. He tried to thrash around and break free, but with a ball gag cutting off his air supply, he quickly became exhausted. It became even harder to breathe when Mrs. Striker shoved a funnel up one of his nostrils and held it in place with duct tape.

“You’re going to conform, Mr. George, whether you want to or not!” warned Mrs. Striker in a deep, devilish voice. She tore open the flesh on her own wrist and pulled out a handful of worms with razor sharp fangs and hooks. Scott tried once again to squirm and thrash in his bindings, but they only cut deeper into his skin. With a sick smile and Scott’s gagged pleas, Mrs. Striker shoved the razorblade worms into the funnel and watched them fest up his nose and into his brain. The children descended back down into the hellfire scene and repeatedly chanted along with the teacher, “One of us!”

After an eternity of having his skull feasted on, the present day eighteen-year-old Scott George awoke from his nightmare with a deep gasp of air and pulsating nausea. As soon as he caught his breath, the teenager looked around the room for his digital clock, which read five-thirty in the morning. Relieved that this was a dream and that he still had hours before he had to get up for school, Scott plopped backwards into his bed and burped his nausea away.

“Why does this keep happening?” Scott whispered to himself. “I hate falling asleep.” Tears formed in his eyes when he realized that the only thing fake about his nightmare was the psychedelic backdrop in which it took place. He never dropped acid or smoked marijuana a day in his life. Why was he being punished for it? And most of all, why did he have to take a United States history class with a teacher who was basically Mrs. Striker with a penis?

Knowing that class was his first period of the day caused Scott to skyrocket out of his bed and dry heave in his garbage bucket. No matter how hard he puked, all that came out of his mouth was tiny streams of snot and orange stuff he couldn’t identify. Once he had finished, he sat next to his desk and breathed heavily while fighting the urge to go back to sleep. “Goddamn you, Mr. Simpson,” whispered Scott. “Why doesn’t somebody go Columbine on his ass already?”

Demon Axe, Chapter 2

The Lord of the Pit bathed in darkness once again, though he was all alone and everything looked hazy to him. In this state of mind, he could finally relax and pull the plug on his emotions even if only for a little while. All he did was float in space with a numb body, a numb mind, and a dead soul. But the thing about temporary relaxation was that it was temporary. The jolt he felt in his head wasn’t enough to snap him out of this trance, but his heart raced at a million miles an hour.

The decapitated heads of Vulture Man, Pig Man, and G-Pac, with their spinal columns dripping with blood, floated into view with their eyes glowing neon purple. Every harsh stare was intended for their former comrade. Every word they spoke was in a unified, devilish tone. “Where were you, Dear Lord? Where were you when we needed you? You boasted the warrior spirit of the Demon God and then you ran like a coward!”

The Lord of the Pit’s dry mouth tried to form words, but he was too exhausted to lace together a coherent sentence. He had so much explaining to do, but the disembodied heads of his brethren shouted, “Silence! We don’t want your logic! We don’t want your apologies! We want you to suffer the way we suffered! It’s the only way we shall find justice in this netherworld!”

The floating heads glowed a brilliant orange aura as they withdrew from their superior positions. A hooded figure standing behind them waved his clawed fingers as if he was the one controlling these necrotized spirits. The figure jerked his hood back and revealed the pointy-eared, evilly grinning face of the concert slasher. The Lord of the Pit’s heart beat even faster than before while condensation moistened his flesh. He even felt a warm sensation across his groin, though the smell was anything but comforting.

The slasher said, “You heard them yourself. You’re a coward. You’re a thief. You stole their chances at freedom right from underneath. You took something from them that they’ll never get back. You took something that means more to them more than you ever will. What about their families? Their children? Their wives? What will you tell them once they demand answers? Who will come to your rescue when you have to answer for your cowardly sins?”

The Lord of the Pit tried to fire back, but his numb state wouldn’t allow such rapid-fire lip movement. All he felt was more condensation, this time in his eyeballs. The slasher frowned sadistically at his prey and said, “Pathetic. You can’t even string together a reasonable sentence when a simple apology would have worked nicely. But you heard your friends say they don’t want an apology. They want revenge. They want justice. So now, band mates, I ask you this question: what shall we do with this offensive scoundrel?”

The heads floated in front of the slasher and chanted like demonic monks, “Put him in a box! He’s a tard! Put him in a box! He’s a tard! Put him in a box! He’s a tard!” No matter how his already weak body resisted, the Lord of the Pit felt suffocated as he was forced into a wooden box and the lid closed over him with steel chains wrapping around the deathly container. With so little oxygen and not enough power to fight back, the Lord felt his heart beating faster and faster, possibly for the last time. He never had a chance to say goodbye to his friends and now he was going to be locked away for all eternity.

And then the man known as Daniel Mercer screamed his way out of his trance and sat up in bed. He was pouring with sweat, his sleeping shorts (which were thankfully dark) reeked of urine, his eyes were burning with salt, and his head felt like it was being crushed underneath a steamroller. The rock star rubbed his temples and moaned in a low voice, as if either of those things was capable of curing his hangover from last night.

Wearing nothing but a wife-beater tank top, his drenched sleeping shorts, and a pair of wool socks that were too big for him, Daniel slowly stood up from his bed and asked himself, “What the hell happened last night? What the fuck?”

The sound of a doorbell ringing send a lightning storm of pain throughout Daniel’s head as he clutched his hair and sat back down screaming and swearing in agony. He wondered who the hell would come to his house at this time of day. His neck creaked as he turned his head to see on his digital clock it was one o’clock in the afternoon. “Son of a bitch,” he said to himself as he gingerly got back up and staggered toward the front door of his house. The bell rang again and he screamed in agony before shouting audibly, “I’m coming, damn it! Jesus Christ!”

Slowly but surely, he trudged to the front door and opened it to see a balding, middle aged man in a black leather jacket and blue jeans. “Are you Daniel Mercer?” Upon getting an answer in the form of a slow nod, the man pulled out a police badge and said, “I’m Detective Shawn Henry with the Paulson City Police Department. I’m here to get a witness statement from you regarding what took place at the Demon Axe concert last night.”

Daniel squinted his eyes at the morning light and softly said, “Can’t you come back another time? As you can see, this isn’t really…you know…”

“I understand you’re not feeling well, Mr. Mercer,” said Detective Henry. “But the sooner we get a witness statement from you, the sooner we can find whoever did this.” The cop was met with a weirded-out stare, to which he responded, “Look, I don’t like being here any more than you do. But to tell you the truth, police work is a bureaucratic nightmare. There’s paperwork, there’s processing, the whole nine yards. I’m sorry you’re feeling bad today, but you’re going to feel even worse if we don’t catch the son of a bitch who did this.”

Daniel sighed and reluctantly said, “Come on in. Let’s get this shit over with.” The sickly rock star and the by-the-books detective made their way into the living room, which had little more than a flat screen TV, some heavy metal posters, and two leather loveseats. Daniel and Shawn sat oppositely of each other and allowed the conversation to begin once the cop pulled out a notepad and a pen.

“I’m going to be frank with you, Mr. Mercer,” said Shawn. “My department has already gathered witness statements from concertgoers and security enforcement and they all say that an elf, yes, an elf was responsible for all of the terrorism that took place last night. I know you’re all out of sorts today and I really caught you at a bad time, but please tell me that the terrorist was simply a guy with pointy ears.”

“And now I’m going to be frank with you, Detective Henry,” said Daniel as he leaned in closer. “I don’t give a shit what this slasher asshole was. All I know is that he took away three of the best band mates I’ve ever had. Demon Axe is no more because of this jerk-off with a machete. It wouldn’t be right to continue without them, especially since I basically ran away from the whole thing and left them to die. You want a witness statement from me? There it is, Columbo. A pointy-eared motherfucker slashed my audience to pieces, decapitated my best friends, and I’m the one who actually survived because I was cowardly enough to take off in the other direction.”

“Obviously, you’re suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress, Mr. Mercer.”

In a raised voice uncharacteristic of someone with a pounding headache, Daniel said, “You think? Is that what it really is, or did I just piss my shorts this morning because I’m forty years old and already need to be shoved in a nursing home?”

“There’s no need for hostility. I completely understand the pain you’re going through. I can set you up with a counselor and you can pour your heart out until you’re ready to move on,” said Shawn.

Daniel’s slightly raised voice evolved into a full scale scream. “There is no moving on! Didn’t you just hear me say that Demon Axe is over?! No more heavy metal! No more sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll! It’s over! Done! Finished! Adios! Sayonara! Unless your state-funded counselor is capable of reaching inside my aching-ass fucking head and pulling all of my bad memories out, then there’s not a whole lot he can do for me! I’ve taken every pill there is to take and my mind is still laughing at me and making me its bitch!”

After that oratory, Daniel clutched his head even harder and allowed tears to stream down his cheeks. Detective Henry continued to stare at him with a stoic attitude, though even he knew that his interviewee was beyond help. “You know what, Mr. Mercer?” said Shawn as he put away his pen and notepad. “I agree with you when you say this is a bad time to talk. I could sit here and tell you that the red tape nightmare will actually lead to something, but we don’t know for sure. This terrorist should be easy to find due to the pointy ears and green skin alone, but if that were true, he’d be in custody right now.”

“He must be a really good fucking fighter,” said Daniel with his head in his lap.

“That he is. We’d love to have him locked up for life, but there’s one last question I need to ask you before I go and…leave you to your devices. Can you think of any reason whatsoever why anybody would want to commit violence against a concert attendance of this size?” asked Shawn.

Daniel picked his head up and said through quivering lips, “Why does anybody do anything violent these days? Is it because one of the bands that played before us was all-Muslim? Is it because the curtain-jerker band had an openly gay guitarist? Was Demon Axe’s dark fantasy shit really that offensive? Take your pick, Detective Henry. It could be politically motivated. It could be just a bunch of nationalistic garbage. But if this pointy-eared motherfucker really is some Dungeons & Dragons freak, then we’ve got to seriously rethink the way we approach terrorism. I mean, where are you going to find an expert on this shit? Who actually knows anything about this asshole’s culture? Is he just a mental case with a blade? I don’t know. Nobody does.”

Shawn stood up and said, “That’s actually the most poignant statement I’ve received all day today and you’re not even in any condition to do a damn thing. I’ll tell you what, Daniel, let me and my department handle the media and news crews. You just focus on getting some sleep and wrestling with your…I don’t want to say demons for obvious reasons, but you get what I’m saying. I really do think you should see a counselor.”

“And I really do think that necromancy should be a real thing and that my band mates should rise from the dead. Until that day comes, there’s not a whole lot a counselor can do for me,” said Daniel.

“The offer is still on the table if you decide to change your mind. You can go back to bed now. I’m done for right now.”

“Okay, first you don’t want to use the word demon and then you tell a traumatized person to go back to sleep, probably hoping that he doesn’t have nightmares again. This politically correct garbage isn’t working out for you, Detective. If you want to give me some comfort, take away the voices in my fucking head. That’s all I’m asking anybody to do. I don’t need sympathy. I just want my voices to shut the fuck up and my band mates to come back from the fucking dead.”

Shawn nodded to Daniel and said, “Have a nice day, sir,” before showing himself out the front door.

“There’s no such thing as a nice day!” shouted Daniel as he stood up quickly. “It’s just like those assholes who say good morning! It’s an oxymoron invented by people who’ve never had their fucking friends ripped away from them! I can still see their spinal cords, for shit’s sake!”

The former Lord of the Pit could scream until his head exploded, but it wouldn’t have mattered since Detective Shawn Henry was long gone by then with the door shut behind him. Daniel slowly sat back down on the couch and sobbed softly into his calloused hands. “I just want my sanity back,” he said to himself. “Is that too much to ask? Everybody else has their sanity. Why can’t I have mine?”

The Undertaker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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