John Wayne Gacy: Did You Ever Think You'd See the Day When He Had the Moral High Ground?

 

Adrianne Palicki from With/In vs. Michael Falk from The Onion: Just Another Day on the Job

 

Tiffany Justice (Moms For Liberty) X Ronald Pergman (Big Sky): Bonding Over Common Ground

 

Welcome, Everybody, to Nickelodeon GUTS! And GORE! And VIOLENCE! And BLOOD!

 

Ophelia Cornell: Legendary Serial Killer from "Dungeon of Love"

 

Maynard from Pulp Fiction vs. Todd Akin (Rest in Piss, Teabagger!)

 

Art the Clown vs. Just Pearly Things

 

Marcellis Wallace vs. Zed (Rest in Peace, Peter Greene)

 

William Lewis and Liv Benson from Law & Order: SVU

 

Murder Nuts the Clown

 

Dutch Wagenbach from The Shield vs. Michael Knowles

 

Two-Sentence Horror Story: "Nut Up AND Shut Up"

When Murder Nuts the Clown kidnapped an entire bus full of high school cheerleaders, it took a lot of balls for him to do what he did. They came in many colors and all of them had leather straps.

We Love You, Alejandro Cherrystone

 Every last page of his love letter collection

Breathed new life into his bloody erection

“We love you, Alejandro Cherrystone!

We can do it in your cell or on the phone

We know you’ve skinned your victims raw

We know you broke a prostitute’s jaw

We know you mutilated neighborhood pets

It doesn’t make us lust for you any less”

Every last page of the dirtiest magazines

Is filled with beauty nobody’s ever seen

Long black locks and androgynous lips

Tight black Speedo clinging to his hips

A six-pack that he worked hard to sculpt

Smooth legs that could start his own sex cult

It’s easy to forget his towering body count

Even when formaldehyde assaults your snout

Every last page of the stenographer’s notes

Crushes every baby girl’s romantic hopes

A heart like his could never be warm

Neither could his corpses left out in the storm

A life behind bars is what he so deserves

Not to be sexed up by the youngest of pervs

Not to be a wet dream for teenage queens

There’d be no debate if he looked like a fiend

Every last page of his death certificate

Makes claims of innocence insignificant

Stabbed to death with a rusty shank

While making a deposit in the sperm bank

Shower water washed away his blood

And the mess left by his supermodel butt

Never mind leaving flowers on his grave

Unless it’s necrophilia which you crave

Every last page of his docudrama script

Now smolders in a pyromantic abyss

No glory for killers, no cinematic thrillers

But compensation for his victims’ tear-spillers

They don’t have to forgive for Jesus’ sake

If Alejandro was alive, he’d continue to take

Never giving back to the world he bloodied

Except for hybristophilia to his favorite honeys

Rest in piss and we’ll see you in hell

This is the only story we should tell

Until the next killer casts a horny spell

Until the next cult forms, oh fucking well

Destroying the Earth

Whether you’re watching your Saturday morning cartoons or playing your favorite Super Nintendo game, sometimes you just have to ask to nobody in particular: “Why does the villain want to destroy the earth?” Doesn’t matter if the villain is a robot, an alien, a monster, or an ordinary human with extraordinary powers; chances are good he wants to destroy the world for no fucking reason other than to flex his muscle. You hear him cackle like a madman. You hear him barking orders at his minions even though he’s capable of doing a much better job. But that’s about all you hear. No motives, no thorough planning, and if he does have the latter, it’ll be explained in intricate detail to the protagonist rather than using that precious time to murder the motherfucker. All you know about the villain is that he wants to destroy the earth, but you don’t know why.

Do you realize what happens when the earth is destroyed? There’s a very real possibility that the main villain lives on planet earth, so if he destroys the whole fucking thing, where is he going to live? He’d better have a spaceship handy. If he does, what planet is going to take him in whilst being able to support human life? Even if the planet did support human life, why would they willingly want a genocidal maniac as part of their world population? Does the villain want to destroy his new home world too? Is that all this asshole does on his spare time? Just destroy worlds haphazardly without thinking about the consequences of mass genocide? At least Freiza from Dragon Ball Z had a motive. He wiped out the planet’s population and sold the planet to the highest bidder. He was a businessman. A ruthless businessman, but as we’ve seen with corporate America, that’s really a redundant phrase at this point.

I suppose any villain could use the CEO excuse to destroy random planets, but people who have seen Dragon Ball Z would know where the motive came from and accusations of plagiarism would be louder than a Super Saiyan screaming before he throws a Kamehameha wave…out of his ass…after eating a hundred dollars worth of Taco Bell food. Yes, I know, there’s no such thing as an original idea. Everything comes from somewhere. But surely there are more motives for committing genocide on a planet’s population than just dollars and cents, right? Yes, dollars and cents are very enticing to villains with a shallow point of view, or even a desperate debtor. But it’s hardly the only reason why someone would want to destroy a whole planet.

Destroying the earth seems to have lost its luster over time due to the backwards logistics of it all. But it doesn’t have to be. Part of the fun of being a professional author is spinning tropes on their heads. Maybe the threat of global destruction is part of an ultimatum. “Give me a gazillion dollars or I’m going to blow up a major world city every hour on the hour.” We’ve seen that in movies before, but why would a genocidal lunatic need a gazillion dollars? Climbing out of poverty? Buying a vacation home in somewhere other than a targeted city? Clinging to an expensive cocaine and hooker addiction? These are all solid reasons for world destruction. They’re shitty things to do, but as far as character arcs go, they’ll go a long way in giving villains all three of their much-needed dimensions. The audience will laugh at villains for being cheesy and one-dimensional. Why not make them blackmailers of the most disgusting kind?

But why is it just blackmail? Can a villain want to destroy the earth just for the satisfaction of watching the world burn? Dead bodies can be very satisfying to a villain with a constant Joker’s grin. But after one dead body, he’d have to keep achieving that high in order to maintain satisfaction. When the bodies run out, then what is he going to do? But maybe he will find satisfaction in worldwide genocide, because he sees his abusers in every person he meets. Or maybe he was raised with a Nazi ideology and sees himself as the purest human. Maybe the parents who gave him his Nazi ideology were abusive themselves. In the bloody war between nature and nurture, nurture wins hands down.

Can a villain be born evil, though? Certain genes could allow that to happen, like a predisposition for psychopathy, sociopathy, and narcissism. Maybe the villain is beyond help and can’t help himself when he kills large numbers of people. Maybe he legitimately doesn’t see the consequences of his actions and kills just because. But when he’s criticized or punished for his heinous crimes, he suddenly plays the sympathy card like a little coward. We’ve seen that in movies and TV shows before, because it continues to work. Hell, we see this shit in today’s world news with certain politicians, pundits, and bullies in general. I’m sure they’d love to watch the world burn just because.

What if a magical voice tells the villain to commit worldwide genocide and will only give him relief from his mind-fuck when he completes his task. Where is this voice coming from? The depths of hell? A sorcerer long believed to be dead? A bug implanted in his ear? A caterpillar that crawls up his nose and infests his brain? A psychoactive drug with micro-insects swimming through it? But if you as a writer choose to go down this route, you’ll want to remove it as far as you can from actual real world schizophrenia. Schizophrenics have enough stigmas attached to them as it is. The magical voice has to be purely from a magical or science-fiction standpoint. You can even take a page out of the Cyberpunk 2020 playbook and have the cyborg lose his humanity after overusing his mechanical limbs.

There are thousands of reasons why a villain would want to destroy the earth. Pick one and stick with it. You could have a laughing skeleton in a dark cloak carrying a fiery battleaxe, but unless you give him some reasons for doing the things he does, he’s going to come off as cheesy and clownish. Imagine if Darth Vader, one of the most iconic Star Wars villains of all time, destroyed worlds willy-nilly and had no real reason for it. He lusted for power, above all else. It’s a simple motive, but power is enticing to psychopaths who need to be in control of their environment at all times. Is the lust for power over-used? Could be. But if everything else about the villain clicks, whether it’s the dialogue, the presentation, or the power he already has, then the audience will forgive you if you use the power-hunger trope one more time.

I’m currently in the process of rewriting a fantasy novel called Beautiful Monster for the third time in a row. For the first couple of drafts, Queen Shelly Atwood had no real reason for being a sex-crazed rapist who wanted to get as much power as she could. But in this current draft, she likes having the power and influence of a queen because it turns her on. The money she makes selling brainwashed sex slaves affords her pleasures, comforts, and conveniences she wouldn’t have had as a poor peasant. Power is addictive and so is the one-percent lifestyle. She’s gotten so used to being powerful that she must have things her way all the time. She doesn’t want to lose even a smidgen of that power to anybody. Whether she gains it from raping a future sex slave or making shady business deals, she’ll take it where she can get it. With this much power and money comes possessions that she wouldn’t otherwise have. Scary artwork, pornographic novels, ice cream ingredients, fine wine, powerful drugs, she’s like a spoiled brat on Christmas, but every day is Christmas and every night is Halloween for the ones she steps on.

Any goofy character can be made into a convincing badass as long as there are layers and dimensions to their personality. Any atrocious act of genocide can be justified in the mind of the villain as long as that justification is made loud and clear. Evil for the sake of evil comes across as hokey no matter what the story is. Evil has a purpose. Evil has a background story. Evil has personality. The villains themselves might even insist that they’re the good guys of their own story. They’re destroying the earth to put the miserable population out of their respective misery. They’re committing genocide because the population is somehow responsible for shunning him from all forms of society. The villain is killing at random because he has a heightened sense of alertness that won’t allow him to be taken by surprise even by the most mundane human being or animal.

The table is set, fellow authors. Flesh out your villains, flesh out your stories, flesh out your worlds, and make sure your audience notices all the hard work you put into your craft. Even the most random occurrences happen for a reason despite the reason not being readily available to the victims. They should be available to your readers, though. They’re not stupid. They see right through laziness. You don’t want to be the author who gives them a whole lot of nothing, right? Show us why the villain is evil, don’t just say he wants to destroy the earth. Any clown in a spaceship can destroy the earth. But a true villain can haunt the minds of his audience while he’s doing it.

Murder Is Beautiful

VERSE 1
It’s amazing the disputes I can settle with a knife
Could have no more problems for the rest of my life
A blade across your wrists, a blade across your throat
Tie bricks around your ankles, throw you off of a boat
Some of you motherfuckers call it a crime of passion
From a guy who followed all the heavy metal fashions
From a guy who was shit on all throughout school
Nah, I just like bathing in bloody swimming pools

CHORUS 1
Murder is beautiful!
Murder is so sublime!
It’s so worth doing time!
Murder is beautiful!

VERSE 2
It’s astounding the problems I can solve with a gun
One bullet to the dome and it’s all said and done
Or maybe I can blast off your itty bitty dicky
Shoot you in the ass, bleed you like a stuck piggy
Some of you clowns call me a little loony toon
While digging your own graves with a big ass spoon
Maybe I just need a glass of water and some pills
Nah, I’d rather rack up some more of those kills

CHORUS 2
Murder is beautiful!
Murder is so precious!
The fun is so endless!
Murder is beautiful!

VERSE 3
I’ve never been a gangster or a mafia don
I’m just a guy whose sanity is all long gone
Had enough of toxic bitches ripping at my stitches
Opening wounds that should’ve stayed hidden
A baseball bat or a stun gun full of juice
Don’t worry about your legs having no use
You won’t need them where your ass is going
Bombs away! Feel the high winds blowing

CHORUS 3
Murder is beautiful!
Murder is sweet sunshine!
Your ass is forever mine!
Murder is beautiful!
Murder is pretty as fuck!
Murder is a work of art!
Slash your asses apart!
Murder is pretty as fuck!

A Little Bit Off

Dr. Esther Villalobos hoped that the downpour outside would be sufficient in calming down her next patient. If not that, then the pictures of fluffy felines mounted on her walls. And if not that, then the musty smell of old books sitting on her shelves. Then again, perhaps the little things about her cozy office were just that: little. She knew full well that she had to be as delicate as possible when handling her newest client.

She remembered watching the media circus unfold on TV like it was yesterday. Every news anchor seemed to have an obsessive fixation on the demonic serial killer Lucy Butler. How she seduced and brainwashed her brilliant-minded abductees into believing their own mediocrity. How she played “Love Is Blue” by Paul Mauriat over and over again to drive that point home.

But the biggest thing that made Esther squirm in her chair all those days ago was how the media and subsequent viewers sexualized the hell out of Lucy Butler, whether it was her natural beauty, her alluring methods, or just because hybristophilia was still a thing in this day and age. People said the exact same things about Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, so maybe it shouldn’t have come as a big surprise. Still, Esther shivered at the thought of romanticizing such a brutal killer.

“I could definitely use a cigarette right now,” said Esther to nobody in particular as she sat in her swivel chair tapping her foot.

The nicotine would have to wait a little longer. There was a halfhearted knock on her door and she said, “Come in”, which the visitor did. Sure enough, the centerpiece of these Lucy Butler stories, Landon Bryce, skulked through the office door looking like hell. His blondish brown hair looked like it hadn’t been combed since god knows when. His Linkin Park T-shirt and blue jeans were covered in what looked like corn chip dust. Hopefully, that wasn’t all he was eating lately, but Esther wasn’t banking on any other answers. After all, the life in his once pretty eyes had been completely drained and his face sagged to show off his lack of zest for life.

Landon’s most noticeable feature, however, was the bruises and cuts all over his bony hands. Esther was no detective, but she had to assume those bloody scrapes had something to do with him getting in fights as recently as a few days ago. He didn’t seem to notice his own damage as he just stood in the doorway shivering lightly and staring at nothing like the zombie he was.

“Good morning,” said Esther in a soft, benign voice that didn’t betray the fact that she was a smoker. “You must be Landon. I’m Dr. Esther Villalobos. Please, make yourself at home. There’s a seat on the leather couch with your name on it.” He was in no hurry to lay down on the couch, but once he did, he found the comfort he needed to take deep breaths in an attempt to calm whatever chaos was going on his mind. He still trembled, though. “Before we begin, do you want some Vaseline for your hands? They look like they could use some TLC.”

“Huh?” Landon just now noticed the scars on his hand and languidly answered, “Sure, okay.”

Esther pulled a bottle of Vaseline out of her desk drawers and squirted a few drops into her patient’s palms. Landon hissed in pain as he rubbed the grease all over his wounds, but by the time he was finished massaging his hands, they already looked a little bit better than they did before. Any improvement was a victory in Esther’s mind.

As Landon laid on the couch allowing his anxiety to wash over him, Esther sat in her swivel chair with a clipboard in her lap and a look of concern on her middle-aged face. Her black hair showed a few streaks of white and her sweater and slacks attire showed off her advanced age even more, which hopefully translated into wisdom for Landon and therefore into somebody he could trust with his woes.

Esther adjusted her thin-rimmed glasses. “So, Landon…we talked on the phone before we made this appointment official. We bounced ideas back and forth about what we wanted to discuss. From what I can tell, you have no desire to relive your captivity, so that’s not a topic I’m going to dig too deeply into. Besides, anybody within the sound of the media’s voice knows everything they need to know about Lucy Butler’s disgusting behavior. I’m more interested in what life has been like after Agent Frank Black rescued you and the other boys. So…I guess my first question to you is…how are you feeling right now? Take as much time as you need to answer that question. Go into as much or as little detail as you’d like. This is your session, Landon. You make the rules.”

Silence hung between them with the exception of Landon’s deep breathing exercises, though comforting to anybody else, seemed to have very little effect in steadying his nerves. He had been through a lot, it seemed. “Well, Esther, I don’t think anybody really cares how I’m feeling right now…But to answer your question…I’m exhausted…I’m tired of fighting my own mind…But I know that if I fall asleep…I’m just going to have another nightmare about that woman…Every time she kissed me…Every time she felt me up…The same goddamn song over and over again…”

He sniffed a few times in between sentences and wiped a small tear from his eye before continuing. “You know…I haven’t told anybody this…But since we’re in therapy…Sometimes…after a really bad nightmare…where she gets to do whatever she wants with me…I lock the door to my bedroom…draw the curtains…take my pants off…and…and…” He wiped another tear from his eye.

Esther filled in the blanks of his statement right away and nodded. “I see.” She wrote down on her clipboard that in addition to PTSD, he appeared to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, hence the masturbation.

He continued. “I know I shouldn’t be doing that to her…I hated being in her company…Every time I do it…I hate myself for it…I keep wondering…if the ceiling fan above my room will be enough to support my weight…”

“Landon…listen to me. I know suicide sounds tempting, but it’s not the solution to your problems. You came here today because you wanted relief from it all. You secretly want to live again. There’s not much life in your eyes right now…but I can see just enough that you care deeply about your recovery. Please reconsider.”

“I sometimes wish the kids and teachers at my school would feel the same way…When I was rescued…I went straight back to that…school…if you can call it that…I wasn’t ready…I never was…but I didn’t speak up…I was expected to just soldier on like nothing happened…I wasn’t allowed to ask the world to slow down for me…And right off the bat…everybody noticed…Everybody knew…and they teased me for it…Called me every homophobic slur in the book…said I should have liked being with such a sexy woman…”

“As if being beautiful excuses her appalling actions.”

“Exactly…You know…sometimes…I wish I was ugly…I wish I had a face full of pimples…a three hundred pound beer gut…not a hair on my head…That way…nobody would try to seduce me again…Nobody would tell me they loved me without really meaning it…”

“Landon, I’m going to stop you right there for a moment. There’s something you need to know about that.” Esther sighed and removed her glasses. “How attractive you are has nothing to do with whether or not you were molested. Do you understand? Seduction is just one of thousands of ways in which someone can hurt you. If someone wants to hurt you badly enough, they’ll find a way to do it. It’s not you…it’s them.”

Landon sniffled again. “Try telling that to my ex-girlfriend.”

“You had a girlfriend?”

“I’m not sure I’d call her that, but…after I was rescued…we went on one date together…When she asked me out…I was having a particularly shitty day…I leaned against my locker at school just waiting for the waterworks to come out…She could have greeted me any way she wanted to…She could have said hi…She could have smiled at me…You know what she did?...She ran her nails down my back…On one hand it felt like a nice massage…On the other…it reminded me too much of Lucy…and…I ended up saying yes to her….Like I had something to prove to all of my bullies…Like I wanted to dispel all of those times someone called me a faggot or a queer…She said she liked me for my…’experience’…I was disgusted with her saying that…and I said yes to her anyways…”

Esther took more notes on her clipboard after putting her glasses back on. “How did your date go?”

“About as well as you’d expect it to…I was all numbed out…I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying…or what the plot of the movie was…Hell, I couldn’t even concentrate in school…That’s why my grades look like shit…I couldn’t even tell if me and my girl had a good time…But when it was over…and she tried to kiss me goodnight…I freaked out…Her lips…they tasted like Lucy’s…All of the sudden…I wasn’t seeing a blond sweetheart anymore…I saw Lucy…I ran away from her screaming…”

“She doesn’t sound like a very considerate girlfriend to me.”

“That’s why we never saw each other again…But at school…the gay slurs…the rape jokes…the pushes…the shoves…they started getting worse…I was constantly throwing up in the bathroom…I was crying my eyes out when nobody would see me…I would sometimes try to leave school on my own…But it was never enough…You want to know why I have scars on my hands?...Because one day…after one of those kids caught me crying…they laughed at me…and laughed…and laughed…so I did the one thing I knew would get me kicked out of school forever…I beat their asses…I punched them so hard their noses broke…their teeth crunched…I kneed them in the balls…kicked them in the ribs…I just kept seeing red…and it was glorious…It gave me the relief I needed…So beautiful…” He punctuated that last line with a smile, giving Esther her own form of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

“Landon, I’m going to stop you right there for now. You look like you need to stop as well.” Esther took her glasses off again and folded her hands in her lap. “You sound like you’re going through some heavy mental trauma. The lack of concentration, the nightmares, the vomiting, the lack of eating…you can’t live like this any longer. Something has to be done about it. I’m not going to lie to you, Landon. The road to recovery is going to be a long one. It’s going to be tiring. And it’s also going to depend on how far you’re willing to go to achieve your healing. Tell me, Landon…” She leaned in closer. “What are you willing to do to make this pain go away?”

The tears came more frequently and Landon gave up on trying to stop them. “Anything…anything at all…”

“Anything?”

“Yes, damn it, anything!”

“Good…because what I’m about to suggest to you…is so illegal…that you can’t tell anybody about it. You can only do it while you’re in my office. If I get caught administering this to you, I could not only go to jail, but I’d never be able to practice medicine again, which you in turn won’t find your healing. Are you ready?”

“I’m sick of crying all the time…I want to eat food that doesn’t taste like my kidnapper…You’re damn right I’m ready…”

Esther pulled a key out of her pocket and unlocked a bottom drawer before pulling out a vaping pen and handing it to Landon.

“Is this what I think it is?...You want me to smoke marijuana?...I can’t…No, I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because…I was already in one prison when Lucy kidnapped me…I don’t need to go to another for smoking pot…”

Esther leaned in closer. “Landon…you said you would do anything for relief. You’re not going to find that relief in Xanax or Sertraline. Marijuana has no side effects. It’s not a codependency. It actually does its job in a quick amount of time. Landon, you’re already in a prison. You’re a prisoner of your own mind. And that vaping pen? That’s the key to your cell.”

“Pfft…Yeah right…”

Esther shook her head. “What happened to you, Landon? Before you were kidnapped and molested, you raged against the machine. You told your teachers to shove those C+’s up their asses. Where’s that rebellious spirit?”

“It’s gone, Esther. Every time I rebel against the system, somebody gets hurt.”

“Doing nothing will get even more people hurt.”

“Maybe Lucy was right all along. Maybe mediocrity is all I’ve got left. Maybe those C+’s on my report card…”

“Enough!” Esther interrupted. “Those C+’s and D-‘s? They’re just letters on a piece of paper, no different from the other letters. They don’t determine your self worth. Demonic serial killers with a fetish for bad music don’t determine your self worth either. You do. You know you weren’t destined for a boring life. You know deep in your heart you want to save the world. The more you fight your rebellious urges, the stronger they become. You may not know it right now, but the world needs your voice.”

“Tell that to the bullies at my…”

“I’m telling you!” Esther snapped. After watching Landon jump out of his skin, she apologized and fixed her own clothing. “Landon…Lucy Butler doesn’t love you…and those kids at school? They don’t matter. You do. Only you get to define what love means to you. Kidnapping someone and sexually torturing someone isn’t love. Love is free and kind, not forceful and toxic. You know this in your heart. You still have a heart after all this time. That’s why you’re here, to help yourself realize it. Please, Landon…you are taking a big risk by smoking that pen…but no amount of greatness comes without danger…You…were destined for greatness…”

Judging from the singular tear drops running down Landon’s face, Esther had hope that she had gotten through to him. And then…he took a puff of the pen. But when he blew out the vapors, he coughed like he was losing a lung. Esther said, “Sorry. Takes some getting used to.”

But once the coughing was over, so was the trembling. The tears on his cheeks were replaced by gentle redness. His once glassy eyes were closed. His breathing was slow and relaxed instead of labored and intensive. He seemed to sink to the leather couch in an attempt to fall asleep and hopefully have a dream about something other than molestation.

Esther smiled. “I’m not going to ask you how you’re doing, Landon. I already have the answer.”

“I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Pfft…Who gives a shit?”

“My next patient won’t be here for a long time. You can take a quick nap if you’d like. I won’t mind.”

Landon was already one step ahead of her, breathing gently and allowing his head to roll over in relaxation. If he did give a response, it was jumbled and incoherent. Esther patted him on the head before sneaking out of her office and shushing her secretary.

By the time Esther went outside, the downpour had stopped and the sun was out. But for how long? Long enough for Esther to finally smoke that cigarette she earned. She pulled out a Camel and lit it with a match before taking a few drags. Like Landon with his vaping pen, Esther too relaxed as she leaned against the brick building. But at the same time, she looked at her cigarette with mild disgust.

“Don’t ever smoke these, Landon. We need that voice of yours to be as loud as possible…”

Sexy Lunch

“One…two…three!” SMASH! “Go, go, go! Move, move, move!”

These were the orders Detective Joey Roberts barked to five other police officers after kicking down the door to what used to be the Dam Hill Apartment Building. In one hand was her trusty cold magnum. In the other was the breast pocket of her black trench coat as she held it over her face to keep the foul odor from assaulting her senses. To her it was no different from performing a raid on a bus station bathroom. Filthy diapers, empty liquor bottles, rotten food, and buzzing flies covered every square inch of this dilapidated nightmare.

“Clear!” one officer after another hollered from distant corners of the abandoned trash heap of a building. The more Joey heard that word, the more her rage bubbled to the surface. To think that three years of mind games and false hope would lead to a big waste of time killed her inside worse than a dagger to the heart.

“Come on, Sanchez, where are you?! Show yourself!” barked Joey as she continued bolting down the various corridors with her eyes bloodshot and her pistol packing heat. “That smell better be your dead corpse!” Her wishful thinking led to even more spilled trash covered in every human fluid imaginable. She almost tripped over a dead cat being eaten by maggots. One dead cat led to another. And another. And another. The trail of blood brought her to apartment 12A, the door barely hanging on its hinges. One elbow strike was all it took to knock the motherfucker down.

There he was laying on a mattress with his baggy pants around his ankles and his striped shirt pulled up to his chest. Wearing a nearly toothless grin with an unkempt Mohawk was the man of the hour, Matt Sanchez, who smiled at Joey coldly and with psychotic intentions.

This should have been an open and shut case for the detective. However, she lowered her gun slowly and gazed at the wall behind Mr. Sanchez with wide, horrified eyes and quivering lips. Photographs were pinned to the wall, not just of ordinary people, but of Joey and her two elementary school-aged daughters. All three of them were at the beach enjoying a sunny day and…wearing bikinis. Joey’s saucer eyes morphed into angry slits when she saw the words “Sexy Lunch” scrawled across these photos with what appeared to be and smelled like old, crusty feces.

“Were you masturbating to me and my family?!” Joey growled.

“Yep,” said Matt Sanchez matter-of-factly, his lips smacking and tongue clicking as he chuckled insanely.

This would have been the perfect time to put a bullet in her stalker’s brain and get it over with. Joey’s finger edged oh-so-close to the trigger while sweat poured from her palms like a fine mist. That obnoxious laugh of Matt’s echoed through her mind much like the smell of this apartment complex burned her nostrils. Ultimately, she decided to sheath her weapon…but not out of a sudden change of heart.

Joey ripped a hardcover bible away from the bookend on the nightstand and started pounding it relentlessly over Matt’s head, arms, and back. As stiff as each blow sounded, not even the savage beating could drown out the serial killer’s girlish screams as he attempted badly to cover up. Detective Roberts wouldn’t stop. Her eyes flared up like burning gasoline. Drool splashed all over the already filthy carpeted floor. Every strike became more brutal and faster-paced the longer she went.

It took three police officers to clutch her around the arms and waist and yank her away from the beating while two more officers yanked a bloodied and bruised Matt to his feet to cuff him. Even when pulled away, Joey wouldn’t stop thrashing around, growling loudly, and swinging the bible. “Detective, that’s enough!” she heard one officer say, but it was the understatement of the year. She had to be restrained against the piss-stained wall in order to calm down just a little bit.

“What the hell are you doing, Detective?!” asked one of the cops. “You’re not supposed to be doing shit like that!” Holding his body cam, he said, “You’re going to get us all in a whole fuck load of trouble if you keep that up!”

Joey’s thrashing slowly diminished into heavily-breathing calmness at the realization of what she did. Her eyes and thoughts still burned at the sight of Matt Sanchez’s shit-eating grin superimposed on the unwanted photos on the wall. “You’d better listen to your friends, Detective. Your sexy daughters won’t have mommy to come home to otherwise.”

“You son of a bitch!” shouted Joey as she broke free from the officers’ grasps and spear tackled Matt in the ribs, knocking the rotten wall behind him over. Scandalous photos splattered over the two of them as Joey rained down the heaviest fists she could muster, slashing the serial killer over and over again. This time all five officers had to restrain her to the floor and shout orders for her to calm down. Out of the corner of her eye, Detective Roberts could see Matt Sanchez spitting out some teeth (not that his ugliness changed with them in his mouth). Still was that sadistic grin.

“What the hell are you holding me down for?! Get him before he gets away! That’s an order!” belted the Detective. Sure enough, Matt tried to get back on his knees (cuffed hands be damned), but two officers held him down once again and ordered him to shut his “filthy hole”.

Dripping with blood from his mouth, nose, and fresh cuts, Matt was hauled to his feet and carried from the door, still smiling arrogantly at his “sexy lunch”.

“Now, Miss Roberts…can I trust you to not go berserk this time? Is it okay to let you up or are you going to go ballistic some more?” asked an officer. Just as the glassy-eyed, saliva-mouthed detective was about to answer, a resounding thud echoed throughout the building. The three cops and detective headed out to the lobby and found Matt lying on the ground in a pool of blood and vomit. How much of it was his was up for debate. The two cops attending to the serial killer called for a medic while looking disgustedly at Joey.

“Do you not give a shit if our jobs are on the line?” asked one of the cops. It was hard to tell them apart due to Joey’s blurry tunnel vision and traumatic ghosts haunting her mind. “Hey, are you listening to me?! Our suspect just collapsed and it’s all because of you! The captain is going to have our balls for this! What the hell were you thinking?!”

Attempting to form a sentence through her jittery stutter, Joey said, “Did you…see those…pictures? Did you…see what…he called me and my girls?”

“Detective? And I use that term loosely,” said another faceless officer. “You should know by now that this job isn’t supposed to be personal. We need your head in the game and here you are beating the shit out of our suspect. You know how many times my family has been threatened by this asshole? What about the rest of us? Do we get to pound the hell out of him too? No, we don’t! This is a job! Take it seriously!”

Taking longer breaths and lowering her guard, Joey said with quiet anger, “It’s too late now. He’s already dead. What’s done is done. The world isn’t going to miss him and neither are any of you. Those body cams can record whatever they want for all I care. Hopefully, they recorded all of those…pictures…those pictures…those goddamn pictures!”

An officer leaned Matt up in a seated position, the killer’s body fading in and out of consciousness. But still there was that smile, like he had eaten the world’s sexiest lunch and had a comfortable BM afterwards. “What are you smiling at?!” burst Joey. “What the hell are you smiling at, you little rat turd?!”

Spitting blood on the floor, Matt said, “Looks like I’ve got one more kill under my belt. Well…much more than that if the whole police department gets taken down. My life…is complete…my work…is done!”

With a mile-long stare into Matt’s soulless eyes, Joey said, “You heard him, boys. His life is complete. His work is done. There’s nothing left for him to do. We’re all screwed one way or another. Hell, he probably put those pictures up just so we’d find them and commit career suicide. Mission accomplished. Now that we’re dead, let’s go have a few beers.”

Seeing the writing on the wall, the cop that was attending to Matt Sanchez pulled out his gun and blew the killer’s brains out, doing no more damage to the apartment complex than already stated. The legal shitstorm would come quickly and destructively. But the joke was on the DA because the cops and detective didn’t have any money to give to the plaintiffs. They spent it all on hot wings and beer!

"The Golden Bell" by Aurora Styles

BOOK TITLE: The Golden Bell

AUTHOR: Aurora Styles

YEAR: 2018

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Dark Fairytale

GRADE: Pass

Lady Bellicent is a royal politician with undeniable physical beauty, a strong belief in fairytales, and a desire to gentrify her city into an educated, high-class metropolis. Her methods come across as arrogant and vain, so much so that she encourages the wrath of Rosamund the apothecary and her golden bell, which is used to summon necromantic faeries whenever she needs them. Bellicent’s controlling husband Lord Fitcher also serves as a thorn in her side, especially with his harsh demands of keeping her out of his “special room”. Sooner or later, everything will come crashing down upon this magical kingdom and Bellicent’s happily-ever-after story will turn into a sick and twisted nightmare she can’t wake up from.

When you first read this wonderfully dark story, your eyes will widen at the scene of Lord Fitcher sewing corpses of his past wives together into one piece of art. The only thing his “creation” is missing is a head, but don’t worry, because he has lots of inspiration for that particular piece. Fitcher seems to be happy and deranged as he marvels at his masterpiece. He’s basically the love child of The Joker and Hannibal Lector, which is why it’s imperative that nobody enters his secret chambers. But you know deep down inside his cover will be blown at some point in the story. It has to. You can see it from miles away. Such tension will follow you throughout your reading adventure and that’s part of what makes this story so good. Aurora Styles leaves no stone unturned when it comes to her craft and it brilliantly shows throughout her work.

Serial killer aside, I also enjoy the shades of gray logic Aurora employs with her characters. Yes, they do awful things such as framing each other for witchcraft or casting spells that will doom each other forever, but at the same time, you can’t help but feel sorry for the characters when these bad things happen to them. Yes, Bellicent comes off as arrogant and spoiled, but did she really deserve her fate at the end of the story? Yes, Rosamund is quite arguably the most sympathetic character in the book, but was her revenge plot against Bellicent overkill? Even Lord Fitcher with his psychopathic ways comes off as a charmer when dealing with the public (then again, lots of serial killers do in order to keep up appearances). At the end of the day, there’s no clear answer as to who the reader should cheer or boo. Trust me, that’s a good thing, because it keeps the reader on their toes and makes them anticipate the second part of this series.

Speaking of shades of gray characters, whether you like him or not, you have to admit that Lord Rhazien’s skull motif is pretty cool. He wears them like armor, he has skulls on his magical staff, and he pretty much is a skeleton demon who’s described as having burning green eyes. This is the kind of character videogamers would love to play as or against. Constantly throwing fireballs, controlling hordes of goblins and undead creatures, and transforming everybody he captures into disgusting orcs. Yep, he’s definitely a videogame-worthy character. It makes me wonder what kind of creativity cosplayers would whip up if they decided to go to a convention dressed as Rhazien. So many dark fantasy dream scenarios, so little time!

Considering how well this novel was written, I’d say that The Golden Bell, the first in a series, is a resounding success. Sure, there are a few sentences that look like they could be typos, but then again, it could also be part of the classy dialogue that fantasy novels are known for. Buy a copy of this book and enjoy yourself. It’s only a hundred plus pages long, so you’ve definitely got time to blitz through this magical adventure full of twists and turns. A passing grade is what this wonderful book deserves!

Dark Skills

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writing Everyday

***WRITING EVERYDAY***

Lord knows how many times I’ve beaten this topic to death. Every time I logon to Face Book, I see a primordial ocean of memes telling me to write every single day of the week with no excuses. As frustrating as it is sometimes to read those memes, they’re absolutely right. If I could write every single day, I’d be one smiling motherfucker. It’s not like I haven’t been put on that schedule before. You don’t graduate from WWU without writing everyday. Hell, even in 2011 when my schizophrenia was flaring out of control, writing was a daily grind that I embraced.

There’s not on particular thing that contributed to my ability to write everyday in the past. It was more like a multitude of happenings. I was younger, so I had more energy. I drank cans of Red Bull and Amp Lightning like there was no tomorrow. I also was a proud practitioner of the Atkins Diet, which resulted in my minimum weight being somewhere around 240 lbs. But just like with all good things in life, these temporary fixes were just that: temporary. Being young doesn’t last forever, as evidenced by my induction into the dirty thirties. The energy drinks were making my heart race, so I had to stop drinking them at the risk of having a heart attack. The Atkins Diet, just like with all fad diets, was never meant to be permanent, so now I’m back up to 300 lbs.

Now that I’m older, heavier, and caffeine-free, it seems as though I spend most of my time walking around like a zombie and napping with Smokey. Napping with Smokey is a wonderful activity, but it doesn’t result in creative bursts. Because of this newfound tiredness, my head isn’t as clear as it once was and when your head’s fogged up, you can’t concentrate. When you can’t concentrate, your writing turns to shit. Sure, first drafts are never meant to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an obligation to at least try to make them that way.

One of the things I’m currently doing to remedy this problem of mental exhaustion is using a CPAP every night. It’s an oxygen machine designed to counteract sleep apnea, a disease where you stop breathing in your sleep and wake up tired the next day. Sleep apnea can be caused by a number of things, weight gain, a large neck, and antipsychotic medications among them. Even though I use my CPAP every night, it’s not a surefire guarantee that I’ll be alert and ready to go for that particular day. Some days I can knock it out of the park, other days I just want to lay in bed and do jack shit. That’s part of the reason why I get a lot of creative work done in the nighttime: because I spend most of the morning and afternoon trying to wake the fuck up.

I admit that a lot of my mental exhaustion is my fault. The Atkins Diet failed because I love carbs too much. I especially like foods from Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, KFC, and Quizno’s. The most I do for exercise is walking two miles every day in the frigid weather, but it’s only a matter of time before the rain, snow, and wind come rolling through and going outside is no longer an option. I have a gym membership, but no car, so I can’t go whenever I want. If I had the chance to exercise everyday at an intense rate without gassing out in the first few seconds, my food addiction might not even be an issue. And yes, that’s what it is, folks: an addiction to food. Sugar, salt, and fats are all more addictive than cocaine. They’re designed to be that way, because the food industry needs repeat customers. Mission accomplished. It’s not a copout; it’s the truth.

If I could write every single day without worrying about mental energy, you’re damn right I would. I’m self-motivated, I’m hardworking, and every supervisor I’ve ever had admired my work ethic. Throughout my college days, both at Olympic and Western Washington, I’ve only had five C’s and two D’s. The two D’s were in the same subject: physics. The one C at Olympic College was for a sociology class taught by a former Harvard professor. The other four C’s happened at WWU, where everything is by design harder than anything taught at a community college like Olympic. More often than not, I’ve had either an A or a B in whatever class I took at the two colleges. That’s a lot of fucking classes and only a handful of times have I been unsatisfied with my grades.

I listed those credentials not to toot my own horn, but to prove that I’m capable of finishing any project I set my mind to. It’s all a matter of having an endless supply of mental energy that day. If not today, then tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. The easy solution for me would be to eat better, exercise harder, and keep a positive mindset. But the truth is, if it was that easy, I’d be a middleweight by now with novels out the yin-yang. Being healthy is a skill. That’s why we have entire competitions and games dedicated to being a skillful athlete: hockey, wrestling, basketball, football, or whatever. It’s not a skill that can be perfected right away. It’s one that has to be crafted and learned over time, just like writing.

For those of you out there who post memes suggesting that I should write everyday, know that I’m listening with both ears wide open. Not only do I listen, but I also agree. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. The ability to work hard doesn’t just go away because you’re done with school. And whatever you do, don’t let anybody tell you that you’re lazy just because you were born in a certain time period where technology was readily available. That’s just a dickish statement made by bitter people who gave up on their dreams a long time ago. I may be mentally fogged up, but I’m not down for the count! Not even close! In fact, just when I was certain I wouldn’t get any creative work done today, I wrote this blog! Take that, motherfuckers! We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***AMERICAN DARKNESS 3***

Looking back at the short story synopses I wrote back in 2013 and 2014, it’s noticeable how little detail I put into them judging from how short they are. Such is the case with “Dark Skills” (holy shit, that’s a lot of darkness!). The WSS has a new contest going with “Signature” as their main theme. So, here’s how everything fits together:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Matt Singleton, Serial Killer

2.      Carl Howard, Serial Killer

3.      Michelle Woods, Victim

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Carl is in the process of tattooing Michelle’s lower back with his indecipherable signature when Matt breaks into the apartment.

SYNOPSIS: Matt and Carl are rival serial killers who want the same victim. Michelle is all alone in her apartment and ripe for the picking. The two killers use different entrances to gain access to the apartment and argue with each other over who gets the kill.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Another thing I’ve noticed is that there are two synopses in my archives that revolve around the Spanish word “Comegente”, which translates into English as “cannibal” or “human eater”. One of those synopses is titled Los Comegentes and features a seven foot tall Mexican gangster named Patrick Ortiz whose weapon of choice is a chainsaw. Great stuff, huh? Guess what? Patrick is going to be the next Dark Fantasy Warrior.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

DANTE: I can’t believe you. I finally get my shit together. I’m hours away from getting out of here and really starting my life and you somehow manage to obliterate all of that and reduce me to a convict!

RANDAL: Oh yeah, it’s my fault your life’s fucked up. I’m the engaged guy who knocked up my boss.

JAY: You knocked up the guy who owns Mooby’s? Ew!

-Clerks 2-