"Super Human" by Michael Carroll

BOOK TITLE: Super Human

AUTHOR: Michael Carroll

YEAR: 2010

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Superhero Sci-Fi

GRADE: C

It feels weird reading a book about a worldwide virus in the year 2022. The difference between this book and the real world is that not only are people actually receptive to the idea of vaccines, but there’s a ragtag group of teenaged superheroes (and Lance) who genuinely want to see the world recover from this. But they can’t achieve those goals without dishing out some violence on the bad guys responsible for this sickness. Their enhanced strength, sonic abilities, and telekinesis can only be used as a means to an end rather than be the one-size-fits all solution. That’s a part of superhero fiction not a lot of authors get, but Michael Carroll pulled it off rather effectively. It also helps that Lance (the normie) is a slick thief who can smooth-talk his way out of any situation. Using brains to solve problems will be more relatable to the audience than using superhuman violence.

But unfortunately, we don’t always get the best use of the characters’ brains. Lance does all the intellectual heavy lifting with his gift for gab. The rest of the characters, both good and evil, don’t always make the smartest decisions and I’m surprised it hadn’t come back to bite them in the worst ways. Freeing supervillain prisoners to combat even more powerful supervillains? Dumb. Driving a military jeep like a speed demon and being surprised when it hits one of the allies? Also dumb. Sparing a powerful villain’s life because, “We don’t kill?” Yeah, we’re past the point of being civil now that there’s a deadly virus causing the adults to vomit inside out. The villains are no better when it comes to cartoonishly-stupid decision-making. Resurrecting an ancient king who might kill them off and is not immune to the virus himself? Beyond stupid. Toying with the heroes instead of finishing them off instantly? Reckless. Revealing the entire plan to the heroes and even going so far as to keep records of their allies’ social security numbers and base coordinates? Colossal fail. Am I reading a superhero book or watching a Three Stooges routine?

The writing itself is, ironically, nothing to write home about. The dialogue between the heroes sounds so similar that I couldn’t tell the characters apart without tags. The characters in general are introduced to the audience via telling instead of showing. Some of the dialogue sounds awkward and clumsy, especially when the characters try to make analogies sound cool, though they wouldn’t sound much better as prose, either. The one character in the story who’s immune to such clunky writing? Krodin, the ancient king the villains are trying to resurrect. He comes off like a total stud, whether he’s conquering entire countries by himself, enslaving everyone he meets, or talking down to his enemies like a godlike king should. He could come off like a Gary-Stu villain, but he’s written so convincingly that I don’t mind him being overpowered. The action scenes in general are well-done since they move quickly and hit hard.

But none of the praise I’ve given this book is enough to elevate the grade above a C, or three out of five stars. I was able to finish it. I even enjoyed it in a lot of places. But this book is cheesier than a dairy farm, which is an analogy Michael Carroll can use for free, but it wouldn’t be a good idea since that’s one of the things I criticized this novel for. Everything just felt so…average. Even the superpowers seemed mediocre and hastily thrown together. This wasn’t a good book, it wasn’t a bad book, it was just sort of…there.

Nobody Wants to Change

 Every year the pattern was the same: two rival debate clubs went head to head and not a goddamn thing changed afterwards. The clapping from the audience was only out of courtesy, not out of impressiveness for one particular side. Everybody in that crowd had already made up their minds, or whatever was left of them after devouring a nice helping of Tucker Carlson’s show later that evening.

Paulo Bermudez recognized this dull pattern all too well. As he sat there on the side of the stage with his head barely perked up, he could see all the faceless minions nodding in mock approval for whoever was speaking. Even his own debate coach, Mr. Diametes Cosgrove, looked like a mindless bobble-head in the crowd, though his civil rights lawyer credentials made him slightly more believable.

Though Paulo and Mr. Cosgrove had their racial differences, the former being a Mexican teenager and the latter being a black Boomer, their struggles as minorities were real to each other. The harsh treatment by white cops, the gaslighting rhetoric of rich pampered politicians on TV, the general disdain from society, they both knew it all. When Mr. Cosgrove asked Paulo to be the captain of this year’s debate team, it was because he saw something in the young man, though Paulo saw nothing in himself and not much else in his opponents.

While Mr. Cosgrove and everyone else in the audience had their best suits on for this occasion, Paulo’s T-shirt and jeans look showed he knew the outcome of the competition long before it was over. The minute his rival captain Cora Yellowwood took the podium in her posh blue sweater and brown skirt, Paulo’s Nostradomus skills were even more heightened. She went on and on about the basic conservative anti-immigration tropes: they took our jobs, they’re joining MS-13, you can’t care about kids in cages if you’re “pro-abortion”.

Paulo’s blood would ordinarily boil over at this kind of rhetoric. But at this point in the competition and in life in general, he couldn’t bring himself to care anymore, because nobody else did. Once Cora was done with her two minutes of hate speech, the audience applauded like they had been programmed to do all these years. Paulo didn’t even snap out of his apathetic trance long enough to hear his own name called by the moderator. The old man had to say it multiple times in exponentially louder voices before he woke up to the nightmare around him.

“Mr. Bermudez! It’s your turn at the podium. You have two minutes to rebut Miss Yellowwood.”

Paulo dragged his sorry ass to the podium and was greeted with insulting shoulder squeezes and hair fluffing from his opponent. The audience chuckled at the gesture, not realizing nor caring how creepy that was. Once Cora skipped back to her seat on the opposite end of the stage, Paulo stared out into the crowd with a mixture of hatred and aloofness.

He allowed the droning audience to absorb his rage before he finally spoke. “You know what this debate competition sounds like? Team Bermudez vs. Team Yellowwood sounds like a UFC event, which is what I wish it was right now.” The audience chuckled awkwardly while Mr. Cosgrove rolled his eyes.

“Mr. Bermudez, please stay on topic,” the moderator warned.

“Oh, don’t worry, I am on topic.” Paulo sighed heavily and read the room some more, wasting valuable time on his two-minute limit. “Truth is, I could stand up here and tell you all about my struggles as a third-generation Mexican-American. I could entertain you all with a sob story about my grandfather escaping violence. But in the end, none of it will mean a damn thing, because nobody wants to change.”

The audience gasped while Mr. Cosgrove face-palmed.

“Mr. Bermudez…”

“Yes, I know! I’m staying on topic like you said! Just give me a few minutes, okay?!” The room fell deathly silent once again. “I could talk here for a lot longer than two minutes and none of it would make a difference. Nobody wants to change their minds. Nobody wants to listen to me or anybody like me. People don’t get into political arguments because they want to see a new perspective. They do it because they want to win. They do it because they want to quote-unquote own the libs.”

“Mr. Bermudez, that’s enough!”

Paulo ignored the warning against him. “Think about it! When was the last time anybody changed their minds because of something I said? Never! It’s like talking to a brick wall sometimes! Actually, no, that’s not true, because at least the brick wall wouldn’t give me a snarky answer or call me a snowflake every time I had a valid concern! The minute Mr. Cosgrove made me the team captain, I should have quit!”

Cora made a hand-job gesture and earned another round of light laughter from the crowd. Paulo caught her. “I’m sorry, am I boring you? Is there anything I’ve said just now that was a lie? Did you do that little masturbation thing because I’m right about nobody listening to me? Or maybe you did it as free advertising for your Only Fans account!”

“MR. BERMUDEZ!”

“Tell me, Cora, what’s so funny about my struggles?!” As Paulo drilled Cora with more angry rhetoric, Mr. Cosgrove emerged from the crowd and grabbed his arm to pull him offstage. Paulo resisted as he continued shouting down his rival captain. “Of course you can laugh about it, because you’ve never been discriminated against in your life! You’re a rich white bitch who never had a day of hardship! You can just throw money at your problems and they’ll go away like that!” Once Paulo was successfully pulled offstage, Cora gave him a raspberry and laughed.

“Let go of me, Mr. Cosgrove!”

He did, but only once they were far enough backstage that they had the alone time they needed. Mr. Cosgrove angrily whispered, “I didn’t go through all those years of Harvard Law School just so you can go up there and act like a jackass, do you understand me?” Paulo breathed both to soothe his anger and warm up his anxious nerves at being lectured by his debate coach. “I made you the team captain because you have a voice. You have strong opinions that needed to be out there. If I did half of what you did out there just now, I’d have been expelled a long time ago, maybe even thrown in jail at some point. You don’t control the crowd by throwing a baby fit.”

“No! You win the crowd by brainwashing them like the sheep that they are. Cora’s good at that sort of thing.”

“So what if she is? It’s your job as a debater to snap them out of it. You actually have to work for their attention. You can’t just give up because it’s too hard. Imagine how many more black and brown folks would be sitting in prison right now if I had given up on them. If you’re so certain that nobody will listen to you, then you MAKE them listen to you!”

“I can’t! Jesus, will you leave me alone! I can’t save the world by myself! If I could, I would! But I don’t have the time and energy to pull the public’s heads out of their asses! I can’t save the world if the world won’t save itself! If you’re so damn confident in your abilities, why don’t YOU go out there and destroy Cora Yellowwood yourself!”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” That smug voice belonged to Cora herself, who stood at the entrance to the backstage area with a scorecard in her hand and a cutesy-wutesy smile on her face. “I don’t know if you guys are aware of this, but Team Bermudez is so far behind in the score that it wouldn’t have mattered either way. I got the scorecard right here if you don’t believe me.”

She handed it to Paulo and the defeated look on his face grew even more sullen at the news. “We never stood a chance.”

“That’s right,” said Cora with a wink. “I guess you made people see things your way after all: nobody wants to change. Sorry life didn’t work out for you in the end. Maybe you’ll have better luck debating people when you land your first job at McDonald’s. Do you want fries with that? Here’s why you shouldn’t have fries with that.” She laughed at her own joke. “Well…you can always try again next year. Here’s a little something for good luck.” Despite Paulo’s weakest resistance, Cora kissed him on the lips.

“I’m fairly certain that’s sexual harassment,” said Mr. Cosgrove.

“What’s he going to do? Sue me? Like he’s got that kind of money. Or maybe you’ll do his legal work pro-bono…Diametes!”

“That’s Mr. Cosgrove to you, you sanctimonious little bitch.”

“I’ll be sure to let the Principal know you said that. It’d be a nice test of your debating skills, trying to convince him to let you keep your job.” Cora laughed and waved goodbye before skipping back onstage to accept Team Yellowwood’s victory.

Mr. Cosgrove roughly grabbed Paulo’s shoulders and snapped him out of his sexual harassment trauma long enough to add a cherry on the cake. “In case there’s any confusion as to whether or not this school needs you more than you need them, I’m recommending you for a ten-day suspension for that stunt you pulled tonight. Rebut that.”

Paulo shrugged his teacher’s hands off of him. “I’ll send you a postcard from the Bahamas.”

If he couldn’t afford a lawyer to sue Cora, then he couldn’t afford a ten-day vacation overseas. But that didn’t matter, because the little zinger brought a smile to his own face. It was the first time he smiled that whole night. For just a tiny little while, he believed in his own verbal skills. How long would that last? How would he use that momentum? It was hard to answer those questions with the trauma of Cora’s forced kiss swirling in his head.

"Tales of Mentara, Vol. 2: The RItual" by Ashley Uzzell

BOOK TITLE: Tales of Mentara, Pt. 2: The Ritual

AUTHOR: Ashley Uzzell

YEAR: 2019

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Middle Grade Adventure

GRADE: Pass

Middle schooler sorceress Charlotte and her group of friends find themselves trapped in another world where tribal societies, strange animals, and even stranger plants inhabit the landscape. The teenaged leader of the Tara Tribe, Tomas, enlists Charlotte’s help in fighting off barbaric warriors called Bomen (despite her hesitance to participate in such a brutal war). Over time, the white-skinned outsiders and the darker-skinned Tarans learn to get along to the point of becoming just like family. Given Charlotte’s dismal history on earth, she may not want to return despite the fighting amongst tribes.

While the first book in this series had a darker overtone, this one is slightly happier with the tentative cooperation of the meshing characters. This message that different cultures can get along is one we need to hear more often, especially in the age of a Trump presidency. Both sides of the racism coin are shown brilliantly in this novella, whether it’s people getting along or people fighting amongst each other over foolish reasons and systematic fear. Our white heroes immerse themselves in the Taran culture, so they’re less likely to judge foreign customs. The Bomen, on the other hand, were raised by older generations of ignorance and hate, so they take their xenophobic violence out on those less fortunate than them. Sound familiar? It should.

I must admit that in the first book, I wasn’t sold on Fred as a character due to his hotheadedness and ogre-like personality. But seeing him fleshed out over the course of the second novel drives the point further of getting along with each other. We learn things about him that we didn’t get to see much of in the first book. He’s capable of changing his views. He’s a caring individual when enough pressure is placed upon him. He’s a big softy underneath his rough exterior. He’s not a fighter by nature despite playing sports all the time. He takes an interest in science and is quite knowledgeable with what he has. Having read about all of these qualities in Fred, I’m better able to sympathize with him when the worst of the worst happens to him. I’m also able to celebrate his victories no matter how small some of them are. I hope he continues to mature as the Tales of Mentara series rolls along with more books.

You’re probably wondering right now why this book is called The Ritual, seeing as how lots of different rituals are talked about along the way. The specific ceremony this book centers on is hard to read about since it involves testing physical and mental toughness. The first stage is the hardest to read about because it reminds me too much of Guantanamo Bay and how the prison guards treated their captives. I can only imagine how hard it was for Ms. Uzzell to write about it. But the more uncomfortable the reader becomes, the more empathy it shows. This is supposed to be an uncomfortable experience. It’s supposed to stick with the reader for the longest time. It’s not just for shock value, either. It has a debate surrounding it about the acceptability of certain rituals for outsiders like Charlotte and her friends. For asking as many questions as it answers, I give the book and its author high praise.

This second installment of Tales of Mentara serves as several healthy lessons for the young audience it targets. Get along with each other. Be loyal to the ones who need it most. Don’t judge so easily. Use diplomacy when it matters and violence as an absolute last resort. Educate yourself about the world around you. These lessons are so agreeable that I can picture this book being in a school library if it ever came to that. On top of all that, this is a fun book to read, so who says education can’t be entertaining? A passing grade is what this novella will get. Excellent work, Ashley Uzzell!

Silent Warrior, Chapter 12

If there was ever a time for the genre of robot-zombie apocalypse, it was right after lunch period. Everybody’s faces blended together. Scott George’s brain numbed out to where he couldn’t think straight. And the apocalypse part? That was an easy one: his world crashed all around him. Every once and a while, he would look up at the digital clocks of his respective classrooms waiting impatiently for the day to be over. His incessant foot tapping and jittery fingers made him easier to read than a baby’s first book.

After hours and hours of having Novocain rubbed on his brain, the final buzzer sounded and Scott’s wobbly legs brought him to an upright position and out the front door in a slow death march. He couldn’t even remember what day it was, but even his explosive mind could tell that Saturday was just around the corner. Saturday was supposed to be an exciting time in an overworked student’s life. A time to party. A time to play videogames. A time to hang out with friends. Scott might as well have walked straight to the gallows instead of home that day.

He needed a new song on his MP3 player. “After the Rain” by Nickelback? Nah, too positive. How about “Lullaby” from that same group? Nope, hits too close to home with its themes of suicide. Considering Scott’s brain was a scarier place to be than a battlefield full of dead bodies, maybe music wasn’t what he needed at the moment. Not even the hard rock guitars and golden voice of Chad Kroeger would be enough to wake up the corpses in his mind.

“Scott!” called out a familiar feminine voice. “Scott! Over here!” Still no response from the creature whose diet consisted only of brains healthier than his own. And then his world went black with a pair of soft, silky hands covering his eyes. “Guess who, sweetie pie!” Not even the perky voice of his own girlfriend could snap Scott out of his depressive slouch. “Come on, Scott! Rise and shine!”

With the energy of someone who just got out of an apnea-induced slumber, Scott wrapped Adrienne’s arm around his own neck and absentmindedly kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry, babe. Today’s been a massive bucket of suck. I just want to go home.”

“Every day is a massive bucket of suck for you,” said Adrienne as the two lovers walked down the street together. “But something’s really getting to you, isn’t it? You can tell me what it is. I won’t judge you.”

“It’s…it’s your goddamn father again.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Adrienne flatly. “He has that kind of effect on people. What did he do this time?”

Scott sighed deeply as a way of clearing the clutter in his head. “He gave me an hour detention to serve on Saturday morning. I guess that’s his way of getting back at me for bailing on him.”

“Saturday morning? That’s tomorrow!”

The realization hit Scott like a cannonball to the gut. He crouched down on the ground and coughed violently while Adrienne comforted him with pats and rubs on the shoulders. “Sorry,” he said while breathing heavily. “I completely forgot today was Friday. Holy shit…I’m dead…I’m fucking dead! He wants me to clean the desks in his classroom for him. All that nasty shit that’s under there…just thinking about it killed my appetite…I’m so hungry, damn it!”

Adrienne hugged him around his upper arms and said, “It’ll be alright, Scott. It’s just an hour of your life. After that, you’ll have a fresh start. My dad may be the world’s biggest asshole, but he’s not going to do anything to you that you can’t handle.”

“Where were you, Adrienne?” asked Scott in a raspy voice. “I looked everywhere for you and you didn’t show up to school today.”

“I would have been there to walk with you, but I had a panic attack this morning. I don’t know what triggered it, but it probably means I’m going to be spending longer than usual in my therapist’s office on Sunday. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there, Scott. I really am. Come on, let’s walk you home.” The two of them stood up and proceeded to do just that.

Upon standing up, a piece of paper fell out of Scott’s backpack and Adrienne bent over to pick it up. She stared at it with wide-eyed amazement and an angelic smile. “Scott, did you draw this? It’s beautiful! Gee, I wonder who that lovely girl in the middle could be!” She kissed him on the cheek and his face lit up like a neon sign. Then Adrienne’s smile turned to a confused frown when she saw the oral stain on the bottom of the picture. “Scott, did you…?”

“I puked up my breakfast and lunch when your dad brought up the fact that there were gummy worms stuck to the bottom of the desks….among other disgusting things. That’s why I said I was hungry earlier.” He lifted up his shirt and ran his own fingers across his visible ribcage. “This isn’t working, Adrienne. This needs to change.”

“I think I might have a package of Oreos in my backpack, hang on,” said Adrienne as she rifled through her belongings. Sure enough, there was a small bag of double-stuffed Oreo cookies, which she licked her lips over. “Go ahead, Scott. Eat up!”

His fingers convulsed as he struggled to open the package. He almost dropped one of the cookies, but caught it just in time. As he stared at the frosty treat, he wondered if the cream filling had been stuck under those desks too. He stuck his tongue out in disgust and shivered violently before Adrienne patted him on the back to assure him it was okay.

Scott breathed deeply and settled down some knowing his girlfriend loved him despite his obvious flaws. She cared enough about him that she wanted him to eat everyday. She cared about his pain. She wanted to protect him from the evils of her own bloodline. Scott’s inside warmed up at these positive thoughts as he took a smile bite of the Oreo cookie.

The sweetness of the treat and the sweetness of Adrienne’s love were powerful enough to counteract the visions of boogers and chewed bubblegum underneath the desks. Scott took another bite. And another. And another. His stomach didn’t care about his psychological traumas; it wanted food and it wanted it now. Scott devoured the entire bag and licked his fingers afterwards.

“Not the most nutritious thing you could be eating, but it’s a damn good start,” said Adrienne with a cute grin. Scott couldn’t help but get a goofy grin on his own face as well, that was until his girlfriend looked down at his trousers and…it happened again. “Uh, Scott? You’ve got a…little problem…down there.”

Scott snapped out of his romanticized trance long enough to see that little Scotty was standing at attention once more. With both hands covering his groin, he profusely apologized to his girlfriend and tried to run away in shame. But then she grabbed hold of his arm and said, “It’s okay, honey-bunny! There’s nobody here to see you.”

“You mean…you’re not offended? You don’t want to get a restraining order against me or some shit like that?”

Adrienne sighed and shook her head with a smile, “No, Scott, I’m not going to file a sexual harassment claim just because you got a little…overzealous. As a matter of fact, I think the two of us should go somewhere a little more intimate and…do something about your little problem.”

Scott swallowed hard as he figured out what his girlfriend meant by that. They’d only known each other for a few days at best and she already wanted to have sex with him. It came with the territory of being a hormone-driven teenager, sure, but something about all of this didn’t feel right to him. “I don’t know, babe, I just…”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” said Adrienne while resting her chin on his shoulder and hugging him around his waist. “I just thought maybe you’d like to…you know…Heh! Sorry, I’m not the best at this kind of thing. It’s just that, if we did do…well, that…it would be my first time. Have you ever made love before, Scott?”

“Um…yeah, sure…I guess…if you want to call it that…”

Adrienne giggled, “Wow, this is awkward as fuck. Looks like we’re both going to have to go easy on each other. Do you still want to?”

“Well…uh…where would we go? I can’t go back to my place because my mom’s a fucking bitch. We can’t go to your place either, though I don’t know your mom very well. She probably wouldn’t like it if we…did that in her house.”

Adrienne held Scott’s hand and skipped away with him. “I know of a place where we can get some privacy.” Scott’s eyes widened with horror when he realized that they were heading into the forest. Adrienne giggled some more and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take you to my Cabin in the Woods. And I’m not going to take you to my cottage in the forest, either, though that sounds more cozy and less creepy, oddly enough. It’s all about context, right?”

“So…where are we going exactly?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Hell, I’ll even make it a nice surprise for you,” she said while covering Scott’s eyes with her hands like she did before. “You trust me, right? Well, don’t worry, we’re not going to bump into any trees. I’ll take you to where we’re going in just a minute.”

Though he didn’t have to worry about other people despite his covered eyes, Scott still felt the need to hide his erection during this trek into the forest. No matter how hard he pushed down on it, it wouldn’t go away. Adrienne slapped his hands and said, “Don’t do that; that’s a good way to break it.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Don’t call me mother. That’s creepy as hell.”

“Yes, dear.”

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.

Sex Scenes In Silent Warrior

***SEX SCENES IN SILENT WARRIOR***

I don’t like to give spoilers for my stories or anybody else’s, but in this case, an exception has to be made for my current work in progress, Silent Warrior. Two future chapters of this novel will include sex scenes between Scott George and Adrienne Simpson. The first of these two chapters features Scott masturbating in his bedroom to Adrienne’s bare feet. The second of the two chapters will feature a full-blown sex scene between the two high school sweethearts. Because of various social media sites’ prohibition of sexual content, these two sex-based chapters will not be posted online and will instead be kept on my computer in a private folder.

This next statement is not a knock on any online groups I’m a part of, but is instead an indictment of society in general. You can show people getting their heads blown off with shotguns. You can show people getting their hearts ripped out of their chests. You can set people on fire. You can beat the shit out of attack dogs. But whatever you do, don’t show two high school students having consensual sex. In that respect, it would be less offensive if Scott George hacked off Tom Simpson’s limbs with a machete, or if Alan Young ripped Scott’s brain out of his skull through his eye sockets. John Lennon famously pointed out the hypocrisy of violence being less offensive than sex, but he was assassinated in 1980, so we’re pretty much deprived of his wisdom in this day and age.

And in case you couldn’t tell already from the chapters I’ve posted, yes, Scott George has a foot fetish. It’s a common fetish to have, particularly for men. There’s nothing weird or repulsive about it (unless you want to ruin it by pointing out foot odor and toe jam). If you wear flip-flops around a foot fetishist in public, don’t panic, because he’s not going to hump your feet at a million miles per hour right there and then. That’s what molesters do. Being a foot fetishist is nowhere close to being the same as being a molester. In the same way gay people don’t hump every guy they see at random, foot fetishists have perfect self-control in public, because most of them are, surprise, surprise, decent people. I know this, because I too have a foot fetish, which is my own little self-insert for Scott George’s character.

Of course, another part of this controversy is the age difference between Scott and Adrienne. Scott is an eighteen-year-old senior and Adrienne is a fifteen-year-old freshman. While I won’t divulge how their age difference will factor into later parts of the story, I will say that it’s a central part of my novel, especially towards the end. Some of my readers will think nothing of a three year age difference while others will say that Adrienne is too far below the age of consent, which is sixteen. It could be a matter of simple math or it could be anal retentiveness towards the rules and regulations, depending on your personal opinion.

In conclusion, if you’re searching the internet for two lost chapters of Silent Warrior, you now know why you’ll never find them. I’d love to be able to share them with you all, but it’s just not in the cards. I’ve been in trouble plenty of times in my internet surfing days for posting offensive content. It’s the reason why I’m banned from Play By Web forever and why I no longer have a website called Macaroni & Ownage Productions. I’m enjoying my internet freedom as of today, so I’m going to err on the side of safety and refrain from posting those two sexual chapters of my story. Thanks for understanding and have a great day.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

RANDAL: So what you’re trying to tell me is that I’m no more responsible for my own actions than, say, a death squad soldier in Bosnia?

DANTE: Oh, now that’s stretching it. You’re not being asked to slay children or anything like that.

RANDAL: Not yet.

-Clerks-

Jesse

She was so far away, yet she was so close to me

Smell her perfume through the computer screen

Touch her silky skin through the keyboard

A plane ticket was something I couldn’t afford

We were young, in love, and without a dollar

Somehow I found a way to long distance call her

Every email laced with sugary vocabulary

Her golden heart was my only sanctuary

She was the first to be worthy of my love

I called her my angel from the heavens above

But with those wings, she flew away from me

Jesse never came back, not even in my dreams

We never had the chance to say goodbye

I never had the chance to ask her why

I never had the chance to chase her around

I felt stupid for falling for her like a clown

You could call it dopamine or testosterone

But she was the reason I never felt alone

You could call it heartbreak or depression

But this will be her one and only mention

I Still Remember

I still remember the games we played

I still remember the price you paid

I still remember the lashings you took

In the name of the so-called good book

I still remember our time as kids

I still remember the good we did

I still remember the world’s response

Our biggest gain was their total loss

I still remember our videogames

I still remember your name

I still remember what we created

How teenaged years left us jaded

I still remember the crazy cartoons

Good guys, bad guys, all were buffoons

I don’t remember where those tapes went

I hope it was money well-spent

Now we are older, time passed us by

High school made us want to die

Though I wasn’t there to see you cry

I could have been if I only tried

Different cities, different stories

Different defeats, different glories

We can never return to those young days

Do you still remember how to play?

Disneylodeon

“Good morning, members of the press and those of you watching at home. My name is Albert G. Briscoe and I’m the CEO of Disneylodeon Productions. As many of you have already seen in the mainstream media, certain allegations have been levied against me and my organization. I’m here to tell each and every one of you that these allegations are far from true. Our mission here at Disneylodeon is to provide quality entertainment the whole family can enjoy, none of which includes exploitation of any kind. Our actors and production crew are treated fairly and equally. They are paid livable wages and they work in a comfortable environment.”

“Bullshit!” shouted a Hungarian-accented man before cocking his assault rifle. The journalists in the audience scattered about like cockroaches, screaming and cowering against the wall. “Shut up!” the terrorist shouted. “Shut the fuck up!” No screams, only quivering lips and whiny moans.

The only one who wasn’t screaming or running was Albert Briscoe himself, who remained seated at the stage behind his table and microphone. His middle-aged face told the perfect story of guilt and stoicism. He brushed his silver hair back and said, “I bet the shareholders aren’t going to like this.”

The Hungarian pulled his trench coat hood back and revealed his long bearded, bald headed mug to the CEO of Disneylodeon. “The shareholders aren’t going to like shit. But they’re the least of your worries, Mr. Briscoe. Right now you’re looking down the barrel of an AK-fucking-47. If you don’t give me what I want, you’re not going to be looking at shit with a face full of slugs.”

“Who are you?” asked Albert with his hands folded and his attitude calm.

“Vladek Bathory,” the gunner answered. “That last name should sound very familiar to you, Mr. Briscoe. My daughter was the lead actress on one of your shows. I’ve seen just about all I want to see of her in those slutty outfits and bare fucking feet.”

Holding his hands up defensively, Albert said, “Listen, Mr. Bathory, I don’t have that much control over my own directors. I’m just a corporate guy. If you have any grievances against my directors, you should take it up with them.”

“Such a perfect portrait of leadership, throwing your own guys under the bus like that,” said Vladek as he stalked closer to Albert. His hawkish eyes pinpointed on the CEO’s throat, which just engulfed an eight-ball sized lump of saliva. “You’re not fooling anybody. You can sweet talk these journalists all you want, but I want something a little more.” Vladek edged close enough to point the barrel right against Albert’s nose. “You’d better own up to your sins, boss man.”

“Look, Mr. Bathory, I just told you, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Albert with progressively fast speech. “This is out of my hands. I just do corporate work, that’s it.”

“So basically what you’re telling me is that you’re about as useful as steak sauce in India?” asked Vladek rhetorically. When Albert’s face became too frozen in fear to speak up, the gunner smashed the barrel across his nose and splattered blood all over the microphone. The CEO screamed and held his jacket sleeve against the wound, drenching it in a flood of violence.

Vladek grabbed Albert’s tie and yanked him by the neck over the table, sending him crashing to the carpeted floor coughing and wheezing. The Hungarian pressed the barrel against Albert’s cheekbone and belted, “If you’re really that fucking useless, I have no reason to keep you alive!”

“No, wait! Wait! Don’t shoot me! Please don’t fucking shoot me!” begged Albert with a nasally voice. “I can get you the producer who was in charge of your daughter’s TV show! I just need to access my phone, that’s all!”

“Bullshit!” snapped Vladek before smashing the butt of his gun against Albert’s cheek, causing even more pathetic screams of pain. “Like I’m going to let you just call the police and have this all be for naught! You think I’m a fucking idiot, Mr. Briscoe?! Huh?! You think you’re going to get off that easily?! Nobody’s coming to save you or your precious journalists! The TV and radio signals are jammed, including the cameras in this fucking studio! You’ve been talking to a brick wall this whole time!”

“Please don’t shoot me! I have a wife and daughter at home! They need me!” pleaded Albert with his hands together prayer style.

“Oh, now wives and daughters are important to you!” yelled Vladek when he pressed the barrel against Albert’s throat. He could feel another lump going down the CEO’s gullet and pressing against the gun. “They weren’t important to you before, but now that they’re yours, they’re suddenly bigger than Jesus fucking Christ himself!” Vladek leaned into Albert’s heavily panting face and whispered throatily, “Let me ask you something: are your wife and daughter into the kind of perverted shit you put on television? Does your wife like bare feet? Does your daughter like showing off her sexy soles to complete strangers on TV?!”

“It’s not like that, Mr. Bathory! You’re blowing this way out of proportion!”

“I’ll blow your head out of proportion if you don’t give me a confession!” To show he wasn’t fucking around, Vladek pulled out his smart phone and mounted it on the end of his AK-47. “Stand up, dickhead! Move!” Albert quickly obliged, allowing his nose to drip slowly and painfully. “Now then…with the whole world watching and not just your fucking shareholders…I want you to look into my phone and confess that Disneylodeon is a pervert’s paradise. You’ve got foot fetishes up to yin-yang, you’ve got naked teenagers parading their bodies around, and you’ve got producers and directors getting their jollies off in the background!”

Albert stared down on the floor and took a huge breath, slowly bringing his bloodshot eyes to Vladek’s phone to make the announcement the whole world has been waiting for. “My name is Albert Briscoe…I am the CEO of Disneylodeon…our directors and producers…are a bunch…are a bunch of….I can’t do this…no, wait, wait, wait!...Our directors and producers are foot fetishists and pedophiles. It’s plain to see in the TV-G shows we air on our network…But even more apparent than that…is the raging bulge in Vladek Bathory’s pants!”

“What the?!” shouted Vladek as he looked down at his crotch to see there was indeed a large mass forming.

The lengthy tube steak snapped in half upon contact with Albert’s swift loafer-wearing foot. The Hungarian dropped his assault rifle and doubled over in pain while screaming like his daughter would have in the same situation. Albert rushed to grab the assault rifle and pointed it at the wounded terrorist. “You see that, everyone?!” Mr. Briscoe shouted. “That was an example of the many feet we like to put on the air! And now for the first time in the history of this company, Disneylodeon’s programming will be rated TV-MA for violence! Lots and lots of VIOLENCE!”

That last word was punctuated with Albert unleashing a barrage of bullets into the now bloody and splattered body of Vladek Bathory. The life juices splashed all over Albert’s Armani suit, but the bulging rage in his eyes suggested that was the last thing in the world he was angry over. Journalists stormed out of the building screaming and crying while a familiar face came running inside to kneel by her fallen father.

“Daddy!” the teenaged actress shouted. “Daddy! What happened?!” She cradled her father’s shattered skull in her arms and rocked back and forth while bawling like a baby.

“Who do you think you’re calling daddy, young lady?!” shouted Albert as he pointed the assault rifle at the actress, who gazed up at him with flooding eyes and quivering lips. “From now on, baby girl, you’re going to be calling ME daddy! And if you think your hypocrite ex-father was good with a gun…you should know…I don’t shoot blanks either!” Albert winked at the end of that last sentence before chuckling evilly at the sorrowful girl on the ground.

“You’re a monster, Albert!” sobbed the girl as she wiped her tears and snot away with her bare arm. “You’re a goddamn monster!”

“Monster? Really?” said Albert. “This isn’t about being a monster, honey. This is about business. This is about the American way. And right now…business is booming! When you see your father in hell, be sure to tell him I said thanks for making my shareholders happy!”

Staple Gun Gangster

The tremendous bangs against Marco Said’s door jarred him awake, making him believe for a moment his house was being raided by the police. He sat in bed wearing nothing but Nike shorts and cursing when he saw what time it was on his digital clock. Three in the morning. Who in the hell would want to wake up Marco at three in the morning? He slipped on a pair of socks and running shoes (not even bothering with his shirt) and grabbed his trusty staple gun from the nightstand.

As he advanced toward the front door, the pounds became louder and Marco’s annoyance turned to full-blown rage. “Wait a fucking minute!” he yelled. Still awakening from his peaceful slumber, the gangster rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stumbled on his way to answer the door. He didn’t even bother turning the porch or living room lights on.

When Marco saw the slimy, slobbering green mess of a man before him, the black gangster didn’t look the least bit intimidated. In fact, Mr. Said had a scowl on his face that would shake marine drill instructors to their cores. With his staple gun raised in the air, he snapped, “You better have a damn good reason for coming over here at three in the fucking morning! Who the hell are you and what the fuck do you want, bitch?!”

The muck-covered visitor smiled and exposed his rotten brown teeth. He laughed in a monstrous growl of a voice and said, “I’m the Boogeyman! And I need a favor. I hear you can get me some serious cash in a big hurry.”

“At three in the morning? What the hell does your ass need at three in the morning? I ought to staple your ass right now for waking me up this fucking early!” threatened Marco, shooting a few staples in the air for a demonstration.

The Boogeyman put a hand to his chest and feigned terror when he said, “A staple gun? Ooooo!” The monster even wiggled his fingers in sarcasm. “I thought you original baby gangsters liked to use some serious hardware. I was expecting an AK-47 or something like that. But instead you’ve got a staple gun. A gun…for stapling!” He laughed like a bloodthirsty hyena while leaning backwards and slapping his thigh.

Not wanting to be screwed with any further than he has, Marco shook his head and fired a staple into The Boogeyman’s leg, causing the monster to splash goop all over the gangster’s shorts and clutch his wound with almost mock agony. “You see that shit?” said Marco. “Any bitch nigga can shoot off a machinegun or sell cocaine on the streets. Me? I handle my business up front. Now, either you tell me what you want money for or I’ll shoot your ass again!”

The Boogeyman breathed heavily and chuckled once again before standing up straight to meet Marco’s gaze with a sinister grin. “Alright, buddy. You win. You see, it’s been a while since I’ve had any…how shall I put this…action.”

“Well, no shit, dawg! Your ass looks like something from a Michael Jackson video! Why don’t you dance down the street doing your Thriller thing and I’ll get my ass back in bed!” said Marco as he prepared to close the door.

The only thing that stopped him was The Boogeyman holding his hands out and saying, “No, wait! You’re right. I’m not much to look at. But…if I had some of that cold hard cash, these little girls wouldn’t have a choice! Get my drift? Some people like to dine on sweeter things than that. Me? My favorite kind of food…is fetish-ccini!”

As the monster laughed at his own pun, Marco fired another staple, this time at the creature’s groin, causing him to double over in a modicum of pain. Marco barked, “My noodle is your momma’s favorite kind of pasta, motherfucker! Now get your ass out of here! Ain’t nobody messing with no kids on my watch!”

“Since when did you become the paragon of morality?” said the Boogeyman with the widest of grins, still hunched over. “You’re a loan shark, one who kills people who don’t pay their debts on time. You’re right, buddy: you are a real thug. Those staples hurt like hell, whereas a bullet would end someone’s life right away. You’re not a murderer. You’re a torturer. You’re like me except without the slimy body.”

“Alright, boy, I see your point. Let me get some cheddar real quick. Stay right here,” said Marco, who reached into his secret panel and pulled out a ten dollar bill. He waved it in front of the Boogeyman’s face and said, “With the kind of bitches you’re looking for, this is all you’re going to need.” The gangster then stapled the ten dollar bill to the creature’s forehead, eliciting a much louder howl of pain than before. “We’re done for the day. Now get your ass off my front porch or I’ll turn you into a Swiss cheese, bitch!”

Marco slammed the door shut and locked both deadbolts. He shook his head in disbelief and said, “What the hell was all that about?” as he stumbled back to his bedroom, not wanting to wait another moment to get some shuteye. He kicked off his sneakers and pulled off his socks before jumping back into bed. The sounds of the Boogeyman screaming in agony were drowned out by the thickness of the front door. If anything, they were like a lullaby to Marco Said’s ears. He drifted off into the dream world without further incident.

By the time the staple gun gangster woke up, he saw that it was noon on his digital clock. She shoved it off the nightstand and cursed under his breath. Marco sat on the edge of his bed rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and contemplating the events of last night. Who in the hell was that guy? Why was he covered in goop? Why did it even matter that he looked like a creature out of a sci-fi movie? He threw on his same shoes and socks as well as a basketball jersey that was laying on the floor in a pile of unfinished laundry. He also grabbed his staple gun and reloaded it before heading toward the front door to start his day.

He dropped the weapon and stared at the gigantic hole in his door with wide eyes and furrowed brows. The door was covered with acidic slime and the floor had green footprints leading elsewhere. His secret money panel had been broken into as well. “What the fuck?!” he yelled before picking his staple gun back up again and following the footprints ever so slowly.

The closer he got to the closed bathroom door, the louder the sounds of muffled child screams echoed throughout the hallway. Marco’s blood boiled and his trigger finger got itchy. His menacing business stare turned into teeth-clenching, white-knuckle rage. The muffled screams were deafening and the sounds of goop slurping about were even more obnoxious. He was somewhat afraid to touch the door handle since it too was covered in that disgusting green filth.

With his hand tucked in his jersey, Marco slowly opened the door to see the Boogeyman laughing it up while the muffled children’s screams were behind the closed shower curtain. The creature shouted, “It’s complete! My revenge is complete!”

Not caring if that made sense or not, the gangster stapled the Boogeyman’s forehead, chest, and groin repeatedly, splashing green blood against the vanity and shower curtain. The monster curled up next to the toilet in a pathetic ball of pain while Marco shouted, “I told you what was going to happen if you kept messing around with me, motherfucker! I ain’t playing no games with you! I’ve got staples for days, bitch! I’ll do this shit for as long as I want! Those Guantanamo motherfuckers are pussies compared to me! Your ass is in for a long ass night!”

After the initial wave of torture wore off, the Boogeyman laughed in rebellion as if he didn’t care about Marco’s wrath one bit. When asked what was so funny, the creature said, “Don’t you get it, buddy? I didn’t need those children for a good time. Nah, I needed them for a little bit of revenge.” When asked what he was talking about, the Boogeyman said, “Did you ever wonder why those kids turned to prostitution? To pay their bills of course. Their parents couldn’t do it because they were killed by a certain staple gun gangster, who by the way didn’t like late payments and collected with interest.”

Marco looked down at the monster with solemnity before shouting, “Bullshit! This is all just a game! Your ass is having a laugh!”

“Trust me, Mr. Said: there’s nothing funny about growing up in the hood with no parents and no other way to pay bills than having sex with strange men. If you need proof, just ask them yourself,” said the Boogeyman before slowly standing up and drawing back the shower curtain.

Marco’s eyes widened with horror for the first time in a long while. He was shakier than a woman’s sex toy at the sight of black teenaged girls covered in slime, just like the Boogeyman. They drooled, droned, and gurgled as they screamed for vengeance and hungered for blood. The Boogeyman placed a not-so-loving hand on Marco’s shoulder and said, “My name is Kip Kyle, but you’ll remember me as the father one of these children. Surely, the name Kip Kyle means something to you, right? Maybe the name of a former customer?”

The gangster’s heavy nervous breathing turned to cowardly whimpers as he curled up against the bathroom sink holding his staple gun with a quaking arm. Kip Kyle raised his goopy arm and brought it down with his finger pointed right at his murderer, signaling for the little slime balls to chomp, chew, and devour their way through Marco’s body.

The gangster would have screamed, but blood was in his throat after a girl gnawed on his neck. Soon enough, the staple gun gangster was nothing more than a pile of picked bones, bloody rivers, and slurped organs. The teenaged girls’ hungers for vengeance and human meat were both satisfied to the point of fat bellies and bright brown smiles. One of them even let out a loud burp to the others’ laughing delights.

Another one of the girls asked, “Can we go home, Daddy?” in a gargling voice.

“Yes,” said Kip. “We can all go home now. The last one to the sewers is a rotten egg!”