Carnival De Garrison

VERSE 1

Producers with some meat to beat

With an actress on the loveseat

Executives’ metal hips will rust

Antitrust ground into dust

Actors throwing uppercuts

Accuse their victims of being sluts

Hollywood embarrassment?

Carnival De Garrison

VERSE 2

Shamans with the letter Q

Angry jowls with red hues

Machineguns Hot n’ Ready now

Little Caesars clerks freaked out

Monster people in monster trucks

Family trees, no outer fucks

Cosplay as Leif Erickson?

Carnival De Garrison

VERSE 3

Cobwebs and candlelight?

Not without a sacrifice

Pastor pedos in speedos

Decide what’s good and what’s evil

Lay the virgin on the table

Read her rites from the fable

Deserving of their arrogance?

Carnival De Garrison

VERSE 4

Step right up, everybody

Bring a hubby, bring a buddy

Ten dollars a ticket, pay up, marks

Ten dollars more to park your car

Look at the freaks, a traveling zoo

Throw your sodas and hotdogs too

Treat them like they’re terrorists

It’s Carnival De Garrison

They do it to us every day

The difference is, they never pay

A ticket price, no comparison

Enjoy Carnival De Garrison

Incelbordination, Final Chapter

The Patron Saint of Involuntary Celibacy chased Valerie Sand down the empty streets, his breath becoming hungrier and hornier as he got closer to the bare-legged beauty. Every step led her into a nyctophobic nightmare while Antero Magnus grinned with fanged teeth at the loveliness of it all. He could smell her cold sweat and it was more intoxicating to him than any high-end perfume. Just like in true horror movie fashion, Valerie banged her knee against a light post and crumpled to the ground sobbing.

Antero’s Cheshire Cat grin widened as he savored this moment with slow, deliberate steps. Oh, what he wanted to do to this unfortunate victim. Where would his hands explore first? Her smooth legs? Her lovely feet? Her ample breasts? The buffet-like possibilities gave him a tingling sensation in his ball sack. “So beautiful, Ms. Sand…now you’re going to share that beauty with me whether you want to or not.” Even with tears raining down Valerie’s face, Antero saw no qualms about leaning in for what would surely be a passionate kiss. And then…

“Who are you calling beautiful?!” shouted a gruff voice that awakened Antero from his dream. The horny dream allowed him a temporary vacation from his real nightmare: a dark prison cell with a hairy muscle freak lying in the upper bunk bed. The terrorist took a while to catch his breath and dry his cold sweat. He even felt the scar across his face to see if it had scabbed and it did. Rough ridges of dried blood decorated his already creepy visage.

Antero’s cell mate leaned over the bunk bed and scowled at him, his hairy tattooed face a mosaic of true terror. “You must be having another one of your wet dreams. You keep that shit up and I’ll make sure you won’t be involuntarily celibate anymore! I’ve been looking for an excuse to jump you and now I might have found it.”

“Yeah, get yourself locked up in solitary. Great idea, champ,” scoffed Antero as he laid on his back with his hands behind his head.

The hairy beast laughed his ass off in a throaty, barbaric voice. “You really think these guards give a shit what happens to you in here? I could butt fuck you until your intestines fall out and nobody would come to your rescue. This ain’t no PC liberal-ass college campus, buddy. This is the big house.”

Antero swallowed a lump of saliva and feigned bravery when he said, “You’d better knock that shit off. I used to lead…”

“You used to lead what? A bunch of horny losers who are pissed off about not getting laid? Is that supposed to mean something to me?!” The cell mate jumped out of bed and stood over Antero with heavy breathing bouncing his colossal chest up and down. The incel leader backed up a little bit even though he was in the bottom bunk and had nowhere to go. “That pretty little mouth of yours doesn’t know when to shut up. It’s like it’s got a mind of its own. Why don’t you put that mouth to better use?”

The prisoner dropped his pants and underwear to reveal a forest of greasy hair underneath. Antero intentionally shielded his eyes so that he didn’t have to see what redwood that forest was hiding. He didn’t get much of a choice after that when the cell mate clutched Antero’s jaw and caused him to thrash around in the vice-like grip. “Shut the fuck up and stop moving around!” shouted the cell mate, orders which Antero blatantly ignored as he yelled for help.

“Like I said, nobody’s coming to save you! All your horny faggot friends are getting some of what you’re about to get. All the guards are busy making sure you don’t get out. That just leaves you and me, buddy, you and me. We make a perfect couple, don’t you think? You can be my housewife. You can scrub my dishes. You can do my laundry. You can…”

Shuddering at the idea of what he was about to do, Antero reached for the prisoner’s erection and bent it with so much force that it snapped in two. The screams that erupted from his throat afterwards transformed this prison into a bear enclosure. Antero’s cyan eyes lit up with psychosis as he watched his cell mate drop to his knees while clutching his broken junk.

The terrorist got out of bed and stood over his foe with a disgusted scowl. “You see this? This is what involuntary celibacy is all about. This is what I used to preach to my followers. I bet you got a lot of ass during your time under lock and key. But now those days are over. They’re especially over after you get out and find a real woman. Oh wait, I forgot…no woman will never want to date you again!”

As Antero laughed like a crazed movie villain, the prisoner threw a punch aimed at his gut. The arm moved too slowly to make a connection as Antero grabbed the prisoner’s elbow and twisted the arm into a bone crunching submission hold. The incel leader’s expression dripped with lust while the prisoner begged for his life. “No more jerking off for you!” said Antero as he hyper-extended the arm with a resounding crunch.

The cell mate laid on the ground in a broken heap of screaming and snapped body parts. Just like in his wet dream, Antero’s nether regions came alive with electricity. “You think I’m just a horny kid who can’t get what he wants? I’m a man’s man. I always get what I want in the end. Incelbordination isn’t going anyway anytime soon just because I’m stuck here with you. We are everywhere. And you? Now that you’re guaranteed a life of celibacy…you’re just one of the boys!”

“Fuck you, pal!” shouted the defiant prisoner, who received a few kicks to the ribs for his efforts.

“You know what?” said Antero. “I’m done playing games with you. I used to know a guy who was just as pathetic as you are right now. His name was Oswald Crow and I thought there was something special about him. Well, I’m done with thinking anybody’s special, including you. It’s a shame since you’ve got a few feet over Oswald. You could have been one of the great all-time Incelbordinates. But no…you’re just another victim of the system!”

Antero grabbed the prisoner by his unkempt hair and dragged him to the toilet while making straining noises. As grimy as the terrorist’s fingers became, it would be a nothing compared to having shit water cover his hands while he held his opponent’s face in the bowl. The prisoner kicked and gurgled with whatever strength he had left, but Antero refused to let up and even allowed his own eyes to roll in the back of his head for extra psychosis. The harder the prisoner struggled, the tighter Antero’s teeth clamped down. And then…the struggle stopped and the prisoner was limp, his lungs and mouth full of disgusting toilet water.

Antero shoved the prisoner to the ground and stood over him triumphantly. Giving a speech to nobody in particular, he shouted, “You see this?! This is what your prison system produces! He came here looking for an outlet and now Satan is shoving a trident up his ass! Anybody else want some?! Are you ready to give me the woman I deserve?! Or do you just want to sit there and bleed like this moron?!”

The cell door flung open and revealed a squadron of pissed-off looking prison guards carrying batons and pounding them against their own palms. The captain gazed down at the prisoner and then narrowed his venomous eyes at Antero, who looked as though he was just caught masturbating. “What do you want on your tombstone, you little shit? I’m asking for an undertaker who wants to bury you next to Uncle Tuomas.”

“You want a quote? You want a fucking quote?!” asked Antero with extra psychosis in his voice, never once causing the guards to flinch. “I got one for you. It’s about damn time you showed up!”

“Fair enough,” said the captain before whacking Antero across the stomach with his club. The terrorist felt as though he was going to vomit himself inside out after such a blow. And then another baton shot caught him clean across the back of the head. And then a kick to the shoulder rendered him useless. And then repeated stomps to the sternum slowed his heart rate down to dangerous levels. The terrorist could feel his eyelids getting heavier than a grand piano while his crunching bones created a melody of beautiful music.

The beating eventually stopped and Antero was dragged out of his cell by his wrists, his body bloodied and broken while his mind drifted in and out of consciousness. He might have met his maker, he might not have. He could feel the devil’s trident entering his sensitive areas and he wasn’t even dead yet. Before that all important dinner date with Satan himself, he heard a nearby prisoner whispering something that put a smile on his face: “Death to Chads and Stacys!”

THE END?

Incelbordination, Chapter 15

“Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone home?” Oswald sang to the dark wall in front of him. He hadn’t a single clue how much time had past since his incarceration. He could feel his brain popping like popcorn. He could feel his soul exiting through his mouth as he sang Pink Floyd lyrics. Any smile he had that day could be chalked up to mind-numbing insanity. It didn’t even occur to him to call for help even though nobody would answer him. It occurred to him even less to pound on the walls. His stomach growled in a leonine voice, but all he could hear were the echoes of a distant time come willowing across the sand.

And then his one-man show was finally interrupted by the opening of his cell door, keys jangling in the lock and all. The intense light flooded the room and burned Oswald’s retinas so badly that he cowered in the corner shielding his face. All he could see past his fingers was the silhouette of a trench coat-wearing female. It was nothing like the kind of coat Antero regularly wore to keep up his Matrix gimmick. This was professional-looking. And the woman’s voice was nothing short of professional-sounding.

“Bad few days, huh, Mr. Crow?” said Detective Mia Barry, whose face came into plain view once the light had dimmed a little.

Through a withering voice, Oswald asked, “What do you want from me this time?”

“I have some good news for you, Oz-Man.”

“You saved a bunch of money on your car insurance by switching to Geico?”

Mia giggled. “No, not that, although they do have nice customer service. I’m talking about good news as it relates to your charges.”

Oswald lowered his hands as his red eyes adjusted to the darkening light. “I’m listening.”

“Our tech guys scoured your computer and sifted through further evidence. There’s no proof you were ever involved with Incelbordination. From the looks of things, you couldn’t get out of that chat room fast enough.”

“W…wait a minute…you mean…what I did at the warehouse? That’s been cleared up too?”

Folding her arms and leaning against the cell door, Mia explained, “Three witnesses put you at that scene. Well, only two if you’re not counting that meathead Wacey Judge. Miss Sand and Miss Johnson put in a good word for you. They said you were argumentative, but otherwise safe to be around. You should thank those two, you know. They stuck their necks out for you. They wouldn’t do that if they thought you were a terrorist.”

Oswald could finally open his eyes to full capacity in expression of disbelief. “Those three…they’re alive?”

“Actually, we performed some necromancy on them and asked them the hard-hitting questions once they were properly summoned. Of course they’re alive, silly!”

A slowly forming smile crept upon Oswald’s face. “Does that mean…you finally got Antero?!”

Scratching her nose, Mia said, “Actually, that’s where the bad news begins. Antero Magnus is still out there somewhere. He and his incel buddies bailed on us at the last minute. Of course, you wouldn’t know that, because you got knocked the fuck out before we got there. You’ve still got a knot on your forehead from whatever Antero did to you.”

Oswald winced in pain as he prodded the fresh bruise on his forehead.

“Are you ready to hear the other half of the good news or do you want to poke your forehead some more?” Oswald excitedly nodded and Mia was happy to present the news after clearing her throat. “It turns out you do have a legal prescription for your marijuana use. The only reason why it was so hard to obtain was because you used your monthly dosage too soon. Just how much of that shit have you been puffing on at once?”

On account of being kneed in the face by Antero, Oswald actually had to think his absolute hardest to find out. He had been puffing every day like a diesel train without a thought of consequence. He puffed whenever he was nervous. He puffed because he could. He puffed whenever his favorite song came on his play list. Puff, puff, puff, nonstop, twenty-four-seven. No wonder his trench coat always smelled awful. He damned himself when he said, “Stupid!” and would have face-palmed if that bruise wasn’t jutting out so far.

“Yeah, you need to be more careful with your medication, Oz-Man. It’s not supposed to be for recreational use.”

“Well yeah, it makes sense now! I…just have one more question and then I’ll leave you alone.”

“You can ask as many questions as you want, Oswald. This isn’t an interrogation. Besides, I kind of owe you that luxury after you’ve spent so much time in here for nothing. This would actually be a good time for your marijuana usage.”

Oswald sighed and rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes. “Whatever happened to Jessica? Is she going to be alright?” Mia’s face softened at the mention of her name. “What? What’s going on?”

“You must be referring to Jessica Bradley, the teenage prostitute we stuck you with. Yeah, she, uh…” Mia scratched the back of her neck in search of the right way to say what she needed to say. She sighed and finally spit it out. “She hung herself the night Antero took you away. We tried CPR, but she didn’t make it. I’m sorry, Oswald. She’s dead.”

The dwarf buried his face in his hands and let the tears sting his already burning eyes. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach. His posture hunched over to where his neck ached. He even shouted, “Fuck!” as he pounded the wall behind him, aggravating his fist injuries even further. “Fucking hell!” he groaned while massaging his hand.

“Fourteen years old, Oswald. Even with prostitution on her record, she had her whole life ahead of her. She must have had some tough demons to face beforehand. Come to think of it, you’ve probably got some demons of your own to face. I would advise you to seek psychological help once you’re free. We don’t need another suicide, especially when you yourself have your whole life ahead of you as well.”

The dwarf gasped hard in between sobs. “Everything…I touch…turns to shit!”

“You see that? You see?!” Mia snapped, her following words growing more erratic as she pointed her finger. “That’s the reason why you need help! You are not a horrible person! You are not an incel terrorist! You are not a drug addict! You’re a human fucking being! If you kill yourself like Jessica did, you will have wasted your freedom and wasted an opportunity to set things right! Is that what you want?!”

“I just…I just want…” Oswald snorted snot up his nose and wiped the rest away with his sleeve. “I just want things to make sense, that’s all.”

Mia nodded and softened her tone. “I guess that’s something we all want, don’t we? But if you don’t seek help, nothing will ever make sense again. I know therapy is expensive, but it’s worth every penny. Oswald, I don’t want to watch you die in front of me. You’re innocent. You’ve been proven innocent by someone who’s waiting for you in the parking lot right now. She wants to give you a ride back to your dorm. She’s also the reason why we found your prescription in the first place. Come on, let’s go meet her.”

The detective approached Oswald and helped the sobbing dwarf to his feet. The two of them held hands together as they walked out of the police station. He knew she was just being a comfort to him, but handholding actually felt good for what it was. It didn’t have to be lovey-dovey. The kind gesture should have been appreciated and it was. I could never be an incel, thought Oswald as the last of his tears dried up on his sleeve.

After Oswald received his belongings (sans pot), Mia held the door open for him and said, “Have a good evening, little man. Get some sleep. You need it.”

His eyes lit up behind glassy vision when he saw a familiar woman standing next to her car with her arms folded. “No way,” said Oswald. It was true. She too had been through a lot. She too had watery pupils. She too had a bruise on her face, though hers was swollen over one eye.

“Come on, little dude. Let’s get you home,” said Nikita Johnson as she opened the passenger door and offered to help Oswald inside.

Demon Axe, Chapter 16

Any dumb fuck could make the excuse that the Paulson City Police were just doing what they were told for the sake of their families. The news anchors could sanitize their sins with Lysol until the end of time. But what about those in uniform who actually bought into Roger Zee’s twisted logic? Like a certain orange politician, Roger Zee’s actions and words gave permission to commit violence in the name of the “greater good”. The corrupt cops who felt empowered by this dangerous thinking were the ones driving tanks and hummers through the elven world.

Gigantic tanks crushing innocent street dwellers underneath their bladed wheels. Cannons blasting buildings until they crumbled to the ground. Hummers with machineguns mounted on them unloading a blizzard of bullets upon elves who tried to run and hide. After hundreds of years of the elves rebuilding their homeland, it once again resembled an apocalyptic scenario. Rubble scattered all over the pavement. Broken and twisted elf corpses strewn across the road with their blood running down the sewer drains. Screams and cries of those who were barely surviving pierced the ears, but not the hearts of their human rivals. Mothers huddling with their children behind piles of broken buildings.

The war machines were tromping their way across the wreckage and bloodied bodies with the intention of storming King Arthur Triscloud’s castle. The finest of elven architecture was ready to be violated with fiery cannonballs and armor-piercing bullets the size of crowbars. As more women and children gathered around the castle to shed their tears, their sorrows were met with laughter and mockery from the cops who were itching to settle the score between man and elf.

“This is not your land!” shouted a familiar female voice, putting an end to the hyena laughter. With rows upon rows of elven soldiers with swords marching behind her, Princess Raven Triscloud pointed her own blade at her world’s attackers while giving an oratory worthy of a certain Lord’s heavy metal performance.

With muscles twitching and raw anger in her voice, Raven shouted, “Whatever fake reminiscence Roger Zee is feeding you, it will be your downfall! Up until this moment, my elven race has never been a threat to human democracy! We just wanted to live peacefully and rebuild what your people have taken down with brute force! Anybody who says otherwise is dabbling in revisionist history! Your news anchors and your politicians have built the human empire on fear! You want something to be afraid of?! I’ll give it to you! Charge!”

The elven soldiers led by Raven rushed into battle with swords and shields raised while the human forces readied their machineguns and tank cannons. They unleashed a tidal wave of bullets across the elven warriors, but the indigenous race’s oversized shields deflected the ammunition off to the sides, where they bounced off rubble piles with audible pings. The elves stayed light on their feet as they dodged and weaved out of range of the cops’ high velocity cannons.

As soon as Raven and her soldiers bolted within range, the massive slaughter became a melee between swords and batons. Elves jammed elongated blades through their opponents’ black hearts and chopped off limbs, causing the human forces to bleed buckets all over the broken city streets. Likewise, cops rained down heavy clubs across the elves’ skulls until the fantasy race’s brains were splashed off the concrete.

Raven, being the most skilled fighter of her army, ran around to various human soldiers and slashed their throats, gutted their stomachs, and chopped off heads. She was often ganged up on by three, four, or five cops at a time, but for every baton strike, she rolled and flipped out of the way. While she was on the ground, she threw a circular slash and chopped off her opponents’ feet, causing them to scream like children and cuss like sailors as they bled profusely.

And then Raven noticed out of the corner of her eye that a tank cannon was aiming right for her. “Shit!” she yelled before cart-wheeling out of range. The cannon fired and blew concrete shrapnel all over her friends, making them easier targets for baton beatings over the head and across the ribs. At the threat of another cannon blast, Raven backed up into an alleyway to avoid more shrapnel. She needed time to rethink her strategy, but her friends were dying out there. “If only there was some way to disable those tanks,” she said to herself.

“I wouldn’t count on it if I was you,” said a haunting elf voice. Raven gasped and slowly turned around to face her new opponent. Out of the shadows came Roger Zee with his machete in hand and a shit-eating grin across his ugly face. “Haven’t you gotten tired of watching your loved ones die? Daniel Mercer certainly has. So much so that I doubt he’ll want to interfere in elf politics ever again,” mocked Roger.

“You bastard!” shouted Raven before engaging the terrorist in hand-to-hand combat. The two elves clanged and banged swords with enough volume to drown out the sounds of war going on in the background. They even managed to make dents in each other’s blades, though Raven’s were much deeper and nastier than Roger’s. The terrorist went for a slash to the throat only for Raven to duck underneath and bull rush her opponent against a brick wall.

Holding the blade to Roger’s neck, Raven angrily whispered, “You are a disgrace to your people, Roger. I’m going to enjoy taking your fucking head off!” She would have if a cannon blast didn’t take a chunk out of a nearby building and rock her off balance. Roger threw a palm strike to Raven’s gut and kicked her in the face, flipping her in the air and causing her to land on her chest. She spit out blood and nursed her numb face.

Roger arrogantly whistled as he picked up his machete and danced like a fruitcake to his fallen opponent. Raven slowly made it to her hands and knees, but Roger held the blade to the back of her neck and said, “Revisionist history my ass, Raven! The only traitor to the crown I see around here is your deadbeat father!”

The insult pumped adrenaline through Raven’s system as she grabbed Roger’s feet and pulled him to the ground, making him drop his weapon. Raven took this time to stagger to her feet while Roger nipped up like an athlete. From that point it was martial arts warfare. The female warrior threw punches and kicks around the head and ribs of her opponent, all of those attacks being blocked or dodged by Roger. The zealot grabbed one of Raven’s punches and squeezed on her wrist so tightly that she crumbled to her knees. He said, “That dig about your father? That wasn’t an alternative fact. It was a hard fact!”

Raven threw another punch, but Roger caught that one as well before throwing her overhead and slamming her on her back. From there the former Order of the Spider soldier dropped repeated elbows on her chest and ribs, causing her to cough up even more blood than before. She tried throwing her legs up to back him off, but she was so weak that it resembled drunken choreography.

Roger knelt down and held his blade to Raven’s throat, to which she said, “Go ahead! Finish me off! I’d rather die than live your dystopia!”

The terrorist chuckled, “As much as I’d love to finish you off right now, there’s a war going on around us in case you hadn’t noticed.” To prove his point, another chunk of rubble flew across the battlefield, dusting Raven and Roger with large pebbles. Roger stood up, grinned, and said, “Besides, you’re not the one that I came here for. Any minute now…”

“You scoundrel!” shouted an elderly male voice. Raven’s puffy vision was able to make out the features of her father as he dashed into battle and threw wild slashes at Roger. The terrorist dodged each slash with athletic grace before kneeing the king in the stomach and hoisting Arthur on his shoulder.

“Put him down!” demanded Raven as she coughed up more blood. Her rage fell on deaf ears as Roger retreated from the bloody battle going on around them. The Princess held out her hand in a weak attempt to save her father, but after a short while of seeing his pained face, Roger took him away into the violent morning.

Tears built up in Raven’s swelling eyes, but she had no outlet for her sorrow other than beating the ground with her aching fists. She tried getting up, but the pain surged through her bones and watered her down to a crawl across the concrete. She pulled with the last of her remaining strength and then closed her eyes in defeat. The human and elven worlds belonged to Roger Zee.

Her dreams, however, belonged only to her. As the sounds of battle were dying all around her, she envisioned Daniel Mercer with his magical microphone serenading a raucous crowd. He had his skeleton makeup on and everything. He even played with his former band mates: Vulture Man on guitars, Pig Man on bass, and G-Pac on drums.

Even though Daniel was screaming angry lyrics, he seemed happy and loved in a place like this. This was his natural habitat and Roger would never be able to take that away from him no matter how much land he ruled over. Raven would have smiled at this moment, but her mouth was bloody and it hurt to do so. “Find me, Daniel,” she whispered. “Find me again.”

Demon Axe, Chapter 13

It didn’t matter how many times Daniel Mercer screamed for help, because not even his heavy metal death cry could wake the dead bodies left in the holding cell. As he sat in an even darker room with his hands and legs bound, the brutalized corpses of his friends kept flashing across his face like schizophrenic ghosts. He screamed for them to go away and stop haunting him, but the louder his screams became, the less his tortured brain cared.

No matter how many times he tormented himself with these images, it couldn’t compare to the actual strobe lights dancing and flickering across the room, each of them blindingly bright to where closing his eyes didn’t relieve the soreness. Obnoxiously loud music blared in the background and pierced his eardrums like a poisonous dart. Not even Daniel’s shrieks for help could drown out this familiar heavy metal beat. The same grinding guitars, funky bass, and machinegun drums that he had grown to love were being used to make his ears bleed. The vocalist’s death growls were indecipherable, though something about a “Valentine’s Day Massacre” seemed vaguely familiar.

“Turn it off, Roger! Turn that shit off! I can’t take it anymore!” shouted Daniel. Instead of getting what he demanded, the volume was turned to its absolute maximum and the strobe lights were even faster and even more grating on his eyes. The music could probably be heard from miles away, but Daniel was right here feeling his brain turn to mush, either through physical brain damage or going insane.

His eardrums went numb and his vision made him a candidate for Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder jokes until the end of time. In what Daniel thought was his temporary moment of freedom, the ghosts of his fallen comrades paid him a visit once more. The original members of Demon Axe were the first to show their floating heads and dangling spinal cords.

“You fucked up, Daniel. You fucked up badly, my friend,” said Vulture Man.

“When is enough going to be enough? How many more of us need to die so that you can keep making a living?” said Pig Man.

“We didn’t ask for our heads to be chopped off. We didn’t sign up for war. We wanted to play music. How the hell can I bang the drums with no arms and no legs?!” shouted G-Pac.

Tears rolled down Daniel’s eyes and added to the fiery sting he felt from the quickly blinking lights. He couldn’t even hear himself say, “I’m sorry, guys. I wish I could take it back.”

“Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first!” blared a familiar Arab accent. The image of Tarantula Man with a mangled body and limbs hanging in odd places danced into view. “You promised us paradise. You promised us heavy metal. Well, the only heavy metal I ever got was the blade of a machete! That shit hurts like hell! But it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as knowing my band mates will never see their guitarist again.”

“What about MY band mates, Daniel?” said Bear Man as he crawled into view with the lower half of his body missing and the rest of his body bloodied to a pulp. “Did you think I was going to forget about the boys and girls of Juice? Did you think Tarantula Man was going to forget about I Am Death? Just because you took our names and gave us these disgusting aliases, doesn’t mean we’re your permanent bitches!”

“Lady Killer?! What kind of a goddamn name is Lady Killer?!” The aforementioned drummer of Juice crawled across the floor leaving a pool of blood in her wake. “Face it, Daniel: this is all your fault. Every one of us is dead because of you! What did Roger Zee say about hastening the inevitable? Did it have to start with us?!”

The members of Daniel’s various bands all shouted together in a cacophony of swear words and vitriol that rivaled the heavy metal music playing in his torture cell. The tears became hotter and more plentiful. The rage inside him exploded like a gasoline fire. He could feel his limbs growing stronger and his teeth grinding away. In a voice he could finally hear, Daniel screamed, “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”

“Why should they, Daniel? Are they saying things that you don’t want to hear? But isn’t that the purpose of heavy metal music: to bring the truth to light?” asked Johnny Vega, who had gushes of blood pouring out of him like a river of violence.

Sonia Marquez, who had no arms or legs, scooted over to Daniel with a wicked glare on her face. She rasped, “If I had my limbs right now, I would suplex your ass until the end of time. And to think, I actually had a crush on you. I would have been a hell of a lot better of a lay than that Raven chick you were running around with! What has she ever done for you anyways?!”

“Don’t you ever talk about her like that again!” Daniel roared, his fiery voice blowing away the spiritual essences of his former friends. He kept breathing fire and poison until all that remained of his traumatic insanity was the loveliest thing he had ever seen: Raven Triscloud in a purple Celtic dress. Daniel’s tears felt chilly on his cheeks as they soothed his burning pain. They were even more freezing when Raven blew him a whirlwind kiss.

“Find me, Daniel. Help me. You’re my only hope. You are our only hope. You must stop Roger Zee before he destroys everything we love,” said Raven in a beautiful high-pitched voice.

“I’m sorry, Raven…I tried so hard…I tried…” sobbed Daniel.

“It’s not over yet, Daniel. Not by a long shot. Find me, my love…find me…find me…” said Raven in a voice that got progressively softer until her spiritual essence was blown away by a tornado of obnoxious sound.

Daniel screamed for her to come back, but she never did. All that remained was a bright white light and the shadowy visage of a familiar middle-aged man. The raging heavy metal music was gone, the strobe lights were dim, but Daniel was so far down the rabbit hole that all he did was shake, grunt, sob, and bleed. He could barely hear the shadow figure call his name. There was no way this could be Raven or any of his friends. This man had a bald head. And pointy ears. And green skin.

Daniel, with now free hands, wrapped his fingers around the shadow man’s throat until he could feel the wind being sucked out of him. The grip became tighter than a hangman’s noose and more violent than barbed wire. Finally, the shadow man said, “Daniel, stop it! It’s me, Detective Shawn Henry! I’m here to help!”

The Lord of the Pit’s grip weakened until his arms were limper than spaghetti. That was all of the fight he could put up after being tortured for so long. His body felt like it had been crushed in a trash compactor. His skin felt raw and shredded like meat. His crotch felt wet and smelled like rancid fruit. His mouth, ears, nose, and eyes felt like he was drowning in a lake of blood and lava.

Despite the cataclysm of agony he was in, Daniel could comprehend what Shawn was saying as the detective held out a familiar shape. “I got your microphone out of the evidence locker and came here as fast as I could. Mr. Mercer, this isn’t a police station. This is a black site. We had it shut down for obvious reasons, but it seems Roger has brought it back to life.”

With a mouthful of biological sludge, Daniel struggled to say, “Where is she? Where’s Raven? I need her…”

“Don’t worry, Daniel, we’ll find her, whoever she is. But right now, the world needs you, buddy. I’m sorry for arresting you and bringing you to this awful place. My family’s lives were on the line. But given Roger Zee’s reckless ways, I doubt they’re even alive right now. Terrorists don’t keep their end of the bargain, which is why we’re not supposed to negotiate with them. I’d rather my wife and daughter be in a better place than spend another minute with that…that…” Tears formed in Shawn’s eyes as he wiped them away with his calloused fingertips.

Daniel spit out the venom brewing in his mouth and said, “The word you’re looking for is asshole, Detective! Roger Zee is an asshole! And if he lays one fucking finger on Raven, I’m going to kill him!” The burst of anger caused him to cough up more bile and blood.

“You have your microphone now, Daniel. You can do this! We can do this!” cheered Shawn.

The Lord of the Pit breathed heavily for a while and said, “Fuck heavy metal. Fuck it! I don’t need it anymore. I can’t listen to it now. If we’re going to kill this motherfucker…well, fuck, where are your goddamn tanks and drones and shit?!”

“Daniel, I know you’ve been through a lot, but if you give up on your music now, then…”

“Then what? I’ll actually have some peace for the first time in my life?”

Shawn’s expression became solemn as he grabbed Daniel by his back and legs and carried him baby style out of the black site. The Lord of the Pit, whose magical microphone sat in his lap, glared at the instrument of destruction with poisonous disdain and said, “I hate you, you stupid microphone. I fucking hate you!”

Demon Axe, Chapter 12

For Daniel Mercer and his rock and roll crew, time moved slowly and painfully in the confines of their dark holding cell. Pain and disgust were etched on their faces as they ate spoiled bologna sandwiches compliments of the state. Tarantula Man held his sandwich meat and stared at it like it actually was a poisonous arachnid in his hand. His Islamic diet would never allow him to eat such rancid garbage, so he flushed his food down the toilet in the center of the cell and sat back down on the graffiti-covered bench.

The cell had been deathly silent for what seemed like hours (even though only one hour had passed). Every member of Demon Death Juice along with the two pro-wrestlers sat with a miserable and pathetic hunched over posture. As Bear Man tried to stomach the abomination he was feasting on, he piped up, “I know we’re prisoners who’ve been stripped of our freedom, but do we at least have the right to some mustard?!”

For Daniel, it wouldn’t have mattered if his sandwich was covered in an entire bottle of condiments. He took a bite out of the center and gagged so badly that he doubled over. He spit out what appeared to be a dead mouse, complete with teeth marks and sloppy guts.

“Oh god, dear god…” Daniel kept repeating to himself as he held his stomach and rushed over to the toilet. He vomited so hard that it sounded like he was laying down vocals for the first Demon Death Juice album. Another stream of masticated mush came up. And another. And another. Everybody sharing his cell looked on with horror before throwing their sandwiches on the floor in rebellion.

The Lord of the Pit wiped his mouth on his bare arm before slowly standing up and approaching the bars with a predator’s pace. He grabbed hold of them and yelled out to whoever would listen, “Whoever’s keeping us here has a shit load of explaining to do! You arrested us for no fucking reason and feed us these god awful sandwiches like we’re a bunch of goddamn dogs! We’ve been sitting on our asses for who knows how long, so whoever’s out there, you’d better get your ass over here and tell me what the hell’s going on!”

Daniel’s sentiments were echoed by his rock and roll troupe, all five of them sitting up and roaring like animals. They sat back down again at the shrill sound of metal banging on metal. Even the high and mighty Lord of the Pit backed away to the center of the room. The clanging and banging turned into something sharp being scraped across the bars. The prisoners winced and held their ears at the awful shriek.

The sharp metal object stopped at the entrance to the holding cell, where an oil lantern was lit and revealed a green-skinned man holding a machete and wearing a black monk’s robe, complete with a hood shrouding his face. The prisoner’s nerves were jittery and wild as Daniel said, “No way. You can’t be!” The robed figure flipped his hood back and revealed the sinister mug of Roger Zee, elven terrorist. His sharp-toothed grin sent chills up everyone’s spines. Even Daniel was struggling to say, “I’ll be damned” behind his quivering lips.

“Don’t act like you’ve never seen one of my kind before, Mr. Mercer,” said Roger in his grating voice. “I bet you’re wondering what the hell I’ve been doing this past month. I sure as hell wasn’t taking a nap. I also didn’t spend my time behind a computer raving like a teenaged lunatic. On the contrary, I’ve spent my last month of inactivity…getting to know some people around here.”

Daniel crossed his arms and said, “Let me guess: you’re the one who’s got Detective Henry’s balls in your pocket.”

“Not just his balls, my friend,” said Roger with a wag of his long-nailed finger. “The whole department. I’ve got more balls in my pocket than a game of billiards. Everybody in this god forsaken precinct has something to protect, something to hide, something to lose. I had no idea your city cops had so much to cover up. Racial profiling, racketeering, extortion, political embezzlement, this shit goes on forever. But then again, they can’t all be criminals who are willing to give me their puppet strings over some blackmail, right? Well, not all of them. But enough. Most of them are just hardworking family men who don’t want to see their precious demon seeds get hurt. I’ve got enough connections to take over this entire city if I wanted to.”

“All this just to bring things back to the good old days, huh?” said Daniel with a condescending smirk. “Well, the good old days weren’t all that good! In your so called golden age, bigotry was considered normal, death was the status quo, and beating your wife was an act of discipline. You want to bring that shit back to life? Not on my watch, motherfucker!”

Roger bent backwards and chuckled before saying, “And how is that any different than today’s world? Huh? Bigotry is still normal, death is even more normal, and beating your wife is still a shit load of fun! I’m not really changing much with my so called acts of terrorism. All I’m doing is speeding up the inevitable. Surely, your friend Tarantula Man knows something about this.”

Without his stage mask, Tarantula Man’s white hot angry expression could be seen from the moon. He approached the bars with breakneck speed and barked, “Don’t you ever talk about my religion that way! I am nothing like what you hear in your little bubble! I’m going to raise my kids to be respectful even when scumbags like you are hastening the inevitable as you say!”

Roger held his lantern and machete-holding hands up in defense and sarcastically apologized with, “Whoa, whoa, easy there, big man! I believe you when you say you’re going to raise your children right! Okay?” The elf leaned so close to Tarantula Man’s face that they were touching noses. “After all, if they don’t act proper, you can always strap a suicide vest on them.”

The Muslim rocker took a swing through the bars and got his arm chopped off at the elbow for his efforts. He howled in miserable bloody pain as he stumbled backwards on his ass with Bear Man and Lady Killer tending to his wound.

“Anybody else want to try that shit with me?! Anybody?!” Roger proudly challenged.

Johnny Vega and Sonia Marquez, the two beefy wrestlers slowly stood up and took their places next to Daniel, who also had his muscles bulging and pulsating like blood bombs ready to blow. Sonia stared a fireball through Roger as she said, “If you still think beating women is a shit load of fun, let’s see you try that on me, bitch!”

“You don’t have your stupid little crowns anymore, amigo,” said Johnny while punching the bars. “Besides, it’s hard for someone like you to wear a crown with your brains leaking all over the fucking floor!”

“You fucked with my friends one too many times,” said Daniel, who was trembling with rage and ready to snap someone’s head off. “Up until now, I’ve been backing away from you anytime I had an opening. You chopped off my new friend’s arm. He’s never going to play guitar again because of you. And you, you’re never going to eat solid food again because your fucking teeth are going down your goddamn throat!”

Roger Zee laughed like a banshee and blew out the oil lantern, covering the holding cell in shadows once again. Daniel and his wrestler friends didn’t need the light to know where the elf was. They could smell his dick-licking breath from a mile away. The door opened so slowly that the hinges could be heard creaking and grinding.

Johnny, Sonia, and Daniel came out of the gates swinging like wild brawlers. They were certain their savage punches hit their marks, because they could feel the slimy flesh between their knuckles and fingers. Daniel even pierced his knuckle on one of Roger’s sharp fangs, causing a liberal amount of blood to flow from his hand. He didn’t give two shits and a flying fuck.

His veins were ready to blow like dynamite and he wouldn’t stop punching until he heard Roger let out a pathetic squeal of pain. “Ouch…ouch…no more…please…” Each cry for help was getting more sarcastic and it all crescendoed with evil hyena laughter that had everyone in the cell on edge. “My turn!” Roger shouted before the sounds of skin, organs, and bones being slashed pierced Daniel’s ears, causing the traumatized rocker to shriek a prolonged, “No!” and huddle to the ground in tears.

The oil lantern was alight once more and Roger waved the device around the cell to show Daniel that he was right to be traumatized and frightened. Pieces of his band mates and friends were scattered all over the cell with blood drenching the floor. Their faces were hardly recognizable with smashed skulls and popped out eyeballs. Daniel’s tears flooded down his face as he saw that his last circle of friends had left his earth forever.

He truly was all alone in this world. Every time he brought the metal scene back to life, it was taken away from him again. Every time he tried to have a positive thought, it was slashed to pieces. Every time he tried to live his life again, his happiness was ripped away from him like a teddy bear in a crying child’s arms.

Roger set the lantern down and petted Daniel’s hair in mock comfort while silently shushing him and whispering “sweet sounds” to him. “There, there, my little child. All is not lost. You can call me your friend anytime you want. You know what friends do when one of them is feeling down? We have some fun together. Good…old fashioned…medieval…fun!”

The lantern was blown out yet again and Daniel felt himself being dragged by his follicles across the bloody floor. He wished he had drowned in his own tears and in his fallen friends’ blood, for it would have been a friendlier ending to his story than whatever was about to happen to him next. “Just kill me already!” he pleaded. “Kill me, damn it!”

Demon Axe, Chapter 3

The audience at the Black River Arena mumbled somberly to each other while the wrestling ring in the center was dimly lit. They held up signs for their favorite wrestlers, but with weak arms. They “wooed” and cheered, but few did it with them. Some stood up, but the rest of them stayed seated. This audience was more like a graveyard than an arena full of wrestling fans. The sadness in their eyes was obvious as some of them were shedding tears.

And then the grinding sound of Demon Axe’s number one hit “Zombie-Ogre” boomed from the speakers like a cannonball. Any sadness or zombie-like behavior transformed instantly into raucous rage as the audience shot up from their seats and cheered like wild motherfuckers. The throaty chants of, “Vega! Vega! Vega!” echoed off the walls and created a symphony of adrenaline for the seven-foot tall world champion wrestler, Johnny Vega.

With his blood red hair in a ponytail, his beard scraggly, his green overalls fitting snuggly around his muscles, and the golden world title strapped around his waist, Johnny Vega looked out into the crowd and nodded at the love he was getting. He enjoyed the adulation so much that he clapped and cheered along with them as he strutted down to the ring. Once he climbed up on the apron, stepped over the top rope with his gigantic legs, and held his world title in the air, the crowd’s verbal assault hit its crescendo with fire and spunk, highly unlike what they were feeling before.

The minute Johnny Vega grabbed a microphone from the ringside attendant, the chants of his last name continued to put a huge grin on the champion’s face. But even a tough guy giant like him wasn’t immune to the tears in his own eyes. He wiped them away with his thumb and inhaled snot back in his nose much to the clapping approval of the crowd who came to see him.

“Thank you, guys. Thank you so much, you have no idea how much that means to me,” said Johnny into the microphone. “But as much as I love hearing that kind of energy from you guys, tonight is not about me. I know why you guys were in such a sour mood before I came out here. I feel it too. It’s about what happened to my favorite metal band Demon Axe a few days ago.”

The audience booed at Demon Axe’s fate while some of the members reverted back to tears. Johnny said, “I know, it pisses me off too. What in the hell would motivate some asshole to kill off so many people like that? What kind of message is that supposed to send? What are we supposed to learn from all of this?”

He teared up a little bit at that last sentence and then toughened up yet again. “I’ll tell you what we’re supposed to learn! We don’t back down from shit-heads like that! I don’t care how many people this moron kills, because we’re here to put on a fucking show and there’s not a goddamn thing he can do about it!” He received a sonic boom of cheers and raised fists once more. “This is America, baby! America doesn’t negotiate with terrorists! America doesn’t back down every time a tragedy happens! America gets back on their feet, dusts themselves off, and keeps on going until they can’t go anymore!”

Just when the audience was ready to explode with excitement, the sounds of sarcastic clapping into a microphone filled the arena and the boos were as brutal as ever. A man dressed in a purple robe with a hood over his head and a vulture mask over his face entered the arena and put a confused slash angry expression on Johnny Vega’s face. The wrestler said, “You’re not Vulture Man. You’re not G-Pac. You’re not Pig Man, though you are a pig for coming out here and interrupting me. Who the hell do you think you are, little man?!”

The robed figure said with a chorus of boos in the background, “Relax! I’m not here to spoil your fun. I’m just another guy who wants a crack at that championship you’ve got there. Because there’s nothing more manly and gutsy than two muscle-bound men fighting over a belt.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass, pretty boy! And take off that mask, you don’t deserve to wear it! That mask belonged to one of the greatest heavy metal guitarists of all time and you’re running around like you’re God’s greatest gift to professional wrestling! You ain’t shit, motherfucker! I take dumps bigger than you! You want to come out here to run your big mouth and wear that fucking mask like you actually own it, then get your ass in this ring so I can snap your goddamn spine!” shouted Johnny, much to the roaring delight of the fans, who chanted his last name once again.

The hooded figure drew more boos as he cackled into the microphone. “You misunderstand me. This isn’t about a mask or a belt or any other piece of god-awful attire. This is about my mission. This is about my people. This is about the wonderful friends you call Demon Axe parading their disgusting music all over holy ground. That ‘arena’ they played at wasn’t just for show. Whoever built that abortion of a structure was trampling all over my race’s sacred pastures. Yes, the building has been around for years, but I was the only one with the guts to do anything about it. And now here you are disgracing my people once again by speaking highly of these Demon Axe infidels!”

Johnny formed a wicked smile on his face and shook his head before saying, “So you’re the lunatic who carved up all those people at the Demon Axe concert.” The boos grew heavier and heavier, but Johnny held up his hands and said, “Nah, nah, cool it, guys. It’s actually a good thing that this dumb-ass came here in the middle of a wrestling show. Because now, I have a reason to kick his ass!”

The champion wrestler threw down his microphone and belt before jumping over the top rope and bull rushing his way toward the robed figure. Johnny cocked back his sledgehammer-like fist and took a wild, brutal, head-crunching swing. The minute his fist made contact with Vulture Man’s mask, the entire robe collapsed into purple smoke, leaving the audience and Johnny shrugging their shoulders and looking around aimlessly for answers.

The lights in the arena blew out and left everybody in mysterious darkness. The grating sounds of the terrorist laughing drew the loudest boos of the night. Red smoke appeared in the ring and revealed the figures of the machete-wielding elf warrior and a fellow wrestler on her knees with a crown of thorns on her head and a neon red glow in her eyes. The lights came back on and revealed a wide-eyed, shocked expression on Johnny Vega’s face. He shouted, “What the hell did you do to Sonia?!”

The woman everybody knew as Sonia Marquez donned gray MMA shorts, a black sports bra, and a black ponytail behind her head. Her muscular frame, sinister gimmick, and vicious martial arts skills made her a perfect slave for someone like the mysterious elf terrorist. Despite how real and genuine Sonia’s brainwashing looked, everybody in the audience assumed this was part of the show and booed accordingly rather than rushing the ring.

Johnny Vega rushed back up to the ring, leaped over the top rope, and reached his hands out in an attempt to strangle the elf terrorist until his head burst like a pustule. Mr. Vega was met with a kick to the liver by Sonia after she jumped up from her kneeling position. Johnny held his ribs tightly and dropped to his own knees before coughing up a liberal amount of blood.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Sonia,” ordered the elf. “We need him to cleanse this earth of anybody who would dare disrespect my people’s heritage. He’s big, strong, and wouldn’t dare resist the power of one of these.” The elf presented a magical crown of thorns to Sonia, who gladly accepted it with a wicked grin on her face. The elf jerked Johnny’s head up by his ponytail while Sonia slipped the brainwashing device over his head. Johnny protested with yells and “No’s”, but it was too late. The crown was already hardwiring his brain by stabbing its prickly thorns into his skull. A few more exhausted breaths later and Johnny slowly stood back up with the same red neon in his eyes as his female counterpart.

Once again, the fans didn’t know if this was part of the show or if this was really happening before their eyes. The elf could have been some asshole in makeup. The neon eyes could have been electrified contact lenses. The crowns of thorns could have been props for a hardcore match. One zealous fan in a Johnny Vega T-shirt and blue jeans jumped over the barricade and rushed the ring with a steel chair in hands. He immediately had his head chopped off by the elf’s machete.

The audience screamed like horrified babies while shooting up from their seats and bolting out of the nearest exits with their arms flailing. The black shirted, big bellied security detail stormed the ring only to be met with slashes from the elf’s machete, big boots and clotheslines from Johnny Vega, and elbow smashes and knee strikes from the MMA enthusiast Sonia Marquez. This didn’t look like “fake shit” anymore. Every slash unleashed a tidal wave of blood from the security detail’s guts and throats. Every clothesline knocked heads off of shoulders and snapped spines like toothpicks. Every MMA strike broke bones so badly that they jutted into vital organs. So many security guards’ corpses filled the ring and left behind a sea of blood and disgust in their wake. The Black River Arena made battlefields and car crashes look mundane.

The elf warrior raised his machete to the sky and yelled, “Nobody disrespects my heritage! Nobody disrespects my nation! Remember the name of Roger Zee! Feel the trauma every time that name is blown up on your TV screens! Know that your heroes and your military are powerless against me! The world will respect my race if I have to chop the heads off of every man, woman, and child on this sick fucking planet!”

Demon Axe, Chapter 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dark Prophecy

“You wanted to see me?” said Charlie Marks, a leather jacket and jeans wearing high schooler who was too cool for school. Judging from his lackadaisical posture and bored facial expression, he felt he was too cool to be in the same office as his art teacher.

“Yes, Charlie, I did want to see you. Have a seat. Don’t get too comfortable, because this has suspension written all over it,” said Rebecca Waters, a brown dress wearing blonde who sat cross-legged in her office’s computer chair with the posture of a judge presiding over a criminal court case.

When Charlie took a seat on the wooden stool and twiddled his thumbs nonchalantly, Rebecca pored through her file folder until she found the piece of “art” that brought the two of them together that day. It was a cartoon of a distorted faced Special Olympian dressed in a bicycle helmet and a dirty diaper. If that wasn’t offensive enough, the caption of the drawing said, “The Prophet Muhammad” in big bold letters.

Charlie took the drawing from Rebecca’s hands and stared at it uncaringly. “Yeah, so?”

“What do you mean, yeah, so? You know full well why that’s unacceptable. Not only is it disparaging to the mentally disabled, but it’s extremely disparaging to the Muslim community. There are over five hundred Muslim students who attend this high school. What do you think they’re going to do if they see this drawing?” said Rebecca in an authoritative voice.

The “artist” pretended to look at his drawing from multiple angles, but he was really just turning his paper upside down and sideways to stall for time. When Rebecca asked an impatient, “Well?”, Charlie responded with, “They’re probably going to strap bombs to their bodies and blow me into pieces. Is that the answer you were looking for? Are you actually worried about this kind of crap going on? You say there’s five hundred Muslims going to school here? I bet not one of them has the balls to take me on over a stupid drawing. Ever heard of Freedom of Speech, Miss Waters?”

Rebecca shook her head no, cleared her throat, and said, “Listen, Charlie. There’ve been plenty of awful things going on in the news lately with terrorism and general ignorance toward certain people. Remember hearing about the ISIS attacks in Paris a few weeks ago? Of course you don’t, because you’re not smart enough to pay attention to world politics. If you were, you would know that this ‘funny’ cartoon is the highest form of prejudice toward the Muslim community. I’m not worried about what the students will do to you. Because let’s face it, none of our students act anywhere near as badly as the ISIS terrorists who committed that awful attack in Paris.”

“Well then, what are you worried about, Miss Waters? What, is ISIS going to raid our stupid little school and start shooting everyone in sight because I drew a cartoon? Don’t they have better things to do with their lives? Newsflash: those crazies halfway around the world don’t give a shit about Paulson City kids like me!” said Charlie Marks in a more animated voice complete with frantic hand gestures.

Rebecca hunched forward as if she was in a secretive conversation with her student and asked, “You didn’t post this drawing to your social media accounts, did you?” No answer, just a stupefied look on Charlie’s face. “Well, did you?!” The student gave a cheeky half smile and it was obvious at that point what his answer was.

“You idiot!” screamed Rebecca Waters. She stood over Charlie like a giant ready to breathe fire on some helpless villagers. “Do you realize what the hell you’ve done?! Are you so thickheaded that you don’t realize the gravity of what’s going on here?! Yeah, it may be a stupid cartoon to you, but it’s much more to the people online and around the world! It’d be the same thing if you posted a drawing of a black guy eating watermelon or a gay guy in tight-fitting bicycle shorts! You don’t do that! There are certain lines you just don’t fucking cross!”

Charlie looked into his teacher’s furious eyes with five second fear and then smiled his idiotic smile again when he said, “You swore, Miss Waters! Naughty, naughty!”

The art teacher fluffed her hair in frustration, let out a pissed off grunt, and plopped back down into her computer chair. She sat there for a minute taking deep breaths to calm herself down while Charlie was smiling and chuckling at her.

“What are you laughing at, you moron?” asked Rebecca. “You think bigotry is funny? Well, I don’t. This school doesn’t. The whole point of school is to teach you the ways of the world and how to coexist with the people you share that world with.” She snatched the picture from Charlie’s hand and presented it with disdain. “I’m not letting you get away with this. This kind of sick, demented garbage is punishable by suspension, maybe even expulsion if we feel you’re not learning anything from this.”

The smile slowly disappeared from Charlie’s face. “You can’t do that,” he said in a defeated tone.

“Oh, but we can. And we will! But you know what, Charlie? I don’t want you to be expelled from here. I want you to be punished, but not in that way. Maybe a cartoon doesn’t warrant that kind of extreme punishment. But you’re saying depicting the Prophet Muhammad in that way doesn’t mean anything. I’m saying it does and many will agree with me, including the Principal.”

Charlie’s eyes darted from side to side before he asked, “So…what do you want me to do? I mean…there is a catch to me not being expelled, right?”

“For starters, I want you to log onto my computer, go to your social media accounts, and take down the picture before anybody sees it. Ah, who am I kidding? It’s probably spreading across the internet right now. But I’d still appreciate it if you’d take it down before anybody gets hurt.”

Mr. Marks stared at his teacher like what she was asking him was too much to handle. After a while of stalling, Rebecca sighed and said, “Listen. I told you I didn’t want to expel you from here. You know why? Because up until this point, you’ve been doing A and B-worthy work in my classroom. You are a talented artist in many ways. But this drawing crosses so many lines on so many levels. So instead of putting you on the chopping block, I’d like you to meet somebody.”

Using her smart phone, Rebecca signaled her special guest to enter the office. He was a giant of a man with dark skin, a bald head, and a scraggly beard. He stood over Charlie Marks like the offensive artist was merely a worm on the sidewalk ready to be stepped on. He was introduced by Rebecca as Kamal Sadollah, one of the five hundred Muslim students she referenced earlier in the conversation.

“Relax, Charlie. I’m not here to hurt you. Allah wouldn’t forgive me if I did such a thing to you. But I have seen your drawing on Face Book and Twitter. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” He placed his thick palm on Charlie’s quivering shoulder and said, “I know my religion and my culture doesn’t mean much to you. But it means something to me. I turned to Islam because I needed direction in my life. And guess what? I haven’t gotten in one fight since. I am a member of the high school wrestling team and any battle I have will be on the mat and nowhere else.”

“Okay, I get it,” said Charlie in a nervous tone. “You’re pissed off about my drawing. But you have to understand something. I didn’t do it because I wanted to piss you off personally. I did it as a joke. I thought it would be hilarious and I still think it is. Am I right?” he said with a half-hearted chuckle. Neither Rebecca nor Kamal was laughing. They were staring holes through him with their sniper scope vision.

“Here’s the deal,” said Kamal as he put his face closer to Charlie’s. “Either you take down that picture from Face Book and Twitter and anywhere else you have it posted, or I’m going to do something you’ve always wanted to do with your narcissistic pictures. I’m going to share that drawing. I’m going to share it with every Muslim friend and family member I know. And then I’ll share it with atheists, Christians, Jews, and anyone else who will listen. By the time I’m done distributing it, the entire world will know how much of an asshole Charlie Marks is. I won’t hurt you. I never will. But I can’t say the same for anyone else who sees that picture.”

“Charlie…listen to me,” said Rebecca. “You’re too young in your life to play the role of a villain. If that many people know about what you’ve done today, then your life will be ruined. I don’t want to see you end up that way. So please…do the right thing. Take down the picture.”

Kamal handed Charlie his smart phone and said, “Here, you can use this if you want. Don’t worry, it’s not hardwired to an IED. We’re not all stereotypes here, Charlie. We’re real people with real desires and real dreams. Do you have desires of your own that you want to see through? Then keep the world from seeing your worst side.”

Charlie Marks had tears in his eyes after being dressed down by Kamal Sadollah and Rebecca Waters. They broke him without ever once laying a finger on him. All they had to do was something every religion preached: talk to their enemy. After wiping his tears with his jacket sleeve, Charlie put Kamal’s smart phone to use and began the process of taking the offensive drawing down from the internet. It would be a huge weight off of his shoulders afterwards and that felt good.