|
|
Vincent Dynamite
He's bleeding badly. He
hadn't intended for the knife fight to get that out of hand.
No matter. It was all over now. He goes home, flops onto
the stained couch and quickly downs the remaining contents of a
nearby bottle of rum. The gash in his arm closes up and not a
trace of the wound remains. He's sure this will change in the
morning when he sobers up, but for now he's all right. |
|
|
|
Will Angst
He sits alone at three in the
morning, drinking in the basement of the abandoned crematorium of
Eastern Cemetery. He takes a hearty swig from his third forty
of the night. A charred man emerges from the dormant
incinerator and asks Will if he's Dr. Josef Mengele.
Will tells the revenant that he is not. The charred man steals
Will's last forty out of his hands and returns to the dark
incinerator. "Bastard owes me," Will mutters. |
|
|
|
Captain Bobby
Boston
The embittered deipnosophist
sits quietly among his estranged relatives on a snowy Christmas
Eve. He stares at the tree, chuckling at the notion of the
holiday staple suspended upside-down from the ceiling. An
octogenarian leans over to his good ear and shrilly tells him that
he needs to get married and settle down, for soon he would be too
old for women to consider courting him. Boston replies,
"Well, there's always rape!' before returning to the soothing
mental images of an acromegaly-wrought Santa Claus. |
|
 |
C.T. (Comatose)
Olson
The stabbing pain of an early
hangover pierces his skull, arousing him from inebriated
sleep. He's wet from the pool of vomit he's surprised to find
himself lying in. He begins to sift through the bilious puddle
in hopes of discovering the particular food that disagreed with his
bellyful of booze. He comes across the half-digested remainder
of a chicken tender and realizes that the vomit he's soaked in is
not his own. |
|
 |
Jeff
"Turtle" Holman
He's driving down the road when
his sideburns sense danger. For a second, he fears that the
Mexican robots have found him again. But then, a little
albino girl darts in front of his vehicle. Before he can
react, Turtle strikes the girl, sending her body into a nearby
ditch. He pulls over in a panic. The girl is dead.
His spirits lift though, for his Ford Taurus is
unharmed. |
|
 |
Xine Puryear
She stands on the edge of a sea
of blood as the corpses of scientists from the past millennium wash
ashore and rise to their feet. Xine spots the decaying flesh
of Marie Curie. Curie lunges at Xine, craving her
delicious noggin-meat. Xine struggles for a moment. The
radium has made Curie strong. But stone carving has made Xine
stronger. She buries her adamantium chisel deep into Curie's
skull and the undead whore of science screams out in pain and falls
to the ground. Now the only thing between Xine and an army of
reanimated, cadaverous chemists is her Pneumatic Hammer of
Thor. Before the dawning of the sun, the periodic table of
elements will run crimson with their blood. |
|
 |
Bennett
Duckworth
He walks into a coffee shop and
spots an attractive young college student. He offers to buy
her a drink and she accepts the offer. He sits down and
moments later he begins to tell her of Soderbergh, Kubrick and
Packard - a few of his favorite directors. Half an hour later,
cancer takes the girl's life. |
|
 |
C-Mart
He wakes up in an alley in
Amsterdam. There is a pain in his side from where the kidney
was removed the day prior. "A kidney for a new US
passport" the back street surgeon had told him. He
reaches into his pocket and pulls the passport out to thoroughly
inspect it for the first time since the operation. A perplexed
look comes across his face. The name reads: "Dingleberry
McMouthwash." |
|
|
|
Johnny
El
He walks down the street with a
smug smile upon his face. Everyone who walks past him throws
him a look of envy. That's because there isn't a person who
doesn't know that Johnny is the El, and they all want to be the El
too. But in his prideful state, Johnny fails to notice the
limo shadowing him two blocks back. Behind the wheel, is a
dentist. Note: Johnny
El is much like an atom when it comes to photography. Both are
graceful and sedate in their natural environments, but the moment
you snap a picture, they appear to be bouncing all over the place. |
|
|
|
Jessie
Magee
She arrived at the party, weary
from a long day at work. She's sure her fatigue will prevent
her from enjoying the festivities. Twenty minutes and a broken
toilet seat later, there's no containing her.
|
|
|
|
K-Funk
He's cutting across the park on
his bicycle when a mounted officer approaches. The policeman
brings the horse to a stop directly in from of K-Funk's path.
"I'm sorry," K-Funk says, timidly looking up at the
constable. "Did I do something wrong?" The officer
removes his sunglasses, smiles and says, "I'm gonna cut you,
hippie!" |
|
 |
Marat Gray
The aspiring thespian walks into
the collegiate theatre with a song in his heart. He's still
merry from changing his last name to Gray from
Yerussikyonovostoblokodeyochevosky. He didn't want to reject
the family name that had been traced all the way back to
Fictitiousland, Europe, but no one could ever spell it properly and
he grew weary of correcting them. No matter. 'Things are
looking up,' he thinks. That's when he stops dead
in his tracks. The theatre company has hung the new poster for
the play he's starring in. It reads: "Marat Grey." |
|
 |
Dave Conover
He sits down at the nightclub
table with the briefcase of imperial opium in his hands.
Conover glances warily at Yakuza Boss Hung Well before passing the
item to him. "And now for your end of the bargain,"
Conover says. "Give me the print of 'London After
Midnight'." Boss Well barks an order in Japanese and seven
flunkies whip out their weapons and aim them at Conover. Boss
Well smiles smugly as Conover struggles to find a way out of his
deathtrap. In a nearby aquarium, a hagfish is about to succeed
in freeing itself from it's prison. The lackeys cock their
weapons. A bead of sweat runs down Conover's forehead.
Behind them all, the aquarium glass begins to crack... |
|
|
|
James
"Jaime" Neat
He bursts from the rear theatre
doors, his neck spurting blood all over his garish shirt/tie
combination. Crawlin' Joe had delivered a fatal bite
wound. He wishes he had stuck to using nacho traps to
capture the creature. His callousness would be the death of
him now. With his last ounce of strength, he pulls himself up
and into the Micmac burial dumpster in the parking lot. It's
mephitic juices had resurrected him before. They would surely
do so again.
|
|
|
|
Bryan Senteney
He wanders down the produce isle
of the supermarket, looking for power mushrooms. Nearby,
a nubile young girl in a Catholic school uniform drops her bag of
celery. She leans over to pick it up, her skirt lifting to
reveal that she isn't wearing anything underneath. Senteney
zips to her side. "Excuse miss, but would you object if
with this I help?" She giggles and blushes. Behind
Senteney, a bagboy strips, mutates into a horned demon with multiple
genitalia and tears towards him screaming, "She's
mine!" Senteney smiles and says, "Correct me if I'm
wrong, but have I am sensing a challenge?" The two leap
through the ceiling into the sub-stratosphere and a battle royale
ensues.
|
|
|
|
Garrett McGill
He ambles through the hotel in a
confused state. The call had come over his radio that a
ventilation job was in the building, yet he'd been searching for
over an hour and hadn't met anyone who knew why he was called.
Foolishly, he enters the ballroom. Present are approximately
two hundred clowns. They're huddled around a ventriloquist
dummy that is gagged and bound to the grand piano. Garrett
attempts to exit. The door is shut and locked. The
clowns smile as the lifeless, wooden eyes of the dummy turn to glare
at Garrett. He knows their secret now.
|
|
 |
Joe Brown
He stares at the cabalistic
cardboard box sitting on his desk. Five minutes earlier, it
had been brought to him by one of his minions. It was leaking
a viscous red liquid, causing quite a stir among the neurotic
sorters. However, his calm is not mitigated. He takes a
knife and slowly cuts the lid open. A smell like that of an
alluvial bog is unleashed. He peeks inside and gasps. He now
knows the last digit of pi.
|
|
 |
Casual John
He stared at the twinkling
lights in the sky for what seemed like an eternity. He was
familiar with the appearance of most aircraft in the sky, but this
particular pattern of flight illumination confounded him. Behind
him, something large rustles in the woods. He strains to make
out the source of the noise, but it is too dark. His watch
beeps, indicating that it is midnight. Before he can react, he's
in church and the Cardinal Richleau is displeased. |
|
 |
Dan, the
"Bunny Man"
He sighs as Verne hands him
another English lop to tag. As the tattooing machine crimps
the rabbit's ear, it lets out a bloodcurdling scream. Across
the complex, almost five hundred lagomorphs follow suit. Blood
trickles out of Dan's ear, he shakes his head violently. The
cacophony of screeches is changing him.
|
|
 |
Adam Greenjeans
He walks down an alley, with a
smile on his face and a song in his heart. He'd just told of
Gallagher and now he hadn't a care in the world. On the ground
ahead lies a elderly, black wino. "Please help me sir.
I'm a victim of Hurricane Katrina," the beggar pleads.
Adam's grin widens, he stifles a laugh. As he prepares to
comment on the reprobate's predicament, a freak storm builds
overhead. Lightning is imminent.
|
|
 |
Jesse Stephenson
Beads of 80 proof sweat form on
his brow as he confronts a crowd of his cronies in the garage that
doubles as his engineering laboratory. He's been on a
three-day tequila bender and the fury the bottle failed to quench is
about to be unleashed upon all present. He holds up the second
photo of the evening and shouts, "Exhibit B! Another photograph
of me, without my moped!" A grizzled, crud-encrusted
curmudgeon turns to the person next to him and whispers in his
ear. "Is this something you can share with the rest of us
Beardsly?!" cries Stephenson. Beardsly shakes his head
and Stephenson continues on his apoplectic tirade until the moon
turns as black as sackcloth. |
|
