Party All Night

   The police kept it quiet for a long time. They even held me in protective custody for a while so I wouldn't talk. It was so bizarre that they felt it would cause a panic, and they couldn't have that. But now, I'm out, and I'm gonna tell it all to whoever will listen. Fuck the police.

   This whole thing went down two weeks ago at the Bernard house on Glass Street. It was supposed to be the biggest party of the year. People were handing out flyers left and right, a week in advance. It was getting close to Halloween, actually. Yeah... it was a costume party. Go figure. No one would ever think to do something like that, right?

   So, anyway, Lucille Bernard, the most popular girl in school, was throwing it. Her parents were loaded like a hundred-round fifty cal'. If I remember correctly, when I first walked into the drive, I saw five different Porsches and a Lamborghini. She kept on saying that it would be the most memorable party of all time. I had no idea what she was talking about, though. If the party was going to be as great as she claimed, I figured people would have a hard time remembering. You know how those things go, after all.

   On friday, the night of the party, she had a few jocks sneak into the administrative office of the school to announce it over the intercom. "Hey! Camden High! Party at Lucille's tonight! Party 'til ya die! OWWW!" Their words were all too appropriate.

   Me and my late best friend, Roger Jandel, weren't gonna go at first. We weren't really a part of the "in-crowd", but I tutored Lucille during study halls, because I had been assigned to her as a teaching assistant. On the day of the party, she passed her Biology test and so she extended an invitation my way. "Bring a friend, it'll be rockin'", she said. "Hmm... I suppose I could swing by. Got nothing else to do tonight.", I replied.

   We parked just a few houses down the street so we wouldn't have any problems leaving. I didn't expect to be there long. I nearly fell on my ass because of how far up I had to look to see the very top of her house. It was more like a mansion. We were greeted at the door by a buzzed Frankenstein (The scientist, not the monster). "Come on in, bros! Grab a beer, it's time to get down!" We brushed past him and headed over to the back patio where a few of our acquaintances were rambling on about something that I can't quite remember. It might have been the newest Murderking game, but that's speculation at this point.

   It was truly a wild party. The music was loud. The amount of alcohol present was mind-boggling. Honestly, I don't know how the police weren't called in before the massacre happened. The kids at my high school have no common sense, because there were already people blacked out on the lawn by 9:00. The debauchery proceeded through the night.

   It wasn't until about 11 that I noticed I hadn't seen Lucille once during the party. I figured that I should have at least thanked her for inviting me, so I began to look for her, leaving Roger behind in the yawning maw of teenage socialites. I searched all the way around the pool and the first floor before squeezing my way upstairs. It was a different scene entirely up there. The air was... menacing. And it was completely dark, except for a tiny strip of light glowing under the last door on the left. Now, I know how parties are. I've seen enough movies, so I took caution and knocked on the door. You never know what kind of sick display is waiting for you on the other side.

   The knock went unanswered, but I couldn't hear anything, and by then I was just curious. Cracking the door ever so slightly, I announced that I was entering. Still, the room was silent, so I went on in. Apparently it was Lucille's room, or what was left of it. What I saw in there was just horrible. There were five badly-cut people sitting around a pentagram drawn with a grease pencil on the hardwood floor. I approached them and checked to see if they were alive. None of them were. I couldn't see who they were because of how bad their faces were destroyed. It was almost as if something had chewed each of their heads up with a thousand tiny teeth, giving them the appearance of ground beef.

   The only way I was able to identify the host of the party was her gold necklace. It was Lucille, alright. Laying lopsided with her guts strewn all over the place. She was missing most of the fingers on her left hand, as well. I couldn't even begin to imagine what had gone on. It seemed like they might have been doing some kind of weird seance or ritual, and it had gone horribly awry. The only thing that didn't make sense besides this terrifying shrine of gore was the fact that Lucille would never have done anything remotely like this. She was basically one of those airhead cheerleader types that slept with the whole football team and went shopping with her friends on the weekends. There was never any indication whatsoever that she was a patron of the occult. Things only got stranger.

   I started to head out of the room, when I heard a foreboding hum. It seemed to come from the very walls of the house. The hum got louder and deeper every second, and almost sounded like an agonizingly slow chant made up of words that didn't sound like they were compatible with the human mouth. I didn't like it one bit, so I darted out of the room and down the hall before it could get any worse, but that was nothing compared to what was going on downstairs.

   Roger was standing at the foot of the stairs with his hands hung over his head like a marionette doll. "Rog, what's going on?", I said, "Lucille and some other people are dead, up in her room. What are you doing?" He had a very tortured look on his face, but his body started dancing. As a matter of fact, everyone else was dancing too, but they looked very bad. Their skin was an unhealthy shade of green, as if they all had some mysterious gout-like illness. Roger had to struggle to speak up. "Dude, I don't know what's going on! I can't stop dancing!" I was confused, thinking that maybe he was playing a joke, but the look on his face didn't do a good job convincing me. "What the-" is what began to come out of my mouth when the stereo system started a new song.

   It sounded amazing. The song that started playing seemed like the best song my ears had ever beheld, but the words were in that strange language again, and I couldn't understand any of it. I wanted to dance, myself, but I was able to resist the urge. The beat picked up slow, and everyone danced in rhythm, doing strange and uncomfortable two-steps. Because this was a costume party, I literally saw a whole dance floor full of monsters and movie characters. They looked like they were crumping... or maybe having a seizure. It was some sort of happy medium that went perfectly with the music.

   I tried yelling at the top of my lungs. "Lucille's dead! Everyone stop dancing! Someone call an ambulance, now!" But no one stopped for a moment. Some of them seemed to notice what I was saying, and a few of them even had worried looks on their faces, but still, they commenced their strange shuffle. I ran up to Roger and started shaking him by the shoulders. "Roger! What the hell are you doing? I know you heard what I just said! Knock it off and HELP ME!" He was looking dead at me, moving from side to side and popping his shoulders skywards. "Dude... Can't... Stop... " was all he could muster. It was then that I realized this wasn't something I would be receiving assistance with. I ran to the nearest purse I could find, which was sitting on the kitchen counter, and dug a cell phone out of the maze of lipstick and concealer. The attempt to call the police was a nightmare all by itself, because when I dialed 911 and held it to my ear, all I could hear was garbled laughter. It sounded just... evil. It was strange, too, because it sounded like it was coming from the speaker of an old 1940's living room radio. You know, the kind that people used to listen to teleplays with. The whole family circled around to hear The War of The Worlds, and thought a real alien invasion was taking place back then. Now, I realized, another invasion was happening. Only this time, it was real.

   I ran out back to the pool to see if there was anyone who hadn't succumbed to the calypso from hell. When I got outside, I had to bend over and vomit, because what I saw made my stomach retch. The pool looked like organ soup. There were tons of bodies and guts floating in the water, and the cement all around the pool was cracked up and smoking, as if there was a pool of lava just under it.

   When I came back in, the rhythm of the song had picked up to an amazing speed and sounded much more menacing. People were keeping up, but their bodies were spasming now. I saw people dancing on broken legs, with their bones sticking out all helter skelter, gushing with blood. I pushed my way towards the middle of the dance floor to find that it was the eye of the storm.

   The people closest to it had formed a nearly-perfect circle around a spot on the floor that was quaking. I kept my distance from it, shoving people out of my way if they got too close. Then, the floor started to crack like the concrete outside. Flames were licking out from beneath it, through the crevices. I slowly continued to distance myself from the spot where it was happening, but I wasn't far enough to avoid catching a piece of tile in the forehead when it exploded.

   I must have been out for a couple of minutes, but I don't think it was very long. The tile that had hit my head put me out pretty good, though. I sat up, reorienting myself and trying to sharpen my blurred vision by squinting my eyes. People were no more than blurs now. They moved so fast, that the blood sprayed out of their wounds and splattered on the walls, making them look like a strange piece of folk art. Something had come out of the hole in the floor, but I couldn't understand what I was seeing. Even now, I'm not very confident in how to describe it, but it looked like a whole bunch of floating black spots and it had a set of yellow teeth that went on forever. I figured it must have been the thing that chewed on the people's noggins upstairs, who now laid pulverized on Lucille's floor. It seemed to be laughing, in a disturbing way. Sounded like a choking cow to me, but somehow I knew it was entertained by the scene.

   I couldn't move. I was just petrified. The thing kind of floated into a nearby dancer, a senior I hardly knew who had come dressed as Tom Cruise in Risky Business. You know, the button-down and whitey-tighties getup. His voice was amplified by the thing inside him. He spoke aloud to the crowd with a greedy sort of glee. "Dance, my lovely children! Dance and Party! Drink up! Be merry!" I was very afraid, but in spite of my fear, I crept up to him with a kitchen knife in hand and spun him around so I could stab him in the face. The blade sunk into his cheek, in between the top and bottom rows of his teeth, but he was unphased. He continued to shout commands of celebration to the guests, while staring me down. There was a gleam in his eye... yes, I saw something there that doesn't exist here on earth. It was something from the dark pit of flame, I'm sure. His voice was noticeably lower when he spoke to me. "What's the matter, kid? Why don't you have fun?! It's a parrrrrrrrr-ty!" My body was shaking all over. "What.... what are you? Why are you doing this?" As I asked him the question, a junior from my social science class in 3rd period twisted his body so hard that his torso was separated from his legs. The legs just jerked about on the floor, pooling blood at the waist, while he dragged his upper body towards the keg, leaving a slug trail of crimson in his wake.

   "OH GOD!" I screamed. The possessed "Tom Cruise" just laughed and grabbed my face with his blood-soaked hands. "Don't be so down, Charlie Brown", he said, "The party's just starting! And there ain't no party like a sacrifice party, 'cause a sacrifice party don't stop... until everyone is dead! Hahaha!" I couldn't believe it. A sacrifice party? I mean, come on. This was a party at Lucille Bernard's house! I slipped out of his grip and ran screaming out of the front door, finally deciding to abandoned my poor, doomed classmates. I had gotten pretty far into the woods after half an hour of running, and all I could manage to do was sit on a tree stump and stare at a fallen log that was rotting in front of me.

   I was in shock for hours. The first rays of the next day were winking through the canopy of the forest by the time I snapped out of it. For a while, I was sure I had just snapped, and I went back to the house to see if Roger had waited on me or just left. I got to the front door, and everything appeared normal, so I knocked. I got no answer, and a part of me was content with leaving and putting it all down to dementia, but I wouldn't be completely satisfied until I knew for certain that it had all been in my head, so I tried the knob, and the door squealed open. Immediately, an even stream of coagulated blood came pouring off of the doorstep. I jumped back with a shriek and then peered inside. I couldn't see the floor, because it was completely carpeted with body parts, and a thick wave of the scent of death hit my nostrils and knocked me off my feet. I fell into the puddle of blood that had accumulated on the walk with a splash, and slowly crawled out of it. I was able to get onto my feet, but I was soaked with blood everywhere. All I could do was shamble down the driveway and into the street, going nowhere in particular.

   Finally, about a quarter of a mile down the road, one of Lucille's neighbors saw me and called the police. They pulled next to me and slammed me onto the ground, handcuffing me easily enough once they saw I wasn't putting up a struggle. The first officer who had been on-scene questioned me about why I was covered in blood, but I couldn't speak, and wouldn't for hours. Eventually, I told them about the house, and they went to check it out. About three hours later, a detective came into the office where I was being held and asked me if I knew who did it. "So, you're telling me that you were completely out of it while this was happening? You can't remember a single thing?" I was zoning out, looking at the floor. "I just... I don't know how it happened. That's all I'm saying. You simply wouldn't believe me if I were to tell you what happened." I said. "Try me." The detective fired back.

   So I told them everything I saw, and the whole time, their expressions got more and more disbelieving. Later on, after they had conducted a full search of the house, the detective came back to me with a weird leather-bound book. "I found this in Lucille's parents' room. At first, I didn't believe you. I thought you were completely nuts, kid, but the stuff in this book, which is apparently a family album, is beyond belief all on its own. Here, take a look." I took the book and opened it up. There were a lot of normal pictures at first. Lucille and her folks at a picnic. At a lake.... But towards the end, there were horrors unspeakable, captured on photo. I saw one picture of Lucille and her father standing in front of a basalt altar. On the altar, there was a naked man with three sharpened crucifixes sticking out of his chest, and yes, he was dead. There was another one.. a family portrait, if you could call it that. Lucille and her parents were surrounded with a whole bunch of tall, thin people with goatish faces, wearing black robes. They all had horns. It was just terrifying to see. I kept imagining Lucille cheer leading at the football games. The whole time... what had she really been? That wasn't the worst part, though.

   On the last page, there was a family tree diagrammed onto a piece of ancient cellulose. The letters weren't the same as the ones in the English language, but some of them were close. The only ones I could pronounce were Lucille's and her parents'. The true shock was at the top of the page. I'm not completely sure, but at the very apex of the tree, just above the point, which was garnished with a pentagram, much like the one I found on Lucille's floor the night of the party, was a word that made my blood run cold. "Lucsifaer".

   I won't go any further, because I'm scared to speculate. Especially since, now, I'm afraid for my life. But I'll let you make of it what you will. As for me... I think I'm gonna go into hiding... Somewhere far into the mountains. With a Bible under my arm.

 
 

Starlight

Couldn't take it.

I was at a familiar place. Outside. Sitting at a table. Not proud of being there, I was with a close friend of mine. Others who had shown up were just some people I had met, throughout the year. I had gotten to know them, a little better, over the summer. There were still one or two people that I had not previously made any attempt to meet, at all. Really, though, I could not tell if there was any actual figure that I cared enough about. Sorry, I was just a little bit uncomfortable, for a few reasons.

Things were going ok. My friend and I talked about things that would always matter, to us. We exchanged subtle ideas and just general things that we both considered to be "neat". Actually, looking back, I can not remember anything specific. There was no telling when I stopped paying attention to the conversation. I was interested, but things started to go on. Personally, I thought I was pulling a prank on myself- breathing heavily and what not. Lost my vision for a moment. At one point, all I could do was hear and not listen. Left eyebrow started to twitch. My stomach felt awful.

There it went.

I could have stayed at this point for a while, but then I looked two inches to the right. One of the people I really had no intentions of knowing, was just sitting there. Oh, God. Exhaustion topped it off. A hooded sweatshirt. Absolutely covered in graphic designs. No, that is average. It was just that i was going to have to talk to him, eventually. Sitting in the same area as this man placed a burden onto me. The way things were going, I would eventually find out where he is from and maybe even something funny about his damned name. Questionable ethnicity, that is the worst part. No, that is ok. His laughter. Those awfully regular teeth. Expected teeth, for this man. Someone made a reference to something popular. He begins to laugh. Nope. That was all.

At that moment, I locked my mouth into a phoney smile, rose up, and shook violently from side to side. "Teeth! Teeth! Teeth! Head! Head! Head! Head!", I shouted. These people do not deserve my company. Who, here, am I trying to impress? I, then, leaned toward the man and went ahead and slapped him in his face as hard as humanly possible. When my hand returned to my side, I quickly began to do what can be described as erratic dance moves. Laughter. Ok, then. I turned around, walked to a table, and grabbed two cups of incredibly hot coffee. The two young women, that the cups belonged to, did not react. As I grasped the paper cups, I made sure to squeeze them so that the lids would simply pop off. I took both cups, and crushed them directly onto my chest. The scorching hot liquid would meet my amazing man bosom, almost as if I was going for some stupid "bra" joke. Third degree burns, lovely!

I let my eyebrows drop, as I started to stare everyone else down. My eyes fell upon some white kid who was playing with a knife, earlier. "Give it," I demanded, and I snatched it from him. I turned and looked right at my close friend. Somehow, he provoked these horrible, breathy, screeching and slobbering noises as I completely jammed the knife right into my own cheek. Twisted it. I yanked it out, looked at it, and commenced to slice off my bottom lip. That was when I turned to see a woman that I am very attracted to. I saw her, and I jumped to restrain her where she sat. Holding her hair back, I shoved my severed bottom lip into her face, shouting, "eat it! You dee-zerz it! Gnah on it! Gnah on it!". The fool.

As soon as I was done with her, I hopped off of her chair and jumped toward an empty table. My plan was to throw the table, maybe. Just then- some very old man walked up and continued to unbutton his large jacket. I saw horrifying things in there. This was really it. He was standing there, looking in my direction. No reason for this man to own a jacket with buttons. My eyes were fixated upon the unreasonable visions that began to play inside of his coat. This was the only time that I actually felt that my bottom lip was completely removed. Time had no idea what it was doing at this point. This moment went on for what seemed like months. Looking back, it felt as though all atoms and molecules that made up that moment were taking shifts, collaborating and producing this feature. Slam. His last button was unbuttoned. I really wish I had better appreciated that moment in which Time, itself, fumbled awkwardly around its new office. This next moment was much worse.

The man finally finished taking his garment completely off. Once it was off, an un-mistake-able horror actually spilled from right out of his abdomen. It was dark chocolate Reese's cups!!

Happy Halloween, y'all.

Zombies on the Night Run

I was forever marked as "the prick who squished the greatest pizza of all time," because of that night. A bulky nickname, I know, but it stuck. There was never any mention of the other incredible feats I fantastically completed, no, it all came back to the pizza. As to how that pizza's fame exceeds mine I'll never know.
Still, though, it probably was a pretty fine pizza.

Anyway, the pizza is the least important thing, what really mattered was the zombies. Hundreds of 'em, lined up to open my head like a bag of Ritz so they could crunch their way through my salty brains. Luckily, I'm 19 years old, and quicker than most of the "walking filth" as I like to call them.
They've been out there for years, but I hadn't seen one until the night I was supposed to deliver that magnificent pizza. It was only my third night as a delivery boy, and my extremely Italian boss must have been out of his mind to put me on such an important assignment. I've never been much to handle responsibility, and I assumed I would avoid the entire concept through delivering those fresh, tasty pies. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The box for that damn thing was huge, and it looked cartoony perched on the back of my motorbike. I realized there was no possible way I could deliver this cheesy abomination without screwing it up some how.

As you probably expected, the oversized pizza tilted the bike while I was speeding down an empty road. Only a slight move caused the wreck. The bike flipped over several times, but I was gingerly lain on the ground as the seat slid off. I couldn't have been more comfortable. All I could do was watch the bike tangle with the force of gravity until it finally lost with one big delicious "squish". It made me slightly hungry, hearing the king of all pizzas die that way. The crown was officially up for grabs. If only I was a pizza rather than a clumsy delivery boy I would have jumped at the opportunity.

My head hurt like hell. The throbbing pain finally made me realize how screwed I really was. That hairy Italian bastard was going to have my head for this, but someone else wanted it first. I sat on the pavement, trying to be blissfully unaware of my horrible predicament, when I heard some animalistic growling behind me. I shot my head around to find a tall, thin, rotting man looking down at my head, hungrily. His stomach had a gruesome hole in it where his guts leaked out like a creamy pasta. His eyes were fogged over and bloodshot but they were looking right at my head, hoping to see through the inconvenient barrier to get to the goods underneath. I screamed, but not out of fear; I assumed hearing my yelp would somehow appease this creep.
"Halloween's not for another 26 days, buddy," I informed him.
He cocked his head curiously, and lurched forward with arms extended, reaching for my neck. I scrambled back awkwardly. "What the hell, man? I'm sorry about the pizza, okay?" I ran over toward the smashed remains of my bike, as if I thought it could somehow save me. I anxiously checked over my shoulder to see if the weirdo was following me. He was, but this time, with about twenty of his friends. To my horror, they were sprinting my way screaming at the top of their decrepit lungs.

This was when I pulled out the whip. It kissed the air with a loud crack as I yanked it from the holster under the seat. I had been waiting for this, for too long in fact. I can still remember the day I picked this thing off of a dead lion tamer lying in the woods. I had a terrible childhood.

The first Z was coming up. He was screaming so loud I could barely concentrate on the task at hand. The whip whirled around his next and squeezed it so tight his eyes popped like bloody white balloons. When he fell to the ground I stomped his head in to ensure that he wouldn't get up for another slice of human pizza.

My heart was racing in anticipation of offing the next 19 Zeds. They weren't lumbering toward me, no, not in the least. Contrary to popular belief, zombies run rather than stumble. It's truly a terrifying sight.

"Bring it, you smelly bags of piss!"

I swung the whip directly at the closest zombie, a young woman from the looks of it. She was missing an arm that seemed to have been bitten off by another undead mongrel but she advanced undeterred. Wait, was it a woman? Either that or a really pretty Vietnam vet. Eh, it didn't matter for long. I eagerly ripped the other arm off with frustrated ease. This was getting really fun.

The other 18 went down in no time, and I was having such a great time I didn't even notice the full moon. Warm light filled the streets as the last zombo fell to its demise. I tried to appear victorious to any anonymous viewer, but the stench was simply too overwhelming. Heroics are better left to the professionals.

The only real loss I felt was for that pizza. Such a shame for a heavenly body to come to this end. The zombies didn't even get to guess the flavor! But I knew what I had to do. A garbage can was overturned in the madness, spilling rubbish everywhere. I hoisted the bin above my head and carried it pizza-ward. It seemed fitting to take the carcass of this pizza home for a proper burial.

I shoved the wooden doors open and the obnoxious noise solidified my impressive entry. Gripped tightly in my hands was a silver, makeshift pizza coffin; crudely crafted out of a trashcan.
"Did you deliver it?" my bossed asked, already knowing my response.
"Uh, somewhat. I had a fun time, if its any consolation," I replied, forcing a grin.
"Not good enough bambino, simply not good enough," he shook his head.
"Well, I'll be in the john if anybody needs me. I gotta take a massive stinky," I said with an optimistic clap.
"Well, when you get out I'll whip you up a pepperoni pizza. You deserve something for at least trying."
"No thanks," I turned and said, "I actually hate pizza."

There was a lot of poop.

Teddy Tantrum

   This isn't exactly my cup of tea, telling people the story of how I killed my best friend for a stuffed animal and all, but I can see how it is warranted. This friend of mine, Minimal, has always been a pack rat. I'd go over to his house every once in a while to find whole rooms filled, to the cubic inch, with stuff. He would go to all of the thrift stores in the area every Monday and blow at least three hundred dollars. Can you imagine it? There was everything to behold in the world sitting in his two-bedroom bungalow. He even had a breakfast nook dedicated to I Love Lucy memorabilia.

   Now, I tried to warn him. I deserve at least that much credit. The man had a problem.

   The day the bear came to us, I was sitting on his couch, watching a bit of the old brain-drainer. He came in drenched with sweat, and I could see that the look in his eyes was frantic. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "Blist! You have got to see this, man, I can't believe I found it! It's like a little slice of heaven!" I turned my head sluggishly, already thinking of how insignificant the thing he was holding in his hand was going to be.

   Okay, okay. So it turned out I was wrong. Just keep listening to the story. You'll soon find out what he meant. The bear was actually quite valuable indeed.

   Minimal spoke so loud that he was practically screaming. "I was at People's Old Crap for like four hours, looking for the perfect teddy to add to my collection, so I was digging through the shuffle bin. I kept finding a ton of bears, but they were all ripped up or stained with unsavory fluids. I thought I wouldn't find a single thing. I even gave up looking for it, but dude, I think fate smiled on me today-" I was already getting tired of his spiel. It was given every time he came back from the store. "Look man, it's a freakin' teddy bear! Quit talking about it." I said, exasperated. "No, but you don't understand. This isn't just another one of my bullshit bounties! This thing is far out man! I was walking out of the store, feeling awful, when this guy in a trench coat walked up to me.

   "He was all, 'Hello, what seems to be the problem?' and I looked up at him all embarrassed, because I was crying a little bit. I said 'Oh, nothing, just a little disappointed.' And this guy, let me just tell you, had a freaking scary smile. His teeth were, like, government cheese yellow, and his eyes were sunken in. He looked like a walking carcass. He said, 'What's wrong, couldn't find what you were looking for?', and I said 'Yeah'. Before I even told him what I had been there for, he pulled this bear out of his coat. His smile was wider than ever once he saw how perfect I realized it was. He must've seen it in my eyes.

   "So anyway, he chuckled for a long while, and I just couldn't say anything because I was dazed that he had known exactly what I was looking for. I remember thinking that this guy must have followed me around the whole store, taking peaks at me over shelves. Creepy, but after his little self-indulgent moment, he said, 'I guarantee you, this is precisely what you needed. Here.' And the dude just handed this thing to me. I started to ask him how much he wanted, but he cut me off saying, 'Not to worry, friend. It's all yours... free of charge.' And then he busted out laughing again. I have to admit, I was a little freaked out. This guy was afflicted to say the least, but he had it. He had the golden ticket to my collection's completeness! So I took it, and as I was leaving, thanking him profusely as I backed away, he cut me off again. Dude had a real funny look on his face at that point. He didn't seem so care-free and giving anymore. His tone of voice had changed, it almost seemed like he was pissed off. He said, 'You know, that's a special bear you have there. It even has a special perfume infused with the hairs. Just smell it, it's irresistible after a while.' So I did, and screw me Sally, this thing smells like heaven!" He held it up to my nose and gestured for me to give it a sniff. I did, just to appease him. It was a grave mistake.

   The scent was indescribable, but it made me feel like the king of the world! I was so energized by it. I felt like hopping up and down, screaming like a mad man. It was like I had powers, and I almost believed  for a second that, if I wished, I could shoot off into outer space. Just fly off into the wild blue yonder, like Superman. I was everywhere at once, tripping over my feet almost constantly, in a complete state of euphoria. I didn't even stop to consider how illogical it was for me to behave the way I was. It didn't matter. I was in heaven.

    The spastic parade through Minimal's shitty little house went on for a few hours, but eventually we calmed down. The whole time, both of our eyes were completely devoted to the bear. We didn't know what exactly had gone on, but we liked it. The feeling was so alien, but it was pure emotion, and at the same time it made us feel like robots. As if we weren't even close to being human. The first day was only the beginning, though. It got very bad after that.

   In the following days, Minimal refused to put the bear down. He took it everywhere he went, and he was starting to get a little protective of it. At the time, I was torn within. One part of me saw how ridiculous the whole thing was, and wanted to help my friend out. His eyes had been getting really dark circles towards the end, and he had a constant cough. But another part of me... a much darker part, and one that I had no idea of, was getting a pretty hefty pull on me as well. It was the voice in the back of my head that reminded me how, I too, had wanted the bear the first time I laid eyes on it. I wanted to experience that pure joy. I needed to. The only problem was that I knew he would never give it up.

   So weeks passed. The rift in my mind became more divided, and Minimal had completely stopped leaving his room. It got to the point where I was so desperate to see the bear that I cooked him three meals a day, just so I could get in and catch a slight glimpse. It seemed to be the only thing that made me happy. I would walk by his door in the hall and stop to listen in on him, hoping that I would gain some purchase in the bear's lifeless existence. Some sort of leverage to force my way in. However, there was nothing to be heard. I imagined him just laying there, stroking its mottled fur. Staring up at the ceiling and completely devoid of anything except his livid desire. The jealousy in me simply grew.

   It had been three months since the last time I had seen Mini, and I had been plotting every single day. I actually filled whole notebooks with sinister plans to kill him. Ideas for how to maim him while holding his bear ever so tightly, in the same fashion that kids tease each other when one has something that the other wants. It was insane really... the whole thing. It wasn't any kind of way to live at all. I wonder how I even managed to stay in the house for that long.

   Up to this point, the hunger for what was not mine was manageable by unhealthy standards, but eventually, the levy of murderous rage broke. For days, I had been bashing his door with baseball bats. Stabbing it with his odd collection of kitchen knives. Every few hours, I would press my face gently onto the door and slowly whisper every excruciating moment I would make him experience when I got to him. I was no longer me. I was something beyond monstrous, and I had to taste his blood.

   It finally happened on a Friday evening, after the whole mess had been going on for nearly half a year. I dug through what had once been the living room, looking for something that would get through his barricade of clutter. The bear would finally be mine. I just knew it. Soon, I came upon an old chainsaw. I wasn't sure if it would work, but willing to explore every option, I shook it a bit to discover it contained gas. Three pulls later, and the beast roared to life, ready to consume anything and everything in its path. My eyes went wide with an emotion that I am afraid to name now.

   I had to scream over the ripping sound of metal teeth on wood. "Hey, Minimal! I'm tired of all of this waiting! I'm coming in now, and you're going to give me that pretty little bear of yours. You will! Oh yes!" The    
 door gave way almost immediately, and the blade of the chainsaw was consuming layer after layer of thrift store debris. Once through, I was stunned for a moment by what I saw. The thing that was once my best friend looked like a living skeleton. Minimal was an understatement. I couldn't see anything that wasn't smeared in his blood. It looked like he had been painting his room with it for months. But the bear was clean. No... the bear was pristine and sitting on a pedestal above everything else in the room. \

   He saw me and immediately rushed for the bear. The whole time, the chainsaw had been idling, but still very much alive and I intercepted him at the neck with it. Watching the blade make its slow progress through his muscle and bone, I screamed. His head had been on the floor, along with his lifeless body, long before I realized it. Finally, the bear was mine.

   I brought it down from where it sat, so perfect in its shrine. The scent of it permeated me in every way, and I was in the bright lights of bliss, walking slowly through the gruesome thing that used to be my friend's house. As I got to the front door it exploded inwards, and tons of S.W.A.T operatives came swarming in. They took the bear from me and slammed me face-first onto the floor so they could 'cuff me. I don't remember much after that until the holding cell, when a detective came in to tell me that the bear had been doused in PCP. I couldn't believe it. My friend was dead, and I had gone completely insane. We were on a half-year angel dust bender... The thought made my blood run cold. Then, I thought of the man that had given the bear to Minimal.

   Who had he been? What was his purpose for doing what he did? The questions came relentlessly, and never ceased for a second. I couldn't sleep at all, and sometimes when I looked in the mirror, I imagined seeing him on the other side. Well... haha... as it turns out...

   Oh, don't worry. I came to peace with the fact that he actually was me. It turns out that I had been farming PCP in a safe house down on Monte Carlo since two years before, when I first met Minimal. And wouldn't you know it? The dude, my "best friend", he isn't dead. I still see him around! How could that happen? I'm sure you're wondering. He's really my brother. I'd never kill the guy... I later discovered that I had actually been locked in with an old woman who used to stock up on thrift store junk for that six months. I had approached her with the bear, after lacing it with PCP to get her high, and then I made her take me back to her house and... well... needless to say, we had a fun time. Hee Hee!.... You want to know what happened to my brother? His part in all of this? Are you really that confused? Well, he's not even real. I'm just fucking with you.... I'm crazy? You're the one that took the bear from me. You must be dumb as hell...

   What's it to you? Who cares why I'm doing this?... Haha, what? Is it really so hard to grasp? I just felt like killin' some folks, that's all.... Who's coming up behind you? Well... not that it's any of your business, but Minimal was a bit bored, so I told him that he could do the honors.

Cuties

The worst part of it all was how incredibly cute they were. No other words could describe these cute things. They were so cute. Goodness gracious, for the love of the sweet one, no one will hear me out. I am officially only allowed to call them cute. They have invaded my vocabulary.

I first began to see them, last winter. My little pup began itching a lot more often, too. They gave him fleas. The things would mew around my back yard, in unison. That was when they were cute.

Problems began when I had thrown out a plum that seemed to get moldy a little too soon. I saw one of the cute fuckers sniffing around it. So, what? A stray eating garbage. Nothing new. Cute. Strays already seem to take on a lot of filth. The cute thing picked it up, and brought it to its pals.

A week later, I think I saw the same one peering around. Crouching, hiding its face. It got cuter than the last time I saw it. If only you knew what I meant. I saw it when I was checking to see if my pup had gone yet. I saw the cute one kind of rise up and perch itself on a patch of mud. For some reason, my pup did not bark at it. He walked up to it. Sniffing.
.
.
My dog immediately lost his life. When I saw it, my mouth kind of opened up. I held my hands out, in front of me and wondered, "What the hell?". It looked directly into my eyes, in such a cute, cute way. I think it heard my thoughts. No, really. Heeeeeaaaaarrrd my thoughts. How cute can one cute thing be? I began to think that the cute critter was full of nothing more than, that's right- pure CUTE. That moldy plum really must have made it that much more cute. It ran off, in a cute hurry to join the rest of the cute ones.

As soon as I got inside, I scraped around for the yellow pages. Maybe animal control was the proper authority. Maybe just.. an exterminator. I dialed up the only one with an actual picture to accompany the number. On the line was some ditz asking too many specifics about the critters. I don't know. They would only understand if they saw them in person. A guy was on his way.

After that, I looked out and saw the one from before perched up again. This time, it was in front of the others like some type of drill sergeant. Mewing orders to the others. Ohhh Hell. This is not the case. No, not tonight.

The exterminator arrived. Some European guy with a toothpick in his mouth. Really just European. Not this hemisphere. He had a drowsy look in his eye, almost as if the only thing keeping him alive for the next 24 hours was whatever bogus fee he was going to charge me at the end of this. In his hand was a little toolbox, decorated with whatever the hell his people decorate stuff with. I was going to kill him, later on. So, I told him where those cute cute things were, and he just sneered. I was going to kill him, though.

That was when I got the idea. I actually did hate this guy, so I ran in the house and came out with two newly molded plums to throw at him. "Yeah, you creepy son of a bitch!". I really could not help it. As he violently turned around, the cutie cute cutes appeared at his heels. He was next. Totally did not mean for that to happen. I just did not like his damned fees. For the first moment, I laughed, but then I was horrified. I was in their path.

The first thing I thought about was escaping.. but the first thing that I did was just mutter "y-y'all guys are cute!". They have invaded my speech. I guess I was not next. I was the only person they could reach. Am I really that dumb? No, I can't be dumber than my dog.. No dumber that that guy. Right. What was the one thing we had in common? The plums. Of course. How stupid. How is that even possible? I don't know, but it sure as hell kept me alive.

Hampton's End

Hampton slowly raised his gentle arm and struggled through a loud, wheezing cough. He had no intention of getting the entire class' attention, but nonetheless the sweaty horde twisted their necks backward in an impatient manner, anticipating a significant change in scenery. Hampton attempted to retract his arm, but before he could do so the teacher called toward him in a rusty voice asking, "What is it this time?"

It was then that Hampton realized that he had absolutely no idea why he raised his hand in the first place. He simply had nothing to say.

Naturally, he was nervous. The sweat pooled on the back of his neck and his eyes were as wide as tiny alien heads, the same tiny aliens he used to imagine taking him away from this pitiful world. Hampton could not imagine anything more joyful than leaving everything behind, seeing as he never knew a moment of comfort in his entire life. Every basketball game he attempted to survive ended in an embarrassing defeat that spread across every social platform available at his gray elementary school. His loneliness was maddening, and his insanity grew even at the age of eleven. Because of the crushing emptiness inside his soul, he found it near impossible to speak out loud in class.

It was unbearably tense, and Hampton was racing to figure out something to say. A chubby classmate lost his life in those few fragile moments, for the intensity of the situation was simply too much for his greasy heart to take. Even as he whispered a faint "help me", every glowing eye in the room was fixated in the other direction on the small, nervous boy stumbling through some insignificant sentence.

Hampton began to succumb to the density of the situation, but then he noticed something odd in the corner of the room. A black mass rested, unmoving, out of view from the other children. It was definitely human, or something frighteningly similar. Examining further, he discovered that it was something he knew. Someone he knew.

"He's back," Hampton said with surprising clarity.

"Who is back, Hampton?" his teacher said in an exasperated sigh.

Hampton tried to respond but the dark figure in the corner broke in with an impossibly evil voice that seemed to surround the room and choke the words from the boy's mouth.

"You know what to do," said the figure, the earth trembling with every word, "for if you do not, I cannot fulfill my promises."

"What's wrong? Who are you talking about?" the teacher cried at Hampton, her voice nearing an obnoxious yell. Hampton's eyes darted over toward her, but his vision was becoming so distorted that she resembled a Picasso painting more than a middle-aged woman.

"Do you see him?" he finally blurted out, "Save me from him, can't you hear him? He won't let me escape!"

"Do not disappoint me Hampton. Remember what we planned?"

The room was getting louder and louder but his classmates remained unfazed by the hellish voice. They didn't seem to notice the hooded figure slowly looming toward him. To his horror, no one else saw or heard the unparalleled evil that was taking over the room.

More faculty poured into the room, trailed by the principal who came in to see what the commotion was. Hampton was shaking in his seat and clutching the chair with all of his might. He thought for sure that he would grind his teeth to a fine powder if he didn't die first.

"Hampton? Are you okay?" the principal said in a worrisome tone.

"They are watching you Hampton, you have to do it. You have to do it for them. Do not disappoint me."

Hampton moaned and started shouting to the growing congregation of students and teachers. "Help! He's gonna make me do it! He's gonna make me do it! He won't stop talking about it and I can't do it! Don't let him make me do it! Help me please!" His shouting evolved into unintelligible grunts and screams. The principal knew it was time to leap into action before the situation got any more horrifying. He jumped behind Hampton and grabbed both of his flailing arms to keep him from hurting anyone. Another two men joined in by grabbing his kicking legs. They were stunned by Hampton's surprising amount of strength and failed to properly retain him. He fell on the floor, flat on his back writhing in impossible directions. No one could bare to touch him again, as they thought he was surely dying.

"Do it now, Hampton. I have lost my patience."

The dark figure was standing directly above him now, rattling his brain with every haunting word.

"You have angered me Hampton, do it NOW!"

"N-n-no" he whimpered.

"NOW!"

Hampton slowly rose to his feet. The room watched in absolute silence as he pulled a deck of cards from his denim jacket. He removed the cards from the plastic container and quickly shuffled them. After he was finished with the cumbersome preparation he held the cards out toward the principal, expecting him to take the lead. Hampton broke the silence with an eerily deadpan statement.

"Pick a card."

Reluctantly, the principal reached toward the most dog-eared card in the deck and pulled it from Hampton's tight grip. It was a four of diamonds. He found it surprisingly difficult to memorize the simple card's easily recognizable features under such bizarre circumstances. The principal could feel the eyes of every person in the room glaring at the back of his neck. He placed the card back in the deck and watched as Hampton shuffled the cards once again. This time he kept his eyes forward, as if he was watching some invisible force guide him through the process. In one swift motion, Hampton raised the stack of cards and threw them in every possible direction. Cards rained down all throughout the room, littering the floor as they fell. As each card gracefully flowed through the air, one stubborn card drew everyone's attention. It was a four of diamonds, stabbed into a desk by a pencil.

Immediately after the full shock of the incredible trick set in, Hampton's limp body slammed against the floor, dead. Everyone stared at the young boy's motionless corpse in disbelief. The principal turned to a student and said with a cockeyed smile "It was a pretty good magic trick though."

Cereal Creep

I've always been a skeptic about the supernatural. Everyone is so quick to believe in spectres and vamps, but I never bought it for a second. Of course, that all changed last night. Every monster you've ever heard of is real.
It was the very first day of October, and I had been experiencing bowel problems. Don't smirk. Don't laugh and call me an idiot. You have no idea what I've been through.
I was out getting some groceries, and I had nearly everything on my list by the time I had reached the chip and salsa aisle. That's when I saw it. A little red biped. It was about the size of a seven-month-old fetus, and it was tearing bags of Lays into shreds and wallowing in the resultant pile of crisps. I couldn't believe my eyes. It seemed that I was, in fact, beholding my first daemon.
I walked toward where it was laying, delighted in the novelty of it... I thought it was just a sophisticated toy from the other side of the store. At first, it was oblivious to my presence, but when I reached down to pick it up, it let out a horrible shriek and had crawled up my arm before I could react. Upon reaching my neck, it sunk its teeth deep into the muscle, and I could feel fire snaking through my capillaries from the venom of it.
I cried out for help, but it was a strange time of day for shopping (I try to avoid people at all costs) and there was no one around to hear. I grabbed the wretched thing and somehow managed to toss it to the far end of the aisle. It landed on its feet, but stood absolutely still, regarding me with its sparkling black eyes before skittering out of sight.
At this point, groceries were of no concern to me, so I made my way to the front door with haste. Oddly enough, there was no one at the cash registers or anywhere else that I could see.
I fell through my front door, once I was home, and went straight to the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom, breathing so heavily that I could have passed out on the spot. The hydrogen peroxide didn't sting at all when I applied it, but the bite looked nasty. Pieces of flesh and tendon were draped from it so that it looked like skin curtains. Luckily, my jugular had remained unscathed.
You can understand how dazed I was, having just been bitten by a daemon, so it's not that strange to think that I could have forgotten the whole event immediately after bandaging myself up and sitting down on the couch to watch my favorite show, Desperate Housewives. Thirty minutes into this most decadent form of entertainment, the whole thing couldn't have been further from my mind.
Later, however, I began to feel strange. My skin had an odd pink tinge to it, and my eyelids felt heavy, as if they were made of lead. I had a splitting headache. A thunderstorm commenced inside of my skull. I went into the kitchen to get some aspirin, and as I entered, I caught the flicker of a shadow in the corner of my eye. I jerked my head toward the place it had been, but I saw nothing.
I took the pills and looked into the fridge for some yummy snacks. Maybe a bit of ice cream, I had been a little depressed. I was elbow-deep into getting it, when I heard the front door squeal open. Dropping the tub of rocky road on the floor, I rushed to the sound and there it was. The little daemonic nightmare was back, standing just inside the frame, glaring.
"Look here, you little prick. You've already bitten me, and caused a reasonable amount of trauma. What do you want?" I didn't expect something so infantile in nature to have a response to this, but the words came out all the same, sounding rather sophisticated no less. "Francis. Me and my friends-" I quickly observed my surrounding to find that there were all respects of monsterhood represented, obscured by the shadows of my antique sitting room. There were gheists, zommies, vamps, spectres, and maniac turtle people. They were smiling in a most queer way. "-We've come here to inform you of something. You are becoming a monster."
I didn't know what to say, stunned as I was, but at that moment, I thought they were pulling my chain. "Quit all of that voodoo talk you're speaking. There's no way I'm a mon-mon. You guys just don't exist. I'm losing my mind due to extreme isolation, that's all", I said. They let out a rampant wave of wicked laughter. The little daemon spoke again. "Please, Francis, don't get all bent out of shape. You're becoming a creep. We're here... well, um... I'm here to apologize for biting you. They're here because we have to help you into your transition.
"When you caught me back there at the mart, I was in a frenzy... I don't.. erm... know why. The doctors say that I may have a mental illness, but that's beside the point. You startled me, you know? And, um, I just didn't know how to handle it. We're rarely seen by humans, so it was kind of like Cringemas to me. The only thing I could think to do was bite you... Couldn't contain... myself.
"So, anyway. Now that you've been bitten, you're turning into a monster. Being a daemon, my bite is venomous, you see... The poisons are spreading through your system at an accelerated pace, re-arranging your molecules and DNA into a freaky sort of Spook-algorithm. That's how monsters are made after all..." I didn't know what to do. I kept telling myself that none of it was real, but the whole time the little bastard was explaining these things, I was getting an insatiable itch on both sides of my neck and skull and my eyes were becoming so heavy that I could feel the lids sagging. I was also getting more air through my nose as if my nostrils were widening.
"If I'm really turning into a monster", I said, "I guess there would be a definite way to tell. I'm going to check myself in the mirror." As I walked away to the bathroom, I could feel the daemon tugging on my pants. "No! I don't recommend that just yet, Francis! You won't be pleased with what you see!" he insisted. I had to see. Suddenly, none of this seemed nearly as impossible as I thought it was. My hands were looking a bit too pink, as I held them in front of my face.
In the mirror, I saw something horrible. So much so, that I turned around to see if it was behind me, using the logic that I might have turned into a vamp, and no longer had a reflection. However, there was no such luck. The thing was me. A thick-headed lummox with mongoloid features and a neon-pink hue. there were huge bolts coming out of my neck, and a steam whistle coming out of my right temple. From my left, jutted a steam gauge. My eyes were bordered by riveted steel circles. They looked like glasses for some kind of welder nerd.
I screamed so loud, that one of the boggermen in the hall beyond the bathroom curled into a crisp, as if he were a burnt piece of paper. "Francis! Please!" the daemon said, "Come to your senses! It will be alright, I assure you!" But it wouldn't be alright. This was not going to work out. I found myself in a rage so lively, that I blacked out, completely unaware of my actions until an hour later when I found myself in the studio apartment of a painter.
I had been screaming and smashing his supplies. There were easels in ruin, and paint slathered all over the walls. I saw a gangly man cowering in a corner, doubled over and gripping himself in the fetal position. I was able to calm myself down enough to speak. "What's going on?" The man looked up and sniffled a little bit, as if he'd been crying. "Are you joking right now?" he asked, "You mean.. You're not going to sodomize and murder me?" I was a tad bit taken aback. "What?! No, man... no way. I don't even remember being here."
He eased himself a little and stood up, but still appeared distrustful of me. "You were just on the fringe of destroying my studio. Well, now that you're speaking complete sentences, I guess you can be considered somewhat reasonable... but... What are you?" I paused for a moment. "I really don't know for sure. Am I still pink and abhorrent?" "Well, yeah dude. What's your name?" I stopped to consider it, and realized that I didn't exactly remember. "Well, what's your story?" he asked. "I got bit by a bloody daemon in the chip and salsa aisle of the mart. It turned me into this... thing." "You mean you're a human under there?" He seemed to have an incredulous tone. "Yes, actually. Or at least I was... I don't know so much about now, but..."
The guy had become cocky as much as comfortable with me and overstepped his bounds. I suppose he had always wanted to slap a monster, and he figured that since I was once human, I wouldn't do anything more than initiate a shove match. He was wrong.
I reeled backwards from the strike, and became enraged once more, slamming his head into the drywall until he lost consciousness. He fell limp to the ground, and just as I went to stomp his head into a puddle of brain-jelly, I heard an ethereal rumbling coming from my tummy. I had a menacing hunger, so I went into his kitchen to find nothing but blank cereal boxes. I looked inside and they had these wonderful berry-flavored puffs resting inside. One handful, and I was ravenous, literally tearing the entire kitchen to shreds in search of more.
Hours later, after consuming about six hundred boxes, I found (to my amazement) that I was full. No longer bloodthirsty, I moseyed home.
The monsters and daemon were in my living room, eating all of my food, but I was no longer in shock, so I simply sat down to join them. The daemon looked up at me and smiled. "So... Did you find your chi out there?", he asked. "Well, you could say that", I said, and we all laughed and finished the rest of the third season of my favorite show.
As for how I ended up... Where I went after that day, well, that's really none of your concern... What? Don't give me that malarkey!... Oh, alright. Well, I'm not going to tell you where I am these days, but if you're really curious, just go into your local Krogwe or Mart Mart and head on down to the cereal aisle. Look for the picture of a big, pink, goofy mon-star on the front of a box with the word "Frankenberry" over the top... Damn right I'm real! What did you think? The Count... Booberry.. Them too.
Okay, sure, it's not the most glamorous life, but I've got fans. I even kind of like being this thing now. But take some advice: If you ever see a little daemon fetus rustling around in the Original Lays, run. Run like a bat out of hell.