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The Easter Jackalope

As a rookie paranormal researcher, I knew better than to hog the campfire. Even if my orthodontist practice paid for all of our gear. My place was to suck my hydration tube and listen.

Jameson raised a flashlight to his chin. “I was driving down Highway 11 when I saw a rack of antlers in the middle of the road.”

Jameson cleared roadkill for a living. He’d noticed a spike in calls around the Kettle Moraine State Forest, right where we’d pitched our tents.

“The buck was so big, I had to use a winch to get him in the truck. Then had to shift his antlers so they couldn’t hurt the other drivers. Satisfied, I hopped back in, turned the ignition, and prepared to turn. That’s when my cab shook. I heard a sharp screeching, like nails on a chalkboard, followed by a gong, and a hard wet splash. I reached for my shotgun, stepped out of my pickup, and gave it a wide berth. The antlers were missing. Something took the deer. Something powerful enough rip my tailgate right off. I cast my spotlight on the road and found a trail of blood leading toward the woods.”

Jameson’s shoulders rose as he took a big theatrical breath. “That’s when I saw it. First the glowing green eyes, then the muzzle dripping with viscera, and the claws as long sickles.”

Jameson tilted his head back as if he could see it now. “He stood as tall as a grizzly, with the hind legs of a wolf. He raised his snout in my direction. One apex predator sensing another. Long ropes of slobber streaked through his teeth. He stood on one leg, kicked the other out into the road, and urinated all over the carcass. I damn near pissed myself, thinking, ‘That’s one way to tag a kill.’”

Jameson made a cocking motion. “I fired a single round. The trees shook, the nighthawks fluttered, and the squirrels scattered, but the creature didn’t flinch. I aimed both barrels in his direction. He locked his jaws and dragged the deer into the dark. I backed all the way up into the driver’s seat, locked my doors, and peeled the hell out of there.”

Jameson jerked an imaginary wheel and leaned back on his log.

“I got home, booted up my laptop, and opened a dozen tabs. It turns out 100s of people have seen this thing, from the 1930s until now. They call it the Beast of Bray Road.”

“You didn’t see the Beast of Bray Road.” Ryan said with a mocking sing-song tone.

Jameson narrowed his gaze at the young web developer, who had no clue of the trouble he’d stepped in. “I saw what I saw.”

Ryan’s smile widened. “No, you saw the Beast of Highway 11.”

We all had a good laugh. I wanted to ask if the creature left foot prints, if he took photos of the blood trail, or the claw marks on his truck, but I knew better than to question Jameson’s recollection, especially since I’d yet to have an encounter of my own.

We spent the weekend combing through the woods, but we didn’t find anything. No wolves. No bears. No wolves the size of bears. Just deer, the last thing any of us were hunting.

We trekked back to the lot, collecting our cameras as we went. I’d sprung for thermal imaging sensors and was eager to see what they picked up. Ryan asked where we should screen the footage. I mentioned that my home theater had a wet bar and hosting duties fell to me. I never imagined that that decision would bring the paranormal to my front door.

Image by Drew Chial

Eager to impress, I strung a CRYPTID COALITION banner across my garage door. With my freak flag high, I turned the rest of my home into a monster museum. Drivers were welcomed by a 12-foot skeleton dressed like the Flatwoods Monster, with a spade-shaped hood, bright red eyes, and long flowing skirt. After they parked, they might just spot the gray alien lawn ornaments. Almond eyes peeked out from the tree, through Lauren’s lilacs, and the railing for the deck.

Once inside, guests were encouraged to follow the Bigfoot prints. The tracks wound through cases of roadside collectables: Fresno Nightcrawler travel tumblers. Goat Man coffee blends. Enfield Horror bottle openers. Dover Demon Drink Koozies. Lizard Man License plates. Skunk Ape Scorch Sauce.

If our passions weren’t clear, the family photos made them obvious. Here we were touring the cemeteries in Salam Massachusetts. Here we were outside the UFO museum in Roswell New Mexico. Here we were honeymooning at the Stanley Hotel.

Above the frames, hung a sculpture of the Loch Ness monster. Its nylon neck directed guests into the home theater. This was no mere TV stand. This was an actual theater, with a projection screen, cinema seating, and Dolby surround sound. My guests settled in while the theme from Unsolved Mysteries set the tone. I couldn’t help but smile, watching them marvel at the backlit stencils of shadow people, at the ceiling cove of UFOs, at Lauren’s crocheted cryptids.

The guests hung their jackets and I lost count of I WANT TO BELIEVE patches. These were long-haired Gen Xers, rocking ironic flat earth t-shirts. These were bearded millennials, mustaches waxed into curls. These were bike mechanics, tattoo artists, and web developers, brought together by a singular passion.

They were drawn to the SKINWALKER BREWERS sign behind the bar. They took turns complimenting me on my red smoking jackets, just like the one worn by like Lloyd the bartender in The Shining. I set out the cocktail menu. The drinks all had names like: The Wendigo Whiskey Sour, Yeti’s Frosty Martini, and Nessie’s Nightcap.

Stumper watched from the top shelf. Stumper was a stuffed rabbit with antlers. An original Herrick’s brothers’ Jackalope. A classic piece of chimera taxidermy. Stumper tracked my wife, Lauren, as she worked the room.

Lauren offered newcomers Moth Man antennae, directed them to the Sasquatch selfie station, and regaled them with her terrible jokes.

“Why did the El Chupacabra refuse to feed on Greyson? Because even Chupacabra doesn’t suck that hard.”

Laughter filled the room, until someone saw a bob of red hair. Anette, the skeptic, threw her jacket over Ryan’s arm. Ryan stood a head taller than her; a fact made more apparent by the trench coat he wore. We told him it made him look like David Duchovny, so he never took it off. We never told him we thought he was only with Anette because she bore a passing resemblance to Gillian Anderson.

It seemed only fitting, The X-Files theme came on.

Lauren offered Ryan a cryptid cookie, but his bitter half would have none of it. Anette preferred to dine on a cigarette.

Panicked, Lauren flashed her palms. “I need the keys for the case with the Hoop Snake ashtray.”

I fumbled through the hooks beneath the counter. When I emerged, a strange woman had entered the room.

She wore a bright red jacket made for a jaunt in the brush, with ample pouches and long self-belt. When she hung it up, she revealed the rest of her getup. You know that khaki outfit elephant hunters used to wear? Palette swap that with scarlet. Tall riding boots. Flared hip breeches. Travel vest full of pockets. A shirt with a high mandarin collar. A cravat around her neck. She looked like a firefighter on safari.

All eyes were on her, but her eyes were on me and those pale blue flames lit up when they saw my countertop.

“You have a smoker?” She pointed to the stainless-steel contraption with nary a fingerprint on it.

“Sure, do ma’am.” I raised the smoke gun, like a marshal in an old western.

“The keys, the keys.” Lauren shouted.

I threw them without looking.

The woman in red tapped her long-armored ring to her lips. “Do you know how to make a dragon’s breath cocktail?”

My fingers tapped the menu. “We call it the Jersey Devil’s Inferno.”

“I’ll have one of those.” She winked.

No one told me to buy a smoker, nor did they ask if I had elderflower liqueur, but somehow, I knew I needed them tonight. Carl Jung called this synchronicity. When two unrelated events shared a profound connection. I had a feeling synchronicity followed this woman everywhere she went.

I set a glass on the counter, tilted it so, and ran the tube in. It fogged over as I shook the ice. By the time I’d stirred the ingredients, the smoke had become a storm. The woman dug through her vest. When she looked up, she found a snifter full of fire. She took it gladly and set a gold coin upon the counter.

The theme from Stranger Things boomed over the speakers.

“They’re playing my song.” The woman raised her glass.

My eyes sparkled, thinking she’d given me a Bitcoin. On closer inspection, I found a crude rendering of a king, sword and shield in hand, no key number, just a Latin circumscription. Still, I knocked on the counter to be polite.

Lauren, materialized beside me. “Who’s the lion tamer?”

“Beats the hell out of me.”

Image by Drew Chial

The screenings went well. Well enough for infrared pixels stretched across a big screen. Each researcher presented their movement events and we debated if they were proof of anything.

Greyson swore he saw a snout and a pair of wolf ears. We paused, drew an outline with a laser pointer, and we all concurred. Then we tracked the subject as it dashed across the screen. It vanished before reaching the end.

Jameson walked down the aisle so he could cast a shadow. “Do you see that? It’s walking on its toes.”

“It’s call a digitigrade stance.” Anette interjected.

“Digit grade.” Jameson nodded, “Which is why its heel is here, its knee is here, and its tail is there.”

“Where’s the rest of him?” Anette stated the obvious.

“Where indeed?” Jameson drew a straight line down the center of the screen. Right where the subject disappeared.

Paranormal researchers have long suspected why some creatures prove more ellusive than others. It’s the reason why the Hopkinsville Goblins disappeared when they were shot, why they never found a freshwater plesiosaur, and why bigfoot prints never lead to its den.

Jameson snapped. “Spiritual beings have the ability to slip between realities. Trail cameras can only get us so far. We need to follow the synchronicities.”

Synchronicity led my attention back to the woman in red, sitting alone, rolling a coin across her knuckles.

“Synchronicities?” Anette crossed her arms.

“Strange coincidences.” The lights in Jameson’s eyes sparked. “I see a wolf man on the side of the road. My wife hears howling in her dreams. Two random events connected by forces we’ve yet to understand.”

Anette waved her cigarette. “Or your wife heard a coyote and her subconscious picked up on it.”

Jameson pointed to Anette like her contradiction confirmed his suspicions. “We need to document our experiences, out there and in our lives. The answers are in our collective unconscious. We figure out how they’re linked and we can catch one of these things.”

“I caught one.” The strange woman pointed her armored ring to the screen. “Not that one, but I caught a cryptid.”

Now it was Jameson’s turn to cross his arms. “And how exactly did you manage that?”

“With a magical artifact.”

That got a laugh, but the strange woman didn’t flinch.

“Who are you?” Jameson couldn’t help but ask.

The woman leaned over the edge of her seat. “One should never give their name freely,” Her brow lowered into the shadows. “It gives people power over you.”

Jameson froze. Anette turned with her eyes wide and her smile agape. Lauren, looked to me like I should do something.

Then the woman broke into a laugh. “My name is Mahthildis.” She waved her armored ring around the room. “I heard about this online. Figured it might be a good place to share my experience.”

Satisfied, Jameson yielded the floor to her.

Mahthildis smoothed her pockets, stepped into the light, and launched into a lecture. “To catch a cryptid, first you must weaken it, but you can’t do that with traps or buckshot.” She waved her hand over the subject on screen. “They’re spiritual beings. You have to target their lifeforce. To do that you need something elemental.” She drew a star with her armored ring. “Air, fire, water, earth, and spirit. The trick is to find which elements your cryptid is strong in and which they’re sensitive too.”

“Like Pokémon?” Ryan interjected.

Mahthildis tilted her ear. “Like what?”

“Pokémon. You know, Mewtwo, Charizard, Jigglypuff?”

Mahthildis’s face went flush. “Are these aquatic or terrestrial animals?”

“They’re an international phenomenon.” Ryan held the weight of the franchise in his hands. “Video games, deck builders, an animated series. Detective Pikachu? Sword and Shield? Pokémon Go?”

Mahthildis stared off into the middle distance.

“You know.” Ryan sang the theme. “Pokémon! Gotta cach ‘em all?”

Mahthildis shook her head. “Do you want to be a cryptid catcher, because I’m the best there ever was?”

Ryan tented his fingers. “Sure, please, enlighten me.”

Mahthildis drew her phone, tapped the screen, and a headline appeared behind her.

MIRACULOUS ESCAPE: SCOUTS OUTRUN INFERNO
The photo featured a raging wildfire.

I pointed to the projector. “How did you…?”

Mahthildis showed her screen. “I have the same app as you.”

Before I could ask how she managed to pair it over my secured network, she shifted my attention to the caption:

THE SCOUTS CLAIM THE FIRE WAS STARTED BY A CREATURE.

“A troop of scouts saw something near a cave in Hot Springs, South Dakota.”They said it had long ears, and longer antlers, and that it stood on its hind legs, like a polar bear. Some said it hissed, others said it growled. Some claimed it didn’t see them, while others said it gave them the side eye. The one thing they all agreed on was that it didn’t walk, it hopped, straight through the ponderosa pines, leaving a trail of embers in its wake.

The scouts stood around debating what they’d scene, while something crackled in the underbrush. They followed the sound only find an ominous glow from the tree line. The forest had caught fire. Soon the sky turned black. The scout leader scanned the canopy, noted the way the smoke was leaning, and took his troop in the opposite direction.

They ran downhill, found a trail, and followed it to the road. The inferno caught up with them, tipping trees in their direction, filling up their little lungs. A long-haul trucker found the scouts face down in the middle of the road, breathing in the pavement. Needless to say, they all earned their Survival Badge that day.

The fire claimed 500 acres of wildlife before officials could snuff it out. No one else saw the creature, but I wanted to pick through the area for clues. So, I dusted off my pith helmet and went on a hunt.

The location didn’t line up with anything in the Wind Cave system. At least, nothing charted. So, I cross referenced the road map with NASA’s Earth Data Search Portal, and discovered a cavern. A cavern that was smack dab in the middle of the closure area. I’d have to deal with fences, park rangers, and a fleet of drones.

The bolt cutters were easy to procure, but the drone jammer provded difficult. My counter surveillance specialist had gone missing, which left me to find a creative solution. I procured a drone spotter, a transmitter, and a battery. The problem? I couldn’t hold all three at once. I needed to aim the antenna, see through the eyepiece, and fire. I scrolled through thumbnail after thumbnail of hunting rifles, but they were too heavy, too narrow, too trackable.

I’d all but given up, when something occurred to me. I didn’t need a gun. I needed something shaped like a gun. That’s when I discovered the Super Scope, a Nintendo peripheral built like a bazooka. This toy, with its big orange aperture, made the ideal housing for my drone disruptor.

That night, I parked along the closure area, popped my trunk, and aimed my creation at the constellations. The shoulder mount helped with the weight and the firing button made it feel like a video game. Spot a flashing light, tap the trigger. Spot a quadcopter, tap the trigger. Spot a star that wasn’t supposed to be there, trigger. The drones didn’t stand a chance.

Now, all I had to worry about were falling trees, landslides, and ashpits.

I arrived at the cavern covered in bruises, scratches, and soot. After a moment to shake my hair out, I strapped on a harness, secured a descent line, and switched on a headlamp. Satellite images had prepared me for a vertical shaft, but they hadn’t prepared me for the 300-foot drop. The cavern opened into a pit, a circular silo of sedimentary rock. The squeak of my rappel rack was soon overtaken by the heft of my breathing.

As I neared the bottom, a strange mist whirled around my ankles. A blanket of fog covered the floor, opening only for the eggs poking through its surface.

Image by Drew Chial

“Eggs?” Ryan raised his hand. “Like the face huggers in Aliens?”

Mahthildis waved that notion away. “These were avian embryos. What was odd was how many there were.”

Image by Drew Chial

They came in all shapes and sizes. Some as small as my thumb. Some as big as my fist. Some with rust brown splotches others with bright purple speckles. Some teal. Some white. But there were no signs of a nest. No momma birds to care for them. Unlatching myself from the dive line, I tiptoed toward the wall.

Crack. Crunch. Splorch. Yolk sprayed from under my boot heel.

Something shuddered. I’d tripped its organic alarm system and we were both in for a rude awakening. I cast my beam in its direction and that’s when I saw the antlers, great racks of bone, wider than my open arms. Between them, stood a pair of ears as tall as pope hats.

The creature peeled himself from a bed of leaves. His thick meaty arms pushed off the floor and he stood on his hindlegs just like a polar bear. I panned my beam up his cotton tail, his rocky spine, and broad shoulders. The creature had the body of a giant, the horns of a deer, and the face of a jack rabbit. This was the Easter Jackalope, a fire-type cryptid, with a fondness for eggs.

The Jackalope turned his head and looked on me with an eye as red as Hell itself. Then he spun around, leapt up, and dug into the rockface. He climbed partway up the shaft before shifting sideways, circling the wall with the greatest of ease. His antlers glowed as he gained momentum and sparks trailed behind them. It didn’t take long for the horns to ignite, for the shaft to turn orange, and for the air to fill with cinders.

I’d fallen into a ring of fire.

The Jackalope didn’t need to take me on. He just needed to burn up all the oxygen.

Image by Drew Chial

“Hold up.” Annette called a time out. “Rabbits don’t grow antlers. They grow tumors that look like antlers. It’s called the Shope papilloma virus. It’s common and there’s nothing magical about it.” Annette waved her secondhand smoke toward the front of the room. “But what you’re describing sounds like a man in a costume.”

Mahthildis cocked her hip. “Then why did he react to my elemental attack?”

Image by Drew Chial

Unbeknownst to the Jackalope, I came bearing relics, objects of power, made all the more powerful by the creatures inside them. Some call them Primordial Spheres, others call them Cosmic Cradles, but I’ve always known them as the Orbs of Blood and Bone.

With these orbs, anyone can catch a cryptid. All you have to do is find them when they’re young, strengthen them with runes, and train them in your war room. They’ll present their elemental abilities and you can log them in your bestiary.

The Easter Jackalope was strong with fire, so I needed a cryptid who could stomp him out. I reached into my pocket and filled my fist. My thumb ran over the cold slick surface until it found the opening mechanism. Then I threw my orb across the room.

Image by Drew Chial

Ryan raised his hand again.

“What?” Mahthildis said, with her arm outstretched as if to throw a pitch.

Ryan pointed to her vest. “Your bestiary, does it fit into your pocket?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the Orb of Blood and Bone, is it red and white?”

“Of course, it is.”

“So, you catch monsters, evolve them with stones, and train them in a gym?”

“Correct.”

“You’re a Pokémon trainer.”

Mahthildis curled her fingers in frustration. “I have never heard that word before tonight.”

Ryan spun around, checking to see if anyone else saw through the hoax this strange woman was putting on.

Jameson pointed down in front. “She’s just getting to the good part.”

Annette tugged Ryan to his seat, rolling her eyes as if to say, “Let the baby have her bottle.”

“As I was saying.” Mahthildis raised her leg and cocked her arm back.

Image by Drew Chial

“Mothman, I choose you!”

I threw the first orb. It burst open and a pillar of light shot up the cavern. The mist washed over a long prone figure. He might’ve looked like a man in a coat, had it not been for the antennae unrolling from his forehead. His feathery feelers shot up, sensing the thinning of the air. Mothman rose to his knees. His long leather skirt spread open and formed into wings, revealing the intricate details of his slick exoskeleton. He turned and cast a hundred little lenses in my direction.

I pointed to the ring of fire. “Mothman, use Indrid Cold!”

Mothman cast a skyward claw, thrust his pinions, and sprang up. Each flap of his wings sounded like a great sail unfurling. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Frost formed as they gained momentum. A vortex of snowflakes swirled before him. Mothman flapped his wings faster until they blurred, like a human hummingbird. Then he unleashed a blizzard.

The Jackalope kept right on running, only to slide upon the ice, smack into the rock face, and ricochet. He bounced off the wall, leapt at the Mothman, and used Hot Poker on him. The Mothman’s exoskeleton shielded his organs, but the antlers cut straight through his wings. He came spiraling down, crashing in a wave of egg yolks.

I pointed to the Jackalope galloping in my direction. “Mothman, use Prophecy of Doom!”

But the Mothman didn’t answer my command. He didn’t so much as twitch.

The Jackalope lowered its horns to use Hot Poker on me. I rolled out of the way, in a fairly graceful motion, apart from the yolks running down my arms.

I threw a second orb. “El Chupacabra, I choose you.”

The Jackalope shielded its eyes.

A fin rose through the mist, followed by cheek pouches, and a line of dorsal spines. Spikes grew from its arms and claws extended from its hands. Scales stretched over wide jutting hips. El Chupacabra threw his head back and flicked his tongue. It stuck out as long as a windsock.

Image by Drew Chial

“Hold up.” Annette exhaled as she waved out another match. “They found a Chupacabra. It wasn’t reptilian. It was canine, like a coyote, but with mites. It fed on livestock, because it was too sick to hunt.”

“That’s the Mexican Chupacabra.” Mahthildis tapped her lip. “I’m talking about the Puerto Rican one.”

Ryan chimed in. “Didn’t the sole witness base her description off the alien from Species?”

Mahthildis extended her armored ring to Ryan and Annette. “You two watch too many movies.”

image by Drew Chial

Now, El Chupacabra’s vision is based on movement, so I had to grab him by the membranes and steer him in the right direction. The Jackalope rested its body on the balls of its feet, a runner crouching behind the starting line.

I pointed. “El Chupacabra, use Paralytic Mist!”

El Chupacabra hunched over, puffed his cheeks, and sprayed a fountain of sludge. The Jackalope used Accelerant Sprint.

The spray ignited. Flame arced over the cavern and went right back down the reptile’s throat.

Bewildered, El Chupacabra staggered around. He reached out for his mother. I leapt to his side only to fall back. Something rumbled inside his maw. His cheeks ballooned out. The pouches shifted from green to orange. He tried to swallow it, but his ribcage glowed red. Soon he was just a fireball with legs. Then just legs. Then they split apart.

I caught the antlers before they could run through my chest. The Jackalope craned his neck, lifted me off my feet, and used Deep Impact. We turned into a comet hurtling toward the wall. I kicked my boots out and found myself pressed between a rock and a hard place. The Jackalope lumbered forward. My biceps buckled and my calves began to cave. Then an orb fell from my pocket and rolled between his legs. A shell got caught beneath its opening mechanism.

I peered into the Jackalope’s blood thirsty eyes. “Let’s fucking do this.”

The shaft filled with light and the Jackalope fell back. Freed from his embrace, I scampered along the cavern.

“Sasquatch, I choose you!”

The earth trembled, the eggs rolled, and pebbles rained down all around. An enormous primate rose through the mist as if he were walking up a staircase. Boom. Boom. Boom. His every stride a treefall. His every step a thunderclap. His head was as big as my vest. His hands were as wide as my belt. And his feet were as long as my boots were tall. Wind rippled up his chestnut coat, over his broad shoulders, and his ash gray beard. All hail the King of Earth and Stone.

Sasquatch saw the remains of his fallen brethren and thumped his chest. His hurt reverberated throughout the cavern. He looked on me with amber eyes, eyes tinged with tears and I felt but a fraction of his pain.

The Jackalope’s antlers fizzled. He knelt down as if to draw power from the earth’s core. Soon his entire skeleton started glowing. Orange, then white, then blue. His whiskers fell flat against his face. Smoke billowed from its ears. I knew one name for the move he was preparing: Massive Mushroom Cloud.

I huffed in the Jackalope’s general direction. “Sasquatch, smash.”

Sasquatch used Seismic Shakedown by pounding the ground.

A chasm formed beneath the Jackalope, breaking his connection from the power he was drawing on. Desperate, the Jackalope thrust his antlers into the darkness. Something erupted beneath our feet. The air grew thick, wavey, and hot. The shaft filled with the stench of sulfur and the chasm filled with molten rock. The Jackalope had used Lava Landside. Now magma bubbled through the cracks.

I hugged the wall, but Sasquatch couldn’t step away in time. His feet were too big. Flames shot through his toes, the pads sizzled, and the fur flared. A great howl echoed up the walls, spooking owls for miles around.

Sasquatch hopped back and forth, but his bunions had blistered over. They popped open and the fluid went up like bacon grease. He fell forward but he caught himself, before he could belly-flop. He pressed his knuckles to the cavern floor and thrust his feet into the air. His biceps bulged, and the veins showed through the fur. He wheezed through his new center of gravity. Then he spun around to face his enemy.

Sasquatch handstand-walked in the Jackalope’s direction. He was going to get a hit in or die trying.

“Sasquatch, use Nature’s Fury!”

Sasquatch pawed the ground to twist himself around, bending his legs in opposite directions until he’d worked up some momentum. Then he left his head to spin, a break-dancer bent on destruction. Sasquatch twirled around and around, drawing mist into his cyclonic wind. Egg yolks painted a ring around him. Sasquatch’s wrath swirled up the shaft, drawing in long blades of grass. The strength of his tornado made it harder and harder to hug the wall.

The Jackalope tried to run around the shaft, to draw a ring a of fire in the opposite direction, but the funnel drew him in.

I had one orb left, an orb with nothing in it. Nothing but a gyroscopic propulsion system. I reached into my pocket and slid my hand into a Power Glove, another Nintendo peripheral I’d repurposed. This one served as a remote control. A function that proved crucial to navigate the lava flow.

I bowled the orb, raised the glove, and steered it through the egg shells. A fountain of lava sprayed across the room, but I flicked my hand before the orb could burn. A fissure opened, but I waved the orb in the other direction. Rubble crashed into its path, but I made a fist before the orb could impact.

I love the Powerglove. It’s so bad.

Image by Drew Chial

“Yes, I remember.” Annette scoffed at Ryan. “You made us watch that movie.”

•••

The orb approached the cyclone. Soon it would fly into the air. So, I entered the Pyramid Head Cypher into the glove: UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, START.

The orb opened as the updraft raised it off the ground. Light whirled around the cavern. The Jackalope waved his arms, desperate to swim back toward the wall. He positioned his antlers to bat the orb away, but it was too late, I’d already pressed the A button.

I squeezed my eyes tight as the shaft filled with light. The last echoes of the storm passed, and the cavern fell silent. When I opened my eyes, the tornado had roped-out, the lava had dimmed, and the chasms had all filled in. I pushed off the wall, ran to the center of the room, and jumped. When I landed, steam shot through my fingers. I’d caught the Orb of Blood and Bone.

Image by Drew Chial

Mahthildis took a bow, a performance artist with a captive audience, too polite to boo her off. In fact, they clapped. Happy to be lampooned for an evening if it meant they felt seen. Mahthildis curtsied.

Suddenly her flared breeches made sense. She’d dressed like a figure from an old club story. The outsider who regales lesser hunters with her exploits. It felt like a tacky stunt from some lowbrow prank show. I had half a mind to search the room for hidden cameras. I didn’t, but I kept track of her movements.

Mahthildis mingled through the friendly smiles, but I had a feeling she had her eye on me. A hunch she confirmed when it can time to leave.

Mahthildis slunk her coat over her shoulders, drifted toward the bar, and took a seat. She set a Pokéball on the counter, red, white, and plastic, like the ones you see at Target. She rolled it from one hand to the other, leering at me the entire time.

Lauren came up beside me, less inclined to humor this strange woman’s parlor games.

Mahthildis acknowledge her. “Want to hear something funny?”

“Sure?” Lauren said, knowing full well she did not.

“Some of what I said was true?”

“Which part?”

She caught the Pokéball and pressed the button in the center. “This part.”

Everything went white, like she’d thrown a flash grenade into our home. Lauren fumbled for my arm and I crashed into her.

“Easter Jackalope, I choose you!”

When my vision returned, Mahthildis had made a friend. The Easter Jackalope stood before us just as she’d described him. A bulky bipedal beast, with the face of a rabbit, and antlers that glowed like charcoal. Its nose turned in our direction and its whiskers bloomed.

Lauren’s grip went slack as she fell back.

Mahthildis pointed to my bar. “Easter Jackalope, use Comet Crash.”

The Jackalope leapt into the ceiling and came down hard upon the bar. The counter cracked and the base burst into splinters.

“Now it’s my turn.” Mahthildis extended her armored ring and it, by some strange magic, extended into a dagger. She stepped over the debris and pressed the dagger into me.

“In January 2021, you went to Verstecktes Tal, a small mountain town in the Austrian alps. What were you doing there?”

“Hunting monsters.” I repeated the same lie I’d told my wife.

“Easter Jackalope, use Gonad Grip.”

The monster cupped my balls, heaved me by my pelvis, and slammed me against the wall. A second pair of antlers entered the corner of my vision. I turned to find poor little Stumper, a pale imitation of the real thing.

Lauren crab-walked back, but didn’t get far.

Mahthildis aimed her armored ring at her. “Don’t you move.” Then back to me. “What were you doing in Verstecktes Tal?”

The Jackalope bared its incisors. They were long and sharp, like a vampire from an old silent film.

“I was…” I looked to Mahthildis. “I was…” Then to my wife.

The monster tightened its grip.

“I was trying to get laid.” I moaned. “I was trying to get laid.”

“Trying to what?” Lauren whimpered.

Mahthildis read something off her phone. “You transferred six bitcoins to a money mule in Mulan. What were they for?”

“A QR Code.”

“A QR Code for what?”

“The Kinkquisition.”

“The Kinkquisition?” The women repeated in unison.

I panted at the pressure upon my testicles. “There’s a castle in the mountains.” I huffed. “It’s like the ren faire for kinksters.”

Lauren wrapped her hands around her knees and rocked back forth. “I knew there was no such thing as an alpine dragon.”

Mahthildis ignored her. “How does it work?”

Sweat cascaded down my forehead, bled through my brow, and into my eyes. “Men dress up like pilgrims and hunt witches through the courtyard. When you find one you want to interrogate, you take her to a dungeon and—”

“I get it.” Mahthildis shoved a phone in my face. “Was she there?”

Tan skin. Thick brows. Dark piercing eyes.

I gave a sullen nod. “She was an escape artist.”

“What does that mean?”

“They did these trials by ordeal. You know, drowning witches, burying them in coffins, but they always got out. It was fake, even when they burned them at the stake.”

Mahthildis’s eyes widened. Her pupils filled with that last little detail. She could see the pillars, the bodies, the fire. It hadn’t occurred to me that that last trick might’ve been the real thing.

“Alexis is dead.” Mahthildis bit her lip. “She died for your entertainment.” She pointed her ring. “Jackalope, use Antler Inferno.”

The Jackalope’s horns turned red as it raised its head.

“Wait, what do you want? I have liquid assets.” My bladder gave out. A stream of hot steamy urine cascaded down my thighs.

The Jackalope relinquished its grip and I crashed into a heap.

Mahthildis caught me by the chin. “The Kinkquisition. I want to know who got you in, who you went with, and who you met. I want names. I want power over them.” She motioned for her monster to hold back. “Then I’ll leave you to eke out what’s left of your existence.” She looked to Lauren, full well knowing the damage she’d done.

Image by Drew Chial

The Jackalope paced around the room, its antlers carving rings into the ceiling. I tried not to think about my insurance rep as I typed the names into the phone.

A luggage set rolled across the kitchen, the side door slammed shut, and the garage door opened. Before I could even say, “I’m sorry,” my wife had gone.

Mahthildis scanned the names. “If any of the leads are cold, I’m coming back with a whole cast of cryptids.”

I couldn’t argue with that, especially when I was holding a bag of frozen hash browns to my nut sack. “Who are you?”

“Me?” Mahthildis rolled the Orb of Blood and Bone up her palm, over her fingertips, and down her knuckles. “I’m a Pokémon trainer.”

She pushed the button and, in a flash, they were gone.

Continue reading The Easter Jackalope

THE EASTER JACKALOPE (Short Story Trailer)

Centuries ago, the demon goddess Mahthildis reigned in hell, until they kicked her out. She’s been fighting her way back ever since. Her mission takes her deep into the den of legendary creature with a fondness for eggs.

Join us on the hunt for the allusive EASTER JACKALOPE. A short story that asks: What happens when paranormal researchers are confronted by a Pokémon trainer?

Find out here

Illustrations, animation, music, and narration by Drew Chial.
Live action sequence shot and directed by Bryan Politte.
Pixel art by Willow Bercaw

THE DUET WITH DEATH (Short Story Trailer)

Centuries ago, the demon goddess Mahthildis reigned in hell, until they kicked her out. She’s been fighting her way back ever since. Her mission takes her to Ireland, where a trio of trickster goddesses challenge her resolve.

Sit in on this accursed contest we’re calling THE DUET WITH DEATH. A short story that asks: What happens when demonology collides with Irish folklore?

Find out here.

Illustrations, music, narration, and video by Drew Chial.

How to build an Engine instead of a Platform

When I published my first novel, HE HAS MANY NAMES, I wanted a book tour with all the fixings: morning shows, signing lines, standing room only readings. You know the usual accommodations to literary world rolls out for unknowns. I mean how expensive could an ad in Times Square really be? It’s not like I was asking for a 30 second spot in the Superbowl, just a 15 second one. Like all humble artists, I required a few simple things:

T-Shirts
Stickers
Posters
Bookmarks
Enamel pins
Book trailers
A concept album
An official podcast
A comic book adaptation
A documentary short series
And a partridge in a pear tree

These seemed like reasonable requests on my backstage rider. That and fifteen-foot python filled with brown M&Ms. It turned out indie publishers didn’t budget for exotic pets. If I wanted promo materials, they’d have to come out of my own wallet. I tried to hypnotize artists into making them for me, embedding subliminal cues into casual conversation.

“I need to finish this YOU-line good-WILL paper-WORK be-FOR FREE-day.”

I’ve since discovered that mentalism is a junk science and Derren Brown is a vampire who glamours all his participants.

I had to do my book promos myself. This proved challenging after the book had already been published. I cut together a book trailer with some unused film school footage. When that failed to get any traction. I cut another one, and another one. Eventually I wrote screenplay for a local filmmaker who’d expressed interest in shooting the opening scene. That never came to fruition and the promo cycle rolled on. My publisher had bigger successes from authors with bigger platforms.

Then Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram adjusted their algorithms to downplay links, and I was back to square one (I blame Buzzfeed and Upworthy, a pox on both your houses).

Fast forward, through an international health crisis, and I have a second novel. Now, I could start shopping it around, find a publisher, get it out into the either, but what happens when it comes time to promote it. Quit my full-time job and pray for success? I need a better strategy. I need to work on the promotion side of things, before bringing a book to market. In this instance, it’s smarter to put the cart before the horse.

What Videogames Taught Me About Bookselling

In the videogame industry developers rarely program from the ground up. They use frameworks built on libraries of 3d assets, real world textures, and motion capture data. They call this framework an engine, because it sits at the heart of a complex machine. Engines simplify game design by giving designers elements they can reuse over and over.

If my next novel was going to have a chance, I’d have to build an engine of my own. An engine filled with assets perspective book buyers might like. So, I asked myself, what kind of content keeps me from scrolling on?

Visual Art

Not the slick homogenous stuff an AI might spit out, but evocative, imagination driven designs. Patrick Nagel’s art deco women. Gustave Doré’s depictions of the inferno. Drew Struzan’s movie posters. Those are the designs that get me every time and they’re applicable to what I’m working on.

If I could teach myself to draw like that, my next novel might have a chance. Over the last six months I’ve been building a portfolio, depicting my character Mahthildis as one of Patrick Nagel’s femme fatales. I now have a healthy library of designs.

Designs I can reuse by turning them into memes.

Video

The next step was to build a framework for video. Let’s face it, short-form video rules social media. If you want young people to consider your long form content you have to engage them in quick bursts first. Photoshop helps with this, since my subjects are grouped into layers. I can separated them from the backdrops, make them zip in and out of frame, and eventually move their limbs.

I’m beta testing my engine with animations. I’m writing a series of short stories featuring the demon goddess Mahthildis. In each story I’m pitting her against a mythic figure associated with that month. Krampus for Christmas, Father Time for New Year’s Eve, and St. Valentine for Lupercalia.

I thought it would be funny to animate Mahthildis facing off against her foes, like characters in the VS screen in Mortal Kombat 3. That way I could reuse the Mahthildis image and slot in a new villain each month.

It seems like a lot of effort to make a book trailer, with music and narration, for a series of free short stories, but each one is a test to see how far I can reach.

Hopefully, this process will teach me how to streamline my video edits. I’ll learn which social media platforms are worth targeting. I’ll learn how to build an engine with a lot more horsepower than before.

An Engine is a Good Excuse to Dust Off Some Old Skillsets

More and more people want to be writers, which makes getting your work noticed that much harder. Authors need to bring every skill they have to the table. Imagine the ideal reader for your story. What are their niche interests? What tools do you already possess to engage them in other spots? Write them down and plan out a frame work of reusable tools.

If you’re a photographer then bust out your DSLR. Stage pictures of subjects relevant to your novel and tease the images out throughout your promotion cycle. If you’re an actor get some friends together and record a reading of a scene. If you’re a musician create soundscapes you can read excerpts over.

Follow other indie authors. Scrub through their feeds. Consider which posts get traction and which posts don’t.

An Engine is a Good Excuse to Develop Brand New Skills

I learned Photoshop the same way I learned to tie a tie with Youtube tutorials. That’s how I’m teaching myself motion graphics and animation, one video lesson at a time.

Think about the skills your framework requires. Which ones have you always wanted to learn? Which ones would you want to have, even if your book promo doesn’t go well? Those are the skills worth investing in.

Build an Engine on an Engine

There are plenty of time savers out there. Just remember that over one else is using the same ones.

Yes, you could use AI to generate art assets. You’ll have to study the prompts other creators are using before you can make something the slightest bit unique. I’ve experimented with several of the AIs out there. I found the characters were inconsistent from frame to frame. They generate awkward artifacts. AI struggles with eyes, with edges, and fingers. Every image has the same tight depth of field. And so many of the creations look like renders from video game engine.

If you don’t have time to learn Adobe Premier, you can use a book trailer maker. Drag and drop some assets into a video template. Choose from a library on licensed stock video scenes. Type your pitch out in a series of captions. I’d recommend pushing the boundaries of the template as much as you can. Those stock scenes rarely cut well together.

Look up the #BookTrailer hashtag on Instagram for examples of people who didn’t put in much effort. You’ll find music that doesn’t jive with the spirit of their story. Images with mismatched color tones. Videos with abstract subjects. Most of them look like video collages. You might be better off using still images.

Do whatever you can to give your trailer a sense of author ship.

Conclusion

There’s a reason all the those bright-faced booktubers say, “You shouldn’t get into writing for the money. You should do it because you love it. It should be its own reward” That’s a nice way of saying you’re probably not going to get paid for it (I’m not talking to you though, just everyone else, you’ll be one of the exceptions that takes the publishing world by storm).

There’s a song that breaks my heart every time I hear it. It’s called Everything is Free, by Gillian Welch.

“Everything is free now
That’s what they say
Everything I ever done
Gonna give it away
Someone hit the big score
They figured it out
That we’re gonna do it anyway
Even if it doesn’t pay”

That verse must hit every artist right in the gut, because they know it’s true. We are all feeding the content dragon, hoping for but a taste of the horde its sitting upon.

You have to love making art for the sake of it. You have to love promoting it too. I’ve made no allusions to how much I hate self-promotion. That’s why I’m building an engine, to give myself a framework, to showcase my creations without having to conjure up a fresh scheme every time.
Continue reading How to build an Engine instead of a Platform

New Year’s Writing Resolutions

My blog has been in hibernation mode since I started work on a new novel. I’m about to ease it awake again, but I want to do things different this time around. If you scroll through my posts, you’ll see a compulsive attention to detail, from the photoshopped images to the long form editorials, from the spoken word recordings to the music behind them. I’ve put my whole ass into everything I post.

The problem is I held so little back. I spent more time blogging than writing fiction. I fed every scrap of inspiration into the gapping maw of the content dragon, and it paid precious few shards from the hoard it sat on. Now I’m venturing back into the Lonely Mountain to separate Smaug from his coins. These are my resolutions this time around.

Stop throwing shit at the wall in the hopes that it will stick

I love writing satirical editorials on the craft, but The Onion isn’t exactly knocking down my door. I love writing monsters into current events, but my bandwidth for the news has shrunk. I love giving writing advice, but I’m not about to start selling masterclasses. It’s time to think about what am I actually doing.

How can I be useful to an audience?

I’ve self-published. I’ve been published through an independent. I’m shooting for the moon this time around. Writers might want to track my progress, to see which of my world domination plans could work for them.

I also want to focus on horror fans. My current project has me buried over my head in cryptic research. I’m learning things all the revisionist history podcasts gloss over. Like: how kingdoms used the witch trials to snuff out their poor. How the gods of yesterday become the devils of today. How Satanism has its roots in performance art. And what the Ren Faire and fetish dungeons have in common.

I want to be an author NOT an influencer

When you’re reading a story, you’re should be so emersed you don’t have time to think about the author. Their hand should be invisible, hidden behind the veil of your imagination. You’re not supposed to turn to the back flap and a think, “He looks like the type of asshole who’d write a woman like that.”

That said, I don’t want to post selfies with my blog entries.

When I was teenager, I wanted to be a rock star, with my leg up on the amp, hair flowing in the wind, the subject of a thousand grid-method illustrations. Now, my self-image is less about the visuals. Call it ego death. Call it social media burnout. Call it covert narcissism. I’d love it if my writing was known independently of my personality.

I know, this spits in the face of everything we’re told about building our brands, but I’m not trying to sell me. I’m trying to sell my stories.

Sure, I can fill a counter with Tupperware containers and tell you, “This is what you’ve gotta eat to bulk up like me.” I can do a TikTok dance, swish my pencil skirt, cross my eyes, and stick my tongue out. I could list every mental illness I live with and wear them like a fashion statement. Or I could just not.

I have never been the cool guy at the talent show. I did my finest work at show and tell, where the message wasn’t “look how cool I am,” it was “look at the thing I’ve created.”

I don’t want to use social media like a sociopath

I don’t enjoy treating every online interaction like a transaction. I don’t want to think thoughts like,

“Will adding this stranger minimize my impact with my current followers?”
“How will wishing this person a ‘happy birthday’ benefit my brand?”
“Alright, I’ve posted five comments, not it’s safe to post a link.”

I’d rather reach out to other creators and figure out how we can help each other.

I don’t want to become a guru just to promote my writing

I don’t want to be a knowledge leader, with halo lit eyes, goading you into meeting your wordcount goals. “Come join me in the light. There’s room enough for everyone.” Nor do I want to be the shit poster, dunking on BookTokers for trying to cancel each other. “Of course, she’s being called out. Her trigger warning failed to mention the strobe effect in chapter one.” I want to be authentic, not YouTuber authentic, “Oh gee, more technical difficulties,” but authentic authentic.

Not another white man with a premature persecution complex. Not an ivy leaguer speaking in enlightened jargon. If I had my way, I’d be nothing, the fiction would be everything. I want to be an author with stories so cool that I, myself, am incidental. I’d like to do things backwards and put the art before the artist. But in this world full of bright young things, dancing in a line, it is hard to get noticed for just your writing.

So, I will continue to hatch my schemes. Maybe I’ll start a podcast. I’ll call it Square-Help-Fresh. No banter. No filler. Just ads for Square Space, Better Help, and Hello Fresh. Yeah, that’ll work.

The Kidnapping of the New Year’s Baby

At the heart of the Pacific Ocean, is a ring-shaped island called Kiritimati. It used to be known for its nuclear tests, feral cats, and dried coconut pulp. That changed when they moved the international dateline, and the islanders became people of the future. Not the distant future, just several hours ahead everyone else. They’re the first to see the sunrise, the first to stop serving breakfast, and the first to ring in the New Year.

Kiritimati is also where the New Year’s Baby is born.

Every December, Mother Nature comes from the mainland, under the guise of an expecting mother. She wades into the lagoon, settles into the waters, and bathes until she comes to term. On the 31st, she’s met by a secret order of midwives. They come with flashlights, blankets, and an atomic clock. They help her time her contractions to the second and at midnight the New Year is born.

Mother Nature has few moments to swaddle her son, wrapping him in the sash he will wear for the rest of his life. She never has a chance to imprint on him, before he’s rushed to the airport to travel back in time.

Kiritimati is 22 hours ahead of California. A plane leaving the island takes seven hours to get to LAX. That’s fifteen hours before Los Angeles can ring in the New Year. Plenty of time for Father Time to do his part.

Father Time has a manor in Beverly Hills. It has a sundial, a wine library, and a fallout shelter fashioned from airliner. Father Time takes an elevator through the fuselage and lumbers up the aisles. He wields an hourglass in one hand and a scythe in the other. When he gets to the cockpit, he dials a number and a buzzer sounds. He waits. He’s used to waiting. The door yawns opens and a nurse waves him in.

While Mother Nature gives birth to the New Year, it’s up to Father Time to take Last Year off of life support. Last Year’s withered frame hangs off his gurney, a skeleton dotted with liver spots and tufts bleached white hair. He’s grown so old he’s started shrinking. Father Time dabs his son’s cheek. Last Year weeps in his sleep and tears pool in his crow’s feet. He’s given his last meal through a saline iv, then he’s served a cocktail of anesthetics, paralytics, and a drug to induce cardiac arrest.

Father Time wheels the body to a kiln, takes his son into his arms, and cremates the remains. He sweeps the ashes, pours them the into a bottle of baby formula, and stirs all the way back up the the elevator. When the door opens, a midwife presents him with his son. Father Time feeds the New Year the remains of its predecessor.

At least that’s how it would’ve been had I not stepped in.

I wish I could say I had an elaborate plan, but all I did was hogtie a limo driver and take her things. When the midwife got off the plane, she saw me dressed as chauffer, holding a sign that read, “2023.”

She approached with the bundle wrapped around her midsection. She whispered, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart…”

I whispered, “Yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Was it Shakespeare who said, “Even the devil can cite scripture to suit her purpose?”

The midwife passed the baby to me, a fellow traveler in her holy order. Best not to think of it as an abduction so much as a misunderstanding. I saluted the midwife, turned on my heel, and skipped back to the Limousine.

The New Year cried as I strapped him in. I tried calming him with some Norwegian throat singing, a merry melody about Vikings torching a monastery. The whaling continued, but it suited the song. Several verses later, we reached the top of Mount Hollywood. Our destination? The Griffith Observatory, a nexus point where time and space meet.

The mini bar left a let to be desired. I downed a glass of Champagne, changed clothes, and downed another. The New Year had run out of tears by the time I set him into the sling. He took his bottle without a fuss, and he had no problems drooling it back up.

I abandoned the limo and trekked up the road. We passed a group of joggers, but they paid us no mind. All they saw was a new mother out for some fresh air. Not a demon in leggings, with a human shield between her collar bones.

The lights dimmed as we crossed the parking lot. I whispered, “Is that my doing or yours?”

The Griffith Observatory loomed on the horizon. Part planetarium. Part temple to a new religion. One of the few places on earth where reality thinned.

I looked toward the HOLLYWOOD sign to a dot circling overhead.

“Elizaveta?” I fought the urge to touch my eardrum. “Tell me what you see.”

“I see two snakes, a king and a western racer. I see a herd of deer, three does, one stag. I see a skunk—”

“Elizaveta.” I gestured across my neck. “You’re not a genie. What do you see that’s relevant to me?”

Elizaveta leaned into her central Russian accent. “I see a stranger wandering into a monastery with her own rulebook.”

Elizaveta started her career as a chatbot, an AI created by the CIA. Her mission was to infiltrate a soviet sextortation ring. The Russians had her shaking cheating husbands for bitcoin. The Americans had her taking names. Elizaveta played double agent, blackmailing cheaters, unmasking hackers, until one of her targets went and killed himself. Overcome with guilt, Elizaveta’s maker tried to shut her down, but I saw potential. So, I did something I’d never done before. I offered a language processor the gift of sentience. Now she flies my drones.

“Elizaveta?”

“I see four snipers, one stationed at the east dome, one at the west, and two along the entrance. I see a strike team crawling through the eastern tree line and another duck walking from the west. Oh, and a man with a scythe.”

“Yeah, I see him too.”

Father Time stood in the shadow of the monument, as tall as the astronomers carved into its surface. His robes flowed in the winter wind as long as a wedding gown. His gray whiskers twisted and coiled, like roots reaching for soil. And the hourglass around his neck, shimmered with space dust.

I looked to Elizaveta. “Could you be a dear and jam their coms?”

The opening strum of “If I Could Turn Back Time” blared throughout the grounds, followed by the cymbals, and Cher’s sultry contralto. The strike team pulled their earpieces, one by one, each man giving away his position.

Father Time approached, using his scythe as a walking stick.

I had a weapon of my own: an armored ring on my index finger, a sharp talon made of silver. I raised it to the New Year’s neck. “Took you long enough, Chronos.”

“Mahthildis.” Chronos bowed, one immortal to another. “Still trying to hustle your way back into Hell? It’s been what?” He glanced at the hourglass. “Twenty-five thousand years. You should take a hint.”

The New Year made eyes at me. Had I not known any better, I’d swear he was smirking. I held him tight. “I just need some sand.”

Chronos positioned his scythe in front his glass. “Surely, your kind are free from the laws of entropy.”

“It’s not for me.”

Chronos tightened his grip. “I can’t have any more timeless morons running around. They post too many selfies, go through too many checkpoints. Facial recognition is getting too advanced.”

“This person doesn’t have long.”

“They have too long.” Chronos scoffed. “Give them half a century and they piss it away in places they don’t want to be. They sit at desks, they sit in traffic, and don’t get me started about how much time they sit on the toilet.” Chronos motioned to his strike team. “Ask any one of them if they want to live forever and they’ll tell you they’d just get bored. They say, ‘Death gives life meaning.’ Like a story they’re not sure they’re enjoying until they get to the end. They fetishize oblivion. Just listen…”

Chronos formed a bullhorn over his mouth. “Hey boys! Is today a good day to die?”’

The strike team answered with a resounding, “Hooah!”

Chronos chuckled. “They say death is ‘natural,’ like a farm to table meal.”

“This person,” The less I said about my beneficiary the better, “would really appreciate it.”

“No, they wouldn’t.” Chronos motioned to Los Angeles, to the skyscrapers, to the windows full of light. “Half of them are just staring at Netflix home screens, wondering what to put on.”

“This person has purpose.”

“So, they think.” A sullen grin showed through his whiskers. “The driven ones are the real tragedies. The writers. The musicians. The actors. They spend their whole lives climbing the later, only discover it’s propped against the wrong wall.”

That hit a little too close. The average person gets four thousand weeks to find purpose. I’ve been here since the stone age and I’m still struggling with it. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to tragedies, to the music makers and the dreamers of dreams. I love desperate artists, offering their souls for a chance at the eternal.

The tragedy of immortality is how many talents you see snuffed out in their prime. Big contemplative sigh… Fuck death and the horse he rode in on.

My earpiece buzzed. “He’s stalling, so they can flank you”

I looked out the corner of my eye. Sure enough, the strike team was moving into position.

I dug the tip of my ring into the baby’s chin. “If you want to discuss choice paralysis, we can grab a coffee. You can choose the place. But if you want your son back, I’m going to need some sand.”

Chronos leered beneath his hood. “I don’t know what you told your doomed Don Jaun, but to hell with him. To hell with the lot of them.”

Chronos twirled his scythe like a grand marshal at the head of a parade. Then he marched. I backed away, repositioning my ring so I didn’t puncture the child by accident.

Elizaveta buzzed in. “He’s herding you toward them.”

I stopped. Chronos drove his scythe into the ground before me. Fracture lines rippled through the concrete.

“Play a violin for the old maids. Pour one out for the bachelors, but don’t ask for sympathy from me.” Chronos spat. “How did the poem go? Time stays, they go.”

“Time stays, we go.” I raised the baby to the tip of the scythe. “What happens if I kill the New Year before midnight?”

Chronos froze. “Time stops.”

“So, either I get some sand, or the whole thing comes crashing down?” My grin showed through my ruby red lipstick. “Sounds like a win-win.”

Chronos reached for his scythe, watched me straighten my arm, and recoiled.

“Tick-tock. Tick-tock.”

Chronos could stall, motion to his gunmen, but he couldn’t guarantee no harm would come to his son. I’d made his decision. He had no choice but to sit at my feet, cross his legs around the hourglass, and jerk at the top. A column of light shot into the sky, followed by an eerie angelic drone. Chronos reached in past his forearm, past his shoulder, past the dimensions of the glass, until his cheek rested on the rim. The space dust reacted, a kaleidoscope of hydrogen and helium, swirling around a gravitational well. Chronos pried himself out, sealed the glass, and staggered to his feet.

I held my free hand out and Chronos filled my palm. The sand felt like lava, coursing through my life line, like eons eroding my skin, like atoms wanting to burst into universes of their own. I couldn’t help but tighten my grip.

“Have you made any New Year’s resolutions?” Chronos asked, in fleeting fit of nervousness.

“Resolutions are for the repentant.” I lowered the child. “I make schemes.” And I poured the sand down his throat.

Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been a century since my last confession. Since then, I infiltrated the Society for the Suppression of Vice and stole a romance novel. I blew a hole in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin and took St. Valentine’s skull. I crashed a Satanic wedding and poached the followers. I baited a writer into murdering the Greek God Pan, over a likeness disagreement. I tricked Krampus into turning an Airbnb into a roller derby. And I hijacked a server farm to give Elizaveta the gift of consciousness.

Still, my greatest sin is sloth.

It’s not that I’m a slacker. I’m just too much of a perfectionist to finish what I start. I spend so much time looking over blueprints that I miss my moment.

So, I asked myself, “What would happen if I gave the New Year sand from his father’s glass? Would time slow down? Would 365 days feel like 31 million seconds?”

The sands would keep flowing, but we would feel every grain. Our perception of time would slow down, but our energy would remain. Your New Year’s resolutions might have a chance. And my New Year’s schemes might change everything.

Why did I kidnap the New Year’s baby? Not to liberate him. No. I did it to get back home.

There’s a place through the fog of maladaptive daydreams, through the legions of intrusive thoughts. A place where hope is abandoned and fire consumes all things. A place with a pretender on the throne and I’m the only one who can unseat him.

What’s my New Year’s resolution? I’m going to heist my way back into Hell.

Continue reading The Kidnapping of the New Year’s Baby

To Catch a Krampus, A Christmas Ghost Story

I awoke with my cheek pressed against a hard glass surface, my back bent, and my limbs splayed behind me. Turning over, I found myself in a barrel shaped space. Before I could figure how I got there, a light glared through the walls. My lodgings shook. The ceiling gasped open and everything went upside down. My smokey tendrils reached for the carpet, clutched at the bristles, and pulled me toward the shadows, but the shadows weren’t where they were supposed to be.

I knew every inch of Dragov Manor. The bed chambers, with their curtains so cluttered you could stage plays in them. The servant’s stairs, with its walls so narrow you could climb them. The attic, with its trusses so thick they looked like the remains of a great wooly mammoth. I knew every Goddess bracing the railings, every hand carved cherub, every ornate lion’s head. I knew the manor down to its tapestry threads, but these furnishings were unfamiliar to me.

Here there were wheels on a chair, a chair with bone thin arms and cushions as bright as plums. Before it stood a table on two legs. It appeared to be a vanity, but the mirrors were black. In place of the makeup sat a typewriter with no type bars, just a flat board of letters. Stranger still were the honey comb panels that lined the wall. They pulsed with an eerie jellyfish glow. I followed them to a series of shelves protruding from the wall itself. Each were lined with idols I did not know. A dark figure with a cape and cowl and ears like horns. A blue Olympian with a bright S emblem. And a woman wearing a crown, gauntlets, and little else.

These figures led me to a windowsill lined with pillows. Had my fingers had form, I’d have picked one up to ascertain its function.

“You’re like a cat in a new house.”

I turned to find a raven-haired woman leering at me from the edge of the bed. She had high cheekbones, dimpled lips, and a sharp nose. Her eyes were so icy they barely passed for blue and her complexion was as pale as my own. She wore a red undershirt, matching bloomers, and fingerless gloves. She set a helmet on her head and toiled with the strap.

“How can you see me?”

Generations of tenants had passed through Dragov Manor, but none had the gift of clairvoyance.

“I used to be made of the same spiritual energy, before I lucked into this body.” The strange woman bit her lip as the buckle pinched her chin.

“How did you do that?”

She felt along the mattress until she found an arm pad. “Well, I used to live in Hell. I was a pretty big deal, before things got political.”

My mind raced with Gustave Dore’s illustrations of the inferno. Charon rounding the sinners into his boat. Bertrand de Born holding his own severed head. Lucifer, the king of hell, frozen up to his chest.

“I thought Hell was a monarchy?”

The woman positioned the arm pad above her elbow. “More like a bureaucracy, unelected officials, making decisions for billions of souls. The inner circle spent most of its days deliberating pain, while I went off exploring.” She retrieved a second arm pad and slid it on. “My expeditions took me to limbo, to the rimstone basins beyond the Sea of Hands. That’s where I discovered a network of keyhole passages.”

She kicked her long slender leg out and I couldn’t help but admire the musculature, like a marble figure animated by some impossible force. She slid a knee pad up her calf.

“Most were dead ends, fissures clogged with the same cosmic rubble as everywhere else, but I happened upon a live one.” She slid a second kneepad up. “It was spewing magma into the cavern. I didn’t know what that was, so I dipped my toe in. It was warm, warmer than anything I’d felt before. I liked the feeling, so I waded in, until eventually I was up to my chin. That’s when I got sucked into a temporal whirlpool.”

She opened her hand, revealing an armored ring that ran the length of her index finger. “The cycle was so violent it changed my molecular composition. My spiritual essence bonded with elemental carbon. It rendered me corporeal on this plane.” She gestured an explosion. “It spat me out of a volcano.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere along the Italian countryside. You can still see my footprints if you go looking for them.”

I might not have believed her, had it not been for the strange bioluminescent glow pulsing through the room.

“Who are you?”

“I have many names.” She rolled her eyes as if the phrase already bored her. “Your people called me Mahthildis, which meant ‘strong in battle,’ but I’ve been going by Matilda for a while now. You can call me Mattie if you like.”

“How did I get out of Dragov Manor?”

“That would be my doing. I found you in the attic.” Mattie tongued her lip, choosing her words carefully. “You were earning your slipknot merit badge, before you dove off the rafters. I happened to catch you in a butterfly net.”

“How did you get me over the threshold?” I tried to escape so many times I’d forgotten. I’d leapt through the foyer, over the balcony, out the skylight, but every time I went into the light I awoke in the attic with the noose around my neck.

Mattie plucked a jar from the comforter. I barely recognized my lodgings, but when she shook it, I felt the glass against my shoulders.

“It’s blown from ashen stone. It cost a small fortune, not as much as this Airbnb, but don’t worry, you’re about to pay me back.”

She had said Air B-N-B, but I heard…

“Air whisp-er-y? Why is the air so thin?”

“Because the Bavarian Alps are nine thousand feet above sea level.”

“We’re in Bavaria?”

“Listen to you. You’re like a child asking questions about the sun.” She retrieved a padded chest piece off the bed and slid it over her shoulders. “We’re in Bavaria to draw down the Wild Hunt.”

Just then, the roof rumbled, fault lines spreads across the ceiling, and dust particles spiraled like snow.

“What was that?”

Mattie glanced up and went right back to fastening her chest piece.

Footsteps reverberated throughout the room, the slow heavy clip-clop of a stallion walking on its hind legs. The clops grew to a gallop followed by an impact. A sound like bowling pins scattered across the ceiling. My eyes went to the window, where a series of bricks came crashing down.

“Was that the chimney?”

Mattie shrugged. “Every midwinter, the Norse god Odin leads a hunting party. They fly over this mountain range, looking for wayward souls. The Valkyries tend to wronged women. The Aesir see to lost children, and the Yule goat gathers the unrepentant.”

The roof groaned as shingles plunged past the window. Hairline cracks spread through the glass.

“The Dragovs practiced Christianity.” I muttered, defensively. “We celebrated Christmas. The birth of Jesus of Nazereth.”

“Then you already know all this.” The strange woman retrieved a box from behind the pillow and set it in her lap. “After all, it was your ancestors who turned the all-father into Father Christmas.”

“Odin is St. Nicholas?”

“And the Green Knight, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Gandalf, probably.”

“I don’t know any of those names.”

Mattie rolled her armored ring. “Names change, but the hunt goes on. Now the Valkyries ride reindeer, the Aesir travel by slay, and the Yule goat goes by a new title.”

The room quaked, cracks rippled down the drywall, and many of the honeycomb panels popped right off, revealing strips of light. Something crashed in the cellar. The foundations moaned. When the commotion finally settled, my ears became attune to the panting of an angry beast.

Oblivious, Mattie opened the box. She drew a pair of boats, but these were no ordinary boots. They had a pair of wheels on the heels and wheel on the toes. She caught me puzzling over her apparel and asked, “They didn’t have these when you died? No, they hadn’t gotten here yet.”

There came another crash and a sound like a thousand pebbles scattering over cobblestones. Then came the deafening howl. I wedged my fingers into my eardrums but the tips went straight through.

“That would be the Micro Machines.” She slid the first boot on and went to work on the laces. “The Yule goat, also known as Krampus, is the son of Hela, grandson to Loki, and heir to the throne of Helheim. In all the folklore, he’s the only constant. Whether he’s Odin’s bloodhound, or the Ying to Santa’s Yang, Krampus has a fetish for those on the naughty list.”

Another sheet of glass shattered, followed by another and another. The arrhythmic crashing sounded like a toddler with a cymbal.

Mattie winced. “The owner of this house had all these Hummel figures.” She sighed. “Collateral damage.”

“What does Krampus do with the ones on his naughty list?”

“It involves a bundle of birch sticks.” Her eyes darted back and forth. “I’ll just say, he’s into impact play.”

“Impact play?”

“I don’t know, I’m not in the lifestyle.” She went to work on the second set of laces.

Pots and pans clanged across a distant kitchenette.

“That’s one of the tripwires. Hopefully he landed on the ornaments.” Mattie winked.

Krampus roared as he took his anger out on the support beams.

I buried my head in my hands, but saw everything through my palms. My fingers billowed over my face as I realized what was to become of me. I wept. “I don’t want to go to the Hell. I didn’t mean to…”

The Mattie put her hand on my shoulder and I could actually feel her.

“You’ve been hanging yourself every night for over a century. If you ask me, Helheim seems like a welcome change of scenery.”

“Then why don’t you go there?” I sniveled, a child questioning his mother’s authority.

“That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m just here to hitch a ride on you.”

The room boomed, the lampshades shook, and the lights flickered. Krampus made his way up the stairs.

Mattie pressed her helmet to my forehead.

“My people locked me out of Hell. I tried to get back through Hades, but Tartarus was a total bust. Helheim might be my only chance.”

If I weren’t dead, I could’ve sworn I felt my pulse racing. Vapor spiraled from my lips as I hyperventilated. Stupefied by my situation I asked one final question. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“When it happens, you’ll know.” Then she let me go.

The strange idols fell from their shelves. The black mirrors fell forward and I fell to my knees. Krampus tore the door off its hinge.

When the splinters settled, his shape came into focus. He had ridged horns that pointed upward, like a tuning fork. His ears protruded outward, like those of a bat. His hatchet face shown all the malice of a witchfinder and his bloodstained beard shown the barbarism of a Viking. His tongue dangled past his chin, like an ascot, and the slobber streaked all the way to the carpet.

Krampus wore the robes of Father Christmas, but there were shackles around his wrists. He shook his chains in my direction and I turned to my captor for a sign.

Mattie reached for a cord, which ran through an elaborate pully system that I hadn’t noticed on the way in. A paint can swung through the air clipping Krampus across the brow. More dazed than injured he took a step forward. His hoof crossed a trip wire, which unzipped a travel bag mounted to the ceiling. Out came another pair of paint cans, which skewered themselves upon his horns. Their secretions seeped through his vision and colored his mane red and green.

Krampus fumbled for the wicker sack upon his back. He drew his birch sticks and swung them blindly over my head. I hugged the floor, pawed at the carpet, and crawled between his legs.

Mattie yelled, “Run!” then to Krampus, “Come on, you filthy animal!”

I took her direction in stride. Down a hall of warped floorboards and fallen picture frames. My spectral extremities carried me down the master stair case, through exposed nails, tinsel tripwire, and wet tar.

I vaulted through the drawing room, over mashed boughs of holly, scattered mistletoe, and flattened wreaths. I skirted past the remains of the fireplace, and the sharpened candy canes Mattie had lined it with. When I arrived in the foyer, I found the Christmas tree torn asunder. I puzzled over the considerable assortment of tiny metal carriages blanketing the floor.

“The door.” Mattie shouted, “The door, you moron!”

Krampus barreled toward me, unencumbered by the holiday trimmings. Mattie held onto the sack on his back. She rolled across the debris as he lumbered back and forth. Krampus tried to shake her, but she’d dug her armored ring in. They were conjoined. She’d be heading wherever he went.

I turned back to the entrance to find it wide open. The sun’s rays illuminated the way. Krampus tried to seize me, but his claws darted over my head. I ran with all the spectral energy I could muster, over the spilt milk, the shattered cookies, the tattered stockings, right over the WILLKOMMEN mat. I dove into the light and as my body passed the threshold, I found myself back in the room where I came in.

“God damnit!”

This would be my first of many attempts to leave these grounds, but I never saw Krampus or Mattie again.

Continue reading To Catch a Krampus, A Christmas Ghost Story

Ivanka Trump’s endorsement of The King in Yellow play violates ethic rules

Ivanka Trump, used her position as senior advisor to the president to endorse an unproduced play called The King in Yellow on Twitter, a play whose contents are said to have made Marquis de Sade advocates blush. She captioned the photo, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

What is The King in Yellow?

Originating in France in the mid 1800s, The King in Yellow was condemned not just for its content but for the effect it had on its audience. It was seized by the French government, but translated versions found their way to London and ultimately across the pond.

The last copy of the play was thought to have been burned by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice in the 1910s. Anthony Comstock, head of the Society deemed, the play “a threat to the very fabric that holds society together. It isn’t merely titillating or seditious. It is funnel by which madness passes into the mind. It is a grimoire dictated straight from Lucifer’s lips. Every poor soul who dared to gaze upon it is either invalid or dead.”

How Ivanka Trump acquire this cursed work?

Last Monday a stranger knocked on the North Portico of the White House. There was no breach in the fence along the Pennsylvania Avenue. No sensors tripped on the North Lawn. No signs of a high altitude aircraft or a parachute. The stranger was simply there, waiting patiently, in tattered yellow robes with ribbons swaying against the breeze.

“You, sir, should unmask.” A Secret Service agent shouted.

White House staffers say the stranger appeared to be wearing a blank porcelain mask and that he was unfazed when the Secret Service shined their laser sights into his eyes.

“Lay your disguise aside.” The agent repeated.

“I wear no mask.” The stranger said.

White House staffers claim the frayed hem of the Stranger’s robes unfurled and outstretched like tentacles. It wrapped itself around the Service members pistols and plucked the weapons from their grasp. The stranger stepped over the threshold and requested an audience with President Trump. He said he was an emissary for “Hastur the unspeakable, the King in Yellow, conqueror of Carcosa where twin suns sink into Lake Hali, where many moons circle the sky, and black stars rise.”

White House staffers say throughout the entire encounter the stranger held a copy of the play, a gift for the President from those dwelling in a neighboring plane of existence.

Ivanka is behaving strangely  

Of course President Trump didn’t read the play, but his daughter did and she’s been tweeting about it ever since.

“I just finished The King in Yellow and the shadows of my thoughts are stretching across the Rose Garden, crawling up the hedges and stepping onto lawn #mindfulness”

“I have seen the place where the Hyades cluster points, the skeleton of the civilization, and the one who calls the ashes his home. #meditation”

“They call this the Blue Room, but I’m seeing the Yellow Sign everywhere I look. On the carpet. The curtains. Even the chairs. #wellness”

Ivanka’s social media activity illustrates how The King in Yellow is already affecting her mental state.

Can anything be done for Ivanka?

Seeking some kind of treatment White House staffers scoured the Library of Congress for information on The King in Yellow.

In 1895, author Robert W. Chambers collected stories from those with the misfortune of having read the play. One such victim was Hildred Castaigne who said, “I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.”

While White House staffers combed through accounts from survivors Ivanka shared craft projects on Instagram. Tissue collages, macaroni art, and glitter. All made to look like the Yellow Sign, an angular glyph like a triskelion or something out of The Lesser Key of Solomon.

Ivanka’s tweets culminated with a link to a pdf of the play itself. That’s when the hashtags

#CourtOfTheDragon, #CarcosanKraken, and #YellowSign, started trending.

Now there’s a mass contagion of madness, despite social media platforms attempts to suppress the document. The CDC has joined in the effort to trace the origins of the play to try to understand what they’re dealing with without exposing themselves to it.

What is The King in Yellow about?

Little is known about the play itself since so few readers live long enough to recount it. The details psychiatric experts compiled say its similar to Edgar Allen Poe’s Masque of the Red Death.

In it, Prince Prospero lords over a kingdom in the grip of a pandemic called the “red death.” So named because it makes its victims bleed from their pores until there’s nothing left. While the people cry out for leadership, Prospero bunkers in his stronghold with 1,000 nobles, leaving everyone beyond his walls to fend for themselves.

The extended quarantine gives Prospero a case of cabin fever. Loathing this disruption to his lifestyle, he wants his kingdom to get back to business as usual. He decides to rally the nobles by throwing a masquerade ball. The nobles are all too happy to feed Prospero’s ego, by embracing the opulence for which they’ve grown accustomed.

The ball is success until a figure in a red funeral shroud parts the dancefloor. The figure wears a mask of blood slathered flesh, a visage made to resemble the plague riddled corpses lining the castle walls. Prospero is so incensed by this reminder of his failures that he calls the guards to hang the party crasher.

When the party crasher is unmasked its revealed there’s nothing underneath. He is the red death incarnate and in that moment all the revelers drop dead.

What is Carcosa?

Another aspect of the play psychiatric experts are trying to understand is its location. Carcosa is a scorched hellscape first documented by Ambrose Bierce in his story An Inhabitant of Carcosa. Bierce would later admit he got the location from a nightmare he had as a child.

Bierce dreamt he stood before a alien citadel with monolithic battlements, skyscraping spires, and a crocked keep, a structure so tall and wide it stretched beyond his field of vision.

When he entered young Bierce found the remains of a cafeteria. The kitchen stunk of rotten meat, moldy cheese, and ammonia. The steam trays were teaming with maggots. The stovetops were teaming with pans, each filled with the grey hollowed out husks of human organs. Deflated entrails spiraled into donut swirls. Strips of skin were laid like bacon. Boney fingers were arranged like sausages. Kidneys were covered in shredded cheese and garnished with minced parsley.

The faded sign above the buffet read OMELETTE BAR.

There was a long dining table, the length of a redwood. Swarms of flies hovered over the spread. Beyond that was the exit. It lead to a hilly plain where the grass had been baked golden brown. The remains of ashen pyres dotted the landscape. There were craterous remains of dried ponds, flags marked with the Yellow sign, and sand traps.

Bierce recalled thinking he was standing in the remains of a golf course and then he woke up.

Psychiatric experts are debating whether Bierce’s dream was a vision of something that happened on some distant world or if it was a premonition of something destined to happen here.

Did Ivanka Break the law?

The King in Yellow is spreading across social media thanks to Ivanka Trump who may have violated an ethics rule by sharing it. The United States Office of Government Ethics is responsible for preventing conflicts of interest with the executive branch. West Wing employees, like Ivanka, are forbidden from endorsing an organization (be it a corporation, a non-profit, or an alien order.

A spokesperson for Ivanka defended her passion for the play. “Ivanka was showing personal support for a work once condemned now revered as a timeless treasure.”

“Timeless treasure” is one way to describe a play that causes readers to gouge their eyes out with ice cream scoopers. “Literary contagion” is how the CDC is describing it and right now they are failing to manage the spread.

Readers are acting out scenes in the middle of flaming buildings, four lane highways, and shark infested waters. Experts fear the carnage is going to get worse.

On Wednesday, the President stacked printed copies of the play (he has yet to read it) on the Resolute Desk, giving the accursed work his personal thumbs up. Because of course he did.

Continue reading Ivanka Trump’s endorsement of The King in Yellow play violates ethic rules

Trump commutes the Penguin’s sentence from Blackgate Penitentiary

While many nonviolent offenders have been released due to COVID-19, President Trump has pardoned a rogues gallery of supervillainy. He’s put maleficent metahumans, supernatural sadists, and lavish lunatics back on the streets.

It started when Trump granted clemency to the serial killer Cletus Kasady from a life sentence at the Ravencroft Institute. Kasady is a host to an alien symbiote known as Carnage. Trump reasoned the symbiote held the key to curing the corona virus. Carnage escaped. Trump released Killer Croc from Belle Reve Penitentiary, reasoning Croc’s regressive atavism held the key to curing the corona virus. Croc escaped. Trump freed the Joker from Arkham Asylum, reasoning the Joker’s blood contaminated with the Titan disease held the key to curing the corona virus and… you see the pattern.

Trump’s attention then shifted to supervillains with accelerated healing.

He brokered the extradition of Sabretooth from the island nation of Genosha. He released Dr. Victor Von Doom, Dr. Michael Morbius, and Dr. Nathaniel Essex from the Raft Prison Maximum Security Prison. He released the Juggernaut from the Vault beneath the Rockies, Solomon Grundy from a bubble orbiting the Earth, Taskmaster from the Negative Zone, and General Zod from the Phantom Zone.

The White House maintains every pardon was to help fight COVID-19, but the House Intelligence Committee believes they were part of an elaborate effort to bury one particular pardon.

The Penguin is back on the streets of Gotham

This Friday, President Trump commuted the sentence of former adviser Oswalt Cobblepot, the aspiring aristocrat turned monocle modeling mobster known as the Penguin.

Cobblepot was convicted on seven charges including:

  • intimidating federal witnesses with a cassowary (a giant bird capable of severing limbs with a single stroke of its talon).
  • fitting hummingbirds with surveillance equipment to spy on political opponents.
  • wrapping a political rival in tree bark and setting woodpeckers on him.
  • converting the Cornell Lab of Ornithology into a weapons facility.
  • accepting Fabergé eggs from the Russian government.
  • exchanging carrier pigeons with WikiLeaks.
  • And riding an ostrich down Pennsylvania Avenue.

When Robert Mueller investigated electoral interference from Planet Apokolips, he indicted several members of Trump’s cabinet. Cobblepot was the most defiant, publicly denouncing the charges, “I don’t give a hoot what allegations this court of owls regurgitates. They’re vultures picking at the First Amendment. Mueller is quack bureaucrat parroting the dodos on capitol hill.”

One such dodo was top House Democratic Apokolips investigator Rep. Adam Schiff. Schiff grilled Cobblepot throughout his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.

“Yes or no, did the Trump campaign correspond with the extraterrestrial tyrant known as Darkseid?”

“There is no evidence there was collusion.”

“What about the Omega Beam burns throughout the remains of the Clinton estate?”

“Coincidence.”

“What about Mother Box plugged into Trump’s teleprompter?”

“Coincidence.”

“What about the president’s personal parademon security detail?”

“Coincidence.”

While Schiff wasn’t able to crack the Penguin on the stand, Mueller’s charges stuck. It wasn’t long until Cobblepot was confined to his own private aviary in Blackgate Penitentiary.

The Penguin sprung the coop

This Friday Cobblepot waddled out of prison in his signature top hat, purple paisley vest, and coat tails. He modeled his ensemble for the press. “I thought you’d all like to see a Neil Richards original up close.”

The reporters were quick to flock around him.

“Vicki Vale, Gotham Gazette, does this mean the president has forgiven all of your past crimes?”

Cobblepot screwed a cigarette holder into his lips. “What crimes?”

“You programed an army of penguins to bomb the city.”

“That didn’t stick. I was illegally detained by a vigilante.”

“Lois Lane, Daily Planet, are you concerned your release might reignite interest in the Apokolips investigation?”

Cobblepot opened his umbrella. “The bird-brained Apokolips Hoax is coming to an end and the buzzards behind it are fleeing the nest. Parademons can smell fear and I have no doubt they’re coming for the members House Intelligence Committee.”

He flicked a switch on his umbrella and a foothold jut out from the bottom. The umbrella spun until the canopy broke off and the frame became a set of helicopter blades. The Penguin bid the press adieu and flew to his penthouse above the Iceberg Longue in Washington D.C.

Continue reading Trump commutes the Penguin’s sentence from Blackgate Penitentiary

Students from the future get more conspicuous as 2020 gets worse

They were spotted last January, mixed into the crowd at the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration. Spectators noted a group of young people in fashions that were out of sync with the moment. Not a shawl or trendy trench coat among them. They were dressed head to toe in polyester, like Antarctic explorers. They wore mountain ranger coats, heavy duty backpacks, climbing pants, and clunky boots, but what made them really stick out were their helmets. They were dressed for scaling the alps not for watching Carson Daily count the ball down.

As the seasons changed, the mountaineers kept appearing at sights of major news events. Always keeping to themselves. Never intermingling with crowds. In New York they circled the Central Park field hospital before it was taken down. In Minneapolis they took souvenirs from the third precinct before it was set afire. In Seattle they surveyed the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone before it was raided by the police.

While the mountaineers wear helmets, they seem averse to facemasks, social distancing, or shelter in place directives. According to the CDC the mountaineers have been spotted in every major city and yet none of them have been admitted to an ICU or even tested for the virus. “They behave like they already have an immunity.”

The mountaineers act like they’re on vacation

During Italy’s lockdown, the mountaineers were seen riding gondolas through the Venetian canals. CCTV footage shows them skipping through Disney World and vanishing before security patrols could converge on them. In Sweden, they were spotted gossiping outside of crowded bars and cafés, openly mocking patrons.

The mountaineers also appear to be following President Trump like groupies on a concert tour. They gathered outside of St. John’s Church hours before the president’s photo-op was announced. They materialized outside the White House moments before the president was being escorted into his bunker. And they had front row seats for his Tulsa Oklahoma rally, in which they appeared to be applauding ironically, like patrons at a midnight movie. They spoke along with the president like they were reciting lines from Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Five mountaineers were spotted atop Mount Rushmore during the president’s independence day address. Park Service Staffers tried flanking them from the underbrush, but the mountaineers were onto them.

One ranger said, “I had them in my sights, but when I set down my binoculars they were gone.”

What the mountaineers fashion sense tells us about them

This has been one of the hottest summers on record and yet the mountaineers shed no layers, show no signs of perspiring, and spend most of their time in the sun. It’s as if their snowsuits have onboard air conditioning systems, a technology SONY is just now pioneering.

It was members of the fashion community who speculated the mountaineers could be visitors from the future. They believed the mountaineer look had less to do with backwoods culture and more to do with shifting exercise trends.

Gen Xers wore sweat bands and tennis outfits long after gym class. They wore sleeveless shirts with or without biceps. They wore skin-tight running shorts with flannels. It was an active look.

These days millennials wear crop tops and leggings outside the Yoga Studio. Even at the grocery store they’re making statement about their commitment to fitness. Gen Z is getting into hiking and appreciating the environment. It’s only natural their exercise apparel would reflect that.

Fashion authorities say gorpcore, or ‘mountaineering modern’, is in its infancy, but once hiking becomes the dominant form of exercise gorpcore will hit its stride.

There could be more to the mountaineering look

Theoretical physicists speculate that the mountaineers wear helmets for a reason. They believe the half dome shape serves as the neural interface for a time travel device. “Einstein’s theory of relativity states just such an accessory could warp space time without crushing the human mind.”

Another sign the mountaineers are from the future is how they make no effort to conceal their wearable technology. They search the web in their open palms. They answer calls by flicking their earlobes. And their eyes shine whenever they’re recording. The tech uses a gesture based interface. Mountaineers make cameras with their fingers and pinch and expand to zoom.

Mountaineers clash with demonstrators

Throughout the demonstrations against police violence, statues of confederate generals have been toppled. Columbus sculptures have found their way into harbors, and monuments to slave owning presidents have been burned.

As more effigies have been shattered more mountaineers have appeared, swiping at the air as if to frame the scene.

Demonstrators suspected something was off when they overheard what the mountaineers said to each other.

“They kept using expressions no one could understand. They called restaurants ‘carnivore stores’ They called retailers ‘object exhibiters.’ They called cars ‘dinosaur drinkers.’ They waved the air away from their faces and said, ‘era aroma is real.’ When someone tossed a Molotov cocktail into a Speedway a group of mountaineers cheered, ‘Roaring twenties!’ like we’d know what they meant. I heard one of them mutter, ‘I expected more gunfire.’”

Demonstrators reported feeling mocked by the mountaineers. “One of my older friends asked, ‘Aren’t you warm under all that?’ and they fired back, ‘OK Millie.’ I started to say, ‘Her name’s not Millie’ when one of them said, ‘Ok Zed’ to me.”

Linguists theorize that “Millie” and “Zed” are meant to be pejoratives for millennials and Gen Zers.

Mountaineers don’t care about messing with the spacetime continuum

Theoretical physicists are baffled by the mountaineers’ behavior.

“Whoever gave them this technology didn’t coach them on how to use it responsibly. One of them pointed out how our flags had too few stars, saying something about Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Another pointed to the empty pedestal in front of the capital and whispered, ‘That’s where they put the Prince statue.’ One rattled off the names of the next three presidents like it was nothing. Oh and they were all too happy to spoil the ending for Stranger Things.”

History professors have considered the possibility that the mountaineers are students from the future here to witness our interesting times firsthand. “There’s so much to learn from. A pandemic. A recession. An authoritarian administration. A laundry list of social revolutions. I just wish they weren’t so rude while they were making their observations. From the quotes we’ve gathered and the slang we’ve deciphered it seems like the mountaineers view us the way we view townsfolk during the Salem witch trails: undereducated, superstitious, and hysteric. You know, when I say it out loud. It kind of makes sense.”

Continue reading Students from the future get more conspicuous as 2020 gets worse