Why hello there, youngin! Wandering to Toxic Manor at this time of night... Toxic's busy, sorry. He's, um, experimenting on a few people to find out if their souls are actually substantial. Don't go just because you're hearing screams from the basement or anything! It's probably just the wind.
Oh, me? I'm Spinny. I'm the night watchman for those nights when Toxic's busy or away, so that no idiot Winchester wannabe comes along to kill us off. Not that they could, ever. [yawn] Hey, you hear there's a full moon tonight? I'm so excited... never mind. Sit here by my side and I'll tell you a story. With any luck I'll have transfo- I mean, Toxic will be done by then.
No One Just Eats Shoots and Leaves
Written by Spinnerweb, thumbnail art by Spinnerweb
Can you feel the pain, the smell of fear that surrounds you,
Do you wanna scream? Let it out 'cause no one can hear you.
- 'Begging for Mercy,' Bullet for My Valentine
It starts out down under, in a gloomy Australian town where Albert Howard had lived all his sixteen years. He was not an easy person to live with because he couldn't relax. He was a perpetual worrier. What if I die a penniless tramp? What if everyone at school is only pretending to like me? What if Willy Wonka's beard really was made of green spinach ... You get the idea. But his parents put up with him. In fact the entire community put up with him, especially his neighbours who'd witnessed, many times, his appalling tantrums over the fact that they owned a panda.
The Lawliet family's panda (or Panda as he was called) was very dear to all the children and adults of the town except Albert. It was only a cute little thing when the family had bought it from a zoo for a princely sum so they could give it a better home. But over the past fourteen years, it had grown big on the myriad treats the children gave him.
Too big, thought Albert. It was bigger than any panda he'd ever seen on TV, even in a cartoon. And it was always watching him whenever he saw it. Not in the dumb, eyes-glazed-over way most cute animals look at you, but actually observing him crossing the road or opening his window above the Lawliets' frontyard where it lived. Albert hated the feeling of being watched. He tried to make eye contact back but couldn't manage it. In addition to that, he had several other quirks which left him predictably friendless.
"Well, it's not like you can blame him," other people would say, gossiping over their meat pies and tea. "Growing up in this neighbourhood with children going missing left right and centre, it's a wonder anyone lives here anymore. It can play hell with a kid's mind."
Which was true. Several children had gone missing over the years. All of them had been sixteen-something, which was the only 'connection' (as everyone likes to say) between them. You couldn't really blame Albert for being jumpy now that he was sixteen too, could you? Kekekekeke. It would be unreasonable to suggest that every sixteen-year-old went missing. Few enough did for the police to say that it was only slightly above average and missing cases happened all the time, but it made the townspeople nervous.
One grey June afternoon, Albert was sitting cross-legged and alone in the park, tearing at the grass listlessly when the clouds overhead burst and it began to storm. He picked up the handkerchief in which he kept his dead-bug-collection (he fancied that he'd be the next Satoshi Tajiri), thrust it into his pocket and began walking home. He passed a pole with a missing poster on it for his classmate Evelyn Habun. She had gone missing last week. She had been sixteen too.
He was walking past the Lawliets' house, keeping to the other side of the street to be as far away from Panda as possible, when he noticed something white poking out of the overgrown grass to his right, just off the street, almost like a hand waving and saying, "Hey, check me out!" He could feel Panda's eyes on him as he bent down and pulled the thing out of the dirt. It kept coming. It was a hand. It was an arm. In fact, it was half a skeleton, with pelvic girdle, full set of broken ribs, with part of the spine still attached to it. A thin layer of powdery maroon blood and grime clung to it.
Albert was as still as a kneeling statue, but his eyes slowly rose and met Panda's. The latter's black orbs had little spark in their centres. The beast seemed to grin as he ran past. "Oh, so you found Evelyn," it seemed to say. "Was she a friend of yours? I doubt it. Well, I've got your friend in me... literally. KEKEKEKEKEKEKE oh I'm a dumb panda."
* * *
"What's all this about?" his father roared when Albert had finished explaining. "Are you stupid, kid? Think you're a detective and know what happened to those missing children!?" Mr. Howard didn't go to work, his wife did. He just sat around watching TV all day.
"You go outside and see for yourself," repeated Albert furiously.
His father glared at him, then got out of his chair, turned off the TV and shuffled outside.
The bones were gone. Panda waved innocently at Mr. Howard.
"That does it, boy," raged his father, taking a hold of his shoulder, but Albert shook him off and pointed at Panda.
"He hid them! He's... I don't ... some kind of demon... probably killed those... got something to do with... DON'T YOU EVER JUST LOOK AT THE WAY HE WATCHES!?"
A blow landed on his face, shutting him up. His father relentlessly whipped him with the buckle end of his belt right there and then until his face was covered with abrasions. One particularly painful thwack caused him to fall over; Mr. Howard got hold of his leg and dragged him towards Panda, who was standing on his hind legs and making joyful gurgling sounds.
"Here, you can have this one early," said Mr. Howard, talking over his shoulder to the beast that seemed bigger than ever.
Albert kicked out suddenly; his father stumbled backward and collided with Panda. Panda thought he was being attacked and in annoyance took the older man's head between his giant forepaws. Mr. Howard's jaw dropped; he let out a frightened moan before Panda twisted his head around with a sickening crunch. The demon bear grunted happily, opened its mouth wide and chomped his head off in one bite. Blood spurted from the severed neck, and when Panda let the corpse go it staggered a few steps before dropping to its knees. Finally it fell forward with a muffled thud.
Albert saw it all with a kind of shocked detachedness, so he didn't realize at first that Panda was moving towards him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his neighbours come rushing out into the street, whooping like a cannibal mountain tribe, cutting him off from anywhere but his house. With difficulty he lifted himself; in his haste to get away he almost stepped on the headless corpse whose torso lay in a dark red pool now. He got inside the house and kicked the door shut without looking outside. The moment he locked and bolted it, there was a thunderous crash and the door almost gave way. He could hear the wood cracking as Panda knocked again. Then there was silence.
Surprised, our hero looked out of the window. Where was Panda? Was he-- the glass shattered right in his face and there was a renewed bout of cheering from the neighbours. Panda couldn't get in from there, though, so he started flinging his whole self against the door. Splinters came flying off the wood as our hero stumbled to the kitchen. His face had been pierced by a million tiny shards of glass but he couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel anything except a desperate urge to throw up.
The front door fell off its hinges just as he pulled the biggest knife from the second drawer down. Panda ambled into view, doubled over because of his enormous size. He turned left clumsily and headed straight for Albert. Our hero, in his fear, made the mistake of trying to push him back. With one mighty swipe Panda mangled his left arm completely. It knocked the wind out of him but he didn't feel anything. His arm was hanging loosely now, with the shoulder joint cracked almost all the way around, and the shock of seeing it like that cleared his mind. He pushed his knife as far into Panda's gut as it would go and thrust right up to the monster's sternum. Warm blood and entrails covered him; they blinded him so he never saw Panda using his final moments to push his arm entirely through his chest, but he heard the sick sounds it made and, being finally out of adrenaline, he felt it all right. The pain was hellish ecstasy. It was all over. Our hero didn't care what had happened; he'd taken Panda with him and he really didn't care. He couldn't laugh but his blood-drenched face was full of mirth.
"You didn't win, mate," he said voicelessly as Panda fell and he followed with the arm still sticking through him. "I got..." He stiffened and never completed his sentence.
* * *
"I can't believe it, he actually killed the thing," said Jean Lawliet in disbelief as the sheriff and a couple of policemen dragged Panda and Albert's corpses out and laid them next to Mr. Howard's.
"So his mother never knew about all the missing children, sheriff?" asked Miss Lawliet.
The sheriff shook his head. "She's one of the few people in this neighbourhood who didn't. Probably gonna have a heart attack when you tell her. Well, I'd best get rid of these. Glad we're not going to have to make any more sacrifices. Pity about the kid."
"I'm glad he's gone," said Mr. Lawliet, glancing at poor Albert whose body had a cannon-ball-sized hole in it. "He wouldn't have kept quiet about it. His father was an idiot, too, trying to do it in broad daylight. Someone could have seen."
"What about you, shrieking like maniacs on both sides of the street?" said the sheriff with a laugh.
It was three days from Jean's sixteenth birthday. "Thank you, Albert," she whispered and walked away hastily.
That was it. Did you enjoy it? Hmm... the moon still isn't out. A cloud or...? Ah! It's out now! Just a few more minutes ... until Toxic is done with his experiments, I mean! If, in a while, my teeth seem sharp or it looks like I'm growing grey fur all over, I'm telling you nothing like that's happening. [chuckle] It's a trick of the light. Stay and I'll tell you another story. Fine, scream and run in the opposite direction. See if I care.
Oh, me? I'm Spinny. I'm the night watchman for those nights when Toxic's busy or away, so that no idiot Winchester wannabe comes along to kill us off. Not that they could, ever. [yawn] Hey, you hear there's a full moon tonight? I'm so excited... never mind. Sit here by my side and I'll tell you a story. With any luck I'll have transfo- I mean, Toxic will be done by then.
No One Just Eats Shoots and Leaves
Written by Spinnerweb, thumbnail art by Spinnerweb
Can you feel the pain, the smell of fear that surrounds you,
Do you wanna scream? Let it out 'cause no one can hear you.
- 'Begging for Mercy,' Bullet for My Valentine
It starts out down under, in a gloomy Australian town where Albert Howard had lived all his sixteen years. He was not an easy person to live with because he couldn't relax. He was a perpetual worrier. What if I die a penniless tramp? What if everyone at school is only pretending to like me? What if Willy Wonka's beard really was made of green spinach ... You get the idea. But his parents put up with him. In fact the entire community put up with him, especially his neighbours who'd witnessed, many times, his appalling tantrums over the fact that they owned a panda.
The Lawliet family's panda (or Panda as he was called) was very dear to all the children and adults of the town except Albert. It was only a cute little thing when the family had bought it from a zoo for a princely sum so they could give it a better home. But over the past fourteen years, it had grown big on the myriad treats the children gave him.
Too big, thought Albert. It was bigger than any panda he'd ever seen on TV, even in a cartoon. And it was always watching him whenever he saw it. Not in the dumb, eyes-glazed-over way most cute animals look at you, but actually observing him crossing the road or opening his window above the Lawliets' frontyard where it lived. Albert hated the feeling of being watched. He tried to make eye contact back but couldn't manage it. In addition to that, he had several other quirks which left him predictably friendless.
"Well, it's not like you can blame him," other people would say, gossiping over their meat pies and tea. "Growing up in this neighbourhood with children going missing left right and centre, it's a wonder anyone lives here anymore. It can play hell with a kid's mind."
Which was true. Several children had gone missing over the years. All of them had been sixteen-something, which was the only 'connection' (as everyone likes to say) between them. You couldn't really blame Albert for being jumpy now that he was sixteen too, could you? Kekekekeke. It would be unreasonable to suggest that every sixteen-year-old went missing. Few enough did for the police to say that it was only slightly above average and missing cases happened all the time, but it made the townspeople nervous.
One grey June afternoon, Albert was sitting cross-legged and alone in the park, tearing at the grass listlessly when the clouds overhead burst and it began to storm. He picked up the handkerchief in which he kept his dead-bug-collection (he fancied that he'd be the next Satoshi Tajiri), thrust it into his pocket and began walking home. He passed a pole with a missing poster on it for his classmate Evelyn Habun. She had gone missing last week. She had been sixteen too.
He was walking past the Lawliets' house, keeping to the other side of the street to be as far away from Panda as possible, when he noticed something white poking out of the overgrown grass to his right, just off the street, almost like a hand waving and saying, "Hey, check me out!" He could feel Panda's eyes on him as he bent down and pulled the thing out of the dirt. It kept coming. It was a hand. It was an arm. In fact, it was half a skeleton, with pelvic girdle, full set of broken ribs, with part of the spine still attached to it. A thin layer of powdery maroon blood and grime clung to it.
Albert was as still as a kneeling statue, but his eyes slowly rose and met Panda's. The latter's black orbs had little spark in their centres. The beast seemed to grin as he ran past. "Oh, so you found Evelyn," it seemed to say. "Was she a friend of yours? I doubt it. Well, I've got your friend in me... literally. KEKEKEKEKEKEKE oh I'm a dumb panda."
* * *
"What's all this about?" his father roared when Albert had finished explaining. "Are you stupid, kid? Think you're a detective and know what happened to those missing children!?" Mr. Howard didn't go to work, his wife did. He just sat around watching TV all day.
"You go outside and see for yourself," repeated Albert furiously.
His father glared at him, then got out of his chair, turned off the TV and shuffled outside.
The bones were gone. Panda waved innocently at Mr. Howard.
"That does it, boy," raged his father, taking a hold of his shoulder, but Albert shook him off and pointed at Panda.
"He hid them! He's... I don't ... some kind of demon... probably killed those... got something to do with... DON'T YOU EVER JUST LOOK AT THE WAY HE WATCHES!?"
A blow landed on his face, shutting him up. His father relentlessly whipped him with the buckle end of his belt right there and then until his face was covered with abrasions. One particularly painful thwack caused him to fall over; Mr. Howard got hold of his leg and dragged him towards Panda, who was standing on his hind legs and making joyful gurgling sounds.
"Here, you can have this one early," said Mr. Howard, talking over his shoulder to the beast that seemed bigger than ever.
Albert kicked out suddenly; his father stumbled backward and collided with Panda. Panda thought he was being attacked and in annoyance took the older man's head between his giant forepaws. Mr. Howard's jaw dropped; he let out a frightened moan before Panda twisted his head around with a sickening crunch. The demon bear grunted happily, opened its mouth wide and chomped his head off in one bite. Blood spurted from the severed neck, and when Panda let the corpse go it staggered a few steps before dropping to its knees. Finally it fell forward with a muffled thud.
Albert saw it all with a kind of shocked detachedness, so he didn't realize at first that Panda was moving towards him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his neighbours come rushing out into the street, whooping like a cannibal mountain tribe, cutting him off from anywhere but his house. With difficulty he lifted himself; in his haste to get away he almost stepped on the headless corpse whose torso lay in a dark red pool now. He got inside the house and kicked the door shut without looking outside. The moment he locked and bolted it, there was a thunderous crash and the door almost gave way. He could hear the wood cracking as Panda knocked again. Then there was silence.
Surprised, our hero looked out of the window. Where was Panda? Was he-- the glass shattered right in his face and there was a renewed bout of cheering from the neighbours. Panda couldn't get in from there, though, so he started flinging his whole self against the door. Splinters came flying off the wood as our hero stumbled to the kitchen. His face had been pierced by a million tiny shards of glass but he couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel anything except a desperate urge to throw up.
The front door fell off its hinges just as he pulled the biggest knife from the second drawer down. Panda ambled into view, doubled over because of his enormous size. He turned left clumsily and headed straight for Albert. Our hero, in his fear, made the mistake of trying to push him back. With one mighty swipe Panda mangled his left arm completely. It knocked the wind out of him but he didn't feel anything. His arm was hanging loosely now, with the shoulder joint cracked almost all the way around, and the shock of seeing it like that cleared his mind. He pushed his knife as far into Panda's gut as it would go and thrust right up to the monster's sternum. Warm blood and entrails covered him; they blinded him so he never saw Panda using his final moments to push his arm entirely through his chest, but he heard the sick sounds it made and, being finally out of adrenaline, he felt it all right. The pain was hellish ecstasy. It was all over. Our hero didn't care what had happened; he'd taken Panda with him and he really didn't care. He couldn't laugh but his blood-drenched face was full of mirth.
"You didn't win, mate," he said voicelessly as Panda fell and he followed with the arm still sticking through him. "I got..." He stiffened and never completed his sentence.
* * *
"I can't believe it, he actually killed the thing," said Jean Lawliet in disbelief as the sheriff and a couple of policemen dragged Panda and Albert's corpses out and laid them next to Mr. Howard's.
"So his mother never knew about all the missing children, sheriff?" asked Miss Lawliet.
The sheriff shook his head. "She's one of the few people in this neighbourhood who didn't. Probably gonna have a heart attack when you tell her. Well, I'd best get rid of these. Glad we're not going to have to make any more sacrifices. Pity about the kid."
"I'm glad he's gone," said Mr. Lawliet, glancing at poor Albert whose body had a cannon-ball-sized hole in it. "He wouldn't have kept quiet about it. His father was an idiot, too, trying to do it in broad daylight. Someone could have seen."
"What about you, shrieking like maniacs on both sides of the street?" said the sheriff with a laugh.
It was three days from Jean's sixteenth birthday. "Thank you, Albert," she whispered and walked away hastily.
That was it. Did you enjoy it? Hmm... the moon still isn't out. A cloud or...? Ah! It's out now! Just a few more minutes ... until Toxic is done with his experiments, I mean! If, in a while, my teeth seem sharp or it looks like I'm growing grey fur all over, I'm telling you nothing like that's happening. [chuckle] It's a trick of the light. Stay and I'll tell you another story. Fine, scream and run in the opposite direction. See if I care.
