The Penny Dreadfuls

A Dreadful Story - Part II

Michael sighed, his breath steaming out in a long white plume. This is hopeless. he thought. Get back inside before you freeze to death. Make sure nobody's hurt. Don't even know what you're looking for out here.

He turned back to the cabin, his shoes crunching lightly against the snow, then stopped.

Tracks, stupid. he thought. Look for tracks.

He crouched, scanning the garden around him by the dim light of the moon. A patch of muddy slush to his left could have been signs of someone. Maybe. The print didn't look exactly human, though. Too wide, with scratch-like depressions that resembled claw marks. More likely left by a bear, or a large dog of some sort.

He sniffed and rubbed his palms together for warmth. The air was thin at this altitude, and Michael had felt dizzy and nauseous since they'd arrived. He thought--not for the first time--what a stupid idea this trip had been. Why was a Philosophy major from Miami now squatting in the frozen heights of the Himalayas, freezing his Birkenstocks off and searching for tracks like bloody Daniel Boone?

Cory, that's why, he thought. With her long tanned legs and oh-so-modern ideas about destiny and fate.

Well, Michael didn't believe in fate. Didn't believe in destiny or karma or freaking cosmic coincidence.

He also didn't believe in werewolves, which is perhaps why he was so surprised when at that moment, a rather large one came shambling out of the darkness to his left and sank it's yellowed fangs into his throat.

The Adventures of Sticky

A Dreadful Story - Part I

The blistering wind brushed briskly across Michael's cheeks, painting them a rosy red to match his nose. He was the only one brave enough to venture out into the darkness on this frigid night. Without the light of the full moon, though, it was even darker inside, where the others remained fearfully paralyzed.

Only moments ago, the relaxed room had been rocked by an eardrum-busting pop followed by a complete blackout. Then came an eery silence, quickly broken by bootsteps thundering across the floor of stone. A lone, shrill scream echoed through the chamber and a large shadow shattered a window on the South wall as it made its escape.

Without even thinking, Michael followed, but he only ran about 10 yards into the back garden before he paused, realizing that he had no idea which direction the intruder had gone. He looked in all directions, but it was as if he -- if it was a he -- had vanished into thin air.

Matt's Confession

Growing up, my backyard was The Backyard. It's where all the kids would come to play football, baseball, and a game I invented, Blooper Ball. The game was a cross between kickball and baseball, and the batter would use a bat to hit an airborne kickball. (One of the younger kids, who went by "Jeffy" at the time, refused to use a heavier bat, because he always used the smaller bats in baseball. However, in Blooper Ball, the lighter the bat you used, the greater the chance you had of hitting the kickball and having the bat ricochet back and hit you in the head. It took Jeffy five bruises in the head from the bat before he'd use a bigger size.) In Blooper Ball, once the ball was hit, a person on defense could throw the ball at a runner to get him out.

During one game, probably when I was 9, a handful of neighborhood kids and I were in yet another heated game of Blooper Ball. I was pitching, because I always pitched, and my 8 year old friend Matt Starks (who's now my 29 year old friend Matt Sparks) was up to bat. He hit a ball to my right, and raced to first base.

Despite my backyard being The Backyard, it was not always an ideal playing field. We had a tree just behind the pitchers mound and to the first base side, which served an obstacle, but usually just for balls hit into it. If you were to draw a triangle using the pitchers mound, first base, and second base, it wouldn't be on any of the lines of sight, but almost directly in the middle of the triangle. As Matt was rounding first and racing to second, I stopped the ball, picked it up, and started to run back to the other side of the field. For some inexplicable reason, Matt thought he could dodge the ball if I threw it at him. This time, he was actually right. I threw the ball across the field at him as hard as I could. Matt was able to contort his body and narrowly dodge the ball. He smiled. But his evasive maneuver caused him to veer away from the path of second base and into the middle of the field. His grin subsided just in time for him to run at full speed head first into the two foot wide trunk. The trunk didn't move. The impact hardly made a sound, and Matt stumbled backward from the tree. We were all stunned. Matt looked at us as if nothing had happened. My fears began to subside. Since it was my backyard and I was always in charge, everything that happened there- from picking teams, to fights, to injuries- was my responsibility. Since Matt seemed unharmed by the collision, I began to let out a sigh of relief.

But just then Matt put his hand to scratch his head where he thought he'd bruised it, and when he pulled his hand back down it was covered in blood. Today, Matt's a decent sized guy, about 6'1, 175 pounds, and has played college soccer among other sports, and sustained many injuries. All in all, I'd say he's a pretty tough guy. Apparently, this toughness developed after puberty, because at the sight of blood that day, he let out a piercing wail that made it hard to imagine him feeling any more pain from his wound than we were feeling listening to him.

One of my younger brothers, Frank, who was about 6 at the time, raced into the house as fast as he could, grabbed a Band-Aid, and raced back outside. He flew right past Matt, and put the Band-Aid smack dab on the tree where Matt hit it.

Matt's wail didn't stop. My instinct was to get Matt back to his house as quickly as possible. His house, which was caddy corner to mine, was separated by two chain link fences and could normally be reached in just over 20 seconds. However, in his bloodied state, Matt would not think of jumping a fence. The Charlie Brown-like yell continued. I tried to console him. "C'mon, Matt, it's just blood."
"AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!" Matt replied.

My only other option was to walk Matt home the long way, which meant going into my front yard, around the house, up the street, around the corner, past a house, and up to Matt's front door. This was normally a two minute walk, but apparently Matt's injury reduced his walking speed to that of a heavily sedated 83 year old man. "AAAAAAA!!!!" His yelling had surpassed that of the yelling necessary of, say, having your leg mauled off by a pack of wolves. I tried to lessen his pain with loving words like, "Darn it, Matt, now you're crying just to cry. Shut up! Man!" Eventually we made it to Matt's house and into the loving arms of his mother, who told him to be quiet and let her look at his forehead. He immediately became silent. (This is the only time in my 24 years of knowing Matt that I saw him obey his mother willingly.)

A few days later, after Matt had forgiven me for ushering him into the tree, he came over to my house. He'd now reached the point all young boys reach after an injury that leaves some sort of mark- The Badge of Honor Stage, wherein he parades around his burn, bandage, scar or stitches as if he had earned them by withstanding Darth Vader's worst and saving Princess Lea. He strode up to my mom, a nurse, and proclaimed, "I got four stitches!" "Can I see them?" she asked. He leaned his head forward and repeated with joy, "I got four stitches!" "Yes, you did!" she replied in a nice, motherly way. I stood off to the side, disgusted by all the attention and slightly jealous of his stitches.

"So, did you have a concussion?" my mom asked. "No," Matt said confidently, "I had a conFESSion!" "Are you sure? Are you sure it wasn't called a concussion?" she asked again. "NO, it was a confession. It was!" he replied. Matt kept up with the assertion that it was a confession for years, probably into junior high.

A few years ago, I went back home to find that the tree had been cut down, the fence had been taken out, and that home plate and the pitchers mound had been filled in, where grass hadn't grown all the years I'd been growing up. I almost cried. But all those hours playing sports in the backyard were the happiest times I remember growing up. We were really blessed.

Brian Lord is an internationally read cartoonist and writer. His work can be viewed at www.KickComics.com

Seasoning Children

Six Teenagers Wandering Aimlessly

Six teenagers wandering aimlessly – by foot – across the United States of America can be a fearful sight, unless one of them is wearing a starched tee shirt that reads, in large letters, “Have No Fear.” Then that might settle your mind a bit. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t. It’s no matter anyway, because none of these kids was wearing such a shirt.

This particular night was a cold one, which was odd for August, especially in Texas. Maybe they weren’t in Texas. Ever since they made that wrong turn back in Albuquerque – the same one that got Bugs Bunny every time – they weren’t really sure where they were. But the “Welcome to Texas: Gateway to Mexico” sign gave them reasonable confidence that they were in the largest of the lower 48 states.

They set out on their journey back in May, prom night. Each of them had a little too much to drink that night – not of alcohol, but too much soda, which left them with an urgent need to relieve themselves, and the line to the ladies’ room had a wait time of 32 minutes, while the men’s room was out of order after some loons stopped up the toilets. If I could tell you what the toilets were stopped up with, that would be an interesting bit of info, but I wasn’t there, and I usually don’t ask for the details of toilet contents.

So anyway, we have six teens desperately seeking a john (one of them had been desperately seeking to dance with a guy named John, who was the high school’s star quarterback, earlier in the evening, but that’s another story). Given that the usual facilities were unavailable, the six of them wandered out into the woods behind the gymnasium where the prom was being held. The guys went to the left and the girls went to the right. What they didn’t know was that these woods were infested with poisonous snakes, but what they also didn’t know was that these snakes are repelled by the smell of urine, so they were safe.

Once the kids had done their business, one of them had an idea. “Hey guys, I was just thinking,” he said. Just then an owl wisped past his ear and startled him. (I’m not sure if wisped is the right word, but it sounds about right.) After he had collected himself, he continued, “Oh, nevermind, I forgot.” One of the other guys did have an idea, though. He proposed that since they were already about 40 yards away from the school, hidden in the woods, missed by no one, why not just keep going? It was only 11:30 at night. They still had at least six hours before daybreak, so they could be well out of town before anyone had a clue they were gone.

The other five mumbled – the official language of teenagers – their condescending objections to this crazy idea, one citing the fact that there was still four weeks of school left, one adamant that she needed to take her guinea pig for a walk in two hours, and one explaining – to everyone’s horror – that he wasn’t wearing any underwear and how that was not appropriate attire for a six-hour hike through the woods. The other two were also scoffing at this impulse suggestion of running away, but it was nothing worth repeating.

But in any case, they started walking: one reasonably handsome young man, two average ones, and one rather awkward fella, all dressed in tuxedos (see, the “Have No Fear” tee shirt would have not been appropriate attire), accompanied by three young women (a French horn player from the band, a really pretty girl who had not yet matured into being cool and evil, and the sister of one of the guys), all wearing their prom best.

So now, here we are on this cold night in August. Over the past three months, one of the guys has developed some serious chaffing due to his missing underwear. And this isn’t the guy who started with no underwear. That guy stole the awkward guy’s underwear while he was sleeping one night. So it’s the awkward guy who has now become more awkward due to his duck-waddle-meets-the-Texas-two-step walk. And compared to that guy, there’s nothing really worth mentioning about the other five on an individual basis. Besides that, it’s much more interesting to talk about how this group of six have discovered that they are superheroes.

The End