(Paul)
You lean closer to the
window and concentrate. Sure enough,
it’s the whole Angel of Death thing.
Not good. It would have been
much better if this all could have been solved with a breath mint. On the plus side, it would seem that you’ve
found your betrayer on the first try.
You frown, wondering if that is, in fact, a
good
thing. Sure, you know who’s supposed to
be betraying you, but you’re also no more than fifteen feet away from
him and
he’s begun sharpening a really threatening ax.
It’s the sort of ax that leaves no doubt as to what it is
intended to
cut. People, that’s what.
This is an ax for cutting people. Lots
of people. At once. It’s
the kind of
ax that you’d see in an episode of Buffy
The Vampire Slayer if the show aired on HBO with no budget limits
and no
concept of ‘crossing the line of good taste’.
You are feeling very uneasy about this ax. You
would feel uneasy about this ax if you were the one holding
it because you have a feeling that the ax would, in fact, be holding
you. Whatever the hell that means.
You decide that getting the hell out of
there would
be a really swell idea. You turn from
the cabin and flee.
Hours later, you are sitting around the
fire with
Chris, Zorlath the Betrayer, Dave’s girlfriend, and several other
people. The hookah is being passed around,
and the
mountain of beer cans is growing steadily larger. A
gigantic bottle of Mezcal tequila is also being passed
around. You have pretty much forgotten
about Dave and his unsettling ax.
You’ve also forgotten about the radio’s warning.
You have not forgotten what Dave’s
girlfriend can do
with a shoestring and a tube of KY jelly.
You shoot her a little look, and nod your head in the direction
of the
woods. She smiles, and the two of you
wander off into the woods to have loud, irresponsible, inebriated
forest-sex.
Quite a while later, you and Dave’s
girlfriend
wander back into camp. She has done the
thing with the shoestring and KY, and you are both very satisfied. Unfortunately, you are both going to pay for
what you have done! Little do you
realize, but while you were nakedly frolicking in the forest, you
rolled into a
patch of poison ivy! Soon your skin
will erupt in horrible red irritation!
Let thy sins be displayed for the world to see, as an itchy rash!
Also, Dave saw you.
He was on his way back to camp when he heard a noise and
investigated. Calmly, he proceeded back
to camp, where he sat down to calmly wait.
As you get back, the rest of the group is wading out of the lake
after a
nice naked swim. They stop, seeing Dave
in his cloak, sitting by the fire with his ax across his lap. You’ve never seen the cloak before. It looks pretty good on Dave, you
think.
Anyway, they see Dave, who is seeing you. You have Dave’s girlfriend’s panties on your
head, and the telltale marks left from the shoestring/KY thing all over
your
body, which is mostly uncovered. You
lost all your clothes, save your boxers, in the forest.
Dave’s girlfriend is better off, having only
lost her shirt, and one sock. That’s
odd in and of itself, because she never took off her shoes.
Suddenly, you remember the whole betrayal
thing, and
you say a bad word.
“Hello.”
Dave’s voice is steady and calm.
And dangerous. Like HAL 9000
from 2001: A Space Odyssey. You
wonder if you should disconnect his
logic modules, but then realize that this has probably already
happened, if the
cloak and ax and cabin of pointy are any indication.
“It’s not what you think, Dave,” you say halfheartedly. This tactic almost never works.
This time is no different.
“That tactic almost never works,” says Dave. “And this time is no different.
I saw you two in the forest. I saw
what you were doing. By the way, do you
know that you were
rolling in poison ivy?”
“Dammit. I
hate that stuff.” You wonder if you
have any ointment in the trunk. You
think it might be under the Oreos.
Mmm…Oreos. Post-coitus Oreos
would be great right now.
“Stop thinking about those fucking Oreos! I ate your Oreos, all right?
They’re gone! I broke into your
trunk while I was waiting for you to come back,
and I ate your damned Oreos!”
“You son of a bitch! What
gives you the right to take my stuff?” Everyone,
including Dave’s girlfriend, gives
you approximately the same funny look. Okay, stupid question, you think. You
try again: “How did you know I was
thinking about Oreos?” Everyone’s gaze
shifts to Dave, who ignores the question.
“I know what must be done,” he states.
He stands, cloak billowing in the wind, and hefts his ax. He lunges fearlessly through the fire at you
and his girlfriend. Nobody has any time
to react, because he is almost inhumanly quick. You
feel the air disturbed in front of the ax’s arcing blade, and
as it passes a hair’s breadth from your eyes you can see the blade in
perfect
clarity. Time does that really weird
thing where it slows down (isn’t that a mind trip, man?
Freaky!), and you have what seems ages to
study it. As it passes you, you turn
your head to follow it. The ax cleaves
neatly through Dave’s girlfriend’s head.
At first you think it has just passed through her.
You think about the absurdity of this
statement, and mentally amend it. At
first you think it passed through her without
cutting her. But then, after a few
awkward heartbeats during which the small crowd of people tries to
figure out
what the hell is going on, a thin line of blood appears, circumscribing
her
head.
She falls forward, the top of her head,
from just
below the eyes up, drops off. There is
nothing inside that should be inside a head.
There is no brain. There is no
large amount of blood, just what was in the skin. There
is not even a robot brain, which would have made a bit of
sense, at least.
There is only the monkey.
The monkey is unscathed.
It shrieks furiously at you and Dave and monkey-runs into Lake
Doomhole.
Dave sighs and sits down.
Nobody else moves.
Minutes pass.
You aren’t dead, so be thankful for that,
at
least. You’ll probably have some pretty
messed up dreams for, oh, the rest of your natural life though.
Oh, but you do get the clap from Chris’s
girlfriend.
Better than brain monkeys, though.
Go back to the
Section 33 and try again.