THE TRAGIC TALE OF BILL
A Nuthouse Productions Online Collaboration
By
CRAIG ORKWIS
NICK SPACEK
PAUL SERENA
ROBB
McKINNEY
SEAN BRIMER
KATJA BARRON
And
SEAN’S GIRLFRIEND, DIANA
As Bill awoke, he realized that something was not quite
right
with his surroundings.
"Quick check," he muttered to himself. "Clothes...check.
Wallet.... Check. Keys.... Check. Watch.... Check. Ok, looks like I
haven't been
mugged...that's good. Now where the hell am I?"
Bill looked at his surroundings. It didn't take long because
he was in a box. A big metal box. No windows. No doors. There were four
other people in the room, all of them seemed to be asleep. As he
crawled over to the closest sleeping form, Bill heard voices outside
the box.
"Vorsichtig mit diesem Versand! Der Chef ist verärgert,
wenn der Inhalt defekt ist!"1
I don't think that's English, thought Bill..."Actually," he thought
to himself, "That sounds an awful lot like Spanish."
Bill wasn't the brightest bum on the
planet,
needless to say. He continued to look about the room. One of the people
asleep seemed to have something on his back.
It appeared to be a monkey. A prosthetic
monkey,
in fact. Bill wondered as to why someone would have a prosthetic monkey
on one's back. Sure, it'd be great for those situations where a monkey
is required, but one is never to be found, but the "monkey on your
back"
jokes would sure get old quick.
As Bill pondered the monkey situation, the
door to the box began to squeak open, and the sleeping men began to
awaken.
A voice came from the doorway, in poor
English,
saying, “All of you wake up!
Rise,
pigs! The commander waits an interim report!”
As the other four people and Bill stood
up,
another man poked his head into the box, looked them over, and shouted
over
his shoulder, “Nur eins dieser Reihe ist, Sir bereit! Vorbehaltliche
Nr.
zwei sieben neun stürzen fifty-four A. Er ist das prothetische
Affeexperiment. Sein Affe wird völlig entwickelt. Der Rest zeigen
nicht Zeichen der
Entwicklung für ihre Änderungen.” 2
Another voice from outside the box said,
“Holen
Sie ihn mir sofort. Der Kommandant ist am erfreutesten! Halten Sie die
anderen im Kasten bis morgen. Hoffnungsvoll zeigen sie etwas
Fortschritt
bis dahin.”3
The man with the monkey grafted to his
back
was dragged from the box. He kicked and screamed in a language that
sounded
prissy and pathetic. “Arrêt! Arrêt! Don.t font ceci!
Pourquoi
faites-vous ceci à moi? Quel est le problème avec vous?
Je veux mon mommy! Je veux mon ours bourré! Enlevez ce singe de
rien de Dieu en ce moment ou je vous tuerai tout!”4
Bill shook his head and wished he had a
computer
with him so he could get online and translate all of this nonsense. The
door slammed shut, and they were engulfed in darkness. A hissing noise
started coming from one of the walls, and Bill began to get very, very
sleepy.
When he awoke
he
had a headache, and he didn’t feel quite right. He felt his body all
over
and discovered the following three problems:
First and foremost, Bob was shocked to
find
that he had been turned into a sequined tunic!!! Bob screamed, but upon
further examination realized that he was simply *wearing* a sequined
tunic. The second problem Bob noticed was that what he had assumed to
be a sleeping
person on either side of him were not sleeping. They were cold and
stiff,
the icy hand of death having ravaged their bodies. They were also not
people,
per se...from rubbing his hands over the faces and bodies of the
corpses, he realized that they were gaudily garbed clowns! "Well, now
they're good
clowns," Bob muttered. Finally Bob realized the worst thing of all...he
had lost his schpadoinkle. This was bad, because without his
schpadoinkle,
he could not become the world's
only
undisputed 4 square champion. BILL, had always dreamed of one day
entering
the world's 4 square competition and with his trusty schpoidoinkle,
which
enabled him to perform a massive blow to the ball and knock the other
players
completely out of the ring, rise to the top of the ranks quickly.
However
now with it gone and replaced with a prosthetic monkey on his back in a
room full of dead clowns, Bill was concerned. Bill was concerned with...
No, not English at all, thought Bill. His
sequined
tunic began chaffing and caused itching. He had to scratch. He began
scratching
uncontrollably, he started to jump up and down, and all around from the
horrible itching. The sleeping form began to moan as if to awake from
its
slumber. He froze. His heart thumped in his chest. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Suddenly there was light form the ceiling. It looked as if someone was
opening the box as if it had a lid. He stood frozen; as his left
testicle
itched worse than that case of ringworm he had last summer. There was a
shadow...It looked like a big ugly bat monster
holding
a *****. Bill shrieked like a girl and began throwing himself against
the
wall where he remembered the door being. The rational part of Bill’s
mind,
the little tiny part of it that wasn’t completely out to lunch right
then
was cursing vehemently. He knew that he would be all right, everything
would be all right if he just had his schpadoinkle.
“FUCK! I just know everything would be all
right if only I had my schpadoinkle!!!”
Meanwhile, as Bill was continuing to beat
himself
against the door, the *****-wielding Big Ugly Bat Monster descended
into
the box and began feasting upon the corpses of the clowns. Bill was
temporarily
relieved to see this, but he knew that a few dead clowns couldn’t curb
a
Big Ugly Bat Monster’s appetite for long.
Without warning, the door broke off the
hinges
and Bill fell into the room beyond the box. It was huge. It was, in
fact,
quite easily the biggest room he had ever seen in his life.
The *****-wielding Big Ugly Bat Monster
looked
up from it’s clown meal (Happy on the outside; Sad on the inside!) and
said
“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!”
Bill said, “AAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!”
“REEEEEEEEEEE!!!” The Big Ugly Bat Monster
reiterated.
“SLAM!!!” said the door, as Bill shoved it
back with all his strength.
Bill thought he was out of the woods.
Well,
actually he thought he was out of the box. If Bill hadn’t been such a
literal-minded
person, he might have used the metaphor “out of the woods,” but he
wasn’t,
so he didn’t. At any rate, he thought he wasn’t in any more immediate
danger
and, as he fought to regain his breath, Bill looked around at his
surroundings.
Bill’s surroundings were occupied thusly:
Several desks
One extremely large mainframe computer,
lights
a-blinking
The largest airplane Bill had ever seen
500 humongous Nazi Swastika flags,
dangling
vertically from the ceiling two hundred feet above Bill’s head, and
moving
gently in the breeze of
50 gigantic industrial fans set into the
walls
1,275 dead, mangled Nazis scattered across
the floor which was flooded with
Countless
gallons of red, red blood which was being slurped up by
11,
674 Big Ugly Bat Monsters, all clinging *****’s in their talons
The 11, 674 Big Ugly Bat Monsters looked
at
Bill.
Bill looked at the 11, 674 Big Ugly Bat
Monsters.
He screamed like Paul. That is, to say, like a
little
bitch. The 11,674 Big Ugly Bat Monsters all raised their right eyebrows
simultaneously, which is quite a feat, considering that Big Ugly Bat
Monsters
aren't the brightest creatures on the planet.
Unfortunately, they are some of the best killing machines on the
planet. Bill felt that running wouldn't help. However, as it couldn't
really make
anything WORSE, he decided to give it a try.
Sadly, Bill, upon hitting the red, red
blood,
lost all semblance of traction and began to slide about helplessly. The
11, 674 Big Ugly Bat Monsters all followed his flailing and screaming
with
what could best be described as amusement.
Bill suddenly found himself sliding
towards
the mainframe. He slammed into at about 15 mph. As the world spun about
him, he suddenly became aware that the fans above him had begun to spin
much, much faster.
As the fans
spun,
Bill saw a way out of this
mess. About thirty meters away, there was a door with a sign over it
that read
"A Way Out of This Mess.” Still dazed and confused, Bill began sliding
his feet in the red, red blood in an attempt to sort of "skate" to the
exit.
Seconds were precious. The Big Ugly Bat
Monsters
(Copyright © 1998 Fuzzy Chickie Productions) would be upon him any
second. “Oh, if only I had Big Ugly Bat Monster repellent,” thought
Bill,
who had unfortunately left his home that morning without it. “Of all
the
luck,” he mused, “The one day I think ‘Hey, I won’t run into any Big
Ugly
Bat Monsters today, I can leave the spray at home,’ I run into 11,674
big
ugly bat monsters. Great.”
The Big Ugly Bat Monsters seemed slow and
sluggish,
likely from gorging upon Nazis and clowns and the like. This gave Bill
the time he needed. He made it to the way out, grabbed the handle of
the
door, and tried to open…but to no avail. There was a weird beeping
noise
and a little window beside the door displayed the following message;
“You
need the red key to open this door.”
A single tear
rolled
down Bill’s cheek. The Big Ugly Bat Monsters were near, carrying their
*****s, shrieking and carrying on. “Well, this is it. I’m gonna die,”
thought Bill, when suddenly and without warning...he died.
The
end.
...Of Bill was
indeed sudden and without warning. In fact, it was so incredibly sudden
that Bill didn't even know he was dead. He really thought he was still
alive, and so his heart kept beating, his lungs kept breathing, and his
brain kept thinking.
What his brain was thinking just now was,
"Oh,
shit."
That's when he noticed a big metal manhole
in the floor right next to his feet.
"Huzzah! A way out!” Bill heaved the
manhole
cover open and peered down into the deep, black blackness. He took a
deep
breath and jumped. Not into the
manhole,
but just straight up, and straight back down. Luckily, the floor where
he was standing was very weak, and gave way under Bill's weight. Bill
fell,
and fell, and fell, and fell. Meanwhile, the big ugly bat monsters
circled
above the hole he had left in the floor, angrily screeching. Then one
of
the big ugly bat monsters had an idea.
Bill was still falling and falling and falling and falling.
The bright big ugly bat monster left momentarily and returned with a
giant
steel ball covered in eight-inch spikes. Into the hole it went,
falling,
and falling, and falling, and falling after Bill.
Without warning, Bill landed in the wonderful Land of Oz. He was on top of a
woman
in green and white striped socks who seemed to be moving less and less
as
the seconds ticked by.
There were many tiny people surrounding
him. They were all cheering.
"Thank you, kind sir," one of the little
men
said.
Bill, alas, never found out why he was
being
thanked, as the Big Ugly Bat Monster with his giant steel ball covered
in
eight-inch spikes began throwing his giant steel ball covered in
eight-inch
spikes like a wicked, wicked bowling ball and the tiny people were so
many
easily perforated pins.
Bill was able
to
save himself, though, by the only way that Bill
know
he could escape this kind of insanity. In death. So Bill slit his
wrists
with one of the razor sharp spikes from the big ugly bat monster's
bat-o-doom. Knowing full well that it would take him a few minutes to
die bill also
prepare a rope to hang himself with in record setting speed and then
promptly
hung himself. While all this was going on the little people decided to
fight
against the bat monster and started to throw these funny yellow bricks
that
were all over ground. The bat monster taken back by this stared to run
away but ran into the fresh corpse of Bill, causing bill to fall from
the
noose on to its tail trapping in to the ground as the little people
continued
to throw the bricks at the beast and bills corpse killing the beast and
burying them both and to make sure they set the pile a blaze.
Fin.
Fin (entered the room). Fin the Eskimo,
Quin's
brother, happened to be well versed in the healing arts. He whipped out
his first aid kit and patched Bill's wrists, reconnected his severed
spinal
cord, and using a plunger to pop out the dents from the bricks, and a
healing
salve to treat the burns from the blaze.
Blinking back into consciousness, Bill
thanked
Fin. "Thank you, Fin," said Bill. "It's almost like some greater, and
yet
bitter and ill-tempered power is tired of my life and trying to end it
prematurely. Thankfully a more benevolent being has sought to spare me,
sending you here to revive me."
“And your life was going so well," clucked
Fin. Apart from the Nazis, clowns, sequined tunic, big ugly bat
monsters,
blood, death, fall, and giant spiky steel balls."
"It's been peachy," said Bill. "Why does
some
anonymous, and quite likely edgy god who probably has issues due to
past
relationship strife, seem to want to do me in?"
Before Fin the
Eskimo could answer, A black clad, green
skinned
woman appeared before them.
"Where's the little girl?" she asked,
sounding
a little short tempered. "She's supposed to be here so I can threaten
her
and try and take her first pair of heels!"
Bill, feeling slightly confused, as he was
just brought back from the dead, said, "There's no little girl around
here.
I mean, there's little girls, but that's just a size thing, you know,
midgets
and all. I think you mean a child."
"Damn you, I do mean a child!," the woman
screamed,
"But since she isn't here, you'll have to do. Give me those shoes!"
Bill looked down at his dependable, worn
out
boots and said "No." He then kicked the witch in the stomach and took
off
running.
"I'll get you my pretty, and your little
Eskimo,
too..." screamed the witch after them, as she curled up in pain.
Great, thought
Bill,
now there's two people out there who want me dead.
He turned to Fin and said, "Why does this keep
happening
to me?"
But before Fin could answer, the evil
force
that has attempted twice now to kill Bill because he had abandoned his
original
quest of becoming the four square champion of the world, found our two
heroes
running for their lives away from the witch. Hmm. This is odd he
thought
for I have already killed Bill and who is this Fin guy. Looking at his
PDA-O-evil he moved his pen over the screen and Fin stopped. Fin began
to feel a strange tingle in his left arm and then suddenly dropped
dead. Well that’s one, thought the evil being.
Now, Bill, he has been a pain in my side
for
at least 20 minutes. Just then as Bill was looking over the corpse of
Fin
an army of robotic Richard Simmons came charging over the horizon. Bill
swallowed hard as a hard metallic fist ruptured his lower intestine.
The
last words that Bill ever hear was "Shake shake shake, shake our booty,
shake your booty" as the robotic Richard Simmons did their favorite
sweatin'
to the oldies routines on his body. To assure that the robotic army
would
do no more harm the earth opened up and swallowed them and both Bill's
and
Fin's bodies, then quickly closed, crunching them into atoms.
On a darker side due to the extraordinary healing powers of Fin, it
turned
out that all of Fin's relatives blood, marriage, good friends, and just
random acquaintances were bonded to his life force thus allowing Fin to
do so much good in the world. Unfortunately shortly following the death
of Fin, all of these other people die as well.
Bill, at least for the moment, was dead.
Fin,
as well, was dead.
The Big Ugly Bat Monster which had
followed
Bill into Oz was not, in the strictest sense, dead. Hank-- for that was
the Big Ugly Bat Monster’s name—crawled slowly from beneath the pile of
bricks that had been his intended tomb. Hank was exceptionally angry
with
the Munchkins who had attempted to kill him, and he set about devising
his
vengeance.
“Think, think, think,” said Hank, tapping
his
head and obscurely violating copyright laws.
It should be noted that Hank was not truly
speaking in English, nor was he speaking in Ninglish, which is like
English,
only not. The language of the Big Ugly Bat Monsters sounds, to the
untrained
ear, like nothing so much as long, undifferentiated shrieks. So, what
Hank
actually said was,
“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
However, because there are not many people
who can actually read the language of the Big Ugly Bat Monsters, it
will
be translated into English, or something closely resembling it.
Hank, thinking hard, quickly devised a
plan
of utmost horror and terror and evilness. He would set in motion this
plan
immediately, but first he would need to find was find a big and pointy knife. Hank then took
out his vengeance on all the Munchkins but then realized after the
emptiness
of his victory that they were not the real enemy. Hank could always
feel
the slight power that was controlling him throughout the story and
decided
he wanted to free himself. Hank then quickly killed the authors of the
story one by one. As he killed the last author of the story Hank
realized
that his existence and the existence of the entire world that he
belonged
to would die as the last person who realized that they existed at all
died. As the life poured out from behind the eyes of the last author
hank began
to fade out of existence. Panicked, Hank grabbed for the computer but
lack
the essence to move the mouse, just then a power surge fried the server
and all the IP addresses in recent history, destroying the story all
together.
In a bizarre twist of fate, irony, and the
physics of collaborative storytelling, the events of the previous
paragraph
set in motion the ultimate destruction of not only the story’s
universe,
but that of the authors as well.
Sean’s mistake was in allowing a fictional
character to alter reality. Hank indeed killed all of the authors of
THE
TRAGIC TALE OF BILL, which is patently impossible. It would seem that
Hank
himself is the murderer here, and while he was a being of evil, the
crime
does not ultimately lie with him. Sean, being the entity in absolute
control
at the time of these heinous crimes, is the culprit.
But he is dead, having forced a creature
of
his own imagination to destroy him. Thus, not only did Sean kill an
entire
word’s worth of living, breathing (albeit fictional) creatures and
people,
but he also committed suicide. Poor, sad, pathetic Sean.
Sean’s second mistake was in believing
that
he could actually destroy the story by killing all of its authors. This
is where things get tricky, contradictory, and seemingly impossible on
a
level that no time-travel episode of Star Trek could ever rival. It
seems
that since all of the authors were dead, as well as the fictional
universe,
the last few sentences of Sean’s entry could not have been valid. Thus,
the IP address, and all of that other crap remained intact. There was
no
power surge, and the story remained alive, even though everything in it
and everything around it, and everyone responsible for it was dead,
dead,
dead.
The story, being posted on a publicly
available
message board, is not only open to all to read, but also is available
to
be updated for all eternity. Thus, to kill the story entirely, every
living
soul on the planet must be slaughtered to ensure the true and ultimate
death
of the story.
This did not happen. It was never stated
that
all prospective authors and readers of the story were annihilated.
Thus,
the story lives on. Hank lives on. Bill and Fin, although they were
last
seen quite dead, live on. The Munchkins live on, or at least, the ones
whom Hank didn’t slaughter do so.
Since none of this really makes much sense
at all, and is so incredibly impossible, and flies in the face of
everything
humanity has come to know and understand about everything, the universe
collapsed, and killed everything everywhere retroactively throughout
the
space-time continuum. What a bummer.
However, Reality has a way of reasserting
itself,
and at the exact moment of the universe’s collapse, it was reborn. Like
an elastic band, it returned itself to its original shape over several
hundreds
of thousands of millennia, and automatically readjusted so this same
horrible
mistake could never again be made.
And so…
Hank blinked. He was quite startled to
find
that he did, in fact, exist after all. He wondered why, and looked over
the last few paragraph of the story that he had missed. Immediately, he
regretted doing so, and decided that it was much less painful to just
wonder
why all of this had happened.
There was a noise behind him. He turned,
and
saw The undead corpse of
Sean,
the poor sad individual that he is; HE looked at Hank and walked over
to
him.
"I hate you,"
said
Sean. Then he turned a left. Never to return to the story or the
message
board again.
Hank confused, but happy that he wasn't
burnt
or beaten to death, or atomized went on with his merry little life. He
spent days frolicking in the meadows killing whomever he pleased and
was
a very content Big Ugly Bat Monster to the end of his days.
The
End
Yes, well,
okay
then.
So who wants to start another one? : D
1 Carefully with this dispatch! The
boss
is annoyed, if contents are defective!
2 Only one of this row are ready, Sir!
Prisoner No. two seven nine dash fifty four A. He are the prosthetic
ape
experiment. Its ape is completely developed. The remainder do not show
indications of the development of their changes
3 Get immediately it to me. The
commander
is most pleased! Hold the others in the box until tomorrow. Hope-fully
they show something progress up to then
4 Stop! Stop! Don.t do this! Why do you
do this with me? Which is the problem with you? I want my mommy! I want
my bear stuffed! Remove this monkey of nothing God in this moment or I
will kill you all!