“Now, our operation is small, but there’s a lot of potential for aggressive expansion.”
-Joker
Halloween came early this year for the Astro Creeps.
An old pickup truck crept along the farmhouse property. It was rusted. At one time, the truck may have been dark blue, or black; but those days were over. There was a silhouette of a driver and a passenger. Three figures sat in the bed of it.
Bright red tail lights illuminated the grass behind the truck somberly. The growling of the engine was Koznar’s handiwork. He had spent the last several weeks alone in the barn trying to get the old truck in running condition.
Brake lights glared like two angry red eyes in the darkness. Somewhere in the Gulf, the Dark Man stirred, as if touched by a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean.
The truck came to a stop. Daedalus and Montague stepped out and didn’t wait for the others, striding through the field toward the open grave. Koznar had placed the coffin and the pulley days earlier, happily dragging it at the end of a chain hooked up to the vehicle he resurrected.
Click…
Static…
“Today’s word of the day is: Resurrection! And remember, kids! If you hear the word of the day, scream real loud!”
Even in a state of rot, Pee-Wee Herman maintained his cheerful charm. He could just barely be seen limping in the shadows, but his suit was covered in dirt stains. As if he had just climbed from a grave.
Or helped dig one.
Static…
Click…
Koznar stepped out of the back first, and with Tempest’s and Pisces’s help, had the clown over his shoulder once again. Tempest skipped, circling Koznar and Pisces, swinging his shovel through the air like a lightsaber. He giggled, tapping the shovel against the ground every so often.
“I put a spell on you!” he called out merrily. “And now, you’re mine!”
The moon above laughed with the Spider King, and Tempest pointed at it, the only entity that ever understood his humor.
They finally reached the gravesite and Tempest’s glee subsided. He reached out and ran his fingertips along Jacky’s face, then leaned in and kissed her cheek.
“Close your eyes and count to seven, when you wake you’ll be in heaven.”
Gnaw Bone, Indiana
The Farmhouse
Steel blue, dead eyes scanned the property. His half-destroyed mask was hanging loosely on his face. Half of his face was painted like a skeleton. He wore a shirt with a clown crawling from beneath a child’s bed, with the word Coulrophobia scrawled across the bottom. A makeshift cape blew with the breath of the light breeze that danced in the air. The Cross-Hemisphere championship wrapped snugly around his waist. He clutched a shovel in his hand with the blade pointed to the sky. The clouds in the sky were white and fluffy, moving lazily across a bright blue sky.
“Nobody believed that we would be of any significance here in the Coalition. We were considered to be the ‘Monsters of the Month’ for a long time. We would make promises that nobody expected us to keep. And when we kept them, nobody wanted to acknowledge it.”
Behind him, the Astro Creeps worked diligently to prepare for their new guests, making space in all of the vacant rooms of the farmhouse. Most of which were below ground in the catacombs. They had a lot to do yet, but Daedalus was of course a mastermind architect. He had a planned design, and he proudly presented his blueprints to Tempest, Montague, and Jaclyn only hours after they brought Jacky back from the dead.
“I don’t expect this time to be much different. Nobody wants to admit their fears. That doesn’t alter the path that their fears will come to fruition. These are only the first stages of that. Nevermind the fact that I defeated a white hot Duncan Ryder a short two weeks ago. I didn’t expect anyone to believe that I’d do that either, but I did.”
His design was impressive, if the Labyrinth did, in fact, match the blueprints. It would be like the Overlook Hotel, if the Overlook had been buried alive. And then resurrected. Somewhere on Channel Thirteen, the undead fiends of Pee Wee's Playhouse screamed at the top of their lungs.
“Nobody believed that we would ever expand. Who would ever want to be associated with the likes of us? Incendium? Nah, they’re too High Society. JC? Nein, he’s too selfish. Sloane Taylor? Uh-uh, despite being nice to the less fortunate ones, she has her own reputation to protect. She probably wouldn’t even acknowledge us these days. Just like the rest of them. Nobody believed we would grow. And haven’t we grown in more ways than one? Yes… I say we have.”
He turned and watched the other Creeps moving in and out of the house like worker ants. Daedalus was coming towards him, a satisfied smile on his face. He reached Tempest and the two took in the view, imagining the final product together.
“Nobody believed that we would ever recover from what JC did to us. Everyone thought that the farmhouse was dead and buried. And yet here we are… resurr--”
Tempest grabbed Daedalus by the shoulder suddenly.
“Ah! Maybe, ‘bringing it back from the dead’ is a better way of saying it?”
He shrugged with a sheepish smile. A collective groan of disappointment filled the Playhouse on Channel Thirteen.
“You know that if you say the ‘Word of the Day’ three times, it brings Pee Wee’s Playhouse back from the dead, too.”
“Right. Good thinking.”
He held his fingers up in guns pointed at Tempest and clicked his tongue with a wink.
“And nobody wants that.”
“No, of course not. When do you think we’ll have that movie screen restored?”
They turned to the other side of the property, where the damaged screen sat by itself, a lonely skeleton of what it briefly was. Daedalus had just finished that before it was destroyed. He shook his head doubtfully.
“It might be a while. Why, you got a hot date?”
He nudged Tempest and grinned, but Tempest didn’t return it. He only stared out at the movie screen and sighed.
“Well, speaking of hot dates, it would appear that Jaclyn isn’t the only one taking an interest in you, boy.”
“I know!”
Tempest threw his head back in frustration, running his fingers along his disfigured face.
“I’ve become such a heartthrob! Now I know how Dracula feels!”
Daedalus nodded in agreement.
“Oh, I’m sure that Miss Pierrot would have no qualms about showing Miss DuMourne, or anyone else for that matter, that she’s treading on hallowed ground.”
Tempest nodded, his eyes still gazing at what once was their drive-in movie screen. When Daedalus walked away to show his latest project more attention, Tempest walked to the screen and craned his neck. Looking up at the structure, he wondered if he could fly from the top. Jacky would really think he was somethin’ then, wouldn’t she? He climbed the scaffolding behind it. The vision of himself leaping off and flying across the property, with his cape billowing behind him like Superman, was fresh in his mind. He pictured Jacky honking with laughter as her golden eyes fixed on him with wonder, cheering from the second story window.
Once he reached the top of the screen, he crawled across to the center and sat with his legs dangling in front of it.
“Nobody believes that you’ll succeed here either, Angel DuMourne. May I just call you Miss DuMourne? I just… I don’t care for your first name.”
His eyes scanned the property. No one had seemed to notice him sitting up there yet. That was okay, he was in a peaceful state. The wind blew his cape to the side and it wrapped around his waist, covering his prize that he had claimed in the desert two months ago.
“Nobody believes in you, Miss DuMourne. But I do. I’m not going to make the mistake that so many in the Coalition make. I’m not going to treat you the way that they treat me. You’re as dangerous as Duncan Ryder, or Centurion, or… well, you’re a far cry more dangerous than that cockroach, Konrad Raab. Fuck me, why do you associate with him? Don’t ya know he’s a bad person?”
He hocked a loogie and spat it, really trying to get some distance behind it. It wasn’t bad, but he could do better, he thought.
“Anyway, enough about them. Let’s talk about you!”
He swung his legs cheerfully, grinning behind the mask and face paint.
“I’ve been waiting to spend time with you, you know some real one on one time. Where we can really get to know each other. I don’t know that many realize this, but all it takes for me is one glimpse into your eyes to see… you’ve got some major ghosts haunting you, don’t ya? You may look like a good girl, but you’re a cold-blooded murderer in the shadows, am I getting warm?”
A soft, high-pitched chuckle escaped him.
“And now, I get what I want. And what I want… is a playdate. A playdate for our demons to reeeeeally get some quality time on the devil’s playground together. Can you dig it, Miss DuMourne?”
He suddenly looked down to the ground where he left his shovel at the base of the movie screen and cursed himself.
That joke would have been so much better if I was holding that fuckin’ shovel. Oh well.
“The demons don’t hate you, Miss DuMourne. In fact, I believe that the demons are infatuated with such a pretty girl as yourself. Not only are you pretty, but you’re open-minded enough to let them in and play.”
He swung his legs more and hocked another loogie out into the field. That was better.
“I’m counting on you hurting me, Monday. I’m planning on this making me really… feel like I’ve done something with meaning when I walk out of the ring. Centurion didn’t. Neither did Konrad. Not even Duncan could do what you can do for me. You have all of the abilities and the tools to take me down. I’m begging you to bring your demons and your skeletons and your ghosts with you. I’m begging you to haunt me.”
He stopped swinging his legs, sighing.
“They don’t believe in creatures like us, Angel. I guess I don’t mind your first name, afterall. I get it. It’s ironic. They don’t believe in you… but we do. The Astro Creeps endorse your darkness.”
He chuckled again, tilting his head backwards and kicking his feet gleefully.
“And we will find you. We’ll illuminate you, and grow you. The secret, Angel… is not to push your demons away… but to submit to them. Embrace them. Let them consume you, because you know that, in the end, they’ll consume you anyway.”
He swung one of his legs over the screen back in the direction of the scaffolding and stood on the top of the screen. Look Dae, no hands! He considered leaping off right then, but thought better of it.
“So let’s play, Angel DuMourne.”
He grinned, pulling the handheld camera close to his face. His scars behind the mask could be seen from this close, skin like bubblegum pushing out defiantly on his right side. He laughed obnoxiously into the camera before pressing stop and chucking it across the field. It clunked onto the grass and rolled several feet away from a broken speaker on a pole below.