“Wake up, Safat!”

A reddish, slender goblin barely old enough to grow warts sniffed and began crawling upright. His body ached from being crammed in between earthenware goods in a pony-drawn wagon. At least I don’t have to walk. The tall goblin finally managed to pry his eyelids open.

The sky was missing. Or at least most of it was. There were massive stone fingers blocking the Safat from the sky and its soft clouds. Though he was one of the tallest Unnamed goblins in Creta, Safat felt tiny and completely insignificant under the stones. The shadow stretched in all directions, farther than the eye could see. Where does this rock end? What kind of rock is it? How is it purple? Safat scampered out of the wagon with curious eyes. He had to hop slightly as he hit the ground to keep from falling. The wagon train was still moving. A dozen more wagons and ponies marched towards him and he trotted to his father.

“Where are we, Father?” (more…)

“Oh, I’ll kill him for ye. Eh’s justa matter a’ how dead ye want ‘im.”
“I want him as dead as you can make him.”
“Can ye puta number behin’ that?”

(more…)

Vinnie got a bullet loaded into his snub nose and closed the cylinder. This is it. Now, I can escape! The demon inside him writhed angrily. It lashed his mind with feelings of cowardice. Every authority figure in his life flooded his sight, completely obscuring the real world. His father and his mother cast stern looks that Vinnie had long learn promised pain and hunger. Principal Lovecraft, wearing his smooth black suit, clenched his jaw. His hand squeezed into a fist with one long finger stabbing outwards at him, like a accusing dagger. Vinnie knew this look well, as it always heralded lectures and detentions.

Mr. Joshi was there also. The normally peaceful features of his tanned face were torn apart by a look of utter disgust. Vinnie had never seen him look this way. While he could shrug off being a disappointment to his parents for the hundredth time, Mr. Joshi was the only teacher to take the time to listen to young Vinnie. The rejection was shattered glass shredding Vinnie’s insides. The literature teacher turned his back on Vinnie and began to walk away. Vinnie’s eyes hazed over as his hand reached out blindly for Mr. Joshi’s jean jacket. He fell to his face, sobbing.

The small monster inside Vinnie had won. There would be no suicide tonight. Vinnie would live on to nourish it.

The dirty gang of bikers was tired from the hour of hiking through the woods, but felt refreshed when they were finally able to stop. They knelt on the edge of the woods surrounding the massive temple. While it bore a passing resemblance to conventional Christian churches in America, no one who got as close as they were would make the mistake. A twisting, vaguely cone-shaped spire rose above the structure. It was a frog-like gargoyle rising up from the roof, stretching itself upwards to claw the sky with one of his fists. It looked as though it had man’s head gripped tightly in its lower paw. (more…)

“Well, shit. I guess it’s my turn, isn’t it?” August groaned and motioned for another beer from Abdul.
“Not until story time, Gus.”
“Ah, it’s a fuckin’ conspiracy! You bastards got Abdi to cut me off! Fine, you want to hear about it? Let’s take a stroll down memory lane

“I was a little kid coming home from the movie theater with my folks when a mugger with a gun burst out of the shadows and gunned them down.”
“No, that’s Batman, smart-ass.” Jack threw a handful of pretzels at August.
“OK. Well, I was on a field trip at the local university’s lab, observing an experiment with radiation when-”
“Shut the fuck up, Spider-Man!” This time a full salvo of pretzels flew from all the bikers.
“I was a reporter in Hub City.” August paused, as if he expected another round of flying bar food. “What? No one likes The Question?”
“Who the fuck is The Question?”
“Exactly!” August lean back in his chair smugly.
“Would you just get on with the fucking story? The REAL story?”
“Fuck off. They killed my family. I ain’t goin’ into it.” (more…)

“What kind of a fucked up person would give me a dog to eat?” Vinnie shoved his mug of beer disgustedly, like it was the offending chef.
“Now you see what we’ve been dealing with. The Church has their hooks in more than anyone could possibly imagine and there’s no way to know just how far they’re going to go.” Jack stood up and pulled his shirt up to his chest. It was filled with intricately carved scars, with a thick single scar running around the bottom of his belly, like a perverse belt. “They did this. They gashed their alien words into me and put something inside me. Something alive. I could feel it twisting as they held me in their hospital.”
“They have a hospital?” (more…)

Black Jack gave Vinnie a look that was harder than a college freshman overdosing on Viagra, before he opened his mouth and started filling in the details of how deep in shit Vinnie was.

“It’s the funny thing about the Church; they’ll never just kill you outright. It’d be too easy. They gotta fuck with you first, get inside your head, make you want to off yourself. A lot of people do. There’s only so many that can keep from losing their shit and even fewer that can stand up to them. You know the one-percenter motorcycle clubs, right?”
“‘Course. Ninety-nine percent of everyone does the right thing, plays by the rules. Ninety-nine percent of everyone is a bunch of pussies. Only one percent gets on their bikes and raises Hell.”
“Same idea here. The Church’ll take ninety-nine percent of everyone they touch and crush, kill or make them worthless. One percent stands up and throws the shit right back in their face and bangs their mothers in dirty motel rooms.”

A rousing “Hell yeah!” erupted from the table as the bikers hoisted their mugs and renewed their assault on their livers. After an impromptu belching contest, Vinnie started up his story again. (more…)

Invocation of the muse:

This ain’t so much an invocation as it is a string of uttered profanities to the chick I keep chained up in my imagination.

Bitch! Oh, you bitch!
Let me tell my tale right.
Let me tell my tale true, ‘cept for the parts that make me look bad.
May the dark times sound sinister and may the golden times be in a 3:2 ratio.

All right. Let’s go.

The motor’s running. We’re wasting gas. (more…)