Some unexpected violence and conflict broke out at the Toronto D20 Conference between stalwart adventurers and a dungeon master (DM) whose actions have been described by attendees as “power-mad” and “utterly unrealistic”.
The D20 Conference is an annual event held between the world’s highest-leveled Dungeons & Dragons characters, and a magnet of media interest in the often-clandestine world of fantasy power playing. The characters and their roleplayers convene in an agreed-upon location that must be properly supplied by the host. Ringolos, Orange Crush and progressive rock (or, alternately, fantasy film soundtracks complete with incidental cues) must be provided, and the venue must be secured from possible intrusions such as doting mothers and sunlight. However, problems with the Toronto venue plagued this years conference to the point of calamity.
The leadup to the Toronto D20 Conference was full of bad portents. Host and dungeon master (DM) Stephen Harper’s older brother Blake was hosting a beer pong tournament in the garage on the same weekend, forcing the D20 to be held in the dining room where, according to inside sources, the illusion of fantasy was shattered by occasional family meals and repeated humpings by the family dog Terry.
“We complained to Stephen, but he didn’t listen,” said Barry “Elrendel” Moresly, representative of the Sword Coast. “He refused to break character even when the pizza guy got there. If we had a problem, he’d just say something like ‘in what manner of devilrous tongue speakest thou?’. You can’t quest with a guy like that, and you darn sure don’t want him DMing.”
The problems didn’t stop at the setting. DM Harper’s totalitarian tactics and self-centredness created rifts between the D20 organizer and those who adventured therein. One of the first roadbumps would become emblematic of DMing and hosting problems throughout the conference: the artificial lake fiasco, or Aquagate.
“I’d walked into a tavern and ordered a steak,” recounted Dmitri “Thal-Ghash” Brisov. “Thal-Gash is a half-orc, but he’s got the appetite of a troll, obviously. So I order a giant steak, and Steve must’ve misheard, because he rolls a die and says ‘very well – you are now at the bottom of a lake.’ I say I ordered a steak, not a lake, but he doesn’t care.”
The uproar was immediate. Barry, in particular, was livid. “How, by the Four Winds, could the lake have gotten there? The tavern was on a hill, Thal-Ghash isn’t a spell caster, and if the tavern wench could cast spells like that, why in Thoth’s name would she be working in a tavern on the farthest edges of Halruaa?”
Complaints to the DM were met with silence, denials, and in-game reprisals. Recounts Dmitri, “I complained about my order – in character, to the wench, mind you – and Stephen friggin’ drops a bunch of giant squids in the water for no reason! They ate up Thal-Ghash! I had to get Twiglam to cast a Recall spell on my paladin, but he’s only level 8. I mean, it’s a world-class dungeon I’ve got to crawl!”
DM Harper strongly objected to being referred to as "Gargamel's Sissy Little Brother"
Complaints of the artificial, illusion-shattering effect of the lake’s creation would dog Harper for the next two days. Adventurers argued that the time expended on describing the lake would have been better spent describing the environment of the underground passage they were supposed to explore, as previous D20s had seen their respective DMs fail to mention the dangerous thickness of their dungeons’ cobwebs in time for the adventurers to avoid them.
DM Harper, perhaps flustered by repressed embarrassment, and irritated at all the complaints (however valid), steamrolled over these and other protests at his lack of dungeon mastery. A list, compiled by disgruntled conference critics, details his failings in full, and includes such cardinal D&D sins as die rolls falling off tables, treasure troves being paltry for the effort required to unlock them, making dungeon layouts spell “Stephen Rules” from above, and refusing to play any album other than King Crimson’s Lark’s Tongue in Aspic for the duration of the conference. “It’s a decent album, even without Greg Lake,” commented Theodore “High Shaman Triffletrop” Smith, “but it’s just really grating – even during the first listen-through.”
As the game progressed, adventurers who protested these ridiculous conditions grew increasingly frustrated with DM Harper’s inability to adequately address their complaints. The descent into the underground passage grew slower and slower, dogged by more and more problems and irritations, until finally Harper arbitrarily transported all the most visible complainers to small cages in the Netherrealms. Inventory-less, cramped, unable to rest, and denied access to even Light Cure Wounds tonics, these prisoners were informed that they were to be held without use of spells until the DM decided to release them.
Adventurers thus subjected eventually rebelled, denying the DM’s authority and magically magically transporting themselves out of these cages, despite the vexed insistence of DM Harper that they could not do that. While many of the attendees simply left the conference after being freed from detention, some mutineers then further flouted roleplaying conventions and teleported their characters into a place they described as “the DM’s mom’s vagina,” laying waste to its elegantly described environs.
A furious DM Harper unleashed an impossibly large horde of orcs in response. The adventurers laughed at the DM spawning orcs in “his mom’s vagina”, but their laughter ended when he declared that the orcs had killed all their hard-leveled characters. “The keen-eared and Listening Elrendel should have heard them a mile off, had they existed before stupid Stephen just made them up ’cause he’s a crybaby,” reported Barry.
Harper's mother Karen and her unscathed vagina after an uneventful traffic stop on the weekend of the conference
The conference then devolved into shouting and namecalling, until Stephen’s brother Blake and his hockey buddies happened upon it and mocked it until it was abruptly brought to a formal close by a teary-eyed and thoroughly humiliated DM.
“The thing was, beforehand, Stephen was bragging about how much he’d spent on the whole thing,” recounts Yoshi “Yoshi” Takamoto, Stygian representative. “He was saying he’d gotten the chairs reupholstered, he’d gotten name brand snack mix, Stewart’s fizzy pop, and all this stuff. If you believed him, he must’ve spent ten times what Joey spent last time. But I didn’t see any of it there. The way he’d been carrying on, you’d think it should’ve been the best D20 ever. I think he just wanted to host for hosting’s sake.”
DM Harper could not be reached for comment, as he was grounded for throwing the remote at the TV in the aftermath of the conference.
Did you hear about the skeleton who stood up to bullies? He had a lot of backbone!
Why do mummies make bad conversationalists? They get too wrapped up in themselves!
Where did the ghost get his recipe for Hungscary-an Ghoul-ash? His spook boo!-k!
Why did the vampire tell his son to clean up his room? Because it was a bloody mess!
Why was the blob fired from the police force? He thought he was sludge, slurry and blobbocutioner!
Did you hear about the zombie’s new car? Cost him an arm and a leg!
What’s the ghost’s favourite new obscene rap act? Boo Live Crew!
Why did the witch stop hanging out with her sarcastic friends? She was always getting burned!
Why did the vampire retire from his job? He couldn’t keep up with all the new-fang-led technology!
What’s the Goobly Gobblie’s favourite condiment? Butt-er! Or Puss-tard! Or Smell-ish! Or Wretchup! Or Sprayonnaise! Or Blargh-gerine! Or Toe Jam! Or Pee-Butt Butt-Turd! Or Scarmalade! Or Fruit Smelly! Or Toot Jelly! Or Toot Smelly! Or Crapplesauce! Or Grey Poo-pon! Or Sneeze Whiz! Or Scabasco Sauce (or any kind of Snot ‘n Licey sauce)! Or Mrs. Rash!
Question:My mother says I’m too old for Trick or Treats (I’m almost thirteen), but Halloween is my favorite Holiday and I don’t want to have to stay inside and do my additions, as mother suggests. Am I too old, and if the answer is Yes, are there any fun activities that adults do on Halloween which I can now join? I really hate Kumon.
Question:
Dear Candyman,
I have a problem because I really want to start hanging out at the back doors during lunch hour. Those dudes seem pretty cool and that I’d fit in really well. I’ve mastered hacky sack on my own time (I rented She’s All That and watched that hacksack scene again and again), but now I just need an actual entrance into their gang. My hacky sack skills will come out once I’m friends with them. My skills, so madd, they’ll probably elect me group leader.
I figured free candy would be a way to get in their group. This is high school now though and only DBs still T+T. A guaranteed way to not get into their group would be by going out T+Ting like a little baby. So maybe I should steal candy from little kids. Is this ethical? Is it do-able?
Help.
Graham
I am perplexed by your question. Are you insinuating that this new “cool group” does NOT go out trick or treating? Why would you want to be friends with these people? Your question does not make sense. And who are these “cool dudes”? Where is their sense of youth, their joy in living? Halloween is a celebration of the self, not some stepping rung on the social ladder.Stealing candy from children? This is completely unethical, and absolutely shameful and unthinkable. But completely do-able. I usually get my good friend Michael Switch, an eighth grader at a local public school that I once gave guitar lessons at, to distract the parents while I grab the child by the legs, turn it upside down so that all of the candy from its bag falls into mine.
Age 8
Hey Rebecca,
The Diaries of Osmond Finger, Ghost Detective
Monday
11:45 am.
Office.
She either pretends to not hear me or is hard of hearing. This dame sure knows how to play a game, I think to myself.
She sighs. She starts talking about her case, either to me or to herself. I tell her I’ll take it on.
My secretary walks in. She says I’ll take the case.
“But he doesn’t know what the case is yet.”
She tells me she thinks her husband is involved in illegal activity. Gambling. Insider trading. Extortion. A grab bag of devil’s tricks. She thinks her husband’s playing trick or treat at a house of ill repute; the house called sin. Every night’s Halloween for this guy.
Needless to say, I don’t buy her story, but I tell her I’ll buy her a drink. Need to get to know her better. There’s more to this case than would meet my eye if I still possessed one. I follow her to a bar. We go out for a drink. I talk, laugh. She sits in silence. My drinks pour right through me. She wipes the table up like the seductress she is. She’s sexy, a little too sexy. Something’s amiss. I sense she might be cheating on her husband, if she has one. I decide to investigate.
We part ways. I follow her home.
Tuesday
6:15pm
Investigating the Walker case. Marital Infidelity.
Two cars parked in driveway; One Honda Civic, one Pontiac Firefly. Neither belong to Walker, who is at work. Suspicious. Front door is unlocked. Walk through door. House seems empty, but hear noises coming from above. Check fridge for clues and grab a glass of milk to quench thirst. Milk passes through me, spills on floor. Liquor cabinet is empty, perhaps drained by nights of infidelity. Float upstairs. The noises appear to be coming from the bedroom, which is locked. Walk through door.
An unclothed couple are linked affectionately in bed. They do not appear to be engaged in any explicitly sexual act, but something about their embrace suggests they may be more than friends. Get positive I.D. on Mrs. Walker, and a young man who does not appear to be Walker. Move closer to the couple to scrutinize for transgressions. I recognize the young man immediately: he’s made a cuckold of a lot of men out there.
Mrs. Walker complains of sudden draft, and states that she has become very cold. Puts on sweater. Young man also puts on sweater, and picks up a duvet that had been carelessly left on the floor. They resume their possible copulation under the covers. Mrs. Walker states she is too hot. I move closer to the bed, thinking she may be using “hot” in the colloquial sense, which would indeed confirm she is cuckolding her husband and not simply stating her temperature.
Young man throws duvet into the air, landing on me. Can’t see. Wish I had brought scissors to cut eye holes.
I stub my toe on the nightstand. All intimate activity is suddenly halted, for reasons mysterious.
I leave. Sounds from upstairs resume. Evidence inconclusive.
9:45 pm
City Square
I spot a group of painted young girls, skirts as high as their minds will be after the 8 vodka and energy drinks they plan on drinking tonight. They hail a cab. I float into the back. The girls slide in on top of me. I’m embarrassed at first, but soon I relax. I relax a little too much. The girls don’t seem to mind. They’re singing along to whatever pop idol’s popular this week. Talking about boys they’re meeting. No matter. I’m the only boy with them now.
Downtown. They leave. I stay in the cab a few minutes longer. I float thru the door as we pass my client’s house. Light’s on upstairs. I knock a few times, perhaps a bit timidly because nobody answers. I let myself in.
I’m still excited from the young taxi girls, and my excitement reaches a fever pitch when I enter and find my lovely, lovely client, stripped down, all alone, going to town, as it were, using her fingers to write a first-person story made up entirely of climaxes.
I wonder if she senses that I’m with her, and if I might play a starring role in the picture show currently playing the silver screen of her mind’s eye. Probably not, she’s never even seen me. But I’ve seen her. All of her. A little movie of my own starts to unfold. I sense the end coming all too quickly. My credits roll all over her. She screams. If only my seed was as spectral as the rest of me. I’ll discount her when I compile my expenses. I float away.
Friday
8:23 p.m. Jones Residence. More marital infidelity. Women these days.
Ted Jones was a client from last year who called in about a work-related insurance claim, but I’ve been following up on some suspicions I’d had about his wife ever since I found out he had one.
Float upstairs to the now familiar bedroom, where the Jones wife is wrapped up in her evening knitting. She has a face you can trust, but if there is anything you learn in 350 years on the job, it’s that every woman has something to hide. And one of these days, I’m going to uncover her crimes.
The Jones wife looks good when she knits. Focused, determined, even angelic. Maybe she is on the level after all. I watch her weave. Her nipple slips out of her nightgown as she purls. She doesn’t even notice. I wonder what she looks like binding off. I can’t control myself. Her weaving is too seductive. Driven madly by impulse, I float towards her.
Well, If she was clean, she sure isn’t now.
Better mark it as a discount.
Saturday
9:20 pm Palmer Boulevard. Spectral Haunting Case.
Secretary passed a note onto me about this case. Haunted house case, how ironic. Is it really a ghost, or is it just a cat burglar treating this house like his own personal kitty litter? Hell, I’ll take it. I need the cash.
Arrive at house, float in. Been there for other cases. Guy upstairs in the bedroom. I recognize him right away. He made a cuckold of Mr. Walker. Same guy I caught doing the horizontal tango with Mrs. Walker, the guy who attacked me with the duvet. Sitting there, monogrammed robe, he looks pretty relaxed.
No evidence of haunting yet. But I better stick around just to make sure. According to the report, the ghost only haunts the house when the guy is having sex. What a creep. What a Goddamned pervert. I float into the closet to keep my element of surprise in case the sex-obsessed specter decides to darken this door with his deviant ways.
I hear a knock on the door and in walks my beauty from before, the dame who wanted me to check on her husband. She smiles at the guy. This is looking like it might be a bit of a sticky situation.
I watch these two fornicators start living up to their name and doing what they do best: fornicating. They both look pretty happy.
I’m rushing to conclusions now. She wasn’t suspicious of her husband at all. Her husband’s probably a good guy, probably a guy like me, only guilty of falling for the wrong dames. Falling for dames that’ll use you, cuckold you, and maybe even kill you by battering your head with a candleabra the day you’re about to get your detective’s license. Poor guy.
“See, I told you the house wasn’t haunted”, says the dame.
“The ghost only comes when I’m having sex.”
How right he is. I explode with rage; I explode with something stickier than rage. In a throe of passionate anger I lose my footing, and crash through the closet door, making a thundering racket as I send a lamp to floorsville. The couple screams, and in a frenzy of excitement I’m brought back to our first encounter, only this time it is I who blanket them, with my own duvet — of translucent white.
Hell of a night.
Why was the mummy a bad business partner? Too many pyramid schemes!
Why does the witch like Rice Krispies? They go Snap, Cackle and Pop!
Why’d the vampire get sent to the nut house? He was batty!
Did you hear about the zombie’s new girlfriend? He finds her very a-peel-ing!
Why did the ghost object to the company’s unethical practices? Because he was a scareholder!
When did the ghost lose all his money? The Shock Market Crash of 1929!
Why did the skeleton stop hanging out with his sarcastic friends? They kept ribbing him too much!
Why do vampires make poor poker players? Their fear starts to show when the stakes are high!
Why did the Goobly Gobblie have to resign from his mayoral position? He was convicted of gross misconduct!
Why was the mummy so ashamed of his daughter? She was a stripper!
Recently, while perusing the wares at R.L.Stine’s estate sale and non-perishable food drive, one of Terminal Laughter’s interns came across a spiral-bound folio of grave interest. It contained literally dozens of proposed titles and capsule synopses for never-released titles in the Goosebumps series of children’s novellas.
Now, in a Terminal Laughter Hallo-scream Edition Exclusive, we have reprinted several of the most ghastly entries, entirely for your pleasure.
The Maniacal Mangler on Mulholland Drive—While visiting their famous novelist uncle at his 12,000 square foot mansion in Los Angeles, Beverly and her kid brother Stu learn that there’s more to the life of a multi-talented playboy author than loud parties and fast women. When a maniacal mangler hell-bent on mangling their awesome uncle’s career begins terrorizing his pool parties, our two budding gumshoes must find the monster in order to save Uncle Roger from prison. These are the party days! Or are they?
The Curse of the Caterer’s Apprentice—Everyone knows caviar is the most delicious hors d’œuvre, right? Well Jeff and his cousin Stephen always thought so! Until one day at one of Jeff’s dad’s reasonably priced publishing shindigs, they notice that the bone caviar serving spoons look like they might be made from…real bone! Could it be that the caterer is caught up in the occult? Or is it his apprentice? You’ll have to read it to find out what’s really in the canapés!
Another Shocker on Shock Street—In the shocking follow-up to A Shocker on Shock Street, Erin and Marty return to the Shocker Studio Theme Park to find out that…nothing has changed! Evil skeletons still pack the park, giant praying mantises roam free and the Toadinator returns with a score to settle. Real life is still a whole lot scarier than the movies! But Shock Street isn’t really real? Is it? Still?
Goosebumps Ghoulish Cross-over Spooktacular—Celebrate the 75th entry in your favourite spooky book series with this double thick extravaganza! Slappy the Dummy! Monster Blood! The Phantom of the Auditorium! The Beast From the East! The Return of the Mummy! They’re all here to face off against their wiliest adversary yet…YOU! Can you survive the onslaught of these banner-name beasts? Buy this book and find out!
The Girl Who Cried Diminishing Returns!—Sandy’s mom is a big deal literary agent who works with Sandy’s most favourite writer. Sandy is very proud of her mommy. But one day mommy tells her that her favourite author isn’t meeting his projected grosses and that he may be let go. Sandy is devastated! But it can’t be the author’s fault, can it? And what’s mommy doing eating scarab beetles for breakfast? Sandy must choose between her demonic mommy and the nice writer man who brought so much joy into her life, and must learn that real life is full of tough decisions!
Monster Blood V (VI?)—It’s at least five times the evil! Evan Green is back again fighting monster blood, that gruesome slime that turns household pets into beasts and does other things! If you loved the other Monster Bloods, you’re bound to buy this one! This time the blood is…PURPLE!!!!
Possession of the Dispossessed—Brendan Spine used to love eating fancy dinners with his well-to-do daddy. But lately, financial crisis has sent him and his nobly struggling artist father into soup kitchens for lukewarm Styrofoam cups of barley broth. But when Scott Mission regulars begin acting mysteriously, can Brendan’s dad expel the demons preying on the destitute while remaining mindful of page count and suturing in a twist ending?
Night of the Living Author—Do you believe in curses? In this, the most terror-fying Goosebumps yet, a long-forgotten novelist returns from the dead to exact revenge on Erin, Sandy, Jeff, Stephen, Marty, Brendan, and all the other legions of readers who BETRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYED him! Written in virgin blood and bound in the flesh of ungrateful children, Night of the Living Author is bound to give you…Goosebumps!
Eight women were beaten, tortured and humiliated by villagers after being branded as witches in a small community outside of Kirkview, Ontario. The incident has caused an outrage among the general public, who argue that the alarming episode is evidence of hidden chauvinistic undercurrents in society.
The suspicions began on Friday night, when the eight women were reportedly seen cackling near Old Town Square. The following morning accounts of whispering in a foreign language raised eyebrows among the superstitious and blood-hungry villagers, who began throwing stones at the levitating women. The hostilities culminated on Sunday, when the eight victims were said to have been minding their own business, huddled around a cauldron inside of the gingerbread house which they collectively share, brewing strange ingredients and producing ghastly smells, before receiving the unprovoked violent attacks. By high noon, an unruly mob ate their way into their house, dragged the women out and started beating them.
“This has set us back about 150 years in the fight for justice”, says Judith Bronte, head of the Gender Studies Department at McGill University. “I really don’t know what to say. It’s deplorable.”
“They were singled out because they were different”, says Tom Spillard, director of the Center for the Advocacy of Equal Rights.
The victims were taken to a playground where hundreds had assembled to watch the spectacle. As their clothes were torn off, they were hit with sticks. They were torn apart by hungry dogs, and then parts of their bodies were burned at the stake while other parts were drowned in large barrels of bubbling water.
Armed police have since been deployed to the area to pacify the situation. The victims, miraculously still living, have been buried in coffins under a thick layer of cement to ensure that the abuse does not continue. The entire village has since been put under arrest.
The villagers remain convinced that their actions, however drastic they were, were a necessary step in the town’s witch hunt, as well as the longstanding campaign to eliminate Magick.
“I always known they were sorc’rers for having them pointed hats”, states Jim Bucker, a local electrician.
“If they wasn’t witches, then who turned my leg into an eel?” He continued, before limping off to his house, now a toadstool.
Analysts attribute the attitude of the villagers to deeply-ingrained prejudices that stem from the patriarchal structure of their rural community.
“Something needs to be done”, Bronte insists. “This was an unparalleled act of aggression against not only a group of women, but women as a whole”.
“It really says a lot about our society that a woman is assumed to be a “witch”, and will face discrimination and ritual humiliation every time she does so much as fly around on a broomstick or turn into a toad”, Spillard told the local news.
Experts speculate that the attacks were motivated in part by superstitious beliefs.
Everyone already knows that Halloween is the best holiday. But did you know you can make it more fun? Here are some practically devilish practical jokes designed by Dr. Prankenstein in his mad scientist’s Secret Scaboratory. Easy to use, the tips are fun for all ages and will guarantee scares for the whole family– and guarantee laughs for everyone!
1. Tie a piece of string around the leg of a fake rat. Hide in the next room. When someone walks by, pull the string. They will think the rat is real!
2. Put a plastic skeleton in your family closet. Hide nearby and wait for the screams!
3. On a weekend day, wake up your sister and say to her, “You better get up, you are late for school!”
4. Start collecting matchbooks from various bars across the city. In pen, write phone numbers on them and hide them around your parent’s house in places that your father won’t find them but your mother will.
5. When you are with a friend who is very afraid of bats, look to the sky and say “I think I see a bat!”
6. Put plastic bugs in your sister’s bed.
7. Find one of your father’s nice dress shirts. Buy some lipstick that your mother does not use. Put some on and start kissing your father’s shirt, leaving stains. Then crumple up the shirt and hide in under the bed.
8. When someone is talking, make funny noises like “Boo!” and “OoOoOohh!” to make it sound like the person talking is making the noises. Everyone will think they are a ghost!
9. Look at your sister and say “Oh my! You have a very large bug on your shoulder!”
10. Hit yourself in the face with a baseball bat until bruises start to show. When your mom asks you what happened, tell her that your father told you not to talk about it. When your father asks you what happened, tell him you are not allowed to tell him who did it because no one can know about your mother’s special friend. When they both confront you at the same time, start crying and insist you fell down the stairs.
11. Vanish completely for a while. Find somewhere to stay that no one (parents, friends, relatives) could possibly know about. After two weeks, use a payphone to call home. If your father answers, hang up. If your mother answers, beg her for help in a hushed cry, insisting that your father is keeping you somewhere strange and that you do not feel safe. When she asks you where you are, scream and hang up.
12. Unscrew the lid on the saltshaker.
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A little while ago, dear reader, I was a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care, let’s-get-drunk kinda guy. The sort of person who never really worried about that much, had a smile plastered to their face, and all that stuff that becomes a problem during exam season. Case in point, one day I had finished a paper in a rather half-assed fashion, and proceeded to berate my roommate with a more intense exam schedule than me with this fact for some time. Eventually, I grew weary of this, and headed out to get loaded in celebration.
Six beers later, I stroll on home, figure I’m out of sorts enough to enjoy some Kraft Dinner that has adorned the cupboard for a while, and then fall asleep. Little did I know that the happy guy who passed out had seen the last of his smilin’ daze dwindle away from him with the waning light. You see, people, and I swear to you about this, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the fucking GRIM REAPER floating in my doorway.
Now, this may not have been a big deal to most people. I can easily see Ernest Hemingway seeing ol’ G-R hanging out in his room, and react only by hurling whiskey bottles at him until sunrise. But you see, I have what is known in psychological circles as a fear of Death. One day, many years ago, the wee Petrenko you read before you was watching some shoddily-produced daytime Discovery Channel special on ghosts, and in this special that no child should have been left alone to watch was an image of a ghoulish apparition floating in the doorway of some person who was tossing and turning in their bed. And I don’t know what mumbo-jumbory happened to my brain as it saw this, but it petrified the shit out of me. I couldn’t sleep for two nights, I couldn’t turn a corner in my own house without being deathly afraid that some hideous monster was waiting to… well, scare me some more, I guess. It was like that moment when you jump because a misleading camera angle in a horror movie doesn’t reveal the psycho killer until they’re right there, but preserved for sixty hours.
Jump forward, back to a few weeks ago. I’m twenty-two now, about as old as the actor in that ghost sequence that has scarred itself into my brain, and in the middle of the night I wake up completely alert, confronted with an even WORSE ghoul – this is the GRIM REAPER, in case I didn’t capitalize it before, and it’s way worse than some no name beastie. They sent the big guns in on this one.
Now, perhaps there are calmer ways for a quasi-adult to react to an apparition of imminent death floating before you than to pull the blankets over your head and start bargaining with yourself – but I didn’t pause to consider them. Closely guarded by a comforter that failed to adequately comfort, I grasped at straws: “Okay, shit. SHIT! No more drinking, okay? I’ll go easy at the birthday party tomorrow, I promise, okay! I don’t want to die! I’ll even be a bastard and tell other people not to drink, so they don’t die. Is that enough? Please?”
Peeking my head out from under the covers to find out if that was enough to appease the as-yet un-fully-contemplated fucking devil outside my door, I see it obviously was not a sufficient resolution, and immediately fling the sheets back over my head, Ebenezer Scrooge visitation-style.
Perhaps, again, I could have acted in a wiser fashion. But lo and behold, my very next thought to myself was the question “What do I have to do, man!? What’s it gonna take!? I don’t want to die! Couldn’t I just run up and shove it down, or something?”
My mind presented a counterargument almost immediately.
“No, man! You can’t do that! You can’t just walk up to the Grim Reaper and slap him around and have him go away! If he touches you, you’re dead!”
“Yeah, but what if I touch him? Maybe he’s like one of those animated skeletons who crumbles into dust when you punch him.”
“Naw… just hide here until sunup, so he’ll go away.”
“That’s vampires, idiot! Why’s he a vampire and not a skeleton man?”
It was at this point that a third, silent partner in my mind’s deliberation spoke up.
“Hey, is the door even open?”
Like the clarion voice of Wisdom itself, or possibly Moe instructing Larry and Curly in the proper method of tuning a piano, this voice brought a stop to the idiotic cacophony.
“…maybe… what of it?”
“Don’t you hang your jacket and towels on hooks on the inside of said door, and couldn’t they look pretty much like a grim reaper in poor light?”
After the other two opinions in this internal debate argued over who should take the first look to check it out, I snuck a peek, and sure enough, the spectre of my imminent demise was gone. In its place were my dark blue winter jacket and a dark red towel with surprisingly little power of absorption that I hated, but used nonetheless.
People, my brain was like Apollo Program Mission Control at this realization. People were hugging, popping champagne, applauding wildly, and I was elated. I realized then that my heart was beating like I’d just run a marathon, I’d broken out in a cold sweat (but not in the romantic James Brown way), and I’d woken up at this ungodly hour not to receive the knowledge of my passing, but because all the alcohol in my system when I fell asleep had turned to sugar and been digested somehow. Still bursting from the rush, I couldn’t fall back to sleep, and decided to write this whole saga down in the rising glow of the new day.
At the time of publication, I still have not considered or accepted the fact that I am 22 years old. Nor have I figured out if you could in fact push the Grim Reaper down and run away from him.
PS: This is also not the first time I have been scared shitless by mistaking coats for ghosts.
]]>Illustrations by MICHAEL DEFORGE
Many assume that zombies first arose in the 1950s as a by-invention of nuclear testing, television and race-relations allegory. Well, ‘many’ could not be further from the truth. Zombies, or as they now prefer to be called, “The Unstoppable Menace”, have a long and storied history as upstanding, if dead, members of society. Given the widespread discrimination many zombies face seeking employment from non-zombies (or “nombies” as they call them), many zombies stay in the well-established Hollywood zombie community and make films about the harsh realities of being a zombie in a nombie-dominated world. Often neglected in the shadow of their present media existence is the long and storied history of their ascent from the mausoleum to the matinee. While early records of zombie activities are scarce – being well-thought out, the evidence of brains in the records made them tasty treats for zombie eats – several noteworthy morsels survive.
1347: The Black Death ravages Europe, and no one helped less than zombies. While alchemists at the time believed it to be caused by tiny, invisible microbes transmitted via tactile contact from rats to humans, scientists currently believe it to have been caused by a man ancient texts identify as Olaf Zomberg, zombie. Stricken with polydipsia, Olaf’s hunger was psychologically unquenchable, and so he roamed the continent, devouring hamlet after hamlet. Also, he was magic. Eventually baked into a pie by the King of Bavaria (and baked into legend as eight different nursery rhymes), he nevertheless changed the course of history, and increased anti-zombiism to historically high levels. Over the centuries, Olaf’s oft-retold tale eventually turned into the story of Santa Claus.
1804: In the first successful slave rebellion, Haitian slaves overwhelm their French overlords with the aid of zombies, with their zombie powers. Lead by the zombie of Charlemagne, imported in secret from France, the ironic victory turns sarcastic when the zombies seize control from their slave overlords in the world’s first successful zombie rebellion. Unfortunately, strong resistance from the zombies’ subjugated Dracula population cuts short the zombie rule of the island, and tension between the four factions still continues today.
1898: Recorded on wax cylinders, and projected onto pressed onion meal, the first zombie film is released to a terrified public. These strange, moving pictures cause panic nationwide, settled only after careful consultation of Revelations reveals this only to be a sign of forecoming signs of the Apocalypse, and not a sign of the first degree. The pandemonium helps make the medievally-set Gadzookf!, Zombief Hath Abfconded In Poffeffion of Our Letterf! a hit, and also helps to set back the cause of zombie rights by some fifty years.
1939: Zombie warfare is unleashed on the battlefields of Europe, decimating the nombie population. Despite their tireless contributions to the slaughter, they are refused the vote upon their return, and many do not even receive benefits promised to them by FDR’s zombie, his power usurped by Harry S. Truman (the ‘S’ stands for ‘Sea Monster’). This issue is explored in depth some years later in the documentary Return of the Living Dead 3, remade for nombie consumption as the middle third of Forrest Gump.
1968: Night of the Living Dead is released, soiling pants worldwide. Despite being subpoenaed for slander by the Zombie Defamation League, the movie goes on to break box office records for zombie movies (easily surpassing the ZDL’s own progressive Guess Who’s Eating My Face?) Zombie opinion is split between the predominantly east-coast, liberal zombies who feel slighted by the publicity, and the middle American sons-of-the-soil zombies happy to gain publicity. Many of these doe-eyed zombies went to Hollywood to grab a piece of the pie offered by the “Zombie Invasion” sweeping the nation.
1971: Their Hollywood dreams in tear-soaked tatters, several desperate zombies bring their careers back from the grave with the release of Night of the Giving Head, touted (though not celebrated) as the first porno film ever, zombie or otherwise. Hailed by the Blowjob Defamation League as a milestone in film history, its plot follows several scantily-decomposed zombie females fresh-risen from the grave who overhear a conversation about ‘men thinking with their penises’. Assuming penises to have delicious brains hidden inside, the zombiettes proceed to extract them as best they can. Many groups complained that the film set an unrealistic portrayal of zombie love, as well as set unrealistic standards of corporeal integrity for female zombies, but they were silenced by the torrent of masturbation engulfing the nation.
1979: Zombi II is released. This sequel to Old Man and the Sea features the first (but not the last) battle between zombie and shark. The Shark Defamation League is silent, busy combating Saturday Night Live at the time. Sharks and zombies have since patched things up, but refuse to answer questions about the possible existence of zombie sharks.
2006: Shortly before this very zombie article is published, some jackass goes and publishes a whole freakin’ book about the damn things. I’m not saying who, and I’m not saying where you can buy the book, but I will say this: it probably sucks. Not that I’m bitter or anything, it’s just that I’m really, really petty.
Today, zombies occupy numerous high-ranking positions in all walks of life, but still struggle for social acceptance. Despite such luminaries as David Schwimmer and that girl in the Apple commercials who seemed really high (according to the Stoner De-fume-ation League), zombies are still seen as flesh-hungry monsters – a viewpoint totally unreasonable, as most zombies import their flesh from the third world via the CHUD act of 1986.
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