Spherx's Domain

I’m sure you’ve heard about the great new healthcare bill now everyone can get coverage without being denied. Bullshit! Just the other day I was playing football with Quiphen and I went out for a pass. He threw it really hard but I knew I could catch it. So I reached out and the ball hit my hands but it kept on going. I looked down and my ARMS were ripped off. I didn’t scream(I really don’t feel pain anymore) I just shambled over and picked them up. I wasn’t worried cos of healthcare for everyone.

IC was nice enough to take me to my local hospital. He ran over an old lady. He said she wasn’t wheelchairing fast enough. I coulda sworn that light was red and the crosswalk told her to cross.

Anywho when I got to the hospital they rushed me to the back. Idoit said he was going to check out the babes in the ice box. When I got to the OR the doc said sorry. I said what for? He said I’m dead. I said I know. He said it’s illegal to operate on corpses! I said healthcare. He said Fuck off healthcare.

Bug put my arms back on but they don’t work right. No healthcare for zombies…

If you watch other people playing cards on television. 

You are retarded. 

Nuff said. 

I have been thinking recently that I want to get a haircut…The problem is I do not know which hairstyle to get…so I have been pondering and pondering which way would look the best and what would benefit me the most when trying to negotiate with the rest of the SD…I started with the color…I figured that I have been the same color my whole life…and I think it is time for a change…I wanted to go orange, but then I remember that orange haired fucker who stole my teddy bear in middle school and I decided against it…although I heard that the emo-trend was still in style so I chose the color black…

Now as to the design and cut I had to think hard…In order to do this I did what every other intelligent emo-kid does and smoked some pot while I was consuming my jack…turns out, really, really, REALLY, stupid…I got so messed up that I got a tattoo, I bought a puppy, stole a baby, and punched a cop…

Good thing the cop thought I was somebody’s pet…The tattoo is actually pretty sweet, the baby ate the puppy…but now what do I do with the puppy murdering baby?…

I scoured the internet for adoption agencies…I found the website www.4achild.com…little did I know that when you sign up, it is not to give a child but rather to receive a child…so there I was, responsible for two children and had no idea what to do with them…so I did what every other responsible recently turned emo-alien does…baby knife fight…whoever wins would be the most loved…

So in order to start this fight I had to name them, one I called “Puppy Bloodbath” and the other I called, “Shamus”…both names I feel were equally violent…”let’s get ready to rumble”…while they were fighting I decided to go and get my haircut…I still don’t know the end result, but I am hoping for Shamus, Puppy Bloodbath is just to long to say…I hope everybody like my Mohawk!!!

I’d like to take a moment to address the world and inform street racers that NOBODY thinks you or your car is cool. You may feel like a badass screaming down Sante Fe Drive  at 2 am with your engine that sounds like a lawnmower and the tail-fin you welded together in shop class, but in reality, people are laughing at you. They think you are a pathetic joke. They see your neon yellow, tricked out Lancer and think, “Now there’s a little bitch looking for attention. Fast and the Furious are his favorite movies. He wasted a whole bunch of his parents’ money by pouring it into fixing up his car so he could attract shallow superskanks  who are willing to fuck him in his dumb rice-burner – despite his tiny dick.”

That’s right! That’s what people are actually thinking about you. And whenever you pull up next to me and immediately start eye-ing me I worry, “Oh no. This kid wants to rape me.” But then I’m relieved when you speed off the line, neck and neck with your douchebag racing bretheren as though you’re hugging each other with your gay cars and trying to feel safe in one anothers’ arms.

Once you come to terms with the fact that your life and car are not special, we can finally progress as a society.

Fucking zombie asshole! I suddenly found myself tied to a chair in a dark room. A single lightbulb dangled overhead. As my vision slowly returned to me, I made out a blurry orange blob sitting next to me and something green and yellowish on floor in front of me.

Then I was quickly distracted by an intensely stinging pain in my hand on top of the already throbbing pain from being bludgeoned in the head by a chain. I wanted to control my tears, but I couldn’t help it… it just hurt so much and there was a horrible, sweaty, fat-person smell in the room!

“OWWWW!!!!” I screamed, “What’s going on!? Why am I here!?”

“Cora!? Is that you?” I recognized Mac voice, “Mac, what are you doing here? Can you see anything? Why does my hand hurt so much?” I cried.

“I’m blindfolded. I can’t see anything.” Mac responded sluggishly.

Another voice emerged, “Your finger is missing,” it meekly interrupted.

“MISSING! MY FINGER IS MISSING!?!?”

“Is that you Quiph?”

Quiphen struggled to respond but confirmed his identity. Mac expressed relief that Quiphen was still alive and kicking. I continued to cry… especially because I’d just had my nails done.

“Well I guess now we know what happened to Patches after we left him for dead. But I’m not sure where he got that huge magnet to lift me out of the sewer.” Mac sighed.

I didn’t know what he was talking about. So Mac told me what happened at the diner. I was flattered Patches stood up for me… and I sort of understood why he was so angry. We keep him locked in a basement and everybody beat the shit out of him for being nice. He and I had a common enemy: Spherx. But then I quickly reminded myself that he was an asshole and I was missing a finger!

“Wait. What’s Cora doing here? Aren’t you suppose to be kidnapped by some douchebag named Manus?” Quiphen muttered.

“My plan. It backfired. I wasn’t kidnapped. It was all a hoax.” I admitted, taking a break from my pained whimpering.

“WHAT!? Man, Spherx was right… you are a bitch!” Mac shouted.

“I know. But what do you expect? I’m on my period.” As my vision got clearer, I could see Quiphen’s face making an expression of disgust. “I was trying to kill Spherx. I staged the ransom. Knowing none of you could deliver fifty-thousand dollars, I presupposed you’d all plan to rob a bank. Unfortunately, he wasn’t killed in a shoot-out with the police like I’d hoped.”

Quiphen sat up, “What if the police killed us too?”

“A necessary sacrifice I was willing to accept. But trust me, your sacrifice would not be forgotten… by me.”

“Well someone did shoot Spherx after that.” Mac tried to fill me in on the events at the safe-house. But I interrupted him, “I know. I did it.”

Mac was shocked, “You shot Spherx at the safe-house!?”

“And you cut off your own finger to do it?” Quiphen raised an eyebrow.

Just then, Patches entered the room, growled “Two to go,” and tossed Spherx’s body on the floor next to Quiphen. Spherx appeared to be unconscious. I tried to scream at Patches but he’d left and slammed the door behind him before I could collect my angry thoughts.

“I would have yelled at Patches myself, but it really sounds like this whole situation is your fault Cora…” Mac suggested.

“Cora’s behind all this?” Spherx suddenly whispered.

“And Patches too. But he’s just motivated by rage it seems.”

“Makes sense, I did have you beat the shit out of him. Which means I brought this on us… and sorry Quiphen. I never loaded your gun.” Spherx whispered. Quiphen reached over and kicked Spherx in his wound.

“ARGH! I know! But I didn’t load IC’s either! So I still don’t know how you got shot! I swear!”

“Well since we’re being honest… and not that it really matters now… but I rigged the van to explode.” Quiphen admitted. Mac instantly became furious, “WHAT! I WAS DRIVING AROUND A TICKING TIME BOMB!?”

“Yeah, yet apparently not fast enough because it never went off.”

Suddenly, the door sprung open and a stunted silhouette stood within the illuminated frame. “It didn’t go off because you left certain variables out of your equation,” Bug stepped forward, his gun pointed at us, “You see, while the top speed of a forty year old van may be sixty miles per hour, you failed to account for the thirty pounds of cake Mac consumed, made all the heavier with mercury baked into it, thus diminishing the vehicle’s ability to reach top speed! But don’t take it personally Mac, the explosion was meant to kill us all.”

“Mercury baked into a cake? That’s a terrible recipe… ooo, I feel sick.” Mac mumbled.

Bug continued, “Obviously. It seems our blood-thirsty friend upstairs left a contaminated confection for you at the safehouse that you just couldn’t resist. Then he must have stolen that super-charged magnet from my lab and chased us down after he was done bringing Quiphen back here.”

“Well, you can stop pointing the gun at us. We’re obviously no longer a threat.” Quiphen replied.

“On the contrary, two threats remain and one of them is not Patches. Even my advanced intellect can’t calculate every variable in a world dominated by mathematical chaos, so until I figure out how IC obtained a loaded gun… I’m not letting any of you go.”

“It was me,” Mac sighed, “I gave him some of my bullets. But I told him he had to hide them up his ass so Spherx wouldn’t find out. I was hoping he’d forget about them and slowly die of lead poisoning, again freeing up one more share of the money.”

“But I didn’t die, DID I!” Idiot Chittix announced as he climbed up through a drain in the floor, “Instead, I got so scared when I dropped my gun that I farted at the same time the customer picked it up and my hot butt wind ignited the one bullet that shot Quiphen! By the way, I lost Spherx in the sewer… oh wait, there he is.”

“I can’t believe your ass ACTUALLY almost killed me!” Quiphen exclaimed.

“Wow, that’s like the stupidest plan so far.” I added.

Spherx shook his head, “So, Bug’s the only one who didn’t try to kill anybody?”

Bug lowered his gun, “Well, that’s not entirely true. I did forge the DNA test for Cora’s finger… actually I never did the test. I just said it was hers because I knew you’d all just believe me since I’m the smart one. I wanted to strengthen our case to rob the bank. I had an elaborate and detailed plan to take you all out after the heist, but I’m not gonna stand here like a James Bond villain and reveal it to you so Patches can sneak up behind me while I’m distracted. I’ll just save it for later… just… in… case.”

Bug proceeded to untie me from my chair. IC climbed up on Mac and took off his blindfold, followed by the ropes around his hands.

“Well, if you never did a DNA test on my finger, then WHERE THE FUCK IS MY FINGER!?” I yelled.

“HOLY SHIT! Your finger is missing!” IC screamed.

“I had them all when I shot Spherx!”

“And when you wrote the fake ransom obviously,” Spherx muttered.

“Actually, I had IC write the ransom. I figured his terrible handwritting would look more convincing.”

IC stopped freeing Mac, “Aw… you told me I had pretty handwriting…”

Spherx turned to IC with a furious look on his face, “YOU HANDED ME THAT NOTE KNOWING IT WAS TOTALLY FAKE!?”

“I thought we were playing a game. You didn’t know it was fake when I signed it ‘Manus’? Ma-anus? My anus? Hehehe…” IC giggled.

“Okay focus guys! Patches is roaming upstairs somewhere in rage mode! We have to stop him!” Bug shouted.

Those of us who weren’t suffering from internal bleeding rushed upstairs to the kitchen. The others crawled.

“Yeah, but we still haven’t figured out what happened to my finger!” I complained.

Just then we felt the chill of death behind us.

“I was hungry. Didn’t get to eat at the diner…”

I remember dying. At first everything starts to fade. You try to hang in there but it seems as if your life is literally living your body, slowly. This wasn’t like the first time. The great thing about being undead is you do get up again.

I was sick of living in the damn basement. While Quiphen and Bug had thier own cool places in the warehouse I was confined to that damn basement. They all would come back from the outside and tell stories of how much the humans enjoyed life. I grew bitter…

I tasted my own blood. It tastes spoiled. Of course it would I’m dead. I often dreamed of tasting Spherxs’ blood. His would be sweet. The asshole who hit me, Quiphen probably tastes like a prime cut of beef, he gets out and plays sports, not me. As I lie in a pool of my own blood behind a diner in a damn alley I keep thinking did they figure it out yet…

Being locked in a basement gives you time to think. I thought a lot about getting out. Cora seems to not be in good standing with any of them. I could use this…

As I slowly dragged myself up I noticed a pool of pee. IC was probably just standing there laughing, shitting, and pissing about what they did to me. I would tatse his blood last, it’s probably more rancid then mine. Bug’s brains would be the best, so meaty. And Mac would be a treat, like ice cream he loves food too much not for it to be…

Cora would always bitch about how she was miss treated. I guess that’s why the guys did not like her. I used this. I would ask her questions about Spherx and get an idea of what they were like. I had no idea because I wasn’t allowed upstairs, but that smelly fucker Idoit was! He was worse then me! My hatered grew faster then an erection.

I walked around the corner and the van was gone. Good. That means they went to rob a bank. Fools. For claiming to hate Cora I knew they couldn’t let anything happen to her. Spherx was so high and mighty about no man/woman left behind that he would rescue her no matter what…

I told Cora I had a present for her. She came down to see it. Of course there was no present. I did not want to bite her. I learned from biting that little annoying dog that if I bite something and don’t eat it, it becomes like me. I wonder if that dipshit Bug knew that. I could make an army of undead. So she walked over to me and I clocked her over the head with the chains that binded me. I dragged her to a place under the stairs. I had eaten my chains off so they no longer held me. As I returned home the van was back. A trail of blood was leading back to the warehouse, also a trail of pee and poo. Why can’t that dude hold anything in. I’m dead and I have more control over my bodily functions. I entered the kitchen and they were all there bloody and full of bullet holes, huh it takes a lot to kill these fuckers too…

The plan worked perfectly. I knew they wouldn’t let me go. They always think because I can’t run I will hold them up. Did I expect them to take me to an alley and beat me to a bloody pulp, no. But it just makes it that more justifiable…

I should mention that I got a new hat. It’s bulletproof. The money went to something very valuable to me. I wonder if they know it was me, a simple zombie who fooled all of them…

Cora was crying in the kitchen about how I hit her and left her chained up in the basement. At first it seemed that they did not believe her. But as Bug slowly raised a gun at me I knew I was made. He shot me. It hit me in the leg that Quiphen broke but it did not hurt. I would worry about Quiphen but he looked worse then me, he was drifting in and out of reality. IC tried to pee on me but he could only muster a trickle. Cora ran after me with a rolling pin, she tripped and knocked herself out. I saw Sphrex raise his gun, he shot me in the head…

So now I’m in the basement again but I feel more alive then ever before. My new hat saved me and now they live in fear of who I am and what I’m capable of. They let me go out with them now too. But is it becuase they want me there or because they fear me, it doesn’t matter…

Entropy is the natural tendency for ordered systems to move towards chaos. That is a good description for anything involving members of the Domain. Today is another example of this principle.

When Cora’s domineering female persona had been replaced by a submissive ransom note, Spherx came to his resident genius for a solution. That’s how we got here. The only place we could think of with that kind of legal tender, The Bank. All was going to plan until, over the headsets, the tell tale snap crackle and pop of gunfire sang out. The monitors displayed the resulting shift from order to chaos. Three shots had been fired, “How the hell did one of the patrons get a gun?” I asked Mac.

Mac looked up from his enchirito, cheeks puffed out like a hamster hoarding a carrot. He gave the typical shoulder shrug of uselessness. I can’t be too hard on the big guy. He is the best wheel man in the business. That’s the natural outcome when you memorize all the delivery routes of local eateries.

A quick check over the monitors told me all I needed to know about the situation. I expected IC’s camera to be looking at a pool of his blood. It was looking at IC’s pool, but it wasn’t blood, unless his blood was yellow. Taking stock of the situation, Spherx’s monitor showed a still smoking barrel pointed at the would-be hero. “Good boy. Always double-tap” I thought to myself. Quiphen’s view showed The Bank’s ceiling, then his bloodied paw. It was at this moment that a crackle burst over the radio scanner, the police were responding.

“Son of a Boson!” I yelled, “They got our enforcer. Mac, get this thing in gear they’re coming in shades of red and blue!”

Mac turned the ignition and the cold steel roared with fiery intensity. Checking the van’s roof top camera to make sure we were clear of snipers, I opened the rear doors to allow expedient entry. Quiphen was in bad shape. We wouldn’t need to worry about his cut if we couldn’t get him to a medical facility. I saw the flare of oncoming patrol cars running code to the scene as IC tossed in the last bag of money and closed the doors.

Mac’s foot met the floor and our van quietly blended into the early commuter lunch rush. We got off clean, all of us except Quiphen. “Can’t…. feel….. Stomach…..” he moaned.

Spherx looked like he was holding onto his tenuous grasp of sanity. He was rocking back and forth in the corner of the van screaming to himself “Put pressure on that wound!!! Oh god, this wasn’t supposed to happen!!!”

IC seemed as clueless to his surroundings as a child. He was watching Jerry Springer while singing ‘Ring around the Rosie’ under his breath. Mac seemed especially attentive with Quiphen’s condition.

“We need to get him to a hospital Mac. If we can do it without running foul of ‘Ducks and Geese’, it will make it that much easier” I told him.

“Bug, $50,000 is a lot easier to split four ways than five” Mac whispered back. As I opened my mouth to respond, a fourth shot rang out. Spherx seemed to be on the same page as Mac.

“Say it again! Say it one more FUCKING time!” he yelled over Quiphen’s mangled body. With what strength he had left, Quiphen raised his gun square between Spherx’s eyes.

“You didn’t double-tap… Princess” Quiphen squeezed off two rounds at near point blank range.

Stunned at what he had done, he looked into Spherx’s motionless eyes.

Spherx glared back at him.

“You…. I’m gonna kill you!!!” Spherx raised his gun for the kill-shot, and I did the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I stood between the two of them, and grabbed Quiphen’s gun.

“Get out of the way runt. This is between me and the cripple”. Whatever fragile thread of reason Spherx had when leaving the bank had snapped.

“Before I do that, I feel you need to know something” I said.

“And what would that be?”

“This is the gun with the blanks. Somebody must have switched Quiphen and IC’s guns before the heist” I said matter-of-factly. “One of us, it seems, would see all of us dead before splitting the money”.

As Mac drove slowly on, the van was silent except for Idiot Chittix. IC was still singing quietly to himself:

….Ashes, Ashes

We all fall down

I looked behind us to ensure that Bug and I were far enough away from the others that they couldn’t hear. “Do you still have it?”

“Of course I still have it you imbecile,” said Bug sternly. “I’m still looking for a suitable place to dump…” Bug didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence before we heard a shot from behind us. We both immediately drew our weapons and stood back to back. “what the fuck is going on around here?” yelled Bug. “Somebody is fucking up my plan and I don’t like it!”

I was frightened, not so much because of the random seeming gunshots and missing people, but because of the pure hate emanating from Bug’s eyes. I said, “You’re buggin’ out man, calm down. We need to get back. I sure hope Spherx didn’t decide to euthanize IC.” I picked Bug up and put him on my shoulders. “Watch my back.”

We made our way back to the ballroom only to find Spherx had been shot and was unconcious, IC was still sitting in a puddle of his own urine, normal except that he wasn’t gibbering like an idiot about feces and gay sex. “We have to get the fuck out of here” I said. Not waiting for confirmation from Bug who was oddly silent, I tucked Spherx under my arm and grabbed IC by the only part of his body not dripping with waste, his foot. “Bug, my hands are full, you’ll have to watch in front and in back.” I felt Bug shift his weight in response and assumed he was keeping a lookout from his perch on my shoulder.

We made our way to the van, I tossed IC and Spherx in back, felt Bug jump off, and headed for the driver’s seat. “Is it Quiphen?” I asked Bug, “I mean, he is missing, and Spherx did shoot him in the leg.”

Bug thought quietly, I could hear the rage in his voice as he said “Quiphen was pretty far gone. I don’t think he had the strength to get up and move around. Did you notice that there weren’t any blood trails? If Quiphen was walking around, he’d be leaving blood everywhere. No, it’s definitely not Quiphen.” He left me to think about that, while he stepped into the back to look at Spherx.

The only noise came from the engine and tires of the van as we drove, heading nowhere in particular, silently contemplating our predicament. Someone had sabotaged our plan from the beginning. IC’s gun had been switched out, the safehouse had been compromised, and now people were getting shot, going catatonic, and missing. It had to be an inside job.

Suddenly, screams issued from the back of the van. Startled, I swerved wildly, smashing a blue postal box on the sidewalk before finally regaining control of the van. A few pieces of mail fluttered in through the open windows. “THE CYMBALS!” screamed IC, “the horrible horrible cymbals!”, his screams degenerated into soft mutterings about a gorilla with drumsticks. He went silent as he rocked himself gently.

“Whose great idea was it to let IC watch that freaky, robotic musical sideshow?” asked Bug.

I shrugged. “Where are we headed? We need to ditch the van and get new wheels. How’s spherx?” A moan issued from the backseat in a voice reminicient of a pretty princess from the days of yore.

“Go to the alley behind the restaurant. I want to see where Patches went to.”

“If he’s gone, how are we going to be able to see where he went?” I asked as I obligingly turned toward that side of town.

“Rotting flesh leaves an especially persistent chemical residue that we percieve as odor. I can screen the input from my goggles and actually ’see’ that odor. A dog can follow a scent trail for days afterward if it doesn’t rain. I should be able to do the same.”

“Oh, like Link does in Wii:Zelda.” I said. Bug just sighed.

There was only one other car on the road. I kept my eye on it through the rearview mirror. As we exited the freeway, it followed. I noticed that it followed our every turn as I snaked my way diagonally across the rectangular layout of the city. “I think we’ve got a tail,” I muttered to Bug. Just then the car accelerated toward us. I attempted to outrun them, but it was hopeless. “Why do we always have to drive a fucking VAN!” I yelled, barely keeping the thing upright as we took a sharp corner.

A gunshot from behind us caused the van to pull hard to the right. “They got one of our tires!” I yelled as Bug unloaded his revolver out the back window. “Why do you have a fucking six-shooter? That’s useless!”

“I’ll have you know that the colt revolver is, and always has been, the best engineered weapon since the handmade swords of feudal Japan,” he retorted. “It’s the most reliable and…”

“Shut the fuck up, you know it all bastard!” I interrupted. “IC, when I stop the van you will run for your life and listen to everything Bug tells you to do or that gorilla is going to shove those drumsticks into your anus and use you as a sex toy!” I hadn’t finished the sentence before IC had slid the side door open and was standing half outside of the van, ready to run.

“There’s a storm sewer over by that vending machine.” Bug noticed. “Stop there, we’ll hide underground.”

I slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop with the open sliding door immediately above the storm dran. I jumped over the passenger seat, headed for the drain. I saw IC dragging Spherx’s limp body down the opening, then Bug disappeared right behind them. I dove headfirst into the drain, only to be wedged halfway. “BUG! Help!” I yelled as he turned around and grabbed my hands. He was too light to pull me in, IC was dragging Spherx into one of the smaller tunnels branching off of the drain.

A light poured into the drain from behind me. All I could feel was fear. Suddenly I was looking at the sidewalk from about twenty feet in the air. I barely had time to register that I had been pulled back out of the drain before I heard recognizable rat-a-tat sound of a machine gun. Bug had let go just in time to avoid being pulled out with me, and ran after IC while bullets ricocheted all around the storm drain. All I could remember thinking before everything went black was “I hope it doesn’t rain”.

“What?”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

Spherx screamed at Bug

Bug only stared at Spherx.

Quiphen had passed out now.

Bug noticed Mac’s eyes in the rear view mirror watching them.

“Mac, keep your eyes on the road”

Mac with an angry sigh, watched the road.

“Where too? Oh fearless leader?”  

Mac sarcastically asked.

“Hospital?”

“Fuck the hospital!!!”

“Calm down Spherx”

“No!!! Fuck you!!! Who switched them?”

“Mac, head to the safehouse, and make it quick.”

“I’ll do what I can for Quiphen”

“Sure thing”

Mac pressed the accelerator, but not fast.

“Spherx, come talk me”

Spherx and Bug went to the rear of the van.

IC had moved on to Itsy Bitsy Spider.

It seems that the trauma caused him to revert even farther back to a childlike state.

Mac just drove.

“Who do you think did it?”

“I don’t know, but I have ideas”

“Well spill them you brainy bitch”

“Well, Mac and I were both in the van the whole time”

“IC, Quiphen and I were in the bank”

“Which leaves only a couple options”

“We’re almost at the safe house guys”

“Good, thanks Mac, think Spherx, who would have reason”

“Hey I paid that hooker what I owed”

“No you stupid shit, this is more recent”

“We’re here, hang on while I back up to the dock.”

“Ok, Spherx, help me get Quiphen, Mac, take IC”

“Check”

“Ok, who would have reason?”

“Who did we beat the shit out of?”

“Ronald Reagan?”

“God how stupid are you?  Should I be talking to IC instead?”

“Guys grab Quiphen, lets go now”

As Mac carried IC, Spherx and I helped the unconccious Quiphen inside

“Put Quiphen on the table, IC, stare into the abyss.  Good boy.”

Our safe-house was ingenious.  Mac got the local Chuck E Cheese condemmed by the health department, so we had a place to hide out, pizza, and video games.  Perfect.  We placed Quiphen on the table in the kitchen, and left IC staring at him, and went into the large room with the animatronic show that scares the crap out of all the kids.

“Spherx, think hard, I know you can!!”

“Dammit BUG!!! Why do you play these mind games with me!!!”

“Patches you dumb shit!!!”

“What?  Fuck him!!  We beat his ass to death!”

“You can’t beat the undead to death dumbshit!!”

“Yes! Patches! We just left him in the damn alley!!”

“Lets go kill him, right now”

“We can’t!! We don’t even know if he’s still there!!! He’s probably been taken to a vet or something!!”

“We have to do something!!!”

“Like what? He’s undead!!  Let’s leave him out of this.  More money for us!  And as far as I’m concerned we can leave Quiphen to die”

“FUCK YOU MAC!! We’re not leaving him to die!”

“Seriously?  He’s the reason we’re hear!!  You to fighting crashed our ship!!!  You two are why we’re in this mess!!!

“So who’s next then?  I think it was you who switched the guns!!!”

“IMPOSSIBLE!!”

“Is it Mac?  Is it?

“Yes it is.  I’ve been eating chocolate cake all afternoon.  My hands are covered in chocolate.  If I had done it, there would be  Chocolate everywhere!!”

“He’s got you there Spherx”

“Well what about you then Bug?  Hmm?”

“Could it have been you?”

“NO!!! We are not going to do this now.  We follow the plan!  We wait here, until the fuzz dies off.  I’m going to go and try to help Quiphen.   I do have some biology background.  Plus, being a restaurant, there has to be a first aid kit somewhere around….WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

As Bug, Spherx, and Mac walked back into the kitchen, they froze in their tracks.  Quiphen was gone.  A smattering of blood was on the table, but nothing on the floor.  IC was gone too.

“HOLY LIVING FUCK!  Where did he go?”

“Shit”

“Calm down, we have to find them.  We were in the showroom, they were in the kitchen, there is only one place we have to check.”

As we entered the game room, everything seemed deathly quiet.  We split up, checked all corners, every machine, behind all the tables.  Nothing.

“Guys!!!  OVER HERE!!!”

We met Spherx at the ball room.  He had found IC.  The river of urine and the smell coming out of the ballroom told us that IC had had a major shock.  Something unexpected that had scared him so badly he emptied out his entire body fluid reservoir.  He was also sucking his thumb.

“SHIT SHIT SHIT, ok, Spherx, you stay here with IC, Mac and I will go check the outside of the building, to see if we can’t find anything.  Let’s go Mac”

“Right O”

As Mac and Bug left the game room, Spherx now felt very alone.

“Hey IC, you ok?”

Nothing.  IC had been traumatized.  Like he had seen a ghost.

Suddenly, IC stopped sucking his thumb.  And let out the loudest dry heave fart you’re ever heard.  Spherx turned to where IC was staring.  In the doorway a figure stood staring at Spherx.

“You’re not Patches.”

A single shot rang out.

“Are we really doing this?” I asked as we all sat around the table, groggy from an early morning rise. I gently sipped my hot chocolate as I kept a vigilant eye on any cops showing up for their first donut of the day. Quiphen sat across from me, sharpening his switchblade. Mac was tearing out and eating the pictures of food in the diner’s menu. And IC was standing on the table pressing his ass cheeks against the window as people walked by.

Bug curled up our blueprint of the heist and hid it under the table. “I know none of us really cares if Cora lives or dies, but if we don’t give in to Manus’ demands, any one of us could be next!”

“There must be another way to get the $50,000 dollars…” I suggested.

“I already tried whoring myself out, but all I could sell was handjobs and that only earned me seven dollars and a bag of Skittles.” IC interrupted as he sat back down in the booth.

Bug reiterated, “There’s no turning back. As soon as Patches arrives with the van, we’re a go! Just execute the plan as I’ve instructed. I’ve calculated it to a 99 percent chance of success as long as you all stick to it exactly!”

There was a short silence among the group. Then, without saying anything, we could see it in each others’ eyes that we were all having the same thought. “You know… 50 grand could really fix up the warehouse… just imagine a fully stocked kitchen…” Mac inferred.

“Cora hates every one of us. If she was in our shoes, she’d probably be happy to let us rot. How do we even know it was really her finger that Manus sent us?” Quiphen added.

“I performed a DNA test. It was a match. It’s her finger… but you’re right, she hates our guts and I could sure use some new equipment in the lab!” Bug added.

Just then, Patches burst into the diner and sat down with the group at the table.  “Hey guys, we’re golden. Our wheels are parked out front and our cache of boomsticks are waiting inside! So what are we all talking about?” he inquired energetically.

As Mac tried to bring Patches up to speed, the waitress came over to take his order. Mac abruptly zipped his lips.

The weathered-looking waitress asked, “What can I get ya… uh… guy? You feelin’ alright? You look a little mangy…”

“Uh.. rough day at the office. I’ll have the steak. Extra bloody.” Patches ordered. The waitress wrote down the order, gave Patches a second and prolonged glanced before walking back to the kitchen.

“Do you think she’s on to us!?” IC whispered. “No she’s not on to us. How could she be on to us? Now what were we talking about?” I replied.

“We were discussing keeping the cash and abandoning Cora.”

Patches shot back in his seat. “What!? You can’t be serious! I know she’s a bitch sometimes-”

“All the time.” the group added in unison.

“Fine, all the time. But she’s still one of us!” Patches pleaded with the group.

IC leaned over to Patches and suggested, “Did we mention you get a sixth of 50,000 dollars?”

“Forget it. I’ll have no part in this. You can take my share and put it toward her ransom! And I’m taking the van back. You greedy bastards can do this job without me!”

Just as Patches stood up to storm away, I stepped out in front of him and pressed a fork into his chest.

“What’s this? You gonna stab me with that fork Spherx!? After all we’ve been through!? You guys are gonna turn on your own over some stupid human money!”

“A LOT of money.” IC added as he waived a bottle of ketchup in Patches’ face.

“Let’s take a walk outside… through the back door.” I motioned to the exit with the fork. Mac and IC chuckled at the mention of through the back door.

I pushed Patches outside the diner with IC, Mac, Bug, and Quiphen in tow. We lined him up along the chain link fence running between the diner and the KFC. The rising sun along the horizon beamed a pink and orange glow across the parking lot, causing Patches to squint a little as he looked into the penetrating eyes of each of his comrades.

“This won’t end well. And it won’t end with me. You’ll double-cross each other until none of you are left!”

“Hand over the keys to van.” I ordered in a stern tone.

Patches wasn’t afraid of me. “Go to Hell.” he said. Then I shot an approving look to Quiphen who readied his baseball bat and took a bone-shattering swipe to Patches’ leg.

“ARGH!!!! You son-of-a-bitch! You fuckers! You’ll never get away with this!”

I looked at Quiphen again giving him the okay for another hit. Quiphen cracked Patches across the head and knocked a tooth out of his snout. Patches spit out some blood and cried out in pain, “FUCK YOU, SPHERX! Is that all you got Queer-fin?” Quiphen struck Patches in the head one more time which finally knocked him out. IC ran over, grabbed Patches’ hat and farted in it before putting it back on his head. He giggled and then took the van keys out of Patches’ shorts.

“If you’re not with us, you’re against us. Now let’s go rob a bank.” Spherx said as he pointed the fork toward the van. Everyone piled into the junky, rundown van with Mac taking the drivers’ seat and with IC riding shotgun. Quiphen and I rode in the back and organized the weapons while Bug booted up the surveillance equipment. Once the guns were loaded, all but one, Quiphen passed them around.

“Make sure IC gets one with just blanks. I don’t think I have to explain why.” I instructed. For the rest of the ride to the bank we came up with operation codenames for each other as the screen divided into 4 views of the same scene but each from a different characters’ perspective. And then the dashboard clock ticked to 10:00:00 am.