Rattle

[DuLake]

Rattle

By Jeremy Lloyd Beck

 

Chapter One -- Welcome to Write Club

 

 

The first rule of Write Club is you never tell anyone they should stop writing.

 

Lucius Alugan joined Write Club so that he could brag about how his vampire movie was a genius re-imagining of Greek mythology. “Real next level shit,” he said. Lucius works as an overnight stockboy at the neighborhood Snak N' Grab and came to Write Club to feel like a writer; he came to Write Club so that he wouldn't have to sit on his ass and make pages to feel like a tortured writer. Lucius Alugan pretended to be an alcoholic and a Satanist for his writing. His government name was Joseph, but pretended the name's Judeo-Christian roots offended him.

 

The second rule of Write Club is you never say when a story is a rip off.

 

Mononymous Henna told everyone she was a proofreader for Rolling Stone, but we all knew she worked the sandwich cart. Henna came to Write Club to get feedback on her song lyrics. Like every other singer-songwriter hopeful, she wanted to fuck a rock star and believed that meant she had vocal talent. She wore black and boots and died her hair jet because that's what she thought was cool. She was going to bring the hard rock back to pop music. Her music was shit but she had a cute face and eye-liner, so maybe she could achieve her dream if she learn how to stuff her bra.

Sir Lancel Aincroft tried to ask her out for lattes after Write Club once, but she didn't want to risk staining her perfect white teeth. The same week, Lucius got her number because she thought his frilly white shirt was exotic and original and totally rock n' roll. That weekend, Lucius took her to his crypt to get her drunk and blacked out on her shoulder. Sir Lancel spent the night abusing his emergency inhaler and masturbating.

 

Jennifer Logan wanted to become a blogger. She came to Write Club because she couldn't figure out anything interesting enough or true enough to blog about. Nobody asked her out for lattes or sex because she wore a pixie haircut instead of make-up. Everyone at Write Club knew Jennifer cleaned the toilets and children of some interchangeable Hollywood executive. Lucius tried to convince her to give her boss his screenplay, but she wasn't stupid. When Jennifer wanted a raise, she bought gel inserts for her empty bra.

 

The third rule of Write Club is that you give any writing exercise a chance, no matter how bat-shit it sounds.

 

When Sir Lancel Aincroft suggested everybody go through Craigslist personals and write up a character sketch, Lucius said he was a hack and that his Conan the Barbarian rip-off stole it's plot from Lord of the Rings.

 

The fourth rule of Write Club is that you don't use words like “hack.”

 

When I created Write Club, I was looking for a place to practice my craft. I always believed that words were magic, that they had the power to build new worlds and realities. Sir Lancel believed that, which is why he wrote Conan rip-offs and colored them with rings of power, it's why he wrote escapist fantasies where good also won. He knew that words could create the worlds that didn't exist but should, the ones we need to survive. Sir Lancel understood that we would all burn in hell if we never thought to write ourselves a heaven. When I started Write Club, I was looking for a creative space to build my own heaven.

 

The fifth rule of Write Club is that you always find something nice to say about a piece before you critique it.

 

“It's shit,” Lucius said. “Another Lord of the Rings rip. The world doesn't need another one of those.

Sir Lancel cringed.

“The sixth rule is honesty;” Lucius shrugged.

“At least include what you liked about it,” I said.

“I liked that it ended,” he replied. “Took it bloody long enough.”

 

One more thing about Lucius: He wasn't British, he just thought it was cool to steal vocabulary from the BBC.

 

“I liked the world you created,” Jennifer offered. “It was. . . big. Epic and all that. I liked the map you drew of it all.”

“Yeah,” Henna followed, “real big, really complex. Like a movie. I liked that. And the bit with the snakes was creepy.”

“He'd never make it in Hollywood,” Lucius muttered. I frowned.

“Neither have you,” Sir Lancel whispered dryly, eyes lowered, lips static.

“Up yours, Harry,” Lucius spit, tipped back in his chair; Henna touched his shoulder; Sir Lancel took a hit from his inhaler.

 

His real name was Harry, but he went by Sir Lancel Aincroft, his D&D name. He was fat and tall and smelled like his job at Burger King. When he worked the fryer, he had to wear a hairnet around his wild neck beard. He studied computer repair at the local technical college and sent anti-Creationist letters to the school board as a herald of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a sort of sauce-strewn Cthulu. He swore off alcohol and drugs, but always kept the emergency inhaler he didn't need nearby for a few inebriating puffs.

 

When it was my turn I told everyone about the snake that whispered to my protagonist in his sleep. I told them about how crazy it was driving him and that I was beginning to suspect I had an ending – between you and me, the hero goes nuts and axes the shit out of his bride to be.

“Does somebody die?” Henna asked. “Somebody always dies in your stories.”

I smiled.

“It's horror, not pop music.” Lucius said. “Of course somebody dies. Somebody has to die.”

“Why though?” She asked. “Wouldn't it be more of a surprise if they didn't?”

“What can I say –” I laughed – “every spell requires sacrifice. I guess mine take it in blood.”

“Be careful with that dark stuff, man,” Lucius warned.

“Said the Satanist?” Jennifer raised her eyebrow.

“It's not for everyone,” he retorted; I smiled; Sir Lancel turned his head away from the entire scene.

“My song today is about finding true love on Craigslist and finding out it's your spouse,” Henna said, beaming in her ingenuity.

 

The second rule of Write Club is you never point out when a story is a rip off.

 

On the bus, I was struck with a vision of my story, I saw what it could be and what it should be. I felt it run through my blood like a virus, an amoeba swimming as fast as possible to my death. I pulled out my cell phone and, chubby fingers fumbling over the touchscreen, I wrote the last act of my story. The words were there; the spell was written. All that was left for me to do was to put it all together and cast it on the world.

When I got home, I was happy to be done for the night. My daily word count achieve, I was content to give myself over to slumber. I quickly stripped to my boxers, climbed in to bed, and let a snake-fueled ax-murder drift gently out of my mind – or perhaps it just sunk deeper in.

After I went to bed I woke up in my protagonists room. A three-legged crow tapping it's nine talons impatiently against my dresser. It was crimson red and flecked with gold. The bird opened it's mouth to caw, but nothing came out. All I could hear was the hissing.

“Sssacrificce,” I heard, turning instinctively to the golden snake in the aquarium by the bed.

I straightened in the bed and tried to stand up, but, as I turned to stand up, I realized my legs were both flayed and bleeding; I realized I was not the hero.

The hero was standing over the bed with an ax.

I heard the crow's cawing like an echo as he lifted his weapon. I grabbed the nightstand and pulled myself to the ground as the ax dropped deep into the mattress. My hand slipped into the nightstand drawer and pulled out the gun I'd left for my ill-fated heroine. It was unloaded and unhelpful, but that was the story and my body couldn't help but follow through. I squeezed the trigger and listened in terror as the gun clicked impotently as the hero – wearing my face, as all my heroes do – climbed over the bed, ax raised, ready to end the story.

Then the bird flew between us, the hero slipped fell backward off the bed and his hatchet fell helplessly behind him.

Then the hissing returned.

I turned to the sound and saw the snake, scales aglow, growing fatter and longer in it's coil in the small glass box. The snake grew until it could no longer be held back; the sides of the aquarium popped and sand and water spilled from the perch. The snake continued to grow as it crawled toward me hissing:

“Ssssacrifice. . .”

The snake turned and snapped at the bird. I watched it dance in the air and then fly out the open window. I was alone.

The snake raised it's expanding mass and hissed provocatively, its tail rattled like the muffler on my first car.. Make a move, try your luck, it seemed to say – though it could clearly say so if it wanted to.

That's how I wrote it.

That's when my protagonist grabbed me by the shoulder and, hand choked up on the ax, released the mortal blow. I winced as the blade sunk easily through my collarbone; I felt the very tip touch my heart.

“Thank you,” the snake hissed, coiling itself back up.

My protagonist dropped me back to the ground and began hacking cleaving blows into my chest, the blood sprayed like a water fountain in hell, all the way up to the ceiling fan.

 

[† Anras Rune]

I like what you've done with this. Good to see you back and writing again!

[Pinkie Pie]

oMFG LUCIUS

actually more like

all of them

more more give us more o uo

[DuLake]

Thanks to anyone who reads this really. PLEASE offer your thoughts and -- if you have not done so -- head over to my sign-up topic to add a character into the chaotic world of Rattle. I love big casts and will be killing many, many people in the coming weeks. Don't miss out on the carnage!

 

I like what you've done with this. Good to see you back and writing again!

 

Thanks! It's good for me to get words and to give back to Kametsu.

 

oMFG LUCIUS
actually more like
all of them
more more give us more o uo

 

Haha, glad you enjoyed it. I feel bad posting something so unpolished (only did a little bit of editing and no real rewriting), but if it's entertaining then it's worth it.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Haha, yes. Super good. I like the dream/vision at the end, can't wait to see how that plays out. o3o

[Kinara Uzumaki]

Ah ha!!!!!!! I love death and killing and murder and carnage.....or are they all the same thing? lolz, I love the start and how you've nicely integrated our characters into the story..........I can't wait to read more (I realized that I say this quite a lot on different stories).

[† RazorDan]

My bad, seems you have already started. Wow! What a great first chapter, very impressive! I love the fight club/write club reference, and the whole mood/atmosphere of the story. This is one I'll definitely keep an eye on, keep it up!

[DuLake]

Rattle

By Jeremy Lloyd Beck

 

Chapter Two – A Welcome to Pain

 

 

Stop.

 

Now. . .

 

FADE THE FUCK IN:

 

INT. SNAK N' GRAB – NIGHT

 

LUCIUS ALUGAN (21, male, dresses like Dracula's sex doll) enters from the store room, eyes the liquor aisle. Lucius is carrying a box of Jack and scoffs at the minimal selection. The upbeat Muzak makes him want to walk into the tiny toy aisle and break out a wiffle bat, smash every bottle and customer until gore and whiskey seep out the automatic doors like a nosebleed. Color him black with angst and true pain.

 

SMASH CUT TO:

 

My night sweats; to the stagnant air I frantically suck into my lungs. Cut to me groping my chest for gaping wounds, or at least some scars; cut to my lack of cuts. Cut to that moment when you aren't sure if you're alive or dreaming about it. Some would be frightened, I might be used to it. I grab the false rosary – the Morpheus beads, my writing totem – on my nightstand and kiss it. The gods call me to more than sleep tonight, to a higher call, to rewrites.

I sit on the ground and open my laptop; stuff the rosary down my shirt. I grab the wine off the table beside me, then I grab the lighter fluid. While my computer starts up I pick up the paintbrush held to the can of accelerant and unscrew the lid. I breath deeply and begin my prayer. I pause for a second to type in my password, then I start painting on my skin.

 

Lucius Alugan tells everyone except his mother he's a Satanist. He listens to Marilyn Manson, and Slayer, and Black Sabbath and he says he made a bargain with the Devil long ago. He has long black hair full of oil and wears electric blue contacts to hide his natural baby browns. Lucius used to wear press-on fangs but stopped after his manager wrote him up for growling at the customers.

Apparently, Religious Expression doesn't count for bullshit subcultures.

When Lucius gets home after work, he will suffer horrible writers block and drown his imaginary sorrows in absinthe until he's too wasted to write any pages – about two shots. At Write Club next week, he'll blame his oppressive life for stifling his creativity and mock everyone else's efforts. There's a Lucius in every Write Club, they don't write so they can't be judged: a writer in name only; a writer because it's easier than finding something useful to do in life; a writer because they want to take a year out of school.

A writer because they think they understand pain.

 

In my apartment, I paint my story on my left arm. Rattle I call it. Rattle I draw on my arm for guidance. I draw the letters one on top of another, over and again, until the image is stuck on the very tip of my brain, glistening; I draw the letters until the lighter fluid runs off the side of my arm and drips onto the floor. Image in mind, I grab the lighter strapped to the other side of the can.

I gasp a breath through my clenched throat.

 

EXT. SNAK N' GRAB – NIGHT

 

Lucius Alugan hacks at empty boxes with a cutter, pretending they're his boss, or the customers, or his mother. Lucius slips and cuts himself and curses – “Helsing's ghost,” he says – and knows his coworkers will tell him to stop cutting, don't be such a fucking emo. Lucius swears he'll kill them all, invoke the Devil's anger, give them all Satan herpes, cause them pain.

Cut to Sir Lancel Aincroft in the parking lot; cut to his fat ass pounding a double cheeseburger and a half dozen hits of his inhaler. Cut to the handcrafted-by-Thai-sweatshop-kids ninja sword in his passenger seat, cut to little Wang's missing fingers on the sweatshop floor.

 

In my apartment there is the smell of nail polish remover and singed hair, a little puff of dark smoke. There is magic here, there is a presence.

The universal law of magic is that you need pain, you use pain. In Lakota Sioux tribes, the men dug hooks, tied to a pole, into their nipples and danced in circles until the hooks tore free. This is how they experienced God. You call it barbaric, you call it ignorant, you explain that the pain and exhaustion made them hallucinate – God had no place in it. It's like you forgot about all that peyote. You shake your head at their ignorance of science, and they laugh at your ignorance of reality, of the magic world that all your science fits in. I shake my head when the god-form Morpheus stands in front of me, dressed in shadows, smiling like a saber-toothed street lamp. He talks to me because I use fire like the Sioux used hooks, like Lucius uses electropop, like Sir Lancel uses Lucius.

Call it vicious, call it the freezer-burned leftovers from bygone ages – the last few Sioux limping around a reservation.

 

If Sir Lancel had balls, he thinks, he'd teach him the second rule of Write Club. Instead, Sir Lancel stuffs his inhaler in his mouth and takes another puff. If Sir Lancel wasn't such a pussy, he thinks, he'd at least go and smash up the store and scare the shit out of Douchius.

Douchius. Sir Lancel's clever when he's high on albuterol.

If Sir Lancel could only stand up, he thinks, but he doesn't, he sits there, watching Lucius stock five-dollar pinot grigio. Sir Lancel wants to stand, he wants to go in, he wants to go home and go to sleep, but he can't. All he can do is sit there next to a replica ninja sword.

Then his phone rings.

“You awake?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah,” he answers, “couldn't sleep. Grabbed a burger.”

“You mind if I come over? I wanted to raid your library.”

“You know me –” he tried to snicker – “insomnia's a bitch. I could use the company.”

“Thanks.” I hang up; Sir Lancel looks at his phone, then smashes it into the dash until the case pops off and throws it like a baseball against the windshield, watches it bounce into the backseat.

He grabs his sword and pushes his fat ass through the door – it's like watching a Pillsbury can explode.

He storms the building, stomps all the way to the automatic door, opens it with a glare.

“Can I help you?” A cashier asks from behind a gossip rag – whats-her-face pregnant again, maybe twins.

He knows where to go, straight for the liquor, straight for Lucius.

When he gets there he knows what to do: draw the sword; smash a few bottles; blame Lucius for the crimes of all humanity, for American obesity and global warming, for skin cancer and Sir Lancel's unhealthy obsession with cat pictures. It's not murder, he thinks, it's fucking catharsis.

Sir Lancel turns the corner and sees Lucius sliding a small bottle of gold Tequila into his apron. The cap is a little sombrero and peeks out of his apron pocket.

“What's with you?” Lucius asks; Sir Lancel resists the urge to inhale. “What're you doing with that? LARPing?”

Sir Lancel unsheathes the sword. He rips it out of the sheathe like a goddamn samurai and charges Lucius with a blood-curdling Hong-Kong fuey scream, scabbard trailing in his off-hand, floating like a kite's tail, knocking liquor bottles off the shelves until their contents ooze out the automatic doors like a nosebleed.

That's what he thinks.

“What's with you? What're you doing with that? LARPing?”

Sir Lancel thinks about holding the sword over his head with both hands and dropping it straight into Lucius's brain pan, repeat as needed, until blood and gore and little chunks of brain cover the store. Chip away at his head until it's a candy dish.

“What're you doing with that? LARPing?”

Sir Lancel thinks about using his weight as leverage to wrestle Lucius into submission. Pull back on his head with his fat greasy fingers and slide the sword real slow down his throat while Lucius wet himself.

“Be sure to scream, you little bitch,” Sir Lancel thinks about saying, “it'll hurt more if your tongue is wiggling around in there.”

“What're you doing with that? LARPing?”

And Sir Lancel stops thinking. He sees the cut on Lucius's thumb.

“Sir Asscroft,” Lucius says, “the cheese puffs are on aisle 2, the Crisco is on 4.”

Sir Lancel thinks.

“The fuck did you do to your hand?” He asks and grabs a bottle – any bottle – off the shelf. He turns around and shakes his head. “Fucking emo.”

 

FADE TO BLACK. . .

 

BITCH:

 

[† Emotional Outlet]

Man, watching those two interact is magic.

[DuLake]

Why thank you!

 

Also, one more reminder that sign-ups are still open!

[Pinkie Pie]

these two are hilarious together i just can't

[DuLake]

these two are hilarious together i just can't

 

In the next chapter they become partners in the local police department. Hilarity ensue-al guaranteed!

[† RazorDan]

My god, this is golden! One of the best things I've read in ages! I'm looking forward to more man!

[Kinara Uzumaki]

In the next chapter they become partners in the local police department. Hilarity ensue-al guaranteed!

 

Oh no! You had to reveal a spoiler!!! I'm unused to this style of writing but I LOVE it!

[DuLake]

In the next chapter they become partners in the local police department. Hilarity ensue-al guaranteed!

 

Oh no! You had to reveal a spoiler!!! I'm unused to this style of writing but I LOVE it!

 

I kid! I kid! I'm glad you like it though. I've (finally) started on chapter three, so hopefully we'll see that sometime tomorrow night.

[† Emotional Outlet]

The real spoiler is that Lucius and Sir Lancel eventually partake in the grossest hate-sex you've seen from this side of /b/.

These things almost always end in hate-sex, haha.

[DuLake]

Rattle

By Jeremy Lloyd Beck

 

 

Chapter 3 – In The Garden

 

In Native American mythology, storms were a side-effect of the Thunderbird. It caused clouds with the flap of its wings and lightning with the flash of its blinking eyes. The Thunderbird was a symbol of strength and power, revered across the land.

And one day, goes the story, the Thunderbird lands. For a moment, the ground shakes and the sky gasps as the bird's talons dig into the Earth. Its wings gather around its face as it throws back its sharp beak like a Halloween mask. The beak, the piercing eyes, and its strong wings all fall back, back to the ground. Like a blanket they gather around the feet of what is indistinguishable from a man.

 

I didn't know who the snake in my dream was, and I didn't know much more about the one in my story. I needed illumination, information; I needed access to the greatest library of mythological tomes in the city. I needed to get into Sir Lancel's flat.

“You awake?” I asked the phone, arm still stinging, knowing the answer. Sir Lancel was always awake.

“Oh yeah, couldn't sleep. Grabbed a burger.” Sir Lancel always grabbed a burger.

 

I was leaning against my car when Sir Lancel got back. He was carrying a sword and a paper bag – Burgers? He offered me the bag as he walked to his building, said:

“You drink this?”

“Goose? Do you?”

“Don't know,” he said, – pulled out a key ring, Captain Picard's head bobbing next to his gym membership – “we can find out.”

 

Jörmungandr was the world-encircling serpent that, during the end of days, will circle Earth and, with fiery breath, burn us all alive. According to legend, Nordic-Jesus, Thor, will cave it's face in with Mjolnir to save whoever's left before dying nine steps later.

Another serpent appears in Norse mythology in the form of the World-Serpent's father, malevolent trickster Loki, who is lashed to a rock and punished with the acidic drip of a poisonous snake.

These are the things I read at Sir Lancel's apartment; these are the things he handed me.

“What do you know about Nagas?” He asked. “Quetzalcoatl?”

“I know I need another shot,” I answered; he smiled; we clanked paper mouthwash cups, the only shot glasses he had.

Sir Lancel's apartment was lined with shelf after shelf of mythology and board board games, a Tolkein shrine towered next to a cardboard box full of old Playboys. He had busts of Plato, Socrates and Wolverine lined up on his shelf-tops. His kitchenette was a snack aisle. A brochure on the counter screamed, Senor Pizza 24-hour pizza, our prices are loco!

“They any good?”

“They deliver at two-in the morning,” Sir Lancel said, dropping a book and laughing.

“Are you drunk?”

“I need carbs!”

I dialed the number.

 

The Egyptians used to believe that the sun was their god Ra, lazily drifting down the river-sky on his barge, and that each night he would be stalked by the Soul Eating demon Apep, a cobra coiling at the edge of the underworld, just beneath the farthest mountain, waiting for the sun to get a little too close. Golden scales gleaming in Ra's light, the snake would strike at Ra and the peoples prayers would keep him away, empower Ra's entourage to smite Apep before he swallowed Ra whole. When their prayers failed, Apep would choke the river-sky with he mighty tail and – fangs dripping with the blood of your dead uncle – wrap his lips around the mightiest god of the pharaohs. The sun would go dark, the sky would scream lightning, and the land would quake with fear. Children cried, priests prayed, and pharaohs planned an escape route. The days the sun went dark, the people pleaded and – in their penance – Set or Bast would slay the monster and slit his stomach open.

But Apep can't die, he can just be sent back home. And there he waits, hissing, about to strike, at the edge of the underworld.

 

We accidentally order seven pizzas but the pizza delivery guy – Joe – offered to take a couple off the bill if we shared our vodka.

“So what are you, some kind of wizards?” Joe asked, his British accent made the question sound like Harry Potter.

“Of course not!” Sir Lancel sipped a screwdriver; I raised my hand in protest, my mouth full of pizza.

“I am.”

“You are?” Sir Lancel's eyes widened; A slice of pepperoni fell out of Joe's laugh. “What level?”

“You can shoot fireballs?” Joe asked.

“I can pretend to,” I replied.

“Holy shit!” Joe howled, fell out of his chair.

It's really all funnier if you're drunk.

“What were you doing with the sword today?” I asked Sir Lancel.

“Trying to slay Apep.”

We all laughed. Drunk.

 

The earliest representation of a snake in mythology is the Mesopatamian hell-god Ningishzida. Try saying that with a cock in your mouth. The modern world knows nothing about him but that his symbol was a rod entwined with two snakes copulating.

That means the same as fucking.

The serpent staff symbol reasserted itself later in the staff of Moses, the Rod of Asclepius, and the Caduceus of Hermes; the mythic healer Asclepius's rod became the symbol of the medical community, while the Caduceus of slick-tongued con-god, Hermes, became the symbol of the other half of the medical community, who was too stupid to know the difference.

 

“So what's this?” Joe marveled over a table in the middle of the room. The table was mapped and gridded, covered with little figurines, devils and sexy nurses.

“That's my game,” Sir Lancel said. “All my stories take place in the game. Want to play?”

“Shit yeah!” Joe yelled, waving his slice in the air, it seemed to flicker like a bulb in the air.

I blinked, I coughed, I threw up a little in my mouth; then I grabbed a red marker and began drawing on Sir Lancel's carpet.

 

In Native American mythology, the Horned Serpent surfed the land-spanning rivers and breathing chaos. It's crystal scales – with spots and rings – cut the sun like an ocean full of crude; it was hunted for it's stag-like horns and the shining diamond in it's forehead. If a man could possess the Serpent's spoils, he would be revered throughout the tribe. Scientists say the myth is a crude reaction of indigent people to dinosaur fossils.

And one day, the story goes, a warrior found the last Horned Serpent in the river. His footsteps light and his heart strong, he stalked the beast as it rested by the shore. He readied his bow, but the kill was not his to take, for any man who laid eyes on the beast would be compelled to Serpent, and become it's prey. That day, the story goes, the Horned Serpent fed.

 

“It's my damn visa, you know,” Joe said a mile away. “Spent so much renewing the thing I can't get back. Have to stay in this arse country working my willy off for Senor Pizza.”

Sir Lancel giggled, said, “you called your ass a willy.”

“It means knob. The shit you Yankee nutters laugh at.”

Sir Lancel giggled again, tossed the die so hard they bounced off the table and under his bed, fell beside workout tapes and porn DVDs.

I couldn't hear them though; I was in a trance. A world of images crashed through my head and drained themselves out onto Sir Lancel's carpet. I saw Apep, and the Naga, and the Caduceus and the Horned Serpent, all at the same time, same thoughts trying to find a way out. They came out on the floor, permanent marker, staining the carpet, soaked into the fibers. A character reborn, conceived on this carpet. I hope Sir Lancel didn't need his security deposit back.

“Anyone got a fag?”

“Heheh, fag.”

 

The next day, the story goes on, the warrior's father goes to the woods for revenge. Against all the protests of his family, he goes to the forest with only his bow. In the forest, he burns peyote as a sacrifice to the creator, traps half a dozen snakes.

“Just as the Horned Serpent killed my son,” he says, “I will kill his children.”

And so the old man cut off their heads and made them into arrows before venturing deeper into the forest. The old man finds the river and what's left of his son, a couple bones and a belt. The old man cries, smells the Serpent's noxious breath in the air, thickening, getting closer. He wraps the belt around his eyes.

“Have you come to feed me too?” The Serpent hisses. “Will you be my sacrifice?”

The bow in his hand shakes, the bow string seems to cut into his fingers. The smell gets stronger, his will weaker.

“How much was he really worth?”

The man knows the legends – he told them. Shoot your arrow at the seventh spot from its head, but don't look. He held his air, felt the warm breath of the serpent of his face. He lets the arrow go, hears it bounce to the ground. The Serpent roars and snaps its head back to strike.

 

I wake up with my head in a pizza box and my body won't move. I force a pushup barely high enough to see Sir Lancel and Pizza Joe knocked out on the game table, the latter is suckling on a slutty cheerleader. Marker paint on my arms look grapefruit, blood, tampon red, the last survivor in a bare knuckle zombie apocalypse, the last victim. My eyes peel to the mural on Sir Lancel's carpet, it looks like red sea waves from such a low angle. I crawl to my knees and catch a glimpse, scramble back, shouulder-walk my way up the fridge.

A sigil.

I double check to see if anyone's awake, look over my shoulder to see if the fridge is watching. The sigil is curious, enticing – I can't let it go. My feet pull themselves to the game table, tripping each other, fighting for first place. I look to make sure they're both out before I take the end of the bottle and step back. My eyes shake over the bottle. Not much, but enough. I glare at the pattern on the floor – my intuition helpless to explore it –, get it stuck right on the edge of my brain, paint it inside my eyelids.

And stop. Consider the last few inches of vodka, consider common sense. How much is curiosity really worth?

I throw my head back like a mask and drain the bottle. It hits like a wave, the boat tips as the sigil in my eye lights on fire. The floor jumps to catch me as I black out. I don't see it, just feel my head bounce against the carpet. My eyes pop open and I see Sir Lancel's head turning back to me. Hear the bottle shatter on the floor. Behind Sir Lancel, something has it's arms around Pizza Joe. He starts coughing. Everything strobes as I try to see it, see its face, its horns.

 

The old man readies another arrow, the story goes, and the Horned Serpent lunged forth. His arrow clicks off the monster's scales as the man springs to the side, springs away from the earth the monster crashes into. Dirt flies up his nose as he grabs a hole of the beast's slick armor. He grabs a horn, holds tight as the Serpent turns up to the sky. He plants his foot at the base of the giant snake's skull and pulls, strong, wise, not unlike the beast itself. And, as the Serpent tries to shake him free, he rips out its horn, falls to the ground. The Serpent reels, levels its head against the man.

“I will eat you!” It yells, dives forward; the old man smiles, sets the branching horn in his bow; he smiles at the soft squishing sound as it digs into the serpent, the hard thunder sound of the Serpent hitting the ground.

That night, the story lingers. The old man goes home, drops off his son's remains and the Serpent's crowning diamond. The tribe begins to celebrate when the old man goes into his teepee, picked up his black feathered blanket. He lifts it over his shoulders, over his face, and flies away into myth and legend.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Sir Lancel sure is a classy fellow.

 

Was the pizza laced with drugs or is the narrator just that weird--comparatively speaking, that is, in this parade of weird, haha.

[DuLake]

Sir Lancel sure is a classy fellow.

 

Was the pizza laced with drugs or is the narrator just that weird--comparatively speaking, that is, in this parade of weird, haha.

 

Vodka and chaos magic is a strange combination, no drugs required, haha.

[Kinara Uzumaki]

I think I got a bit confused as to whether something was really happening but I guess I have for the next chapter to understand. Either the myth was actually unfolding in Sir Lancel's room or the narrator was seeing things in his head........ I'm very curious about the italicized words though.