fluttered around its cave, aimlessly, waiting for the sunrise. When the sun came up, it would be dead, but with night, life. John looked around the cave for some light, but could find nothing better than his dim flame. “I wonder what may come of this”, he thought, peering through the darkness at a small rock projecting from the floor, as he knocked a piece of flint against the stone hopefully. Sparks shot out into the dark as the flame lit up his face eagerly, faintly orange his sharp overhanging features. “Blond no more, orange I am,” he spoke, and as the stone opened with a crack, revealing a pitch-black crevice, he slipped in, and descended.

went up the stairs, brown stained in the dim yellow light. He found himself in the empty, dilapidated apartment caked in filth, daylight straining to penetrate the dirty windows. He was turning in the center of the room surveying it for a sign of life, but found none. “Now” he said, “We can begin. We can do what we came for.” Blood streamed out of his wounds, pouring onto the floor and covering it in bubbling red. An inch of blood, filling the room and climbing up the walls, concealing the ceiling, churning and frothing with vitality. “We can begin.”

1

Mr. O. went his strange, meandering way down the cliff side. Then he fell off the cliff, and died.

I said it was short.

The brown waitress he loved so much caressed her napkin and sung a lament through teeth stained brown, and the town moved around her still, sunlit form. “Why bemoan the transitory nature of life?” she mused, mechanically going about her routine tasks with typical assiduity. “I’m here, he’s there, where tomorrow I’ll be.” The dust glinted in the morning sun, the coffee-stained cafe showed not a sign of the coming spring, and outside the street was full of emptiness.

2

Hopkins went his way down the damp, dreary lane. As he glanced through the dark at the shuttered windows, he wondered, “Is there anyone left alive in this city?”

Stacey had his watch, so he knew only that it was late, but the endless labyrinth of deserted alleys ran on until he felt it must be morning, although it had only been an hour. An hour of trudging through the dismal air of London, alone, friendless, and hopeless.

He let out a breath of relief to see her waiting for him under a yellow lamp. “Why are you so late?” she asked. “I came as quickly as I could. It’s been murder keeping out of sight. You’re the only person I’ve seen for the last hour.” “Good”, she replied. The gray walls and the fog blended into one monotonous blur punctuated only by the solitary lamp and the two figures.

“Have you got it?” she asked.
–Got it.
–Can I see it?
–No.
–I think you haven’t got it. You’re empty.
–I’ve got it. It’s here. I’ll show it to you.

A chink of light escaped from his overcoat, which he hastened to pull tighter around himself. But the momentary burst of flame had wounded Stacey, temporarily blinded by this intrusion of brilliance into her murky world.

“God, what a light!” she cried.
–It was only a dim sliver, wait ’till you see the whole thing.
–I don’t want to see the whole thing.
–You must.
–I’ll die.
–You’ll die. But you’ll live.
–I don’t want to live.
–But you just said you don’t want to die.
–I don’t want to die.
–But you just said you don’t want to live.
–I want to live.
–Then die.

She relaxed as he dropped the coat to reveal his naked form, dazzlingly bright and transforming the dingy alley into paradise.

3

Blood and sputum filled the toilet bowl as Clara hunched over, felt the contents of her stomach surge upward, and heaved with spasmodic rasps. Why had she done it? Why hadn’t she told anyone? Why hadn’t she told him?

“Told me what?” Mike said from behind her, “Told me fucking what?”

Gasping, slipping, and nearly fainting with terror, she whirled around in the muck.

–I didn’t mean… I didn’t….
–Like fuck you didn’t.
–I didn’t…

Suddenly she was seized with convulsions and puked right there on the spot. Not that she had much material left at this point. It was all there on the floor, dripping from her mouth in thick cords: clear saliva forming a single, continuous thread from her gut to the pool of filth in front of her.

“You deserve worse,” he sneered as he aimed a kick at her midriff, the sick, vomiting, heaving sound instantly magnified as the boot knocked the wind out of her. She crumpled up in a quivering mass on the floor. “Down on the ground where you belong, bitch!” he screamed, irate, his eyes popping and red forehead blue with veins. Grinding his teeth and clenching his fists to contain himself, he paced.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he screamed. “How the fuck could you not tell me?” Now on the verge of madness, he relaxed, his hands covering his eyes, “How the fuck could you not tell me?”

“I tried,” she gasped. “I tried so hard. You wouldn’t listen.”

He was curled up crying now, shaking almost as hard as she was, rolled up in a ball like a fetus.

“I’m sorry,” she moaned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He cried.

4

–We live short stories. They’re not very long.
–But why do you have to go?
–Because I must.
–You mustn’t.
–I must, Johnson. Don’t do this, please.

She walked along the pier in the mist, encompassing darkness around her, with only the solitary yellow light of a dim lamp lighting her way to the ship.

–I’ll miss you.
–I’ll miss you, but it’s for the best.

With that, she died.

Previous: A Prairie Home Companion Meets Car Talk

Garrison Keillor, moments before birth.

Garrisson Keillor let his idle hands slip down to his waist and traced his belly with his swollen fingertips. The last two weeks had seen his pregnant belly swell as fast as a country lamb getting ready for the Minnesota winter, and he found himself in a cold sweat over his impending delivery date. He really was going to have a beautiful baby, but…how?

The old Swede heard a distressed cough from the audience and snapped back to his surroundings. Ah, Prairie Home Companion. His show. His…life. And it this was the Christmas show!

Snap out of it, Gar-Gar, he snapped silently to himself. The carolers from the local school were at the Fitzgerald,singing “O Holy Night.” Fred Newman caught Garrison in a worried glance. With Garrison’s newly huge gut and erratic behavior of late, he probably thought he had been drinking heavily….if only! If only he had cirrhosis! It would be easier to explain, and deal with…how could he tell anyone what had happened? How he somehow gave himself this baby after a night of blackout passion between him and an unconscious Tappert Brothers duo?

No. It was distinct Norwegian madness. He heard the sloshing sounds of an espresso machine..wait, that was Fred! Oh shoot, time for the next sketch!

“And now, the lives of the Cowboys! In today’s dusty times, no dust is better than Stetson Brand dust. Yes, Stettson Dust, that-” an unhuman shriek roared up and filled the auditorium.

Fred gamely kept up his mouth-made “clip-clop” noises, but soon to, they petered out as the auditorium because filled with the non-sound of impending freakish reality. Now, complete silence, save for the tiny *splish* of the streams of sweat dripping off of Garrison’s forehead, wrinkled in agony. A muttering. A whisper. All eyes on the collapsed host.

His white, wrinkled hands gripped his belly with the intensity akin to that of a Norwegian Bachelor Farmer’s grip on his hoe during spring planting season.

His baby, his beautiful baby…oh god, wouldn’t anyone help him?

His fellow performers reared back in horror. One by one they backed away, slowly, eyes wide in terror and confusion. A scream shot out from an audience member,followed by several shouts. Why were they scared? Just then he felt the rip…stunned, he lay silent, his pain intense, but holed up in that strange place it goes when the worst happens. You see it the soldier holding his severed left arm in his right hand, wandering the battlefield quietly asking for help. His pain was in that bubble, and his eyes silently beheld a long, thin tentacle slowly emerging from his putrescent belly.

Then another tentacle, squirming and dripping with blood, writhed forth, swiftly this time, and long. This one started out towards the audience, probing, seeking…he felt his body surge forward in an unnatural, painful jerk. It wasn’t a movement he wanted…the audience was screaming this time, all of them, and the smarter ones starting to flee. His fellow performers bolted, eyes brimming with tears and terror. The tentacles started coming out in twos and threes now, faster, more urgent. Did one of them just grab Fred? Sue Scott? Oh no, the lead singer of Wilco, the guest for tonight’s program, he slipped on the sheet of blood… his blood…

Garrison knew his time was short…this wasn’t the baby he had been expecting. With his last thoughts starting to blacken out, he swiftly assembled a prayer before abandoning it as futile, and gurgling into his still-attached and fully functioning mic, he sputtered, “God has abandoned the good people of Minnesota…”

Garrison Keillor died on January 24, 2009, but not in vain. For, on that dark and cold Midwestern eve, our Dark Lord was born. Click and Clack wept. The world shuddered.

This slash fiction was brought to you by PRI and American Public Media, and by the support of NPR members like you.

Why oh why did I write any of these phrases:

***
Captain Kirk beamed down into yet another unfamiliar world. Of all the places to end up…just them he heard a familiar shimmer, and turned to see Mr. Spock materialize next to him.

A few moments of silent and intent observation of their surrounding passed. Mr. Spock turned to Kirk and wryly said, “Jim, this place appears to be highly illogical, ” and returned his gaze to the brick building before them, bustling with brightly and crazily dressed young humans ever more rapidly pouring out to the blaring of a klaxon.

A placard above the building read, “Degrassi Middle School.”

******

Vanilla Ice was greedily eyeing the shaggily clad hips of MC Hammer when Downtown Julie Brown tapped him on the shoulder and gave him an ominous wink, then yelled out, “Hey Hammer, don’t hurt us!” She smiled alluringly at them both, wrapping her arms around the hot young Vanilla pie while lasciviously winking a “come hither” to that yummy chocolate pie dancer. The men froze, as food does before it is eaten

This would be the end of a very fun MTV Video Music Awards…and the beginning of a very sexy night!

****

Chairy was depressed. She sat sad and lonely awake in the Playhouse, the darkness settled sleep onto all of her companions.

No one but her had seen all of Pee-Wee’s…horrors. So close.

But there was one perversion she had not witnessed-or been subjected-to.

Tonight, that would change.

*******

The battered neon sign read: Cooze Oooze.

“Hell of a name for a sign, eh Garibaldi?” Lando cackled and regally stumbled towards the gaping hellhole.

Garibaldi smiled and chased after him. He dashed into him a bit too hard and they both fell into each other and onto the grimy ground in front of the station’s sex club. It was mostly lurkers here tonight, so the crowd was rough…but they did nothing but cheer as they watched the two station notables lock lips in front of them them.

The lurkers weren’t the only ones watching the surprise show….security cameras were, too.

Back in his office, Zack drew in a deep breath as he watched the scene unfold on the screen before him.

“No way Chief…no way.”

*****

Bigfoot clung desperately and joyfully to the massive floating log oh so recently wrenched from the shores of the lake by his new partner. “OWWRARWWRR!” he cried out in pleasure and the Lock Ness Monster lurched forward with a new wave of pleisiasauran pleasure-making.

They would have no babies, only love.

*******

Of all the places in the world to have ended up, Oprah had never, ever suspected she would end up here: the King of Kuwait’s private harem room.

Mark Zuckerberg was drunk. Not with power, nor with money. No, the billionaire founder of Facebook was drunk on Liquor 43. He had to be. Tom was coming over.

He had long loathed Tom Anderson, his social networking rival and and number one enemy. Tom was a scam artist, a hustler, and a prick of a jock; all of the qualities that Mark had loathed in himself. In short, Tom was everything he wished he could be, with the exception of one major detail; Mark was about eleven billion dollar richer than Tom could ever hope to be, a value that zipped rapidly up and down depending on the market, but which remained forever beyond the reach of the greasy glitter-stained fuckface. Fuck Myspace’s higher Alexa ranking, he was richer.

Another tumbler thrown out of the window of his penthouse, another echoed scream from the streets below. Another worthless fuckface, probably too poor to afford a lawyer. “I bet they post about that on their shitty Myspace blog,” Mark cackled as he tipped the sweet syrup back into his throat. The burning numbed hatred somewhat and his hands grew weaker as his tears welled up. The golden bottle tumbled from his hands on to the floor, rolling to the open doorway… stopping by Tom’s feet.

Horror and shame. Then, the brazen laughter. Like always.

“Hittin’ the bottle early, brah! I just got some Mickey D’s McGriddles, an’ you’re fuckin’ drunk!” He threw his bag of greasy meal at Mark, hitting him in his face. That was it. Mark’s eyes dried up and he clenched his fists in rage.

“Back off, Anderson. I called you here for a reason.”

Tom sneered at his rival’s greasy face and picked up the half-empty bottle. He chugged the rest down with one throaty swing and wiped his reeky smile with a deliberate horizontal wipe of his arm.

“Oh, fuck off, jew. You can’t do shit to me, Murdoch’s got my back. What, you gonna ruin me like I ruined the Friendster fag?” He the tossed the bottle back casually, hitting a meek and quiet staffer right in the face. She had just rushed in with papers.

“Quit shrieking bitch, I gotta talk business with jewboy here.” He glared at her. “Come back in a bit, I’ll have some use for you then.” She staggered out, shock and anger welling in her red eyes.

“Bitch has some chubrolls when she bends over, hate to see’ that shit when she’s suckin’. Maybe another bottle of this kike liquor will get me hard for her fat.”

This was exactly what Mark had planned. He pulled out another bottle-from Spain, but he could care less about Tom’s raging anti-Semitism at this point- and offered it to Tom, who ripped off the foil seal and began to greedily suckle the glass lip.

“Yeah Tom, keep drinking. You fuckface.”

“What?” Shock at Mark’s sudden display of backbone flitted across Tom’s face. Mark shut his soundproofed door and turned to Tom. “Enjoying the free booze? Think this is how a Harvard grad starts off a business meeting? In his own home? You know…I bet you do, goddamn hippie Berkeley fuck.”

Tom clumsily threw the bottle at Mark, who slooshingly ducked the clumsy throw. The liquor smashed into the wall, dripping and staining gold the newly whitened carpet.

“Oh Tom, Tom, Tom…I was was one of your first Myspace friends, but you didn’t even notice me. Typical.” He stalked around the Myspace founder, tiger-like. Tom just stood, his skin goosepimpling with the horror of a sudden sober realization. Licking his lips, Mark continued.

“Feel numb yet?”

“What? No! You son of a bitch, did you drug me?”

Mark smirked. “No, no, no. I ask only because you will want to feel numb.” By this time Mark had sauntered back to his desk, his eye still on Tom. Good, he thought. He is still in the Zone. “Honestly, I kind of want you to feel numb. Kind of. Still, you stole my idea for stupid profile-based applications, and I can’t have you doing that without some sort of special compensation.”

Tom was confused, and for once in his life was speechless. His jaw hung slack and a slight, yet thick, dribble of alcohol-laden droolfoam slowly dripped its way out onto the floor.

“No words, eh?” Just then he pressed the “fun” button. He had it installed over a year ago, right below his desk, just for this occasion.

A trio of sex robots shot out from the ceiling and surrounded Tom. Their dildo lasers were charged and ready to go.

Tom broke down into sobs. “Oh God, the Friendster guy told me about this, and the Twitter guy too, he warned me….I thought they were making this up….please, don’t do this. PLEASE! IF YOU’RE HUMAN STOP!!”

“Bow down before the one you serve, Tom,” he said with a cackle and an unzipping of his fly. “Sexbots, prepare the subject for penetration.”

Tom let out the scream of a thousand wronged souls. Social media would never the same again.

A fanfic writer so brave and incredible that they made a movie from one of his works about Batman:

You should seriously consider buying his book, for the Castlevania story alone.

PS: Everybody loves musicals, right?