Post by "The Handyman" Joey Handy on Aug 17, 2014 20:02:55 GMT -5
Post- Post-mortem
Life sucks, and then you die.
*sigh*
I really wish it were that simple. You see, my life truly DID suck. I had a gold digging wife who was the most wonderful person in the world when I had money to offer, but once I lost my construction business and barely made ends meet, she became possibly one of the most verbally abusive people I’ve ever run across. My children were spoiled brats who just couldn’t seem to put their hands down long enough to understand the meaning of a dollar. Granted, a lot of that was well within my control; my children’s behavior, being married to a bitch that even Satan would throw out of hell just for the peace and quiet. I could have changed any of it at any time. But… I was a traditionalist who refused to give up on anything. I would provide for my family no matter what I had to do. That’s what brought me to the point of desperation. That’s why I joined the WGWF well over two years ago. I was just a Midwestern mook trying to make a living.
And then…
I died. Yeah. Life sucks. Death sucks harder. All Hallows Eve, the pay-per-view I had a street fight against Chicken Buu in 2012 is a night I can’t forget. Not that I haven’t tried. I won the match, but with the interjections from Grimiore Xmyles, Lunatic and my wife, I ended up playing a real life game of hangman. I didn’t win that one. It was pretty damned hard to get over. I’ve had nearly two years to do it too. I can’t explain just how or why I came back, at least not yet. Those answers still elude me. What I DO know is this: I’m here for a reason, and things are different now. WGWF has been dying a slow, cancerous death. I’ve been given the instruments to carve that cancer out.
But…
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here.
*Sanitarium Bar and Grill*
I admit, it was a seedy looking dump located on the corner of 12th and Locust in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. I guess you could call it some sort of “witness relocation” program. Perhaps an “adjustment identity” would be more suiting to the point.
You see, after I died, I was, in fact gone for an eternity. At least it felt that way. Time ceases to be a thing once your soul has left your body. That’s when A.R.R.E.S.T. came into my life, or rather my after-life. I think this is how that awful movie R.I.P.D. ended up being made. In retrospect, it sure seems like what I’m going through is very similar. The difference is; THEY only dealt with the undead. My spectrum isn’t quite so limited. It wasn’t a glorious recruitment. I got as much training for the job as I did for being a pro wrestler: zilch.
That’s where the time in absentia comes in, the nearly two years it took for me to adjust to my newfound abilities. Every night, I stood behind the bar, making cocktails of all sorts, not for just a criminal element and the crowd it attracted. That would make my life seem at least a little better. I could deal with being a James Cagney wannabe in a mobster movie. No. My life was more like if Lost Girl and Supernatural had a threesome with Charmed while Buffy the Vampire Slayer filmed it. My life wasn’t filled with gangsters or mobsters. It was brimming over with creatures that can only be described as monsters.
Oh sure, they may look like regular humans to everyone else, but I see what they truly are inside. Not everyone has this glamour around them. Even real humans cast off a glance of what sort of hideous being they are at heart. I think the hippies call that an aura. I’m not talking about that though. What I’m referring to are real monsters, things that would drive a person insane. H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Alfred Hitchcock… They must have had a glimpse into this world. Me? I got the whole damnable veil lifted all at once.
I think the thing that served to be my biggest salvation may have been the fact that I am essentially a zombie. Not in the strictest, brains-it’s-what’s-for-dinner, sort of way. Just in the fact that I am actually dead and reanimated. The other main difference is that I feel pain; blood does course through my veins, and all my other bodily functions work as well. I was given a second chance, but the free will to choose the path it took was removed.
I’m back, but I have certain things I must do in order to keep this… existence going. I have to take the bad element out of these monsters. Let me tell you, choosing which of these grotesques meet their maker isn’t as easy as it sounds. Take the Ananasi at the end of the bar. This lizard-like business-suited bastard makes his living using the political processes to keep poor people from rising above their domain, all the while; he drums the belief into their heads that other poor people are the problems with all of society. As much as I dislike what he stands for and how he gets through life, he’s relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things. Now the guy at the opposite end, you know… the one with the elongated canines? Him, I’m about to have problems with.
His name is Frank Malloy, and he’s been on a three week bender. Not from the bar I work for as a cover. Nope. This piece of work is a classic blood addict with a penchant for O-positive blood types. When you start off your fall off the wagon with a heroin addict, bad things happen. I guess that whore Frank got a hold of wasn’t such a hot idea. Addiction is addiction, and when it comes into someone’s body via the bloodstream, it’s all the more powerful. Frank was jonesing for his next fix, and he was about to leave. With the body count rising the way it was at his hand, I couldn’t allow him to leave.
Frank sniffed the air like a hound sensing bacon on the stove. He bared his teeth, revealing his needle-like teeth, sensing his drink du jour outside. My hand instinctively reached over the counter behind me, grabbing my custom made oak baseball bat with cold iron strips and silver rings running the length of it. I called the bat “Technology.” The plaque that held it portended the phrase “Technology Solves All Issues.”
I could tell Frank was gonna beeline for the door. I flipped the switch under my register, snapping a cold iron gate complete with spikes at the bottom shut like a castle gate. He got there just in time to have his foot pinned by one of the stems. He bellowed in agony, but I knew cold iron wouldn’t hold him long. He was a vampire, not a faerie. I hurdled the counter as what few patrons I had reacted to his cries of pain. I twisted the bottom silver ring, releasing an oak stake that seemed to give my weapon a more sharpened look.
“Frank,” I stated as I approached cautiously, “Let’s talk for a minute.” I could tell that he wasn’t in much of a mood for discussion, with a spike through his foot and his meal escaping outside. He hissed his disgust at me, swiping with his equally sharp talons, warning me away as he attempted to pry himself free. I raised my left hand to attempt to calm him down, but my right tightened its grip on the bat, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. “We can’t let you keep going like this.” He clawed at thin air some more. I almost didn’t notice that he’d gotten his foot entirely free. “It’s getting difficult to keep the media at bay.” I did what I could to get him to listen to reason, but vampires are a lot like sharks, once they smell blood, there’s just no reason left in them and in Frank’s case, he was about to frenzy.
I suppose now is the time I should let you in on a little secret. I may not have gotten any kind of official training during Eternity, but then A.R.R.E.S.T. doesn’t do much officially. When your immortal soul separates from its host body, you have the freedom to travel places, whether near or even light years away. Those places can be beautiful or deadly. I figured what the hell. Since I barely traveled outside of Kansas City before joining the WGWF, I might as well experience other planets since I have that kind of time on my hands. I went to planets with no gravity, and even some with gravity that could crush a person if they gave up. I think that’s why I was chosen for A.R.R.E.S.T. I may not have much in the way of skill, but I never give up. It was on my lonely excursions that I “trained” myself. My mind may not be able to remember all of my travels – hell I’m lucky to remember any of them at all from what I’ve been told – but my muscles remember the training very well.
Frank lunged at me, both arms aimed at my throat with their dagger-like nails at the end of those scrawny fingers. I managed to duck while lunging upward with Technology, driving the point of the stake home just under his chin all the way to the nub of the bat itself. The point jutted out of the top of his skull, covered in the putrid coalesced blood of the undead. Holding the bat in place from behind just under his arms to prevent him scratching me, I tightened my position.
“Stakes don’t work,” Frank gurgled in defiance, “Unless they’re through the heart, barkeep.”
“I know,” I reassured him as I withdrew oak cuffs from my back pocket, slapping one side onto his right hand. The cuffs immediately went to work growing stakes into his wrists and injecting him with holy water. Frank yowled in pain, lurching to set himself free. I struggled to set the other cuff on him, but finally managed to get it done. He let out another cry of agony as he wilted to the floor in defeat. Out from the kitchen, several men dressed in black suits mobbed the downed creature, further subduing him as I removed my weapon. Frank would be tried by a tribunal of his peers to see if he should be rehabilitated or if he’d get to enjoy one last sunrise. Here’s a hint, Twilight fangirls. They don’t sparkle. This? This right here? This is what my life has become. I’m not gonna lie, I’m still learning, but I have to also admit that I’m enjoying myself.
*******
I know. I can hear it all now. I can hear the guffaws from the jackholes like Kyle Shane, Lunacy, and all of them. They won’t take me seriously. I can conduct their laughter like an orchestra. Their disbelief that I’m any kind of threat is palpable to the point that I can spread it on my toast for a midnight snack. That’s just fine by me. I’ve always been the dark horse, the underdog. It suits me. Here’s a life lesson, my little buttercups: Life sucks, then you die. But if you’re a monster, whether living or dead, I’ll find you. I may not come out unscathed, but those of you who terrorize others for pleasure will damned sure remember just who I represent. I’m here on the whims of a higher power, and He’s sent me here for you.