All Bad Things

Slumped against the wall sat a man.

He sat paralyzed, staring at the head. He could not tell if it was part of a larger shape or form. He could not tell if it was dead like him, or of flesh and blood. It's vague form was visible in the shadows; he had grown accustomed to night vision.

Suddenly, the head blinked to life, it's eyes glowing with a hot bright yellow.

"How long has it been?"

It's been a while, he said.

"Hmmm...."

Slowly, the head began to inch it's way towards him. How it had even gotten here, he did not know. It was lying on a table four rooms away. It had no visible limbs or body, and yet it was heading towards him.

"Are you really sure it's been awhile? I can still see your form."

I'm not too sure. Time passes weirdly around here, these days.

Thunder boomed from the outside world. His instincts were sanded enough by inaction that he made no sign that he heard or felt the rattling of the wall.

The head had been inching towards where his left thigh would have been during this charade, it's sockets bridging the yellow light flooding the two chasms with yellow fabric. A scratching noise was now apparent to the man.

"You don't look too good these days, now that I think about it."

I really don't.

"Actually, on a second thought, you never really looked too good, did you?"

How are you even talking to me?

"How are you even hearing me? Ignoring your current state, your ears were deafened years ago."

Good point.

The head began to take shape in the darkness surrounding the man. Two feet formed first, then ankles. Shins. Knees.

A figure formed out of the darkness.

"I appreciate that you took some steps to try to fix things, but maybe you should have just left them alone for a while."

How so?

Looming over him, the figure's jaws opened for the first time. Tendrils wriggled out from the hole where a neck would be, dribbling onto the suit below. The head's connection to this shiny, oily body was tenuous, flopping somewhat with each movement of it's jaws and spitting more of the black substance onto the man. Some of it oozed off the man's body and into the floorboards below.

"Well, you ARE in an uncomfortable position right now. You've been here for a while. Keep in mind, all this happened because of your own actions, there's no doubt about THAT. But you were in an uncomfortable position when all of this started, too."

Yes, I am fucked in the head.  Violence didn't get my job back.

The figure's body, which was formerly merely black, yellow, and white; splattered with a deep crimson. It pulsated and fluctuated across the slim body, walking on stick-thin legs.

"Oh, no doubt about that. But you've done some other things as well worth mentioning. Lying- you've done a good deal of that. Pretending you're one of them- that too. Even indulging some cooped up desires of yours."

But that's a different man. He got into the part a lot better than I did. I never intended for any of this to happen.


The helmet began to bleed a mixture of black and red from it's eyes in response to it. It's voice boomed.


"Which is why you came back for seconds, right? Thirds? You came back for more because it quenched your bloodthirstiness."


"I dipped into it from time to time. I made it quick and clean."
Drooping downwards, the black figure disappeared as the helmet fell to the figure's lap.

The helmet rose again, still a chicken's features, but different. Gaunt, emptied, and now completely empty. Black and red swirled into the shape of a man. Shifting, hardening, and forming texture; clothing and skin was formed like a sculpture.

Standing above the former man was a human, donned in the purple garb of a familiar face which was now covered by the chicken's head.

Muffled, a voice spoke from inside. A familiar Southern drawl, from what the thing recalled of human voice.

"Me? No, I was something different! I wasn't smart, but I knew how to have a hell've a better time doing it."

I was wondering how those springs got loosened.

"Yessir. I also gave the first to dark, tall, and slender you were chatting with a while ago. You should've seen his reaction when he realized that there was a difference between me and the crab cakes I left inside of the suits."

I hope you rot in hell.

"Funny, considering your current state. But you know what makes me better than you?"

I'm alive?

"Kinda. But I still have a job. I'm not too keen on partnering up with you, though. That office is cramped enough as is. Least I get to forget about everything and just do my job, y'know?"

Did you know that some sociopaths love the sound of their own voice?

The figure shrank somewhat at this remark, and the chicken's eyes narrowed to a slit

"At least I still have some contact with the world. Didja know that the guards last year heard me?"

You've been missing for fifteen years.

"Exactly, and that's why you should join us."

I cracked open Freddy, and I didn't find a skull. I found a severed head and a few other parts that didn't belong in a robot. Tried stabbing the brain to put it out of it's misery and I'm still not too sure that worked.

I had to completely gut the rest of them because I would find organs and limbs hooked up to some kind of pipe leading nowhere but another human part. Is there really an end to all this?

The purple figure evaporated, replaced by the former shape of the Marionette.

"I don't know. Am I the puppet imitating the chicken, or am I the chicken imitating the puppet? Either way, endings don't always shut things down. That suit you're in right now was the last of the spring costumes, but was never loaded with springs till our guest speaker forced it to happen. That's actually why it snapped the first few seconds you were wearing it. Those spirits weren't trying to kill you, you know. They just wanted to know what you wore."

"There are lots of things you don't know, and probably never will.

"In fact, I'll let you in on a secret."

The chicken head bent down to face the rabbit's battered face.

"You know they were dead ones. But they've had so much of them replaced and tweaked over the years that you don't know if they were the same ones you killed."

A low hiss of anguish droned from the rabbit's throat.

A maroon, smokey substance drifted off of the puppet's form now; hardening and tumbling to the ground like precipitation two feet away from the figure's body.

The figure shrank once more, now in the form of a purple silhouette of what the rabbit knew as his own.

"Again, there are some things that you aren't meant to know, for your own good. I wasn't too sure whether I would get through with you today. I understand now that you might be salvageable."

The figure's chicken head evaporated like mist.

The man saw his own face, years younger and not as scarred, it's lips fluctuating.

He remained silent.

"And another thing. The fact that you've been coasting this long without any assistance from them or it is astounding. Hope I see you at the finish line."

The figure donned the mask again.

"I've got some unfinished business on another side of the continent. Hope it'll be as fulfilled as this one was."

I can't tell what you were like before you came to the pizzeria, by the way.

I don't really care either way, but thank you.

Without another word, the figure left the room, taking the mask with it.


					[FIN]