Thread: Passing Strange

"Oh fuck this!" Diddy finally explodes. He had been looking pained and still clutching weakly at his belly the entire time. Now he grabs a scroll from the S canister.

"These are free, right?"

Without waiting for an answer he turns and storms out the double doors, which barely open fast enough to keep him from slamming into them face first.

"I swear last week Rocky and Bullwinkle back there rang me out at the Quickie-Mart and bagged my groceries. We've wasted enough time here."

He slides off the ribbon and breaks the silly wax seal with a fingernail and unrolls the parchment.

"Hah! Well no wonder these are complimentary!"

It's nothing more than printed paper - done on a cheap bubblejet. Tracing the same finger along the tattered and artificially-aged paper, he connects the beach landing and the spot that says Here Be Monsters - our goal.

"Simple enough. Let's go."

He begins to march rapidly toward a narrow pass in the jagged sulphur-yellow cliff face ahead when from it shoots a small dirt bike with shrieking engine spitting a rooster tail of yellow sand. The rider is a skinny young man with a light brown fro and aviator shades who seems to be seated on the handlebars... no, as he draws nearer it becomes clear he's actually attached to the bike - in fact joined at the waist as it were. It's actually an amalgamation - half dirt bike half human, conjoined at the waist like a centaur.

This odd creature loops and spirals crazily in front of the souvenir shop until the young Asian kid addressed as Fore_Skinzie comes running out waving his arms to try to stop him. They're both grinning like fools.

The dirt-bike centaur swerves and showers the Asian kid with a huge rooster tail, pauses right in front of him, and pulls a flopping glistening wet trout from under his blue t shirt that he slaps the kid in the face with. Then he kicks up another tall shower of yellow sand and loops away back toward the narrow trail that he had emerged from, laughing like a maniac. On the sand the trout flops and works its mouth desperately.

The Asian kid thrusts a hand into a crumpled brown paper bag he's carrying and pulls out a handful of fireworks. He drops to one knee and sparks a lighter, fires off a rapid volley of bottlerockets after the speeding creature which begin popping and making little sand-spatters all around the dirt bike.

"You can't escape me Dark_Rasplin!" he shouts, reaching back into the bag for another handful.

But by the time he's ready to light them the odd creature is gone, only muffled sputtering engine noise left in his wake which is rapidly fading beyond the rocky wall ahead.



"Say!" Xey waves at the young man as he's stuffing fireworks back into the bag.

"What's that out there? Looks like a very small island?"

He points toward a little hump of dirt and rock that can be faintly glimpsed a few hundred yards off, half shrouded in the swirling wall of mist that surrounds this place. Just visible on the beach stands a ridiculously skinny pale man with close-cropped orange hair in a short dirty white toga, waving his arms in what I take to be obscene gestures and apparently shouting at the top of his lungs at us, though not a sound reaches. And piled at his feet, tumbling endlessly over each other, several dozen small animals that must be cats.

The little Asian's broad grin fades rapidly and he looks down at the yellow sand underfoot. After a moment he glances up at us guardedly, as if he's about to confide some terribly sad news that must not be repeated.

His slender chest rises and falls once in a dejected sigh before he speaks.

"That's Spayer. Poor man. Delusional they say. He believes he was part of some crazy adventure years ago that changed everything around here, and he lives alone there on his private island with nothing but hundreds of cats - dirty stinking feral beasts they are. Doesn't take care of them properly. A regular hoarder.

"And he dresses them up - sews little costumes for them and puts little wigs on them - pretends they're catgirls... "

For a moment it seems he's going to say more, but his head again falls sadly and he turns and walks back into the shop.