The skinbot at the door wanted to know what it was, but the Bagman said it wasn’t for robots.  The Bagman held the wedding-ring box to his almost-fleshless chest, grinning and hissing obscenities to see if the robot would react.

The skinbot had been covered with the flesh of an unfortunate Oriental.  Its face was still frozen in the last scream it had uttered before being cut to manageable pieces.  The robot’s eyes changed from green to blue as they scanned the tiny box.

“Oh, what’s inside, do you think?” the Bagman hummed, straightening his crumpled suit.  “A lady’s finger?  A small bomb?”

“No,” said the skinbot, though its gaping mouth did not move.  “There is no bomb.”

The Bagman shook his head, pulling at his wide hat as the dark October rain drummed his skin.  He wished he was a skinbot—wished he could feel neither cold nor fear this night.  The Baron’s final hideout made him feel plenty of both.  A deserted theater seemed hardly right for the last of the Steam Barons.

“So tell me,” he began, shivering in a forgivable sort of way.  He leaned back against the sagging rail that ran up the theater’s steps.  “Did you fellows get any of the Dusters through this way?  Last week, you-”

“What is in the box?” the skinbot asked.  The Bagman tilted his head.

“It’s not for robots.”

“What is in the box?”

“It’s not-”

Before he could finish, the skinbot had swatted the wedding-ring box from the Bagman’s hands.  It tumbled down the steps with the flat clatter of rolling cardboard, and the Bagman’s eyes flew wide as the box fell open.

“DON’T LOOK AT IT!” he screamed, diving down the stone stairs.  He scooped up and closed the box in the same motion, holding one hand over his eyes.  The skinbot made a sound like a train whistle.  The Bagman whirled on him with sharpened eyes.

“It is not for robots!”

Seemingly satisfied, the skinbot turned and swung open the theater door. 

Unlike people, doors did not often scream when the hideous Bagman approached, and the theater door’s harsh squeal made him angry.  Grunting his thanks, the Bagman clattered up the icy stairs.

“Stop,” the skinbot said.  “The Baron orders you to wear these.”

In his outstretched hand lay a pair of black glasses.

“I don’t wear black,” the Bagman said, rapping his claws on the brassy doorframe.  “It’s so dreary, you know?”

“You will need these.”

“Oh, come off,” the Bagman sneered.  “I come with a gift when I should have brought an army.”

“You will need-”

“Did you say something?  Nope.  Sorry.  Nice talking!”

The Bagman stepped into the dark. 

He could see nothing in the slippery shadows.  He was an adopted creature of the night: murk was his personal sandbox.  But this darkness was deeper than deep, colder than cold and so wicked that even the Bagman wished he had a crucifix on hand.

It was not the darkness, however, that made him throw on the skinbot’s black glasses.  It was the robot’s last words before the door clanged shut.

“EYE POISON!”

As soon as he put on the glasses, the entire room was flooded with white light.  The Bagman gurgled deep in his throat, shielding his eyes from the sudden brilliance.  He peered through his fingers, gulping loudly at the shimmering sheen that covered the room.

“Walls!  Floor!  Ceiling!  Oh God it’s dripping, dripping,” he whispered.  He gnawed on his tongue nervously.  The lobby of the abandoned theater was painted with slimy, crystal-clear eye poison, and the Bagman’s feet made a squishy noise as he stepped to the ticket counter.

“Hello?  Nobody home?  Alright, I’ll just set-”

A door swung open across the lobby, barking like a gunshot.  The Bagman clenched his little box until the cardboard bent.  A bald man with muscles roughly the size of barbecue pits stepped into the lobby.  Fiery blue eyes shone behind the man’s black glasses, revealing his mutant heritage.  One of his arms ended in a jagged hook.

“The Bagman?” the huge man said.  “You’re ugly.  The Baron wants you.”

“Well, I want him, too,” the Bagman said irritably, trying to hide his panic.  The Baron wasn’t supposed to know about eye poison.  It was new.  The Baron didn’t do new things.  That was how he was going to die.  Doing old things, like failing.

But if he knew about eye poison…

“Say…” the Bagman said, fingering the scars running across his face.  “Those are nice glasses you’ve got.  The Baron doesn’t have-”

“The Baron wears glasses,” the bald man said, walking up until he could have punched the Bagman.  “To protect himself from eye poison.”

“Clever man,” the Bagman muttered.

“You *are* ugly.  What’s in the box?”

“A birthday present.” 

The Bagman followed the bald man into a hallway and past rows of movie rooms that hadn’t shown movies in almost a year now.  The posters had been replaced by obscene graffiti that appeared to have been drawn in blood.  Sweet, sweet blood.

“It isn’t his birthday, you know,” the bald man said.  The Bagman watched the guard’s muscles roll and wondered what his shoulders would taste like.

“It’s an unbirthday,” he explained.  “It may be his last, after all.”

“Really,” the bald man said, and made a hmmn noise.  “He’s only a hundred-and-eight.  The Baron’s got half a life ahead of him.”

“Well, there’s a lot of people who want to kill him.  I mean… look at Bugsey.”

“Bugsey isn’t operating anymore.  How did you know his name?”

“The skinbot,” the Bagman explained.  “That’s Bugsey’s face he’s wearing, right?”

The bald man chuffed laughter.  They turned a corner and marched down a couple of stairs, passing an overturned wheelchair and row of exactly twenty-seven white doors.  The doors were made of something like thick shower-glass, and occasionally some sort of creature would writhe behind the glass as the Bagman passed by.

As they passed one door, whatever was inside issued a horrible, muted scream, and blood splashed onto the glass.  The creature slid off of the door, beating its crimson fists furiously.

“Running a zoo?” the Bagman said.  “A zoo for people.  Now that’s cool.”

The bald man hummed as he walked, until he came to the second to last door.  He thought for a second.

“No, it’s this one.”  He took out a key and stuck it into the last door.  A beast suddenly slammed itself against the glass so hard that the door nearly cracked.  It looked like some sort of terrible hound, but its entire front half was a writhing mass of mouths and oily, black tongues.  Two hind legs gripped the door as if by suction.    The Bagman peered closer in curiosity, watching the monster’s silhouette as its long tongue stroked the glass.  Behind the beast, a black tentacle even thicker than the bald man’s arm shot out and hauled the screaming beast out of sight.

“No,” said the bald man.  “Not that one.  That one is dangerous.”

He inserted his key into the next door.  The lock sighed, and the door swung open.  The Bagman leaned closer.

Something suddenly slammed into him, hurling the Bagman backwards.  The bald man scrabbled for the wedding-ring box as it flew into the air.

“NO!” the Bagman shrieked.  “NONONO!  THAT’S MINE!”

“I just want to look!” the bald man retorted.  He seized up the box and pulled it open.  His eyes narrowed in confusion.

“That’s…that’s-”

THOCKKK!

The bald man suddenly stiffened, choking on salty blood.  The Bagman hissed in pain, sucking on the stub where his razor-sharp index finger had been before he had bitten it off.  The finger was now in the bald man’s throat, and with a final breath the bald man collapsed.

Looking around frantically, the Bagman scuttled over to his box and replaced the lid hurriedly.  There were cameras hidden all over the white hallway, he was certain.  The Baron would know that he had killed his guard…

“It,” the Bagman said, “is not for guards.”

“BAGMAN!” a raspy voice bellowed from beyond the opened door.  “I’ve heard so much about you!  Come in!  A very happy unbirthday to you as well!”

The Bagman forced his heart to slow, adjusting his hat.  He took his finger from the bald man’s throat and put it in his pocket.  Maybe, God willing, he’d put it on a string someday, and leave it in a pretty woman’s mailbox.

He looked back at the guard… and the guard was gone.  There wasn’t even any blood on the floor.

The Bagman walked into the room beyond the opened door, and the light was so bright here that his spaghetti-dry hair stood up.  Something seemed wrong, and it took him a minute to realize that the room was too wide.  It should have contained both the room to its left and the room with the tentacle monster to its right, yet neither seemed to be in attendance.

The white room was very long, and empty like the Baron liked it (except for a white desk and a white chair, in which sat a very old man who looked like he had smoked thirty cigarettes at a time, thirty times a day, thirty days a month, for thirty years).  Coincidentally, he had done just this, though he wasn’t smoking so much anymore.

The Baron was wearing black silk, and his feet (atop the desk) were swaying to a gentle, rhythmic music that slipped through the white chamber.  He was wearing black glasses, which made the Bagman wish he had bitten off another finger to hurl.  The Baron smiled as the Bagman walked closer.

“You smell like blood, Bagman!  I thought you didn’t like blood.”

The Bagman lifted his chin.  His right leg was shaking.  He wanted to bite it.  Something wet touched his check.  He slapped his face, and felt nothing but his own flesh.  Maybe the ceiling was dripping.

“Baron, Baron, Baron, I’ve got something for you.”  He held up the wedding-ring box temptingly.  The Baron’s sharply-angled, sucked-dry jaw became tight.

“Do you now?  A present for me?  May I see?”

The Bagman swayed on his feet.  The walls rumbled like machines and monsters all around.  His head pounded.

“Oh, oh, Baron.  This gift… is a symbol of…peace.  Peace on Earth!  To wear your… glasses while you open would be, uh, like you suspect treachery.”

“Well, I have to wear these,” the Baron said.  “My doctor says my eyes aren’t very strong.”

Against eye poison? the Bagman thought in his head with a mental sneer.

“Well…ah, you see…it’s the Rules, Baron.  Rules like games.”

“The Rules?” the Baron said, seeming very interested.  “Well, that is different.  Alright.  We’ll both take our glasses off.”

The Bagman’s gut sucked in like a deflated balloon.  He looked all around quickly.  There didn’t seem to be any eye poison in the room.  But if his eyes accidentally fell onto the box while he opened it… and if he looked away as he opened, the Baron would certainly know!

He swallowed deeply.  “Okay, Baron.  Okey-dokey.” 

He put the wedding-ring box onto the table.  His hand was shaking now.  The Baron’s eyebrows lifted, and he put a hand on his glasses.

“Ready?  One!  Two!”

The Bagman pulled open the box and clenched his eyes shut, readying himself to take off his glasses.

“Three!” the Baron shouted.  “STOP!”

The Bagman stopped with his glasses halfway-off.  His heart was slamming the walls of his chest.

“No, no, no,” the Baron said.  “This isn’t right.  I’m being a terrible host.  To suspect you of all people, Bagman!  Leave those on.  I’ll take mine off and see what your present is.”

The Bagman wheezed a sigh of relief.  His jaw clenched as the Baron slowly peeled off his glasses.  The old man had scalding red eyes, like laser beams.  There was something wrong about those eyes, something horrible and familiar as the Baron stared at the Bagman.

“Look!” the Bagman whispered.  “Look at the box!”

The Baron nodded slowly.  Something wet and slimy, like an oily arm, touched the Bagman’s leg.  He watched the Baron so intently that he barely noticed.  Like falling stars, the Baron’s eyes turned down to peer into the wedding-ring box. 

“Look!  Look!” the Bagman shrieked, giggling as an expression of agony and horror appeared on the Baron’s face.  He seized the Baron’s head and smashed it down so fast that the cardboard box was crushed.  “Look, dammit!  It’s not for robots!  It’s not for guards!  It’s FOR BARONS!”

The Baron screamed in pain as the eye poison shot through his retina.  He thrashed against the Bagman’s iron grip, howling like a wounded beast.

But suddenly something changed.

His howl began to change into a cough, and then a laugh.  A horrible, barking, metal laugh.  The Bagman leapt back in surprise, and the Baron lifted his face.  The skin was unburnt, but it was peeling away like the skin of a fresh apple.  There were metal parts beneath.

“The skinbot!  The wicked skinbot!” the Bagman accused, and sure enough the skinbot from the theater door stood before him as the last of the Baron’s skin fell off and tumbled out the bottom of his clothes.

“Oh, Bagman, Bagman,” the Baron sighed.  “You must never underestimate.  Did they not teach you that at Trifle?”

The walls rumbled again, and the Bagman backed up towards the door.  With a resounding boom the door swung shut.  His back slammed against the cold metal as the skinbot Baron advanced with one clawlike hand held out.  The Bagman looked around, and saw an open door against the far wall.  Why hadn’t he noticed it coming in?

“Bagman!” the Baron called mockingly, moving with a rusty grace.  The Bagman spat at him and ducked to the side, running to the open door.  But when he should have passed through the open frame, he slammed into an invisible wall.  The Bagman whirled around, dashing for another door across the room.  Once again, he slammed into something he could not see.

The invisible wet thing snapped into his back, sending him reeling to the floor.  He rolled onto his back.

“Mad mad mad!” he cried.  “Everything is mad!”

“Not mad,” the Baron corrected.  “Merely not for Bagman.”

He snapped his fingers, and the desk vanished into thin air.  Bagman gasped.  Not even the teachers at Trifle could do something like that.

“Have you guessed it Bagman?  Hmmn?  This is not a white room at all.  I’m not even here.  Those black glasses?  Well, they have screens inside.  Take them off, will you, and see where you really have been.”

The Bagman sobbed silently, hands shaking violently as he moved to peel off his dark glasses.  The Baron’s metal face twisted in a lackluster smile.

“Come on.”

The Bagman whimpered.  “Will you forgive me if I do?”

The Baron said nothing.  The Bagman howled and ripped off his glasses, hurling them to the ground and smashing their frames with his foot.

Instantly, a flood of agony seared through his eyes.  He screamed, dropping to his knees and rolling left and right.  Eye poison!  It was on every wall, and when he ground his eyes into the floor it only brought more agony.  The Baron laughed, and then vanished.

The Bagman clutched at his eyes, forcing them open into tiny slits.  His mind spun, twirled by pain.  He was in a dimly-lit chamber.  The walls were covered with spinning wheels, and something lurked in the shadowy corners.  A drop of eye poison fell from the ceiling and splashed like cold water onto his back.

“Goodbye, Bagman,” the Baron’s metal voice said.  “Happy unbirthday.”

The wet thing came out of the darkness to caress his shoulder as the Bagman began to slip into agonized unconsciousness.  He weakly grabbed hold, and realized that it was a black tongue.

 

…

 

In somewhat-related news… I’ll have an interview with Vanessa Morgan, author of “Drowned Sorrow,” up tomorrow!

 

Horror.  Terror.  Ice cream cones that melt too quickly and then PLOP onto the ground before you can get a good bite.

“FO FEE FUM FI!” shouted Trembleteeth the Troll, and our now-dimished band of heroes all began to perform an action very similar to what the Troll’s teeth were purported to.  Trembling, that is.

“But lo!” cried Chubcheeks.  “Here is a Totally Useless Item I picked up For No Good Reason!  Perhaps I should use it on aformentioned troll!”

just then, a Tax Bird swooped down and foreclosed on the Useless Item, thus removing it from the story.

The troll swiped for the ground, and like little pigs our Heroes dove aside, screaming.  The wizard who couldn’t get his spells right howled like a baby yak and hurled a spell at the troll.  Trembleteeth immediately grew twice his previous size.  He picked up the fat elf and gobbled him into bloody little bits.

“NO!” cried the tall dwarf (for, lo, he had grown taller in the Land of… Elves, for their Foodstuffs are of savory blend, and of minced pie, and of spices much desired in the Lands of Farbuthon, which lies only a week’s walk from Durbothon, the mighty son-city of dark Karbomoth, in which no Tick-tocking Clocks are ever brought before the King, for (as I was told by a one-eyed traveler with a peg leg and parrot:

Once upon a time there were many clocks, and mince pies, and mocking turtles in dark Karbomoth.  But as the sun shone like the feathers of a Giant Tookie-Tookie bird, the noble King Blizzergut, being of shapely appearance and portly build, desired all clocks to be his.  But when the many clocks and timepieces and sundials and moondials and when’s-lunch-anyway-dials were collected in his palace of Bamboozer, LO! a Giant Tookie-Tookie bird descended upon the palace.  It’s feathers were the hue of yellow clay, and its feet were ringed with rings the color of orange rings.  It had a large beak, and it carried an idol of the letter H.

It spoke, and said: “SESAME STREET IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY LETTER-”

But here the tale was ended, for my traveler with but one eye, and one hand, and a seafaring parrot, had lapsed into a fit of screaming, which was only brought to an end by the selection of a comely anvil, such as the blacksmith did privy.

The wizard hurled another spell.  Trembleteeth grew to be four times what he had just been.  His head seemed like it would collide with the sun did he grow much taller!

“STOP WITH THE BLOODY SPELLS!” Chubcheeks roared.  Just then… a Rare and Magical Thing happened, and Trembleteeth fell with much howling and cursing in a tongue even the Korcs dare not speak.

It began to rain very hard.  So hard did it rain, that the wizard’s Strawberry Shortcake umbrella burst like the broken heart of my lover Lady Fatsomina.

“Look!” said the dog who could talk.  “An abandoned castle!”

“It probably isn’t full of monsters!” said Chubcheeks excitedly.

“And isn’t cursed at all!” said the wizard greedily.

“And is *not* full of treasure!” said someone.  Everyone turned.

There stood Miftak.

“No, no, no!” Chubcheeks cried.  “You can’t be alive!  It isn’t the sequel yet!”

IS MIFTAK A G-G-GHOST?  IS THE END TO THIS SHORT AND CHOPPY (THOUGH OVERBLOWN) SERIES WITHIN THE HAUNTED CASTLE?  WILL MY FINGERS FALL OFF FOR THIS ABOMINATION?  FIND OUT IN THE NEXT EPISODE!

I go to make a post on the New Page Concerning A Certain Vampire… and I cannot remember the bloody username I logged in with.

Sure, I can check it when I get home tonight.  But at school, I fail as bas as… well, a really big Failboat.

Also, I forgot my headphones today, so I had to walk two miles to find a corner store to buy some new ones.  I can’t work without headphones.  Even a quiet library is too noisy without those phones.

Also, I forgot my writing notebook, so I had to go through class without taking any notes, and the teacher made a point of singling me out in front of the class, remind each of us about “That Student Last Year” who didn’t take notes and thus became a Failboat himself.

Also, my computer is acting up.

Also, people are noisy.

Also, I don’t like taking the city buses, but I have to.  On the same note, I think $1 is too much to pay for four sticks of gum.  What is this… the Philipines?

Also, I have this unreasonably feeling that the whole world is watching me like shifty eyes, like I’m unknowning wrapped into a giant plot beyond my control.  Ever feel like that?

…

I’m going to run back and see if I can figure out my username.  Maybe get off this Failboat…

Experience continues to prove that miracles do occur.  Summer break is over and I’m back to school.  Campus is a lot bigger and nicer (less thugs).  They must have an Advanced Thug-deterrent System at the front, because it seems to be working nicely.

The rabbit picture yesterday was from “American McGee’s Alice”, which is possibly the greatest video game of all time.  It got me started with my Lewis Carrol obsession.  The game takes the story of Alice a few years into the future (she’s 17, I believe).  American McGee gives a truly bizarre, demented twist on Wonderland… in brief, the Tweedles are obese cannibals, the Duchess dies by sneezing her head off, the Queen of Hearts is a monstrous creature that symbolizes Alice’s insanity, the Mad Hatter is a giant maniac who turns children into machines, and Alice carries a butcher knife.  As far as wild bloodletting with amazing music and a story that could make you cry… this is the best it gets.

The levels are totally insane (which makes sense… they’re supposed to symbolize Alice taking a trip into her own mind).  Sometimes the room you stand inside will split open in the middle, with only a swirling abyss beneath, and shrieking demon-things around every corner (plus, your weapons are stuff like croquet mallets and playing cards, as opposed to the M-16 that would be more useful…)

Not scarier than Silent Hill.  But close.  I’m still waiting on the movie to come out…

In other news: My God, this monitor is immense.  I’ve never seen one so big.

You guys like any video games?  I’m still bummed that Half-Life 2 crashed my computer so badly…

God, I just love Lewis Carrol.

Also, it has been confirmed that KEN (as in Barbie) will be a toy in Toy Story 3.

I’m working on ideas for Guylight.  I think I’ll put it on a seperate site and not tell anybody about this site unless I’m ENTIRELY CERTAIN that I won’t get any hate for it.  It’s a joke.  I hope people can take it as a joke.

Begin purchasing hard hats.