Crafton Mails -> Um.

[Mr. Teatime]

Acc sat at his school lunch table the day of Halloween. The food was in a classically spooky Halloween style: bat-shaped chicken nuggets, green pudding, and heart cookies (probably left over from Valentines Day). Opening his mouth and preparing for the scariest part of the lunch, Acc stabbed a bat on his fork and carefully ate it. His stomach instantly threatened to go on strike, so Acc gave in to it’s demands and shoved the lunch tray aside.
   His friend Fro came and say down next to him, carrying a similar lunch tray. Fro was wearing a leather jacket, and his hair was slicked down. This was not normal for him, but seeing how it was Halloween he had come to school dressed as “That Guy from Grand Theft Auto III.” Acc hadn’t bothered thinking up a costume. Fro took a spoonful of the green pudding and gulped it down.
   “I don’t think it’s supposed to be that color,” pointed out Acc.
   “Probably,” gulped Fro as he fought down another bite, “but I need to flex my stomach muscles for the mass candy eating tonight.”
   “You still go trick-or-treating?”
   “Heck yeah! Wandering around as people throw free candy at you? I’d like to shake the hand of whoever came up with that idea.” He finished off the remains of the pudding, then, shrugging, took a bite out of the container it had been in. “What’re you doing tonight?”
   “I’ve signed up for a role-playing Halloween chat room as ‘escaped convict (not the real killer)’,” stated Acc, sounding proud of himself.
   “…Fun…” muttered Fro, finishing off the plastic cup.
   “Greetings, mortals,” shouted a new figure, sitting on the other side of Acc. He knocked his food tray to the side and spat in disgust. “They insult me with these meager offerings of nourishment!”
   “Hey, Stefan,” welcomed Acc. Like himself, Stefan was wearing no costume.
   “You psyched for tonight?” cheered Fro.
   “If by tonight I am not moaning in pain from being so stuffed with candy, I will view this day as a failure,” answered the obtuse Stefan. It would take quite a bit to stuff him.
   “What is uuuuuuuup!” shouted the fourth and final member of their group, Jack, as he sat down next to Fro. He was wearing a wig of black hair that went down to his waist.
   “Nice hair,” stated Fro, eyeing up this wig.
   “Thanks. I’m Eddie Van Halen. From the band Van Halen,” explained Jack. The others stared at him.
   “Thank you for telling us what band Eddie Van Halen is from,” said Stefan sarcastically.
   “Grah…so hungry,” muttered Acc. “But food…so bad…what to do?”
   “Have you tried the horrible spooky heart cookies of doom?” asked Fro.
   “Hmm…I suppose it’s worth a try…”
   Acc carefully lifted a cookie to his mouth. Hunger overcame him, and he gobbled it down voraciously. He licked his lips, letting out a soft “mmm. That wasn’t so bad-”
   Acc’s head hit the table with a dull thud. The others stared at him.
   “What the heck?” snapped Jack.
   “Holy crap…” muttered Stefan, placing his fingers against the limp Acc’s neck. “No pulse. He’s dead! Call an ambulance!”
   “Call Superman!” shouted Fro in a panic.
   “I’ve got Dr. Greene on speed-dial!” announced Jack, pulling out a cell phone. He pressed the button, and brought the receiver to his ear. “Hello? Dr. Greene?”
   There was a sigh on the other end of the line, and a voice muttered irritably, “Jack, stop calling me. For the last time, I’m not a real doctor. I’m just an actor.”
   “…Acc is dead! He ate a cookie and then-” the ‘click’ followed by a dial tone signified that Dr. Greene wasn’t very interested.
   Fro came rushing over, pulling a woman by the hand. “I brought a professional!” he cheered.
   “Fro, that’s our French teacher,” reprimanded Jack.
   “It’s too late…” sniffed Stefan. “He’s on his way to a better place…”

   Acc was on his way to a much worse place.
   He was hurtling downwards through a seemingly endless tunnel. Wind whipped upwards around him, rumpling his clothes and causing his eyes to sting. He kept trying to close his eyelids, but nothing was happening. He feared he might fall forever, when suddenly light burst around him, nearly blinding him, and he thumped painfully onto a hardwood floor.
   “Welcome, Acc…” muttered a feminine voice. Acc struggled to stand up, holding his aching head in his hands. He squinted until his eyes adjusted to the light, and tried to take in his surroundings. The room was completely bland colored and bare of any furniture except for a plain wooden desk with a stand on it that had the words “Mrs. Satan” in bold, bland font. There was also a bowl on the desk that was brimming with candy. There was a large leather chair behind the desk, facing away from him.
   The chair slowly turned to face him. A girl about his age with short, messy black hair grinned at him. “Welcome, Acc…welcome to HELL!” she shouted excitedly.
   “This is Hell?” asked Acc in disbelief. “It looks like some sort of managers office.”
   “Exactly,” continued the girl. “I am the Queen of this domain.”
   “Wait, Satan is a girl? Whoa. What’s God, then? Does this mean all women are evil?” asked Acc.
   “You are an ignorant fool,” snapped Satan. “I am neither male nor female, yet I am both. I am all and I am nothing.”
   “That’s dumb.”
   “I’ve simply made myself into a corporeal form that you can wrap your puny mortal mind around. Otherwise your head would implode.”
   “But if I’m already dead-”
   “Shut up.” Satan stood up from her comfortable looking leather chair, and leaned forwards, her fists pressing against her desktop. “You’re a lucky kid, Acc.”
   “I am?”
   “You’ve died at just the right time.”
   “I have?”
   “You see, it’s Halloween,” Satan said, as she began pacing around the desk. “Every Halloween I like to have a little game with those who die that day. Makes an otherwise dull career rather enjoyable.”
   “A game? What kind of game?” asked Acc suspiciously.
   “A game that could win you your life back.”
   “I’m listening,” said Acc, suddenly intrigued.
   “What were you planning to dress up as tonight?” asked Satan.
   “What?” asked Acc, curious as to how this was relevant. “Well, nothing. I was never too big on trick-or-treating…”
   Satan snapped her fingers. “There is now a costume in your bedroom closet. Black robes with a hood, and a scythe.”
   “What? What is…what?”
   “I’m giving you a choice, something not many people get.” Satan leaned back on her desk, obviously enjoying herself. “Either you surrender your soul to me for a painful eternity burning in Hell…OR…you use the scythe to take one of your friends souls and deliver it to me. You do this, and I let you go Scott free.”
   “What, I just kill a random person and-”
   “No no,” laughed the Queen, waving her finger at him. “One of your friends. I’ve narrowed it down to 3 for you: Fro, Stefan McEvilperson, or Jack O’Conner.”
   “What!?” shouted Acc. “But…but they’re my friends! I can’t kill them just to save my own hide!”
   “Well, that’s the game,” shrugged Satan. She grinned again. Acc hadn’t expected Satan to be such a grinner. “I will check up on you at midnight tonight. It’s either you or one of them.” She grabbed one of the candy’s off the bowl on her desk and ate it. “Mmm…so good…how I love candy.” She swallowed, a stupidly happy grin on her face. “So sweet and delicious…” she shook her head, realizing she had zoned out. “Sorry. You can be on your way now…”

   With a sudden feeling of rushing upwards and a strange burning sensation, Acc jolted his head upright. A whole crowd of people was staring at him.
   “Um…hi?” he hazarded.
   “He’s alive!” shouted Jack. The crowd cheered.
   “Acc! What happened?” asked Stefan, helping him up.
   “I died and was sent to…” Acc realized how silly his predicament sounded. He shrugged. “I guess it was all just a bad dream…”
   “That’s the worst, most clichéd explanation ever,” said Fro.
   “Um…your face is the most clichéd explanation ever,” countered Acc.
   “Point taken.”
   
   And so Acc shrugged off the whole ordeal, pretending it had never happened. That night, Fro, Stefan, and Jack showed up at his house, wearing their costumes (well, except for Stefan), and asking for candy.
   “Trick-or-treat!” they shouted in unison.
   “I swear, you guys are like 5 year olds,” scoffed Acc, as he dished out candy into each of their bowls.
   “Come on, Acc,” urged Fro. “Come trick-or-treating with us. It’ll be fun!”
   “Well…they kinda need me in the chat room…”
   “Screw them!” snapped Jack. “Grab your coat and come on!”
   Acc scratched his chin. “Alright, fine,” he conceded. “Hold on a minute.”
   He went downstairs to his bedroom and opened his closet to grab a jacket. He stopped in horror, his hand wavering in the air in front of a large black robe, with a matching scythe leaning against the wall. There was a cough behind him, and Acc turned to see the mortal form of Satan sitting on his bed.
   “It was not a dream,” she started darkly. “You have three more hours.” With a clap of her hands, there was no trace she had ever been there.

   “What’s taking him so long?” muttered Jack, tapping his foot on Acc’s front porch.
   “Maybe he’s doing some pre-junk food cramming exercises,” pondered Stefan. He began flexing his bulging stomach up and down. “1, 2, 3, 4…”
   “Augh, stop, I’m gunna barf all over Acc’s clean porch,” moaned Jack.
   The door creaked open ominously. The three turned to face the figure that now stood there. It wore a large black cloak. A face could not be seen under the shadows cast by the hood. In it’s hands, the blade of the scythe gleamed in the moonlight.
   “Acc?” asked Fro. “Whoa. Awesome costume. Looks really authentic!”
   Acc raised the scythe slowly. Fro eyed it carefully. “What are you doing?” Acc suddenly thrust the scythe downwards, but Fro’s reflexes launched him backwards quick enough. The tip of the blade sliced into the porch floor, causing cracks to spread outwards from it. “What’s your problem, Acc?” shouted Fro. “You could’ve seriously hurt me!”
   “I’m sorry, guys…” whimpered Acc. His voice was almost inaudible. “I don’t want to die…”
   Acc spun around and sliced at Stefan. He toppled backwards and fell onto his back on the grass. Acc spun around again, Jack the only one left. Jack was already hoisting himself over the railing, however, and running off. Acc jumped down after him when Fro tackled him to the ground.
   “What is wrong with you?” spat Fro, but Acc shoved him off without acknowledging that he had spoken. He prepared to swing the scythe down again, when suddenly a heavy weight crashed onto his spine. Acc’s knees collapsed, and he hit the ground. Jack had just dropped a pumpkin on him.
   “Urgh…” muttered Acc. Stefan wobbled over, too, and all 3 of them looked down at him.
   “Did he go crazy?” asked Jack.
   “Seems it…pity,” sighed Stefan.
   They backed up nervously when Acc began to stir. He stood up, but his knees quickly buckled and he fell over again. Everyone then noticed the growing blood splotch on his chest. He had fallen onto the pointy end of his scythe.
   “Acc…why?” asked Fro.
   Acc gurgled incoherently. There was a burst of fire behind him, and Little Miss Satan appeared out of thin air.
   “You lose, Acc!” she laughed. “You managed to kill YOURSELF? How pathetic! I’ll be taking your soul now.”
   “Whoa there,” said Stefan defensively, stepping in front of Acc’s limp body. Jack and Fro joined him. “I see what’s going on now. What’d you do to Acc?”
   “He had the option of turning himself in to me,” she snarled. “Instead he chose to attempt killing one of you. Lucky for you guys, he failed. Such incompetence!” she burst out laughing. Her laughter built and built until a mighty crescendo of maniacal cackling filled the night sky.
   “We’ll fight you,” threatened Jack.
   “Ok,” agreed Satan. She waved her hand, and all three we thrown to the side where they landed in a bruised heap. Snakes of fire launched out of the ground and intertwined around them, forming a magical cage. “I win,” she said.
   “Great. How can things get any worse?” moaned Fro.
   “Well, at least we still have our candy,” Stefan said optimistically, as he took a chocolate bar out of his bag.
   There was a pause. The world seemed to freeze, holding its breath. The Queen of the Underworld turned slowly and deliberately to face the three in the cage.
   “Did you…just say…candy?” she hissed.
   “My candy!” shouted Stefan in defiance. He opened the chocolate bar and bit into it.
   “NO!” screamed Satan. She flinched in agony, as if Stefan had taken a bite out of her heart. “NOOOO!!”
   “What? You want the candy?” asked Jack, catching on quicker than his friends. Satan nodded vigorously.
   “Yes! Candycandycandy!”
   “We’ll give you the candy,” started Fro slyly, “…IF…you let us all stay alive.”
   “But…but…” Satan looked around dejectedly. Her shoulders slumped. “FINE. You can all live. GIMME THE CANDY!”
   She waved her hand, and the fire cage disappeared. Stefan walked over, hugging his candy bag defensively, then sadly parted ways with it. Satan grinned excitedly.
   “Woot!” she cheered. Without another word, she disappeared into thin air.
   “Ugh…” moaned Acc, struggling to stand up. The wound in his chest had completely gone away. He looked at it in awe. “Um…wow…what happened?”
   “You tried to kill us,” explained Fro.
   “Oh…sorry…”
   “It’s ok,” consoled Stefan. “I think it’s safe to say we all would’ve done the same thing.”
   “But now all our candy is gone…” muttered Acc.
   “Then there’s only one thing to do,” announced Jack, waving his finger in the air. “The night is young and there are more houses about! Trick-or-treat!” he shouted excitedly, running off. The others laughed and followed.
   And, against all odds, it wasn’t a bad Halloween overall.

[that_lufis]

Too much main characters, not enough Virginia and Lufis.

Otherwise, not too shabby.

Q/2

[Faded]

Prooty good job. May all y'alls Halloween be death-free.

[The Red Dragon]

And, strangely enough, my favorite part was the temporary return to a prose style of writing. Take the ending, for example:

  “Then there’s only one thing to do,” announced Jack, waving his finger in the air. “The night is young and there are more houses about! Trick-or-treat!” he shouted excitedly, running off. The others laughed and followed.
   And, against all odds, it wasn’t a bad Halloween overall.


In the normal screenplay style of writing, that would end up as:

JACK: Then there's only one thing to do. The night is young and there are more houses about! Trick-or-treat!

Jack runs off, and the others follow behind laughing

See? It loses some description, it loses some flow.  And there's really no way to work in the last sentance, which just may well be the most important one in the entire story. Teatime great jorb.

[daBurninator]

Wow...Teatime, your writings never cease to amaze me. Nice job.

[Mr. Teatime]

(We see absolute darkness, accompanied by an eerie grinding sound. The darkness persists for a few moments before we back out of Acc’s nostrils. The sound is his snoring, as he lays sprawled across his bed, a puddle of drool forming on his chin. Stefan walks in with a spear and jabs Acc in the ribs.)

ACC: Huhwhabuhduhfuhmuh??

STEFAN: Yo.

ACC: Ugh, why couldn’t you just let me sleep? I hate the day after Halloween…

STEFAN: Dude, it’s January.

ACC: What!? How long have I been asleep?

STEFAN: Oh, about 40 years or so.

(Acc gets up and runs into the next room. He turns on the TV, to see the words “January 15th, 2046” come up.)

ACC: No! It’s true! There is a calendar channel on TV in the future!

STEFAN: Yeah, if you thought TV sucked back then…people worship things like The Simple Life, now.

ACC: What kind of horrible future is this!? How did all this happen!? Why am I here?

STEFAN: It all started about 40 years ago…

(Stefan looks off into the distance, his eyes glazing over. Nothing happens.)

ACC: Um…

STEFAN: Shh! Watch the flashback!

ACC: What flashba-

STEFAN: I’m going through the events that led to this in my mind!

ACC: That doesn’t really help me very much-

STEFAN: Shh!

(Acc shrugs, and walks off. Stefan continues to stand there, gazing off at nothing. Acc goes into the computer room and sits down.)

ACC: They better still have e-mail in this horrible excuse for a future.


Dear Stefan,
I got a pizza for ya! Come and get it!
~Me


ACC: Oh, that’s a good one. Yeah. Great e-mail material there. Seriously. This isn’t sarcasm in any way.

(Fro pops up from behind the computer. Acc shouts, startled.)

FRO: Welcome, Acc…TO THE FUTURE.

ACC: Um. How is it that none of us have seemingly aged at all in 40 years?

FRO: I’m actually Fro the 6th. The Fro you know is my great, great, great grandfather.

ACC: …Fro managed to have five generations of offspring in 40 years?

FRO: Ok, first we don’t age enough, know we’re aging too quickly, will you make up your mind already!?

ACC: So, what do you guys do for food in “the future?”

(The doorbell rings.)

FRO: The future has a great sense of timing.

(Acc walks out. Keenan is at the door, holding a pizza box.)

KEENAN: Hey, how’s it going, Acc? Got the pizza your cybernetic clone ordered for you.

ACC: You deliver pizza now? …You deliver now?

KEENAN: Yeah, took me 40 years to expand the ol’ sandwich hut.

ACC: Wait a minute, I have a cybernetic clone? Freaking awesome!

KEENAN: Yeah, sure. Take the pizza already.

ACC: Hey, do you still have a hook for a hand, or did they manage to replace it with something more futuristic and normal?

KEENAN: Oh, yeah. I’ve got a laser gun now.

(Fro grabs the pizza, and accidentally triggers Keenan’s hand. He gets shot in the face and goes flying backwards.)

KEENAN: That’ll be $7,359.86.

ACC: Holy crap!

KEENAN: Yeah, inflation.


(Acc is walking down the streets of Crafton. Everything looks exactly the same.)

ACC: We sure did…fail to produce anything interesting in 40 years. Where are the hover cars? Aliens walking among us? People going to work on jet packs?

(Acc comes across Lufis, who’s sitting on a street corner.)

ACC: Oh, hey Lufis. Can you please tell me what the crap is going on? Is this really the future? How did I get here? Why does everything look the same? How can I get back?

(Lufis walks up from behind Acc.)

LUFIS: I see you’ve met my cybernetic clone.

(The clone stands up.)

LUFIS-CLONE: GOING TIME REVERSE PROCESS CURRENTLY.

(Lufis-clone disappears.)

ACC: What was that?

LUFIS: Oh, they do that every now and again. These cybernetic clones we’ve made have a tendency to launch themselves into the past, sending the real person hurtling into the future.

ACC: So that’s what happened! I guess. But that still doesn’t explain why no one has aged at all.

LUFIS: Hey, I’m a Druid. Do you have any idea how long 40 years is to us?

ACC: Um, 40 years?

LUFIS: Correct. But we don’t notice it as much.

ACC: Hmm…so my cybernetic clone is wandering around back where I should be, but…I wonder what he’s doing?

LUFIS: Don’t worry about evil robot havoc destroying the world, or anything. They’re only programmed to eat and reproduce, just like regular people.


(Cut back to the past. Acc’s clone walks up to Sallie and Jordan.)

SALLIE: Oh, hey Acc.

ACC-CLONE: NUTRIENTS.

(Acc-clone takes a bite out of Sallie’s ear.)

Sallie: Ow?

JORDAN: Hehheh, what are you, Acc, Hulk Hogan?

(Sallie and Acc-clone stare at him.)

JORDAN: I mean The Rock? I mean…who’s that guy who bites people’s ears?

SALLIE: Mike Tyson?

JORDAN: Oh…

(Acc-clone gets up close to Jordan.)

ACC-CLONE: REPRODUCE.

JORDAN: Oh dear.

(Jordan runs off, Acc-clone chasing him.)


(Back in the future, Acc and Lufis watch as the Lufis of the past appears where Lufis-clone just was.)

PAST LUFIS: What the nature?

ACC: Um, was that a curse?

PAST LUFIS: I can curse however I please. What’s going on here?

FUTURE LUFIS: My clone from the future was sent back into the past which is your present bringing you here from your present, our past, to your future, our present.

PAST LUFIS: Oh.

ACC: Wait, so does this mean there’s another one of me running around here? The one who should be in this time?

FUTURE LUFIS: Duh, haven’t you been paying attention?

(Future Acc comes running down the street, flailing his arms.)

FUTURE ACC: Help, Virginia is trying to kill me!

(Virginia follows very slowly, in a wheelchair going about half a mile per hour. Her hair is gray, and she has no teeth.)

VIRGINIA: Get back here…you…whippersnapper…

PAST ACC: Oh, now come on. I thought she was the immortal one! What’s going on here?

FUTURE LUFIS: See, the government came out with a potion. Of magic. That stops aging. And Virginia refused to take it. And, um, the president of Hell…came up with an aging potion, that…causes it.

PAST ACC: What could possibly be the benefit of that?

FUTURE LUFIS: Bingo and oatmeal.

PAST ACC: True, true. Now how do I get back to my own time?

FUTURE LUFIS: You just gotta wait until your clone is done doing it’s thing back in your time, and things will right themselves.

PAST ACC: So I’ve just gotta wait?

FUTURE LUFIS: Yep. Hey, I just got a copy of The Simple Life, wanna go watch it?

PAST ACC: I’m gunna go dunk my head in lava.

FUTURE ACC: Ooh, mind if I come too?

VIRGINIA: You…can’t…escape…

(Virginia falls asleep.)


(Back in the past, Sallie is looking at herself in a mirror. Jordan walks up to her, his face void of emotions.)

JORDAN: I feel so violated.

SALLIE: You know, you’d think there’d be blood. I mean, I just lost a part of my head.

(Acc-clone walks back in.)

JORDAN: OH GOD NO.

(Acc-clone disappears, to be replaced moments later with the normal Acc.)

ACC: Wow. That was crazy.

SALLIE: What happened?

ACC: I have seen the future. It was a horrible place. Babies burning in the street. Emoticons as an official language.

SALLIE: ^.^


(Stefan is sitting at his computer, the email from before on the screen.)

STEFAN: And that’s why Sallie’s ears makes the best pizza. Thanks for emailing me, I hope you all die.

[The Red Dragon]

Hah, oops. I forgot to post comments.

This was crazy. It had an ADHD-ish plot, in my opinion. Stefen's just like that I guess. Speaking of Stefen, he should be more evil. Well, I think so at any rate. I can't say more, because I'm off to think of an email to send to these people. As should everybody else. EVERYBODY!