The Tale of Dirty John
Things were not going well. Only in the door and already the atmosphere was charged with a fearful expectancy. Heinous had been gobbling those horrible horse steroids all day, the veins on his neck were beginning to writhe and squirm like fat maggots in the sun. His pupils, tiny pinpricks of hate swirling in a mass of ruptured capillaries. I don’t think I had seen the whites for three days. This was not good. In ‘normal’ circumstances you could tell when a monster like him was going postal, the eyes would roll back shark-like into the head and then you knew to get the mace handy. Now, nothing but a satanic red mist, Christ it was creepy.
Kesey was no better; he’d managed to get himself infested with some sort of rabid tapeworm since we’d seen him last. Kept muttering something about Mongolian vodka and the old ways, then pounding himself in the stomach with a clenched fist screaming ‘The fucker’s going for the spleen!’ He was guzzling an evil smelling white liquid from a tube when I offered him a swig from the flask. A look of incensed misery gripped his features ‘You fool. I can’t have any of alcohol. I haven’t had a drink in two days.’ It was true he hadn’t. His face was the colour of a two day old corpse and I could hear his teeth rattling in his skull.
That’s when I realised we were in big fucking trouble. Kesey without the embracing cushion of alcohol faced with the awful reality of the evil monster he truly was, Heinous in the grip of illegal horse hormones, ready to smash us all like mouldy grapes and me, all sitting there facing one man. Moylo.
Moylo the object of all our fear and hatred. Moylo the weakest link, the creature who would be the downfall of all of us. He sat there lost in an unknown world, permanent erection a priapic radar straining towards the nearest media tart, piggy eyes glazed over with blind fuck-lust. He was a man we all knew could bring us to the point of crazed homicidal rage and beyond far beyond down into the dark depths of warped psychosis. Here we were all placed together at his bequest. All reluctant guests at Moylo’s party.
It had all started a couple of days ago when I’d met Kesey out on his rounds. Coming up for air after the weekend wary of any attention the latest tests had been arousing I came upon Kesey checking one of his traps on Benburb street.
- ‘So big man any luck?’ I inquired.
-’Shut your mouth Gurrier. Look what those dirty little bitches have done. Look at this!’ He indicated the twisted wire and wisps of frazzled blonde hair snagged on the jagged ends. ‘The feckin’ whoors have ruined it’.
-’I told you. You have to make them bigger. And stop testing them on Wahlberg, you know the little fucking midget could cram his head up a rat’s arse with room to spare.’
Kesey sighed heavily
-’I know but he’s the only muck savage stupid enough to climb into them more than once.’
-”What do you need all this for?”
Kesey looked up sharply from his crouched position and ceased his adjustments. His eyes bored into me and I knew I had overstepped the mark. I wondered if the current batch of mace would work on Kesey or had he ‘adapted’ himself again, leaving the last vestiges of his humanity even farther behind.
-”They’re test subjects Gurrier. Perhaps you’d like a demonstration?”
-”No, no that won’t be necessary,” I replied hastily. The last time Kesey had demonstrated one of his ‘inventions’ we spent three hellish days in an abandoned tenement avoiding the Hazmet clean up team and murderous looters. Not to mention the paramilitary revenge squads that kept turning up for weeks at the most inappropriate moments.
-”Moylo is having a party,” said Kesey.
I raised an eyebrow
-”Yeesss and? Moylo often has ‘party’s’ it is of no concern to us. What that twisted pervert gets up to in his own time is a matter for the police and his own conscience and maybe the Vatican, but that’s it. He’ll have to answer for his crimes one day but I wouldn’t have enough strength in my body to beat the evil out of that man even if you gave me all eternity. Best leave his judgement up to those foolish cretins he sold his worthless soul to.”
-”This is all true,” said Kesey nodding, running a whetstone over the retractable blades of the Whoormasher and re-sighting the trigger mechanism.
-”But I was thinking maybe we would put in an appearance.”
I staggered slightly. Kesey would rather be violently sodomised by cranked up hydrophobic blue arsed baboons than spend one minute in the company of Moylo and his media whores. He had on occasion taken to ram-raiding Moylos gatherings in stolen muckspreaders and causing havoc. I’ll never forget the look of rapturous evil that spread across his features as he stood atop that piece of stinking shit crusted farm machinery. Muckhose in one hand, manwhip in the other, foot resting on the shit pedal. Everywhere crazed media types running in confusion then smack 600psi of decaying bovine faecal matter slams into them. They go down wailing and bleating for their lives. Sliding across the floor under the immense pressure reaching the far wall a twitching pile of living ordure. Cries of mercy can be heard emanating weakly from within the shit monument.
-”Kesey they’ve had enough!” I shout at the demented cackling figure.
He turns his basilisk glare on me.
-”Enough! I’ll tell you when they’ve had enough.” Slamming his foot on the pedal cranking up the pressure, the shitpipe bucks and judders under his grasp. The stench is overwhelming, black watery matter is pooling around my ankles. This was not the kind of scene I was into.
With a phlegmatic cough the muck tank finally runs dry and at last the evil machine ceases its unspeakable egress. Barely pausing Kesey leaps to the ground and advances, manwhip at the ready.
-”How much is enough you greedy cunts!” He roars.
-”How much is enough!? Stop putting a dollar sign on everything on this planet you money grubbing scum. Quit trying to schill every manifestation of decency we have! I’ve had enough. You hear me! Enough, it ends here tonight! I’ll put a lesson on yez ye’ll never forget yeh fucking little shitehawks!”
Gone now, far into the manrage he raises the huge whip and brings it crashing down on the bleating shit people. Great gouts of muck fly everywhere as they scramble away from this violent shrieking madman. They stumble madly crashing into the furnishings as Kesey lays about him lashing them with 15′ of wrathful leather. Face a terrible visage of leering hate.
I shook my head this was a bad one alright. Better put a stop to it before it got out of hand. I motioned to Heinous, he nodded and we approached Kesey from his bad side. Subduing Kesey in the grip of one of his turns was not easy. When Heinous went berserk or took a dislike to a situation it was best to sit back and let nature take its course. Being the unstoppable force of destruction that he was he would eventually expend himself and the all consuming fury would subside to wax and wane until the next outburst. Kesey on the other hand was different. You never knew with him just how far he would go. You never knew what crazed machinations were exploding across his synapses. Kesey always had a master plan which was a scary thought. These outbursts were planned and executed with precision. For all we knew he might suddenly reach into that dark coat of his and produce some monstrous chemical concoction that would melt all these mewling unfortunates into a mass of steaming manmeat. Then calm as you like he would record it all in The Notebook of Hate and nod sagely at the horror he had wrought. Or he might suddenly turn and suggest we all go for a quiet pint down the local. You just couldn’t be sure. Best to be on the safe side.
I reached into my satchel and gripped The Pacifier I kept special for occasions such as this.
-”Now!” I shouted.
Heinous moved snakelike into position gripping Kesey in his trademark ‘Crippler’ manoeuvre. Kesey let out a muffled cry as Heinous slammed him to the floor hyper extending his neck.
-”It’s for our own good Kesey!” I said plunging the huge syringe into his carotid artery. A 500cc solution of Ketamine and Novacaine flooded into his system, colliding with his heart like a runaway freight train and beating it, smashing it, pummelling it, into submission. He spasmed once, then went limp.
-”Works every time,” grinned Heinous releasing the dreaded hold.
-”No!” I managed to expel before Kesey rose before us again, face a mask of rage.
-”Bollix,” Heinous exclaimed then Kesey stabbed him in the chest with a taser. 50,000 volts of angry electricity discharged themselves into Heinous’ rigid frame, jolting him from the ground.
-”Grrraargssh,” he managed then slumped to the floor.
-”Lizard brain,” said Kesey grinning stupidly, then he collapsed again.
I shook my head slowly and surveyed the gruesome ruins of Moylo’s soiree, you just never could tell with Kesey.
All this and more flashed across my mind as I stood there reeling from his uncharacteristic proposal.
-”Wha, what’s that? Heh, I thought you said there that you wanted to go to Moylo’s party, ha, ha,don’t joke about shit like that Kesey, you know it’s not funny. I scowled at the evil inventor.”
Kesey turned and looked at me with those cold unblinking eyes of his
-”No joke Gurrier, I was thinking we could go as a gesture of ah,goodwill.”
I goggled at him, mouth agape.
-”Plargsh,” I managed.
Kesey continued unperturbed, warming to his subject.
-”Yes that’s it a gesture of goodwill for all the inconvenience we have caused him,especially after the last time.” Kesey paused for a moment eyes misting over with happy reverie. He shook himself
-”Yes so it’s next Friday, Heinous will be in attendance.” He paused eyes narrowing to dark slits, gashes of hate in that frightful alien physiognomy.
-”You will be there Gurrier, your presence is required.”
Suddenly he was there looming over me, madness incarnate, wild, feral, cunning, huge frame blocking escape. The dark twinges of The Fear began to circle my spine. Kesey’s voice now seemed to fill the air, booming invasive, vision beginning to swim, Christ what kind of freaky new shit was this?
- “You will be there Gurrier hear me! DO YOU HEAR ME GURRIER!”
-”Yeah no problem you big mentalist. Turn off the Jedi mind shit will you, I’ll go to Moylo’s whore party if it’s so important to you.”
-”Excellent, excellent, the preparations are almost complete then.” Kesey rubbed his filth stained hands together with ill concealed glee.
I did not feel good about this, any of it. It bore all the hallmarks of some horrible intrigue and stratagem I would rather steer well clear of seeing as how most of the pawns in Kesey’s machinations ended up spending their final moments on this earth weeping and crying for their mammy’s whilst being devoured by hordes of cannibal knackers. Or if they weren’t one of the lucky ones perhaps looking on in abject horror as their lower intestines burst out of their arses and asphyxiated them during one of Kesey’s bizarre ’subject enhancement’ experiments. Any way you looked at it, this was bad mojo. If only I knew then what I know now.
But back to the present. It turned out, as it often does with Moylo that all was not quite as it seemed. Yes we there was a party, and yes we were there but it wasn’t actually Moylo’s party. In fact Moylo had invited us but we actually hadn’t been invited ourselves. The real hosts were two of Moylo’s media chums, Fiachra MacCraothnaigh and Concobhar ‘Bunty’ O’Toole. Fiachra was some RTE hack, producing visual effluent for the nation’s consumption and buying up American bilgewater like ‘Party of Five Bastards Creek’ and ‘Island of Whores’. Small and agitated his grating ‘Dort’ accent and ‘roight on loike’ ness threatened to make him an early victim of Heinous’ roid abuse. The larger, corpulent Bunty was some executive fuckchimp in that ziggurat of Mammon the IFSC. Taking a break from his nightly money orgies to foster his connections in the media world and maybe tug himself off into the upturned face some jailbait producer’s assistant. It was the usual assortment of jaded celeb has beens and nobody media tossers hosted by these two usurious social climbing bum-grumblers bent on their own venal, criminal desires. Or so we thought.
Bunty had been a little put out by our sudden appearance at his little gathering. Admittedly opening your door and being confronted by the warped stages of humanity we presented would ruin anyone’s day. A deranged, mad alcoholic deep into the DT’s, a six foot six mass of jiggering steroidal hate, a grimacing sweaty palmed pervert a chromosome away from being a fully lobotomised sodomy machine and me. But he hardly skipped a beat. In fact his initial disappointment at our unhealthy appearance soon turned to delight when he found out we were Moylo’s ‘friends’.
‘Excellent, excellent, come in then my dear boys, welcome to the festivities’ he exclaimed rubbing two pudgy hands together and gesturing us inside.
‘More grist for the mill eh!’ he exclaimed his pink cherubic features goggling at us through the gloom. Heinous twitched, facial muscles grinching, grim features into a parody of affability.
‘Where’s the booze?’ he managed through clenched teeth looming his considerable bulk through the doorway. Bunty shrank back fearfully clutching at his flabby manbreasts as they quivered excitedly through his Louis Copeland garbed torso. ‘Through here’ he indicated as the Heinous monster lurched past him towards the alcohol momentarily blocking out the light.
‘Hee, hee, hee, girls!’ tittered Moylo, one hand slipping mechanically to his crotch. The other rubbing frantically at his fraying trousers. He eyed the fleshy sights before him with the fearful anxiety of a man who knows his time is as limited as his charms.
‘Plenty of time for that later my dear fellow’ said Bunty leading the crestfallen Moylo away from the pudgy slappers slumped in the hallway.
Stepping gingerly over their inert forms I noticed Kesey inspecting one of them closely.
‘Excellent’ the grim one exclaimed under his breath. Then more loudly ‘Excellent, this is most excellent. Let the revels commence!’ Brushing past me into the room he began greeting people vigorously. This was not good. The situation was slowly slipping from bad to worse.
And that was how I found myself several hours later crumpled on the expensive sofa with these mental reprobates. Stuffing poached oyster-bollock canapés between the cushions and staring in loathing at Moylo’s crew of soul sucking shitehawks. I almost wished wistfully for a passing muckspreader, but then I recalled the dry cleaning bills and the criminal damage claims.
Moylo was gone as soon as we entered this den of sordid degeneracy. Gone far into the fuck-lust, he disappeared as he always does at these times to spread his profligate lies and mash his hands into the sagging bosoms of any passing or passed out strumpet that wanders into his radar. I had long since ceased to be bothered by these social peccadilloes of his but Heinous and Kesey were a different matter. Their temperaments were unstable, changeable like those complicated man made nuclear elements. Existing in stable forms for mere milliseconds before consuming themselves. They could go nuclear. I glanced over apprehensively. Heinous was as before only more so. The bulging veins on his neck now looked ready to throttle him and his teeth ground furiously each time partygoers strayed too close. I was unable to determine if the hideous gurning was a fearsome parody of a smile to put them at their ease or if the Beast was pondering the prospect of devouring one of the unfortunate plebs. Contemplation of the latter was too much for me to bear. Muckspreaders were one thing but even cannibalism was frowned upon in Foxrock. Stepford wives and genetic re-education could be swept discreetly under the carpet but devouring human flesh to feed ‘roidal rage would be beyond the pale. A gentle reminder was in order. Seeing my chance I leaned forward, carefully avoiding the clenching manfists. ‘I think you’re scaring too many people man.’
Slowly he turned the horrible red death stare on me. He was hunter, we were prey. The terrible grinding ceased. Somewhere the synapses flashed, the manthing remembered. The grin took on a flash of intelligence, ‘I like surprises…’ Then he was gone again, the man lost somewhere within the primeval rage.
‘Surprises,’ I didn’t like surprises. This was too much. Heinous knew something, Kesey had told him something. I had to know what was going on here before I went mad. Christ that fucking madman could be planning anything. He had pet dwarves for Christ’s sake. Dwarves. Not people of a vertically abbreviated stature but real live bearded, mead gobbling, hammer bashers. With axes, gold and massive chips on their diminutive shoulders. Jesus they’d nearly bitten the fucking knees off me the last time I was there. Out of the dark they’d come screaming in some trollish language hocking vowels and spit out of them, short, fat engines of destruction. Kesey would know why we were here, I’d beat it out of him or die trying. The latter most probably but I couldn’t take anymore of this cuntfest and Heinous would most likely kill all of them and me soon anyway. I rounded on Kesey ready for him, poised with mace and interrogations. But there was no Kesey. He was gone.
I lurched about searching for the mad inventor. Where was that rat bastard. Up to no good, hatching plans, scheming, machinating. Out causing trouble that I would have to explain to the authorities with whom we maintained a strained relationship at the best of times. Things had been especially bad ever since Heinous had driven that car full of used porno magazines and second hand sex toys through the front of Store street Garda station and demanded Moylo be arrested for crimes against humanity. The guards now viewed us with much suspicion and in some cases naked aggression. Nothing to be done about that now though, Kesey was the one I needed to find and stop at all costs.
But in this blind fear of my own colleagues I had failed to ascertain the real danger facing us that bleak and terrible night. I had failed in every way to read the warning signs. The invitation of Moylo to this pathetic gathering of weak minded fools. Plebs, losers, followers, sheep. The suspicion and then joy of Bunty on hearing we were Moylo’s associates believing us to be of his degenerate ilk. The strange narcosis the other partygoers seemed to be in the grip of. Kesey’s excitement and then disappearance. The overpowering stench of rotting flesh. The low monotonous chanting drilling into my skull like a black and decker workmate.
What was that godawful sound? I glanced down to the other end of the room where Fiachra and Bunty had been holding forth on the benefits of low interest stock options and stripped pine anti-décor in the Norwegian style. But events had taken on a new and terrible aspect. Now they stood before the group in full length purple robes arms raised in supplication, the orbs of their pupils jet black as the plebs sway and gurn in narcoleptic ecstasy, chanting continuously. Before them a swirling mass of darkness in what used to be the centre of the room was coagulating itself into something other. Something bad. Something that could do very nasty and permanently inconvenient things to your soul and psyche not to mention your vital organs.
All this passed before me in an instant before Bunty opened his mouth too wide and a garbled language of hideously mangled vowels punctuated by soft slithering consonants began to emerge.
‘Tghathaa’ chul’ ctha urchu, plach iggsh. BAH’ STOMEECH!’
The darkness at the centre of the room swirled violently and was sucked inward into a spiralling vortex as the floor disappeared and the buzzing in my head increased tenfold. I fell to my knees and tried to crawl away as I felt the teeth in my skull begin to shake loose and breathing became increasingly difficult. A delirious whine emerged from the lips of the sheep now lying in a prostrate circle about the two media warped warlocks. My flesh began literally to crawl away from the nameless horror that was approaching and my skin felt too tight. I didn’t want to look at the thing emerging from the gloomy centre of what used to be the mock Georgian fireplace. Twisting undulating shapes of an ‘other’ many dimensioned, tentacled nastiness refused to coalesce into a solid vision of nightmare but it was coming and it was not good. Bunty reached into the circle and pulled a mewling bespiked haired media git from the herd. I recognised him. He was a particularly odious specimen who sold advertising at one of Dublin’s burgeoning glam rags. A pitiful, soulless prick who probably was better off dead and yet the look of sheer pants shitting terror that crossed his coke battered visage when he realised what Bunty was about to do to him still managed to bring a warm smile to my lips even in the depths of this horror. Bunty for his part was the consummate professional. Grabbing the struggling ad rep by the ridiculously oversized collars of his John Rocha, stressed-denim jacket he tossed the squealing prig into the centre of the darkness.
There was a moment of preternatural calm as we all leaned forward curious despite ourselves as to what would happen next. For a moment I thought maybe nothing would. Maybe the nightmare would be over and we could all go home and laugh about those two rascals Bunty and Fiachra and what a prank they had played on us that night. But then it happened. The rep lay there panting, pure gobbling fear stopping him short and then from the gloom emerged the salivating maw of a many toothed, many armed, many eyed, many arsed creature, screaming curses and hate in the lost languages of the ‘auld ones. The hunger of a thousand nights stalking the nightmare lands of the outer reaches of Irelands psyche. Searching ever searching for a way in, a path, a doorway, to feed its insatiable hunger on the flesh of the venal and suck the marrow from their bones. The poor bastard opened his mouth and screamed and screamed before it took him. The spectacle was too much for me, I collapsed to the ground praying fervently to every god I could think of and some more I had just invented sure that the end had finally come. I clutched the can of mace tightly, whispered a final blasphemy and made my peace. Then Kesey turned up.
Turned up wasn’t really the right word. As an entrance it was impressive but Kesey had a tendency for those as I have already discussed. But no raging, out of control farm machinery greeted me this time, no this was much worse. Over the din of the brain splitting chanting and the screams of the half devoured Rep came another sound. It started out like a scream quickly cut short and replaced by a gurgling growl growing ever louder and more like a roar by the second. Distracted Fiachra turned from his chanting to examine the source of the sound, then the wall exploded.
One minute it was there, existing then the next it was gone, obliterated. A huge smoking hole framing the menacing bulk of a familiar figure. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see that mental bastard.
‘Howareyeh’ said Kesey, smiling at the goggling warlocks. ‘This’ Kesey indicated the smoking weapon he held in the crook of his right arm ‘is the Voodoo Cannon Mk II. It was invented by the legendary Japanese gunsmith Hideo Mishima who now resides in the Kyoto national sanitorium for the criminally insane. It is outlawed in 150 countries of the world and is banned under Geneva convention. Only fifteen of them have ever been made and all of them by the highly secretive bespoke gentleman outfitters Weishaupt & Chang. It has five violence settings and set to meatdozer mode can turn a group of slavering fucknuckles ,Such as yourselves- into a greasy red smear in 0.5 of a second. All I have to do is point.’ Kesey lowered the dark glinting barrel of the weapon until it was pointed at the two men. ‘And press here’ He waggled his finger over the trigger, Bunty and Fiachra cringed all pomp and ceremony gone.
‘But yis not going to be that lucky lads’ said Kesey stepping into the room. A figure moved behind him in the darkness. ‘Oh no I’ve got something else planned for ye two.’ Kesey tossed the weapon aside and removed what looked like a small remote control from his pocket. ‘That there well that’s just a gun, but this, well this is a thing of beauty’ He stepped aside.
Moylo stood there blinking uncertainly in the light. It was Moylo alright, unmistakably him from the slack jawed unfocussed expression to the aimless gracelessness of his movements. Him alright, except for the thing on his head. It looked for all the world like a ‘Tommy’ helmet like the English soldiers used to wear during world war one. Except this one had a fearsome array of tubes, electrodes, dials, switches and valves festooned about it. I couldn’t tell from where I lay but it looked like some of them actually went into Moylo’s unfortunate pate.
Kesey spoke up in the manner of one addressing a class of students. ‘This my friends is my patented Psi-Emitter. Admittedly its looks a bit rough at the moment but this one’s a prototype of my own design built by those ingenious and wonderfully discreet chaps at Weishaupt & Chang. ‘Well how does it work Mr Kesey?’ I hear you clamour. Well using specially designed receptors implanted into the wearers skull it detects and amplifies what I have termed the brain’s Gonzo-waves. These waves not unlike Theta waves are emitted by the medulla oblongata more popularly referred to as the Lizard Brain. Operating as it does as the brain’s hardwired lower functions. Fight, eat, mate etc. Now by the simple application of an electric current I can amplify the power of these lower functions a hundredfold thus drowning out all the clamouring internal dialogue of the higher brain functions. This is important information our brain uses constantly to keep our baser nature in check. How to behave, how to speak how to interact with society without being branded an outcast. Take a look at our subject here today. A moral degenerate, barely able to keep his perverted whims under control. What do you think would happen to a creature such as this if his desires were allowed to run wild hmm?’ Kesey turned to face Bunty and Fiachra who had watched the procedures with a growing open mouthed horror. ‘I shouldn’t think it would be too pleasant gentlemen do you? Are you familiar with the ancient Celtic term ‘Warp Spasm’? It was believed and recorded by the ancients that in the midst of battle the warriors of old would be overcome by the ‘hero heat’, touched by the hand of the goddess Danú they would become overcome with battle rage and their bodies would become grotesquely distorted as the hero heat ran through them dissolving their enemies by the merest touch. I believe that these ancients were referring to the very changes that my device can bring on. These Celtic heroes obviously had some way of accessing this state through pure rage or perhaps the ingestion some preparatory herbs. It certainly bears further investigation. However we are getting ahead of ourselves and remember these heroes of old wished to fight, kill, maim and as my friend Moylo here will tell you in his more lucid moments, he’s a lover not a fighter,’
Kesey grinned a grin of the purest, blackest, darkest evil I have ever seen cross the face of a living creature, then he flipped the switch. The dull humming of the helmet increased to a massive electrical drone. Moylo stood bolt upright and screamed and screamed. Sparks of electricity sprang from the helmet arcing down his body and still he screamed. ‘Oh God and baby Jesus!’ I cried as the full horror of Keseys plan began to dawn on me. Out, out, Jesus, we had to get out! Moylo was spasming now as the amplified Gonzo waves passed through his body, his skin jiggering and bubbling obscenely as the warping began. I staggered to my feet and grabbed Heinous who had been watching the transformation with a transfixed glee. ‘Moylo die now?’ he asked, a hopeful look on his face. ‘No my friend this is going to be worse, much worse. And it’ll be bad, very, very bad for us if we don’t get the fuck out of here before Kesey is done. Taking a long look at the rapidly transforming Moylan and the mad demented look on Kesey’s face, through the roid rage a spark of self preservation ignited and Heinous suddenly leapt into action dragging me through the smoking remains of the wall. I took one last look back into the living room from hell and wished I hadn’t. Cowering in the corner Bunty and Fiachra appeared to be attempting to claw their way through to freedom. But that was not their fate. Their fate was a hideous be-helmeted, manthing shuffled toward them in priapic frenzy. And through it all the figure of the mad inventor ranting and stabbing at the controls, hurling abuse at the pitiful creatures who had tried to make into sacrifices of us to their Dark Gods. Then the screaming began.
It was some time later before the front door of the house opened and Kesey shuffled out into the late evening dragging a hessian sack behind him. Heinous and myself were taking the air on a small wall in the front garden. The screaming had stopped, eventually but this was the first sight we had seen of our compatriot. I looked into his eyes for any outward signs of madness, fear, hate any emotion in fact would do. But Kesey was as impassive as ever after one of his ‘episodes’. ‘Where’s Moylo, in the sack?’ I ventured. ‘Ah no actually. Things didn’t go exactly according to plan. I underestimated the full depth of Moylo’s perversions. That boy has some serious issues. After he was done with the two fuckwits that dimensional gargoyle thing went for him. That was a bad, bad thing to do. He went galloping after it through the darkness jabbering about the ‘Karmo Sutro’. Bastard took the helmet with him too.’ ‘Maybe that’s a good thing’ I said cautiously eyeing the sack Kesey had now hefted onto his back. ‘Experimental data’ he said tersely. ‘Now where can we get a drink around here I think me tapeworm’s died of shock.’