Written By Gabe Gonzalez
Cover Art by Ho Ching Kwok
Chapter One: Origins
Gallowed Grove was a town that existed just as any other, but it was most certainly not
like any other. The town was created by a man known as Doctor Victor Frankenstein, an
eccentric genius who attempted to play God by creating life out of those who have since passed away.
His ideas were not accepted by those around him, which turned into a deadly disdain on one fateful night. As the doctor prepared his patchwork specimen on the table, villagers began to arm themselves with pitchforks, knives, blunt instruments, and torches to finally end the air of unease that the villagers felt with the doctor in their vicinity. Victor rose the specimen on a metallic slab into the cloudy and lightning-brimmed sky with an internalized hope that this would be his final foray into the realm of reincarnation...
He would be correct.
A lighting strike hits the slab, the creature’s chest jolts upwards.
Villagers descend upon Victor’s laboratory chanting statements littered with anger and
holding weapons to cause death and destruction.
A second lightning strike hits the slab and causes electricity to run through the veins of
the deceased.
Victor’s eyes widen at a bright-orange light that illuminates one of his nearby windows
and begins to come closer. He jumps upwards as the crash of that echoes throughout the room and he looks at the cause, it was a torch. He grimaces as he looks outwards from the
newly-opened window.
A group of nearly sixty angry villagers armed to the gods with weapons of bodily
destruction approach Victor’s palace of experimentation. One of them is the obvious leader of the group, he’s a stout man with a thick, handlebar moustache and a wide-brimmed hat.
“Get out here, you FUCKIN’ devil! We know what you’ve been doing with the dead!”
Victor widened his eyes at the violent screams from the man and rushed over to a
rusted-over hand crank and began to use it as a means to bring his specimen down from the
heavens. The villagers quickened their pace as he did so, a deep need to end his disgusting reign of scientific necromancy as the bodies of the ones they loved were being excavated from the town cemetery and being used for whatever nefarious purposes Victor needed. It was time for it to end.
Victor struggled with the final crank as the slab clicked into place upon its normal
position. He lightly smacked his monstrous mixture of men on its cheeks as a plan began to
formulate within his head.
The creature was unresponsive.
“Come on! Come on! Please, wake up! Dammit!”
Victor yelled at this creation and kept attempting maneuvers to try and awaken him,
deeming this new try a failure just like the others.
The villagers made their way to the large wooden doors of the laboratory and the stout
leader tightened his hand around a metal baton. He took the handle of the door and yanked on it to no avail, he grimaced and looked at the crowd behind him.
“BRING THE FUCKIN’ RAM!”
The villagers parted, leaving a fairly large amount of room in the center as a group of
men came through with a large log held within their arms. The leader began to count down.
“THREE!”
The men prepared themselves, ready to strike with the ramming tool. Victor was still trying to get his creation to awaken through screams in an effort to prove he wasn’t as insane as everyone thought.
“TWO!”
The men kept a clear focus on the door.
Victor slumped on the floor ready for whatever hell may come to him, his palms over his
eyes as he began to quietly sob into them.
“ONE!”
The men swung the ram and struck the door, causing it to splinter and burst open. Victor refused to look up and stayed in his position.
The monster opened their eyes.
The villagers angrily swarmed into the room and saw the doctor wailing into his palms,
his aura of sadness had no effect on them.
But, what they didn’t expect was the movement on the slab behind the doctor. A series of
deepened groans coming from the creature on the table as it slowly lumbered off the slab and showcased itself. The creature was a hulking figure of a man with greenish-grey skin flaps that were haphazardly stitched together with staples and twine, electric-blue eyes, a horizontal grouping of staples that lined their forehead, and a full head of raven-coloured hair. However, it was completely nude, and they were completely
sexless because there was no identifiable genitalia as the area was just a smooth layer of skin.
Victor looked up at his shambling creation and a smirk began to grow upon his face.
“My... my monster! It worked! It really worked! THEY’RE ALIVE!”
The creature looked down at his creator with an inquisitive expression and recognized
him as such, giving a small grunt and nod as confirmation of that fact.
The village mob leader widened his eyes at the brutish fiend in front of him and tried to
temper his nerves down to a suitable level.
“WHAT THE FU-”
Before the man could finish his curse, the flesh-festered creature roared and lumbered
quickly towards the man with their arms outstretched in an offensive t-pose, similar to a football player going in for a tackle and slammed the full weight of their body into the man.
Victor smiled as several villagers audibly gasped at the monster’s actions.
The village leader was slammed into the ground and his efforts of defense were
completely futile as the strength of the monstrosity was much more than his own.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME, YOU FOUL VERMIN!”
“GRAAAGGGHHH!”
The monster pounded both his closed fists down on the leader’s chest, a finishing move
that would end the man’s life in a total instant.
The room was silent.
Well, besides Victor who stood up and clapped his hands in glee, a large toothy grin
adorned his face as he circled around the deceased village leader with a set of skipping-like
motions.
“Hehe! I’ve done it, I’ve finally done it! I’ve made a man! I am God! I am Him! Haha! Hehe!”
The villagers watched the depraved act of joyous commotion.
The monster grunted towards the dead and returned to their creator’s side. One of the women within the villager group steeled herself and walked to the front of the group with a sharpened pitchfork grasped tightly within her right hand and had a stone-cold
demeanor.
“Get out of here, now! Just leave, please. If you do that, we will not hunt you down and
we will not kill you. Take you and your... monster out of here, we want to mourn for our dead
and we do not want any more fighting. Please, go.”
The monster clenched his fists and brought himself towards the woman, but was stopped
by Victor’s outstretched arm.
“We shall leave.”
Victor gathered a few of his things from around the lab as the eyes of the villagers
watched him closely. They parted their bodies to give Victor room to leave as well as his
creation who followed behind.
The villagers cheered loudly as the duo was exiled from the town.
Victor and his monster would travel far and wide by foot for months before finding the
place they would call home. But, during their adventure, the two would closely bond as father
and son, a relationship type that was commonplace and strong throughout the cosmos. The
crafted creature began to understand the words his father would say to him through extensive teaching as his brain was young and needed to be molded into something he could utilize for the rest of his life.
“Me. Father.”
Victor pointed at himself as he enunciated the words.
The monster cocked his head inquisitively and pointed at himself.
“Fa...fath-ah?”
Victor smiled and shook his head.
“No... No, my son.”
He pointed at himself once more.
“Me. Father.”
The creature nodded and pointed his finger at the doctor.
“Fa... Fath-ah.”
Victor smiled and happily shouted, “Yes! Yes, my son!”
The monster made a guttural noise that sounded like a deep chuckle.
The two’s travels would continue on like this for awhile, deepening the bond between
them and establishing a relationship that both of them would have for the rest of their respective lives. The monster’s vocabulary was evolving quickly due to the doctor’s restless teaching, helping the monster establish himself as his own individual rather than just an extension of protection, safety, and companionship for Victor. And, while the monster was loving the freedom of individual expression, the doctor was learning the hardships that come with being a father.
The creature looked on the floor of the grassy valley they were walking within and saw a
few small skittering beetles chasing one another through the blades of grass and reached down to pick them up. He giggled at the tickle sensation that the insects were causing by traveling around on his hand.
Victor looked back to see the source of his child’s amusement and saw that he had a
beetle lightly clutched within his pointer and thumb and was about to drop it into his open
mouth. Victor’s eyes widened as he raced towards his creation.
“No! No! Get that away from there!”
He smacked the beetle out of the monster’s hand, which instinctively made the creature
drop the others he had clutched within his palm. The monster solemnly looked down at the
ground as the beetles scurried away into their respective hiding places and then looked back up at his father who had a serious set of features plastered on his face.
“I’m sorry.”
The monster sniffled and hunched as he kept his eyes to the ground.
Victor felt a sudden rush of remorse flood his body as he looked at his sad son and placed
an open palm on his back.
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I just didn’t want you to eat something
bad and get sick. Are you okay?”
The monster nodded and wiped his eyes with his arm.
“Those are things we can’t eat. We’ll find something with protein soon, but we’re not
going to resort to eating bugs, okay? Just stick to the good berries and I promise we’ll find
something soon.”
“Okay,” The monster nodded.
As they traveled, the duo found themselves in a small grove littered with blackened trees
with jagged and sprawling branches. It was in the countryside of an old territory known for its
stories of witchhood and old-world sorcery. Victor had heard stories of it when he was a child, but thought that they mainly resided in the arenas of fiction. But, the stories he was told had the same imagery as the real-life areas he was currently in and he found it fascinating.
The monster loved the area and began to heartily chuckle as he ran around in a circle,
Victor watched with joy at his creation’s antics. The monster then grasped two small handfuls of leaves and threw them in the air.
However, the monster’s face slowly morphed into one of terror as a shadowed figure
made their way behind Victor.
Victor gave a look of concern.
“What is it, my son?”
The creature shakily brought up his pointer finger and aimed it at something behind
Victor.
“Father! Father! Look!”
Victor quickly swung his body around and was met with the view of an old, hunched
woman with gray hair, wrinkles for days, and an angry set of features that could’ve been
plastered on her since birth. Her head was adorned with a large pointed cap that had a purple band wrapped just above the incredibly wide brim and she clasped the top of a wooden cane engraved with a series of stylized markings in her left hand.
“Oh, hello!” Victor reached his open hand out in an effort to introduce himself.
The woman continued to stare which visibly made Victor uncomfortable in his
expression.
The creature began to slowly lumber behind his father.
The woman glanced up at the hulking monster but remained unfazed and returned staring
at Victor.
“What makes you come here?” The woman asked in a raspy voice.
“Oh, well, ha! She speaks...” Victor humored before coughing and reverting back to a
normal course of conversation as the woman remained dour, “... I heard stories about this place when I was a child and though I thought it was fiction, I thought it was the only place to seek refuge for me... and my son.”
Victor motioned towards his creation.
The woman raised an eyebrow as she looked at the creature once more.
“If that is true, what is this place known as in the common tongue?” The woman asked.
Victor chuckled.
“Oh, here? Not hard in the slightest. I’ve always been told the name of Gallowed Grove.”
The woman widened her eyes and touched the ground with both her hands, her left
emitted an aura of green energy and her right emitted an aura of crimson. It was like she was sending a message that only Gaia could hear.
Suddenly, an invisible wall dissipated and revealed a series of housing cottages, bakeries,
restaurants, and more that made up a small town. The entryway was adorned with a green sign containing gold lettering that said ‘WELCOME TO GALLOWED GROVE.’ The creature
walked slowly behind Victor as he tried to hide his face from the busy streets of men and women who were adorned with the same pointed caps as the woman they had met.
However, there was something different about this place... They weren’t giving the creature a second glance, he was a normal sight to them.
“You two will be the only non-witchbreed within this town, but I’m sure that won’t
bother you as you seem to have studied some form of necromancy to bring this creature to life.”
“No, just science.” Victor responded.
The woman was taken aback.
“You completed this...” she gestured towards the creature, “... with the tools of man’s
world?!”
Victor nodded.
“Interesting.”
Victor scratched his temple for the moment as his creation waved at the various children
in the town who really seemed to enjoy his physical appearance.
“Hi, little ones!” The monster tugged on his creator’s shirt, “Father, can I go play?”
Victor chuckled.
“Yes son, go play.”
Victor gestured towards the children and watched happily as his son ran over to them.
The creature outstretched his arms and began to let them hang from them, laughing joyously with them.
“I have a question, do you think this town has to remain witchbreed? Because, I have a
few ideas...”
And, with that question, the world of monsters and fiends would change forever as Victor
brought the idea of making it a refuge for all the hellish damnations of the world to escape the persecution of the human world, a safe space that they could call home and live with one another. In harmony, hopefully. A new set of laws would have to be formed and an enforcement of said rules would have to be established, so Victor placed his creature as his recommendation for such a deed and the council, unanimously, approved as the town had come to love Victor’s creation and showered him with gifts and food.
The monster was now designated as the sole investigator and fist of law for the people of Gallowed Grove. To prepare for this role, Victor had his creature study several books on investigative techniques, detective work, combat, and more. And, for
personal amusement along with giving the town something else to call him besides ‘monster’
Victor granted him a new name, Frank N. Stein... Detective Frank N. Stein.
Chapter Two: Meeting at TomTom’s
Many years later...
The heavy footsteps of worn, leather boots echoed throughout the silent and
rain-drenched streets of a town shrouded in complete mystery. The figure who owned the
aforementioned boots could only be described as a hulking figure whose features were enveloped in a long, wide-collar, beige trench coat that stretched down to the top of their knees, a white button-up undershirt, a messily prepared tie, and a fedora stylized with a red band that wrapped around just above the brim. They brought up their hand to their mouth and smoked the last puff on a cigarette before throwing the stub onto the street below and stamping it out with the heel of their boot.
The individual looked up at a lone streetlight whose bulb was blinking erratically
before reaching into their interior jacket pocket and pulling out a small, black leather notebook and flipping to a specific page and studied the writing carefully.
CASE REPORT #000246
Throughout the months of August to November, missing persons reports have begun to
rack up within the law enforcement headquarters of Gallowed Grove coming to an accumulation of around sixteen. A common theme of the kidnappings being that all of the victims were female pixies from the age range of thirteen-to-seventeen. Two separate witnesses of different kidnappings have come to the conclusion of two differently appearing attackers which makes me believe that this may be the work of a group hidden within the walls of Gallowed Grove.
There hasn’t been much in the way of discovering who the culprits are in these acts of tearing familiesapart. But, yesterday, a call came into the office and it seems like one person is willing to speakon these kidnappings, someone who seems to have close contact with whoever is causing these terrifying crimes.
The individual wanted a meeting at TomTom’s, a local diner within Gallowed Grove, hopefully this will give me a break in the case. I really need to solve this, I can’t deal with
any more crying mothers and fathers, I just can’t.
Frank’s eyes lingered on the last sentence before closing the book and placing it back into
its original pocket. His mind going through the logistics of the case and the worry of never
finding the girls culminated into a mixture of anxiety-laden dread. Frank began to breathe
heavily as he found an alleyway and began to whisper himself into a sense of calm. Frank closed his eyes as a memory began to fade in.
***
Frank sat at Victor’s bedside, Victor was now bedridden with a medicinal intravenous
next to him slowly administering life-saving fluid. On the other-side was a slow-beeping screen that showed Victor’s strained heart rate through digital imagery.
Victor smiled as he saw his child.
Frank set their fedora down beside the chair and looked up at Victor with tear-filled eyes.
“They told me today or tomorrow was your last day.”
Victor nodded.
“That is true.”
Frank sniffled and covered their eyes with open palms.
“No, dad. Please, don’t go. You can’t go, not yet.”
Victor gave a small chuckle.
“Frank, Frank, my sweet child. It will all be okay, I promise. I have taught you all you
need to know, you must carve out your own way in life.”
“But, I want you there with me. I don’t want to be without you!”
“It was always going to come to this Frank, you knew this... I knew this. It’s time for me
to go, but before I do... You must promise me one thing.”
Frank nodded as he sobbed.
“You must promise me to always show a true sense of good, to always help those in
need, to be the one that people can count on... no matter the obstacles ahead.”
Frank nodded his head as he listened to his father’s words.
“I promise, I promise.”
Victor smiled and turned his head so he looked at the ceiling, his eyes closed and his
heart rate began to flatline.
Frank wailed into his father’s shoulder.
***
Frank wiped a small tear that began to form within the corner of his right eye and stood
up, his father’s words echoing in his head.
“Be the one that people can count on... no matter the obstacles ahead.”
Frank walked out of the alley and continued towards his main objective as he walked up
to the entry door of TomTom’s, a blinking white and green LED sign adorned with the name and the logo of a four-leaf clover illuminated the street and area around Frank. He sighed before opening the door, a small bell rang to signal entry.
The woman behind the diner counter had black hair with a single red streak through the
side, striking green eyes, ruby lipstick, and two small fangs protruding from the sides of her
mouth. She gave a smile to the detective.
“Hey, Frank. Been a while! What can I get for ya?”
Frank waved and gave a smile.
“Hi, Alicia. Just the usual, please.”
“You got it!”
Frank smiled and nodded, his eyes scanning the few patrons within the restaurant as he
attempted to find his contact, realizing that it was probably pointless due to the fact that he didn’t know their face. His attention was soon taken by a trio of knocks from a table behind him, accompanied by a small cough. Frank turned around and saw a headless torso adorned in a black leather motorcycle jacket that had a visible red interior and a red cape strapped onto his shoulders, however the most odd thing about the whole individual was that his right hand was keeping his disembodied head stationary on the table. The head clearly showed that the creature was a sweaty white male with messy blonde hair and a same-coloured goatee whose yellowed teeth nervously chattered as his eyes darted around the room with a frenzied speed as if he was afraid of something or someone.
The torso knocked with its left hand again and the head began signaling with his eyes that
Frank should sit down to which he obliged and sat in the booth on the other side of the table so they could both be in a comfortable, conversational position. Frank removed his fedora and set it down in the center between them.
“I haven’t seen you around before.”
The quick pace of the head’s eyes slowed down as he took deep breaths in an effort to
calm himself before settling his sights on Frank.
“You may not have seen me around, brass. But, you’re a big name around town. I’mma
need something from ya’ though, I’mma need ya’ to make me a promise.”
The detective shook his head.
“No. No. That’s not how we’re doing things. You tell me what’s going on and why
you’ve called me here and I’ll decide if a deal goes through or not.”
The head looked up to the left and ran things through his mind for a few moments.
“Okay, okay. I can’t stand to watch anymore people get hurt.”
Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook again along with a pencil,
flipping to the next available blank page.
“What’s your name?”
“Nah, I’m not doin’ any names.”
“That’s not how this works. Names.”
“Not if you want what I got...”
Frank slammed his flesh-pieced fist against the table, causing the head to yelp in surprise
and the body to slightly jump.
“If being arrested is something you want to avoid, I suggest you give a name.”
The head groaned.
“Fine, call me Krayne. K-R-A-”
“... Y-N-E. Got it.” Frank scribbled it down in his notebook.
“Ay! No one has ever got that right before. Neat.”
Alicia made her way over to the table and sat down a plate of five pancakes doused in
syrup in front of Frank and a pile of spaghetti in front of Krayne. She gave the disembodied head a weird look before giving a sly smirk towards both of the men.
“Enjoy, boys.”
“Thanks, gorgeous.” said Krayne.
“Appreciate it, Alicia.” Frank gave her a nod as she walked off.
The torso’s left hand grabbed the fork beside his plate and began to twirl the
sauce-smattered noodles onto the prongs and began to feed it to Krayne’s head.
Frank watched the scene in slight disgust as it just seemed that the noodles magically
disappeared into the head’s own digestive system, something he had no explanation for. He
ignored his pancakes and readied his notebook and pencil again.
“Please, Krayne, start from the beginning.”
Krayne slurped down some noodles before speaking.
“Okay, okay. So, a few months back, I and a few other guys get a call from some really
eccentric dude. Like, really eccentric. And, in short, he basically told us he’s got this thing for
young pixie girls. I thought it was weird, but he was offering a lot of money. Like, A LOT of
fuckin’ money. It was fuckin’ WILD bro, me and the other guys had never even really heard
about that type of money just bein’ dished out...”
Krayne stopped speaking for a moment as his torso cleaned the tomato sauce from his
face.
“... Thank you. Anyway, dude’s offering BIG money. He said he couldn’t do it himself
due to some personal shit, but he wanted to hire us out to kidnap some pixie chicks and drop
them off at a particular location. Now, I wasn’t gettin’ my hands dirty! Nah, fuck that business.
But, I did the lookout for one of the dudes who was fine with the whole snatch and grab shit. He loved it, but my ass is too delicate y’know? But, anyways, I was okay with the whole thing
before... before we went to the dude’s place and I saw what he was doing to them. I know, I
know, why did I do it? I don’t know man, greed? Yeah, definitely greed. But, that all stopped
when I saw that shit...”
Krayne’s eyelids began to slowly form a pool of tears within them.
“What was he doing to the girls, Krayne?”
Krayne was beginning to have a strained speech before he just let it all out.
“Fuck, man! He was ripping their wings off and slitting their throats, putting their bodies
in a pile and letting them rot on top of one each other. I wish I could go back and say no, man. I wish I could go back...”
Frank wrote down the newly-acquired information in his notebook.
“And, where was he doing this?”
“The old balloon factory. That was his playing ground or whatever the hell. Now, am I
gonna get protection or wha-”
Krayne was cut off as a shot rang through the air and a bullet coursed through the large
window of the restaurant before perforating his chest.
The whole scene felt like it played out in slow-motion as Frank reached out to grab
Krayne’s slumping body as his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he took his last breath.
Frank dove out of the booth and found cover as the other patrons ran out from the diner in
fear and Alicia presumably stayed hidden underneath the counter or in the kitchen. Frank took another look at Krayne’s deceased body.
“Dammit.”
He looked up towards the large glass window that the shot came from and saw the
reflective glint of a sniper scope retreat into the window of a large building across the street.
Frank made haste and quickly exited out of the diner as he made his way towards the
building which hid the killer, his mind mentally mapping out which floor and window the killer
hid themselves within. Frank made it a point not to use firearms and preferred if violence had to take place, he would only use the pure brutish force from his own hands as it made it more personal. But, understood in doing that, he was placing himself under an extreme amount of danger.
So, he quietly made his way through the dilapidated corpse of a hotel that was obviously just a shell of what it once was and readied his fists in an offensive position. He
ignored the creaks and groans of the hotel’s stairs and tried to focus on any and all sounds
coming from the floor the assassin was situated in.
Finally, he made it outside of the room and got into a crouched position as he slowly
opened the door. A loud shot rang out and blasted through the door just above Frank’s head. The detective heard the clicking sound of a bolt-action rifle to reload and realized he had his chance. He roared while rushing into the room in a tackle position as the assassin tried to hurriedly reload their weapon. Frank swung a backhand towards the killer and knocked the rifle out of their hands.
The assassin performed a roll to the side as a defensive maneuver against any other
attacks and rose themselves into a boxing position. The moonlight from the window they were in front of gave Frank a clear view of the individual, it was a woman with an athletic body type,black hair with a red streak running through through the side, striking green eyes, and two pearly white fangs protruding out from the sides of her ruby-red lips.
“Alicia?”
She smirked and kicked out, hitting Frank in the stomach. He forcefully exhaled as the
wind was knocked out of him.
“Surprised?”
“A little.”
She threw a combination of three jabs; one connected with Frank’s ribcage, the other
with the side of his head which dazed him a little, but he managed to catch the last one in his
hand before throwing a haymaker with his free hand and knocking Alicia into a nearby wall.
Alicia growled and bared her fangs towards the detective as she skittered across the floor
towards him. Frank attempted to sidestep her before she sprung herself onto his front half and maneuvered herself onto his back, she opened her mouth and slammed her fangs into the side of his neck.
“GRAAGH!”
Frank screamed as he tried to grab for the vampiric waitress-turned-assassin, but she dodged his attempts and even slashed through the flesh of his wrist with her nails. An idea formulated within the detective’s head as he attempted an unorthodox maneuver and jumped into the air, forcing both his back and Alicia’s into the ground hard.
Alicia wheezed and sprawled her arms outward in defeat as she laid on the ground.
Frank stood up and looked at the pained Alicia before bending down and grabbing her
arm.
“Time to go downtown.”
Alicia hissed and slammed her fingernails into the wound she created on Frank’s wrist
which caused him to immediately yowl in pain and let her go.
“Not if I can help it!”
She then dove out of the window and into the street below. Frank watched from the
window and mentally noted that she was heading into the general direction of the balloon factory that Krayne had mentioned before.
It was time for this to be over.
Chapter Three: An Old Foe
Frank exited the building quickly and in a pained daze as he followed Alicia to the old
balloon factory that hadn’t been used in the town for nearly twenty years. Frank paid no mind to the various freaks and fiends who watched in confusion as he quickly made his way through the streets.
Finally, he made it. Frank looked up at the large, intimidating metallic double-doors of
the factory. He realized one of the doors was slightly open as if someone had just recently made their way inside the building and used the same entry to allow himself in.
The room that he entered was completely dark except for a single lone spotlight that
caused one single circle of light that Frank assumed was for him, a personal target for him to
stand in the center of. He walked towards the light and as soon as he stepped into it, a surround system began to reverberate the room around him with a booming voice.
“Welcome, Detective Stein. It’s a shame that Krayne had to speak, I quite enjoyed his
particularly... crude antics. But, after hearing rumors about his potential betrayal, I had to put an end to it."
"My name is Ferdinand Blymouth and I have a personal feud with you and your father,
well, he wasn’t truly your father. He was just the man who engineered you into a damn
monstrosity.”
Frank grimaced towards the voice.
“Don’t talk about my father!”
“It really is too bad that he passed when he did, I remember when I heard the news... I
was sad at first because damn I really wanted him to die by my own hands. But, then I smiled. Smiled because I was glad that the bastard was dead.”
Frank roared at the area around him.
“Yes! Yes! Let that anger out! SHOW ME WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF!”
“WHAT DID MY FATHER EVER DO TO YOU? HE WAS A GOOD MAN!”
The loudspeaker stayed silent for a few moments.
“A good man? A GOOD MAN?! FRANK HE DESTROYED MY LIFE! YOU... YOU
DESTROYED MY FUCKIN’ LIFE!”
Suddenly, the sound of squeaking could be heard as Alicia emerged from the shadows
pushing a wheelchair. In the chair, a stout man with a handlebar moustache sat, his face was
covered by a technologically-modified breathing apparatus that allowed him to not only speak through the factory’s speakers but also filtered oxygen into his system that was connected to two tanks situated on the back of the chair.
Frank widened his eyes and gave a small gasp as the memory flooded in of when he was
born and killing the man that now sat in front of him.
The man smirked as he noticed Frank’s realization.
“You remember me, eh? After you two had left, the village had brought in a shaman that
was skilled in the magic of healing... the magic of life. He resurrected me, but when you hit me, you also irreparably destroyed most of my spine, something that not even the shaman’s strongest magic could fix. I was unable to use my legs, I was told that the only thing that could possibly help me was pixie dust. But, that was such a rare commodity, I would never find it. I thought anyways.”
Alicia reached within her pocket and pulled out a small vial of teal powder and giggled as
she shook it towards Frank. Alicia removed the breathing apparatus from the face of Ferdinand, she placed the powder on the top of her middle finger and put it underneath Ferdinand’s nose which he snorted.
His eyes shot open and his veins glowed blue as the muscles in his arms, back,
and legs began to fluctuate violently.
“I’m sorry for what we put you through, Ferdinand. But, you’ve destroyed countless
families!”
Ferdinand fell out of his chair as his body began to triple its normal size, his voice deepening as he spoke.
“You destroyed me! I scoured the Earth looking for you and your father, wanting
revenge! Wanting payback! I had heard rumblings of an invisible society of monsters and freaks while I traveled the world looking for you two. I researched and talked to those who knew of this society of myth, I learned that it would contain things that would assist me in my revenge.”
“How’d you make it all this time? How are you still alive?” Frank asked backing up from Ferdinand’s slowly mutating body.
Ferdinand devilishly smirked as he began to push himself off the floor.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you the best part? The shaman gave me one more gift before I started
my hunt. He gave me the gift of immortality with a twist! But every gift comes with a price. I was told that the only thing that could kill me was the thing that killed me originally. But, I
wasn’t going to allow that to happen. So, since I can’t get revenge on your father... I CAN
FUCKING KILL YOU!”
Frank watched in shock as Ferdinand looked to the skies and roared.
Ferdinand smirked in his new form. The veins in every visible part of his body popped
through his skin, his eyes were a plain shade of white, and he was a much different, much
stronger, much larger man than he once was. He gave a devilish smirk towards Frank.
“I’LL TAKE AS MUCH AS I NEED TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE DEAD.”
Frank gulped.
Alicia placed the powder back into her pocket and snuck out of the building before the
carnage ensued.
Ferdinand cracked his knuckles and swung downwards at Frank who narrowly dodged
the attack. Frank looked around the room, but everything was covered in darkness, nothing was visible except for the lone lightbulb that illuminated their battleground. Suddenly, a plan began to form in Frank’s head.
Frank ran towards Ferdinand who responded with a roar as he slammed his fists into the
ground and created a shockwave effect that blasted the detective off his feet and sent him several meters into the darkness.
He sat up and shook his head out of his daze.
“Well, that’s not the best approach.”
Frank’s eyes widened as he saw Ferdinand running at full-speed towards him. He quickly
got up and ran back towards the circle of light and Ferdinand followed. As Frank reached the
center, he turned to face Ferdinand who was still lumbering towards him and gave him a taunting motion that only got Ferdinand angrier. He ran for Frank and swung his arm, Frank climbed up the arm and to Ferdinand’s back to which he could reach the light hanging down from the ceiling. And, in the rapid movement of Ferdinand’s body, he managed to clasp the light within his left hand and crush it within his palm.
If Frank couldn’t see, neither could Ferdinand. And, Frank used that to his advantage.
Due to Ferdinand’s sheer size and the sensory disruption of the light off, he wasn’t
aiming his hands where he should be, he was aiming too high.
But, all Frank had to do was aim low and smashed his fists into the left kneecap of the old
foe, shattering it and causing Ferdinand to howl in pain and kneel.
Frank predicted where Ferdinand’s chin would be and got a little of a jumping start as he
delivered a devastating hit to his head.
Ferdinand fell backwards.
“No, you bastard! No!!”
Frank ignored the many pleas of Ferdinand as he slowly made his way to the chest area
of the man and raised both of his fists.
“Shouldn’t have talked bad about dad.”
Frank slammed downwards as hard as he could and opened up Ferdinand’s chest cavity
with a sickening squelch and grabbed the killer’s heart before squeezing it as it squished in his palms. Ferdinand let out a single breath before he was finally killed, this time forever.
Frank let out a breath and wiped the sweat off his forehead before he looked up.
“You owe me one, dad.”
He walked out of the balloon factory and back to TomTom’s where a diminutive man
with a pipe sticking out of his mouth adorned in a green suit, a green top hat and had red, curly hair along with a red beard stood there angrily stomping his foot.
“Dammit! Frank! You gotta stop letting your work interfere with my business! I got a
damn restaurant to run!”
Frank picked up his fedora from the table that Krayne was still slumped in and looked at
the restaurant manager.
“Sorry, Timmy! Won’t happen again.”
Timmy rumbled and cursed under his breath, “Damn straight it won’t happen again.”
Frank took a heavy breath and walked out of the restaurant.
Another case solved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gabe Gonzalez (he/they) is from a small town in Kansas. He's currently majoring in communications with an emphasis in film. In his free time, you can find him watching movies, reading comics, or writing