Captain Stabby Goes To Town
This waiting and working and sitting and working and training and working was really giving Dante a sense of cabin fever. Not even someone to chat with. No new scenery. Deliveries weren’t coming for a good stretch of time, and he otherwise had nothing to do. His cursory Emails sent to see if anyone was listening hadn’t borne fruit just yet, and staring at his screen was becoming emotionally cumbersome. Yeah, it was time to risk a trip into town, see what the locals were up to. Maybe catch a beer. Definitely catch a beer, and not grain alcohol from his impromptu distillery in the cavern. Not dipping into his titanic reserve of Guinness. No, he was going to spend way too much money on cheap American domestic in a dirty meeting place, surrounded by colorful (if a bit gamy) townsfolk. Maybe get an order of cheese fries with it. He could barely wait. It was time to go out.
He selected a car at random from his reserve of used and refurbished automobiles in varying condition, filled the tank with gasoline from a large, red container, and settled behind the wheel, positively giddy with anticipation at spending a few hours away from his self-imposed exile from humanity. As he pulled onto the nearest paved road, he relaxed a bit. Even smiled.
He punched up his musical selection for the short trip: “The Sound of Music OST”. It was his hope that cheerful and uplifting songs, if made a habit, would help make him less of a nutter than the European Symphonic Metal or aggressive Industrial music he generally favored. The results of his hypothesis were still up for debate.
When Julie Andrews got to “The Lonely Goatherd” (admittedly his favorite song on the album) in her dulcet, mellifluous tones, Dante sang along. Kind of. He really couldn’t sing, much less yodel with the proficiency required to NOT utterly destroy the song. Not that it mattered, he was so animated as to appear(?) crazed as he belted out the words he made in in place of the actual ones, in a warbelling, inexpert falsetto:
High on a hill was the Captain Stabby,
(layee odel layee odel lay hee hoo)
Sharp was the knife of the Captain Stabby,
(layee odel layee odel loo)
Somewhere in the dark crept Captain Stabby
(layee odle layee odel lay hee hoo)
Turned some guy into homestyle salsa
(Stabby stabby stabby, stabby stab)
Were anyone in the vehicle with him, they would have later described a sharp-eyed madman in dire need of copious amounts of Thorazine, but at least he was in good spirits. Ish.
Then the blue lights of a police cruiser caught his eye in the rearview. Crap, did he actually grab the beater without tags or taillights? His thoughts must have been elsewhere. It ran, sure, but… Dante just didn’t need this hassle, and he didn’t have his paperwork with him.
Thinking quickly, he slammed on the gas. The officer gave pursuit, as officers tend to do when someone runs. He just had to make it around a bend. This was a mountain road, that shouldn’t be a problem. As soon as an opportunity presented itself, he pulled over and kicked open the passenger’s side door. As expected, the cop pulled in fast and close, gun drawn, yelling something about hands in plain sight. Dante did not comply. Instead of an unruly criminal, Officer Steadfast ran up to a scene from a horror movie. The poor man in the driver’s seat was perforated with at least a half-dozen combat knives. His torso was covered in his own blood, and his face bore a tired, cold expression.
“He ran… …into the… …woods. Hurry, please…” moaned the obviously mortally wounded driver. A slow exhale punctuated his plea for justice, and his eyes slipped closed.
Just as soon as the policeman disappeared into the trees, the poor driver’s eyes snapped back open. Skillful hands removed the blades from his torso, and he turned the car around. Flooring it, he made it back home without further incident.
“Ok, wait a while, change clothes. Different car, go back out.” He muttered to himself. “You deserve some ‘Me Time’, Dante.”
THREE HOURS LATER
He lined ten shots of Kentucky’s finest sippin’ medicine up on the rough wood of the bar and took a long pull from a pitcher of amber domestic lager. From somewhere on his person, he’d managed to sleight-of-hand three respectably sized personal utility cutters which he used to repeatedly abuse the dartboard, demonstrating practiced accuracy. He’d been at this for a while now, and the few patrons of this semi-rural watering hole were starting to show concern. A pattern had formed; three
Thwack! (bullseye) Thwack! (bullseye) Thwack! (bullseye) Gulp, slurp, belch.
The bartender, a middle-aged lady of indeterminate parentage, kept pouring drinks with her mouth agape, staring at Dante as if he were eating a whole, live chainsaw – with wonder, disbelief, and no small amount of fear. He had consumed enough alcohol to kill a Bull Republican Frat Boy, and kept hurling knives into the exact same spots on the dartboard, now worn through to the knotted pine wall.
That is, up until shot number eight.
Thwack! (bullseye) Thwack! (bullseye) Thwack! (twenty) “Fuck!”
Shot. Beer. Belch. His streak had been broken. He slammed his beer down on the bar, sloshing a good bit out, some spilling onto the otherwise sticky floor. He walked over to the dartboard and recovered his knives, twirling one in his the agile fingers of his right hand. He tossed it into the air, allowing it to spin several times and rotate end over end fully once before the handle slapped gently into his palm.
Dante smiled a bit. And why not? He came into town for a change of scenery, a break from his labors. A brief pause from his life of preparation and training. The fact that he was still hurling sharp things at targets notwithstanding, he was at least getting out. Dante could feel a little of his personal crazy drain away. Hell, due to the unholy amount of alcohol he had been guzzling, he had almost caught a decent buzz. So what if his bullseye streak had been broken? Another shot of brown flammable liquid down, he stared at the knives in his hands.
Time to juggle. Just seemed the thing to do.
The first knife sailed into the air, arcing perfectly. The second followed. Truly a beauty to witness, as the few people left in the bar could attest. The third joined in, adding its own glint of steel reflecting cheap neon signage light. Two more join the aerial ballet, seemingly from nowhere. Over approximately two minutes, he varied the speed of his five Stabby’s Helpers, the angles, even the patterns of motion. Having a gloriously spiffy time doing this, he had quite forgotten the splattering of beer on the floor nearby.
One knife goes slightly off center. Not an issue, but to compensate for the point of catch, Dante takes a step to the side… …and immediately gets taught a physics lesson concerning the low coefficient of friction present with commercial flooring and barley-based liquid. His boot makes connection and flings the rest of his leg out wide. Flailing for balance, his knives spin and fall undirected, clattering to the floor at about the same time he does.
A blinding sensation of what is most likely pain flooded Dante’s senses for an instant, and a muted alarm sounds in his head.
Something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on precisely what it might be. Also, strangely, the flavor of banana presented strongly on his tongue. He gathered up his knives and tucked them away; at least four of them, placed a hand on the bar and pulled himself up.
Everything looked weird, for lack of a better word. Every shape seemed to have an outline around it, and colors were just… off. All of the remaining drunks in the place stared in horror, muted by surreal shock at what they hoped they weren’t seeing: Two inches of sharp steel blade and a wire-wrapped handle protruded from the side of Dante’s head, still quivering slightly in the dim light. A rotund woman from the corner pointed and let fly a guttural scream of sickly terror, her outstretched hand shaking like cartoon electrocution. Dante squinted, still unsure why the television screen of his vision suddenly got the vertical hold maladjusted and the tinting WAY off. His hand explored the area of injury, and when he established what the problem was, a look of sincere relief washed over his features.
“Oh God, I think I just lost purple…” he slurred through the brain damage, “Gimmie hand, preeze?”
He haphazardly motioned to the bartender, and placed her hand on the knife handle. “Now… holdon tight, missy, and tuck in yer little thumbies!” He braced himself against the bar and twisted against the knife to help open the vicegrip of his skull on the blade. A sickening crack later, he shoved himself off of the weapon. The poor drink-slinger was left holding the knife, wet and slick with a fresh spurt of hot redness, mouth wide open and tears streaming down her face. Trembling, she looked to the knife and proceeded to unceremoniously vomit across her workstation.
Dante grabbed the still extended knife, and gave a reassuring smile. Barkeep didn’t seem too reassured, however, still weeping at what she had been involved with. She fumbled with the words, “Are.. …you.. gonna… be..”
“Fine, just fine, ma’am. Feeling a lot better already! I’m just going to go take a nap. Maybe call a few hospitals, ‘k?” He could feel the injury knitting itself as it closed rapidly, his senses already back to normal. He didn’t want anyone else to, though. Too many questions.
Dante tossed a handful of cash on the bar, grabbed his coat, and concluded that his mini-vacation had reached its logical conclusion. In his car, headed back home, he mused, “Went a hell of a lot smoother than last time, that’s for damned sure…”
RPM,
Zman,
Shadow Dragon,
ppppppp,
Not a Sayan,
Simply Not Real,
Fetzen,
Lewascan2,
Arty Fox,
Lady Absinthia
