[MiSTing] "Knives," by Peter Lewis
John C. Mozena
"Knives" by Peter Lewis
MiSTed with loving care by John Mozena, <m...@mich.com>
[MiSTer's Note: I have been unable to find a working e-mail address for
Peter Lewis, the author of this fanfic. If anybody knows how to reach him,
please let me know so I can get retroactive permission to use his work.]
[Season 9 theme]
[1...2...3...4...5...6...SoL Bridge]
[MIKE is hanging upside down from above the camera frame.]
MIKE: Hi, there. Mike Nelson here on the Satellite of Love, where we're
doing a bit of routine maintenance on the ducts in the ceiling. Hang on
one second, Cambot, while I make this last adjustment.
[MIKE lifts himself up and disappears off-camera, just as GYPSY wanders
in from the right-hand side]
GYPSY: I wonder where Mike is. He left his duct repair safety manual in
the bathroom...
[With a tremendous crash, ducts of every size, shape and color fall from
the ceiling onto GYPSY, knocking her to the floor behind the counter. TOM
and CROW rush in at the noise, and MIKE jumps down from the ceiling.]
TOM: Oh my God, you killed Gypsy!
CROW: You Bas...oh, sorry. We're not on Comedy Central any more.
TOM: At the rate we're going, we're going to end up on TVLand.
MIKE: Gypsy! Speak to me!
CROW: Man, Mike, she looks really hurt.
TOM: Way to go, Mike. Kill our friend.
MIKE: [Frantic] Um, OK. We need to fix her, fast.
[Mads light starts to blink]
MIKE: Crow, see what Josie and the Pussycats want.
[MIKE sweeps ducts off the counter, and bends down to pick up GYPSY.
Viewpoint cuts to castle.]
PEARL: Nelson? Are you there?
[SoL. The parts normally visible of Gypsy are visible, the mysterious
below-the-counter parts are covered by a surgical drape. MIKE and TOM
are wearing surgical scrubs and masks while working on GYPSY, TOM's
covers his beak. CROW has no mask on, but is wearing scrubs.]
CROW: He's in surgery, Pearl. Call back later.
PEARL: Hello, Al. What perfect timing. A little bit of medical terror as
an aperitif, fitting perfectly into my Master Plan.
[MIKE and TOM work feverishly behind CROW, as fluids of various colors
spurt everywhere and they throw strange-looking parts aside.]
MIKE: Suction! Suction!
TOM: My hands don't work! I can't suck!
MIKE: That never stopped Bill Buckner!
[A geyser of motor oil spurts out of GYPSY, covering MIKE and TOM]
TOM: We're losing her!
PEARL: How sad, what tension, whatever. OK, lab rats, put down the rib
crackers because today's fanfic is a beauty of a Cthulu-meets-ER gem
by Peter Lewis, entitled "Knives." Brain Guy, do your thing.
OBSERVER: With pleasure.
[Brain noise]
MIKE, TOM, CROW: We've got fanfic sign!
CROW: You go ahead, I've got an idea.
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
[MIKE carries TOM in, moments later CROW follows in]
MIKE: Crow, what were you doing? Is Gypsy OK?
CROW: Sure, she's fine. I told the Nanites to fix her. She was cleaning
up ducts when I came in.
TOM: Whew! Thank goodness for deus ex machina! That could have gotten
ugly!
> Disclaimer:
> This story makes certain assumptions about Kerry Weaver's past that may
> well be contradicted in future episodes of ER. If this occurs, I claim
> the Dallas clause; that is, everything that occurs in this story was
> actually a horrible dream and didn't really happen at all.
TOM: We should be so lucky.
While we're
> into clauses, I'll state for the record now that all characters herein
> are copyright Warner Brothers, and no infringements of any kind are
> intended.
MIKE: [singing] Surrey with an in-fringe-ment on top...
> Knives
> ------
> Winter.
TOM: The cruelest season. Especially in fanfic.
> Cold had fallen upon the city, a thick, pale, suffocating cold;
> bone white, bone deep.
CROW: Sounds like getting a "steamroller" from Marlon Brando after he's
pulled one of his eat-everything-in-the-walk-in-freezer overnighters.
It arrived unbidden overnight to settle in layers
> over every skyward surface,
MIKE: Such as the underbody of most of Gary Busey's vehicles?
drift against walls and cars, turn black
> roads to grey slush, trees to skeletons.
CROW: Dogs to cats.
TOM: "Mountain Dew" to "Surge."
MIKE: Senators to ethicists.
It fell with deceptive languor
> from a sky the colour of old metal,
TOM: "Old Metal," the newest fragrance from Ralph Lauren.
and kept falling, packed down by
> foot and tyre only to be covered again, until sharp edges and colour
> seemed things of the past.
CROW: Idiot! The past was black and white! Look at the photographs!
> It brought its joys and its sorrows.
MIKE: Much like pro wrestling.
> Gardens became populated
> with strange, sagging beings;
CROW: Like Carnie Wilson?
grey-tinged heaps seldom resembling the
> Christmas-card perfection that their creators sought to emulate.
> Harmless warfare raged in playgrounds and parks, strike and counter-
> strike played out in glittering salvoes, missiles trailing wakes of
> crystalline white.
TOM: (Gunfire and explosion noises)
CROW: Major! Their glittering salvoes have found our command post...aieeee!
MIKE: Damn this war! Damn all wars!
> Sledges and skis carried yelling children down ever-
> more daring slopes.
MIKE: I *knew* I shouldn't have sent the kids to "Picabo Street's Day Care."
Old people froze to death on their doorsteps.
TOM: Cruelly, the plague of frozen dead old people was the result of a vicious
rumor of a "Matlock"/"Diagnosis Murder" tribute parade.
An
> eighteen-year-old girl was struck by an ice sheet that scythed down from
> the roof of her parents' home to slice the top four inches off her
> skull.
CROW: (Retching sounds)
TOM: Thanks, fanfic, for ruining my enjoyment of Perry Como's "Winter
Wonderland" for the forseeable future.
> Winter had flayed the city, left it bare. Snow covered the
> wounds.
MIKE: The staff of "ER" is resorting to Eskimo first aid, I see.
> Simon Radcliffe, male caucasian, 36 years old, had been trying
> to clear the roof of his small greenhouse when the dining-room chair
> supporting his weight had slid backwards three feet with very little
> warning.
TOM: Other than the teetering, the tottering and the inevitability of a
chair placed on snow of doing something to move a fanfic's plot forward.
MIKE: You're being pretty liberal with your use of the term "forward."
The greenhouse would never be the same again.
CROW: The humanity!
Mr Radcliffe
> himself was more lucky, since his thick coat had saved him from serious
> lacerations. The main cuts were to his hands and fingers, since he had
> been hanging onto the top edge of a vertical pane for several seconds
> before it had given way beneath him.
MIKE: Ouch. There goes his career as a Usenet loon. Gotta have typing
fingers.
Now he lay, largely insensible, in
> a Cook County Hospital suture room while Dr Kerry Weaver sewed his left
> palm back together.
CROW: Luckily, he was right-handed, and his victoriassecret.com bookmark
would gather no dust.
MIKE: Weak, Crow.
> It was a slow night. Police warnings that civilians should not
> travel unless their journey was strictly necessary seemed - miraculously
> - to be having some effect,
TOM: Of course, mounting .50-caliber machine guns on the city snowplows had
done wonders for traffic control.
and the previous few days' inundation of
> weather-related injuries had lessened considerably.
CROW: Because all the people dumb enough to be hurt by weather had already
been admitted to the hospital.
Enough, in fact,
> for Kerry to spend her time on a job which was little more than a
> practice exercise. Anyone in the ER could have done what she was doing.
CROW: But all the photogenic actors were busy moving romantic subplots
forward. It was sweeps week.
> But, for the moment, there wasn't too much else that needed her.
> The door rattled, swung open. Kerry recognised the rattle, and
> the footsteps that had preceded it.
MIKE: Mark Greene has a distinctive rattle?
CROW: It's the Emmys clanking together in his shorts. It's sad, really.
She was good at footsteps.
CROW: Then why...
MIKE: Crow! No! No crutch jokes!
She
> didn't need to look to see who was moving around the ER.
> "Mark," she said.
MIKE: Their watches were synchronized. H-Hour was fast approaching.
> The last suture went in as neat as the first. Mark Greene leaned
> in, squinting slightly behind his glasses. "Ever thought about taking up
> needlepoint?"
TOM: (Dr. Greene) 'Cause you, like, suck as a doctor.
> "God's in the details."
CROW: Yeah, but Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is half-naked in "Maxim."
Kerry straightened, tilted her head from
> side to side. Disconcerting clicking noises issued from her neck and
> upper back, making her frown.
MIKE: (Dr. Greene) My God! You've got an abacus infestation!
She glanced at the wall clock.
> Greene followed her gaze. "How long have you been doing this?"
> "Ah, longer than I should have been, I think..." Kerry took her
> reading glasses off, leaving them to dangle on their chain. "That is so
> *odd*. Must have lost track of time."
TOM: Sewing up incompetent and clumsy gardeners always makes the hours fly
by for me.
> "Shouldn't you have stopped at seven?"
> Kerry nodded. Had she really been so engrossed in this one
> lacerated hand? She shrugged, retrieved her cane from where it stood
> propped against the gurney, and stood up. Headed for the door. "I guess
> that's what a slow night does for you."
CROW: No, he starts hitting on Latina nurses.
> "Yeah, well don't make a habit of it."
> He held the door open, and she stepped through with a nod of
> acknowledgement. "What's the matter, Mark? Trying to get rid of me?"
TOM: (Dr. Greene) Damn! You've uncovered my plan! If it weren't for those
darned kids...!
CROW: Oh, Daphne...your blonde perfection...let *me* be your Scooby Snack...
MIKE: Crow! Snap out of it!
> He grinned. "Don't want you making the rest of us look bad."
TOM: Oh, please. She's the EEOC requirement for a non-gorgeous medical staff
member.
> Outside, night, flat with the strange glare of streetlamps on
> snow. Inside, a bright desperation; chaos held at bay.
CROW: It was last call at the campus singles bar.
The two doctors
> headed for the admissions desk, past gurneys draped with snoring
> drunkards, wailing children, mild cases of frostbite.
MIKE: And one wailing, drunken, frostbitten child.
Greene walked with
> an easy stride. Kerry leaned heavily on the cane, fatigue skewing her
> over. "I'll get some coffee. No point trying to get back now-"
TOM: (Singing) Get back to where you once belonged...
> Greene stopped at the desk to check the whiteboard chart. "Go
> home, Kerry."
> Kerry blinked at him. "Mark, I'm three hours over. Might as
> well-"
MIKE: (Dr. Weaver) Mark, I'm three hours late. Our drunken fling has
borne unfortunate fruit. We better get married.
> He turned to her, tilted his head.
CROW: A shower of ear wax fell into a nearby wino's ulcerated wound.
Used the same voice he would
> when talking to a child. "You're not on tomorrow, remember?"
MIKE: You're on "Today." Say hi to Katie and Matt for me, and tickle Al Roker
like the Pillsbury Doughboy he is.
> "I'm not?"
> "You're not back until Wednesday. Go home." He began rifling
> through the metal-backed charts on the desktop.
TOM: This issue of "Guns & Ammo," we test the Holland & Holland .375 Magnum
rifle on medical records and bring you the results.
"Feed your cat."
> "My *neighbour's* cat," Kerry protested,
MIKE: (Dr. Weaver) *My* cat survives on stalking and killing diseased
pigeons.
but Greene was already
> off, a bundle of charts under one arm. She had forgotten about the cat.
> She had forgotten which day it was.
TOM: Hogmanay?
CROW: Cinco de Mayo?
MIKE: National Gypsy Moth Awareness Day?
> Cold, cold in the Kenyan hills before the sun was truly up.
TOM: (Singing) In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...
> Kerry pulled Mlunglisi's jacket tight around her shoulders with her free
> hand.
MIKE: In the pocket, she found a letter from Pat Sajak asking Mlunglisi to
become famous so Pat and Vanna could stymie some pompous player with his
name and flee on the ill-gotten gains to Puerto Vallarta.
The other was wrapped tight around the jeep's roll-bar, tight as
> she could hold it. Without that grip she would have been bounced clear
> out of the vehicle, out onto the cold, dry ground of Africa.
TOM: Better than the warm, wet mouths of the African wildlife.
> Mlunglisi was in front, alongside the driver, holding the edge
> of the windscreen with one hand and a Russian-built AKSU with the other.
MIKE: The Russians built Alaska State University?
CROW: Commie bastards! They're taking over the minds of our youth!
> Casually, not with Kerry's terrified grip. He had done such trips
> before, many times, over worse terrain than this.
TOM: He had once even driven through Florida in a rental car.
She heard his laugh
> over the thunder of the engine as he spoke to the driver, and hoped that
> the safety catch on the AKSU was not as unreliable as everyone said.
MIKE: 'Cause I know that *I* always have discussions about the relative
merits of the safety features of fully-automatic Soviet submachineguns.
> There were trees here, not the tall, isolated acacias of the
> plains, but the rapidly thickening growth that denoted the edges of the
> Aberdare forest region.
TOM: Or at least denoted "Extra-Strength Rogaine."
The jeep had slowed down to avoid collisions:
> Kerry knew that she and Mlunglisi would have to get out and walk very
> soon.
MIKE: Sounds like rush hour even hits the Kenyan hills at 5 p.m.
> The driver would take the jeep back to the clinic at Omeru. It
> was far more valuable, in the budgetary scheme of things, than one
> American doctor and her companion.
TOM: Because Kenya is so overrun with competent medical help that they can
trade internists straight up for jeeps.
> "Here," Mlunglisi said.
> Kerry looked up as the driver slewed the vehicle to a halt.
> Ahead of them, the forest reared and darkened into a wall of shadow.
CROW: That's no wall of shadow rearing and darkening! That's Manute Bol!
> Things moved there, and chattered in the dimness.
MIKE: It was open-mike poetry night.
There were parts of
> Aberdare that would never see the sun, not until the government
> clearance programs reached this place and uncovered whatever lay among
> the trees and the hills. Probably not even then.
TOM: (Announcer voice) Pardon our dust, this sunlight brought to you by
the Kenyan Government and your tax dollars at work.
> She jumped down from the jeep and began hauling rucksacks and
> supply boxes down onto the ground. One case was heavier than the others,
> and stubborn: Kerry growled at it, tugging hard until Mlunglisi's big,
> dark hand closed over the handle and pulled it free.
MIKE: What drama. Next, they change a flat tire.
> He grinned. "It isn't far. Not even the D'tuni venture too far
> into the dark."
> Kerry nodded, and glanced about her. Trees scraped the sky,
> obscuring the hills, the sun. "So how far is too far?"
TOM: Trenton, New Jersey.
> Out in the forest, something began to shriek rhythmically.
CROW: Like Meg Ryan at a deli?
> She woke, convulsing, tree boles surrounding her like a fever
> haze.
MIKE: Or at least an opium dream.
Suffocating cold pushed down on her chest, her throat, filling her
> mouth with icicles of wet fur. The world tasted of smoke.
TOM: Wet fur? Smoke? Uh-oh, she's being attacked by Joe Camel!
The night
> leaned in over her, dark and foul and infinitely huge, solidifying above
> her and pressing down, crushing, laughing and laughing as her ribs
> squealed and snapped under the pressure and the bright blood erupted
> into her lungs...
ALL: (Retching sounds)
MIKE: Oh, it's "John Carpenter's ER."
> She sat up hard, clawing at tangled bedsheets, the breath
> catching and soaring in her chest. The bedside lamp was cold and slick
> beneath her fingers, the switch evading her like a fat grub.
TOM: (Fat Albert voice) Hey hey hey!
She was
> almost sobbing before she managed to snap it over and fill the room with
> light.
> The forest fled.
MIKE: Birnam Wood come to Chicago?
BOTS: (Monty Python) Run away! Run Away!
Kerry slumped back against the headboard,
> gasping. Her throat felt raw, as though she had been shouting,
> screaming. The taste of smoke and fur still lingered under her tongue.
> Each breath she dragged into her lungs felt like broken glass.
TOM: Definitely Joe Camel.
> Gradually, very gradually, her heatbeat slowed to a muted
> hammer.
CROW: Martha Stewart presents her new hardware collection, in muted colors
intended for today's discreet housework.
> The room was cold, far colder than it should have been.
MIKE: (Arnold Schwartzenegger) It's freeze time, Batman...oh, sorry.
Thought George Clooney would be here.
Kerry
> pulled the blankets higher as her breath clouded in the air. Something
> must have gone wrong with the heating. That, and the day's fatigue, had
> induced her nightmare.
CROW: Plus the 50 ccs of Ibogaine she'd accidentally injected earlier in
the day.
> The taste of fur remained, and the weight. Kerry blinked at the
> clock, wondering, until she remembered the cat.
TOM: In the future, she'd first skin the cat before cooking, and make sure
that she used the low-calorie versions found in the alley to keep that
pesky weight off.
> She almost laughed. Her neighbour's pet cat, on loan while its
> owner toured the delights of Las Vegas for a fortnight.
CROW: (Whistle sound)
TOM: We have a personal foul, fanfic author, unnecessary Britishism, 15
yards from the spot of the foul, first down!
The thing was an
> inconvenience, to be sure, and Kerry would have refused to house the
> animal had there been an alternative. Still, it had some habits that
> were quite endearing, not least its way of walking slowly up Kerry's
> supine body to gaze questioningly into her eyes from a distance of mere
> inches, the tiny pink triangle of its nose practically touching hers.
TOM: That's not endearing. That's Pet Sematary.
> "Well, that's the last time you sleep in here with me, honey."
CROW: Isn't that what your mother told you on your 16th birthday, Mike?
MIKE: (Leans over and holds Crow's beak shut while pulling a power drill
out from under his seat. He drives a screw through both halves, then
threads a bolt on, holding Crow's mouth shut.)
TOM: Nelson, have I told you recently how much I love and respect your
mother?
> She swung her legs out from under the bedclothes,
CROW: (Muffled noises, bounces in his seat)
reached over to her
> cane and grabbed it, her fingers closing reflexively over the comforting
> solidity of the handgrip. A push had her upright and moving quickly
> across the icy room to where a gown hung by the door.
CROW: (Frenzied bouncing, muffled noises)
MIKE: Gonna hurt yourself there, Crow.
TOM: Yep, really a wonderful woman, that Mrs. Nelson. Salt of the earth.
She shrugged her
> way into the garment, closed and tied it with her free hand. Glanced
> around for the cat.
> "Honey?"
TOM: Why do humans eat bee poop, and why is it a term of endearment?
> An faint yowl answered her, and a scratching. From the other
> side of the closed door.
MIKE & TOM: (Dramatic chord noises) Dunh duhhhhhh!
[1...2...3...4...5...6...SoL Bridge]
[CROW is running around with the bolt through his beak. TOM is chattering
on about MIKE's mother's sterling qualities.]
MIKE: Crow, I'm very hurt that you insulted my mother like that.
CROW: (Muffled noises)
MIKE: What? Oh.
[MIKE removes the bolt from CROW's beak]
CROW: Wonderful woman! Wonderful! Can't say enough nice about her!
TOM: Terrific woman, right, yep.
[Mads light]
MIKE: Let's see what Her Meanness wants.
[Castle F. Behind PEARL and OBSERVER stands a gigantic old-fashioned alarm
clock, the type with a bell on top.]
PEARL: Nelson, I'm a genius. I even amaze myself sometimes.
MIKE: (Patronizing) You amaze us too, Pearl.
PEARL: You'll see behind me the most fiendish device ever created by an
Evil Genius.
MIKE: That looks like an alarm clock, not a Windows PC.
PEARL: Bill's a piker. No, this is based on documented scientific proof,
that the alarm clock is the most hated device on the planet. When one of
these things goes off in the morning, it becomes the focus of your entire
hatred, the one thing you'd do anything to destroy. Even...
MIKE: Vote for Al Gore?
PEARL: Hey, he invented the Internet. No, puny thinking guy, even bow down
to *me* as the Supreme Ruler of the World!
MIKE: She's got a point.
PEARL: I'll set this off, and threaten to let it keep ringing unless I'm
made Supreme Ruler. Brain Guy designed the bell to be the loudest ever
outside of a fixed boxing match.
MIKE: Uh oh, I think she's got something this time...
[BOBO enters the room]
BOBO: Lawgiver, I finished installing the ejector ballroom floor you asked
for to prevent recurrences of that whole "Macarena" incident. Here, you
just push this button, and...
PEARL & OBSERVER: No!
[Twang...alarm clock flies out of the screen, and a gigantic spring weaves
slowly back and forth in its place.]
PEARL: Where's it going to land? Brain Guy, where's it headed?
OBSERVER [Makes brain noise] Middle of the ocean, it appears. That's a
strong spring.
PEARL: Bobo...
BOBO: Aaaaah! Oh, no! Oh, Lawgiver! Oh! Oh!
[BOBO runs away, chased by Pearl, who has produced a gigantic mallet and is
waving it. OSERVER starts to follow, then looks at the camera and does the
brain thing.]
MIKE: What an eye-opening experience...
[Movie sign]
M&TB: We've got fanfic sign!
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
> The D'tuni spoke Bantu, mainly, but Kerry's rapidly-improving
> Swahili was understood in the village. When that and sign-language
> failed, there was Mlunglisi to help her through.
MIKE: With a baseball bat. He had "Walking Tall" on DVD.
> They travelled to the village together once a fortnight,
TOM: There's that word again.
MIKE: How long is a fortnight, anyway?
TOM: Two weeks.
MIKE: Why don't they just say "two weeks?"
TOM: Because they're British. They enjoy doing things that confuse people,
like driving on the wrong side of the road, watching "Bean" and calling
themselves "subjects" of Prince Charles.
riding
> the jeep from the Omeru clinic to the edges of the forest, then
> journeying for half a day on foot to reach the D'tuni. There they would
> open a small mobile clinic in whichever hut was reserved for them at the
> time, and dispense whatever medical aid was required.
MIKE: You know, neurosurgery, podiatry, dentistry, breast implants.
It was one of four
> villages on their 'round' and they were only one of nine teams on the
> clinic staff. This way, a centralised medical base could extend its
> reach out over dozens of villages, and hundreds of square miles.
TOM: Like the Gambino family, but with white coats.
> Kerry quickly learned what kinds of medical help were needed by
> the D'tuni and their kin, and which had no place in the forest.
CROW: Hypothermia treatments.
> Vaccinations were welcomed, and regularly dispensed to any newborns in
> the village. Occasionally there were injuries that would need treatment,
> or even a trip back to Omeru. But the D'tuni were a tough people,
> relying on their own internal resources and their faiths to get them
> through illnesses which would have people back home running for a
> hospital ward with a dozen lawyers in tow.
TOM: Help! Help! Doctor! I nee a dozen lawyerectomies!
> It took Kerry a while to get used to the villagers' respect for
> men she formally regarded as 'witch doctors', but the power these
> shamanistic elders had over their people was undeniable.
MIKE: Like Jesse Helms.
If the village
> priest - whose name was M'fini - told a sick D'tuni that he or she would
> become well, they simply did. The first time this happened in direct
> contradiction with Kerry's medical opinion she was shocked and more than
> a little annoyed. After the fourth time she came to welcome the help.
CROW: Because it meant she didn't have to do any actual medicine, she just
had to convince some old guy with beads and rattles to say a few words.
> There might have been some rivalry between the old priest and
> the Omeru medicos - there certainly was in some of the other villages -
> but in M'fini's case it was never less than friendly.
TOM: The shortsheetings, the wedgies, the stethoscope in the lard barrel,
it was all just friendly hijinks.
Kerry came to
> relish the exchange of knowledge, started thinking about a scientific
> paper about the chemical properties of traditional medicines until
> Mlunglisi revealed that he had been working on just such a project for
> the past two years, with the priest's help.
MIKE: He also revealed the cave beneath stately Wayne Manor.
They had been in M'fini's
> home at the time, and the old man had laughed so hard that he had to be
> splashed with cold water by one of his wives.
ALL: (Deadpan) Ha. Ha.
> They laughed a lot, these people. Much more than Kerry. She
> realised this at about the same time she realised she had no intention
> of returning to America.
TOM: (Singing) Looking hard for a drive-in, searching for a corner cafe
CROW: (Singing) Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day
MIKE: (Singing) Yeah, and a juke-box jumping with records like in the
U.S.A.
TOM: We're the Satellite of Love Chuck Berry Tribute Band, and we'll be
here all week. Thank you.
> There were cops in the ER, a lot of them: Kerry saw a group of
> maybe half-a-dozen milling around in the snow by the emergency exit,
> more hogging the heaters inside,
MIKE: Of course the pigs would "hog" the heaters...police...hog...pigs...
get it?
CROW: (Coldly) My great-grandfather was a coffee maker in a police station.
TOM: Mine was a gumball dispenser in the FBI Building.
MIKE: Gee, guys. I'm...well...
CROW: Just leave it, Nelson. Just make sure you stop for yellow lights from
now on.
some in the corridors. She made her way
> to the lockers, and met Carol Hathaway coming out.
CROW: Oh, great. First "Ellen," now this.
> Carol looked exhausted, dark hair dragged roughly back away from
> her face, her skin pale. Ticks and commas of blood glistened on her
> sleeves.
TOM: Of course. The ticks are attracted to the blood. She's gonna get Lyme
Disease.
She gave Kerry a half-smile. "Dr Weaver."
> "Carol, hi." Kerry nodded towards the emergency doors. "What's
> with all the law enforcement?"
MIKE: (Nixon) It's to promote Law and Order.
> "You didn't hear?" Carol paused, then turned and followed Kerry
> back into the room. "That murder?"
> Kerry blinked, realised that Carol was looking at her with a
> kind of expectancy on her face, as if she was waiting for some form of
> recognition or complicity.
CROW: Or a catastrophic eyeglass chain accident.
"I don't-"
> Carol looked away, towards the door, then back. She leaned
> close. "You didn't catch CNN last night?"
TOM: (Dr. Weaver) No, I went slumming and watched C-SPAN.
> Kerry half-shrugged. She had, but only past a stack of medical
> periodicals. Nuclear war could have broken out and not made much
> impression.
MIKE: On George Clooney's hair.
"Not really..."
> "Around midnight, they brought a guy in with-" Carol's
> expression changed, slightly.
CROW: I've heard of that -- it's called acting!
"Facial injuries. Somebody had taken a
> knife to him, or something, right in the ambulance lot. I wasn't on but
> Randi told me about it."
> "Randi. Right."
TOM: Randi?
MIKE: Right.
> "He didn't make it, though. And the cops were really
> interested."
MIKE: In Randi?
TOM: Right.
Carol glanced around again. "They're saying he was a
> missionary, or something? Just over from Africa. Randi was pretty shaken
> up about it, but don't tell her I told you."
> "That's not like Randi."
TOM: Ah, that Randi!
CROW: The minx.
MIKE: Right.
> "Yeah, well." Carol looked sick. "Somebody made a real Picasso
> out of this guy.
TOM: If they'd used an icepick, they could have made a Leichtenstein.
His eyes-"
> "His *eyes*?" Something inside Kerry darkened, became a welling
> shadow.
CROW: It's the black alien blood from "X-Files!"
> "Yeah, and the rest." Carol took a deep breath. "There were news
> guys all over, and the cops won't go away. They're getting underfoot and
> all, but no-one really wants them to leave..."
MIKE: We're hoping they'll reprise the pilot of "Cop Rock."
> Kerry swallowed hard, nodded. "Okay. Give me five minutes and
> I'll see what I can do." She turned her attention to the contents of her
> locker, hiding her hands behind the door so Carol wouldn't see how badly
> they were shaking.
TOM: She's got the shakes from plot deprivation.
> Kerry Weaver's love affair with Africa
CROW: Afrika Bambaataa? The vixen!
ended on a cool morning
> in 1992.
TOM: Right before his beats got sampled on "Whoot! There it Is!" What poor
timing.
> There had been rain the previous night, and thunder.
MIKE: Weaver's explanation of thunder as the "bowling league of the gods"
had met with general skepticism among the tribal elders.
The air was
> still wet, slick with humidity as the jeep bounded down the track
> towards the forest, mud spattering from the wheels to pepper the sleeve
> of Kerry's jacket like orange glue.
CROW: I've got an invoice here from Billy Bob's Discount Similes, for a Mr.
Lewis?
She winced, but hung on without
> complaint. A little mud never killed anyone,
MIKE: Tell that to the folks who live on Malibu hillsides.
and besides, she was
> looking forward to seeing M'fini. She had been analysing some of the
> medicinal herbs he had given her, and wanted to tell him about the
> complex alkaloids they contained. Mlunglisi was already adding the
> results to his paper.
CROW: Complex alkaloids...added to paper...he's firing up a doobie!
> The rain had washed part of the track away - a common enough
> occurrence in the wet season, and the driver had to pull up further from
> the forest rim than normal. Kerry hopped down, began pulling her pack
> from the jeep.
> Mlunglisi put his hand on her arm, stopping her. When she looked
> up at him he put the hand to his mouth. *Quiet*.
TOM: Next thing you know, he can't get out of the imaginary box and is
walking against the wind.
> Nothing, save the buzzing of forest insects. And then, a word.
> "Shoma..."
MIKE: No shanks, Mishter Huxshtley.
> They turned towards it, Kerry and Mlunglisi and the driver. They
> all saw the D'tuni at the same time.
TOM: (Singing) You will know...synchronicity.
> Whoever had crucified him must have taken some time to find two
> trees at just the right distance apart. He was nailed there with what
> looked like long corkscrews, black iron things glittering with blood,
> pinning his hands and feet to the trees so that he hung between them
> like an anatomical display.
CROW: It's so hard to find sadistic murderers who appreciate craftsmanship
any more. It's really refreshing to see this.
Only his head was unsupported, drooping
> forwards.
MIKE: Much like Ronald Reagan at a state dinner.
> Flies clustered about his face as thick as a mask.
ALL: (High-pitched voices) Hellllpppp meeeeee!
> Mlunglisi reached him first. Kerry heard him choke out a
> question, something in Bantu that she didn't catch. The man answered in
> a wet, breathy whisper.
CROW: (Marilyn Monroe) You just put your lips together, and blow.
> "Shoma," he gasped, blood and flies spilling from his lips to
> join the puddle between his suspended feet. "B'turu. Shoma..."
> Kerry's head spun, her stomach lurched and twisted.
TOM: Yo no quiero Taco Bell.
"What's he
> saying?"
> "Shoma... Ch'ojas..."
> The driver gasped and took a step backwards. Mlunglisi said:
> "Ch'ojas?"
TOM: No thanks. Just ate.
> Kerry put her hand to the man's skin. As she did, the life just
> shivered out of him.
CROW: A common occurence for Mrs. Keith Richards.
> She felt it, the quiver in his muscles, the flutter of his
> blood. A bubbling sigh came up through the ruin of his face, though the
> mask of flies. Three of the insects darted away. No more. In that
> instant, the man dangling before her had become a complex assemblage of
> cooling meat. She had touched a living being and drawn back from a
> corpse.
TOM: Strom Thurmond. We can only hope.
> The knowledge hit her like a fist. She stumbled away, three
> steps and then she was vomiting into the cold mud.
> "Ch'ojas," Mlunglisi was saying. "A raider tribe, come down from
> the hills..."
MIKE: Not unlike the Denver Broncos.
TOM: But the Raiders go *up* into the hills to play the Broncos.
> Kerry straightened, wiping her mouth. "The village."
> Mlunglisi turned to the driver. The man nodded, then turned and
> ran back to the jeep. "He'll go for help. You have to go, too."
> "No." She shook her head. "I'm going with you."
> "You can't help."
CROW: (Mlunglisi) You're a *girl*.
> She clamped her teeth together, to stop them chattering. "I can
> always help," she hissed. "I'm a doctor."
TOM: Yeah? Let's see you fix my rototiller then, missy.
>
> Later, the nightmares.
MIKE: Sounds like a Sylvia Plath poem title.
> A village made silent but for the sounds of flies and carrion
> birds.
TOM: Offal! Getcha offal heah! Free stench of decay with each purchase!
> A pile of corpses higher than Mlunglisi's reach.
MIKE: And he could dunk over Dennis Rodman.
> The mewling things in huts that had once been men and women.
CROW: But were now Pokemons.
> The moans of the priest, M'fini, nailed to a hut wall with the
> eyes and tongue cut from his head.
ALL: (Retching sounds)
CROW: What, the priest gets it and Carrot Top walks free among us?
> Kerry wandered through the village in a haze of sickness and
> despair, the stench of death and smoke sawing her throat. She was beyond
> horror, now.
MIKE: She had reached Opryland.
What seethed behind her eyes was a hollow darkness the size
> of the world, a terrible knowledge which would haunt her forever, haunt
> her and drive her, out of Africa and into the heart of violence, into
> the medicine of rage.
TOM: Sounds like Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald to me.
MIKE: No, but we're going to see Dennis Hopper with a 35-millimeter SLR
around his neck pretty soon.
She would find a place where she could never hear
> those words again, never be told, no matter what the carnage that lay
> before her, that she could not help.
TOM: She's not exactly Sally Struthers, is she?
> Even as she knew that, the forest had a final barb for her.
CROW: "And you're ugly, too!"
The
> wail of a child, a girl of four or less laid carefully amid the seeping
> wreckage of her parents. All the other children had been taken by the
> Ch'ojas. But here was a survivor. Kerry gathered the waif into her arms,
> sobbing into the cool black skin.
TOM: New, more absorbent -- black skin with thirst pockets!
> It was two days before she would realise what the Ch'ojas had
> left her. For the raiders had planted something inside the child, deep
> within her throat; something that grew and grew until she could no
> longer eat, or scream, or breathe...
CROW: Quick! Call Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn!
> It took Kerry half an hour's solid bickering with the police
> sergeant to get most of his men moved out of the ER.
MIKE: Of course, 25 minutes' worth involved custody of the crullers.
When he insisted on
> at least two officers staying around, she managed to hide her relief
> almost perfectly.
MIKE: There were still some chocolate-frosteds in dispute.
> The rest of the shift progressed with little incident. Patients
> arrived, patients left. Some of them left on their feet, some on their
> backs, as was the way of things.
CROW: Sounds like an average day at Heidi Fleiss' house.
Kerry forced her attention onto the
> jobs at hand, and put off asking about the dead missionary until the
> shift ended.
> It was Lydia Wright who finally came up with the information she
> needed, due to her close relationship with one Sergeant Al Grabarsky.
MIKE: I'd find it difficult to believe that anybody could be close with
somebody named "Sergeant Grab-ass."
> The dead man had been tentatively named as the Reverend Joseph Okomu
> Bundari, over from West Africa on a Red Cross fundraising mission. He
> had been due to give a lecture on developing-world heath problems the
> following afternoon,
TOM: Lots of people are dying. Please give me money. Thanks, and good
night.
but the efforts of an unknown assailant with a
> sharp knife and several hours on his hands had rendered the Reverend
> incapable of anything save suffocation on his own facial tissue.
CROW: Not unlike Roseanne.
> Kerry was able to correct Grabarsky on the pronunciation of the
> man's name. After all, she had known Reverend Bundari for eighteen
> months, when they had worked together at the Omeru clinic.
MIKE: They would have been stuck there longer, but some lions came by and
ate the confused Operation Rescue picketers keeping them inside.
> No-one would talk to her about the Ch'ojas. Even Mlunglisi would
> avoid the subject, distracting her with work or kisses. It was only when
> she had forsaken Africa for the subtle savageries of home
CROW: I think we just discovered more about Kerry Weaver's sex life than we
wanted to know.
that she
> discovered anything about the raiders at all.
> Her job, and the drive behind it, had already taken her far. The
> need to heal had led her from her home town to the complexities of
> Michigan,
TOM: Snow. Trees. Cars. Urban decay. Barry Sanders. What's to know?
and from there to New York, Europe, Africa.
CROW: Micronesia.
TOM: Yukon Territory.
MIKE: Tomorrowland.
She moved in a
> loop across the Earth, the need pushing her outwards, dragging her back.
> Kenya's shadows finally sent her running to Chicago.
TOM: But she ditched them in the crowd at the Museum of Science and
Industry.
And there, while
> researching a paper on medical aid for developing countries eight weeks
> before she transferred to County, the Ch'ojas reared once more in her
> world.
> The reference was small, so small on the microfiche screen. She
> almost missed it, only scrolled back when the fear came up in her
> throat, bitter as acid, and she had to search for its cause.
MIKE: The teaser ad for "Bio-Dome 2?"
> There, tucked between Kenya's tourism figures and a climate
> graph for Mount Kilimanjaro; a news article from an archaeological
> journal, presumably pasted in as some kind of afterthought.
CROW: Tourism, climatology, random archeological musings. What was she
reading, "No-Newsweek?"
It noted the
> attempts of the anthropologist and author Dr Kenneth Foster to link the
> lineage of the Ch'ojas of Western Africa, the Malaysian Chauchas and the
> mythical Tcho-Tchos
ALL: Gezundheit.
of Central Asia. A rather disparaging footnote
> directed the reader towards the works of 'American fantasist Howard
> Phillips Lovecraft' in reference to this final part of Foster' work.
MIKE: Cthulu for President in 2000. Why vote for the *lesser* evil?
> Kerry, whose reading habits did not extend to pulps, didn't
> understand this at all. But she sought out Foster's publisher and wrote
> to the author anyway, and that night she dreamed of M'fini, his hands
> outstretched imploringly, his brown face wet with the blood that spilled
> from the gaping caverns of his eyes.
MIKE: Gee, generally I just dream of trains going into tunnels, rocket
launches, cigar parties, climbing banana trees and the like.
> Kerry's apartment was still icy cold when she got back after her
> shift; far colder, it seemed, than outside. Ignoring the plaintive mews
> of the cat she lifted the phone and dialled maintenance, but all that
> issued from the handset was a rhythmic pulse of static.
TOM: OK, who put "Metal Machine Music" on their answering machine?
As she listened,
> voices appeared amidst the noise, thready and far away. Kerry knew that
> if she listened hard enough, for long enough, she would hear what they
> were saying.
CROW: "I SAID, THIS IS AMERITECH CUSTOMER SERVICE! YOUR PHONE IS BROKEN!"
> The thought filled her with a sudden cold dread. She slammed the
> headset down, retreated from the phone as though it were ablaze. She
> limped quickly along the hall and into her study, hitting the light
> switches as she went. There was darkness enough behind her eyes, and she
> needed no more.
TOM: Metamucil.
CROW: Little tiny rocks?
MIKE: Reasons to act spooky.
> Her armchair was piled with unopened mail and half-finished
> periodicals.
TOM: (Dr. Weaver) Man, I've got to catch up on my "Blunt Trauma Review"
reading.
Kerry glared at the mass of paper, began to heave the
> envelopes off the leather and onto the desktop. How could she have
> gotten so behind in her work? What had happened to the forty-five
> minutes per day she allotted to opening and answering her mail?
CROW: The Thighmaster is addictive, isn'tit?
> When the chair was clear she slumped down into it, propping the
> cane next to her. It was warmer here, and she still had her coat on:
> before she knew it her head was drooping forwards, her eyelids
> fluttering.
TOM: (Singing) Butterfly kisses...
A wave of fatigue rushed up from her soles, making her body
> feel like clay until she snapped awake, shuddering with sudden clarity.
> Something was looking at her.
MIKE: Well, duh. It's not like she's on CBS.
> The cat was bunched on the desktop, staring accusingly from
> behind a pile of envelopes.
CROW: You're going to pay, human, for those paper cuts.
> "What?" snapped Kerry, staring back. "I open these, or I feed
> you. I can't do both, not now."
CROW: Feed me your Publishers Clearinghouse envelope, and nobody gets
hurt!
> The cat blinked lazily, then yawned, exposing a pink mouth full
> of needle teeth. Kerry found herself echoing the gesture uncontrollably.
> If she sat where she was she was going to be asleep in moments.
TOM: Her experiments in chloroform-impregnated upholstery were still not
ready for peer review.
> "Now look what you made me do."
MIKE: No! Wire! Hangers!
She reached over for the cane
> and pushed herself up, stifling another yawn. Her fingertips ruffled the
> soft fur between the cat's ears, and then she skirted the desk and
> headed for the door.
TOM: (Singing) Gimme three steps, gimme three steps mister...
> Halfway down the hall, she heard the cat give a soft, warning
> growl.
CROW: Before it leapt for her throat like a killer rabbit.
> Kerry paused, looked back over her shoulder. As she did so, the
> cat shrieked out an awful sound, a steam-kettle hiss of pure terror.
MIKE: And they say animals can't understand the idea that Michael Jackson
has a child.
It
> erupted past her, claws skittering on the wooden floor, bouncing off the
> cane as it went and almost sending Kerry over.
TOM: To the corner store for Meow Mix.
She yelped, managed to
> steady herself against the wall as the animal disappeared into the
> kitchen. Behind her, the lights in the study began to flicker out.
> She couldn't turn.
MIKE: Her dream of NASCAR fame and fortune was ended.
> The hall was dimming around her. Something vast was in the
> study, solidifying, coalescing from the darkness.
CROW: Ricki Lake?
The air around it was
> impossibly cold, and there was a sound, a distant pounding that could
> have been the waves of a turgid sea or the chant of many voices.
TOM: Or the piping of a whifferdill.
> She couldn't move.
MIKE: Rent control's a bitch.
> It was coming towards her, leaning over her with the terrible
> massivity of a thunderhead. The chant surrounded her, beat its way into
> her skull like a hammer, shook pictures on the walls, bounced the floor.
> It was thunderous and magnificent and impossibly sad. It was deafening.
MIKE: Jordan was retiring, ad the United Center crowd was going nuts down
the block from her apartment.
> She couldn't see.
> The telephone screamed.
CROW: One of those novelty phones you get with the Stephen King Book of
the Month Club, I see.
Reflexively, she grabbed at it, caught
> it on the second ring. If she could call for help before the darkness
> reached her, she might have a chance...
TOM: For romance.
> Silence.
MIKE: She's being attacked by killer death mimes!
> Kerry stood, the phone clasped to her chest, breathing so hard
> it hurt. The lights in the hall fluttered back on.
CROW: Was it Cthulu, or a prankster at the electric company? I'm Bill
Kurtis, and my hair is rented from Jimmy Johnson.
> Seconds passed, measured by the fist of her heart against her
> ribs.
MIKE: I just use a watch, myself.
> The phone was vibrating tinnily against her hand.
CROW: That's illegal in Alabama, isn't it?
Slowly,
> shakily, she put the handset to her ear. Tried to speak, but her throat
> wouldn't work.
TOM: She obviously needs to upgrade to Throat98.
> "Kerry? You there?"
> She managed to swallow. "Mark?"
> "Kerry, thank God. Look, you'd better get down here right away."
TOM: Get down right here, right away, baby! I'm Mark Greene, the God Doctor
of Soul! Jump back!
> "Mark, I don't think-"
ALL: Obviously.
> "That friend of yours, from Africa?"
CROW: Moammar Quaddafi?
> A cold hand reached around Kerry's heart, and squeezed.
MIKE: Oh, this is like "Temple of Doom."
> "Mlunglisi?"
> "Yeah. Kerry - they just brought him in. Somebody went for him
> in the parking lot, just like that missionary. He's asking for you."
CROW: ...to work his bachelor party.
>
> Mark Greene was leaning on the admissions desk when Kerry rushed
> in. He was checking the whiteboard, ticking off names on a paper chart.
> He looked around when he heard her, a puzzled frown creasing his face.
> "Kerry?"
TOM: (Dr. Weaver) No, Gina Lollobrigida.
> "Where is he?"
> Greene blinked. "Where's who?"
MIKE: On first.
> "Mlunglisi! Mark, just tell me where he is!"
> He gave a perplexed shrug. "Africa?"
CROW: (Alex Trebek) I'm sorry, you neglected to form your response in
the form of a question. The correct answer is "What is Africa?"
> They were still staring at each other when Carol Hathaway
> skittered to a halt in the corridor.
TOM: Better check those brakes.
"Mark! Cops are bringing one in,
> another knife attack!"
> "Aw hell." Greene looked down at Kerry. "Are you-"
TOM: A Jedi?
CROW: Doing your Tae-Bo workouts?
MIKE: Experienced? Have you ever been experienced?
> "I'm fine." She straightened, set her jaw.
TOM: She knew that would be the last time she got in a traffic accident
with Mike Tyson. One quick jab, and $25,000 in maxillofacial surgery.
"Fine. Just let me
> get my stuff."
> Greene was already off. "We're in two!"
CROW: Places! Places, everybody!
>
> She came in through the double doors hard and fast, shrugged
> into a gown and eye protectors
MIKE: Sounds like Eric Lindros is going to the prom.
before she even saw the patient. The man
> was surrounded by a smoothly-functioning battalion of doctors and
> nurses, chattering systemry and gleaming metal.
TOM: I am Welby of Borg. You will be assimilated.
The cops and paramedics
> were already backing out.
> Kerry slipped into place, determined not to flinch. If it was
> Mlunglisi...
CROW: She'd be out the $50 he owed her.
> It wasn't.
> "White male," called Greene, without looking up from his bloody
> work. "Mid-fifties, no ID. Looks like somebody blinded him then let him
> wander into traffic."
TOM: The police officers immediately put out an APB on Thomas Dolby.
> "What a city." Kerry scanned the wreck of a man before her, the
> crimson stew that had been a face. "Vitals?"
MIKE: No, Brylcreem.
> Carol checked a monitor. "Sinus tach at one-fifty. Pressure's
> fifty palp."
> "Bi-lateral haemothorax," listed Greene. "Rigid belly, head
> trauma, compound fractures left forearm, left femur, open fracture lower
> right extremity. Facial injuries like you wouldn't believe."
ALL: (Singing) And a partridge in a pear tree.
> Kerry nodded. "Somebody call Plastic. Okay, we're gonna need a
> chest tube. I'll do that if you bag him, Mark."
MIKE: (Dr. Greene) No can do, it's not white guy season. The DNR would
nail me for poaching.
> "Can do."
> The scalpel was cool in her grasp, solid. "I'm in."
TOM: As opposed to those warm, insubstantial scalpels.
> "We'll need four units of Oh-neg, rapid infuser," said Carol.
> "Shall I get a CT?"
CROW: And an MA, an MD, a NY and an RI while you're at it.
> "Yeah, there's probably a bleed and a half in there-" Greene
> stopped and looked up as the ECG gave a warbling shriek. "He's going
> under!"
MIKE: No! Leo can't die!
> Kerry grabbed the defibrillator paddles as someone pushed the
> unit in next to her. "Okay, let's shock him! Two hundred!"
TOM: For an ER doctor's bill? That'll shock anybody.
> She slammed the paddles down onto the patient's chest, trying to
> ignore the glyphs and symbols that pulsed beneath the blood. Tyre marks,
> she hoped.
MIKE: Or Nineveh marks, at least.
"Clear!"
CROW: Great, she's a Scientologist.
> Greene lifted his hands and stepped back. "Clear."
> Voltage slapped into the man's body like a physical blow.
CROW: Looks like the E-Meter's malfunctioning.
He
> jerked up from the table. Kerry felt blood spatter across her arms and
> face, saw the monitor flutter into a spiky, thready heart rhythm.
TOM: (Singing) Barracuda!
"Okay,
> we've got him."
> "Sinus tach at one-sixty," confirmed Carol. "I don't like the
> look of this-"
MIKE: Oh, she's always so negative.
> As soon as she said it, the trace went crazy again. The patient
> thrashed. Mewling, bubbling sounds came up from where his mouth should
> have been. His hands clawed. One snapped around Kerry's wrist with a
> horrible, desperate strength, the skin cold and blood-slick against her
> glove. She stared as the ragged ball of his head turned towards her.
ALL: (Retching sounds)
> Lips worked amidst the rubble.
CROW: Sounds like Monica Lewinsky's found a job in demolition.
MIKE: Too easy, Crow.
"Ch'ojas..."
> "Kerry, we're losing him!"
> She couldn't get her hand free. The monitor was squealing like a
> cage full of rats, the trace jumping in random, impossible spikes. "I
> can't-"
TOM: (singing) get no! Satisfaction!
> There was an awful sound from the patient; a hollow, wet
> crunching from somewhere deep inside.
MIKE: The eggs he had swallowed whole on a dare would never bear chicks.
His grasp tightened on Kerry's
> wrist with a terrible finality, then slackened. Blood spilled sluggishly
> from his mouth as he slumped backwards.
CROW: Into his new BarcaLounger!
> The monitor began a steady, mournful tone. No trace.
> The paddles were suddenly very heavy. Kerry turned, put them
> carefully down on the defibrillator unit. She sighed. "Mark, you want to
> call this one?"
TOM: (Dr. Greene) Sure, let's call him George.
> "Yeah, I guess." Greene glanced at the big clock above the door.
> "Okay, time of death eleven-seventeen."
> Carol reached out and switched off the monitor.
MIKE: She just couldn't stand losing another game of Madden 99.
> The door opened. Kerry looked up to see Jerry Markovic lean in.
> "What have you got for us, Jerry?"
CROW: (Jerry) Your FCC-mandated goofy fat guy quota?
> "Ah, cops just ID'd this guy." Markovic gestured at the corpse
> on the table, wincing. "Name's Foster, Kenneth Foster. Some kind of
> writer, or something."
TOM: Guys named Foster keep on dying in strange circumstances, don't they?
CROW: Where'd they find this one, Rock Creek Park?
> Kerry nodded, feeling huge, invisible things sliding into
> position around her.
MIKE: 'Scuse us, Doc, we need to put these new glass walls in here before
shift change.
"Any family?"
CROW: Gambino, Lucchese, the usual.
> "They're still working on that." Markovic frowned. "Hey, Dr
> Weaver? Didn't you go home?"
TOM: Geeze, Jerry. Read your Thomas Wolfe. You can't go home again.
> "Yeah, I went home. Then I came back." She tugged the gloves
> off. "Now I'm going home again."
TOM: But you can't! I mean it!
> The big man shook his head. "I, ah, don't understand..."
MIKE: Oh, like that's a new experience for him.
> "I'm just starting to, Jerry. I think somebody wanted a
> witness."
ALL: (SInging) Can I get a witness?
>
> The answer, of course, was in the mail.
TOM: (Singing) The answer is blowing in the mail.
> It was a single floppy disc, stuffed into a Jiffy bag with a
> scrawled note. The note said:
CROW: "Get 50 Hours Free on AOL!"
THEY'LL STOP ME BEFORE I CAN PUBLISH THIS.
> BUT SOMEONE HAS TO SEE IT. YOU WERE AT ABERDARE IN '92. YOU KNOW I'M
> RIGHT. KF.
> Kerry fired up Word on her PC, loaded the disc's single file. It
> was
MIKE: Happy99.exe?
the manuscript to Foster's book, the treatise on the origin of the
> Ch'ojas. If she knew anything about what was happening here, she knew
> that this was the only remaining copy.
> She wondered briefly what the Reverend had done with his, after
> he had read it through.
CROW: Propped up that wobbling coffee table?
> "You son of a bitch," she whispered, scrolling through the
> contents page. "You knew what this would cost, and you sent it to us
> anyway."
MIKE: How dare he? Postage-due is just *so* impolite.
> There were names Kerry knew on that first page, names she had
> heard spilling from bloodied lips and torn throats, in the rush of
> static from a broken phone. Names that the darkness had whispered to her
> in the icy, iron night. She didn't want to hear them again, ever.
TOM: Tripp.
CROW: Hyde.
MIKE: Starr.
> She took the disc out of the PC, and twisted it until it broke.
> Then she took the pieces into her kitchen, along with the note and the
> Jiffy bag, and fed each of them, very slowly and carefully, into the
> sink waste-disposal unit until there was nothing left at all.
MIKE: Man, the super's gonna be pissed when he has to clear 3.5" disk
bits out of the Disposall.
> "There," she said, glaring down the plughole. "It's gone, okay?
> Finished. No-one's gonna read it, ever."
CROW: So take *that*, Thomas Pynchon.
> She sighed, then noticed the cat. It was sitting on the worktop
> like an Egyptian statue, its eyes two curved lines of contentment. She
> reached out and ruffled its fur, feeling rather foolish. "Just talking
> to myself, honey. Don't worry about it."
TOM: You kidding? As long as I get my Meow Mix, you can stuff your whole
damn computer down the sink. What do I care?
> The animal nuzzled her hand, yawned. Kerry yawned too. The
> apartment felt warmer already - maintenance must have finally gotten off
> their butts and fixed the piping. Later, she would retreat to her
> bedroom and let the world go on without her until the sky grew light.
> Now, she had to feed the cat.
MIKE: To the elder gods!
> As she forked petfood into a saucer, she found herself wondering
> what the animal's name was. She'd never asked.
CROW: Why bother naming a cat? It won't come when you call it anyway.
>
> No-one heard Kerry Weaver talking to her sink, other than the
> cat. But in a dark and grimy hotel room seven blocks away, V'nan Djaktu
> of the Ch'oja tribe lifted his long, strangely curving knife and, with
> prayers to Shoma and B'turu on his lips, began to carve his own face
> away.
TOM: New, from Time-Life Books: Home Rhinoplasty Made Simple!
>
> The thaw began during Kerry's next shift. At a quiet point, she
> made her way up to the roof, stood looking up at the stars, and the
> lightscape of Chicago spread around her.
CROW: Unfortunately, she walked into a helicopter rotor, was cut into
little tiny bits and died screaming in agony. The End.
MIKE: Crow, that's horrible!
CROW: Hey, that's Mary Poppins compared to the sick stuff we've seen so
far in this fanfic.
> After a time, she heard footsteps. "Mark," she smiled.
CROW: Those Emmys again.
> "Kerry, its cold up here."
TOM: (Singing) The boys and girls collide, to the music in my ears.
> "Mark, if a mosquito hits a Mack truck head on, what would you
> say happens?"
MIKE: It depends if somebody hears it.
> There was a long pause. Then: "Ah, you get a splat mark about
> the size of a dime."
TOM: That's one heckuva mosquito.
> "Mm."
MIKE: (Homer) Mmmm. Splat marks.
> "Kerry, are you-"
TOM: A flyweight or a welterweight?
CROW: Microsoft-certified?
MIKE: Gettin' jiggy with it?
> "What happens if the mosquito keeps flapping, though? Keeps
> pushing against the truck?"
MIKE: Well, if it's one'a them tin-foil Jap-o-neese trucks, cain't hardly
tell which'un would win.
> "Nothing." He was standing next to her, hands stuffed deep into
> his pockets, feet scuffling at the grimy snow. "Nothing happens at all."
CROW: (Dr. Greene) Just like my sex life, thanks for the reminder!
> "Yeah, that's right." The stars were very bright, very clear.
> Kerry thought about the names on Foster's disc: Shoma, the eyeless one;
> B'turu, dreaming under the sea; the Ch'ojas, roaming the Earth in the
> service of their carnivorous gods. It all seemed so far away, a forest
> thing, until it came looking for you.
TOM: Man, this is like a text-based remix of "Synchronicity II," except
with a jungle instead of a dark Scottish lake.
> "Nothing happens at all."
> "Kerry, if you want to get philosophical, could we do it
> downstairs? I'm sure the patients would prefer us without pneumonia."
CROW: Or clothes!
> She nodded, turned. "You're right, Mark. Time to go flap the
> wings some more." And with that she limped away from him, across the
> snowy roof, out of the darkness and down into the light.
MIKE: (Dr. Greene) Oops, better get that stairs-shaped skylight fixed.
You all right down there, Kerry?
>
> THE END
[1...2...3...4...5...6...SoL Bridge]
[Mads light is blinking]
MIKE: Looks like there's something happening down at the Castle.
[CF. PEARL, OBSERVER and BOBO are all disheveled, cowering in a corner]
PEARL: Um, Mike? I think I made a *tiny* miscalculation.
MIKE: What's that, Pearl?
PEARL: Well, when the Alarm Clock of Doom landed in the ocean, the shock
turned it on. And, well, it woke somebody up.
OBSERVER: Something, at least. Maybe somebody. We're not sure.
BOBO: Horrible! Scared! Ah! Oh!
MIKE: What? Who...
TOM: Or what?
MIKE: Did you wake up?
PEARL: Um, I think his formal name is He Who Sleeps Under the Ocean.
BOBO: Scared!
MIKE: Jimmy Hoffa?
CROW: Jacques Cousteau?
OBSERVER: No, you idiots, Cthulu! The alarm clock woke up an Elder God,
one whose name has become synonymous with horror and unspeakable acts of
evil and depravity!
PEARL: He's in the kitchen right now, since he's really...*gulp*...hungry.
OBSERVER; In fact, he's coming back right now!
BOBO: Scared! Scared! Scared!
[The three cower in the corner, holding on to each other for dear life.
Ominous music swells, the camera viewpoint turns and into the frame steps:
RICHARD SIMMONS]
RICHARD: You've got a lot of bananas, but the rest of your food is all
nasty and unhealthy! Pearl, I can help you take off that extra weight.
Come here...
[Camera focuses in tight on PEARL's face as she screams, scream continues
on throughout the closing credits.]
** Mike, the bots, Pearl, Observer, Bobo and other elements of this piece are
all copyright Best Brains, Inc. and no dilution of their trademark is
intended. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. **
> She sat up hard, clawing at tangled bedsheets, the breath
> catching and soaring in her chest. The bedside lamp was cold and slick
> beneath her fingers, the switch evading her like a fat grub.
*twang*
Produced with utter contempt for the Sci-Fi Channel.