Meet Your Favorite Serial Killer

by Spencer,Alan

  "Now, I have to delve deeper beyond insanity and peer into the hideous depths of the human psyche and find new darkness to exploit. That's why I'm here, Mr. Fast. I must find ways to captivate a jaded audience. I was fired for failing at my job, and now, I'm determined to get my job back. After what I've done here, I'm confident I'll be unemployed no more in the coming hours."

  Arnold listened to the man go on an on about things he wasn't sure he understood. The cloaked figure was leading him down another hallway that was similar to the one he found himself in earlier. There was no posters on the wall this time. The building appeared to be a normal office building downtown.

  He dared to ask a question. "What is your job, exactly?"

  "In good time. First, let me show you to my office."

  The cloaked man stepped into a simple office. The back wall was made of glass, displaying the damaged cityscape. The desk in the room had a smoldering cigar in an ashtray made from a human skullcap.

  "Have a seat."

  He sat in the chair, but not before inspecting it for any stamped words.

  This made the cloaked man laugh.

  "You're careful. Fear of the unexpected works wonders on the brain. It's creating, or rather, fabricating the unexpected that's so difficult. And then selling it to the masses, that's a whole different matter. Market research is very important. I wasn't putting in my work, and that's what got me into trouble. It got me fired, and where I come from, you don't want to lose your job."

  "Where do you come from?"

  "From hell, of course. I found a way to escape hell temporarily. The things they would've done to me if I hadn't escaped, I shudder to imagine. But I won't be here much longer. I can't stay in the world of the living very long, but while I'm here, I've been busy. I've done things here that will guarantee my job back. And I'll be better than ever. One pitch session, and I'm re-hired. I'm very confident."

  He clutched the prod tighter. "What was your job?"

  "I have two jobs. I create items to entertain the masses, and I market them. I basically work for an ad agency that makes products to entertain the citizens of hell. They're one of the most critical, unforgiving audiences ever.

  "Let me skip around your question a moment. Me and you, Arnold, we're very similar. We both have had a hard time making a living lately. We're both washed-up. We were cut down before our prime. I still have plenty of creative juices left. But I had a few products flop. Sells were poor. It was just like your movie, Arnold. Both tanked, and people don't forgive these days. Not in these terrible economies. It's bad for everyone, everywhere.

  "You've survived what most of your fellow citizens easily succumbed to, Arnold. You fought back. You somehow snuck into this building. I bet you were planning on stopping us. Your bravery impresses me. So I must know what you fear the most. Someone like you requires more effort to frighten. I can draw inspiration from you. Terror is high entertainment there. But they've seen everything, Arnold. Hell has been around for a very long time, and many like me have come and gone.

  "When hell summons me back, I want ideas to take back with me. For that pitch session I mentioned a moment ago. I deserve a second chance, and I'm going to get my second chance. I will impress those who dwell in the deepest denizens of hell. Satan will shake my hand. We'll share hookers like we used to and drink imported virgin's blood. I miss the good times. The dark one won't turn his back on me ever again. I already have a new batch of products to unleash upon the masses. As blood has flowed in your streets, creative juices are percolating in my brain.

  "I make this proposal, Mr. Fast. I leave right now. I don't harm another person. You save the world, Arnold. You come with me to hell. I find out what makes you afraid, and when we're done, I bring you back here, and you go on with your life. It sounds like a fair deal to me. The odds are stacked up against you. If you tell me no, you will die. That's guaranteed. And not only that, even more innocent people will perish."

  "Wait, hold on," Arnold said. "How does someone escape hell exactly? If you're supposed to bring me back, like you say. How would I come back?"

  "When somebody dies," the cloaked man explained, "an opening between heaven and hell opens up, if you know where to look. It's like an opening of light. When many people die at the same time, and I'm talking about hundreds simultaneously, a larger opening appears, and it stays open for longer periods of time. I crossed over with help from my minions. It's not easy to pull off, this passage from one plane to another. Imagine astronomical psychics meets space and time continuums meets heaven and earth. Bottom line, we got here, we get to stay for a short period of time, and then we go back to where we came from, and that's all you need to understand, Mr. Fast.

  "Those people who are stamping words on objects, they're doing market research for me. I even had some employees infiltrate other parts of the country. When I was fired from my job, so were the people who worked under me. They came with me to get their jobs back too, you understand? We're working very hard to get back into the public's good graces. I thought that would be enough. But you, Mr. Fast, you have proved a most interesting test market.

  "Think about my offer, Arnold. You'll be treated like a God if your input proves fruitful. You can have all the women, the booze, and power you could ever want. We make movies in hell too. They love action movies. You have a likeable, sympathetic face. You would be an instant star. Arnold Fast. I can see your name emblazoned on movie posters. Imagine it all happening to you. It's everything you ever wanted and was so unfairly denied. So what do you say? Cross over with me. I'll leave right now. No one else dies. I promise. You, Mr. Fast, will save humanity."

  The cloaked advertising agent wasn't expecting Arnold's question.

  "Before I answer your question, I have one of my own."

  "Yes, go ahead."

  "Why do you wear a cloak, and the rest of you uglies don't?"

  An awkward silence filled the room. Then the cloaked man laughed raucously. "Because my minions are slaves. They're below me. They deserve no clothing. They are the subservient bottom feeders. They have nothing to offer except their hard labor."

  "Interesting. I was just wondering, because I thought running around naked like that would make your dick get cold."

  "What?"

  Arnold lunged out of his chair. He jumped on top of the cloaked man's desk. He raised the prod up over his head and pressed the flat metal end against the bastard's forehead.

  Arnold's thoughts aligned with the prod.

  The words on the steel appeared.

  Test Your Own Products, Asshole.

  Product Placement

  "Nooooooooooooooooo!"

  The cloaked man's forehead burned with the words. Flesh puckered and evaporated to bone to shape the individual letters. His face turned into a great beam of intense hot and burning orange light. The orange split the cloaked man in half. There one moment, the next, he transformed into a great vortex of sucking light. He watched in awe as the uglies came soaring from the hallways, throughout the building, shattering through windows, and crashing through the walls to enter the light.

  The uglies didn't enter the orange peacefully.

  A flying woman, doing an upside down header into the light, was instantly dried up of flesh and blood when five tampons were forced between her legs.

  Cans of soda and beer followed the uglies into the light. When the tabs were pulled back by an invisible force, the uglies' heads detonated with the same force as Morgan White had succumbed.

  Steel flying fists by the dozens were zooming into the building pounding into skulls and breaking teeth. On the top of the steel fists, it read in bold letters: SMASHFACE. Giant gonorrhea pizzas were spinning discs that wrapped around the uglies until their skin turned blackened with jilted diseases. The sickening boiling sounds made Arnold cringe, but he couldn't close his eyes. This was too insane!

  Canned goods opened by themselves to release the black plague, shingles, scarlet fever, and unknown cancers. The art on the ca
ns displayed pictorials of sickening side effects of bizarre ailments. The uglies kept flying into the light, suffering the continuous vacuum.

  He did his best to stay rooted to the floor. He prayed he wouldn't be sucked into the vortex of light like the rest of them. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on. If he let go, he too would be sucked in. Anything from candy that expanded in the body to cell phones that sent you to different periods in terror history could attack Arnold.

  He found himself being dragged towards the light.

  Arnold couldn't hold on.

  He let go and was consumed into the hot vortex.

  Part Five

  You Kick Ass

  Arnold opened his eyes. For awhile, he thought he hadn't opened his eyes, because the room was so dark. Where he ended up after flying into the light remained a mystery. Clues to the room's identity presented themselves. There were two dots of light to the right of him. A machine was humming to the left of him. He prayed the machine wouldn't mangle him. The deaths he'd seen! Would the sheets around his body squeeze the life out of him? Would the bed springs beneath him uncoil and penetrate him?

  God, get me out of this room!

  He was moments from unleashing his terror when a door opened. A nurse entered the room to calm him down. He was close to launching out of bed and running the hell away when several orderlies held him down, and a nurse gave him a sedative through his I.V. tube.

  "There, that should calm you down."

  The nurse was in her early twenties. She appeared exhausted, as did the other orderlies, but there was a spark of energy in her eye.

  "Shhh. Mr. Fast, you're safe now. You saved us all. You're a hero."

  One of the orderlies, a boisterous man, added, "He's not just a hero. This guy kicks ass."

  He felt his body calm. He was doped up, and he didn't mind it one bit. The nurse drew the shades to let in some afternoon sunlight. Then she turned on the television.

  "The doctor will be around to check on you shortly. In the meantime, relax, and watch the news. You're all over the headlines."

  Before Arnold could ask a single question, he was in the room alone. He heard the hospital's staff working hard outside his door. A lot of people were harmed in the span of about twelve hours.

  News stories flashed on the television. Most of the them involved the city of Pittsburg being overtaken by unknown assailants, or what Arnold labeled as uglies. Investigators, medical experts, college professors, and even religious fanatics were chiming in on why everything had happened. Tainted products leftover from the catastrophe were shown on screen and talked on at length.

  The stories changed gears and focused on one man.

  Arnold Fast.

  "Arnold Fast, best known for the film Colton's Will and his catalogue of commercial work, has been dubbed a hero by citizens of Pittsburg..."

  He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Homemade news footage showed Arnold shaking up beer cans downtown and blowing up uglies. Another scene, taken by a cell phone, showed Arnold jumping through a window and punching at flying limbs. The best were the various shots from news choppers and yet more amateur cameras of Arnold blasting the uglies from the dilapidated pawn shop with a shotgun.

  "Arnold Fast fearlessly took down the supernatural threat attacking various parts of the United States. Most of this activity was centered in Pittsburg. Reasons for the attack are still unknown..."

  His eyes were getting heavy. The drugs were seriously starting to work. He managed to view one last video clip taken by another news chopper. It showed Arnold Fast high up in a skyscraper. Many of the windows were shattered. It showed Arnold flying towards that orange fiery light. You couldn't tell by the video, but Arnold knew he was unconscious at that point. He was flying right towards the light. By a miracle of gravity, or a breeze, it looked like his right fist swung at the light flowing through the caped man's body. Right after the punch to the caped man's face, both the caped man and the intense light vanished. The uglies also vanished. The only thing they left behind were the insane death tools the media dubbed as "die products".

  Before Arnold fell asleep, he saw the headline flash across the screen, "With One Punch, Arnold Fast Saves The World!"

  Epilogue

  A year had passed since the day the cloaked man snuck out of hell and unleashed his "die products" upon the United States. Arnold had long since recuperated. After doing a long stint of talk show circuits, he was offered a job to star in a movie based on the events of the recent crisis. The movie wasn't concerned with factually representing the horror. This was about mending America's wounds. This was about jingoism and entertainment.

  The film was called Arnold Fast Kicks Some Ass. Most of the multi-million dollar production was set on location in Pittsburg. Today, they were about to film the final scene where Arnold Fast is propositioned by the cloaked man in his office.

  Arnold was wearing an undershirt covered in grit and fake blood. He clutched onto a prop cattle prod. Anthony Hopkins was playing the cloaked man. That hideous smile on his face wasn't so far off the mark from the original enemy. The director promised Hopkins he'd be covered in gnarly veins post-production with the help of CGI effects.

  The director called for quiet on the set.

  Arnold thought it would be hard revisiting a dark part of his past, but this was actually turning into a therapeutic experience. Seeing the ridiculous posters of die products on the walls told him how far out his experience was, and how it was unlikely this would ever happen again.

  The hardest part was seeing the actors who played Mac and Sue. Mac was played by Chuck Norris, and Sue was represented by Goldie Hawn. He missed his two friends. He could only imagine what kind of relationship he could've had with Sue if she hadn't been killed.

  He was happy to hear his daughter survived the attack. She lived with him now because his ex-wife met a terrible end with a "marked" butt plug. The authorities wouldn't release the details on the specifics of that "die product".

  The director called action.

  Arnold began the scene. He approached the cloaked man and listened to his evil proposal. When it came time for Arnold to give the evil figure an answer about going to hell with him, he replied, "One thing I learned busting my ass for minimum wage all these years. No matter how old and tired I get, I know when it's time to kick some ass, and right now, my watch says it's half past your ass!"

  The scene ended.

  The movie was a wrap.

  The make-up crew were approaching Arnold with towels and a spray bottle to wash off the fake blood and heavy make-up. After he was finished cleaning up, he changed clothes in his trailer. Bryan Hammer, his new agent, knocked on his trailer door.

  Bryan, the young pup, updated him on his upcoming interview with Good Morning America. Then he would be interviewed on The Late Show.

  His agent asked carefully, "You're certain you want to do The Late Show gig?"

  He didn't have to think about it.

  "I'm not afraid of anything except for unemployment. I figure I've earned the privilege of being forgiven for shitting my pants on live TV."

  "Way to hang tough, baby."

  He hated it when Bryan called him "baby".

  Bryan updated him on the contracts being sent to him for four new action movies. Arnold said he would read over the scripts and get back to him as soon as possible. First, he was meeting his daughter for dinner.

  "Family first. I got my life back, and I don't plan on letting it slip away ever again."

  The agent didn't understand what Arnold had said. The young man was all dollar signs. "Get back to me on those contracts ASAP, baby. Enjoy hanging out with your daughter. Tell the little one hello."

  "She's twenty-two years old."

  Bryan didn't hear him.

  He was already talking on his cell phone with another movie company.

  Before Arnold left his trailer to meet his daughter for lunch, he was thirsty. He opened the mini-fridge in the trailer and search
ed the contents. He located a can of soda. Before he popped the tab, he searched the can up and down for words. He never knew when one day some other bozo would escape hell and look for ways to spark his creative juices.

  If you assholes every try and come back, I'll be ready to kick your ass again.

  He quenched his thirst and continued on with his day.

  The End