POPCORN

by Victor Gischler

  For there, at the end of it, beyond the door, in the antechamber of the vault, stands the Waiftaker General square in sight, framed to be seen, staring back at em cold.

  And before him is his prisoners, Joey and Squirlet on their knees, as brings their bonces to the same height as Yapper and Vermintrude's, all of which has pistols pointed at em by the stickmen at their backs.

  “Come join us!” calls the Waiftaker General.

  And Flashjack, he comes sprinting down the hall, a lightning bolt of hellion fury, right hand blazing, even his eyes afire, so set on his target he don't even hear Puckerscruff crying, Wait, Jack! It's a trap!

  And as he springs from the doorway “Now!” cries the Waiftaker General, and a wire springs up as nearly slices clean through Flashjack's throat, and though the stickmen holding it is brought down by his momentum, they brings Flashjack whiplashing crashing down too.

  And the other stickmen each side of the door blasts their crossfire killzone, all of em aiming for his head.

  7

  Flashjack rouses gazing up at a great glass dome as belongs roofing some prince's botanical plunder - or some baron's mad laboratory maybe's. Shite. Knows where's he is before the order's even barked, before he's heaved upright by chains round neck and wrist, three stickmen each side playing horse-breaker.

  Puckscruff told Flashjack of the Fixing he don't recall himself, the altar bang in the room's middle. The huge gray millstone, ten foot high, its edge broad as the most barrely chest. Set back in steel mechanics as is hissing and pistoning, turning slowly, speeding up, to grind, to Scrub.

  “Such punctuality for a scruff!” says the Waiftaker General, who stands between the altar for Stamping and the stone for Scrubbing. Why, I was this instant initiating my inquiry to ascertain whom here must embrace their extermination latterly... having witnessed their foolhardy followers's erasure.

  Which is to say, whomsoever among you is “and what a sneer he gives now!” your leader.

  The others stands handcuffed, Flashjack sees, to either side, held by stickmen.

  “We can rule out, indubitably, these three.”

  The Waiftaker General waves an haughty hand at Squirlet, Vermintrude, Puckerscruff.

  “The feminine intellect of wench or catamite presiding? Hardly!”

  “This brat then?” he spits, coming forward to poke his cane at Yapper “and jerk it away”, near tripping a tumble back, as Yapper hits him with not just a bark but a slavery snarly explosion of rabid doggery. Oh, yeah, they all sees the moment of terror before he rallies, smashes that cane across Yapper's face “once! twice!”

  “Oh, I remember you”, he rages, “your cur, and all...”

  He trembles, reins it in.

  “But, no. That scheme was Scallion's, I'll wager, not some... mongrel child's. You, then!”

  He whirls to Flashjack.

  “You arsonist, anarchist, assassin and abomination! You animal!”

  “No”, scorns he. “No, if I afforded you the perspicacity of an ape, I might sustain such a conjecture, but the murderous mayhem you have wreaked across my city is savagery baser than heathen Negro or rampaging Silverback. You have a tail, scruff, whether it be perceptible only to God Almighty. A vicious monkey, you are; and it's the organ-grinder I seek.”

  So now's it's Joey the Waiftaker General spins to.

  “Leaving us then but one scapegrace, all eliminated barring the eldest and, by no coincidence, I'll hazard, most evidently self-possessed.”

  Joey, who stands sullen as any scofflaw.

  8

  It's Flashjack who's the first to crack a grin, Squirlet who catches his glinty eyes and snickers, what sets Vermintrude and Yapper off giggling, merry as at a Professor squeaking Judy, Judy, Judy through his swazzle.

  Now Puckerscruff, he just loses it, near to pissing himself. Oh, hark at the Waiftaker General! Ain't he a veritable Sherlock Holmes in his deductive detectiving!

  The Waiftaker General rounds on em, this way, that. Every way he turns them Scruffians laughs at him.

  “What?!” he roars. “What is this?!”

  “He ain't even a sodding Scruffian, yer numpty!” cackles Puckerscruff. “He ain't even Scruffian!”

  I tells yer all, I wish with all me heart I were there to see the Waiftaker General's face. Tell em what it were like, Joey. Tell em.

  And he should know, cause he got a right good gander when the cunt come striding up in full fury, rips Joey's shirt open to see there ain't a Stamp on him.

  Oh, he howled, didn't he, Joey? He howled to be shown for such a ninny.

  Still, it were only moments till he'd found his cool, and then his voice come low:

  “Not a Scruffian”, says he adrip with spite. Yet.

  And he snaps his fingers, and points his cane, crying, Ring for the Stamp! The Stamp for this wretch! And a stickman hops to it, darts to a cord hung on a wall, what he pulls.

  And it were only Flashjack and Joey didn't flinch from the bell what rung out, only them as weren't struck back to their horriblest memories.

  Cause Squirlet and Vermintrude, Puckerscruff and Yapper, they all knowed what come with that ringing. And sure enough, as them Scruffians is hauled aside, now they sees the Great Doors open, and into the hall... here comes the Stamp.

  What's it look like, mate? Well, not much at all's, really. Yer saw how's Ravewaif and Rebelladonna brung it to this crib stuffed in his backpack. It ain't exactly huge.

  Ain't even too heavy - till it's on yer chest - for all's it looks like concrete, what with the ash and bone mixed in the clay.

  Just a fat blank cylinder with an hole through for an axle stick.

  What were more of a sight, really, were them poor Scruffians as carried it between them, gussied up as pageboys, each with a spike nailed in his noggin to keep him lobotomised.

  9

  Now the Waiftaker General barks his orders, and he ain't messing round no more. No swaggery gloating from this archvillain.

  No torturous tosh what's only begging for an hero to turn the tables. No, he's brutal efficiency, cuts straight to business: you men, this one; you men, that one.

  And it's Flashjack for the Scrubbing right now, the bleeding obvious threat to be dispensed with swiftly, even as Joey's grabbed, his arms pinned so's his handcuffs can be took off, so's his arms can be pulled wide for all's he thrashes, his shirt ripped clear of his pale skin.

  And it's the others to be prepped for Scrubbing soon as Flashjack's done - biggest to smallest, the waiftaker orders, one by one, and not a second squandered from this scruff to the next.

  Clockwork! Machinery! Godspeed and Industry! And they fights to bite, they wriggles like crazy, but from scrag to scamp ain't none a match for em as pins their arms back, rips their togs open, tears away the skin disguising Stamps.

  And Joey twists his head to see em struggle, see Flashjack being dragged toward the millstone, as they hauls him and pins him flat on the altar.

  I can't tell yer how it is, strays. I can't tell yer how it feels to Joey, as them lobotomised Scruffians comes and lays the Stamp on him, and rolls it up over his chest to read his essence, lifting it up at his chin, then lays it back down on him again, and rolls it down to write that essence back into him.

  I can't tell yer how it was to Joey, nor how it was to me, nor any other Scruffian. I can't tell yer how it will feel to you. Ain't no pain in the world compares.

  All I can tell yer is that Joey screams as they Fixes him, screams as he ain't never before and never will again, and for all's the seconds Fixing takes, it seems to last forever.

  Why, it's near unfathomable to Joey, when it's suddenly over, that he can still hear Flashjack cursing, that the hellion ain't even Scrubbed yet.

  Then the Waiftaker General's smirking down at him, smug.

  Then that fucker ain't smirking no more. For Joey, he's laughing like a madman, not like the others howling at the groanhuff's mistake, but wild, delirious... triumphant.

  “Look up”, says
the Scruffian.

  PART FOUR

  1

  “Look up”, says Joey Picaroni, and as the Waiftaker General does...

  KERSMASH! Through that glass dome above comes crashing the bestest friend Scruffians ever had. It's Rake Jake Scallion to the rescue, high in the sky beyond him the airship what he's jumped from.

  In he comes, glass shattering at his boots, raining down on everything, with an ivory-gripped, snub-snouted British Bulldog in each hand, courtesy of Mister Philip Webley and Son of Birmingham, unlatching parachute as he drops.

  Shusht, Joey. It ain't a fabble if it don't take some liberties.

  Well, if yer gonna be like that...

  KERSMASH! Why, if it ain't Whelp too! And he don't even need a parachute, cause he's the Beast of Buskerville what was Fixed for a cruel schoolboy's pet, and dumped to drown for being Fixed fierce, and chewed his way from his cage, stalked a schoolboy growed to beak-nosed, beady-eyed bastard, turned his hair white, took one bollock, and left him alive only to live in mortal fear of this moment.

  That Whelp, he's too fucking ferocious to even notice the glass shattered by his paws, nor the marble floor as cracks at his landing. He just howls.

  Cause, yeah, like Foxy would be took in by the Waifstaker General's tricks! Like he'd let his mates just walk into the lion's den, try and steal the Stamp from an empty vault! He knowed that, whether those plans was left out to be stole on purpose or not, them groanhuffs would move the Stamp, knowed that them fuckers would see em coming, set a sneaky trap.

  But he outhunk em. For weren't it a surefire certainty that the Waiftaker General would Fix any stray what had thrown in with the Scruffians? And that would put the Stamp in reach.

  “Old chap”, says Foxy to Joey Picaroni back in his den, “I understand you consider yourself... an ally”.

  And that's when Foxtrot give the stray a choice, just as we did you two, give him the choice to take the Stamp. He didn't have to do it. He didn't owe them nothing - why, in helping Yapper and Jake, he weren't even an interested party, as they says.

  But if he were out to strike a blow against the world, they could offer him that chance. For their taking of the Stamp - his taking of the Stamp - would make fucking history.

  2

  So it's all for this moment, strays, all for this moment of Rake Jake Scallion with his arms wide as Joey's on the altar, the Webley in each hand spitting point four five five bullets, them puppies with a bite every bit as vicious as their bark: BLAM! BLAM! And two of the guards holding Flashjack falls. BLAM! BLAM! Two more heads is blasted. BLAM! BLAM! The last two drop.

  So now Flashjack grips the slack chains round his throat with a white hot thermite right hand of glory, and he rips them away like fucking putty. And he turns.

  Whelp's no sooner on the ground than he's in action too, and blow me if he don't prove himself Scruffian as any twolegs, for it ain't the Waiftaker General he goes for, no, it's the guard what's holding Yapper, duh. You think he's gonna pounce on his revenge, when his best chum's pinned by some stickman begging for his throat to be gnashed?

  Besides, Flashjack he's whipping the chains round his wrists out, swinging em past each other as a scissor of steel link what only just misses a Waiftaker General diving panicked. Takes out the guards pinning Joey though.

  On the altar now, Joey snatches them spikes in the bonces of the pageboy Scruffians each side, whips his knees up under the Stamp to his chin, plants his feet on the front of them Scruffians' fancy tunics, and kicks em away to rip the spikes right out their heads.

  And Joey he ain't got all of Flashjack's acrobatics, but a clown knows how to tumble, so in a trice he's rolled backwards off the altar and landed on his feet. And Joey he ain't got none of Flashjack's hellion tricks, but that don't matter to the first stickman spiked.

  And Squirlet and Trude? In the chaos what's erupting they don't even need no cavalry to rescue em. Cause the stickmen holding them ain't giving a thought to two little girlies, Scruffian or no.

  So as meaty hands loose collars for clubs, Trude twists and bites, and spits two bloody fingers out; and fuck knows where she sprung em from, but Squirlet has a straight razor in each hand, she's whirling now and slashing em crosswise - swish! swoosh! - to carve an X in a belly.

  As the entrails spills at Squirlet's feet, Trude's on her stickman's face, thumbs squishing eyes.

  3

  But as the last four bullets from Jake's guns take out the guards holding Puckerscruff, they ain't the only gunshots now. All em stickmen as has guns is firing em now, bullets flying everywhere.

  And alarms is ringing so's more stickmen are pouring in. Flashjack's chains round stickman necks gets grabbed. Joey's cornered. Puckerscruff's kneecapped. Trude's skull cracks under clubs.

  And as Squirlet slashes her way to the only thing as matters - the Stamp rolling on the floor where it were dropped by its bearers - bullets batter her back, dance her like a ragdoll. Them stickmen ain't no stormtroopers, mate.

  The Waiftaker General ain't no snooze neither. He's dived across the floor, beneath the hail of bullets, and now by fuck he's got the Stamp in one arm, scrambles for the doors - but no! Whelp's there before him, blocking his way.

  He dodges the dog's pounce, swinging his cane - CRACK! - across Whelp's skull, and it don't no more'n irk the dog, and the Stamp goes flying, but his broke cane's now a foot of splinter what he whirls up to meet the dog's next leap, pointed straight into the open jaws, driving straight into Whelp's gob, up into his brain.

  Yapper comes at him as a fury unleashed. Every one of em Scruffians is a fury unleashed at that. Jake and Joey's plowing a way to the doors, to slam em shut. And Vermintrude, Squirlet, Puckerscruff, they's a swarm of claws and razors and spikes, taking guards down beneath em, one by one. Flashjack's chains are falling molten from his wrists. And oh, he's a dance of death now.

  But the Waiftaker General's staggering back toward the millstone, ripping Yapper off him, swinging him through the air, hands clamped on neck and leg, the scamp's chest headed for the grind.

  Through the slaughter comes Rake Jake Scallion, not a body tripping him, not a bullet hitting him. Through the havoc he comes, so lightning swift as to rival Flashjack as he springs off one foot to spring off the altar with the other, flying through the air, roaring for Yapper.

  But oh, that villain, mates, that villain, he turns, he sees, and he throws Yapper from him, arching back out of Jake's path, and letting that path take Jake to the stone. And he's thrown himself at Jake's back. He's slamming him into the grind. And it's monstrous, monstrous... monstrous.

  4

  He's gone, mates, he's gone. Rake Jake Scallion, the boldest, bravest, biggest-hearted, belly-laughing best chum as ever wore the Stamp. And don't you dare say he weren't - any of yer. And don't you dare say the fabbles of him tells it larger than life. Why, didn't he jump a hundred feet-two hundred! three! - from a stolen airship, to smash his way into the heart of evil and save the very Scruffians as stole the Stamp? Didn't he, Flashjack? Puckerscruff? Joey?

  See? See? You mark it as Joey said it, mates. You mark it. Jake were the best.

  So can yer imagine it, mates, how's the heroes as were left went wild? How they gawped in horror at empty togs dropping from the Waiftaker General's hands. How the last dozen stickmen in that room glanced to doors as Joey was barring.

  How they turned their guns on Flashjack, desperately blasting, but he whirled to snatch every bullet, let the molten lead drip as their guns clicked empty. How Yapper yanked the stick from Whelp's gob, chucked it aside. Growled.

  How them Scruffians went wild then, butchering, till's the murderer stood alone among em.

  How he tried to run.

  BOOF! Flashjack dropkicks him in his gut, and the Waiftaker General staggers back and around, folding over double, his mouth an O of exploding breath. BAM! Puckerscruff punches him in the gob, and the Waiftaker General spins round on the spot, that O all squished to one side now.

  SHERSHWISH! And S
quirlet's razors come slicing through the air, across the Waiftaker General's face, slicing that squished O wide as a corpse's grin.

  CRUNCH! CRACK! And that's Trude and Yapper with stickmen clubs, taking out a kneecap each, and you can't imagine how twisty a grimace that O is now.

  SMACK! Even as he's crumpling forward, Joey boots him in the face, kicks him up and over to land flat on his back. And Puckerscruff and Vermintrude leaps for this, while's Squirlet and Yapper pounces on that, a scamp & scrag on each arm, pinning the bastard down.

  For all's his legs is busted, though, he tries to kick, so now Flashjack crouches, clamps fiery hands to knees. Burns right fucking through em, he does, leaving only stumps. Then steps aside.

  And what's this? Whelp coming slouching in, mate. Sinking his fangs between the thighs. Ripping that cuntfucker's goolies right off.

  5

  So now Flashjack Scarlequin and Whelp stand at his feet - or at the stumps of thigh, at least, where's his feet ought to be. And Joey Picaroni stands at his head looking down on this fucker as deserves all he's got and more, the Waiftaker General shrieking up at him, spitting blood, sobbing for mercy between gasps... or swearing misery? They's all damned, is the gist of it… maybe's.

  Whatever they does to him can't change that. Joey, he looks at the spikes in his hands what might end the man forever. No. He lets em clatter to the floor.