Conscience

by John Skipp

  Everything drones into everything else, as I lay here. Thinking and thinking and thinking. After a while, you come back in. I hate you. I hate myself.

  “I can’t get up,” I say.

  You say, “Uh-huh,” and go into the closet.

  Yes, I’m bad. I’ve done a horrible thing. And I’ll do it again, you know.

  If there’s one thing you understand, it’s that I will do it again.

  INTRO TO SOUL MAGGOT JAMBOREE (2002)

  Not a whole lot to say about this little ditty, you know? It’s just good clean fun!

  I slapped it together, in a couple of hours, for DEAD CATS BOUNCING: an original anthology assembled by writer Gerard Houarner and artist GAK, celebrating the further adventures of their beloved antic character, Dead Cat.

  I like Dead Cat so much that I gave him someone to play with.

  Hope you have more fun than Jake!

  And please, feel free to sing along.

  SOUL MAGGOT JAMBOREE

  (A Traditional Folk Ballad, From the Other Side)

  Jake was a rat. Everybody knew that. Fast-talking prick left his own oil slick. Lying, stealing, is-this-guy-for-realing: so far as that went, cat was out of the bag.

  So by the time his old buddies beat his fuckin’ass bloody, not even Jake feels surprise as he dies. It hurts, and he squirts like a hose as he goes.

  Then he’s falling, falling down.

  And in his eye-socket – that sopping red pocket – something is forming, way out of the norm. And from that red dripping, all his consciousness slipping...

  But not slipping to nowhere.

  Not gone.

  He hears:

  Meeeminy-meeeminy-meeemany-meeeee...

  (little voices of boisterous soul)

  Meeeminy-meeeminy-meeemany-meeeee...

  (little sprites, taking bites of his whole)

  Then Jake gets to Hell, hits the ground, starts to yell, with his larynx laid bare as his heart blows apart. And his ribs cave, skull staves, meat sprays –- HEY! – as the maggots move in. He’s a bucket of sin!

  Singing:

  Meeeminy-meeeminy-meeemany-meeeee...

  (Many many! Mini-mini! Many many mini-mini MEEEEEEE!!!)

  Singing:

  Meeeminy-meeeminy-meeemany-meeeee...

  (Then some yodeling ensues that ends with “many MEEEEE!!!”)

  In less than a second, he’s totally fecund with soul parasites. (Oh, such heavenly lights!) As he watches, they take all the good parts of Jake. The ones he believed in. All the ones unconceived.

  Then – surprise of surprises! – Jake’s black spirit rises. As he starts to ascend, maggots call to their friends. Many millions appear at the scene of the spleen.

  But it’s his meat no longer.

  He’s gone.

  Jake bounces – it’s true – from the black to the blue: to the land of the living. But is God so forgiving?

  Not likely, it seems. Guess again. In your dreams.

  If you’re like Jake, I’d start quaking soon.

  Cuz Jake is a rat. Everybody knows that. With a snout and a tail. Metaphor must prevail. Metaphor is made flesh. Dead rat wakes, and worlds mesh.

  This is bad news for Jake, all around.

  Dead cat sees. Dead rat flees. Dead cat chase. Dead rat race. Dead cat catch. Dead cat scratch. Dead rat screams. Cosmos gleams. Dead rat organs come out. Maggot angels all shout.

  Dead cat says: “I will chase you forever...”

  Dead rat Jake will transcend this all never.

  And each time that he dies, every speck of him cries (but the maggots are louder, and could not be more proud...)

  Meeeminy-meeeminy-meeemany-meeeee...

  (So if your fate, like Jake’s, seems precarious...)

  Meeeminy-meeeminy-meeemany-meeeee...

  (It’s not tragic. It’s fucking HILARIOUS!!!)

  INTRO TO WELCOME TO HERE (2002)

  Every year, Del and Sue Howison at Dark Delicacies put out a charity book, to support a local cause. And maybe it’s because the Howisons let their dogs, Boris and Natasha, actually edit the book; but this year, proceeds went toward animal rescue services.

  Every year, the writers and artists who contribute face a special challenge. This year, the challenge went like this: artists were to create a one-page work of original art. Then the writers would make up a one-page story, based upon said art.

  Enclosed, you’ll find Paul Springer’s lovely piece, and the words that it moved me to write. Took about an hour, and I just smiled the whole time.

  And, as an extra added bonus, now all the animals are fine!

  WELCOME TO HERE

  Reptile brain

  Is coiled, insane

  A ghost, unwinding its formative spine

  Down the entering soul

  Set apart from the Whole

  Because that, my new friend,

  Is the DNA’s role.

  You’re an infinite spirit

  But frankly, my dear

  It’s a natural-born fact

  That you’ll soon come to fear

  Cuz terrestrial mind

  Is quite blinkered and blind

  When it comes to recalling

  It is One with the All.

  You’ll forget. You’ll get lost. You’ll get tussled and tossed.

  You’ll get badgered and beaten and muscled and bossed.

  You’ll squirm and you’ll bleed and be crawling with need

  And you’ll wish you had some of my excellent weed.

  I know that it’s hard

  Cuz I’m not a retard

  So forgive me my quaint Dr. Seussery.

  You’re the new kid in town!

  Things get fucked to the ground!

  Just remember: the whole thing’s illusory.

  Life is a movie

  Performed in God’s mind.

  When you map out your own,

  Don’t forget to be kind.

  You’ll wish somebody did.

  Might as well be YOU, kid!

  If you ask me, that’s just

  God’s design.

  Because you are the Infinite One.

  You’ll be here forever, so try to have fun!

  The reptile brain will be here, too,

  But I’d rather dance with the soul of you.

  INTRO TO JOHNNY DEATH (1993)

  I gotta be painfully honest with you now. (In other words, I’ve been lying the whole time.)

  But I really had no intention of including screenplays in this book.

  Fact is, as I dug through my years of files – in search of solo fiction that I’d written, and still liked – I was stunned by how little solid one-man prose I’ve actually got on hand.

  There are tons of stories, believe me. Mostly written well before Skipp & Spector. But most of them remain unpublished – or at least unreprinted – for very good reasons. Chief amongst them being that they’re not all that great.

  (Which, by implication, certifies the SOLID GOLD STATUS of everything in this book! Aren’t you glad?)

  During the Skipp & Spector years (‘82-’93), almost everything I wrote wound up turning into a Skipp & Spector piece. We were a team, and that’s what teams do. Solo projects are distracting from the thrust of the mission.

  As such, most of the stuff I wrote myself went into DEAD LINES (our fourth collaboration, unless you count FRIGHT NIGHT, which is a novelization, and therefore doesn’t count). Some as written (“The Long Ride”, “Go To Sleep”); others revised with Craig Spector (“Gentlemen”, “Not With a Whimper”).

  At any rate, those stories already have a home, and seem quite happy there. So reprinting them here would just be lame, and I ain’t gonna do it. (If you’re interested, check out DEAD LINES. Next to THE BRIDGE, it’s now my favorite Skipp & Spector. And also the skinniest, by far.)

  A similar-yet-profoundly-different situation surrounds the bulk of my post-Spector short fiction. Because much of it was written with my good friend, Marc
Levinthal (with whom I wrote my happiest Big Fat Novel, THE EMERALD BURRITO OF OZ).

  And though we were never quite so joined at the hip, the fact remains that we’re saving those stories for a nice Skipp/Levinthal collection. Which, I think, will come out soon.

  The other, more pointed fact is: I’ve never published a book that I didn’t share with someone else.

  And I wanted to do that. I felt it was time.

  Which didn’t make this task much easier.

  And maybe it’s just my Big Fat Novel complex. A little size anxiety. I’ll leave it to the shrinks.

  But in the course of my archeological dig, I stumbled upon this script.

  JOHNNY DEATH was the first solo spec screenplay I wrote, upon arriving in Hollywood. It was my weird version of a big-budget, studio action/horror flick. To be released for Halloween consumption.

  Though Skipp & Spector were still in active duty, this was part of the beginning of the end of our partnership. (Not the only reason, I guaran-fucking-tee you. But a significant marker on the path, nonetheless.)

  You can call it selfish. You would not be alone. But it was something that I felt like I had to do.

  Bottom line: I just needed to write something by myself, without having to answer to anyone, on anything. To clear out my pipes, rediscover my soul, or at least try to remember what I sounded like on my own.

  So I made it into a screenplay. Taking about six weeks, to do so. And moved to Hollywood, in the process.

  Nobody ever said I was the smartest guy on Earth.

  Craig wasn’t happy, but what could he do? When push came to shove, I was a stubborn motherfucker.

  As such, his only contributions were:

  a) talking me out of a really weird scene, where Quinn sets up this monstrous rampaging hologram, harmlessly scaring the locals into fleeing; and

  b) suggesting a scene in a department store, where the Halloween costumes come alive. (I didn’t use it, but it was really cool.)

  Bottom line: this is a huge, cartoony, $100 million effects- driven extravaganza. When I first wrote it, I was thinking more like thirty. (Thank God no one in the world is still starving!)

  It’s the only spec script I ever wrote that I didn’t also intend to direct. As such, it is also the most conventional in structure and format.

  I am tempted to say that it’s also the least personal, because I knew I was giving its soul up, the second I sent it out.

  But this draft – gradually yet minimally refined, over the following ten years – remains a troublesome megahit-wannabe, precisely because it remains so personal. The structure is Hollywood, but the metaphysics are wild. Entirely pantheistic, which is what I’m all about.

  And when I sat it down next to CONSCIENCE, I recognized what I think is a neat book-ending effect. The feel couldn’t be more different, but all of the same concerns are there.

  I just want a better world. That’s all.

  And I’d like to point out that we ain’t there yet.

  JOHNNY DEATH has been all over Hollywood, and gotten me meetings in lots of high places. It has been much-praised, both sincerely and otherwise – by oodles of producers and development execs – for its pace and its characters, its Big Fat Scale, its R-rated invocation of creepy splatterpunk tropes.

  It has also never been made.

  Which is why I feel good about presenting it here.

  When JOHNNY finally hits the screen – given a huge leap of faith, which I will make all by myself – we shall see how much of its anarchic moral spirit prevails.

  At the very least, you’ll get to see what I saw, when I first envisioned this crazy-ass tale.

  In conclusion:

  Thanks for reading my book. I really hope you like it.

  Let’s talk real soon, okay?

  Love,

  Halloween Night

  2003

  JOHNNY DEATH (1993)

  EXT. HELL ON EARTH – BREAK OF DAWN

  A small town in ruins: freshly destroyed, the charred rubble still smoking. It looks like a nuclear bomb just went off.

  There are smoldering bodies in the dawn’s early light: tortured shapes, blending in with the devastation. Some of the bodies do not look human. The overall effect is incredibly haunting.

  CUT TO:

  EXT. EDGE OF TOWN – BREAK OF DAWN

  A STATE TROOPER screeches his cruiser to a halt at an intersection, inches from a capsized and burning cop car. Dozens of State and Federal vehicles pull up behind it. SUPER-TITLES:

  LOCKWOOD, INDIANA

  NOVEMBER 1

  LAST YEAR

  ANGLE – AGENT CASTLE

  He flashes his FBI credentials at the SWEATY COP closest to the perimeter. SWEATY COP nods and wipes his face. CASTLE pushes past, motions for his men to follow. Like Castle, they are stone-faced, well-armed professionals, trying hard not to show their terror.

  CASTLE

  Look alive, boys. It’ll make ya stand out from the crowd.

  TERRIFIED AGENT

  Fuck fuck fuck…

  Behind them, the streets and the buildings seem fine, though all the buildings are dark, and there is no crowd.

  HALLOWEEN ARTIFACTS adorn the dark buildings: husks of corn, spooky masks, still-burning JACK O’ LANTERNS.

  Castle steps over a spilled bag of candy, right next to a large pool of blood.

  Directly before him, Hell on Earth begins in earnest.

  CUT TO:

  EXT. HELL ON EARTH – BREAK OF DAWN

  Castle and his men – two dozen in all – enter Hell’s battlefield by stealth: weapons drawn, covering each other, ducking behind the plentiful debris.

  They move down a three-block stretch of blackened townhouses. Cars everywhere: on the sidewalks, on top of each other, at least one protruding from a second- story window.

  Castle looks behind him at the flashing red lights of authority, way back at the vanishing point.

  Then they enter the town square, where a BROKEN CIRCLE OF UNEARTHLY FIRE surrounds them.

  At the center, a PILE OF BODIES is being eaten by HELLISH VULTURE-THINGS. In the strange light, they do not look real.

  TERRIFIED AGENT (CONT.)

  Jesus…!!!

  The vulture-things look up, hideous HALF-HUMAN FACES screeching in surprise and rage.

  The Feds open fire; and to their horror, their bullets go right through the monsters. As if they aren’t even in the same dimension.

  Then the creatures attack. And things get very physical.

  A vulture-thing swoops down on the Terrified Agent, drags him screaming to the ground. He is only the first.

  A dozen men are pulled down in a matter of seconds.

  CUT TO:

  MYSTERY POV

  Circling wide around the circle of fire, then closing in, watching the slaughter.

  CUT TO:

  ANGLE – AGENT CASTLE

  He shouts commands at his last dozen men, as they break into panicky retreat. Other SCAVENGER DEMONS are circling in now: JACKAL-HEADED MEN that both scavenge and prey.

  The jackal-men start tearing into the retreating Feds. It’s a bloodbath.

  Castle wheels, sees one of the vultures heading straight for his face. He screams, falling backwards…

  …just as a FLASH OF LIGHT separates the VULTURE’S HEAD from its body.

  ANGLE – JOHNNY DEATH

  Standing over Castle. Handsome. Intense. In his early twenties. He is dressed in black, with a t-shirt that reads WELCOME TO BEAUTIFUL SCENIC HELL. There is inhuman blood on his shirt, face and hands.

  He holds the DEMON SWORD: a deadly, semi-translucent blade of GLEAMING SPIRIT STEEL which – as if it were a hologram – almost disappears at certain angles, and then flickers back into savage, glaring 3-D focus.

  CASTLE

  WHOA!!!

  JOHNNY rests the point of the blade at the center of Castle’s forehead. Castle sucks breath sharply. Like the monsters, Johnny looks slightly unreal, otherworldly in the hellish glow.


  A jackal-man appears behind Johnny, is promptly gutted by the blade as Johnny whirls. He is graceful, powerful, expert and fearless. THREE MORE CREATURES ATTACK. Johnny hacks them apart, blood hissing like hot grease from their wounds.

  Johnny raises the sword over his head. It gleams, pale and deadly. The SCAVENGER DEMONS retreat in horror, vultures and jackals alike.

  Then he looks at Castle. Shakes his head a little. And starts heading back the way they came, gesturing for him to follow.

  At that point, Castle realizes that all his men are dead. Some of them – the ones who got the farthest – are being EATEN now. As Johnny walks toward them, the DEMONS RETREAT, SCREECHING.

  Castle hustles to catch up.

  CASTLE

  Okay. Okay, okay…FUCK!

  (catching up)

  Omigod. Omigod. I’m sorry…

  Johnny says nothing, keeps walking. Castle comes up beside him, tries to look into his eyes.

  CASTLE (CONT.)

  I mean, I…I’ve read all your files. I’ve been following your, your case f-for the last six months, and I…

  Johnny stares hard at Castle, keeps walking. He has the eyes of a very old soul. Castle, for his part, is walking the line of hysteria: almost laughing, almost crying, almost contained.