Fuck the Rules

by Chizmar, Richard

  She must have passed out, because when she opened her eyes again, Marsha’s thin, pinched face was looking up at her.

  Please God, don’t make this a mirage.

  With Marsha were three of the girls from her pack, all dressed for a night out on the town, hair straightened, lips glossed, as though they’d just stepped out of a beauty salon.

  Marsha tossed back her mane of long, black hair. “Did you think you’d get away with this?”

  “What are you talking about? Get me down from here, Marsha.”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no? Get me down from this fucking cross – come on you guys, help me, please. I was attacked by a crazy mob and they may be back any minute.”

  “Then they'll find you, won’t they?”

  “Look, I don’t have much strength left – get me down and take me back to the flat.”

  “No, Marnie – you’ve disobeyed the rules once too often. And now you’ve broken one of the most important: never get separated from the pack and hunt alone,” said Marsha, examining long, manicured nails.

  “I’m sorry,” she continued, “but there’s nothing I can do about it. We have to live by a code and if we don’t, we’re less than human or animal. You decided, in your wisdom, that the code you signed up for when you joined my pack didn’t apply to you. Now you have to take the consequences. Goodbye, oath-breaker, and good riddance.”

  Marnie’s four packmates stared up at her, expressionless, then turned on their heels and walked away, swallowed up by the night.

  “Don’t leave me, please. Don’t leave,” shrieked Marnie, convulsing against the rope so hard, the resulting spasms of pain caused her to pass out.

  When she came to, she had no idea how much time had lapsed, her only companion the grinding pain that wracked her entire body. She was sure her arms had been pulled out their sockets.

  The sky was lightening and, along with the birds, she could hear yells and shouts in the distance – the mob were returning. Having rescue offered and then snatched away was far worse than her physical agony.

  Wait, what’s that? Someone’s nearby – is it them?

  She tried and failed to turn her head, panicking. A young man with long, fair hair caked in blood limped into her line of vision.

  “Please, don’t hurt me,” she muttered.

  “I’m not one of those wankers – I’m here to help, not hurt you. I’ll call your friends and they’ll get you down from there – you’re too high up for me to reach on my own. We’re going to need to take the cross down, lay it flat and then untie you while you’re on the ground. Who were those girls who spoke to you – why didn’t they help? Fucking sight-seers make me sick.”

  The young man’s clothes hung around him in rags and his arm was bent at a strange angle, suggesting it had been broken.

  “Get an ambulance,” moaned Marnie.

  “We can’t risk it. These lunatics are everywhere. Oh, and I’m Robert, by the way.”

  “Phone your friends then, Robert, because I no longer have any. Hold on.” She closed her eyes, concentrating. “Why didn’t you call your mates before, if you have a mobile?”

  “Making phone calls isn't really an option when you’re being savagely beaten. Besides, it would only have gotten them killed.”

  “Where did you come from?” said Marnie, suddenly suspicious of her white knight.

  “I was attacked like you. They stuffed me in a sack and beat me – that total bastard Brian kept knocking the wind out of me. They caught me in Marchmont as I was on my way home and they’ve been torturing me ever since – they even carved stuff into my chest and back, can you fucking believe it? One of them tried to hack my foot off, but then they snatched you and I was saved. Just try to hang on ‘til my friends come.”

  “Oh, I’m going to do a bit more than that,” said Marnie.

  “Oh, like what?”

  “Those bastards pride themselves on breaking the rules, so I’m going to show them how it’s done.”

  Robert’s eyes flickered. “What?”

  “Let’s just say those sight-seers inspired me to break the number one prohibition of my pack: I’m going to transform in public for the whole world to see. And when I do, I’m going to kill them all – the mob, my pack, every last motherfucker.”

  “Your pack?” Robert said, uncertainty in his voice. “Please say you’re not one of those nut-jobs that think they’re a werewolf?”

  “I’m so much worse than that,” she snarled, curling her palms towards her wrists, her extending nails cutting into the rope that bound them.

  The mob draws close. I must work faster.

  “Hey, your skin has gone all… fuzzy,” Robert said, dropping the phone as she succeeded in cutting one of her hands free. “And there’s something wrong with your teeth…”

  “You should fall to your knees in honour of this moment, fool,” she growled, freeing the other hand as her now elongated feet slipped free of the rope. She dropped to the ground on all fours, tearing her clothes off to reveal a back rippling with a forest of spotted fur. The huge, striped head with the tufted ears and long muzzle was like a grotesque feline mask, a travesty of human and animal combined in an affront to the laws of evolution.

  Robert froze, finally frightened.

  “Please don’t hurt me – I was trying to help you.”

  “Run,” said Marnie, through a crowded mouth. “The mob approaches and I’m losing control. Run, and pray to God I don’t catch you.”

  Don’t Be A Cunt

  (The Only Rule To Follow)

  Toneye Eyenot

  What a piece of shit world we live in, when one has to pay to wake up. Taxed from the moment you switch on a light because it’s stupid o’clock in the fucking morning, it’s still dark outside and will be for at least another hour-and-a-half, and you stumble around like a zombie to get ready for work.

  Work. What the fuck is that about, anyway? I’ll tell ya. It’s about draggin’ your arse outta bed five days a week, goin’ to a place you hate bein’ at and slavin’ your guts out for eight hours a day to make some fat, greedy cunt rich off the sweat of your labours. And that’s not even the worst part. Two days out of five you do it for free. That’s right, fucking free! That’s the percentage of your time and hard-earned pittance goin’ to the Taxman. (There’s that dreaded ‘T’ word again.) Never thought about that, did ya? No, because all you can think about is makin’ it to your next paycheck without snappin’ and smashin’ the boss’s smug face through his mahogany desk. Isn’t that just enough to make you say, “Fuck this shit, I’m gonna start killin’ cunts if this continues much longer”?

  You’re a slave. Blundering your way around this free-range prison we call ‘society’ under the illusion that you’re uncontrolled. But you’re not. Don’t fuckin’ kid yourself, mate. None of us are. We’re the bottom feeders, consuming the excrement of our ‘betters’, who in turn are consuming the excrement of their betters and so on and on, all the way up the shit-smeared ladder to success – a word only a select few ever truly manage to grasp the concept of. If achievement is measured by hard work and perseverance, then shouldn’t we all be succeeding? By rights, yes, we should be, but we aren’t. We’re trapped in an endless cycle of ‘sleep, wake up, work, consume, sleep, wake up, work, consume’ until ya eventually get to retire with fuck-all time left to reap any significant reward for a life of toil.

  All I can say is, thank fuck they abolished the carbon tax. Think about that for a moment. It’s fine if you wanna inhale, but in order to carry on livin’ you need to exhale, and to exhale they expect you to pay a tax for that? A tax to fucking breathe? Come on! How much more can they squeeze out of us before there’s simply nothin’ left?

  Getting’ to ya, aren’t I? I can see that vein throb, the spastic twitch in your eye as I slowly drag you outta the fugue you’ve lived in your entire life. Those fucks who sit in their ivory towers, making up rules and laws to dictate how you live – the untouchable
s – laugh with abandon at the billions of performing monkeys under their control. I know you. You’re a decent person and try to do right by everyone – a noble trait. What do ya get in return, though? Gratitude? Yeah, from some. Most, however, are caught up in their own mental miasma and overlook the efforts of their fellow man. Society has become so numb, so… selfish. It’s not their fault. They’re just like you: trying to get by in an increasingly hostile world.

  But to protect themselves from being exposed, these secretive demons who pull our strings divert our attention from their nefarious doings and cast it onto others like yourself. Your hatred, your anger, your fucking furious rage, if combined with the frenzy of seven billion others, would bring those ivory towers crashing to the ground faster than the World Trade Centre. Divide and conquer; that’s the age-old game they play. While you get shuffled around on the gameboard of life, obeying your invisible masters – teachers, the judicial system, law enforcement… fuckin’ God – you have been taught to hate people you don’t even know based on nothing more than a label. Religion, social status, political persuasion, you name it – they are nothing more than systems of control designed to keep you docile while you stuff your face on toxic garbage packaged as food and cheer for your favourite, grossly overpaid football team on the idiot box.

  All the while, throughout these myriad of carefully orchestrated distractions, those men in their ivory towers hatch foul plots against us.

  That’s it. Now you’re gettin’ it. I see that spark in your eye, now let it ignite. Know your enemy and don’t let ‘em tell ya what to fuckin’ do anymore. This is your life, and yours alone, so live and die on your terms, not theirs. Fuck their rules, because the only rule which holds any validity is ‘don’t be a cunt’; everything else is tyranny and oppression, inflicted upon you by, yep… cunts.

  PINNNNGGGG!

  Welcome to your epiphany.

  I’m glad you’ve finally understood and taken heed. I am your voice of reason, and let me tell you, after all these decades in your numb skull, watchin’ you through your clouded eyes, bowin’ to your masters and demandin’ homage from your peers like a good little slave, there have been times I’ve wanted to walk you out into traffic, off a cliff, or into that woodchipper in the lumberyard you’ve slaved at for the past twenty-five years. Whichever method, ending your miserable existence would’ve been a pleasing respite because I don’t think I could’ve taken much more of your blind ignorance. You are better than that.

  So, are ya just gonna keep on sittin’ here? Let’s go! It’s time to fight back. Time to fuck the system that’s been fuckin’ you nine ways from Sunday since ya left the womb. I know just the place to start. Where it all began with you: TV. This was where your indoctrination was initiated, where you were first exposed to the insidious art of distraction. Your parents weren’t to know that when they plonked you down on the floor in front of the idiot box so you’d be quiet and out of the way, they were pluggin’ you into the matrix. Your sledgehammer in the shed will take care of the immediate problem, and then we can move onto the bigger ‘picture’ – the local broadcasting station.

  That’s it, take a swing. Wait! Unplug it from the wall first, idiot. You wanna electrocute yourself? That’ll bring things to an untimely end. Geez.

  I have to prepare you for the fact that people are gonna die. It’s a necessary evil, though. Don’t feel bad. They have been complicit in dispensing the materials – the mind poison – which has helped keep you docile and subservient to a bullshit agenda. From the deceptively named reality shows which dominate television programming, interspersed with blatant as well as subliminal advertisements to make you feel you need things which are useless, to the worst of all: the news reports, so embellished of the truth and grossly sensationalised to evoke the desired emotional response. They have been brainwashing you your entire life. Fuck them. They are parasites and need to be eradicated.

  You feel better, yeah? Feels good to destroy something that has ruled your life. Trust me, this is nothing compared to what you will feel when you are finally free. Tip of the iceberg right here.

  It’s one AM and the cleaner at the TV station will be finishing his shift in half an hour. You ready? Let’s do this. You wanna arrive before he leaves, and it’s gonna take at least fifteen minutes to get there. After that, you’ll have about four hours to completely destroy the joint before the puppets turn up for the day’s puppet show.

  Grab your hoodie and a bandanna to wrap around your face. You’ll be on camera … at least until ya take ‘em out, hehe.

  *

  You’re drivin’ like an old bitch – put ya foot down, for fuck’s sake. There’s nobody on the road at this hour; fuck the speed limit. That’s another bullshit rule. You’re a competent driver. As long as you’re safe, you can go as fast as ya damn well please. Red light? Run the cunt. It’s early hours and there’s nobody around to hit. Red – a colour known to promote irritability and increase rage. Why the fuck do they make a stoplight red? I don’t give a fuck how they try to explain that one away or justify it. How many people enjoy coming to a stoplight? Fuckin’ no one.

  Here we are. Pull up over there, outta sight.

  Now we wait. Yeah, sometimes when ya decide to fuck the rules, there’s a little waitin’ involved if ya wanna do it right. You timed it well, though. He should be comin’ out in a few minutes. See? If you’d stuck to the limit and waited at that light, chances are you’d have turned up too late.

  That must be his car over there. It’s a pretty lit-up area of the car park. How’s your throwin’ arm? C’mon, let’s do this. You have a few minutes, tops. Grab some rocks from around that garden and take out those lights, quick. May as well take ‘em all out while you’re at it. Plunge the whole exterior into darkness; it’ll be harder for you to get spotted.

  Nice! You’re a fuckin’ natural, mate.

  Alright, gonna spring this one on ya so don’t freak out and bail on me. You’re gonna have to kill this cunt. Bein’ your voice of reason, there’s a good chance I’m gonna fade into your subconscious for a spell while logic takes a back seat. Shit’s gonna get messy and more than a little chaotic, but I have faith in ya. You can do this. Just think of him as a TV set as ya bash his brains in.

  I’m only sayin’ this because you’ll need his keys and the security code to get in without trippin’ the alarm. Just break his leg at first. You’re gonna need him to turn off the thing, and then fuck him; he’ll have outgrown his usefulness. Kill the cunt, because if ya don’t, he’ll squeal and the pigs’ll be here before ya get a chance to destroy much of anything. We’ve got a lot more to do after this.

  Yeah, yeah, I know. ‘Don’t be a cunt’. Think of it this way: Y’know the saying, “To make an omelette, ya gotta break a few eggs”? Well, as rough as it might sound, this cleaner is just an egg and you have one helluva big omelette to make. Chalk it up to collateral damage and try not to think about it too hard. You’ve got this, mate.

  Quick, hide! Here he comes. Remember, the crowbar will probably kill him straight up if ya hit him in the head and we don’t want that. Not yet, anyway. Just aim for the knee, but be prepared to shut him up real quick because that fucker is gonna scream like a bitch.

  Don’t chicken out on me now. Damn, your heart is beatin’ fast! Stay with me, man. The blood poundin’ in your ears is fuckin’ loud. You’ll wanna be able to hear what I’m sayin’. Just stay here behind the car until he gets to his door. Ready? Ready? OK, now!

  Shut him the fuck up! He’s gonna scream the whole fuckin’ neighbourhood down. Shove that glove in his trap. That’s the way. Ah shit, man, that even made me cringe. That’s no easy feat either. Nicely done.

  Time for Mr. Cleanerman to go back to work. Double shift for this fucker. Pick his keys up. You’re gonna need that swipe card. Get him up, let’s go. If he won’t – or can’t – walk, fuckin’ drag him. Threaten to take out his other leg.

  *

  We’re in, alarm is disarmed, now fuck him
up. Just one to the h— OK , two. Or three… four.

  He’s dead, man. You can stop now. Fuck, mate. You like this a little too much. Remember, don’t be a cunt. We’re here to destroy this place and time’s a-tickin’. Let’s start with takin’ out that camera. You’re covered up pretty well but you never know these days. Don’t forget your gloves. No fingerprints. Right, we have a few hours to play. Let’s see how much damage you can do.

  Ah, the TV production studio. So this is where the magic happens. Where they manipulate footage to suit whatever agenda they wish to push on the gullible population. Smash it all, room by room. A crowbar is such a versatile tool, don’t ya think?

  Nice work, mate. You’re really gettin’ the hang of this. You have a nice smile when you’re enjoyin’ yourself. You should enjoy yourself more often, hahaha. Leave it; you’ve done sufficient destruction here. There’s so much more to see.

  The studio floor: this is where the actors play their role. So much to see here, all of which is manufactured – fake. Start with their precious green screen. Destroy that shit, their treasured tool of deception. All these cameras, stage lighting rigs, video monitors – smash ‘em and then we’ll move on to the control room for the final blow.

  Well, this’ll be easy. Wait, do you smell smoke? Looks like you’ve started a fire back there in the studio. Well, well, well! Things just got even easier! Quick, into the Master Control Room for a speedy rampage – just for good measure – and then you’re outta here. You can let the fire do the rest. I suspect fire alarms will be goin’ off any minute now. Make sure you demolish that panel there good ‘n’ proper. That’s the sprinkler system. Can’t have that undoin’ all your hard work now.

  Poor ol’ cleaner man will be burnt to a crisp; might even be charred beyond any sign of foul play on your part.

  OK, let’s get outta here.

  *

  Now, tell me that wasn’t fun, yeah? Liberating, innit? Ah, don’t feel bad for the egg. Your omelette is startin’ to take form and you wanna be able to enjoy a good meal when this is all over.