Back to GatefoldIssue #15 by Brad Horton
"I Know What You Did Last Issue" |
"...for I am MADINA!!!" a muffled voice yells psychotically.
The sound of thunder erupts from inside the office. I roll my eyes. My hands are tied behind my back and all my weapons are gone. Even the concealed ones. These chicks mean business.
Okay, this morning, I went to this kid named Red's house and receieved my assignment: a hit list of three people. Two people down; this "Madina" is the last one. She's the head manager of the Ridgestic Cinema. I'm kinda lost as to why Red wants her offed.
The slow-witted, however Amazonian, assistant manager, Codi, comes out of the office and grabs me off the bench I was sitting on, throwing me into the office. I land in a chair. The door closes, leaving me alone with...no one?
The swivel chair behind the desk in front of me turns around, revealing a butt-ugly woman with Whoopi Goldberg hair and a gray jumpsuit. Hey, someone just beat Cher on the women-I-would-never-touch-with-an-8-inch-rod list. She's petting some kind of lizard.
Did I mention I hate Wisconsin?
"Who sent you?" Madina asks.
"Where are my weapons?"
"I asked you a question, boyh!" she yells, slapping me across my face...with her hair. That thing is a sentient, white-person afro, man.
I think her lizard just smiled at me.
"Who sent you?" she asks again.
I smirk, "I don't know the name. I spoke with the...person over the phone."
"Man or woman?"
Technically, he ain't a man yet...
"Eh...it's a...an...it."
"An it? You telling me an asexual person is out to kill me?"
"No, I'm here to kill you, dimwit!" I spit at her. This was getting fun.
Madina chucks her lizard at me, whacking me upside the head. Just as the lizard bounces off my head, I grab onto its tail with my teeth, flinging it back at her.
In a fit of rage, she spins the lizard by its tail like a pair of nunchucks, knocking over stacks of papers on her desk. When she realizes what she's done, she slams the lizard on the floor. I'm biting my lip, trying not to laugh.
"That's IT!" she yelps, jumping over the desk, nabbing my mask off. She stares at me for a couple seconds. "Why is it always the pretty ones?"
Hold up. She thinks I'm hot? Gross. She looks like a man, man.
Suddenly, the chair I'm tied up in morphs into a flat table, restraining my arms and legs. I'm sprawled out on the table. Guess she's going to torture me...
Aw crap!
"Shouldn't we talk first?" I ask.
"Don't flatter yourself," Madina growls. She presses a button on her remote. Where the hell did that come from? Anyway, a laser gun thing of sorts opens up from a tiny compartment in the ceiling.
The laser lights up as it sends a thin beam at the end of the table I'm laying on, slowing inching its way upward towards my...OH MY GOD! She is ripping off Bond movies!
"Now who sent you?!" Madina asks psychotically.
"What's the magic word?"
"Una agala mu sha MOCH!" she chants. A little flash of lightning, and she pulls out a rabbit from her fro. "Wait...that's not what I wanted." She tosses the rabbit in the air, incinerating it with a blast of flame from her eyes.
Okay...Red said nothing of her being an incredibly powerful sorcoress with a Dr. Evil-complex.
"Now I've got the right incantation...," she says, clearing her throat. "Um jala NU kha MOCH!"
Another flash of lightning. Another rabbit.
"What the frickin' flappity frick!?!" she yells.
Meanwhile, the laser is inching closer to my...God this woman knows no bounds. This is straight from that Bond flick. You can't copycat an evil crime from a movie. It's...just...evil!
Madina curses at the devil for not granting her rabbits and storms out of the office, leaving this laser to cut me in half. This was going to take brains...possibly a little healing factor action and duct tape if my brain fails.
Okay...think. What would Aquaman do?
...
Eh....
He'd telepathically contact a blue whale! All right!
Wait...I can't do that. Wisconsin isn't by any oceans...and this isn't even the DC Universe! What the funk am I talking about?
The laser is getting closer...damn, this thing is slow.
Maybe if I blow on it...the laser, I mean.
Okay, so I'm sitting here, blowing my crotch. Laser's still coming at me.
Would this thing actually kill me? Theoretically, I'd heal up seconds after the laser passed through me...unless the laser cuts my brain in half...I don't think I can heal that. Years of booze'll do that.
Wait....the lesbianic manager chick! Of course!
"LESBIANS! THREE FOR A DOLLAH!!!" a yell in my best impression of Michael Jackson possible.
Codi, the slow-witted assistant to Madina, busts the door down. "Where? What lesbians?" She looks down at me.
I smile, "Kinda...need some help. I can help you find those lesbians. I saw 'em in here. They hid in the other room over there."
Codi bites her lip, "Yer persperation seems logistic."
What?
"What?" I ask.
"I don't know what I said..." Codi says somberly. She has multi-colored wax on her lips.
"Have you been eating...crayons?" I ask.
Codi suddenly shifts her eyes from left to right. "Um...nope."
*RRRREELLLCCCHHH*
I sniff the air from that burp. Oh yeah...that was Purple Mountain's Majesty, all right. Don't ask why I know the scents of Crayola Crayons...it was perscription, I swear. You can't prove anything! Leave me alone!
"Um...couldja turn of this laser? I won't tell anyone you eat crayons," I promise.
"You promise ta?"
AH! THAT'S THE JUNK! OWIE! OWIE! OWIE!
"YES!!!" I squeal.
"Laser, turn off."
{{Turning off.}}
"That's all I had to have done?" I pant, wincing as my sensitives start to heal.
Codi nods, stuffing a crayon in her mouth.
I sigh, "It's always the simplest solution I overlook. Um...could you get me outta this?"
Codi picks pieces of crayon wrapper out of her teeth, "I guess..."
# # # # #
"Okay, we've got freakin' kids throwing popcorn in theater eleven -- where'd the assassin go?" Madina asks as she walks into the office with a cashbox full of money.
Codi is sitting at her desk, fiddling with a pen that has just squirted ink in her eye. "Um...I didn't see him."
"Well, we have to find him. He's dangerous!" Madina shouts, her eyes turning bright red.
# # # # #
"GAH!" Red shouts as he turns around, seeing me at his window. He opens it, motioning for me to come in. "So, did you do it?"
"Well, not entirely--"
Red swears up a storm. I didn't know you could turn a word like that into a swear...cool. I'll have to use that. "What the hell were you thinking coming back here?! Now they're going to question me!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's the matter? Why would they question you? Who's they?" I ask.
"The cops...see, I used to work at that theater," Red explains.
"And you want revenge against Madina because she's a bitch and she fired you?"
"No...I quit."
"So...why do you want her to die?"
"...We all die sooner or later."
"Are you hiding something, Red?"
He shoves a $100 bill in my face, "Stop with the questions."
"Where do you get this money?" I ask. He shoves another one in my face.
Lightbulb!
"What's your real name?"
# # # # #
Get the last job done, and I'll tell you, he says to me? ARGH! That is so disappointing! Now I'm back at this punk-ass theater. About a dozen armed guards are everywhere. Kinda strange, considering this Madina character is a sorcoress...
# # # # #
"...God damn it!" Madina shouts. She flings the rabbit from her hands. "Just once, I want a dragon with frickin' lasers on it to pop out of my afro!"
Codi burps as she swallows a yellow-orange crayon. "Can I have the bunny?"
"Fine. But don't feed it crayons...I've got enough terds lying around," Madina says, glaring at Codi.
"Yay!" Codi rejoyces, picking up the Dutch rabbit, rubbing its nose with her own. "I'll name you...Codi Junior!"
Madina makes a sound that seems like growling and sighing at the same time. She mutters another spell to herself. Pauses, reaches into her hair, and pulls out a chiuauua.
"Son of a..." Madina mutters.
"Can I?" Codi asks.
"Yes..."
"Yay! You can be called Codi the Third!" Codi yells, picking up the shivering chiuaua.
"Yo quiero Taco Bell," the dog declares.
"A talkin' dog? Waw!" Codi yells.
"¡Ay caramba! Una mujer tonta," the dog sighs. "Necesito un trabajo más bueno que este cine."
"Hmm...must be dog-ese," Codi wonders aloud.
The dog looks over at the rabbit, "Holá, señorita."
The rabbit rolls her eyes apathetically, "Shut up, I will not let you bone me."
"WAW! They cin bof talk!" Codi screams.
Madina's eyes explode with energy, "SHUT THE FREAKIN'-FLAPPITY-FRICK-FLAMIN'-FLOGGER-FROGGER-FARGO-FLAMINGO-FREIGHTER-FUCK UP...GOD DAMN IT!"
Flames burst from the floor around Madina. She's foaming around the mouth. She fails to see the uzi press up against her head. Without moving her head, she sees out of the corner of her eye that it was Deadpool.
*BLAM*
"You're the new manager, Codi. Use your power wisely," Deadpool says.
Codi claps, "Thanks, Spider-Man!"
"I'm...I'm not Spider-Man."
"Then who're ya?"
"I'm *dramatic pause* Deadpool."
"That movie with Clint Eastwood--?"
"--No!"
Codi shrugs, pressing a button at Madina's former desk, sending Madina's corpse through a trap door, being incinerated by flames in an underground furnace.
As Deadpool sneaks up the ventalation shaft, Codi looks down at her talking animal friends, Codi II and Codi III. "Okay, who wants to play Monopoly?"
"Eh...sí, muy bien," the dog says.
"Whatever, as long as I'm not the friggin' thimble," the rabbit sighs.
"Bein' a movie theater manager rocks!" Codi exclaims (keep in mind she ain't the tastiest crayon in the box).
Just as I'm about to leave the office, I spot a walkie-talkie sitting in a charger. I pick it up and press the talk button. "Calling all units," I announce, snickering.
{{"Who is this?"}} a teenaged usher asks over the walkie.
"I'm watching you," I whisper.
{{"What?"}}
"I'm right behind you. I've got a knife..."
{{"Holy shit!"}}
{{"Watch your language!!"}} an older male shouts. It must have been one of the managers.
{{"Sorry,"}} the teen apologizes. {{"There's this guy on the walkies...I don't think it's an employee."}}
{{"Hm...Codi, you know anything about this?"}} the manager asks.
{{"Nope. HAHA, yer in jail, Codi II!"}} she answers.
I can't stop snickering. I talk into the radio again, "I have herpes...I'm gonna give it to you through the radio....heh..."
Silence.
{{"...Who is this?"}} the teen asks after the pause.
"HAHA! You've got herpes! Herpes boy! Herpes boy!"
# # # # #
Later, the next day, in New York...
I throw the briefcase of money on the kitchen table. Red was kind of weary when he gave me the money, but I guess there's nothing suspicious...
What in the crap?! This thing is full of Monopoly money...and...and....coupons! I'm gonna kill that little...oh, a note.
I clear my throat, reading the letter aloud, "Dear DP: Sorry to inform you like this, but the reward money had to be cut into the pay for the damaged car, garage door, lightpost, mailbox, and dog. There should be some money left over, but not much. Maybe the coupons can help you ease the pain a little. The Monopoly money was my sister's idea of a joke. Sincerely, Red."
"Knew I shoulda opened it back in Wisconsin...," I mutter.
I rustle through the brief case for about a half hour and count $4,000 real money. The rest is about $20 in coupons for non-perishable food items. The Monopoly money...that...that's toilet paper for this week, I guess.
If only I wasn't such a suck-ass driver...but I digress. Time to buy 80 cans of soup!
NEXT ISSUE: Would you believe? Darth Maul?
The sound of thunder erupts from inside the office. I roll my eyes. My hands are tied behind my back and all my weapons are gone. Even the concealed ones. These chicks mean business.
Okay, this morning, I went to this kid named Red's house and receieved my assignment: a hit list of three people. Two people down; this "Madina" is the last one. She's the head manager of the Ridgestic Cinema. I'm kinda lost as to why Red wants her offed.
The slow-witted, however Amazonian, assistant manager, Codi, comes out of the office and grabs me off the bench I was sitting on, throwing me into the office. I land in a chair. The door closes, leaving me alone with...no one?
The swivel chair behind the desk in front of me turns around, revealing a butt-ugly woman with Whoopi Goldberg hair and a gray jumpsuit. Hey, someone just beat Cher on the women-I-would-never-touch-with-an-8-inch-rod list. She's petting some kind of lizard.
Did I mention I hate Wisconsin?
"Who sent you?" Madina asks.
"Where are my weapons?"
"I asked you a question, boyh!" she yells, slapping me across my face...with her hair. That thing is a sentient, white-person afro, man.
I think her lizard just smiled at me.
"Who sent you?" she asks again.
I smirk, "I don't know the name. I spoke with the...person over the phone."
"Man or woman?"
Technically, he ain't a man yet...
"Eh...it's a...an...it."
"An it? You telling me an asexual person is out to kill me?"
"No, I'm here to kill you, dimwit!" I spit at her. This was getting fun.
Madina chucks her lizard at me, whacking me upside the head. Just as the lizard bounces off my head, I grab onto its tail with my teeth, flinging it back at her.
In a fit of rage, she spins the lizard by its tail like a pair of nunchucks, knocking over stacks of papers on her desk. When she realizes what she's done, she slams the lizard on the floor. I'm biting my lip, trying not to laugh.
"That's IT!" she yelps, jumping over the desk, nabbing my mask off. She stares at me for a couple seconds. "Why is it always the pretty ones?"
Hold up. She thinks I'm hot? Gross. She looks like a man, man.
Suddenly, the chair I'm tied up in morphs into a flat table, restraining my arms and legs. I'm sprawled out on the table. Guess she's going to torture me...
Aw crap!
"Shouldn't we talk first?" I ask.
"Don't flatter yourself," Madina growls. She presses a button on her remote. Where the hell did that come from? Anyway, a laser gun thing of sorts opens up from a tiny compartment in the ceiling.
The laser lights up as it sends a thin beam at the end of the table I'm laying on, slowing inching its way upward towards my...OH MY GOD! She is ripping off Bond movies!
"Now who sent you?!" Madina asks psychotically.
"What's the magic word?"
"Una agala mu sha MOCH!" she chants. A little flash of lightning, and she pulls out a rabbit from her fro. "Wait...that's not what I wanted." She tosses the rabbit in the air, incinerating it with a blast of flame from her eyes.
Okay...Red said nothing of her being an incredibly powerful sorcoress with a Dr. Evil-complex.
"Now I've got the right incantation...," she says, clearing her throat. "Um jala NU kha MOCH!"
Another flash of lightning. Another rabbit.
"What the frickin' flappity frick!?!" she yells.
Meanwhile, the laser is inching closer to my...God this woman knows no bounds. This is straight from that Bond flick. You can't copycat an evil crime from a movie. It's...just...evil!
Madina curses at the devil for not granting her rabbits and storms out of the office, leaving this laser to cut me in half. This was going to take brains...possibly a little healing factor action and duct tape if my brain fails.
Okay...think. What would Aquaman do?
...
Eh....
He'd telepathically contact a blue whale! All right!
Wait...I can't do that. Wisconsin isn't by any oceans...and this isn't even the DC Universe! What the funk am I talking about?
The laser is getting closer...damn, this thing is slow.
Maybe if I blow on it...the laser, I mean.
Okay, so I'm sitting here, blowing my crotch. Laser's still coming at me.
Would this thing actually kill me? Theoretically, I'd heal up seconds after the laser passed through me...unless the laser cuts my brain in half...I don't think I can heal that. Years of booze'll do that.
Wait....the lesbianic manager chick! Of course!
"LESBIANS! THREE FOR A DOLLAH!!!" a yell in my best impression of Michael Jackson possible.
Codi, the slow-witted assistant to Madina, busts the door down. "Where? What lesbians?" She looks down at me.
I smile, "Kinda...need some help. I can help you find those lesbians. I saw 'em in here. They hid in the other room over there."
Codi bites her lip, "Yer persperation seems logistic."
What?
"What?" I ask.
"I don't know what I said..." Codi says somberly. She has multi-colored wax on her lips.
"Have you been eating...crayons?" I ask.
Codi suddenly shifts her eyes from left to right. "Um...nope."
*RRRREELLLCCCHHH*
I sniff the air from that burp. Oh yeah...that was Purple Mountain's Majesty, all right. Don't ask why I know the scents of Crayola Crayons...it was perscription, I swear. You can't prove anything! Leave me alone!
"Um...couldja turn of this laser? I won't tell anyone you eat crayons," I promise.
"You promise ta?"
AH! THAT'S THE JUNK! OWIE! OWIE! OWIE!
"YES!!!" I squeal.
"Laser, turn off."
{{Turning off.}}
"That's all I had to have done?" I pant, wincing as my sensitives start to heal.
Codi nods, stuffing a crayon in her mouth.
I sigh, "It's always the simplest solution I overlook. Um...could you get me outta this?"
Codi picks pieces of crayon wrapper out of her teeth, "I guess..."
# # # # #
"Okay, we've got freakin' kids throwing popcorn in theater eleven -- where'd the assassin go?" Madina asks as she walks into the office with a cashbox full of money.
Codi is sitting at her desk, fiddling with a pen that has just squirted ink in her eye. "Um...I didn't see him."
"Well, we have to find him. He's dangerous!" Madina shouts, her eyes turning bright red.
# # # # #
"GAH!" Red shouts as he turns around, seeing me at his window. He opens it, motioning for me to come in. "So, did you do it?"
"Well, not entirely--"
Red swears up a storm. I didn't know you could turn a word like that into a swear...cool. I'll have to use that. "What the hell were you thinking coming back here?! Now they're going to question me!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's the matter? Why would they question you? Who's they?" I ask.
"The cops...see, I used to work at that theater," Red explains.
"And you want revenge against Madina because she's a bitch and she fired you?"
"No...I quit."
"So...why do you want her to die?"
"...We all die sooner or later."
"Are you hiding something, Red?"
He shoves a $100 bill in my face, "Stop with the questions."
"Where do you get this money?" I ask. He shoves another one in my face.
Lightbulb!
"What's your real name?"
# # # # #
Get the last job done, and I'll tell you, he says to me? ARGH! That is so disappointing! Now I'm back at this punk-ass theater. About a dozen armed guards are everywhere. Kinda strange, considering this Madina character is a sorcoress...
# # # # #
"...God damn it!" Madina shouts. She flings the rabbit from her hands. "Just once, I want a dragon with frickin' lasers on it to pop out of my afro!"
Codi burps as she swallows a yellow-orange crayon. "Can I have the bunny?"
"Fine. But don't feed it crayons...I've got enough terds lying around," Madina says, glaring at Codi.
"Yay!" Codi rejoyces, picking up the Dutch rabbit, rubbing its nose with her own. "I'll name you...Codi Junior!"
Madina makes a sound that seems like growling and sighing at the same time. She mutters another spell to herself. Pauses, reaches into her hair, and pulls out a chiuauua.
"Son of a..." Madina mutters.
"Can I?" Codi asks.
"Yes..."
"Yay! You can be called Codi the Third!" Codi yells, picking up the shivering chiuaua.
"Yo quiero Taco Bell," the dog declares.
"A talkin' dog? Waw!" Codi yells.
"¡Ay caramba! Una mujer tonta," the dog sighs. "Necesito un trabajo más bueno que este cine."
"Hmm...must be dog-ese," Codi wonders aloud.
The dog looks over at the rabbit, "Holá, señorita."
The rabbit rolls her eyes apathetically, "Shut up, I will not let you bone me."
"WAW! They cin bof talk!" Codi screams.
Madina's eyes explode with energy, "SHUT THE FREAKIN'-FLAPPITY-FRICK-FLAMIN'-FLOGGER-FROGGER-FARGO-FLAMINGO-FREIGHTER-FUCK UP...GOD DAMN IT!"
Flames burst from the floor around Madina. She's foaming around the mouth. She fails to see the uzi press up against her head. Without moving her head, she sees out of the corner of her eye that it was Deadpool.
*BLAM*
"You're the new manager, Codi. Use your power wisely," Deadpool says.
Codi claps, "Thanks, Spider-Man!"
"I'm...I'm not Spider-Man."
"Then who're ya?"
"I'm *dramatic pause* Deadpool."
"That movie with Clint Eastwood--?"
"--No!"
Codi shrugs, pressing a button at Madina's former desk, sending Madina's corpse through a trap door, being incinerated by flames in an underground furnace.
As Deadpool sneaks up the ventalation shaft, Codi looks down at her talking animal friends, Codi II and Codi III. "Okay, who wants to play Monopoly?"
"Eh...sí, muy bien," the dog says.
"Whatever, as long as I'm not the friggin' thimble," the rabbit sighs.
"Bein' a movie theater manager rocks!" Codi exclaims (keep in mind she ain't the tastiest crayon in the box).
Just as I'm about to leave the office, I spot a walkie-talkie sitting in a charger. I pick it up and press the talk button. "Calling all units," I announce, snickering.
{{"Who is this?"}} a teenaged usher asks over the walkie.
"I'm watching you," I whisper.
{{"What?"}}
"I'm right behind you. I've got a knife..."
{{"Holy shit!"}}
{{"Watch your language!!"}} an older male shouts. It must have been one of the managers.
{{"Sorry,"}} the teen apologizes. {{"There's this guy on the walkies...I don't think it's an employee."}}
{{"Hm...Codi, you know anything about this?"}} the manager asks.
{{"Nope. HAHA, yer in jail, Codi II!"}} she answers.
I can't stop snickering. I talk into the radio again, "I have herpes...I'm gonna give it to you through the radio....heh..."
Silence.
{{"...Who is this?"}} the teen asks after the pause.
"HAHA! You've got herpes! Herpes boy! Herpes boy!"
# # # # #
Later, the next day, in New York...
I throw the briefcase of money on the kitchen table. Red was kind of weary when he gave me the money, but I guess there's nothing suspicious...
What in the crap?! This thing is full of Monopoly money...and...and....coupons! I'm gonna kill that little...oh, a note.
I clear my throat, reading the letter aloud, "Dear DP: Sorry to inform you like this, but the reward money had to be cut into the pay for the damaged car, garage door, lightpost, mailbox, and dog. There should be some money left over, but not much. Maybe the coupons can help you ease the pain a little. The Monopoly money was my sister's idea of a joke. Sincerely, Red."
"Knew I shoulda opened it back in Wisconsin...," I mutter.
I rustle through the brief case for about a half hour and count $4,000 real money. The rest is about $20 in coupons for non-perishable food items. The Monopoly money...that...that's toilet paper for this week, I guess.
If only I wasn't such a suck-ass driver...but I digress. Time to buy 80 cans of soup!
NEXT ISSUE: Would you believe? Darth Maul?