The Day of Horror!

Random House Adventures

The place: a small house in Santa Barbara. The people: a group of college students. The plot: how a harmless trip to the park turned into… da da daaaa (this represents eerie music to set the proper mood. I understand that putting music into a written story is often considered bad form, but what else could I do? I mean realistically here. Could I just say "the mood was eerie"? No, I most certainly could not. That's not descriptive enough. Sure I could set the scene, describe how it was dark and rainy, and thunder was heard in the distance. The screech of an owl chilled listeners to the bone, while, most horribly of all, Backstreet Boys was heard playing in the distance, but that would just take too long. Saves me lots of space to say da da daaaaaa, now doesn't it. I always want to be concise in my writing. Concise Eddie is what they call me. Sure my name isn't really Concise, but it isn't really Eddie either. See, now look what you've done. This parenthetical statement has become so long that I don't even remember what was going on. Here, I'll recap for you. A trip to the park turned into…da da daaaaaaa)..…THE DAY Ay ay… OF HORROR ORRor orror. (Do you know how hard it is to properly represent an echo in writing? Almost as bad as doing eerie music. Enough with the parentheses, you say? Get on with the story already, you say? Who is writing this story, you or me? I'll get on with it when I want to, and not a second sooner. Wait for it…wait for it… okay, now I'll get on with it.)

Rachel came lolloping into the living room. (Lolloping lolloping. Come on, say it out loud. You know you want to. It's fun. No, really.) Rachel was feeling cute. Rachel often felt cute. "I'm cute," she announced to the empty living room. The empty living room glared at Rachel for being so cute. Rachel smiled at the living room's envy.

Rachel flopped onto the couch. "Flop," she said, as she flopped onto the couch. Then just incase the living room hadn't heard, she said it again. "Flop." Now the couch was rather unhappy at all the flopping going on. The couch had been brought up proper, and expected Young Ladies to daintily perch on the edge of the couch. Young Ladies do not flop. Any proper couch knew that. At least, any couch that had been brought up on the good side of town. Those couches across the railroad track, you never knew what they might expect. Maybe on the other side of town, Young Ladies flopped. This couch was so proper it had never been across the railroad tracks, so it didn't know.

Now Rachel knew that Young Ladies did not flop. She also knew she was not a Lady, not any kind of a Lady. (Sorry, that was an inside joke, but I just couldn't resist putting it in there. I could explain that it is a line from a musical which Rachel just adored because it expressed her thoughts on being considered a Young Lady perfectly, but if I took the time to explain that to you, I wouldn't be named Concise Eddie.) Rachel would find out what Young Ladies did, just so she could make sure never to do that. That's why Rachel was wearing a pair of dirty jeans with a hole in the knee, and a t-shirt with so many clashing colors in it that when unsuspecting innocent bystanders saw it, they often went into color shock. Color shock is a rare but serious disease contracted by looking at Rachel's wardrobe too closely. The only cure is to be put into a padded white cell until the mind can recover, and the rods or cones, or whatever the color seeing thingies in your eyes are, could replenish themselves. Until this happened everything the person sees must be white, or they go back into shock. Many dairies are supported completely by hospitals that care for patients with color shock. The patients survive for months on milk alone. It is possible they could eat other white colored food besides milk, but I can't think of any right now, so, as ultimate ruler of the universe, I declare they live off milk.

Being an anti-Young Lady is a full time job, and Rachel relished it. Not with sweet relish mind you, only dill. Rachel got bored of sitting on the couch. She hadn't sat on the couch because she wanted to sit, she only sat there to annoy the couch. Now she decided she needed to dance around the room, and proceeded to do so. Just as she passed the front door, and crazy man leaped out behind her with the intention of shouting to give her a nice scare. Instead he accidentally looked at her shirt, and screamed in pain. He quickly averted his eyes. The pain scream had worked just as well as a surprise scream and Rachel screamed in surprise. Rachel turned around and looked at the crazy man, and then she sighed resignedly. "Owain, stop doing that to me!" Owain giggled delightedly and then proceeded to hop around the living room with his hands above his head. The couch gave up in disgust and went to sleep.

The crazy man stopped dancing and looked…at me? "To be perfectly honest, I'm not really crazy." You can't look at me! You can't talk to me! Stop it! "Why should I stop it? I'm just trying to set the record straight here. Crazy is the inability to function in society. I have the ability, I just don't desire to function in society. If I want to dance by hopping with my hands over my head I can, and if I want to talk to the narrator I can do that also." No you can't. Just then, a freak bolt of lightening struck just next to Owain. "Hey!" He leaped aside to keep from being fried, but tripped over the couch, who was now snoring loudly. He fell onto his head, and looked like a big klutz. Next time the lightening will hit, so be careful what you say.

"Dang narrator always picking on me, never lets me have any fun. Why doesn't he just leave me alone," Owain muttered under his breath.

"Who are you talking to?" Rachel inquired.

"Just that weird voice I keep hearing."

"Owain's hearing voices! Owain's really crazy!" Rachel taunted, from a safe 10 feet away.

"Why does everyone keep saying I'm crazy! I am not crazy!" Owain did another little dance. Rachel continued taunting him. When this had no effect she started throwing things at him. Finally he stopped his dance to lunge for her throat, and she ran shrieking around the living room, until he finally caught her and tickled her to death. When the police arrived to see what all the shrieking was about, and found Rachel dead from tickleation and Owain dancing over her corpse, they were rather upset, until Rachel sat up.

"Hi, policemen. Can I ride in your police car? I like police cars. Especially the ones that have really big guns. I like big guns. But I like knives better. Especially big knives. When big knives get big enough they are called swords. I wonder how you decide if it's a big knife of a small sword. Probably people argue about that kind of thing. Aren't people stupid like that? I would never argue just about whether a thing was a knife or a sword. Now give me a serious argument, like what the exact definition is for the word wibbly, that I'll argue about for hours…" By this point one of the policemen had gone into color shock, and the other gouged out his eyes in self defense. Realizing this wasn't good enough, he gouged out his ears as well. Gouging out ears is a very difficult. The policeman was very desperate though, so he accomplished this task fairly quickly. Rachel then ate both policemen. It is a well known fact that Young Ladies do not eat people.

Just then Liz cartwheeled in through the door. This is not something she would normally do, but she did it for two reasons. One reason was that there was policeman goo all over the doorway, and she cartwheeled right by without touching it. The other reason is that I really wanted someone to do a cartwheel right now, and I am tired of talking about Rachel, so I had Liz do it. Liz was wearing anti-color shock contact lenses, so she looked directly at Rachel. She then noticed Owain dancing in the corner and carefully not looking at Rachel, so she handed him the extra pair of anti-color shock contact lenses, and he gratefully put them in. He then danced himself into the kitchen, where he started to prepare something involving a crock pot and lots of meat for dinner.

"I think we should go to the park!" Rachel announced. She was quite aware that Young Ladies do not go to the park.

"Sounds like fun to me," Liz answered. They both turned toward the kitchen to see what Owain thought.

There were strange sounds emanating from the kitchen. The clang of pots, sounds of meat being chopped, and… Owain, shouting "Meat! Whoo hoooo!" while doing a meat dance and laughing maniacally. If you want to know what a meat dance is, you'll have to ask Owain.

"Hey Owain, do you want to go to the park!" Liz shouted.

"Sure, but let me finish making something for dinner first. Then we can eat it when we get back. Meat! Bwa ha ha ha!" He did a miniature meat dance for the benefit of Liz and Rachel, who were now watching interestedly.

"We should wait for Layah to get back from school anyway. She would want to go to the park with us." Rachel said. "Let's play a game while we are waiting."

"Okay! What game?"

"How about, see-who-can-blow-up-the-most-things-with-grenades?"

"Naw, we played that all last week, and I'm tired of it now. How about eat-the-policeman?"

"I already played that today. How about throw-things-at-Owain. I never get tired of that one."

"No, then he won't finish the stew, and we won't get to go to the park. How about…" Just then Layah walked in the door. Good thing too, since I ran out of ideas for games. Layah has such great timing.

"Hi everyone." Layah dropped her backpack on the floor, and then immediately took off her shoes. Layah hates shoes. I don't know why she was even wearing any. I'm with Layah. Shoes are evil.

Layah looked at Rachel. "How was your day?" She was able to look at Rachel's shirt without protective gear because she had known Rachel for so long she had become immune to color shock. Layah was the only person besides Rachel herself who could open her closet without going into immediate color shock, with or without protection. This was a very good thing since Layah shared a closet with Rachel. Layah's wardrobe was interesting in another way. If Layah stood in front of a purple wall, she would completely disappear. The closet had the purple half, and the scary half.

"My day was great! I ate 2 policemen, threw 5,986 items at Owain, and blew up 3 incredibly cute satanic kittens. It was a good day. When Owain is done making stew we are going to go to the park."

"Aww dang, there's absolutely no way I can go to the park today. I have 5 hours of homework, and then I have to study, because I have 7 tests and 4 midterms tomorrow."

"Awwwww, come on. Just for a little while. It will be fun." Rachel used the whine of doom on Layah. She also made her eyes really big and cute, and smiled cute. She didn't blink, because she heard that only worked on boys. She had never tried blinking at boys. She suspected that Young Ladies blinked at boys. She was entirely wrong on that point. Proper Young Ladies don't blink at boys. Rachel didn't know this though.

"Okay, fine, but only if it doesn't take too long. You are going to cause me to fail all my classes you know." Layah knew she wouldn't really fail all her classes, but she thought it was fun to say. Layah didn't really understand how people failed classes, and she thought maybe she should try it sometime. It sounded like more fun.

"Can we go no-oo-ow?" Whined Rachel. Rachel had a theory about whining. The more syllables the better. Turning a one-syllable word into three was a moderate whine. Rachel started planning a one to five syllable whine if it took mush longer to get to the park.

"Owain?" the three girls called out in unison. They used their cute voices. This immediately put Owain on his guard.

"What?" he asked suspiciously.

"Can we go to the park yet? I want to go to the park now. When do we get to go to the park? Is it time to go to the park…" Rachel would have continued on in this vain, speaking faster than a giraffe breathing helium, but Owain interrupted.

"I'm not done yet! Give me a couple more minutes."

"Aww," they replied in unison.

"I'm bored. I want to cuddle. Yoo-hoo!" Elizabeth called.

"Legolas leaped into the room with an arrow knocked and his bow drawn. "You called! Are you in trouble?" He searched the room for enemies. He finally decided that Rachel posed the biggest threat and aimed the bow at her, carefully avoiding looking at her. Elves could avoid color shock like they avoided icky. He instinctively knew not to look at her.

"No, I'm not in danger, I just want to cuddle." Elizabeth blinked at him. Rachel and Layah started taking notes, and discussed the merits of the blink.

Legolas sighed imperceptibly. "You sure I can't kill anyone? Not even her?" He gestured towards Rachel.

"Well…um…" Elizabeth gave the matter serious thought.

"Hey!" Rachel protested.

"I guess not. Just cuddle with me."

"Oh. Okay. I guess."

As soon as he sat down, Han Solo leaped into the room.

"You're too late. I'm already cuddling her!" Legolas gloated.

"There's enough of me for both of you." Liz smiled. Han Solo sat down on the other side of her, pouting at Legolas.

"Hey! How come Liz gets all the cute guys? I'm the one writing this story!" Layah complained.

"It's because I know how to blink. See?" Elizabeth blinked at the window, and an innocently passing man fainted at her beauty. "Anyway, if you were the on with the cute boys, they would be different ones."

"Yah, I suppose so. Legolas is too pretty." Layah replied resignedly.

"Hey!" Legolas tried to pull out his bow, but Liz was on his lap and he couldn't get to it. He finally just gave up.

"I would probably have Han Solo," Han smiled at the praise, "and maybe…um…Aragorn, or…Indiana Jones."

"oooh, two Harrison Fords! What a great idea!" Rachel exclaimed. Layah and Rachel were lost in daydreams of Indiana Jones and Han Solo.

"That's it. I'm writing this story and I demand two Harrison Fords. Indiana Jones crashed through the window while swinging on a rope, fell right next to Layah, who immediately sat on his lap." Layah said.

You can't narrate the story. You are a character in the story. I am the narrator. I control everything. The narrator slowly began to choke to death on his own pride. Hey! Who said that? *Cough, hack choke* Nobody else can narrate. *Gag* Stop it I'm dying! *cough cough* Indiana Jones crashed through the window while swinging on a rope, fell right next to Layah, who immediately sat on his lap. Oh, I can breathe again. Yes…um…Indian Jones is here now. Okay.

"Okay, we can go to the park now." Owain finally said.

"Oooh goody!" Rachel screamed. In her delight she decided to tackle-hug Owain. Owain, confused by her leap, took a defensive stance, and wrestled her to the ground, which took exactly 2.6 seconds. After she was down he started to tickle her.

"Aww, come on, that's boring now. Lets get to the park." Layah whined. It wasn't a very good whine though. Nothing increased in syllables at all.

Owain and Rachel got up, and while they were still warily circling each other, searching for useful projectiles, Layah, Liz, Legolas, Han Solo, and Indiana Jones got up and left.

"Hey, wait for me!" Rachel yelled, running out after them. Owain, left without a target for the artillery he had collected, dropped it disappointedly and followed the rest outside.

They all piled into Rachel's station wagon, but Owain made Legolas, Han Solo, and Indiana Jones sit behind the back seat so he had more room, which made Liz pout. Layah and Rachel sat in the front.

Rachel tried to start the car. "Rrrr-rrr," the car said. "Come on car. Come on car." Rachel started chanting. "Rrr-rrr-rrr." "Come on car. Come on car!" Everyone was chanting. "Rrr-rrr-rrr-vroom!"

"See, it only needs a little encouragement," Rachel said. She pullout out and got on the freeway. "So Layah, do you remember-"

"Eyes on the road!!" Layah shouted.

Rachel whipped her head back to the road, saying sullenly, "I was paying attention." She turned on the radio. It was the Village People. Everyone started singing along.

"Young man. Da da da daaa da daaaa da. Da da Young man, da da da daaaa da daaaa da. Da da Young man…. YMCA da da da daaa da daaa YMCA" They started to do the YMCA hand dance. Then Layah looked at Rachel.

"Hands on the wheel! Hands on the wheel!"

"Jeeze. Okay," Rachel sighed. The rest of the trip was spent listening to Owain and Indiana Jones exchange archeology tips.

They finally made it to the park, alive, to Layah's great relief. They plated a couple of rounds of bean-bag-tag, a bit of chase-each-other-around-screaming-and-flailing-your-arms, and then they played freak-out-all-the-people-at-the-park. After that they were very tired, so they laid in a pile on the grass. Just as they were getting really comfy, they heard a scream in the distance. They couldn't quite make out the words, so they ignored it. Then there was another scream closer by.

"Hmm, I wonder what that is." Legolas said, hoping to get to finally shoot something.

"I don't know, but if you move, I'm going to kill you. You make a good pillow," said Liz, from somewhere around the vicinity of his stomach. He sighed inaudibly.

"That goes for you too, Indiana," Layah threatened. She had felt him shift to be able to reach his whip.

Then the scream was close enough to be heard. "Morbid squirrels! Morbid squirrels!"

"Morbid squirrels?" Legolas said, leaping up. Liz growled and started at him, causing him to squeak in fear. Then she saw them. "Morbid squirrels!" The rest of the pile jumped up. They were swarming all around. Thousands of squirrels, wearing black trench coats, with many body piercings and tiny little machine guns.

"Aww, they're so cute!" Rachel squealed.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" Layah screamed.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Han said.

"Squirrels. Why'd it have to be squirrels" Indiana said.

Layah stopped screaming at looked at them. "Oh come on, you guys are so cliché. Like every character in Star Wars says that. And everybody quotes the snakes lines. Couldn't you be more original? Jeeze!"

By this time the squirrels had them surrounded. Each person prepared to fight in their own way. Legolas knocked an arrow. Han pulled two laser blasters out of holsters on his belt. Indiana pulled out a whip. Layah drew a sword, and Liz drew a 2 foot long knife (which they were both, of course, conveniently carrying.) Owain uprooted a 10 foot tall tree, and Rachel put on her stomping shoes. Then the fight began. Han's lasers blasted squirrel after squirrel. Owain, with a violent light in his eyes, started gleefully smashing 20 squirrels at a time with his tree. Rachel, with a very similar light in her eyes, started stomping on squirrels, giggling every time they went splat. Indiana's whip, defying the laws of physics, would wrap around a squirrel neck, and then toss it 40 feet away where it would land in a neat pile, dead. Liz, with a look of intense concentration, skewered squirrel after squirrel on her knife. Legolas and Layah were having a bit more trouble. Legolas' bow is a distance weapon, and he was having trouble with the squirrels close by. They started to swarm him. Squirrels were crawling all over him, and he was forced to use arrows as spears. He couldn't keep enough of them off, and they started to devour him alive. They ripped him open and tore out his intestines. Squirrels were crawling around inside of him. Even with his guts spilling out of him he continued to kill squirrel after squirrel. He was surrounded by a pile of dead and bleeding squirrels. He was covered in their blood and his own. His insides were spilling out in a number of places. His hair was messed up.

The entire fight stopped, as everyone turned to stare at Legolas. His HAIR was MESSED UP!"

"Wow, the icky finally got him." Liz said. She went back to skewering squirrels.

"I knew Legolas was too pretty to stay alive in this story," Layah muttered to herself. Then the squirrels swarmed her and tore off her head.

Shortly, all of the squirrels were dead. The remaining combatants were surrounded by mounds of dead squirrels.

"Oh my God! Layah's dead!" Rachel screamed, running over to Layah's head.]

"No I'm not," Layah's head replied.

Rachel started stammering" but…but…head…there…and…b-b-body… there…huh?"

"So? You can just reattach my head."

"Reattach your head?"

Yah, I'm a robot. Didn't you know that? I thought I told you."

"N-n-no. Cool! That explains a lot."

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