Aloysius Recounts

"When I finally come out of it," Aloysius suddenly stops talking. He swirls the water in his glass then gulps it down. "When I finally come out of it, I have no damn recollection of what happened. Just the last of that third can of Red then I'm stumbling around in an alley somewhere or face down in the middle of a landing strip. Came to in an alley in Hong Kong once, not a shred of information as to how and why."

"Not even a hazy recollection of anything?" Mitchell asked.

"Not ever! No, not a shred!" Aloysius answered. He banged his glass on the table top but the noise was muted against the rolling sand dunes on all sides. "Well, once."

Reviewing: They Need to Watch

I'm 8 hours deep, but that wasn't nearly enough time to spend with a game that boasted "hundreds!" of hours of content. There's a drone sharing the room with me. The publisher's nameless eyes on the ground -- Darkfriend, some in the office derided -- to ensure I didn't upload the source code to the Internet or pass the disc to a conspirator to copy en masse to sell on street corners.

Occasionally he would shift in his seat, adjust his tie. Maybe take a sip of water. Though I'd never seen the full contractual details, I was pretty sure that as long as I kept playing, he had to stand guard. Watching me. Waiting until the credits rolled.

Hour 9 is when I stand up, sigh, and take off my pants. I kick them into the corner of the room.

3rd One Down

"I've been meaning to ask," Mitchell started, "what's with the beer can utility belt? I've known you for years and you always have three cans of Red's Brew attached to you but I've never seen you actually drink beer. Ever."

Aloysius Gunn scratched the back of his neck, pausing, thinking about the best way to explain the beer. Somewhere from the south a train sounded at a crossing.

"You know how Popeye eats all that spinach and gives him super powers?" Aloysius said. "It's like that. Only with beer. And my powers are unpredictable. And I don't remember what happens after I drink the third one. But it's usually an appropriate response of some kind."

Mitchell raised an eyebrow. "How strong is that beer?"

"Oh, it's not what you think." Aloysius stood up. "When I turned 19, I hit the bar with a few friends. What a night! At least the part I remember... until my third can of Red. That's when I blacked out. It's not strong beer, at all, but it did something to me. Friends took video and pictures of me doing... things. Unexplainable things. Things I don't remember at all, no inkling. Dancing on the ceiling, juggling an entire rack of pool balls while spinning cues with my feet while my entire skeleton glowed through my skin..."

"That's, uh," Mitchell struggled to find the right word. This somehow deserved comment.

"People loved it, thought it was some kind of marketing gimmick or something, even when the videos were uploaded to YouTube, whatnot, no one believed it. Even when I moved outside and started bouncing off buildings like a rubber ball and dancing on a succession of moving cars and trucks while the theme from that old Mission: Impossible show played out of every manhole and window within three blocks... It was weird seeing it after the fact. But still, people chalked up the story to a buncha drunk college kids playing a prank."

"So, uh," Mitchell was still struggling. "Why the three cans?"

"Just in case something happens."

Mitchell waited a beat to see if Aloysius would keep talking. Something sounded ominous, especially when Aloysius squinted and stared into the middle distance like he was doing at that moment.

The real answer came when the new barn the pair had been painting unexpectedly exploded in a shrapnel cloud of splinters.

"Something like this," Aloysius said, the first can of Red already on its way to his mouth. "Better get on the hell out of here, Mitchell. I'll take care of this."

Mitchell turned and ran. Not so much on Aloysius' advice but on the reason for the barn explosion. A huge scaly worm-like beast with tentacles and mandibles, and rows and rows of eyes had shattered the barn. And it looked like it might be gearing up to unleash fire or possibly radiation from its gargantuan maw. Mitchell ran across the yard, turned sharply at the combine and headed down the driveway to the main road.

Aloysius finished the third beer and blacked out.

The ground rolled and sent Mitchell staggering to his knees. He looked back to see a giant figure, covered in slate armour pounding the nightmare into the ground. The giant clamped its impossibly huge hands around the worm and there was a flash and shockwave that sent Mitchell rolling into the drainage ditch.

Then there was silence for a full minute before Mitchell clawed his way up the embankment. A dark cloud of smoke was being carried by the wind and what was left of the yard was covered in gore and viscera but there was no sign of the worm or the giant or Aloysius.

Mitchell walked at a steady pace back to the yard. The combine was ruined, the farm house covered in ooze on the west side, and everything else... well, it was a scene of destruction. Mitchell's mind wandered to his insurance policy.

Aloysius' smoking body was at the bottom of the crater but he was still breathing, coughing out the words again and again, "3rd one down, 3rd one down."

Fun, With Chainsaws

The summer my Uncle Ron purchased “The Ranch” I was hired to help clean up the place. The grounds were littered with miscellaneous farm equipment, a clothes washer, steel barrels full of broken glass, a giant boiler that looked exactly like the front of a steam train, a few acres of black berry bushes, a moldering guest house, and so much unidentified junk that when we pulled up the driveway that first day, I wondered just what I’d signed up for. And that was before I even got a look at the inside of the main house that was perched on the edge of the ravine.

It had all the makings of a disaster movie or at the very least a tetanus shot but it wasn’t until a few weeks had passed that the incident with the chainsaws occurred.

From the main road, running parallel to the driveway, was an access road to the ravine and the lower part of the property. Half way down the access road, two trees had fallen and blocked the way. Because of the angle of the bank above it and some large trees further into the ravine, the fallen trees formed a chest-high blockade.

My uncle tasked me with the start of what would later be dubbed “The Wall” in a tone of voice typically used by those suffering post traumatic street disorder. The theory behind The Wall was essentially to stop the house from sliding into the ravine. Having spent some time inside the house by this time, I wondered if letting it slide into the ravine would have been more efficient (and probably more fun).

But I was being paid to work, not think.

To get to the site of The Wall, I had to travel down the access road. Having to duck under the trees while pushing a wheelbarrow full of crushed rock down a relatively steep incline was not a task I enjoyed so I was much relieved when Uncle Ron hefted a chainsaw down the road to take care of the problem. The trees were going.

“This’ll get rid of those those damn trees,” he said. At least, that’s what I think he said. Uncle Ron has a mumbling way of talking. If you weren’t paying attention you might think he was just clearing his throat.

He yanked the the starter and the chainsaw buzzed to life. He brought the spinning chain upwards and started into the first tree. He pulled the saw out and resumed cutting from the top, sawdust billowing out in a cloud. Then the machine squealed horribly and died.