Graveyard Smash

Graveyard Smash

Mark A Davis

230

"Thanks for letting us use the Anarchy Mansion for our Halloween party, Grumpy Annie," said Pixy Dreamgirl.  The leader of the new Daughters of Anarchy super group was a young woman who normally dressed in a rainbow-hued crop top and short skirt, with rainbow-dyed pigtails, but for tonight she had black hair, green skin, and the black dress and hat of a wicked witch.  "Our group doesn't even have a base yet, but we wanted to host a big holiday bash to advertise ourselves.  Since we're named after you, hosting it at a haunted mansion is perfect, and you even make a pretty good creepy caretaker, am I right?  There's always a creepy caretaker."

"I ain't creepy," said Grandpa Anarchy.  "I'm a hero!  The world's oldest!"

"You're close enough, trust me," Pixy Dreamgirl said.  "Now, the decorations are all prepared and people should be arriving in an hour.  I just wish...."  Her voice trailed off.

Grandpa Anarchy ducked a rubber spider hanging from the ceiling as he stepped from the elevator and into the Anarchy Cave -- a large underground garage beneath the mansion.  Cobwebs hung everywhere -- and not just the normal kind that tended to accumulate because Grandpa did not employ a maid or butler.  Dry ice fog floated across the floor.  Nearby a plastic skull screached and snapped its teeth while the eyes flashed.  Grandpa nearly jumped into a paper mache ghost.

"Mathew Mark Luke and John!" Grandpa swore.  "Does the place have to be so creepy?"

Pixy Dreamgirl rolled her eyes.  "Grumpy Annie, it's a Halloween party!  Anyway that animatronic skull is super fake, I'm surprised it made you jump.  I was really hoping for better decorations -- this is a party for superheroes after all -- but I just don't have the budget."

The cave contained the usual things -- the ancient Anarchy computer, the Anarchy saucer, the Anarchy submarine in a pool that apparently led to an underwater exit, and the Anarchy mobile -- a rusting 1958 AMC Ambassador station wagon.  Other things like the Anarchy Jetbike, the Anarchy flying wing and the Anarchy Exoskeleton had been pushed to one side to make room.

The place had been divided into several areas.  There was a theater area with a wide-screen television, and a gaming area.  There was a dance area with a DJ's table and sound system already set up.  There was the food area, of course -- tables already laden with Halloween cookies, candy caramel apples, and several heated steel bins filled with catered Chinese food.

"Hope you don't mind that we moved some stuff around," said Pixy Dreamgirl, "and vacuumed up a lot of dust.  A lot of dust."

"Nah, that's fine," Grandpa Anarchy replied.  "Hardly use most of this junk anyway."

"I wanted to ask, what's in the back room?" Pixy Dreamgirl asked.

"Back room?"  Grandpa stared at her blankly.

"A door back in the corner here...."  She made her way around the pool with the submarine and shimmied around some sort of massive gun draped in cloth.

"Oh, back here?" Grandpa said.  "Just ignore it... there's nothing to see...."

But Pixy Dreamgirl was standing before a heavy door.  "Huh," she said.  "It's not even locked."  She pulled it open, then jumped back.

"OMG!  There's someone in there!"

Grandpa Anarchy grabbed the door.  "Consarn it!  What's this doing open?  This should be locked up at all times!  This room is dangerous!"

Pixy Dreamgirl peered inside.  "Oh, it's just a statue," she said.  "What's so dangerous?"

"Lots of stuff," said Grandpa.  "This is what I call my Forgotten but Not Gone room."

Pixy Dreamgirl smiled.  "I think you mean Gone but Not Forgotten, Grumpy Annie," she said.

"I know what I mean," Grandpa snapped.  He flipped on the light.  "Nobody in this room is gone -- that's the whole problem.  This is my room for villains I've defeated that won't go away.  I keep 'em locked up in here, safe and sound."

Pixy Dreamgirl stared in wonder.  Here was a dusty storeroom of strange curiosities -- oddly realistic stone statues, rusting robots, mystic-looking weapons hung on the walls, and several shelves filled with dolls, figurines, objects, mannequin heads and what looked like brains in jars.

Several pairs of eyes swiveled to stare at her.  Pixy Dreamgirl screamed and leaped back.

"Oh, don't worry," said Grandpa.  "Nobody in this room can move.  Most can't even talk.  See this statue?  This is Emily Langenberg.  She was an evil magician -- what most people would call a hedge witch, really -- who got turned to stone in 1954.  She's still alive though -- she can move her eyes, see? "

"That's... very creepy," said Pixy Dreamgirl.  The statue of the witch glared with mad, hateful eyes.

"Yeah," said Grandpa.  "Took some time to get used to.  Most of these other statues can't even do that, so I have no idea if they're actually aware, but most of 'em were dark souls so I keep 'em safe anyway."

He pointed to one, an apparent sculpture of a man half-emerging from a block of metal.  "This was the assistant of Professor Mortimer Witworth Devereux of Wolverhampton.  What was the guy's name, again?  Sam, that was it.  Samuel Gaylord Goode, I think it was.  He tried to steal the professor's dimensional gateway machine in 1924 and as punishment the Professor had him frozen in elusionium.  It was only supposed to be for five years, but then there was that nasty business where the Professor opened a portal into hell, and -- well, everything vanished -- the unfreezing machine, the dimensional gateway, the whole mansion and the Professor himself.  Seeing as how Prof Devereux was the only one who knew how to undo this, poor Sam's been stuck this way ever since."

"He's missing a finger," said Pixy Dreamgirl.

"Yeah," said Grandpa.  "Sam wasn't happy about being frozen and he made a rather vulgar gesture as it was being done to him.  For decency's sake we had to break that finger off."

Grandpa moved deeper into the room.  "Over here is my cabinet of skulls and brains in jars.  See?  This one's the brain of Ukaleq the Undying, this is the living skull of Nihalanaskali the sorcerer, this is the brain of Mad Professor Thibleton, and this is the jeweled skull of the demon Triexotherion.  Next to them is my collection of objects containing sentient souls -- this cross contains the soul of the vampire Lord Alphonse Stigmatter, and trapped in this crystal is the soul of Michiru the Mystic.  I have about ten soul-trapped gemstones and pieces of jewelry, and next to them are the possessed dolls and stuffed animals and people transformed into brickabrack."

Pixy Dreamgirl blinked.  "And the living head?" she asked.  It was right there on the shelf -- a pale-skinned man's head with dark, curly hair.  The face was quite handsome.  It was one of the things in the room that stared at her.

"Oh that?" said Grandpa.  "That's just some minor god.  He's immortal so he never dies."

"Minor god?" the head exclaimed.  "I am Prometheus!"

"No you ain't!  You just think you are!" Grandpa shot back.  "See?  He's nutso from being a head for so long."

"You try being a head on a shelf in a dark room for ninety years," the head muttered.

In the back of the room were the robots -- rusted exoskeletons stacked against a concrete wall.  Grandpa pointed at one of them.  "This one's a robot built by Professor Duredon in 1974.  He downloaded his own mind into it, and called himself Duredon X9.  Tin body, rusted stiff.  You'd think people would learn.  Didn't Frank Baum himself spell it out in the Wizard of Oz?  Tin bodies rust!

"Same with brainiac over here," he said, pointing to a copper robot with a thick jar on top full of greenish liquid, inside which floated another brain and  two eyes, which were again focused on them.  "Alfred Bartholomew Abney, Emperor of Antarctica.  The Gentleman Brawler and I fought him in 1915.  His brain is kept alive in that jar but the body seized up ages ago.  He used to curse a blue streak at me every time I came near, so I ripped out the voicebox."

Pixy Dreamgirl's eyes scanned the row of unmoving robots, then glanced at the next wall.  Here hung several weapons, including three swords, five knives, a pistol, an ancient musket, and a large flat piece of metal with a handle and glowing runes that she couldn't quite figure out.

"Oh that?" said Grandpa.  "That's the Battle Spatula of the great warrior-monk-cook Zhang Chao, which sucked out the souls of his enemies," said Grandpa.  "He accidentally knicked himself with it one day while making breakfast, and that was that."

"And he's trapped inside?" she asked.

"Far as I know," said Grandpa, "along with all of his enemies.  You'd have to destroy it to find out I supppose.  Danged thing is dangerous.  I put it down here for safekeeping."

Pixy Dreamgirl took in the entire room.  "I had no idea you had all this stuff," she said.  "And you said you weren't creepy!  But you know what, Grumpy Annie?  I think you just solved a problem for me."

***

Magical Mimic Cosplay Girl -- dressed as Wednesday Addams for the party, but she was always dressed as someone -- took a bite of a cookie.  "I have to say, these decorations are uber creepy," she said.  "Did you see that witch statue in front of the elevator?  It stared at me!"

Black Dahlia was dressed as herself -- but then the goth witch need not dress as Wednesday Addams to be dark and morbid.  "Yes," she said, raising an eyebrow.  "And this head here -- it appears to be alive."

Butt Rock Boy grinned.  "It looks effin' real!" he exclaimed.

"I am real, you foolish imbecile!" the head on nearby table exclaimed.  "I am a god!  A plague upon your firstborn if you don't believe!"  The head glared for a moment, then added, "If you could place some General Tso's in front of me, it would be most appreciated...."

FINI