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A collaborative Halloween story for and about the halfbakery, including lots of dark, gothic cliches, obscure physical, electrical and chemical phenomena, the characters being halfbakers portraying themselves within the context of the story. Oh, and weapons. Lots of weapons.
NOT a "Call For List".
Meissner-Effect Salt-Shaker
Meissner-Effect_20Salt-Shaker
The inspiration. Prior Art acknowledged. [8th of 7, Oct 18 2011]
All I'm saying is, be careful
http://gigaom.com/2...s-the-movie-rights/
[theircompetitor, Oct 21 2011]
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Annotation:
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It all began this morning. I knew I shouldn't have bitten into that green bun... |
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It's origin: unknown. But it's aroma was inellectable. |
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As I sunk my teeth into it's mysterious flaky goodness, the world around me swirled and faded. |
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I slipped into a deep slumber. |
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When I awoke, I was ethereal. Massless and free to roam wherever my mind could conjure. |
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For some reason, [21Quest] crossed my mind, then as swift as the thought had occured, I found myself floating above his chaise lounge. |
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A light tapping on his front door caught, my and his attention. |
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I watched intently as [21Quest] inched tentatively onward, every step diminishing his miniscule reservoir of courage. His legs shook, his eyes darted to and fro. Sweat glistened on his fear-wrenched visage. His mind lurched from one imagined horror to the next, each a personification of the unseen threat that had rapped on his door. |
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"Wha... wha... what do you wa... wa.. want f-from me?", words caught in his throat as he fought the urge to run as fast as his legs could carry him. |
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"Some candy, mister...", her voice was sweet and naive. "It's Halloween!" |
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He slide to his knees, feeling so scared and so vulnerable. Leaning against the door, he pressed his trembling fist to his mouth, muffling his terrified sobs. |
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Several knives spilled out of his pockets.
"Frightened, and armed to the teeth," she thought,
fingering the garrotte. "This isn't going to end well.
Best finish him off now." |
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... little suspecting that none of her orifices had a
mating thread. |
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... She suspected unsuspectingly. |
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[21Quest] initiated what he thought to be an unanticipated attack. The threaded power baton arced through the air in a lethal path which would have ended well inside the cranial cavity of 'Lil Miss Moriarty, had she not caught his arm in a lightning grasp, and wrenched him to the ground. |
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"Please! Oh God please! It hurts!" [21] begged her for mercy as he writhed on his porch. |
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"Not till you take back those mean and nasty things you said on the internet!" She said firmly, while tightening her grip on his fore-arm. |
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Meanwhile, 3,000 miles away in an East London
cafe, a man sat in a booth, motionless. He stared
for some time. His eyes looked dry, unblinking.
His manner was peculiar. He wore a grey suit,
corn-blue tie, white cotton shirt, silver cufflinks
and brown loafers. He wore a watch, at which he
suddenly moved to view. |
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Clearly, this man was agitated, waiting for
something. In front of him were the remains of his
breakfast; some bacon rind, a corner of toast,
smeared HP sauce, 3 beans he had diligently cut in
half and shuffled around, some tomato seeds, a
dribble of orange juice in a glass tumbler, half a
dozen screwed up napkins piled to one side –
stained with food residue – and an empty cup of
coffee. |
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The man glared at the carnage in front of him,
then suddenly doubled over, sweat pouring from
his brow. He shook uncontrollably, his head in his
arms. His boney fingers tugged at the remnants of
his hair. Nearby customers turned to look at the
shaking, sobbing man, when he reeled back and
burst into roaring laughter, sheer uncompromising
madness! Saliva erupted from his mouth as he
rocked back and forth in hysterics. |
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He slammed a fist onto the table and in that
instant returned as stoic as before. |
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"I've seen him before," whispered one customer to
her partner. "He's called Ian Tindale, apparently.
They've tried to tell him; people just don't do
refills in Britain." |
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Then Tindale grabbed his camera and went out into the street...not expecting that someone out there was taking his photograph... |
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... and, rubbing his eyes, was just a bit mystified that today the world was in colour |
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The cold grey miasma of a classic London pea-souper fog crawled through the shadowy, noisome alleys of East London like a predatory reptile, twining itself into strange and hideous shapes, and limiting [The Alterother]'s vision to little more than an arm's length ahead of him, which was really very odd as he was at that moment sitting deep in the pinewoods of the North Eastern United States. He coughed violently, driving the acrid vapours from his lungs, spluttering and choking. Slowly the spasms subsided, and he cautiously rubbed his eyes; the blurring was less noticeable now. He stared down at the pickle jar of home made hooch from which he had taken a mere cautions sip, still collecting drips from the condenser coil of his crude still, and smiled, then frowned at the odd grating sensation - yet another layer of tooth enamel had gone, scoured away in moments by the hellish brew. |
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"Not bad", he muttered under what was left of his breath ... |
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Up until now, the weapons had been hidden in a secret cache. A rather normal looking quill pen was left atop of 8th of 7's desk by a slinky maid wearing fishnet stockings, it was perched upon the parchment that he was using to write his story...the inkwell had been filled with poisonous ink. |
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Fortunately, the building was somewhat dilapidated and, through the many gaps in the brickwork, a shambling army of zombies could be seen shuffling unsteadily out of the fog towards them. The fishnet- clad maid squeaked in concern and then gave an impressed sigh as 8th's unit, still stiffly at attention, pointed the business end of their weapons at the nearest available hole and began banging away with gusto... |
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"Une espece de 'gang bang'" she sighed (she was, of
course, French) "quelle barbe." |
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po sent a carrier pigeon with a message from an unknown undertaker. the message was written in a foreign script unbeknownst to most except the most brilliant of men like Maxwell Buchanan. he had to be found and brought here immediately... |
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And when she came in, that's where I come in. I was already on my second cup of coffee when her silhouette appeared in the window of my office door. Her hair was blond and long, but not as long as she was tall. Still, she was tall, but not as tall as the order she wanted me to fill. She was looking for a guy, someone named Max. All she had was a name, but not a face and a place. I'm a Dick, a good Dick, the best, but I can't place a face to a name, or a name to a face for every leggy blond that happens upon my dusty office in the bad part of town. She flashed her buns, and I took the case. |
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yes, she was a very pretty pigeon with bits of bun around her flushed cheeks. she squawked a thank you and flew home... |
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After firing my .38 revolver at the pigeon and it landed like
a falling plate of spaghetti against the side of a skyscraper
I resumed my search for Max to decipher the script. |
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Alas, like the ancient Phoenix arising from the ash,
the lovely pigeon took flight once more, stunning the
brutal thug who had tried to do her wrong. |
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The pigeon of peace, having escaped from the entangling fishnets, found its work cut out as it tried to mediate between a priapic hegemonizing swarm and the impending zombocalypse. |
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"Brains," said one shambling figure, passing by. |
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"Braaaains," said another. |
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"I'm more of a tit man myself," said the sardonic zombie in the trench
coat. "... but don't mind me. Have you seen Max?" |
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Max was in the laboratory deciphering DNA cells. He was clueless as to the story evolving around the murder mishap, which hadn't taken place yet. |
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Taking another sip from his jar of moonshine, the low-born
son of a typographical error smiled contentedly. The
distant sounds of gunfire and chemical-laser discharges
told him
that the Plan was going smoothly. Soon, very soon, England
and the more desirable bits of Scotland, as well as
Argentina and a little over half of Vancouver Island, would
once more belong to the Heathens. |
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In his drunken stupor, he was completely unaware of the
shape that slowly, silently materialized in the mist behind
him. With a murderous gleam in its dark eye, the Blink
Deer raised a hoof and |
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little realising that he'd forgotten Wales altogether... |
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...said, without a tear, "here, here; in yer ear" and tossed back the year's last queer
swallow of blink deer beer. |
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Excuse me, but didn't the original concept mandate
there should be lots of weapon? |
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[The Alterother], hearing the gulp in the gloom, spun
'round in a flash to face his doom. He advanced with a
mighty Viking battle cry, brand-new
shillelagh* held proud and high; his death would be for
future sagas fare... |
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...but the Blink Deer wasn't there... |
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*just got it today. Weapon enough fer ye, boyo? |
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I'm confused by the term 'more desireable bits of Scotland.' |
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The bits without so many people in them are the ones we
Heathens are primarily interested in, being rugged
individualist types that we are. But that's for another time;
on with the spooky story! I really want to know how it
ends... |
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...it ends with // lots of dark, gothic cliches, obscure physical, electrical and chemical phenomena, the characters being halfbakers portraying themselves within the context of the story. Oh, and weapons. Lots of weapons.// |
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Out of the broom cupboard fell a harpoon gun, a slingshot, half a pint of black powder, a craft knife, a bucket of congealed saturated fat, a modified rugby boot (left), a nine-iron, two shotgun shells, a crossbow missing its crosspiece, an envelope of talcum powder labeled as anthrax, a straight-edge razor with lubricating strip, an exploding cigar, the head of a battle-axe, three 7.62 mm rounds (possibly blank), [po]'s frying pan, a spear-headed regimental flag, some piano-playing nunchakus (YMMV), a bag of marbles, a spice rack with several unstable compounds of nitrogen labeled in Jeeb Ponk Fwee, a garrote, a box of matches, a silver bullshit, a set of false teeth for a chainsaw, a chianti bottle full of stomach acid, the counterweight from a trebuchet, a basket-hilted tin-opener, some brass knuckles modified to double as house-keys, a branding iron, an experimental flechette mine, a washing line made of det-cord (or possibly vice versa), a chisel, a flick-knife with more flick than knife, a wheel-lock musket, an array of ash and hawthorn stakes in elegant porcelain stake-holders, a broken beer glass, the fuel tank from a flame-thrower, a combined paint-and-pepper spray, a staple gun, an Uzi disassembled for cleaning, an empty aquarium with a sign warning of the blue-ringed octopus, some more brass knuckles specially adapted for a chimpanzee's feet, a sharp retort, two weaponized poison-pen letters, half a dozen shurikens and a blunderbuss. And some safety instructions. For the vacuum cleaner. |
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It wasn't easy for a maid to stay slinky around here - too many things could ladder her fishnets. |
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'nuff weapons, [bungston]? |
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<Python> What about a pointed stick? </P> |
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What about rasberries? We haven't done rasberries yet,
have we? |
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We do seem to have gotten a bit sidetracked. I'll see what I
can do about that. Stay tuned... |
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Hopelessly sidetracked in the Transylvanian countryside, Alterother cursed the GPS system in his cheap rental car. In the pitch dark and through the pouring rain he wouldn't have been able to see a thing were it not for the regular flashes of lightning. And the wretched GPS' voice intructions had been all but drowned out by the tremendous peals of thunder along the way.
He slowed the car to a halt and tried very hard to remember. "Follow the howls of the children of the night until you pass through the dilapidated, old village with the impaled corpse in the town square", it had told him. He'd got that bit alright but he couldn't remember if it had said "Go up to the old castle after dark" or "Don't go up to the old castle after dark" before it had suddenly cut out completely.
Fortunately, on the craggy hillside ahead, there seemed to be an old castle and, judging by the single, faint light coming from one of the windows in its ruined tower, there appeared to be someone at home. Perhaps he should go and ask them for directions... |
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Meanwhile, the Borg collective re-formed their ranks and
strategically withdrew to form a tight perimeter around
the secret BorgCo Research & Development Facility.
Lifeless eyes and cybernetic optics tracked back and forth
while pervasive sensor scans molested the city in a nine-
block radius. |
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The sheer number of movement returns gave even the
emotionless and imperturbable Borg pause, for the
collective knew that this next wave was not composed of
just ordinary zombies; nor were they the cheesy super-
mutant zombies with tentacle fingers and lamprey mouths
you see these days because for some reason the classic
shambling Romero-style zombies just won't cut it anymore.
No, these were something even more abhorrent, disgusting
atrocities
created in a hidden underground laboratory by none other
than The Mad Fairy Jenny herself. |
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Slowly and unstoppably, with a terrible chorus of yowling,
[The
Alterother]'s zombie-cat horde shuffled out of the mist... |
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And they all lived happily ever after. |
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Concern for the Aristotelian unity of place was what prompted Max to send a blink deer to pick up Mr Tindale from East London and drop him off in Transylvania. After all, that dusty old "deus ex" machine in the corner had to be good for *something*. |
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I sent for an order of boron carbide for the hidden armor factory in the basement of the ruined tower. The children were going to be put to work making the armor...
...suddenly a car came screeching around the curves of the washed out road- it was the Batmobile! |
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After checking via remote camera drone that his zombie-
cat assault was going well, and pleasantly surprised to
discover it was receiving help from an entirely unexpected
source, [The Alterother] stubbed out his roach and pushed
open the doors of the appropriately spooky Transylvanian
castle. Strangely, they did not emit the obligatory loud
creak, but swung smoothly on well-designed, teflon-
coated, counterweighted, servo-driven hinges. A cold
dread crept over him. |
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Another Halfbaker must have been here. |
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Readying his sword, the Heathen King crept into the castle.
Aside from Ian Tindale quietly reading the DK
Transylvanian Travel Guide by the eerie Cherenkov light of
a quantum candelabra, the place was empty. Too empty. It
had the emptiness of a place recently filled with activity
but vacated, so to speak, in the blink of an eye. |
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The herd couldn't have followed him, [The Alterother]
decided. He'd been careful, taken every precaution. His
fieldcraft was sound. No, they'd gotten here before him.
Somebody was helping them... but who? |
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Chrissy was so nervous, she had never before been so
doubtful of herself. She wanted to be on the cheerleading
squad more than anything in the world. She would give up
her cellphone, facebook account, pink convertable and
even her chance at becoming homecoming queen to make
it. Even though all of her friends had told her she was
going to make captain she still wanted Brad the captain of
the football team to tell her. |
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Where's [po]'s baby? Is Brad the father? |
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The newborn draws a staccato first breath and opens ages-old eyes of a color not yet witnessed.
No cry announces its arrival... |
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...just a bemused gurgle as its first view of the world turned out to be 8th of 7 dancing round the maternity ward pretending to be a ghost, with a white sheet draped over his head and making 'Ooh wooo' noises. |
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This went on for only a few minutes, however, before the
child brought unto this world by the interdimensional being
known only as [po] was whisked away, under a cloud of
secrecy, to the MaxCo Advanced Biosomethingtech
Research Institute on Vancouver Island. What fortunes or
strange twists of fate awaited the infant there? Only time
would tell. |
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Meanwhile, in Transylvania... |
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The castle was a smoking ruin. The battle had been an
epic affair, a three-sided, no-holds-barred, super-scifi-
smackdown between the Borg collective, the scarlet-
schnozzed leader of the Teleporting Deer Army, and, of
course, [The Alterother]. Unfortunately, nobody actually
witnessed it, so an accurate account of the titanic clash is
impossible. |
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As he dusted himself off, Ian Tindale was pleased to
discover that the fortuitous piece of cover he'd chosen was
in fact a rather nice rental car with a helpful, user-
friendly GPS navigation unit. He wasn't too sure about the
large bundles of dried plant matter in the back seat, but
perhaps he could find somebody who knew what they were
and might be interested in buying them. Pocketing his
camera and travel guide, Tindale went happily on his way. |
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As the red glow of the car's tailights receded into the
night, a small stone fell from atop the pile of smoking
rubble. It had been dislodged by the barest twitch of a
finger... |
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[The Alterother] lived. He lived, and he swore upon that
day that no matter how long it took him, even if it was,
oh,
say a year, he would return to wreak his vengeance! |
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