It's Halloween. Returning from a night of stealing other kids' candy and egging Rod and Todd, a vampire-costumed Bart drags a sack of sweets—and what looks to be Rod's new remote-controlled drone—through the front door. He dumps his goodies on the floor in front of the TV and begins to sort through the candy.

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, not crap, probably crap, crap..." He finds a razor blade embedded in a Tootsie Roll. "Oooh! Hello..." He pockets the blade. "Crap, crap, definitely crap..."

Homer suddenly kicks the door in, wearing an "I Shot President Trump" T-shirt. "Bart! Look what stupid Flanders had on the curb outside his house!" He groans as he tries to force a four-foot-wide barbecue through the two-and-a-half-foot-wide doorway. Realizing he's chipped the paint off the doorframe, Homer grunts: "D'oh!"

---

In the garage. Bart marvels over the barbecue Homer took from Ned Flanders. A piece of paper has been taped to the front of the hood, reading: WARNING! CURSED BY MUSLIMS. DO NOT USE IF INFIDEL.

Imagining what that could possibly mean, Bart sees himself tricking Rod and Todd into cooking hotdogs on the cursed barbecue by taping a winking-Jesus picture onto it. After praying to it, they end up getting eaten by the barbecue, which then spits out their bones and burps. Imaginary-Bart snickers in amusement.

"Cool..." Bart says, impressed with his fantasy.

"Stupid Flanders." Homer rips away the note and lifts the lid. "Throws away a perfectly good grill because of a stupid make-believe curse." He glances at the note, crumples it and tosses it over his shoulder. "Pffft. Curse shmurse. Heheheh. Stupid Flanders... Boy, since your mom and your sister are at Patty and Selma's, it's just you and me. Whaddya say we cook up some good all-American hotdogs!" He picks up a package of Satan's Choice Grade-Z Lips, Holes & A Whole Lot More. The package features a grinning, devil-bearded man with a pitchfork and a coil of intestines hanging around his shoulders. "Mmm... Grade-Z Lips and Holes..." He starts to drool.

"Homer, my good man, to that I say hell yes! But what about Maggie?"

Homer stares blankly for a moment and shrugs. "Bart, pass me some fuel!"

Lugging a sloshing can of gasoline, spilling gas all over the floor of the garage, Bart says: "Way ahead o' ya, Homer!"

Grabbing the can, Homer empties the whole thing onto the grill and tosses it aside. He lights a match and drops it into the grill. A massive flame jets up and blackens the roof. He raises his hands in triumph. "Woohoo!"

The two begin chanting: "USA! USA! USA!"

Feeling great success in proving Flanders wrong, Homer starts to hop back and forth. "'Oh, look at me! I'm stupid Flanders and I'm afraid of a stupid curse!' Heheheh." Somehow the fire jumps from the grill to the top of Homer's head, burning the two hairs on it. "Ahh!" The fire returns to the grill.

"¡Ay, caramba!"

Then the barbecue speaks in a smoky gasp: "Blas... pheme... me..."

"Quick, Bart! It wants blasphemy!"

"Will this do?" Bart holds up a Left-Handed Holy Bible, which contains a bookmark that says PROPERTY OF NED FLANDERS.

"Gimme, gimme, gimme!" Homer takes the Bible and tosses it into the fire. It instantly incinerates.

"Th... anks..."

Homer empties the package of hotdogs onto the grill. "Boy, how about a super-scary Halloween story? Or are you... chicken?"

"Does it have machine guns?"

"No."

"Does it have acts of vandalism, excessive violence and delinquent teens being murdered by killer clowns?" Bart asks, counting them off on his four fingers.

"No! Wait, what was that last one again? The de-linking teens..." Homer rotates the hotdogs. "Anyway, boy, this story's called...

THE PLAGUE WALKED AT MIDNIGHT

PART ONE: THE PROBLEM WITH BEING DEAD

1

i

Deere Dtektive Van Hellskreeme,

It haz kumm too owre attenshun that yewe arrr thee beste dtektive in un-kuv-er-inge ansers too problemes.

Wee heere at thee kassel arrr ex-peere-ee-enn-singe straynge problemes withe unded kreechers.

Helpe uhsss, pleeze. Yewe wille bee welle-komm-penne-sate-tid. Kumm kwikklee!

—Kinge and Kweene Milltunn

ii

UNDER candlelight, Van Helscream read the letter another forty or fifty times as the dinosaur-drawn carriage he sat within rattled and jounced its way across the curling, cliff-edged mountain road. For atmospheric reasons he'd decided to make the trip to Castle Milton during a late-night storm. So far it wasn't letting him down—with the rumbling barrage of thunder and the near-constant flashes of lightning having a stroboscopic effect on the landscape around, providing him with glimpses of ever-so-slightly changing pine-tree forests and dirty lunatics rutting under the branches like wild animals. The country was truly a magical place to be.

Though he didn't envy the driver—one Raoulio St. Duke—who sat up above, whipping the team of four raptors so they stayed the course and didn't drive them into the ravine. Raoulio liked to live dangerously, Van Helscream realized, as he'd spotted what looked to be a metal rod jutting out the top of the man's black felt hat. A too-close-for-comfort blue-white bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree and set it ablaze.

Van Helscream stuck his head out the window, feeling beads of rain pelt his face like some yet-to-be-invented rapid-fire killing tool. "Still alive up there, old friend!" he shouted over the storm. The thought that Raoulio was now merely a pile of ash-turned-to-sludge crossed his mind.

"Ah, yes, Master Van Helscream!" Raoulio shouted back, just as a whistling gale started up again. His pain-filled shriek filled the night: "AHHHHHH!"

"What is it!? Are you injured!?"

"Nah! Just fuckin' with you, Master! Lay back and enjoy the ride! We'll reach Castle Milton in a few minutes! YAH!" The driver whipped the raptors' asses to urge them onwards.

Back inside the dry carriage and back to the letter. Abysmal spelling aside, Van Helscream got the gist of the message. The royal family had a problem with the undead—but who didn't? All of Peburia was now the victim of a spontaneous onslaught of seemingly undead creatures: from your clichéd shambling, brain-hungry zombie to your hackneyed vant-to-suck vampire. Trite and uninspired monsters, to say the least. And Van Helscream had faced and fought them all before.

But nobody knew why people—good, innocent people—were turning into such unseemly abominations only worthy of an axe to the forehead, a stake to the chest and a crucifix up the ass. Some Peburian intellectuals suspected it had to do with the recent reliance on wind power sucking in more bad energy from the Sun. The natives of Wannatuk'luk, however, claimed it was some kind of plague caused by nefarious experimentation with dead bodies and the resultant stench of decay being billowed about via the planet's enormous collection of windmills—but they were just stupid savages, so everybody ignored them.

Regardless of the planetwide problems, Van Helscream would investigate Castle Milton. Besides... they said he'd be well-compensated. And Van Helscream needed some way to pay for his latest purchases. A brand-new wardrobe of snakeskin boots, jagulion-pelt coats and a limited line of leather hats made from actual dinosaur testicles didn't come cheap, nor did the wind-powered personal computer, which he lovingly snuggled now that it had crossed his mind. Expensive, yes, but all worth it.

Van Helscream folded the letter and returned it to his coat pocket. His eyes grew tired as he watched the soothing dance of the candle's flame. He was glad to be in here, away from the downpour and the icy bite of the wind.

Then a sudden darting to the left, bringing the carriage up on its left-side wheels and sliding Van Helscream sideways. That woke him up righteously. Shouts from outside—from Raoulio; and from other voices, which he didn't recognize.

And then it was done. The carriage tilted back down until all four wheels touched the uneven ground once more.

"What the hell was that!?" he screamed out the window.

"Nothin' to worry about, Master Van Helscream! Just a fancy wind-powered carriage full of drunken teenagers goin' for a joyride durin' a late-night monsoon!"

That explained it... Rotten teens. They'd be the death of him yet.

"Look, Master Van Helscream! Castle Milton!"

His eyes were forced upward. There was no way he could've looked elsewhere, not with that monster of a castle jutting up out of the flatland on which it had been constructed. Surrounded first by a large, swampy, peanut-butter moat and then intricately built stone walls, gated at the front by an already-extended drawbridge, Castle Milton had a double-sided triangle of towers which led up to the keep within its centre. Atop the keep and each tower were a series of massive windmills, rotating with gusto as the winds were so readily received at such an altitude. Some said the great god Glasomil fashioned the castle in a previous age. Others said it took a team of magicians over twenty years—much of it spent doing drugs and dicking around, so as to get back at the royals for paying them slave wages. In any case, and Van Helscream was inclined to agree, nobody except the royal family themselves claimed the King and Queen had built Castle Milton.

Distance was achieved quickly now that they were heading downhill. Raoulio navigated masterfully, calling for the raptors to slow their pace as they left the mountains behind and reached the drawbridge.

"I'll walk from here, old friend," Van Helscream said.

"You sure, Master?"

"Quite." He grabbed his computer, first ensuring the miniature-windmill power supplies were tucked in, then exited the carriage. He lowered his hat and adjusted his coat—the rain and chill were like knives against his skin.

Raoulio stepped down from the driver's seat to join him, and Van Helscream handed the man a crisp note. "For your impeccable skills as a driver, and for your undying friendship."

"I can't accept that, Master," Raoulio said, eyeing the last of the detective's money. "Friends don't take money from friends, as my daddy always said."

"You're certain? Alright, then..."

"B-But"—the bill was almost back into the pocket, and if it went there it was gone forever—"Anita has no qualms about taking the good Master's money, do ya, Anita?" Raoulio said to one of the raptors.

Anita snapped her jaws and let out a low, throaty growl of economic approval.

"Could buy the old girl a whole bag of pig rectums..." Raoulio grinned sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders.

"Here you go, Anita," Van Helscream said, giving the raptor the note of currency and narrowly avoiding having his fingers snapped off. He patted her on the head, which made her purr with pleasure.

"Want me to stick 'round, Master? It's no problem at all."

"Hmm. Head to the nearby village of Rothgor, old friend. I will contact the innkeeper if you're needed."

"Very well, Master. And do stay safe. I hear the 'royals' are royal creeps." Raoulio sat back in the driver's seat and whistled to his raptors.

Waving to the driver, Van Helscream watched the carriage take off again, this time travelling a path adjacent to the base of the mountain. The bouncing vehicle soon became lost in fog and forest.

He turned and crossed the bridge, heading for the castle.

iii

LIFE was good when you were a young lad, especially if you were in the middle of a solid drunk. It hardly got better. To Thad—the head of the gang—being young, wasted and driving recklessly through the mountains on a rainy night was the epitome of fun. The only thing more fun than that, really, was to put some other poor sod's life in danger because of your own flagrant disregard for the rules of the road.

When Thad ordered Jeremiah—the gang's driver—to swerve into an oncoming carriage, everybody laughed. When the other carriage almost crashed and its team of dinosaurs were almost violently crushed beneath its roaring wooden wheels—you betcha everybody laughed.

"Watch where the fuck you're going, you imbecilic arse-muncher!" Thad yelled out the window, or at least that's what he thought he'd said. In all reality, however, what had come out of his drooping, drooling maw was: "Waaaagle wobble widdle wit wet wut, wooter wotter-wetter!"

Everybody laughed and high-fived each other at the stinging insult that'd been delivered. They'd all heard what Thad had tried to say. For some reason drunks speak the same language.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—due their celebration, and also to the rain-slicked road and their extreme intoxication, Jeremiah lost control of the carriage, took it off the edge of the mountain and crashed it into a tree. His head became one with the steering wheel. What looked to be smashed cherries decorated the dashboard.

Thad went flying through the windshield, was clotheslined by a large branch, and hit the ground neck-first. He managed to survive with only a small scrape on his knee because his severe drunkenness had put him into a highly relaxed state.

And the other guy—Elray, the backseat bandit—banged his head into Jeremiah's back, further mashing his friend's already-mashed face. He rubbed his sore forehead and stumbled out of the carriage, feeling dazed and disoriented. Elray's chest felt itchy... like, inside his lungs. He took his hand from his forehead and saw blood on his fingers. Then he coughed. He looked around at the murky forest, feeling afraid of what might lurk out there, and coughed some more. Thick, bloody mucous shot out his mouth. Not good. He felt dizzy, light-headed. He heard Thad coughing, too. Jeremiah was obviously dead.

Or was he?

"What... Wh-What if I..." was all Elray managed to say before he collapsed against the cold, pine-needle-strewn dirt of the forest floor.

2

i

"RIGHT this way, Mawsta Vawn Helscream," the bowing wizard-slash-servant-slash-butler said to Van Helscream from the castle's lobby. The wizard, dressed in star-spangled purple robes and a bowtie, sounded like he came from noble stock and had a head cold. "Leave your belongings there, and someone will attend to them."

Before he'd even reached the castle's interior, Van Helscream had had to walk through a relatively poor pre-castle hamlet, which had seemed more like a rubbish sale on the castle's front lawn than a full-fledged hamlet. Dirty people had offered him first their children and then—when that'd failed—themselves. When a crowd had mobbed him, he'd had to threaten to shoot them all with the miniature auto-reloading crossbow he kept in his wallet for safekeeping.

But the actual castle? Holy hell. Candelabras decorated the walls, holding three candles instead of the usual one that poor folk were used to. Also decorating the walls was "wallpaper," which was a word Van Helscream needed some time to get used to, like "freemium," "baseketball," and "Muzak." And finally, hanging from the wallpapered walls were paintings of the royal family, looking quite royal indeed, with the straight-angle noses of patricians and the finely sculpted cheekbones that apparently came down directly from the bloodline of the great god Glasomil Himself.

Natty-ragged slaves bowed to Van Helscream as he followed Burmew, the wizard-servant-butler. One tried to take his jagulion coat, quite roughly in fact, and Van Helscream had been forced to punch her out. He looked down at her knocked-out shape and massaged his bloody knuckles, questioning whether a kick to the back of the skull would be overkill or just something she'd had coming.

"No mawtta, Mawsta," Burmew said before placing one heavy wizard's boot to the woman's exposed backside and turning her over. He snapped his fingers and a broom appeared out of thin air to shovel the unconscious slave out of sight. "She's notorious for pilfering the pockets of the cawstle's guests."

They continued through the castle to the throne room, passing more of those beautiful royal portraits. Van Helscream had never actually seen the royals in person, but he was expecting to be stunned into silence by their physical perfection. Sure, they probably didn't have swift minds—based off their spelling in the letter they'd sent, he guessed they were as smart as fleas—but beautiful people rarely did.

Naturally, when Burmew threw open the throne-room doors with a clap of his hands and Van Helscream saw what the royal family of Peburia really looked like, all he could say was:

"Ugh."

They were ugly, obscene, hideous. Maybe even monstrous. They looked like people who'd been fashioned by a weekend psychotic from numerous other people's body parts. And, perhaps remarkably, in spite of their mismatchedness—or maybe because of it—the pair looked like siblings, maybe even twins.

"Drrrrrrrrr nooooomphfblbl," said the Queen. Dressed in a black-striped white gown, she was incredibly obese, with six chins, a microcephalic head, a unibrow, eyes positioned so close together she seemed perpetually crosseyed, and a raised right shoulder which appeared to be breathing through the gown.

"Welcome, Detective Vawn Helscream," Burmew translated, marching over to stand at the Queen's side.

The King—also morbidly obese, also the possessor of far more than one chin—dribbled applesauce down onto his black-striped white toga. Burmew rushed over and wiped away the mess with the King's black cape. The King made an incomprehensible noise and pushed away the wizard-servant-butler-translator-nurse with his fat hands, which didn't have the usual number of fingers. Burmew patted the King's hydrocephalic head, putting a hand-shaped dent in it, and wandered back to the Queen's side.

"The King says, 'Not in front of our esteemed guest,' by the way."

The King grinned a mouthful of bad teeth and a waterfall of applesauce flowed forth. His far-set eyes appeared to look in opposite directions, neither of which Van Helscream occupied. He had tiny jug ears, a unibrow, and most disturbingly of all: a buzz cut.

Van Helscream gave his mutton chops a scratch. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do or say, seeing as how these two inbred freaks seemed incapable of holding a conversation with him.

"Ndldrldlding drrrrrrrrrr," said the Queen.

"We need your help, Detective."

Van Helscream nodded. "Yes, I received the letter. Where would you have me begin?"

Burmew turned to the King and Queen and translated: "Bdoooomlmgma mmbasdawasm. Mafsd masddwg mgg mgg mgggggggggg?" He even lifted one hand and held it limply, contorting his face while he spoke.

The proceedings went on for quite a while. Much drool was spilled. Even a diaper change had been necessary. Eventually, but only after he'd received that once-in-a-lifetime kind of headache you'd rather die than suffer through, Van Helscream was told he could explore the surrounding towns for clues in the morning.

"The court jesta will see you to your quartas, Mawsta," Burmew said, bowing in the hall outside the throne-room.

"Very well. Thank you for your hospitality," Van Helscream replied. He turned to leave.

"Oh, but Mawsta—"

"Yes?"

Burmew plugged one nose for a moment, as he removed a vial from his robes. "You wouldn't fawncy a toot, would you, Mawsta?" He snorted from the vial. His eyes went wide and he blinked and sniffled.

Van Helscream accepted the vial. "I have been known to indulge from time to time, yes." He took a long pull of the peanut-butter powder. "Ah. That ought to put me right out."

ii

JEREMIAH peeled his smashed-in face from the steering wheel. Though he lacked working eyes and an intact brain—much of both were still glued to the dash—somehow he was able to think and see. To be fair, the only thought in his mind was BRAAAAINS, and the only thing he saw was a hazy red smear. His dead green-grey hands clawed for the red, picked it up and jammed it, bit by bit, into what remained of his mouth—which was mostly just lower jaw and a few crumbs of decayed tooth. He continued eating his own brains until the red disappeared from his "sight." And then he saw only blackness.

Near the carriage, Thad sat on Elray's chest, his newly formed fangs buried deep in his friend's neck. The blood was rich and refreshing. But every so often Thad had to pick long strands of brown hair off his tongue and from between his teeth. He hadn't realized 'til now how hairy Elray was.

Which brings us to Elray, who woke to Thad looking paler than usual. And had his teeth always been so sharp and pointy? And why did he have hot blood rolling down from the corners of his mouth? Elray punched Thad off, and saw his own arms were covered in fur. Instinctively—and he didn't know where this instinct had come from—he howled at the star-strewn black sky and leapt twenty feet across the forest, swinging from thick tree to thicker tree, eager to whale on his buddy some more.

Jeremiah shambled out of the vehicle. He saw more smears of red moving this way and that, intertwining and colliding into a crimson explosion. A hungry groan escaped his throat. He tried to say what he had a hankering for.

All three stopped and looked at one another—well, except Jeremiah, of course.

Thad: looking awfully sickly. His pallor had a pallor of its own. His buddy's blood just didn't do the job. His vampiric urges required a purer kind of human hemoglobin. He needed someone less afflicted with canine tendencies.

Elray: a walking wolf with a snout and a face full of fur. He had two tooth-sized craters on his neck, under the jungle of hair. He felt itchy and wanted to run, run, run as far as the eye could see and howl at the stars. Oh, and kill.

And Jeremiah, bless him: a stumbling, bumbling, brainless zombie. His own dead brain cells hadn't done much to sate his appetite. He needed something nutritious and not so dead, brains high in omega-3 fatty acids.

Yeah, our three lads were monsters now. And damnit, was there anything more fun for a few lads than late-night acts of hooliganism while under the influence of homicidal urges?

Naturally, the three took off for the nearby town of Rothgor. Violence was in the air. The dead had risen. They found a wild horse and slaughtered it—with Thad sucking it dry, Elray tearing its flesh, and Jeremiah indulging in its brains.

iii

SWAYING and stumbling, Van Helscream bounced from wall to wall, moving through the castle's halls like he was in a particularly nasty nightmare.

D-Damn... Damn... Damn wiz—wiz—wiz—ards—wizards and (and (and (and (and)))) their (damn (and (and ((damn) damn wizards))) wizards) and their p-p-p-p-p-potent (and their) potent P (potent P—potent P), he thought to himself, trying to keep his head straight but feeling all twisted.

The freaks of the castle leered at him with lizard's faces, long tongues licking and lashing him. Van Helscream screamed, ranted, raved.

To the sober eye, he appeared to be holding a small potted plant and weeping into its deep-black soil.

But to him, Peburia itself was dying inside that pot, and his tears were the water of life to bring it back to a healthy state of equilibrium. The monsters who walked the world were manifested in its wilting yellow-spotted leaves, and tiny little bugs crawling up and down its central stem were the source of all life's problems, infesting everything and breeding the very abominations stalking the land.

A hand touched his shoulder. Van Helscream flung it away, spinning around to face his latest foe. A freak with a dinosaur riding his head stood there, smiling at him, wielding a weapon of some sort.

"Get back, you vile fiend!" Van Helscream swung the potted plant.

The freak bent backwards and narrowly avoided having his skull crushed. "SIIIIIR!!!!!!" the thing banshee-shrieked inside Van Helscream's head.

"Stay away, you damned monster! I'll have you know, I'm both a detective and a doctor of occulthalmology!" He dropped the potted plant to the floor, causing it to shatter, and instead pried a candelabra from the wall. When waved, the dancing flames were remarkably hot on his hands, and the fire itself seemed to be the home of a laughing devil creature.

"SIIIIIR!!!! YOU'RE SUFFERING FROM AN OVERDOSE!!!!!" The freak thrust the long weapon forward and colourful clouds of dust puffed into the air.

Van Helscream couldn't help but get a good whiff of the stuff. His lungs seemed to constrict for a moment, then an irritation brewed within. He sneezed a few times and the drugged-up veil had suddenly been lifted. Now he saw the "freak" for what he was: a skinny servant dressed in black-striped white pants with holes in them, and the dinosaur riding his head was merely a dead lizard worn as a hat; totally normal. He wore knee-high boots, ripped at the toes so his actual toes were exposed to the elements. A hooded black shawl was worn over his drab grey shirt.

"Feel better now, Master?" The man with the dead-lizard hat lidded his vial, shook it and put it away. "Antidote."

"Yes, yes. Sorry—?" He paused, probing for a name.

"Rexxivus," the servant said. "Rexxivus Milton, but please call me Rexx, Master."

"Call me Van," Helscream told him. "Milton, eh? Related to the King and Queen, by any chance?"

"Sadly, yes. I'm their half-brother. Different mothers," he added quickly, as if he were embarrassed by their grotesqueness and apparent incestuous proclivities.

"I deeply apologize for my no doubt unbearable behaviour moments ago, when I screamed and tried to bludgeon you to death and then attempted to light you on fire."

Rexx nodded, bowing low. "No matter. Happens all the time."

"Really? They have you doing... what, exactly?"

"Mostly jestering," Rexx said. "Occasionally I get beaten in a gladiator match, fighting jagulions. Every so often they make me stand naked outside and let the commoners in the village pelt me with rotten tomatoes and pineapples."

"Monsters."

Rexx wiped his nose, which had started to run. "The pineapples are the worst. The spines seem to get more painful the more they rot..." He removed his hat and stroked its leathery green skin. "Rexx Jr. says I should stop burdening you with my troubles and show you to your room, Master Van."

Rexx put the hat back on and Helscream gawped as he swore he saw the dead lizard wink at him. He shook his head, thinking it must be lingering effects of the P.

"Right this way, Master Van."

Following Rexx down the hall and up the stairs, Helscream witnessed the poor treatment Castle Milton's jester received. The resident magicians treated him like a rubbish bin, quite literally trying to stuff garbage down his throat. Helscream had been forced to pummell the wizards until his knuckles were covered in their blood. Even the other servants seemed to think themselves superior to poor Rexx Milton. It was as though the King and Queen had given their express permission—perhaps even approval—to bully and dehumanize the castle's jester.

When a torso with a head and a pair of broomsticks for arms waddle-rocked its way over to Rexx and started beating him with its brooms, Helscream dropkicked that hideous thing out the window. He enjoyed watching it scream and curse him and shake its brooms on the way down, enjoyed watching it explode and spill its blood and guts into the moat, tingeing the peanut butter red.

"You really didn't need to, Master Van."

"I wanted to," Helscream said, turning and mopping up the drool from his chin. "How much further to my room? Any more minions to murder?"

"Um, no." Rexx indicated to the nearby wooden door. "Right inside here." He pushed open the door and, after it had finished squeaking, they went in.

Sure enough, the computer had been placed on the table, though nobody had thought to turn it on. Helscream did that while Rexx gave him the spiel about ringing a bell if he needed anything, anything at all.

"It gets quite chilly in here, at this height. And windy, particularly when it's so stormy." The jester indicated to the glassless windows, currently acting as an opening for vortexes and heavy rain.

"But the upload speed is marvellous!" Helscream shouted as he transmitted data to his home servers. The computer's windmills were spinning fast enough to amputate fingers.

"Well, I'll be on my way, Master Van," Rexx said, then took out some bells and started jingling them as he did a little jig.

"No need to degrade yourself like that."

The jester hung his head and put the bells away. "Sorry. Would you like to beat me?"

"Don't apologize. And no."

"S— Okay. Want me to tuck you in?"

"Yes, please. Even a detective needs tucking in sometimes. I'm a little weary after today's shenanigans, what with the chilly ride here, the overdose, the beatdown I gave those wizards... My head's sore and my bones ache."

"Say no more, Master Van." Rexxivus assisted Helscream in removing his boots, coat and hat, and walked him over to the king-sized bed, tugging down the giant-ostrich-feather duvet. "I hope you're able to get to the bottom of this monster business," he said as Helscream climbed in.

"I most certainly will try. Though I haven't the faintest idea where to start. The King and Queen said to try the nearby villages."

Rexxivus pulled the duvet over Helscream. "I think you'll find the problem is closer to home than that. Well, goodnight, Master Van."

"Goodnight, Rexxivus." Helscream watched the jester leave and close the door. Nice young man. But the staff were mistreating him, clearly. He didn't like that, not one bit. Have to do something about it... in the morning, perhaps...

With the heavy blanket pulled up to his nose, Van Helscream drifted off wondering how he'd get to the bottom of Peburia's monster crisis. Where would he begin? He barely had a lead. He...

...had fallen asleep.

3

i

HELSCREAM awoke to the sound of jingling bells and Rexx nose-to-nose with him.

"Finally, you're awake! Master Van, I didn't know how else to wake you." The jester put the bells away and started tugging on Helscream's arms. "You must get up, and quickly. There's been horrible news from a neighbouring town!"

Helscream sat up and gave his back a good twist left and right, feeling the crackle send a jolt up his spine, helping him wake that much faster. He rubbed the rheum out of his eyes and saw it was a dried yellow crust. Then it hit him: Raoulio. "Which town."

"Rothgor."

"Shit. No! Raoulio!" Helscream buried his head in his hands and grabbed fistfuls of hair. He sighed, got up from the bed, tried to clear his head. "What the hell happened?" he asked as he shrugged into his coat, put on his hat and stepped into his boots.

"I will inform you as we head downstairs."

They left the room and started walking down one of the spiral staircases, passing the broom-armed torso who'd exploded the previous night. It was sewn together again and didn't look amused. Helscream booted it away.

"Three monsters attacked Rothgor," Rexx said. "No one was found alive."

"Damnit. Three monsters did all that? But Rothgor is a sizeable village of ten people. It's unseemly."

"Needless to say, Master Van, the King and Queen want you to investigate the town and see if you can find any clues."

In the lobby now, Helscream saw, through the open doors and across the bridge, a parked carriage. He couldn't make out the driver, but he did see a team of raptors at the front of the vehicle, snapping their jaws at passing butterflies. "But hold on, Rexx. I believe you told me last night that this... monster 'problem'... could be found closer to the castle than in the neighbouring towns."

Rexx tapped the tip of his nose and glanced over each shoulder before speaking again. "Precisely, Master Van. I very much doubt you'll find anything of value to your investigation in Rothgor, but you must at least try to humour the King and Queen. Then you will be free to come back here and do some real detective work."

"Very well. In the meantime, I trust you'll keep your neck out of harm's way?"

"Certainly," Rex said, bowing.

Van Helscream nodded to the jester and left the castle. As he crossed the drawbridge he saw the carriage driver walk into view from around its non-visible side. "Brown, creamy waters... It can't be!" He broke into a run and, sure enough, was greeted by the grinning face of Raoulio St. Duke. "Raoulio! I'd counted you among the victims, surely!"

Raoulio kicked a stray pebble in an aw-shucks kind of way. "Aw, shucks, Master Van Helscream. You know me. I was never in Rothgor. Like the bloody bastard I am, I went to Ringading—the town past Rothgor—and used the money you gave Anita to buy me a keg of some primo fuckin' swill. Got blind drunk and ended up wakin' to the girls pullin' me 'n' the carriage back through Rothgor, only that hole was dead and bloody by then. Police was 'round, draggin' bodies away. It was horrible. Then I got the message from the castle via carrier pigeon to pick ya up, right quick. So here I am, Master."

"Just as well you suffer from your delinquencies," Helscream said, clapping the driver on the back. "They are, after all, benign." He laughed, and shortly Raoulio was laughing with him.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Raoulio said, "I don't get it," and climbed up into his seat. He waited for Van Helscream to settle within the carriage and then they moved.

ii

"THE problem with being dead is that we're not... really... dead. Are we?" asked Elray from his barstool at the Ringading Tavern.

Sunlight shone into the bar, but just barely—as it had to battle through a thick layer of grime, dust and some unmentionable substance caked onto the glass, which looked like a mixture of blood, feces and grey-white jelly. The effect was a dismal kind of lighting which somehow ended up being even more depressing than absolute darkness.

"It was pretty sick, though, you gotta admit," Thad replied before downing his mug in one long swallow.

Jeremiah said nothing, as his head was still mush—though it was now dried mush, and a swarm of flies had laid their eggs inside. His friends had dragged his lifeless body with them to the bar and propped him up on the stool. Whenever he fell forwards or back, either Elray or Thad would quickly shoot their hand out and stop him.

Which brings us back to Thad and Elray. Neither were in their other—vampiric and werewolfian, respectively—forms. At some point, when the Sun had done another revolution around Peburia, all three changed back into their normal human bodies. Well, Jeremiah was pretty much the same, except he could no longer move or groan (except when the residual gases inside him were expelled through a deathly relaxed orifice).

"But all those people we killed," said Elray, nursing his beer like he wanted to see it go to college, get married and start a family. "Even though it wasn't really us."

"Oh well. Life sucks. Too bad, so sad. Wasn't our fault we crashed the car and somehow turned into freaks."

"Yes it was. We were drinking and driving, and we tried to crash that carriage and kill its occupants and the dinos pulling it."

Thad chuckled. "Oh yeah. Whatever." He shot his hand out and pushed Jeremiah back into place.

Flakes of blood and a few maggots plopped into Jeremiah's drink. Bubbles rapidly formed and ascended to the foamy surface.

The bartender watched his patrons with a suspicious-looking eye. In truth, he wasn't in the least bit suspicious—his squinty eye was the result of nearly losing it after being kicked in the back of the head by a horse; the doctors permanently sewed part of his eyelid shut so the eyeball would stay in. He continued rinsing and drying the mugs, not really listening to the conversation going on in front of him.

iii

THE carriage pulled into town, passing an unhygienic on-the-spot autopsy being performed on the side of the dirt road. A group of policemen stopped conversing about tits and ass long enough to stare with loathing at the intruding vehicle. In their experience, and through the information they'd gleaned via the Grapevine Comm-Chat Network, a raptor-drawn carriage entering a crime scene generally meant Detective Van Helscream was there to do their work for them. Though, in truth, they were glad for this—none of them thought they were good cops or even pretended to be—they still enjoyed acting hostile to him. It was their primary source of joy in such a bleak and hopeless existence.

"Oooh, a detective!" a fat one said as Helscream stepped out of the carriage, shrugged his coat and adjusted his hat.

"I've been sent here by the King and Queen," Helscream informed them. "Though I feel my talents will be wasted here—I want the source of these crimes, the cause. Not the crimes themselves. I do not wish to do your jobs for you."

A skinny newbie perked up when he realized this was his chance to pick on someone, instead of being picked on. "You couldn't do our jobs even if you didn't go to college!"

"Actually, I—"

"Oooh, fancypants here went to college!" said the cigar-smoking man performing the autopsy. He tapped the ashes into the open-chested corpse sprawled out at his knees.

"I did not attend college, good fellow. I attended university."

Cigar ignored that and continued hacking into arms and legs with his bone saw.

"So what happened? Any names for the suspects?"

The fat one said, "Why? You lookin' for a date?"

Everyone laughed.

"Haha," Helscream said. "Any idea where the suspects might have fled?"

"Yer mother." A one-eyed guy with a raspy voice.

"Very funny, sir. Perhaps I'll head back to where I came from and let you fine gents solve this mystery..."

"NO!" "HELL NO!" "FUCK NO!" "PLEASE GOD NO!"

Van Helscream smiled. "Have no fear, gentle sirs. I will still try to reach the bottom of this mystery... Anyway, I can see I shan't be getting anywhere here. I suppose I'll head to Ringading, as that seems a perfectly reasonable place for the murderers of Rothgor to hide. It's closer than the castle is, and I'm starved for breakfast. Good day, fellows." He shouted to Raoulio to take them to Ringading and got back into the carriage.

When the carriage left town, the policemen let out a collective sigh of relief.

"Glad he's on the case," said the fat one.

The others nodded, and the conversation went back to tits.

PART TWO: THE PLAGUE WALKED AT MIDNIGHT

4

WHEN Van Helscream walked into the tavern, the first thing he noticed was the stench of decay. The second thing he noticed was the three young men sitting at the bar. The one in the middle seemed horribly depressed, given his heavy slouch and the way his head rested against the bar top. Helscream ventured forth and pulled up a stool beside the one on the right, a pale young man with dark hair.

"Bartender. Some of your finest raptor eggs for me, fried, and a fresh beer for each of the trio to my left."

The bartender hawked up a yellow-brown loogie and used it to spit-shine the mug he was holding. "You got financial tender?"

"Of course not," Helscream replied. "Put it on my tab. I'll be good for it, I promise. The folks over at Castle Milton are paying me to investigate why people are turning into monsters."

Two of the three young men to his left shifted uncomfortably.

"Your depressed friend there smells as though he could use a proper bath."

Maggots squirmed across the bar and freefalled to the sticky floor.

The one on the left—a blond with waxy, almost-translucent skin—laughed uncontrollably.

"What's so funny?" Van Helscream asked, his right hand working its way down to the pocket where he kept his miniature crossbow. "Do share what tickles you so."

"Nothing, ahehaheahahahahahahaeheheheaheaheahahaheaha! Ahaheahahaeh!"

Ripping the crossbow from his coat, Helscream jumped back from the bar and took aim at the three. "Alright, hands up. Your friend there is quite obviously dead and I—"

"OKAY, W-W-WE ADMIT IT!" cried the dark-haired one closest to Helscream. He bawled his eyes out and dropped to the floor, his sobs violently racking his body.

"Hey, shut up, Elray!" the blond one said.

But Elray wouldn't shut up. Helscream was going to accuse them of murdering their friend, but Elray had said something even better: "W-WE WERE THE ONES WHO TURNED INTO MONSTERS AND K-K-KILLED THAT WHOLE TOWN! WE S-S-SUCK!"

"DAMNIT, ELRAY!"

"G-GO TO HELL, THAD!"

Thad crossed his arms, looking like an adult baby. "Fine, tell him everything. But we're not friends anymore, bro."

"How did this happen?" Helscream asked.

So Elray told him everything, from the drunk driving incident—at which point Helscream interjected to say it had been his carriage they'd tried to run off the road; Elray sobbed harder than ever—to crashing into a tree and everyone coming away with either major or minor injuries. The results had been the same: monstrous transformations that began at midnight and ended at dawn.

"W-Will we change again tonight, Mr. Van Helscream, sir?" Elray used his entire arm to wipe away the snot leaking from his nose.

"I don't know, son, but if you do, I will put a dart through your eye."

"Th-Thank you, sir."

Keeping the crossbow trained on the trio, Helscream stepped backwards, slowly moving for the door. With his boot he nudged the door open. "Raoulio!"

Raoulio's head popped out from under the carriage. "Yes, Master Van Helscream? Just servicin' the ol' girl here!"

"Dear friend, do you happen to have three coils of rope? We've some cargo that needs transporting back to the castle."

Raoulio scratched himself. "Should be some in the boot, I reckon. I'll get to that when I finish givin' this beauty her lovin'."

Helscream stared at Elray and Thad, cocked his head towards the door. "Alright, young men, grab your friend and come outside, nice and slow."

Evidently eager to do the right thing, whether it was because of guilt or just because he wanted to get into someone's good graces, Elray grabbed the dead friend—Jeremiah—shouldered him and attempted to fireman-carry him out of the tavern. This failed and the corpse dropped, splashing congealed blood and maggots across the floor. "Thad! Help me!"

"Do it or I will shoot you right now." Helscream eased back the trigger, which loaded the crossbow and got it ready for firing.

Rolling his eyes, Thad said, "Ugh. Fine. But, bro, you're not getting that birthday BJ from my sister this year."

"I don't care!" Elray wiped tears from his eyes as Thad helped him lift. "She sucks anyway!"

"That she does." Thad grinned.

Helscream marched them out the door at crossbow-point. He stayed inside while Raoulio hogtied the three to the back of the carriage. When they were secured, Helscream made to leave.

The bartender chimed in: "You still want your eggs?"

"Of course not. Given the state of your fine establishment, the eggs most likely come scraped off the floor and seasoned with dandruff."

The bartender nodded in agreement, picked his nose and stuck the hard green mucous to the edge of the bar top. "Fair assessment."

5

i

FIVE hours had passed. The trio were now locked up in Castle Milton's dungeon. Elray was sulking, Thad was screaming he was malnourished and being abused, and Jeremiah was simply dead. Helscream had given Gregg—the dungeon's guard—orders to alert him if the three transformed, and the go-ahead to defend himself against them if they attacked.

But what Helscream didn't know was that Gregg had injured his hand earlier in the day, while playing lawn darts on the castle grounds with some of the magicians. He'd kept the wound hidden well, seeing as how it was located on his left nipple. Only two magicians and Gregg himself knew he had a hand growing out of his left breast, now long enough to reach and massage Gregg's right breast. It was a deeply guarded secret, kept under wraps since birth.

ii

OUT in the pre-castle hamlet, swimming in a fecal bath—the poor man's attempt at a peanut-butter bath—Percy D'Strange got feces in a hangnail he'd ripped off with little regard. It was quickly infected. By the time he was dry, his finger was spitting pus and had to be amputated.

The butcher who chopped off Percy's finger wasn't known for good hygiene, and his meat cleaver had bits of pig rectum encrusted along the blade. The amputation ended up getting infected, too.

Rather than amputate his whole arm, Percy decided he'd be better off killing himself. So Percy opted to hang himself—only the hangman was the butcher's brother and had a tendency to buy low-quality rope so he could pocket the savings. The rope broke and Percy hit the ground hard, breaking his ankle so badly the sole of his foot touched his calf muscle. He chose not to have someone look at his ankle—the doctor was a cousin of the butcher and the hangman, after all—and, little did he know, it became infected.

When Percy noticed his foot had gone black and seemed to stink more than usual, he limped up to the tallest tower and jumped. He hit the ground at a bit of an angle, broke his spine and managed to survive. Paralyzed but not dead, Percy communicated his wishes to his wife with a series of blinks and (on her end) increasingly frustrated shouts.

Though his wishes had been for her to smother him with a pillow, she had him buried alive. It was a slow and painful death, as the gravedigger was the butcher's son, and he hadn't done a very good job in packing down the soil.

Eventually Percy died.

iii

MAGGIE, a servant, fell down fifty flights of stairs, though it was around flight number three or four that it went from a "fall" to a "roll," and around flight number ten when it stopped being funny and just turned sick. She'd broken her neck on flight two, after all. When she finally hit the bottom, she was long past the point of resuscitation—long past an open-casket funeral, in fact.

To be fair, it was her own fault. She'd neglected to clean the tower on a previous shift, so Maggie had tripped on a stray axe handle. Not only that, but she hadn't even been scheduled to be up there in the first place. But, illegal lesbian affairs among castle staff do happen, and tragedy often follows.

Her lover had been plotting to kill her for some time. This was just icing on the cake.

Irene glanced this way and that, gave Maggie's corpse a swift kick, and went back to her duties on the other side of the castle. She had a plan to woo a geriatric wizard, marry him and steal his pension.

iv

IT was now almost midnight. Van Helscream returned to Castle Milton after a day abroad, shopping with the cash advance he'd managed to pester, beg and finagle out of the King and Queen.

The first thing he did was head down to the dungeon to ensure Gregg was still among the living—he was.

"Still feeling human?" Helscream asked Thad and Elray.

Elray looked up with the saddest puppy-dog eyes, but said nothing.

Thad, using Jeremiah's corpse as a couch, hammered the bars of his cell and screeched like a caged animal, which by some definitions he was. "I'M STAAAAARVING! THIS IS TORTURE! ABUUUUSE! I'LL SUE THE PANTS OFF YOU, DICK!"

Helscream laughed. "I will take that as a confirmation to my query. And if your father wishes to do so, Thad, he is certainly within his rights. I will be back after I have visited once more with the King and Queen."

6

i

"SO," Van Helscream concluded, "in conclusion, it is my belief—assuming the three in the dungeon transform at midnight—that this mutagen, or whatever it is, is either absorbed through open wounds and activates immediately, only manifesting at midnight; or, it is absorbed through the lungs and lies dormant until wounds present themselves, and when the body is sufficiently weakened the mutagen takes over and manifests at midnight."

Burmew began to translate for the King and Queen. "Fsdfczxfff... sduuuurrrrwurrr—" He stopped jerking around, got his flailing hands under control and wiped the drool from his chin. "Wait, did you say through open wounds?"

"Certainly."

"Does this little nick count, Mawsta Vawn Helscream?" Burmew raised one of his sleeves and revealed an arm of necrotized flesh. From the elbow to mid-forearm was mostly exposed bone. "Been trying a wee bit of injecting..."

"Dear—"

The clock struck midnight, and the bells of Hell rung loudly.

The plague walked.

ii

DOWN in the dungeon, the trio started to change into their respective forms. That was expected.

But then Gregg changed, too. That was also expected to anyone who's been paying attention thus far—but not to Thad, Elray, Jeremiah or even Gregg.

For a few moments nobody really knew what to do or think. Then Gregg, in his new shrieking banshee form, unlocked the cell. The four of them marched together, eager to have some fun.

iii

IN the castle and outside, hundreds of people changed. It was amazing how many had hurt themselves in some way or another, whether it was a skinned knee or an ingrown toenail. In any case, the plague had them by the balls.

At the cemetery/dog park, at the tombstone marked "Percivus, You Prick, Thank God You're Finally Dead," Percy's gruel-grey fist punched through the poorly filled grave. He clambered out from his deathbed, stumble-walking as the dirt fell off his face and appendages. He still had the broken ankle, but he felt no pain, so that was swell. His eyes saw a mass of different-shaded reds. He knew his wife was the brightest pink.

iv

MAGGIE picked herself up, snapped her neck back into place and felt a hunger she'd never felt before. She felt jilted—was consciously aware of that fact, could actually recall being kicked by Irene while she was dead—but she also felt some animal impulse she'd never felt before, except in regards to sex. She wanted the blood of her once-lover, and not the menstrual blood she'd indulged in before, but the blood directly flowing from her still-beating heart.

She wanted to feast on the flesh of her, and not in a sexual way, either.

v

TAKING cover behind a flipped-over dining table, Van Helscream readied his miniature crossbow. What wouldn't I give for the full-sized model, he thought, eyeing the puny thing. Sure it could pack a powerful punch, but the bigger version could take somebody's head clean off and splatter it against a wall fifty metres away. There wasn't much of a comparison.

But that was neither here nor there, seeing as how Helscream had been taken by surprise and was outnumbered. Burmew had transformed into a hideous slug-thing, and he was currently jiggle-oozing his way over to Helscream's position. Then there were the other wizards and guards who'd apparently been injured and infected at some point. While running away to his present defensive position, he'd managed to strangle one and punch a hole in its head.

The King and Queen had been useless. He could still hear them giggling and slobbering while they clapped in delight. Helscream peeked over the table and saw a few shambling undead bumping into each other, a gang of werewolves having an orgy, and some vampires taking turns sucking each other off. The royal family heaved their excessive masses from their thrones, hit a secret brick to open a door, and waddled off to some previously hidden room.

Royal cunts, to coin a phrase. Guess he was alone on this one.

Grinning, Helscream lowered his hat and took aim. He fired and managed to snag two zombies in the head with one dart—their heads bonked together, their faces mashed, and they fell to the ground kissing.

The werewolves' ears perked up, but they were too distracted with their snouts jammed deep in unnamed crevices to put up much of a fight. Helscream aimed for the most appealing target—the brown-speckled pink hole set below the furry tail—and let another dart fly. It hit the centre, going in deep. The targetted werewolf yelped in pain and scurried off to hide under a pile of robes, blood pooling around its legs and matting its fur. The others continued having their fun.

But Van Helscream wasn't one to let everyone else have all the fun. He loaded up some silver-tipped darts and nailed the wolves to the wall.

The vampires were draining each other faster than they could replenish their blood. They died holding hands.

And Burmew the slug—well, Helscream was never one to leave home without a packet or two of salt. He tore one open and dumped it in Burmew's path. The gelatinous grey mass oozed right over it and died a painful and demeaning death.

Helscream carefully exited the throne room. Finger ready on the trigger, he aimed left and right, making sure the halls were clear before leaving. Quietly, he stepped down the hall. Left for the drawbridge, right for the dungeon. Left, right, left, right.

He went right. There were groans up ahead, at the far end of the hall, and he could just make out what looked to be a leg, shifting this way and that. As he neared the next turn, the groans grew louder, multiplied. He looked around the corner and saw a whole army of monsters.

"Holy hell!" he couldn't help but shout.

The army turned to him. There was a split second before any reaction had revealed itself—then, like a swarm of wasps protecting their hive, the undead creatures groaned, roared, hissed, shrieked, screamed and, of course, moved. Some moved faster than others.

Helscream got some shots off, but he was forced to retreat. He raced down the hall, heading back the way he came. Sprinting so fast he lost his hat, he didn't backtrack to retrieve it. Hats could be bought, lives could not.

Puffing and panting, spinning and slow circles as he decided which way to run next, and feeling a mild strain of fear, Helscream heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Master Van, come quickly!"

It was Rexx.

He turned to the voice and saw Rexx at the double doors, waving him to hurry. There was a carriage behind him. Helscream took off, rushing towards it. A zombified wizard burst out of a wardrobe and groped for him. He jump-kicked the creature back into the closet. From the corner of his eye, he saw it being bamboozled by a bundle of coats.

"Hop the fuck in, Master Van Helscream!" Raoulio shouted from atop the carriage. He jiggled the reins, but gave the raptors the call to stay, confusing the dinos and making them agitated, ready to run at any second.

Helscream leapt into the vehicle and Rexx slammed shut the door. The carriage took off into the night, kicking up dirt and stones.

Watching the creatures emerge from the castle and surrounding hamlet, Van Helscream said, "Those damn royals seemed none too afraid. I suspect they created this plague, somehow."

He thought again about those Wannatuk'luk natives, how they claimed the windmills billowed the plague across the lands.

Perhaps the real savages were the ones who were supposed to be civilized.