Greetings, Earthlings.
Assuming you are earthlings and not Agorians. Agorborians? Argobrians? I’m not sure. I just overheard the word 'Agorbor' from two girls with spiced lattes while I walked into the coffee shop to see Serenity, the girl who stole my kill.. Well, not technically. I guess it was her every right to dismember Matt, she was one of the first captured. I wasn't. But it's more fun to imagine her as my rival.
In a campy-horror-movie kinda way, I mean. I get why she was the final girl, it was dramatic irony, but like Come ON. I got a cool power of my own I wanna show off too, and could you imagine what it would’ve been like to watch Matt Shapiro get his dick bitten off by a werewolf? Cinema Gold. Would’ve won an oscar. Yours truly would’ve been played by the magnificent Neve Campbell. But y’know? Jamie Clayton is also a pretty good choice.
Sorry, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. This is Juniper Levinson, reporting in! No gender required upon entry. I spent most of my childhood alone in my bedroom watching old John Carpenter movies on VHS. My parents helped cultivate my passions, too. My dad was a puppeteer under Jim Henson for years, and eventually went on to do big time puppetry for people like Spielberg. Sometimes, if he didn’t have much going on during the winter, he’d make me my own puppets, of anything I wanted. One of my favorites is one my dad made for me back when I was 13 and thought being a cryptozoologist was a viable career option, a Mothman named Steve.
Mothman are short, fuzzy creatures that are the size of humans but look like moths. They’re very common in West Virginia. That’s where my aunt and uncle live.
Anyway, enough about me, you’ll see a bit more of my personality in a bit. This is the story of Halloween night, the day my best friend got his powers, and we started our own superhero team.
Larry Thim is my closest friend, we’ve known each other since grade school, and we both lived relatively nearby in the same neighborhood within the town of Cape Cane. We shared most things with each other, even came out at around the same time too, though I gotta warn ya, he’s one of those twinks. You ever watch Lasagna Fox: Ace Detective or any Trixie Mattel youtube video? That’s basically his entire personality. Fashion, Fashion, Runway, strut, slay, etc. It’s a miracle I can get him to watch any movie that’s not a musical or an adaptation of a musical. I wish I didn’t have to stereotype in cases like these, but... he is who he is.
Anyway, the night started out like any other halloween night, with me walking a few blocks down the street to meet up with Larry. I was dressed as a Mothman, and Larry agreed that he would go as a lamp. I was already wearing the full, intricate mothman costume my dad helped me make as I walked down the street, red contacts in my eyes and fur that felt like it was part of a moth. Or a carpet. One of the two.
I raised one of my neato mothman wings as I approached Larry’s apartment to get ready to ring the doorbell when I heard crying coming from inside. I opened the door, which was luckily unlocked.
“Larry? Are you gonna shine a light at me so I know where you are?” I called out into the darkness of the apartment.
“Juniper? Is that you?” Larry called back, sounding like he’d been crying for hours.
“Yeah dude, it’s me. My dad finished my mothman costume today, you wanna come down and see?” I replied, sifting through the dark.
“I... I don’t know what happened... I don’t look the same anymore... and I can’t remember what I used to look like or how to go back to the way I was before!”
Larry’s overly dramatic voice bellowed through the darkness, and using my mothman senses (normal human person senses, but ~flavor text~), found him in the bathroom and turned on the light, only to discover the man I once knew as the loud, overly confident twink that was one linebacker away from fucking the entire football team is a crying, husk of a being made entirely out of cotton.
You read that correctly. Larry Thim had become Cotton. His overly sensitive persona has come back to bite him in the ass.
“Larry, when did you turn into cotton swab?” I asked, calmly.
“I don’t know, like four hours ago, maybe. Ugh, time is haaaaaaaard.” Larry immediately began complaining.
“Yeah, no, this is... this is a pretty big change for you. Makeup doesn’t work on cotton swabs and I don’t think you’ll ever be truly clean again.”
“Juniper, you're not helping.”
“Sometimes you just gotta recognize that a situation sucks.”
I turned around and looked in Larry's bathroom mirror.
“Did I turn into Mothman again by accident? Christ. Fucking Matt Shapiro and his torture croneys. I’m glad that dicknozzle can’t breed anymore, he never deserved that ability in the first place. I would like to pay the hospital all of my savings just so I can have time to kick his ass again.”
“Thank shift he’s dealt with.”
Larry and I shared a brief silence. This must be incredibly hard on him. I mean, I’m sure he can still dance but this is one way Matt Shapiro got his wish. He crushed the dreams of my best friend. Gone are now the days of him getting into my old prom dress and making a fool of himself badly lip syncing to a Madonna song. Now he’s just... Cotton.
I turned back to look into the mirror, looking at the very real face of my Mothman transformation, and instead of doing the rational thing because I knew I had the ability to become Mothman at any time, I chose the route of denial, because I remembered that my dad was the one who made me my first mothman costume.
“Yep, still just a costume. My dad put a lot of effort into this. I hope he joins us for the festival.” I spoke, trying to deny my powers.
Halloween is a rough time of year for me, okay? I'm not exactly the best at showing emotions half the time. It's a long one and I don't exactly have the time to tell it while explaining this story. I was staring into that mirror, filled with self doubt at my own very recent memories, looking at a reflection of myself who looks happy. That was before Larry broke me out of my trance.
“June...” Larry started, sorrow filling his voice, “your dad died over a year ago.”
Larry stood up, walking over towards the mirror I was still standing in front of.
“No, that’s impossible. I saw him earlier today. I left the house with the costume, and he was sitting in the kitchen with bacon and eggs covering his plate, shoveling forkloads of egg into his mothman puppets fake mouth. I was on my way here.” I replied frantically, remembering what I wanted to remember.
“Babes, it’s 5pm. You got here 10 minutes ago. You probably left 30 minutes ago, and nobody eats bacon and eggs at 4:30 in the afternoon. Not even your dad. You're probably just having a panic attack and making my problems about you again.” Larry comforted me, slowly getting up and wrapping his cotton arms around my shoulders.
His arms felt soft, softer than his personality. We must’ve held each other for what felt like hours. By the time he let go, the festival was only going on for a couple more hours.
“Shit, we need to go to the festival.” I asked afterwards.
“I mean... we’re technically in costume. I can just tell people it was a failed arts and crafts project I recycled into a halloween costume. That makes me sound smart, right?” Larry joked in reply.
I chuckled a bit. Larry’s overdramatic and overcompensating-for-everything personality does help lighten a horrifying situation. We both decided that we needed some fresh air, so we grabbed our Halloween bags from the kitchen and headed out to the downtown area, which wasn’t very big but it was hosting the Cape Cane Halloween Extravaganza Festival, so it was worth exploring.
The CCHEF (for short) is a massive festival the town puts on every year for the townsfolk. Cape Cane the rest of the year is a farming town, basically. There’s a couple big farms that sell most of their items in local markets for cheap. Once a year, on Halloween, they gather up all their stores of pumpkins and apples and put on a show each year. Lots of attractions, they even rent out a few rides here and there. Larry just moved here, so he’s been waiting to explore the festival since we got released from Phobia Labs.
It was a good 10 minute walk of chatting before we got to the festival, and it was either a visual epic the likes of which has only been seen by James Cameron, or a sensory nightmare depending on what kind of person you are. There were pumpkins all over the place, stands with food handing out candy to children for free (though there weren’t very many children, strangely), rides, and a weird dude that looks like a gentleman thief standing in front of an ancient victorian stage coach.
I don’t know why I singled him out in my head, but I do remember that he was very out of the ordinary-looking and standing in the shadows. I also know that Larry approached him before I had time to stop.
“This is a unique looking exhibit, props for sticking to the theme. It’s giving ‘fish out of water.’” Larry said to the man, who tipped his hat and offered him a bar of chocolate with a business card on it.
“Indeed, Excellent cotton costume yourself, mister. Call me Lysander Mysanthrop, Candied Entrepreneur. My skin tastes like Vanilla.” He replied, sticking his incredibly pale hand out in front of Larry while also holding out the chocolate bar and business card.
“Lysander? Did Shift take him out of an Anne Rice novel?” I whispered to Larry, trying to unravel the situation.
“Who is this ‘Shift’? Some newfangled technology, perhaps? A type of gum?” Lysander asked, somehow managing to hear me.
“Y’know, it’s not super important,” I replied to him deflectively, turning my attention to my cotton friend, “Larry there’s like, 10 other stalls here, let’s go talk to someone less... odd.”
“Excuse you, odd people are incredible,” Larry retorted, clearly taken in by the Candyman and taking the business card/candy bar combo, “Thank you, sir. I shall eat these gleefully.”
“The Card as well? Is that a custom of the modern era?” Lysander replied, confused, “Alas, my gratitude towards your thanks.”
After another brief interaction between the two, I finally pulled Larry away from the candy salesman from Transylvania and guided him to an apple-bobbing pool about 15 feet away. Larry was already eating the chocolate, his cotton mouth slowly turning brown around his lips. I slapped the chocolate out of his hand.
“I was eating that!” He yelled at me as the chocolate fell into the pool of apples.
“Hold on, dumbass, I think something’s off about Lysander. I’ve never seen him at this festival before, and I’ve been to most of them through the years. It’s always the same group of vendors, yet I’ve never seen him. He also doesn’t talk like he’s from this era of history and that’s primarily concerning. In the world of superheroes, the ones who are the most eccentric are also the most dangerous.” I said, thinking out loud about the circumstances.
“First of all, people have called me eccentric before, and I currently look like a fucking cloud. I couldn’t hurt water!” Larry retorted with the most offended tone I’ve ever heard him speak in.
“You’re not eccentric. You’re just what people think of first whenever anyone mentions the lgbt community. You’re the white bread of gay. The poster child of twinkology. Doesn’t matter, I’m telling you there’s something off about the vampire wonka cosplayer around the corner. Do you trust me?”
Larry took a moment to think it over, looking into the pool of water with apples and his knocked down chocolate floating around in it deeply.
“Fine. But only because I’m curious about who he is for purely homosexual reasons.” He finally responded after about half a minute.
“Please don’t fuck the 14th century candy cane vampire.” I replied, trying to remain as serious as possible listening to him talk through his cotton visage.
“I make no promises. Just cause my dick’s cotton doesn’t mean I can’t use it.” He spoke slyly, walking away from the pool of apples and onwards into the rest of the festival.
“Well, when you figure it out, don’t let me know.” I replied, walking with him through the rest of the festival.
As we looked around, we noticed something was off about the fair this year. Normally, it was spooky, noisy, and filled with kids. This year, it just looks like people are bored. There aren’t that many children out and about, and the ones that were seemed to stay very close to their parents. Something eerie was going on.
“There’s not many kids here.” I said aloud after a long silence.
“Are there normally?” Larry asked in response.
“Positive. The Cape Cane Halloween Extravaganza Festival usually gives a ton of free tickets to the elementary schools in the area so that kids can come by and have fun, but there aren’t many kids and it’s only 8pm. Something’s amiss.”
Larry put his cotton fingers on his chin, trying to understand what I was trying to say, but before he could say anything in response, his body started moving slower than normal.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“You’re... right... something’s... a-” Larry started, before passing out midsentence onto the ground of the festival.
“Larry?” I started chanting, trying to get him to wake up.
I slapped him in the face a couple times, his cotton body surely absorbing the damage. Before long, I managed to wake him up, as he started rubbing his eyes and yawning.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” I asked, giving him a hand so he could sit up straight.
“Yeah. I just feel like molasses.” Larry said, his voice slowing down a bit.
“Molasses? How? That doesn’t make any sense...” I said, thinking back to the events of the day to try and figure out what happened before I came to a massive realization and dropped Larry back onto the pavement after determining he was fine.
“Hey! Excuse you! I’m still not up to speed on everything!” Larry called out slower than usual.
“The Chocolate. From the Twink-Ass Pale Candy Vampire. I knew something was off about him.” I replied, racing away from Larry as he tried to stand back up slowly.
“C-Can we not jump to conclusions, please? It might’ve been the apple pond!” Larry called back before he tried to chase after me, slightly more slowly than he had been that night.
Before long, I had made my way back to Lysander, and approached him with all my confidence before shouting directly at him from across the festival.
“Where are the children, Lysander?” I snorted angrily, walking up to him.
“Whatever do you mean, One from Earlier? I didn’t do anyth-” He started, before I angrily cut him off and slammed him into his cart.
He was pretty weak, strength-wise. I don’t really consider myself strong or anything, but for a man of his eccentricity, he seemed on the weaker side. Was my comic book knowledge off? Or... maybe it doesn’t reflect real life in the first place? Doesn’t matter. I didn’t have time to ponder the morality of fiction over real life. I didn’t have time to know what I’m talking about in the first place. All I knew was that this chocolate-loving twilight nerd was a lot weaker than I expected him to be.
“Where are the children, asshole? I’m not asking again.” I replied seriously and sternly.
I could feel his neck gulp in sheer terror.
Good.
No one kidnaps the kids of Cape Cane.
I’m not about to let this dickbag become the Freddy Krueger of Vampire Businessmen.
“Okay, okay! I'll tell you, just let me go!” He said scared, his voice cracking throughout his attempt to make a coherent sentence.
I strengthened my grip. I could physically see Lysander violently slap his thighs as if to signal a surrender. Larry, finally making his way over to me, grabbing my waist to pull me away from the Vampire's neck with his cotton hands.
“Christ, June! You're going to kill him!” He shouted.
“He kidnapped CHILDREN, Larry. That's unforgivable.” I replied in anger.
“We don't know that for sure!” He shouted back, turning his attention towards Lysander, “you didn't, did you?”
“Of course I did, it's the only reason I came to this podunk town.” Lysander said, backing away slowly before turning into a chocolate-colored bat to gain distance.
His demeanor changed almost entirely once he turned back into Lysander, standing near the alleyway we entered the festival from. Without a moments notice, he snapped his fingers and summoned two large, bulking minions with lollipop faces and business suits seemingly made entirely out of chocolate.
“I suffer from a special kind of affliction. The only blood that grants me life are those of children full of sugar. However, your strength is naught but an obstacle to overcome. Your fine-looking friend is already suffering from my strengthened molasses-infused chocolate bar! His sluggishness knows no bounds! He shall not fight! Not whilst his arms are cotton!” Lysander shouted from a distance, laughing throughout his monologue.
“Society doesn't need a vampire version of Willy Wonka! We didn't even need the last two!” I shouted back, my anger fuming within me as I felt my body respond to it.
My worldview shifted. Suddenly, I no longer felt wings on my back and grew at least 5 feet. Hair started sprouting all over my body, and my limbs started to elongate. Larry looked at me in awe as he saw me transform into Bigfoot.
I charged directly at the... Candied Thralls? I don't know what exactly to call them. Thrallcolates? Lollithralls? Both of those options sound weird. Lollithralls sounds like something an incel on reddit would name a thrall immortalized at 12 years old, kinda gross. Anyway, I charged directly at the one standing directly to the left of Lysander. Larry, seeing me charge after hearing Lysander's Bond Villain monologue, charged at the one on the right. Unfortunately, he wasn't very fast and immediately got slammed into a wall by the other thrall.
I managed to punch the other one out of the way, as Lysander narrowly managed to make his escape. I turned back into my human form and ran over to help Larry as the thralls disappeared.
“Holy shit, dude, are you okay? That was a powerful slam.” I asked him, trying to get him back on his feet.
“Yeah, I'm alright. The cotton parts of me softened the blow. I barely felt it. How're you already so good at transforming? I thought tonight was your first.” He asked back.
“Uhh... well, I awakened to my powers back in late August, back when that radio host got his dick sliced. I trained with the unreliables for a bit but nothing really happened, so they sent me back home early September. I, uhh... forgot I had powers since.”
Larry gave me a look that made it very clear he was surprised at me.
“What? I have a bad memory, lay off, bitch.” I said in the most exasperated tone I could.
“Well, at least we know who's at fault now, hot as he is. Plus, I might be impervious to blunt damage. That’s... helpful.” He replied, exasperated a bit and slowly gaining his energy back.
Guess the suped-up chocolate doesn't last forever. Which means Lysanders is likely going back to the children.
I tried to think of any possible place where those children could be. There weren't a whole lot of factories in the area, but it's also clear that Lysander can teleport, so he could be anywhere.
Immediately, I knew who to call. Jacob, the guy who trained me, gave me a bunch of phone numbers to call in case we were stuck, basically saying I was a member of the unreliables from that point onward, but nothing came up until now.
I pulled out my phone and immediately called a number listed in my phone as Omnigirl.
It rang a couple times before I heard a cheery voice answer.
“You've reached Omnigirl, blind lesbian in a wheelchair, Humanities Television, what's your emergency?” She asked.
“HI, this is... do I need to have a codename? Jacob can vouch for me. Juniper.” I responded.
“Sure, why not. Not like I have anything going on. Wassup?”
“I need you to track someone. A pale candy salesman named Lysander. He's stolen the children of Cape Cane and taken them somewhere. He's likely with him now.”
“Hard to do without a full name, but... color me interested. I do enjoy me some candy. Rescuing kids too, but the sweet tooth comes first. Let me see what I can find. Give me a sec.”
I waited a couple minutes. Not a whole lot came from the other line, as if she was busy watching something.
“Do you know any of the kids he kidnapped? I'm not exactly having much luck with a candy salesman in the channel listing.” She finally replied.
“I don't. Could you potentially try Candy Vampire Businessman? Like... uhh... if the Tim Burton Wonka could turn into a bat. Also, I'm sorry, channel listing?” I asked flabbergastedly.
“Yeah. I guess I've honed my powers enough to have a channel guide filled with the names of every single human who is currently alive. Billions of channels. But yeah, Candy Vampire might work. Fucking weird villain archetype, though. Give me another sec.”
This time, it only took a few seconds before she got back to me.
“Seems to be an abandoned factory, there was a window and the outside looked a lot like the barren fields of Yakima. Lots of kids inside of the factory. Some of them look like they got bite marks on their neck.” She replied.
“Alright... no idea how we're gonna get to Yakima from here, but thanks for the help.” I thanked her, then hung up the phone.
“Where is he?” Larry asked.
“Yakima.” I replied.
“Fuck me. Yakima is the last place anyone in this state would want to be.”
“Yeah, but that also makes it the best place to hide kidnapping victims.”
“Okay, how the fuck are we getting to Yakima, then? It's on the other side of the cascades!”
I thought for a second before coming to a grand realization. I have the ability to fly. Possibly fly really fast.
“How light is your body right now?” I asked slyly.
“You know I get motion sickness, June.” Larry replied.
“Well guess what?” I started, getting closer before grabbing his arm and transforming back into my Mothman form, “This motion is about to be hella sick.”
Holding onto Larry as tightly as I could, I immediately took off from the festival at mach-10 as we flew over the cascade mountains to Yakima. After about an hour, I spotted an abandoned factory in the middle of a barren field and landed the both of us. Larry immediately threw up, however his vomit was just cotton balls. I returned back to my human form and just kinda tumbled onto the ground, tired from the flight. Once Larry stopped vomiting cotton, he stood up and we tried to resume conversation.
“This it?” He asked.
“I think so.” I replied from the ground, before standing up and brushing the dirt off my pants, “Do you see any Candied Thralls out and about?”
Larry put his hand over his eyes in an attempt to see what was going on at the factory, but his efforts were fruitless. I guess having cotton eyes aren’t actually good for your sense of sight. I looked alongside the factory but I couldn’t make anything important out. From the outside, it just looked like your typical industrial factory. I couldn’t see a visible name from the distance we were at.
“We need to get closer.” I sighed.
“Without a plan? What, do we just ring the doorbell, show the golden ticket and walk inside?” Larry spoke in jest.
“Maybe we don’t need a golden ticket.” I said, slowly transforming into a Jackalope as if my life were some Animorphs book, before immediately hopping as fast as I could to the entrance of the factory.
As I got closer, the factory logo became a bit more clear and I was able to make out what it said.
Count Chocolauden’s Candy Factory. The mascot on the logo is a chibi dracula licking a lollipop, which tracks given what we know about Lysander. I gestured to Larry to come closer. He was still suffering the side effects of the candy but it seemed like he was finally returning to... well, whatever speed he was to start with. After a few minutes, he managed to make his way to the entrance.
“Slowpoke.” I said, chuckling.
“The cotton took my speed, it’s not my fault.” Larry said, rushing at half speed through the door to the factory.
Immediately, we saw Count Wonkula handing out his special chocolate bars to the kidnapped children, who already looked full. I knew these had to be the children from the festival. I don’t know their names, but Cape Cane is small. I’ve seen some of them out and about.
“Seriously? Chocolauden? Were you seriously born in the 14th century? That’s the only way you could’ve come up with a factory name that bad.” Larry spoke, roasting Lysander.
“Also, kidnapping children is bad.” I added.
“Duh, but that NAME. It’s soooo anti-anne rice, it’s fucking up my cotton insides.”
“Fools! Betwixt thoust travel hours, dost thine think I shalt give up easily?” Lysander yelled in shakespearean english from the other side of the room as he rose up using his... vampire magic, I guess?
With a wave of his hand mid-air, several Candied Thralls arose, surrounding the kids and stopping us from getting to him.
“Let’s hope you got more abilities than just becoming cotton.” I whispered to Larry right before channeling my polymana (what? I play a lot of Final Fantasy and it’s the only way to describe how I feel when I transform, get over it) to turn myself into a raging minotaur.
If those candied thralls had eyes, they’d be terrified. I let out a blood curdling scream to let them know I mean business.
“Good call! Candy cracks under pressure. You distract them, I’ll rescue the kids.” Larry replied after my super cool transformation.
I nodded with my massive minotaur head before turning it back to the Thralls. Even with my new height, Lysander was too far above us for me to reach him. I smacked a few of the Thralls with my hand in a rage, and they started breaking one by one against the walls. To combat my actions, three of the Thralls near the entrance started spraying chocolate syrup onto the floor from their hands. I growled loudly.
Larry was busy rescuing the kids and taking them outside, underneath the only awning at the factory to give them a bit of shade. By the time he came back inside, I had destroyed enough of the forces, but he ended up charging headfirst as fast as he could, not seeing the chocolate syrup.
“Larry, hold on!” I tried to call out, but it was too late.
By the time I had said his name, he had already fallen onto the floor. Unexpectedly, however, he managed to point his arms right at one of the thralls spraying the syrup, which caused a beam of cotton balls to explode out of his hands, covering the Thrall in cotton instead.
“Fuck. Okay,” He started, getting up as the other two thralls were looking at each other confuzzled, “Maybe I’m not purposeless anymore. If I can’t do drag, at least I can unkidnap children from a Hot Capitalist Vampire!”
Larry immediately pointed his hand at Lysander, shooting his Cotton Beam. Lysander, moved slightly out of the way and dodged the beam entirely.
“Tsk, tsk. Thou do understand the difference between the speed of sound and the beam of cotton, correct?” The Vampire replied, laughing.
Larry kept pointing his cotton beams at Lysander but constantly failed to catch him. He was too fast. I used the time to take out the remaining Thralls while he was distracted.
“Stand still!” Larry yelled.
“Make me!” Lysander called back.
At some point, I forgot the time and just started watching this battle of weird lil men trying to one up their own masculinity by just barely dodging each other.
Or maybe Larry just isn’t trying because he thinks Lysander is hot.
And maybe Lysander isn’t trying because he doesn’t really want Larry to leave.
I’m gonna test this theory.
Instead of sticking around to witness this battle as all the kids were safely beneath shade, I transformed back into my mothman form and took an hour each way to return the kids back to Cape Cane. I got 2 of them to ride at a time, and there was a total of 8 of them, so it only took about 4 hours. When I returned to the factory after dropping off the last kid, I saw that Lysander and Larry were both still fighting each other, yelling inane things at each other like children.
I slammed my hand into my face and yelled “Just get a room, already!”
Lysander stopped briefly before getting hit in the face with a Cotton Beam, falling to the floor after losing concentration. As soon as he hit the floor, he passed out.
“Thanks.” Larry said as I walked up to him.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Nothing really happened. He didn’t try to attack me or anything. Just kept dodging.”
We both stared at the cotton-covered candy vampire now lying on the floor in front of us. He wasn’t moving. But he was already undead, I guess, so there’s no way he’s dead. No one threw Garlic at him or anything.
I turned to Larry, and Larry turned to me.
“Do you want me to rent you a motel room somewhere in Yakima so y’all can sort out all this sexual tension?” I asked Larry.
“Yes, please, I’ll do anything. But, how will I get back to Cape Cane?” Larry replied without hesitation.
“I know a guy who owes me one.”
Larry picked up Lysander as we left the facility, the sun long set for the day.
“We should do this again. After I figure my shit out.” Larry said.
“If the Unreliables get to have a team name, we should too.” I replied, “Also we should name ourselves. I’ve been thinking about Creature Feature. You?”
“If we wanna go halloween-themed... Call me the Cotton Diva.”
“That has nothing to do with Halloween, and I don’t see you dressed up as Lady Gaga.”
“Fine, The Cotton Monster.”
“Wow, the ego-inflated diva twink is calling himself a Monster? Call Fox News, I got a story they won’t believe.”
“Fox? Didn’t they create that one show? The one about vietnam?”
“M.A.S.H.? I think so, why?”
“Cause if we’re both Monsters, then you know what we have to call ourselves. The Guardians of Cape Cane. The Monster Mash.”
“That’s fucking dumb! I think we should go with... actually, I have no better ideas. So, sure. The Monster Mash.”
We both ended that short conversation looking up into the night sky as we continued walking towards downtown Yakima.
Our own team.
I hope you’re proud, Dad.