In the world of professional mascots, there’s one truth you can count on: people love partying with someone in a ridiculous costume.

Doesn’t matter if you’re a bat-swinging bear hyping up a minor league crowd or a six-foot-tall dollar bill shaking your felt ass outside a payday loan spot in a strip mall. The second you’re in costume, folks will do whatever it takes to pull you out of your assigned spot and into their world, even if it’s just for one night. They’ll load you up with booze and drugs like it’s candy on Halloween, hoping your goofy, googly-eyed presence will turn their boring, nothing-special night into a legend they’ll retell for years.

For that reason, mascots are kind of like gods. Dumb, fuzzy, lovable gods.

But gods can fall, and when they do, it’s never graceful. Usually, they wake up in strange places, surrounded by stranger regrets, wondering where it all went sideways.

This is the story of one such god — a man who once stood tall among the greats, before tumbling harder than anyone else in the game. His name is Russell Murphy, professional mascot.

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Russell’s first thought was he’d pissed himself. The warm, damp feeling spreading across his lower half told him as much, and it wasn’t like this would be a first. Three, (maybe four) times before, he’d woken up in a similar state after a night of heavy drinking. Enough times, anyway, to know it could happen again. So yeah, it wasn’t a stretch to figure he’d done it once more.

The pounding in his head backed up the theory. It felt like he’d done enough drinking to kill a lesser man, but that was all he had to go on because he couldn’t remember a damn thing.

He stayed where he was, eyes shut tight, not ready to face whatever sorry reality awaited him, piss-soaked or otherwise. Instead, he let his ears take over, tuning into the world beyond his eyelids. The sounds told a story, and Russell wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

Soft splashes, a slow, rhythmic whooshing — waves? Yeah, that had to be it. They gently crashed against him, soaking him from toes to belly. Russell listened, waiting for the sound of an angry roommate or a pissed-off client telling him he was fired. But no, nothing like that. Just the waves, peaceful and calm, doing their thing. Was this… a beach?

Russell let out a groggy sigh as another wave rolled up and over him, cool water soothing the aches and pains that seemed to have claimed every inch of his body.

What the hell did I get into last night? The thought flickered for a moment before he snuffed it out. He wasn’t in the mood for an interrogation, least of all from himself. He decided he’d sleep this one off instead, ignoring everything except the breeze on his back and the sand cradling his face.

But the beach wasn’t about to let him off that easy. The waves grew restless, rolling higher and harder until one broke over him like a wet slap, blasting his entire body with a frothy deluge. WHOOSH!

“Ack!”

Russell flopped onto his back, hacking up saltwater and sand. His eyes cracked open just enough to catch the midday sun blazing overhead, a nuclear spotlight frying his brain. Jesus Christ. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a hoarse croak.

“Holy… god.”

Rubbing at his face with the heel of his hand didn’t help much. His nerves lit up with fresh pain as soon as he applied the slightest pressure, a sharp reminder that this wasn’t just a regular hangover — it was the BIG DADDY of hangovers.

He braced himself and propped up on his elbows, groaning at the effort. He felt bad, sure, but looking down, he somehow managed to look worse.

The first thing Russell noticed — and to be clear, it was the first thing anybody would have noticed — was the ridiculously oversized pair of purple, shaggy-haired leggings clinging to his lower half. He pulled at the suspenders that kept the leggings secure. They’d carved out two pale, vertical lines on his otherwise savagely sunburned chest.

“Fuckin’ figures,” Russell said. Mascot gear, at least half of one. He couldn't remember what the full costume actually was (or where the top half was), but thanks to his striped sunburn, he most certainly looked like a clown. Last night was clearly a disaster, but he'd made a career out of those. So why couldn’t he remember this one?

With all the finesse of a beached manatee, he rolled onto his side. His beer gut flopped out from under the suspenders as he pushed himself upright, sand sticking to his sweaty skin. From a distance, with the waves rolling over his half-purple body, he probably looked like some sad, washed-up mermaid auditioning for the world’s worst calendar shoot. He scanned the beach, grateful to see no one around to witness the spectacle.

And what a beach it was. The place was a computer screensaver, the kind of paradise people maxed out their credit cards to visit. White sand swept smooth by the tide, scattered with a few shells and sticks. The ocean shimmered like polished glass, fading from crystal blue near the shore to an ominous navy in the distance. Further yet, massive cliffs jutted from the water, sheer rock faces patched with greenery, like giant’s fingers clawing their way up from the sea. Dozens of them, scattered across the horizon.

Alien world? Russell thought. Nah. Maybe Asia. Then he shook his head. Didn’t matter. He had bigger problems, like getting himself up and figuring out where the hell he was.

He started to move but hesitated.

He felt the weight of it before he actually saw it. There on his left arm, attached around his wrist, a device.

“The hell is this?” Russell asked himself.

The device was a wrist-mounted display without any sort of bells and whistles. A screen without buttons, about the size of a tablet. It was a sleek-looking piece of tech, visibly unfazed by the water or the sand.

Russell tapped at the black screen, waiting for it to spring to life, maybe tell him why the hell it was strapped to his arm. Nothing. His fingers slapped the thing a few more times, but still, dead. Shit, maybe the water had fried it. He frowned, not really caring what it was but already sure of one thing: he wasn’t paying for it. If there was one rule Russell lived by, it was not taking responsibility for things he didn’t remember doing. It’d saved his ass plenty of times, even if it cost him a few friends along the way. If he’d grabbed and broken this device during his blackout, as far as he was concerned, it had nothing to do with him. Best to figure out how to ditch it and call it a day.

He studied the band that wrapped the device to his wrist. A perfect fit. Too perfect. Without a clasp or a buckle to be seen, Russell yanked at the thing, hoping to rip it loose and toss it into the ocean before the owner of the fancy toy came looking for it. The thick, rubbery band flexed against his prying fingers, but it was too well-made for Russell to do any real damage to it. It wasn’t going anywhere.

“God damn fuckin’ thing…” Russell muttered, defeated. He’d have to lug the device around with him, for now. Russell stood, noting how much pain vibrated through his body with every exertion. This wasn’t just a hangover, it felt like someone had worked him over with a baseball bat. Was he in a fight? Wouldn’t be the first time, and he usually lost those. Still, if there was any good news, it was that he had to pee, which meant he hadn’t pissed himself like those other three (maybe four) times.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Russell shuffled toward the treeline, grateful for the cool shade as the jungle crept onto the beach. He made for the nearest tree, a skinny palm standing at the line where the sand met the grass. It wasn’t much, just a spindly thing with a trunk about as thick as his arm, sagging under the weight of its fronds. But it’d do.

He grabbed hold of the trunk, his hand wrapping almost all the way around it, and leaned his weight against the tree. With a grunt, he reached down, yanked his junk free from the ridiculous mascot bottoms, and started pissing into the brush. No underwear, of course. He wasn’t even surprised. Commando in a mascot suit, he thought. The company probably had rules against that. Hell, maybe it didn’t even need to be in writing — just common sense. Whatever. He shut his eyes and let himself focus on the only relief he’d felt all day.

As the stream hit the thirsty vegetation, Russell glanced at his hand gripping the tree. The device on his wrist caught his eye, its blank screen flashing a warped reflection of his sorry face. He squinted, studying the man staring back at him, a man who looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a brick wall and lost. Cuts and bruises mapped out a journey of bad luck, most of it on the right side of his face. A black eye stared back at him, and above it, a swollen lump on his temple.

Holy hell, he thought. Did I actually get hit with a baseball bat?

He turned his head for a better look. Damn. Half of a ping-pong ball was swelling out of his face — yeah, he’d definitely slammed into something hard. Or something slammed hard into him. Curiosity got the best of him. He had to poke it, you know, for science. Still mid-piss, Russell reached up, slowly, finger inching closer to the lump. Closer… and closer. Just a fingernail away when—

THUD!

Russell glanced down at the thing that had just crashed into the sand a few feet from his steady stream. A rock, sitting in a fresh crater. Small enough to throw, big enough to do some serious damage if it had hit him.

He frowned. Where the hell did that come from?

Still holding onto the palm for balance, Russell leaned out and peered into the jungle. All he saw at first was a thick wall of green — no paths, no clearings, just tangled vines and trees packed so tight they looked like they were fighting for territory. The jungle didn’t grow so much as it loomed, dark and forbidding, like the setting for some B-movie horror flick.

Russell squinted, trying to push past the pounding in his skull. There, barely visible through the foliage, he saw something — a shape. Small, tan, and completely buck naked. A man. Or maybe just a shadow, until it moved. The guy reared back with something in his hand, and then another rock came sailing out of the jungle, right for Russell’s face.

“Oh shit!” Russell yelped, ducking behind the skinny palm. It was pathetic cover, but it saved him from a direct hit.

THUNK!

The rock slammed into the tree, the impact rattling the trunk like a bell. Russell collapsed at its base, bracing for the next attack. But nothing came. A beat passed, then another. Carefully, he edged his head around the trunk, like some green recruit peeking over a trench.

The jungle stared back at him, all shadows and silence. No movement, no sign of the naked rock-thrower.

“Take it easy!” Russell called out, his voice a gravel pit. “If this is private property, I’m sorry — I’ll leave.” He stayed crouched, scanning the wall of tangled green for any trace of the attacker. Nothing. Just the eerie, buzzing quiet of the jungle.

Where the hell had they gone? Or had there even been anyone at all? Russell swore he’d seen a man, a small one, but now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe it wasn’t a man. Maybe it was a monkey. Or worse, maybe he wasn’t even on Earth. What if this was an alien world, and these rock-throwing bastards were the locals? The booze and heat were cooking his brain, stirring up wild thoughts.

“Look, I lost my phone… and pretty much everything else,” he tried again, his words half a plea, half a grumble. “Maybe you could call me a cab or just point me to—”

WHAP! Another projectile whizzed through the air and cracked him right on the bony top of his foot.

Russell’s howl rang out over the beach, equal parts pain and disbelief. “AHH! Son of a bitch!” He cradled his throbbing foot, rocking back and forth, while the jungle, as always, said nothing.

“STOP THROWING SHIT! I’M LEAVING!” Russell screamed. After a moment, he received his response: another assault of rocks, thundering down around him.

THUNK! THUNK-THUNK! THUNK!

This wasn’t just one guy throwing rocks anymore — the hits were coming too fast. But was it even an attack? The projectiles weren’t flying out of the jungle now; he’d been staring right into the green when the last one nailed his foot. Which meant they were coming from…

Russell squinted up at the trembling palm fronds above him. That rock-throwing bastard must’ve rattled the tree hard enough to set off a coconut rainstorm. If he wasn’t so goddamn hungover, maybe he’d have rolled out of the way, out of the overhead assault. But Russell’s head was fogged and already pretty battered. All he managed to do was throw his arms over himself as coconuts thudded around him. Lying there in the warm, damp sand, coconuts bouncing off him, all he could think was how much he wished he'd finished peeing before this whole mess started. Because now, thanks to the rock-throwing asshole, he had officially pissed himself. Fourth (maybe fifth) time, finally in the books.

Russell’s anger hit a boiling point as the coconut barrage finally let up. He swung around the tree and jabbed an accusatory finger towards the jungle, slinging his verbal venom.

“You made your damn point! I hope you had a nice laugh screwing with me, but now you better get me a goddamn phone so I can get the hell outta here. And water, too! Otherwise, you’re gonna have to call the cops because I’m claiming squatter’s rights over your pretty little beach, bitch! This is MY beach now!”

He turned back around, still sitting in his own piss, staring out at the ocean, his body was alive with adrenaline. He could literally feel it, pulsing through his skin, crawling across his body. He wasn’t done screaming into the green void — not yet. So he swung around for a second round.

“And another thing. If you’re actually a monkey or some shit, I’m telling you right now — I ain’t the one! Since I was twelve years old, I’ve thought through the many different scenarios in which I’d have to defeat a monkey in hand-to-hand combat. I am PREPARED. You made me piss myself motherfucker, I WILL WRECK YOU.”

It felt good, at least in his head, to release all that pent-up rage. But the prickling under his skin, what he believed to be adrenaline, didn’t fade. In fact it had grown even stronger. What the hell was happening to him? Russell glanced down, and his eyes went wide and his throat turned sandpaper.

You couldn’t really blame Russell for thinking what fell from the tree were coconuts. Anyone would’ve thought the same. But today wasn’t Russell’s day — it hadn’t been his year if he was being honest, but right now? This wasn’t even close to being his day.

A dozen fist-sized crabs were crawling all over him, poking and prodding with their sharp little claws. They scuttled across his belly, his arms, his chest, and when they found a nice juicy bit of meat, they dug in, looking to tear themselves off a piece. One by one, the crabs pinched down with hellish force, turning Russell into a human pincushion.

Like most moments of violent chaos, the seconds that followed were a blur, but it happened quick and there was lots of screaming. Russell was up, fumble-footing down the beach and flinging crabs from his flesh like a strip club regular tossing dollar bills at the stage. Each crab he managed to pry loose, another would grab hold of him somewhere else on his upper body. He must’ve cleared twenty yards, running as best he could in his ridiculous costume, until he collapsed into a gasping, whimpering heap. One final crab clung to one of his suspenders, and with a final yank, Russell tossed it aside.

It was over.

He glanced down at the sand, at the crabs — some orange, some red, all assholes. They’d stopped coming at him, just milling around like tiny drunkards shaking off a bar fight. For a second, maybe two, it looked like he’d won.

Then he felt it, claws prodding in a place no man wants to be pinched. He let out a little sound, half gasp, half whimper, as the realization hit him. The fight wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

“No!” His voice cracked with panic. “No, please!” He sounded like a kid who got caught stealing a porno magazine, but he didn’t care. In this moment, everything was on the line. Deep within the mascot bottoms, the crab that remained was making itself at home in the warmth of his crotch, poking around Russell’s most tender bits.

“Nononononono!”

To hesitate would’ve been worse than death. Maybe not death exactly, but to a guy like Russell — hell, to any guy — a life with a pinched-off prick wasn’t worth living. Could the crab even manage that? Probably not. But the thought alone was enough to kick him into action.

In one swift, desperate move, Russell reached down, grabbed the intruder from between his precious pieces, and yanked it into the sunlight. This crab wasn’t like the others — its shell was a shiny gold that caught the sun and gleamed like treasure. A trophy. He held it high in his device-strapped hand, victorious, like some barbarian showing off a severed head.

“Fuck you, crab,” he said, shoving a middle finger in its face for emphasis. “You’re not dining on my dick tonight.”

For a glorious moment, relief washed over him — the kind of relief only a man who’s narrowly avoided ancestral calamity can know. Then the pain hit, hard, like a sledgehammer to the nerves. Russell dropped to his knees, groaning. The thing in his hand wasn’t finished yet. It twisted, and then with both of its golden pincers clamped down on Russell’s middle finger.

“Jesus fuck!” Russell yelled, shaking his hand as the crab hung on tight, its pincers digging in deeper to his middle finger, as if to say, No sir, FUCK YOU.

“AHHHHH OWOWOWOWOW FUCK OW!” Russell howled, shaking his hand like a man possessed, desperate to fling the golden bastard loose. But the crab had chosen violence, and it would have it. The harder Russell shook, the tighter the pincers bit down, until the pain in his finger wiped everything else clean. No hangover, no sunburn, no bruises — just a hot, blinding ache that shot up his arm and poured over the rest of him.

With no better ideas, Russell stretched his arm out and spun on his heels like a third-string shot-putter. One spin, two spins — he built speed with every turn until he felt the dizzying pull of momentum. On the fourth spin, he snapped his arm forward and let it fly.

“BEGONE, CROTCH GOBLIN!” he bellowed, flinging the crab into the ocean shallows. Russell stood there, breathless, watching as the little golden demon skipped across the water’s surface, once, twice, three times, before it was swallowed whole by an incoming wave.

Gone. Done. To the depths with ye. Good fucking riddance.

He looked down at his hand, hoping for some kind of cosmic reward, but instead he found the crab’s parting gift. There, still latched onto his middle finger, was the severed claw, clinging to his cracked nail like it had a personal vendetta. Russell growled, grabbed the thing with his other hand, and yanked it free, flicking it into the sand.

“Serves you right,” he said, his voice bitter and raspy, but then he laughed, just a little. His finger throbbed, and the rest of him wasn’t doing much better, but he couldn’t help it — he’d won. He straightened up, looking out at the ocean, at the jagged cliff-islands in the distance, and felt the smallest flicker of confidence. One win down. Maybe there’d be more.

Then, slicing through the sound of the waves, a voice rang out, clear and sharp.

"Congrats! You're not dead!"

Russell froze, head snapping around to look for the source. The voice didn’t come from the jungle or further down the beach. It was close. Real close. His pulse quickened, and that’s when it hit him — the source wasn’t out there. It was on him.

Russell raised the device on his arm. Hot damn. The screen was alive with activity.