The Font
Chapter 2
It was night by the time John Doe, the Undead Hero, finished sorting out his limbs and set out with his trusty dodo
spirit guide in pursuit of artists. They left King Kat Avenue behind them and ventured south towards Snarf College. "I
am confident we will find an artist lurking on the campus, my vengeful raptor of fury," Doe said. "There, among the
hallowed halls of academia, we will learn the answers to our questions from a noble and enlightened soul, gifted with
insight and empathy as well as a healthy education!" He walked faster, obviously excited. "Yes, I think our quest will
soon reach it's final fulfillment!"
"Honk?"
John stopped and looked at the bird thoughtfully. "Well, we were trying to find a purpose for ourselves now that the
Dreaded Master of All Evil has been overcome. Honestly, my faithful spirit guide, try to stay current, would you?" He
walked on, while the dodo trailed behind, snorting and glaring indignantly at his back.
An hour's stroll brought them both to the campus. They climbed a low hill overlooking the university to get some sense
of their bearings. It was still early in the evening, but the moon was high in the sky and the stars shone down on the
edifice of eduction that was Snarf College, on the spires and quiet dorm rooms, and the student union with it's lights
out.. All was quiescent, all was peace.
"Look at it, my brother in righteous wrath," he said. "Have you ever beheld a more scholarly scene? I know we will
find wisdom here, among these gentle souls who represent the flower of Thundercat youth. Let us join them." He turned
and skipped back down the hill, dodo in tow.
As soon as they'd left the crest of the hill, the student union burst into flames. Crowds of screaming drunken college
students, waving banners celebrating the local Snarfball team, tore into the streets, overturning cars and beating each
other bloody in an orgy of school spirit. An effigy of the principal presided over the chaos, dangling in the air by a
noose from one of the street lamp poles.
As they circled the grounds, twice they were nearly beaten to death, once by a group of jocks who thought they looked
funny, and again by a bunch of gothic types who also thought they looked funny. In both instances, a hasty retreat
proved the better part of valor, and they managed to give their pursuers the slip.
At last he reached a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of the university grounds. He prowled the streets, his
excellent rodent night vision allowing him to focus on the houses, looking for signs of an artistic resident.
Then he saw it. It was a two-story building, painted bright green with red trim. Murals of reptilian mutants adorned
the exterior walls. Several wooden sillhouettes dotted the front yard, painted to look like reptile butts mooning
passers-by. The front yard was littered with bottles of Single-Barrel Jack Daniels and assorted other forms of liquor.
"You see that, my bird of wrath?" John asked his feathered companion. "All the hallmarks of a creative soul,
unfettered by the artificial constraints imposed by society. Here, at last, is my mentor." He walked to old wooden
porch, continued to the front door and rang the bell. Then he waited with a contented sigh for his new teacher to
appear.
When the door opened, and the occupant emerged onto the porch, the first things he saw were breasts. They were
difficult to miss - he had to back up to avoid his nose landing between them. Even more suprising, they were not hooked
to a mammal at all, but to a female reptilian mutant with a lithe figure and a high crest on her scaly head. She looked
John up and down and squealed with joy. "Perfect! Come on, we're late." Then she grabbed him by the nape of the neck
and hauled him inside.
They raced through a living room decorated in old copies of Heavy Metal, empty pizza boxes and empty Jolt bottles to a
plain wooden door set beneath the second-floor stairs. The reptile paused to open it and said, "So you got a name,
sailor?"
"Jug Doe, I mean, John Doe. I have come seeking bosom, uh, I mean, er-"
"Yeah, don't they all?" she chuckled. She pulled the door open and dragged John down the steps, banging him against
each one as they passed. They ended in an expansive room filled with a bizzarre array of furnishings. She stopped by a
large table equipped with iron manacles at each end, and dropped John on the floor.
"My friends call me Slinky, but tonight you call me MASTER!! Now take off your, hm, whaddaya call that thing, anyway?
Looks like a tablecloth."
John was terribly confused, but suddenly hopeful. "It is my uniform for fighting evil, but lately, there's not been
much evil to fight." He pulled the makeshift garment off over his head and dropped it on the floor. "That's why I
sought you out, to--"
He was cut off when Slinky grabbed him by the fur on his sunken chest and body-slammed him onto the table. Stunned, he
could only lie there as she manacled his wrists and ankles. Then she grabbed a large wheel with jutting wooden handles
at the end of the table and spun it. The slack disappeared from the chains, and the Dodo's body was pulled
uncomfortably taut.
"Great!" Slinky exclaimed, then ducked beneath the table. A moment later, she popped back up at a painter's easel,
situated about ten feet away from the table. "Now give me a face."
"Face?" John asked.
"Yeah, you know, a face!" Slinky said, waving an artist's ink brush. "You're being stretched on the rack like a banjo
string, oh god the pain, that sorta thing. Gimme a face!"
John blinked, then opened his mouth and eyes wide in a phony grimace and gurgled, "Argh."
Slinky put down her brush and rested her chin on her right hand, watching him. "That's just not right. Something's
missing." Then she got up and walked around the table. John's eyes tracked her circuit, although he was careful not to
move until instructed. After her second lap, when she reached the end of the table, she grabbed the wheel by it's
handles and cranked it twice, hard.
"AAAAAUGH!!"
"Yeah! That's more like it!"
"AAIIEEEEEE!!"
"Beautiful! Hold that thought!" Slinky ran back to her easel and sketched quickly, pausing only occasionally to study
her subject. Ten minutes later, she set her brush down and said, "That's the outline. I can color it from memory
later." Then she came back to the table and released the tension on the agonized weasel. While Slinky unfastened the
manacles, John began to lose consciousness. She noticed, and slapped him hard on the face. "Hey, no slacking! What do
you think I'm paying you for?!"
"B-b-but I--" John stuttered, and then he was yanked off the table and rushed across the room. The lizardette stood
the weasel upright inside a large metal object shaped vaguely like a sarcophagus. Points of sharp iron dug into his
back, bringing him to full awareness as Slinky stepped back and grabbed the hinged lid, bearing more spikes.
John realized where he was, and with his limbs dislocated, he was powerless to do anything about it. He pitched his
head back and emitted a long keening rodent shriek of terror.
"FREEZE!" Slinky yelled. John froze completely, his scream strangled out in his throat, but his face and body
unmoving. "That's perfect! I love it! Don't move a muscle!"
John opened one eye and glanced at Slinky. "Fuck-e-darn, you moved," she said disappointedly and slammed the door
shut. While she waited for the gurgling screams in the iron maiden to die down, she fetched her easel and loaded a fresh
canvas onto it. When she opened the iron maiden again, the weasel was hanging suspended by spikes between his ribs and
vertebrae, while blood spurted in pulses from dozens of puncture wounds all over his body.
"Beautiful!" Slinky declared, and rushed over to her easel and sat down. She looked at John and said, "I really want
to capture the moment. What are you feeling right now? Right this second?"
"p-p-pain..."
Slinky began to draw. "What else?"
"loooshing... conshusnesh..."
Slinky drew faster.
********
Slinky whistled cheerily while she turned the hand wheel before her. The wheel was mounted to a large screw, which was
in turn mounted to a large steel plate. The entire assembly was mounted to a metal box, which was mounted on a table.
John Doe was seated at the table, his chin on the bottom of the box, the metal plate pressing down with greater and
greater force on the top of his head.
In the 6 hours between the iron maiden and this new nightmare, John had suffered a number of painful indignities. His
chest was a mass of welts from the hot irons. His back was criss-crossed with different welts from the
cat-o'-nine-tails. His fingers were split, bent and broken from the thumbscrews. His arms throbbed from clinging to a
greased pole to escape being impaled rectally on a sharp wooden stake. His butt hurt from not being completely
successful before Slinky had finished her outline.
Other various tortures had followed, leading up to this one. Slinky gave the handle a final twist, and John's skull
fractured with a quiet crunch. He shuddered, and his left eyeball sprang out to the end of it's neural tether and
rolled around on the table. Slinky nodded in satisfaction. "Comfy?"
"I cnt fill de rite side uf my bodee," John forced out through his clamped jaw, but Slinky had already dashed back
around to her easel. A half an hour later, the stack of sketches now numbered twelve, and Slinky released the head
press and allowed the Dodo to collapse onto the floor in a mushy, broken puddle.
"This is terrific! Some of my best work!" Slinky declared, flipping through the ink outlines.
The mass that was once John Doe made a gurgle.
"Huh?" Slinky asked. "Sorry, no aspirin, but I got some midol."
John forced himself into some coherency. "You've almost killed me! You're not good or gentle! What kind of an artist
are you?" he choked out in something akin to outrage..
"The best kind!" Slinky declared. "The PAID kind! I'm working on a commission by the Clan of the Apocolypse for their
Christmas calendar." She paused a moment, then added, "You know, that Gunnar is a real hunk. I wonder if he's single?"
"You mean you almost killed me for a commission?!" The weasel sputtered.
"Well, yeah! Duh. Of course, if you don't want your cut, I can always find ways to spend it." Slinky reached behind
her and produced a huge wad of crisp new Thunderbucks, peeled off half and held the money out to John.
"Huh. Such a strange turn of events. I come here seeking wisdom, suffer unimaginable agonies, and in the end am amply
rewarded. Fortuna is a fickle whore." He reached out for the money.
Slinky snatched it back. "Waitaminnit, what's this 'seeking wisdom' crap? Aren't you from the modeling agency?"
John squished onto his side and drew a soggy breath. "No, no agency. I am a seeker after universal truth."
Slinky's bright green scales had gone to fish-belly gray. "You mean YOU'RE NOT WITH THE UNION?!"
********
On the front porch of the reptilian's house, a fat, ugly, semi-flightless bird with a rubber shark fin tied to it's
head was sound asleep on a lounge chair and snoring slightly. Then the front door opened, and out came a slender,
scaled tail, the end of which was wrapped around the neck of a wad of organic wreckage vaguely shaped like an undead
weasel. Then a foot connected with the rear of the wreck and sent it flying off the porch, across the yard, and into a
row of trash cans at the curb.
The bird waddled over to it's mutilated partner and bleated worriedly. After a moment, John's head surfaced. "Mmm
ffsafd," he said, the stopped. He held out his hand and spat out a small plastic Ernie Keebler figurine.
"Honk!" the bird demanded.
"I'm okay, already!" John snapped, slipping the statuette into his pocket. "Or I will be when I finish regenerating
from this latest debacle." He paused to push his left eye back into it's socket, but his semi-smashed skull would no
longer accept the orb. He sighed and gave up, then began working on setting his other broken bones.
"Honk?"
"No, I did not find the answer here. I was mistaken, for while artists are in touch with the universe, they are also
hopelessly liberal. This one belongs to a union. Doubtless in 2004, she wil be drawing campaing posters for democrats
and other unsavory types."
He put his palms on either side of his head and pressed inwards until his flattened skull returned to it's original
shape with a loud pop. Then he was finally able to reinstall his eyeball. He blinked a couple of times, then slouched
deeper into the garbage.
"Sadly, my bird of prey, I fear our quest ends here. This was my last, best hope to discover the wisdom of the wise
and apply it to our lives. With nowhere else to turn, we shall be consigned to the rubbish heap of irrelevance by those
who follow." Then John lapsed into a quiet bout of self-pity.
"Excuse me."
John and his bird both turned to find a slender figure in a brown monk's robe standing behind them. The stranger's
outline was male, but his face was concealed in the shadow of his large hood. When he spoke, it was in a clear,
slightly musical voice that the Dodo's found oddly soothing and restful.
"Who are you?" John asked.
"No one of consequence," the stranger replied. "Just a humble acolyte. I heard you say you were interested in
uncovering wisdom?"
"Yes!" John said excitedly. Could this mysterious stranger be the answer he sought?
"Then you must come with me, brother, and I shall guide you to the home of the flower of nobility, the soul of
erudition, the living well-spring of all thoughtfulness."
"Come with me, John Doe, to the Font of All Wisdom!"
TBC