The Murder Show

Were you dreaming?

You heard the shrill octave of Cool Alfredo come to life over a scratchy speaker system, a strange concoction of apathy and glee, too cool for school.

“The Murder Show is filmed in front of a live studio audience.”

Your eyes slowly came to focus on a vibrant plumed basilisk colored applause sign that flashed violently. Flapping wings and a caterwauling of clucks soared into the space around you. Your head swiveled left and right, noticing the audience was filled with your fourteen, a nearly uncountable number of hens, and one massive rooster with an alfredo-colored comb and aviator sunglasses at the center of them all.

As the applause dragged on, you noticed a system of tubes leading from beneath the audience to the front of the studio stage. Eggs rolled out of them and carefully onto the stage, where Rotund Bobby and Tiny Wagers scrambled to collect them into baskets, which were carefully placed on a tournai at center stage.

Behind the altar was a maple desk, along with a couch in a floral pattern that distinctly reminded you of the one in your childhood apartment. However, instead of chairs behind the desk and beside it, a set of train tracks came from off-stage and split right before the desk. One ran behind it, the other to a spot between the host desk and the guest couch.

A long train whistle sounded and you wished you could cover your ears from the excruciating intonation, but you find your hands are bound at the wrist, bolted to the chair. You find your ankles tied as well. There’s nothing for you to do but wait this out. As it finally subsided, a new cacophony replaced the old, the distinct hum and roar of a train rolling full-tilt down the tracks with no sign of stopping.

The studio audience clucked and chirped their approval as you saw the massive Union Pacific Big Boy (Von Kelsig edition) roll in and take its place at the desk. A pair of narrow, menacing eyes stared back at you from that train, the cowcatcher replaced by a bushy beard. You thought there was a mouth hidden somewhere beneath the morass of coarse salt and pepper-tinged fiber.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause for the host of The Murder Show, THE HESS EXPRESS!”

You could barely make out Cool Afredo’s voice this time as clucks, clicks, and coos filled the air once again while chicken wings beat furiously against the stale air. Before the patter can die down, a second car rolls steadily onto the tracks and backs itself expertly into the empty spot adjacent to The Hess Express’ desk. It’s a morose brown caboose with a hideous purple face, manic orange eyes and a terrifyingly twisted grin etched into the compartment’s rear.

“And let’s hear it for the ineffable Minion the Caboose!”

You hear another wave of cheers wash over the audience. Rotund Bobby and Tiny Wagers again begin dashing across the stage, collecting eggs as they shoot out of the tubes. You can’t help but wonder what the deal with these eggs is. Hundreds of hens were on all sides of you, surely laying them down those tubes, but the exact reason for that remained unclear.

“We’ve got a really good show here tonight, Caboose, wouldn’t you say?” The Hess Express stared at you through the eye slits at the front of his engine. “Three fabulous guests lined up tonight, and let’s get right to it!”

Minion the Caboose briefly took his gaze and grinned off you to side-eye The Hess Express. “Who’s up first on the tracks tonight, big guy?”

The backdrop of The Murder Show was an open ocean underneath a night sky, with every star replaced by an egg yolk. A massive projector screen slowly dropped in front of it and flickered to life. You swear you heard a film reel spinning somewhere behind you. For a moment, you considered closing your eyes to look away but were compelled otherwise.. The Ludovico Technique, but you were a fully willing participant.

Tiny Wagers and Rotund Bobby were now in overalls and blue and white striped engineer’s caps, and they shoveled coal into the rear of The Hess Express’ engine. “We are so incredibly pleased to welcome The Father to tonight’s show!”

Tiny Wagers looked at you grinning, the permascar etched from lip to cheek added to its deviousness. He picked one of the eggs from the tournai and shuttled it over to the host desk, placing it in front of The Hess Express. The egg slowly started to crack and break apart, the small effigy of a human being pushed itself through the yolky-shelled mess. It stood slowly, fully formed and your mouth dropped open. You could do nothing except recognize that a sixth-scale version of your father was standing there.

Like a classic film presentation, the reel counted down from four in black and white. Your eyes were dried out, aching for moisture, but your steadfastness in refusing to avert is commendable. 🕇🕆🕇🕆🕇 FIRST GUEST: The Father Your Childhood Apartment 1985 The Father surged forward, determined to wrest the gun out of Mother’s hands. You tried watching through the keyhole to your bedroom door, but you can’t glean much of anything from it. The Father is large, drunk, and angry. His footfalls thud with purpose, his arms outstretched, he clumsily kicked a footstool out of the way and pushed forward.

BANG!

Until he didn’t.

His hand moved to his right eye, but there was nothing there.

Just a hole.

BANG!

BANG!

Those shots were fired and missed. You never had a chance to duck or dive as you noticed a pair of fresh holes in the thin, cracked plaster of your bedroom wall.

BANG!

The fourth shot was higher but closer, right through the door above your head. A movie poster from The Thing (1981) with the titular outline of the character sported a hole in its head. You were afraid. You wanted to cry, but you couldn’t make a sound, because Mother would come for you next.

“It’s okay, baby!” You heard Mother yell from outside your room. “He won’t hurt us anymore!”

Won’t or can’t? How could you be so sure? You slowly cracked open the door to your bedroom. The living area was filled with smoke. Mother dragged from a cigarette, the gun rested in the material of her dress.

You scanned the room past her and coughed on the secondhand cloud that hung oppressively. You saw The Father sprawled out across the coffee table, staring at the whirring ceiling fan above your heads. As you looked at him, you didn’t feel much of anything.

At least, not until you looked at the entry wound and realized you could see all the way to the floor as bits of blood and brain seeped and dripped onto the mottled carpet, coagulating into a sickly mass. Your stomach flipped like a fried egg and felt like it weighed ten tons.

“Donny, come to Mother,” she pleaded to you through tears. The Mother cried often, but this didn’t feel real. The ersatz quality to her sobbing was undone by the smirk that crept across her face as she inhaled each pull from her cigarette.

She glanced up at you, mascara slightly streaked down her cheeks. You couldn’t take your eyes off the gun, or The Father, his body arced on that coffee table in such a way that you believed his soul had been raptured and separated clean from the body, ascended to a place The Mother said he would never go.

In the distance, you heard sirens wail as they closed in on the apartment. Sooner, rather than later, the relationship between you and The Mother would be torn asunder by the authorities. They were about to steal you from her, as she had stolen The Father from you.

The Mother heard the sirens and sighed deeply to herself, lighting another cigarette. She stood up, the gun fell clumsily to the carpet with a soft thud. She stepped over to you and roughly cradled your head into her chest, patting at your hair.

You stood there and accepted this, but stared at the floor through The Father’s head. You felt The Mother’s crocodile tears plopping into your hair as she repeated the same refrain over and over again.

“You are His Word. You are His Light. You are His Holy Weapon of Absolution and you will save us all. You are His Word. You are His Light…”

The words congealed and ran together in your mind as you stared through the tunnel to the bloodied carpet below. The longer you did, the more you thought you espied a light coming for you at the other end. The sound of a train charging down its tracks invaded your mind and everything went white. 🕆🕇🕆🕇🕆 You were jarred back to your first level of consciousness, reeling from a memory you had mostly suppressed. Your eyes were immediately drawn to the applause sign once more, and the sound of hens who responded in kind. On stage, The Hess Express and Minion the Caboose were laughing at what they had just watched, their own eyes never leaving the seat you were rooted to.

Your mind tried to drift to something positive. It tried to connect the Hess Express to Hessian, your opponent at UltraViolence, but nothing came. Angelus Von Kelsig. Was he your friend? Was he your foe? Another misguided lost soul? Coral didn’t have a choice. He was forced into his arrangement with the Bandits.

Another egg rolled out onto the stage, this time Rotund Bobby waddled over and placed it in front of The Hess Express. You thought Hessian had become an ally, at the very least. There was a mutual respect, even admiration dating back to War Games, but you had been distant from each other since then.

The smell of eggs rose through the studio and pervaded your senses. You suddenly felt the collywobbles coming on, the contents of your stomach now unsure which way they would need to evacuate.

The second egg began to crack and break apart in front of your eyes. Minion and The Hess Express watched greedily as a young broad man stood up, bits of yolk running off his miniature body. They laughed and squealed in delight as the next film countdown began.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One. 🕆🕇🕆🕇🕆 SECOND GUEST: The Son The Asylum 2004 Do you remember where you were when your son was born? You were brought into this world kicking and screaming without a second thought in his brain? You don’t, because you were chained to the floor in a flophouse somewhere in downtown Los Angeles, praying for death or another ball of that China white.

Look at yourself. Head lolled from side to side, dried spittle flaked and crusted around your lips. A needle hangs out of your arm while it's slumped and slacked to one side. Your angular body drooped and was wasting away. Lowell would have been proud. You never saw yourself getting to this point. Then again, not many folks dream of being forced into servitude for a man who wants to watch others beat each other to death.

You were one of the lucky ones.

You lived.

But you were never innocent.

You’ll never be able to wash the blood fully clean.

The waters of compassion you tried to bathe yourself in had become polluted.

Your eyes rolled slowly as you heard footfalls enter the room. The bag is forced over your head. The locks clicked, clacked, and unlocked. You’re freed from the floor. You felt The Rising Son’s grip around your used-up arm. The sensation sears as you’re in the vice grip of his calloused thumb and fingers. You’re moved into the elevator and can feel gravity pulling you downward through several floors.

You’re ushered out of the elevator as it dinged and the doors scraped open. You tried to shuffle your feet as fast as you could to keep up. You hear the din of a crowd, and more immediately another set of locks tumbling and unlocking. The bag is stripped from your head and you find yourself in the same position as your opponent.

In the cage.

You heard the air horn go off behind you. The nameless lump of meat that stood before you surged forward. You remembered The Father stumbling past the footstool, kicking it out of the way as he charged toward The Mother. You remembered the sound of the gun as it discharged from the chamber. The Father arched over the coffee table, and ascended.

You hoped the lump of meat believed in God.

Believed in Him like you do.

Because he would ascend, too.

Despite your angularity, you deftly stepped aside and slipped his charge, but managed to rely on your wrestling background to bring him down with a drop toe hold. You heard him grunt hard as he tripped. You were quicker still, you remembered what the thumb could do to a windpipe. Some wrestlers had called it the Asiatic Spike in another lifetime. You drove your thumb in through the chokehold.

You felt something give.

The lump of meat coughed up blood.

You dropped his body.

He looked up at you, his unmaker.

He tried to speak.

He gurgled, choked, and failed.

As his light dimmed, somewhere in a Boston hospital another light came into focus.

You didn’t know then.

You only just reconciled it.

The Son was born a Saint.

Brought into this world happy, healthy, and screaming out.

Could he feel the same pain you could?

The Son serendipitously arrived in your world.

The Mothers at your side.

Is this the divine path of the Priest-King?

Or are you a puppet on the marionette?

Wake up.

Why won't you wake up? 🕇🕆🕇🕆🕇 “Wasn’t that tremendous folks?” The Hess Express asked his audience which was 90% Gallus domesticus. They responded the way they had all evening.

You felt something was off. The pungent scent of oil and coal was heavy in the air around you. Your eyes came to focus once more as you realized you still couldn’t move, but you were no longer in the audience.

You could feel the heat and hatred from Minion the Caboose radiating off him. The Hess Express felt especially menacing up close. You noticed the sixth scale figures of The Father and The Son had disappeared, but an eggy residue ran off the edges of the desk. Underneath that beard, you could sense a sinister grin from the host.

“Just a little snack,” he laughed.

“Why are you doing this?” You asked. “What do you want from me?”

The Hess Express chortled. “That title around your puny waist.”

You looked down at your waist, where the Five Star Championship had suddenly appeared. When did you put that on? You couldn’t even remember now.

“I just don’t understand,” you said. “Coral didn’t have a choice, but you, you, you had one. I saw you that day. La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, we were both there. We could have been friends. We should have been friends.”

You watched his eyebrows furrow, but he didn't respond.

“I’m Father Five Star,” you asserted, mustering all the strength in your voice. “I’m the chosen champion and scion of true professional wrestling. I have God on my side, and you? What do you have on your side? The very Cancer that Coral Avalon is trying to cut out, to save all of you from. Yet you follow him blindly.”

You stammer, the anger beginning to rise in your voice.

“Hess, you were one of the greatest champions the ReVolution Era of PRIME had ever seen, and look at you now. You’re a bull mastiff lap dog for the antiChrist. I tried to offer you an out, and you didn’t want it. You refused to see the Light.”

The tears are beginning to sting, but you held them back.

“And now Hess,” you began. “We are all children of God, and we all make decisions that have consequences. I can no longer spare the rod for a spoiled child. You will be brought back into line. You can live in sin with the Bandits, or you can be lifted in His Word and Light, and you will see the Light from the Threshing Floor. Separation and Revelation. The wheat will always be separated from the chaff.”

Steam rose violently from The Hess Express’ stack.

“Enough of this,” he snapped. “Show the final guest!”

Tiny Wagers brought the final egg onto the desk and as it hatched, it was a purple-haired woman standing beside an older, yet domineering one. They stood together as The Hess Express inhaled them both and the final video came to life on the projection screen. 🕆🕇🕆🕇🕆 FINAL GUEST: The Holy Ghosts You could feel something wearing off and a pinprick in your arm. You felt restrained. Like on The Murder Show. Like in The Asylum. Your eyes opened but were blinded by overhead lights. Two blurred figures moved together over you, just a pair of large blurred masses. They spoke in hushed tones, the words coming out all weird.

You wondered where she was. You needed her now.

Was The Murder Show real?

Your mind drifted to Hessian.

He was real. Tangible.

A mountain you couldn’t reason with.

Minion. Is that why? Was it him?

It no longer mattered.

Can you beat sense into a man standing a foot taller and over one hundred pounds heavier?

You’ve done stupider things.

Like putting your title on the line to prove a point.

The fuzzy shapes were slowly coming into focus, but your mind was far from clear. It kept drifting to Jess, to Jeremiah, to Hessian, to Pious Penguin. You blinked hard and for a brief moment, you caught a color burst of amethyst.

You mouthed unintelligible words and felt a cold, bony hand cover your mouth.

You felt another cold stab into your arm and slowly drifted back out into the ether.

It was there that time passed in deafening silence, not even your thoughts could find you there.

Slowly, but surely, everything rushed back. Your eyes burst open and the world flooded into color. You saw that purple shade again and something ignited deep within your brain. You remembered seeing her at shows, with multiple people.

Jackson?

Were there others?

“Violent?”

Her eyes went wide as her head snapped to see your own. The Mother again put her hand over your mouth.

“No darling, violet, and yes, that’s a pretty color,” she patted your forehead. “Now let’s get you back to sleep.” You couldn’t help but think of how numbingly cold her skin was against yours.

She turned her attention to the young woman. “And not a word of this to anyone. It stays between us.”

The girl nodded, but her eyes stayed locked on yours.

You remembered.

You weren’t supposed to remember.

You weren’t even supposed to know.

You felt the familiar sting of the needle, the tearing of your skin.

This wasn’t your choice. Not like it had been in the past.

Was it ever your choice?

What they’re doing to you. You don’t want this.

You don’t, but you felt the electricity coursing through your veins.

You hadn’t felt this way in a long time.

The serene rush as you fell back into your stupor.

“Where’s Jessica?” you asked aloud through the haze.

“Don’t worry, Donovan,” Mother reassured you. “We’re here for you. We love you.”

Do they love you?

What even is love?

Love is professional wrestling.

Love is the Five Star Championship.

Love is Jessica St. Cloud.

Love is Jeremiah St. Cloud.

Love is God.

God is Love.

You started to succumb. Euphoria followed by deep despair. The undeniable undertow, the first tentacle slithered out from the abyss. 🕇🕆🕇🕆🕇 You opened your eyes for the first time in hours and found yourself in bed. The television set played the grainy camera footage that Rob Williams had tried to use against you when he and Anna Crucified you at ReVival 44. You closed your eyes.

You heard the door to your room as it swung open on rusty hinges and she appeared. Frail, yet overpowering. You blinked and saw The Father’s arched body over the coffee table in her place. You tried to will that image away. You couldn’t. Your eyes closed and you saw that white light and heard the engine of The Hess Express as it careened toward you.

The 9:20 bound for Seattle.

You held them closed tighter.

The room grew colder as she drew near.

You saw the monstrous outline of Hessian.

Just another lump of meat to help ascend.

You prayed that Hessian believed in God.

And you prayed that you did, too.

“The Murder Show was filmed in front of a live studio audience.”