Maze Stalker Steve

Hello, yes!

Welcome, Stefon Lummox, to the biggest challenge of…

Well.

This week, at least.

If you’re hearing this, it means that the horse tranquilizers have finally worn off, and you have found the Walkman audio cassette player with the big “Play Me” note on it, and have followed your first set of instructions. Good for you. When this is over, if you survive, I will have The Dickman take you for the good ice cream.

If you’re not hearing this, then one of two things have happened. Either I have greatly misjudged what is considered a “safe” dose of horse tranquilizers for an adult man, or you do not know how to read. If it is the latter, then congratulations, you have made it very far in your life despite this hardship. It is nothing to be embarrassed about, and we do not think any less of you because of it. Many mans have gone to do great things despite not understanding words. Mans like Cranky Joel and Joey Arizona.

That last one is probably a bad example.

It has just occurred to me that you may have also been arrested for trespassing. That would be a third thing.

We will add an addendum to the previous list of two.

If this is the case, please eat this audio cassette tape. It will be very crunchy and give you the tum-tum pain, but I am sure the British prison system will have the best medical care to help ease the digestion and passing of tiny shards of plastic. Do not be scared if they have to pry those crunchy bits from your tender bum with tweezers. I am sure the tweezers will be sterilized.

The doctors may even give you a lollipop when it is over for being so brave.

…

Johnny Wombat has just informed me that if you cannot read, then you will not know to eat this audio cassette recording. If that is the case, then greetings, fine constable! Please know that everything that Stefon Lummox has done here today, including breaking into the estate of a well-known wrestle man, possession of a firearm, and all other crimes, were totally his idea and not mine. I am an innocent old man, and I definitely did not bribe a business owner seventeen thousand Prussian francs in order to acquire a copy of Gus Wonderful’s Rust Thunder Blunderbuss.

Stefon did that.

He did that with Prussian francs.

Seventeen thousand of them.

Or, uh, so I am told.

…

Okay, assuming that you can read, and have not been arrested for international wrestle crimes, and that you are not dead from horse tranquilizers, I can give you your mission.

Are you ready?

You have to tell me if you’re ready, Stefon. How else will I know if I should start telling you the mission?

…

The Dickman has just informed me that you will not be able to answer me, on account of this audio cassette tape being recorded now and you playing it in the future. Alas.

Anyway, you are here at the manor of Lord Cecilwerthers Farthingoriginalcandies and his many Paste Men because you have chosen to engage in fisticuffs with Big Jonas Salk despite my many urgings that he is responsible for curing all of my polios. You have used so many meats in the crafting of your giant murder hamburger - murderburger - the one you intend to fight him on, that I thought it would be a nice treat for you to see how hamburgers are made.

Like, the entire process, I mean.

Also, after building that giant hamburger you will need to restock all of your meats, because so many meats were used to cook the murderburger. We will deal with getting more eggs later.

So you have come here - of your own free will because this was all your idea, wink wink - to hunt the creature that lies at the heart of the Farthingtoriginalcandies labyrinth.

Bring back the minotaur, Stefon, and you can have all the many roast beefs that you want!

Okay, that’s all. The recording is done now.

Stefon, please proceed to eat the cassette.

Make sure to take little bites so that you don’t choke. # Steve stared at the device in his hands while he tried to process the last of Zeke’s words. The world around him was still coming back into focus, likely a result of the horse tranquilizers he’d apparently been dosed with. He shut his eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning, and tried to piece back together the chain of events that brought him here.

There had been a conversation, an exchange that he’d had with some contractors that were hired to fix the damage Ian Salt had caused to LeMoo’s Fine Sandwiches. He had just been given an estimate of what the repairs would cost when a voice said, “Hello, yes, Stefon will pay any amount of money. Do you accept Prussian francs?”

That’s when he felt something sharp jab him in the side of the neck. He barely had enough time to turn when the room started to spin and his legs buckled.

And then…

Then he woke up here, apparently thousands of miles from home on someone else’s private property, and tasked with the mission to hunt a beast of legend and eat a cassette tape.

He adjusted his glasses, but everything further than a few feet away still looked like it was shrouded in mist. He sighed and tried to make sense of the objects he’d been left with.

The first was some sort of hunting rifle with a flared barrel that made it look as though someone had hastily attached a shoulder stock to a trombone. Affixed to the top of the weapon was a black box with a single switch, and when Steve clicked it on a red dot shone onto the ground.

Next to that, Steve found an army surplus canteen that had the words “HEELING POTION” scrawled on it in magic marker.

Aside from those two items and the tape player he was apparently supposed to eat, Steve was alone. # If anyone were to drive by the road to Farthington Manor, they would see a car, two idiots standing near it, and a third, smaller idiot perched on the roof. The first of those idiots, Rick Hardbody, leaned against the hood. He wore the expression of a man who very much did not want to be there, and for good reason.

“So let me get this straight,” he began, “we’re just going to sit here and wait?”

The second idiot, one Dr. Zeke D. Badguy, Esq., had the eyepiece of a telescope pressed against the lens of his Blublocker sunglasses.

“Indeed! I am trying to see the forest, but there are all these blasted trees in my way,” he said. “I knew I should have brought the portable dirigible. There are few things that a blimp can’t solve.”

“But the waiting,” Rick pressed.

“Yes, yes. Until either Stefon brings back the minotaur, he is gored to death in the ever-burning hedge maze, or someone calls the police.”

Rick groaned, slumping his shoulders as he lolled his head back to stare at the sky. “Can’t we just go in after him? Would make this shit show go a hell of a lot faster.”

Zeke pulled his gaze away from the telescope. “That would be trespassing, and trespassing is a crime. Worse, it could be a wrestle crime, and if caught we would have to go to wrestle jail. I have been very specific about why we do not want to go to wrestle jail. Stefon is already trespassing, and that is enough trespassing for one day.” He paused. “Trespassing.”

Rick slowly turned his head, a sneer forming beneath his mustache. It was different than the usual sneer he wore, and you’ll just have to trust me on this. “Hold on. You brought us to England, gave a guy an unlicensed firearm, and then sent him to invade someone’s property so he could, what, shoot some imaginary fucking cow?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

Rick looked to his partner for support, but Oliver Cade had long ago tried to hide inside his own sweatshirt.

“I can’t believe you made me renew my passport for this,” Rick said. # The first thing that Steve noticed wasn’t how different the plants looked in this part of the maze, nor was it the fact that the bushes seemed to be growing out of carved solid stone. It wasn’t even that this juncture had two freestanding, ornate doors, the pair of them separated by a pillar of flowering shrubs.

No, the thing that first drew Steve’s eye was that each door was guarded by what looked like a large poodle, both of which stood upright on two legs and had oddly human features. Each of them stood around five feet tall, and both held a thin spear in one hand and a large diamond-shaped shield in the other. The only difference in their appearance - aside from slight variation in fur markings - was that the creature on the left was dressed in blue while the other wore red.

The sight of them reminded Steve of a movie he had seen when he was a child, one where David Bowie wore incredibly tight pants that left nothing to the imagination and kept threatening to send a haggard dwarf man to a stinky swamp.

“Hello, weary traveller!” said the one in blue, and Steve wondered if there had been more than just horse tranquilizers in whatever cocktail he’d been dosed with.

The sound of a loud, dry fart split the air and a second head appeared on the bottom of the blue-clad dog-man’s torso, peeking out from under the shield.

“Can we help you?” it said in a voice that sounded like a bad imitation of an Irish accent.

Steve started to stammer out a reply when a second fart sounded and the red sentry birthed a second head from its own underside.

“Well don’t just stand there,” the new head said.

“Yeah,” added the red guard’s upper head. “After all, we can’t help you if we don’t know what you need.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve managed. “This is all very confusing.”

“That’s the point of a maze, innit?” Asked the blue guard’s upper head. “Otherwise it’d just be a hedge path. Or maybe a hedge trail.”

“I guess so,” Steve said. “Does that mean you can help me find my way out? Or maybe tell me where the minotaur is?”

“Aye, we can, but there’s a catch.”

“What’s that?”

“You should know that one of us always tells the truth,” began the upper blue head. He was cut off by his red counterpart before he could finish his thought.

“And so do I!” it proudly said in a sing-song voice.

“Goddammit, Maurice,” said the blue guard before both of its heads facepalmed in unison. “You always get this wrong!”

“Yeah,” its lower head added. “When we say ‘one of us always tells the truth’ you’re supposed to say that one of us always lies.”

“Then we all have a lovely giggle and wait for the person to ask their question.”

“Oh, right. Right. Sorry about that, Dennis,” the red guard’s top head said.

“Yeah, that’s on us.” Added its bottom head. “Can we try again?”

Both heads of the guard in blue sighed. Steve wondered whether Dennis was the entire blue guard, or if that name was unique to one of its two heads. The same thought held true for Maurice. He also stood stock still, completely dumbfounded by what he was witnessing.

“Sorry about that, weary traveller. Let’s try again,” said Upper Dennis before clearing its throat. “You can ask us only a single question, but you must remember that one of us always tells the truth…”

Dennis - all of Dennis - waited for a long minute in awkward silence before a response came.

“Oh, right!” Upper Maurice said at last. “Umm, just a second.”

Both of Maurice’s heads dipped behind the shield. Steve could hear muffled whispering as the two aspects of the creature seemed locked in a heated debate, but couldn’t make out a single word or syllable that the two pieces spoke. When both of Maurice’s heads reappeared, all it said was, “Line?”

Both of Dennis’ heads groaned in unison. # Steve’s foot caught a loose flagstone, and the ground came up fast. Fortunately, his chin was there to break his fall, but the impact sent his glasses flying. Without those he was as good as blind, and as he pushed himself to his knees he could hear the sound of his mother’s voice in his head, chastising him for running without looking where he was going.

“Oh, beans!” It was more an admonishment of himself than a curse.

He started to crawl, hands reaching for his glasses - or anything vaguely glasses shaped - among the grass and stone of the maze floor.

“Are you alright? Asked a nearby voice. It carried a rich baritone with a bit of the mid-Atlantic accent and had notes of a sharp, commanding edge. Steve couldn’t help but feel like it was quite familiar, as though he’d heard it somewhere before.

“I think so,” Steve answered back, though he had no idea to whom he was speaking or where that person was standing. “I think I bumped my face, but it’s probably just a scrape.”

“You’ve got to watch your step here. You never know what the labyrinth might put in your way.”

“I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

Steve continued to crawl, reaching out with his hands until they came to rest on something smooth and firm. Unyielding. His fingers continued to explore, moving farther up the length of the object and its slow, strong curves.

“Careful, lad,” the voice said. A message of caution.

There was a beautiful symmetry to whatever Steve was touching. He leaned in, using the weight of it to help pull himself up. It was only when Steve’s hands came together over a hard, protruding bulge did he realize what he’d been holding on to.

Legs.

Perfect, muscular legs. Well-toned and hidden beneath what felt like a form-fitting pair of tights.

And at their apex…

Steve pulled his hands away and the momentum carried him backwards. He lost his balance, his feet kicking out from underneath him, and he landed hard on his backside. His face flushed with embarrassment, Steve looked up and tried to focus his eyes on the full majesty of the figure before him.

The man was tall and lean, standing with his hands on his hips. His immaculate perm flowed in the gentle breeze. The sun, growing lower in the sky, gave the man a heavenly aura. One fit for a king.

“David Bowie,” Steve whispered.

Reality crashed down around him and a deep panic set in.

“I’m sorry, David Bowie!” He cried. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to touch your no-no zone without permission! Please don’t make me go to the stinky swamp, David Bowie! Oh, please don’t!”

Before he could hear an answer, Steve was on his feet and running.

“Hey!” the voice called. “Don’t you want your glasses? Hey! Hey, wait!”

But Steve did not wait. He ran, and did not look back. He did not see a groundskeeper step out from behind a polished stone statue of Hayes Hanlon with a mop in hand from where he had been washing the sculpture. And even if he had turned, he still wouldn’t have been able to see him.

Because the groundskeeper was holding Steve’s glasses. # Steve should have been at home working on repairs to the family restaurant, but instead he was here, thousands of miles across the ocean no doubt committing an act of trespassing on someone else’s property, and living out a Jim Henson nightmare all because Rick needed to run his mouth about Big Ian Salt and someone named Rose.

“Gosh darn flippin shrubs!”

Steve stomped through the maze, kicking at every bush that he passed. His New Balance sneakers, once a bright white, were now stained green and caked with mud.

“You grass. You stinky, stinky grass!” He brought his foot down on a patch of greenery, stomping it over and over. “Who do you think you are making oxygen for everyone to breathe, huh? Do you think you’re special? Huh? Grass?”

In an attempt to try and heal the cut on his chin, Steve had drunk the “HEELING POTION” that he carried, but the effects were not what he’d expected. Instead of having medicinal properties, the draught had turned him into an asshole who took out his frustrations on every plant that he came across.

“I bet you wouldn’t even be soft to walk on barefoot, and no one would want to have a picnic on you because you’re full of bugs!”

Steve had always hoped that because his eyesight was so weak that his other senses might get stronger as a result. Sadly, this was not the case. Still, he didn’t need any heightened abilities to pick up a scent on the breeze. It was an earthy musk, spiced with hints of sandalwood and citrus. He thought that if he were a man of taste that appreciated fine fragrances (he wasn’t), that this would make a fine eau de parfum indeed.

And he definitely didn’t need enhanced senses to feel the ground shaking, as if something massive was moving towards him with the rhythmic intensity of a Keith Moon drum solo.

He felt something half in front of him, his eyes trying to focus on the outline of a hulking shape only a few feet away. He blinked, and found that he could see more clearly. It took him a moment to realize that whatever was standing there had slowly, and very gently, slid his glasses into place on his face.

Truth be told, Steve didn’t believe that the minotaur existed. Until that moment, he was convinced that this entire afternoon had been set up by Zeke as one of his elaborate training exercises, or perhaps a practical joke at his expense. Even when his eyes understood what they were looking at, his brain refused to process it. But there it was, standing close enough to share the same air, its massive frame rippling with muscle. Across its back was slung a huge battle axe made from two steel chairs that had been polished and sharpened to a razor’s edge, the precursor Jolf club.

The creature nodded once, and Steve reacted the only way he knew how.

He screamed, loud and shrill.

Then, he soiled his pants.

Then trembling hands rapidly brought Gus Wonderful’s Rust Thunder Blunderbuss up to his shoulder. He didn’t even think to engage the laser sight before pulling the trigger.

To its credit, the minotaur didn’t flinch or try to back away. Instead, it plugged the barrel with one massive finger. When Steve pulled the trigger and the hammer on the firing mechanism fell, the gun exploded, the barrel turning to ribbons.

With his face covered in ash and his clothes beginning to smolder, Steve dropped the gun before turning and running.

The minotaur looked down at its fingertip, simply brushing away an errant piece of soot. # Terrence Buttersby had been briefed on the kinds of events he was likely to see at the Farthington estate as part of his orientation, but the information came with the odd caveat that what he saw - however strange or unusual - may not necessarily become part of The Canon. This did not include a man who had rebranded the sport of golf to use folding chairs then renamed it after himself, and someone referred to as "TV's Mister Sex." Those were Canon events, and their status therein was immutable.

He had also been told of the hedge maze, and how it had a tendency to catch fire and be reborn, like some sort of botanical phoenix.

So, it came as little surprise when he looked up from his dusting to see a cloud of smoke rising beyond the near hedges. What did surprise him was that the cloud seemed to be moving towards the maze’s exit. Also, the cloud was screaming.

A moment later, a doughy ball of a man charged his way into the clearing. What struck Terrence as odd wasn’t that the man’s face seemed to be covered in pitch, but rather the fact that the man’s backside was aflame despite it looking as though the rest of his pants had burned away.

He watched as the man jumped into a nearby fountain, and proceeded to drag himself across its surface as though he were a cat in heat or a dog suffering worms.

As he set down his duster and went to fetch the bleach, he wondered if this event would find its way into The Canon.

He hoped for everyone’s sake that it would not.