TEXT:

Evil found this disconcerting. Prozac must have caught the look. He sloshed over and grabbed Evil by the shoulder, pulling him in for a hug. “You did a good job, now go rest. You can tell everyone else what’s been happening, and make sure it’s safe for us to wake up too.” 

Evil felt himself relaxing, some force pulling on him as he did. “Okay Pro. See you soon.” The half light was fading, a darkness rising instead. Evil felt his eyes closing, the pull intensifying. He caught the edge of movement, Crack and Murder taking off. His last image was Prozac waving goodbye. He was smiling, but Evil didn’t find it very convincing.

Fortunately I think I’ve already got something else lined up, but the deadline on one of my other projects got solidified and is tighter than I expected so I’ve got one other update lined up for Bear Nuts, and then I haven’t had time to write anything new, so I will probably have to take another hiatus.

TEXT:

Evil scooped up his necrotic arm and chucked it in Crack’s face. 

Crack shrieked, a discordant chime that echoed uncomfortably in this vast, misty nothing. Then he flailed ineffectually as the arm bounced off his head and dropped, dissolving almost immediately. Evil gaped as it disappeared. Maybe that was a mistake.

Murder landed with a splash, and a dirty look/honk in Evil’s direction. Prozac pushed Crack on the bird while gesturing at Evil. “You go back. You can’t help us here, and you’re fading. I have a bad feeling about your arm. Hopefully Gimp will be there when you wake up.” 

TEXT:

Prozac conjured a clone of Murder and threw her into the air. The normally appalling honk of the goose rang out over the mists, clanging and jarring, and entirely welcome to Evil’s pointed ears.

The green slick on the water seemed to pull together, topping the swells and swirling into a large Crack-tinged whirl pool. A gossamer green mist started to billow upwards. A ghostly Crack began to form in the mists, insubstantial and otherworldly. Evil squinted, seeing the brownie detritus and pieces of ice cream cone drifting beyond through the incorporeal Crack now floating above the ripples. The fur on the back of his neck lifted as the Ghost of Crack turned its baleful gaze his way. A sudden shock of guilt brushed through his body. He thought of every time he’d made fun of, or maliciously pranked Crack, and wondered if this was karma reaching to get him from beyond. Visions of corn cob walls and broken night lights filled his head as the Revenant of Crack raised one wraithlike paw and pointed at Evil. There was a rush of wind and darkness, and Evil stepped back, suddenly blind and convinced that skittering sound behind him was his death approaching on too many clawed feet…

Then Prozac sloshed his way between them and clapped his paws in Crack’s face. Poltergeist Crack blinked, turned solid, and splashed down in the watery mist beside them. 

“Yes, yes. Very dramatic. We’re impressed.” Prozac was rolling his eyes as he turned away from Crack, seeming very unimpressed. “Hopefully you’ve got that out of your system, and your battery is charged, or whatever. I’m going to need some help.”

Crack sneered at Evil. “OOOO! I’M the useful one, and YOU’RE dead WEIGHT. How does that feel, Evil?!” 

TEXT:

They heard the wall break, and the heavy tread of ponderous panda paws sloshing closer through the dim mists. Lionel shrieked something about their end coming to smoosh them, blah, blah, pancakes of organ meat. 

Prozac grimaced. “This is all so, so…CHILDISH! Toys and junk food, and the DAMN ZOO TROLLEY!” 

Evil’s ears twitched. “The lions are kind of isolationist, right? They don’t get out much, or at all. Their exhibit is nearest the restaurant—“

Prozac snorted with derision, even as he snapped his fingers, “And the gift shop!” Then his head dropped in his paw. “Though knowing the source of his inspiration doesn’t help us stop him. What would he actually be afraid of?”

Evil grinned. “This may be his playground, but we know his waking life is fairly…managed, would you say?”

Prozac looked up with a smile. Then he glared around at the water swirling near their feet. There was a distinct green tinge to the swells. “CRACK!” His roar made Evil jump, not expecting the vehemence. He accidentally stepped on his necrotic arm and tripped a little, trying to avoid it. Prozac ignored his antics, and continued yelling at the ground. “Enough of this! Pull your damn self together and stop wallowing, we need your help! Evil is practically useless!” Evil frowned.

The plan is to get back to regular updates next week, but I still have a book due Aug 15th to push out.

And my baby twins turn 14 this week…14!! :(

I will try to post some sketches and randomness on our Patreon and Blue Sky sitets in the meantime :D

Also, a weekend away from the kids is a VERY rare occurrence. I will probably spend the first bit of travel feeling guilty, and then hopefully get over it quick. They’re all (baby) teenagers now, and it’s only for 2 days.

Despite having a week of annoying revisions and doing pages of work over thanks to a script slip, I am in a good mood. MAY IT LAST!

TEXT:

Evil looked at Prozac, who seemed frozen. A swirl of green flowed around his feet. Lionel cackled again, the noise far creepier and annoying when it echoed all around them. 

Evil tried again, “Prozac?” Still frozen. He stepped closer and nudged Prozac with his colander. “Prozac!” Nothing. Shit. Now they were in it, if he couldn’t get Prozac to snap out of it. Maybe he would just blink out and leave Evil alone here. “Proooooozaaaac!” He poked his brother hard in the belly with the colander, then felt a sudden tearing in his shoulder. Evil looked down in shock as his left arm just fell off. More like tore away from his shoulder with a disturbing squelching noise, and splashed down by his feet. He reared back, clamping his remaining hand over his mouth as his stomach suddenly roiled with nausea. His eyes streamed as he heaved, and suddenly Prozac was there, an arm around his shoulder, and a paw running soothing pats down his back. He mumbled a steady, calming stream of words that Evil didn’t understand, but still felt. “Go back, I’ll find Crack.” Prozac’s voice was low, and confident, and Evil didn’t believe a word of it. 

“I can’t leave you here alone!” Evil was aware he was whining, that was new. He took a breath, and pushed down the panic. As much he desperately wanted to see Crack, it certainly wasn’t time to become him. He attempted a smile, “If I do, Cara will kill me.”

TEXT:

Prozac stared at him in horror. Then he turned and backhanded a flying brownie, knocking it back towards the cones. It smashed through the waffle skin, leaving a sizeable hole that leaked strawberry at Lionel’s feet. The lion conjured a giant hot dog raft and leapt aboard, snarling at Prozac. The brownies suddenly melted into the water. The cones wavered, melting quickly into mush. The slurry of cone, ice cream, and brownie flowed up into a wall behind the lion on his bun boat and Evil let out a quick breath of relief. Maybe Lionel was finally running out of steam? Then the realm started to rumble.

Prozac stumbled, caught by a wave. Evil lunged for the bucket but it fell over, spilling Crack back out into the misty waters.

Red eyes glowed from the dark behind the lion, eyes the size of sewer covers. Two giant stuffed pandas rose from the gloom, water streaming from their bulging forms and spraying over the wall. Roughly the size of a four story building, they towered over the mists, over the wall. Frozen sentinels, they looked just like the insipid toys in the gift shop celebrating stupid Vanity. Except fangs. And claws. And the dumb glowing hell holes for eyes.