Post by spiral on Apr 4, 2019 16:45:59 GMT -5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THESPIRALEFFECT.NET
Posted on APRIL 3, 2019
What a ridiculous game this is. I never asked to be saddled with a partner. I never asked to be thrown into this absurd tournament to compete for the Chimera tag team championship. What a terrible name for a title. If we’re being literal, the chimera had the features of three animals, not two. I wonder if anyone bothered to actually research the mythology before trademarking the name and slapping it on plastic little toys for tots everywhere who were born with enough water on the brain to want to cheer for people like Brodie or Cosmo Cooper.
I considered walking out at Blitz 12 and leaving Cross to deal with our opponents as he wished, but let’s face it: a loss is still a loss, and I didn’t come here to roll over. Besides, all this drama has put me in a rather advantageous position of squaring off against both Cooper and Devlin. Thus, despite my desire to simply wash my hands of this entire tournament, I will instead make the most of it by tearing down two of the company’s top names, along with the rest of these miscreants and nobodies.
Darling Cross, I expect you to hold up your end. Keep the rest of the Zombie Clan busy, along with Jennings and White. None of them should give you much pause. They’re nothing but distractions in this farce. The real targets are Cooper and Devlin and I plan to fully explore the far, far shores of what is acceptable in a no-disqualification match.
Till then,
Spiral
Posted on APRIL 3, 2019
What a ridiculous game this is. I never asked to be saddled with a partner. I never asked to be thrown into this absurd tournament to compete for the Chimera tag team championship. What a terrible name for a title. If we’re being literal, the chimera had the features of three animals, not two. I wonder if anyone bothered to actually research the mythology before trademarking the name and slapping it on plastic little toys for tots everywhere who were born with enough water on the brain to want to cheer for people like Brodie or Cosmo Cooper.
I considered walking out at Blitz 12 and leaving Cross to deal with our opponents as he wished, but let’s face it: a loss is still a loss, and I didn’t come here to roll over. Besides, all this drama has put me in a rather advantageous position of squaring off against both Cooper and Devlin. Thus, despite my desire to simply wash my hands of this entire tournament, I will instead make the most of it by tearing down two of the company’s top names, along with the rest of these miscreants and nobodies.
Darling Cross, I expect you to hold up your end. Keep the rest of the Zombie Clan busy, along with Jennings and White. None of them should give you much pause. They’re nothing but distractions in this farce. The real targets are Cooper and Devlin and I plan to fully explore the far, far shores of what is acceptable in a no-disqualification match.
Till then,
Spiral
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PLAYBILL
SYNOPSIS
After the attempt on his life in Seoul and his victory at Blitz 12, Spiral returns to New Orleans to have a conversation with his agent, Patrick LeRoux.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
MADS MIKKELSEN as
SPIRAL (THE NARRATOR)
STEPHANIE CORNELIUSSEN as
MADDI (THE ENTITY)
JEAN DUJARDIN as
PATRICK LEROUX
SPIRAL (THE NARRATOR)
STEPHANIE CORNELIUSSEN as
MADDI (THE ENTITY)
JEAN DUJARDIN as
PATRICK LEROUX
4
APRIL FOOLS
PART ONE
PART ONE
My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!
— J.R.R. Tolkien,
APRIL 1—A SMALL and shadowed lane winds through a block of Creole townhomes in the Lakewood district of New Orleans. Maddi and I are hunched in the dark beneath the looming high-pitched roofs and wrought iron balconies, hidden from the faint light of the pale fishhook moon. Five houses down on the left is the home of my agent, Patrick LeRoux.
After the failed assassination on my life I stayed in Seoul only long enough to fulfilled my contractual obligation for Valor Pro Wrestling. I arrived in New Orleans a week ago and my time since has been dedicated to surveillance and preparation. For example, the keyless entry remote feeling around in my gloved hand. Replacement remotes can be ordered online. This one is for a 2018 Cadillac XTS, the same make, model, and year of the car parked on the street out front of LeRoux’s house. To function properly the remote must be programmed to match a vehicle’s encrypted id, which is impossible to hack. I disabled this remote’s frequency control chip with a soldering iron, rendering it useless for unlocked doors or starting an engine.
But now it can trigger the panic alarm of any 2018 XTS.
Maddi says, “Mind the windows,” nodding to the opposite houses as she unwraps a stick of Chicza organic rainforest gum.
Patient Spiral. Meticulous Spiral. Listening, watching, and waiting. The lights have been dark for two hours. Inside, Daddy Patrick sleeps all alone. Mommy Emily left him last year, taking Lucky Little Noah and Nanny Jeanette to live up north. Oh if I could simply sneak in, but the high-tech security system he likely purchased to protect his now absentee family forces me to get creative.
The dragon stirs and gives an impatient growl. The Malice Striker. The Eater of Worlds. I feel it twisting under my skin and digging its claws into my brain. Patient Spiral dissolves into the background, becoming nothing more than a subtle, electric buzz in the undercurrent. When my eyes open, I am breathing sulfur through the fabric of my black Egyptian cotton balaclava.
I press the red button on the remote.
The quiet, peaceful neighborhood is shocked from its slumber by the whirring, wailing siren and loud, obnoxious honking. In succession, bedroom lights switch on and beam incandescent rectangle from the windows onto the street’s black asphalt. Slowly and invisibly I move, keeping tight against the buildings till I reach LeRoux’s. I hide in the darkness behind a large hedge and look in through a small window veiled by a sheer fabric curtain. The house is waking up, lighting up and rustling.
LeRoux is coming down the stairs. I watch a fuzzy outline go for the front door and open it. He walks out wearing a bathrobe and slippers. I move quickly but quietly along the side of the house and around the corner. When the car alarm abruptly cuts off I already have a torsion wrench and hook pick inserted into the Master Lock DSCR615 deadbolt on the backdoor. I have twenty of them at home. Maddi would say perfect practice makes perfect. This one opens for me in under five seconds.
I place the tools back in the lockpick set, stuff it into my black Ralph Lauren satchel, and move inside. Straight down the hallway the front door is still slightly ajar. LeRoux must be checking for any damage and cursing himself as it becomes more and more likely this was a false alarm. Maddi directs me to the room on my right, per the plan. Though quite dark I know this kitchen. I know because this is the fourth time I have been inside his house.
“Perfect practice makes perfect,” Maddi says with a very Spiral-like grin.
The kitchen leads into the just-as-dark dining room. Careful Spiral takes deliberate steps around the large table, making sure not to bump into the china cabinet or catch one of the chairs with my satchel. My back finds a wall and and edges to the doorway. On the other side the stairs lead up to the second floor. I hear LeRoux when he comes back inside, breathing a drowsy sigh laced with aggravation. He shuts and locks the door, arms the house alarm, then turns the hallway light off. Maddi is already in the foyer with her hands stuffed in her pockets, watching LeRoux head up the creaky steps. I wait until he disappears on the next floor to push the cancel button on the security system.
Maddi stops me at the bottom of the stairs and says to wait a bit. “Let the quiet come and retake the house. Let those tired eyes get heavy.” Patient Spiral’s words coming from her mouth. I force myself into a leather Chesterfield chair and bide my time till the numb quietude comes and my ears adjust to hear the faintest of noises skittering about under the false cloak of silence. The whoosh of cool air through squeaky vents. A tree branch scratching at a window. The groan of the settling house. The whine of my calm, cool exterior expanding and contracting its hold on the swirling nothingness within. And then the room grows small and the dark cracks into shades of near-black, sharp shadows slicing through the room.
The Eater whispers. It’s time.
Up the stairs I go, lurking with sinister intent. “Remember the plan,” Maddi instructs from behind. The answers to my questions are in the third bedroom at the end of the hall. Daddy Patrick, Lonely Patrick, already peacefully asleep on his stomach. Hips turned and one knee bent outward. Shirtless in a pair of sleep pants. The bathrobe is crumbled on the floor. I tacitly creep to his side of the bed, foot after careful foot, until I stand over him. There’s no hesitation when I grab a handful of his perfect black hair and yank his face off the pillow. There is no scream because my arm has locked around his throat and constricted. He struggles, clawing at the sleeve of my Calvin Klein henley, and breathing ragged, stale, putrid breaths, each growing shorter and and rougher than the previous. This is a blood choke. See: Asphyxia. See: Brain ischemia.
When he slips into unconsciousness, I roll him over and open my satchel to find the leather pouch. No time to waste, I unroll it on the bed and remove one of the three hypodermic needles. Household bleach is very versatile. Adding distilled water and the paint stripper gamma-butyrolactone yields GHB, or gamma-hydroxybutyric acid—a potent general anesthetic. The optimal dosage is 40mg/kg. In the barrel of this syringe 3.5g of GHB is dissolved in isotonic saline.
He is starting to stir when I touch the needle to his skin and push it into the external jugular vein. I have to clamp my hand over his mouth to keep his head from jerking. It takes only a few seconds for the chemical to pass through the blood-brain barrier. He slips away, far far down, like Alice tumbling into the rabbit hole. I apply a cotton ball to the puncture wound and the needle returned to the pouch. “Look at him,” Maddi says, slithering from the cold dark. “I like him much more like this. He’s handsome, don’t you think?” She’s dancing her fingers along his limp arm and I feel a something like jealousy coming up the back of my throat with the burn of stomach acid.
Tick-tock.
I’m not sure who says it, me or Maddi. Tick-tock. No time to doddle. I recoil and hurriedly put the needle pouch and the used cotton ball—don’t forget the cotton ball—back into my satchel. He lifts easily onto my shoulder and we go down the stairs, still quiet, still careful, but with purpose. See his keys on the hook. Take them. Out the front, Maddi is the first. Careful Maddi, checking the windows, making sure all the houses on the street are dark and there is no one to see me load Daddy Patrick into the backseat of his Cadillac.
TO BE CONTINUED