Disclaimer: Isn't family wonderful?
It was a beautiful day; the sky was a guileless shade of blue with nary a cloud in sight, the sun was shining brightly, greeting all that it touched with a kiss of warmth, the birds were singing, and Alfred was emerging from a dumpster full of used rape kits and hypodermic needles in the parking lot of a hospital.
Alfred pulled a syringe out of his arm, wincing as the needle ripped out of his flesh, causing a thin stream of blood to appear. "Jesus Christ, what happened?" He muttered. A Mexican man in a plaid button-down shirt and blue jeans strolling by pushing a trolley of churros raised his eyebrows at him.
"My name is Jesús Cadero, not Jesus Christ, holmes," he corrected. Then he waved grandly at his wares, which were still slightly steaming. "Wanna buy a churro?"
Tearing another syringe out of his arm, Alfred leapt out of the dumpster, landing unsteadily on his feet. "Sure, I could use some deep-fried thinking food," he said, pulling his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans and counting out several bills, which he handed to the man.
"Uhm…You just gave me three hundred dollars, holmes," Jesús informed him. Alfred nodded.
"I know," he said brightly. "I'm buying all of your churros….And the cart, if you can spare it," he added quickly. Jesús shrugged.
"Whatever, man. It only cost my ninety-nine cents," he said, pushing the little red trolley full of churros at Alfred, who proceeded to devour all fifty deep-fried tubes of sugar-coated dough in under three minutes. Jesús' eyes widened. "Uh…Why do you want the cart, anyway?" He asked, edging away from Alfred, whom he was convinced at this point was a drug addict of some sort.
Swallowing down the last bite of churro, Alfred grinned and jumped inside of the trolley. "This is gonna be my ride home," he said proudly. He scratched his head, looking sheepish. "Hey man, can you wheel me into the street? I wanna ride this thing down the slope."
Shrugging, Jesús complied with his request, pushing Alfred out of the parking lot and into the street, then giving the trolley a good swift kick, sending him careening wildly down the traffic-clogged road, which just so happened to be sloped at a downward angle.
"Thanks dude!" Alfred shouted as the trolley barely avoided crashing into a taxi cab, the driver of which honked his horn angrily while inviting him to engage in oral congress with a dog and giving him a one fingered salute.
Jesús stared as Alfred and the trolley became little more than a crimson speck in the distance, and then pulled out one of the hundreds that Alfred had given him. He shook his head in bewilderment. "What a great escaped mental patient," he said.
Meanwhile, Alfred continued to narrowly dodge passing vehicles as he rattled down the motorway at ninety miles per hour in his screaming plastic death trap, laughing like a maniac and infuriating motorists as they were forced to swerve to avoid hitting him, and threw various colourful epithets at him to vent their frustration. They expressed their sincere beliefs of where his soul was destined to permanently holiday at in the afterlife. They suggested that he perform auto-fellatio on himself. That he ought to insert a well-oxidized screwdriver into his rectal cavity. One particularly rancorous man informed Alfred that he believed that he'd engaged his mother in carnal knowledge whilst frequenting a house of prostitution. All in all, the things that they said to him would be prevented by certain standards of decency from being shown in print. But Alfred, happily oblivious to these insults upon his character, merely waved at his detractors as he continued to unknowingly wreak havoc on the thoroughfare.
One fellow driving a Pinto, the one who'd mentioned fornicating with Alfred's mother, flew into a rage at the look of happiness on Alfred's face, thinking that he was mocking him, and slammed his foot on the gas pedal with every intention of splattering Alfred like a fly across his windshield. Alas, God was not on his side, nor was Ford Motors, because rather than the dramatic hit-and-run that he'd been imagining, his car instead flew forward and flipped over, pitching itself over three times in mid-air before hitting the asphalt with a screech of twisting metal. For ten seconds, the driver remained still in his upside-down car, bleeding from numerous injuries, and then, as though as an afterthought, the Pinto's engine ignited, engulfing the car in a bright red halo as it exploded in a fiery blast, causing several other cars to be blasted back by the force of the explosion. Through all of this, Alfred continued to squeak by in the trolley, munching on a previously overlooked churro that had somehow made its way into his jacket pocket.
Sticking his foot out, he used it as an impromptu kickstand to brake the trolley and turned to look behind him when he heard the blast. Alfred surveyed the smouldering remains of the Pinto and the charred, twisted thing still buckled inside of the blackened shell, the other cars that had been caught in the ensuing explosion lying on their sides in varying states of ruin, the razed sidewalk and the still-dancing flames in the background of the carnage. They weren't the pretty sort of flames seen in films, designed by skilled pyrotechnicians, either, flickering in various shades of scarlet and yellow. No, these tongues of flame were tinged with a rancid green, fed on flesh and marrow, and exuded a distinct odour of burnt pork.
"Oh shit, I have a sudden urge for bacon," Alfred said to himself. Shrugging his shoulders, he pulled out his credit card and tossed it at one of the survivors, who had managed to crawl out of her overturned car despite the large chunk of shrapnel embedded in her back. Another survivor stumbled over as well, his steering wheel somehow jammed around his neck and the majority of his hair singed off.
"Uh..." Right then, one of the upended cars exploded as well, sending flaming shards of metal and glass in every which direction. Apparently, it set off a chain reaction, because every other car that had been caught up in the blast proceeded to explode as well in a symphony of screeching metal and shattering windows. Whistling, Alfred tossed the trolley aside, knocking a police officer who had been called to the scene unconscious, and took off on foot the rest of the way home, wondering if he had enough in his bank account to cover the damages. All the while, the sun continued to shine.
By the time he arrived at his house, Alfred made the horrible discovery that Matthew, Arthur, and Francis were lounging on his leather sectional sofa and arguing over ownership of the remote. Well, Arthur and Francis were arguing over the remote, complete with slapping and name-calling. Matthew just sat there, watching the two of them squabbling with what could only be described as malicious joy. Or maybe it was just a trick of the lighting; those new 'green' light bulbs tended to do odd things.
Clearing his throat loudly, Alfred proceeded to do what he always did to get their attention: Pull a handgun out of the secret inner pocket of his bomber jacket and fire it several times into the ceiling. The results were instantaneous: Arthur and Francis leapt into one another's arms, with Francis ruining the moment by waggling his eyebrows and patting Arthur's ass, at which point Arthur snatched up the object nearest to him, which happened to be the remote, and smashed it into Francis' face. Matthew just continued to sit there, watching the goings-on with a long-suffering look on his face before helping himself to some pretzels from the dish placed on the coffee table.
"What the bloody hell was that for, git?" Arthur demanded as he shoved Francis away from him.
Alfred stuck his gun into the waistband of his trousers. "The real question is this: what the hell are you guys doing in my house?" He ran a hand through his hair, pushing his bangs away from his forehead. "Is this an intervention? Because there's a totally legit explanation for why I spent the night in a dumpster full of used rape kits and dirty needles," he said.
Francis raised his eyebrows. "That…Is not what we're here for." He scratched his chin. "Although it does sound like a rather interesting tale," he admitted. Alfred threw himself down on the couch and snatched the remote out of Arthur's hand, who huffed loudly but otherwise did nothing else to make his displeasure known.
"There's no story to tell," Alfred said after a moment. "I was drunk. Really fucking drunk. Drank a tub of whiskey on a dare from this guy with hooks for hands named Robert while at the bar. Followed it up with a bottle of everclear when he bet his right hook that I couldn't handle it." Pushing his hips up so that he might dig in his trouser pocket, Alfred pulled out a large blood-stained hook and dangled it before his family's eyes, looking immensely proud. "I had to beat the shit out of him to get this baby," he informed them. "Robert got me right in the gut with a shiv, then he tried to take my eye out with his hook, but I kicked him in the dick and whacked him with a barstool. So yeah, now I have his hook-hand." Alfred used the aforementioned hook to scratch his back. "Oh yeah, so I was too shit-faced to walk home, so I camped out in the dumpster from the hospital across the street," he finished.
Matthew stuffed another pretzel in his mouth. "How the hell does a guy with hooks for hands wipe his ass in the bathroom?" He asked, crumbs flying from his mouth as spoke. Alfred leaned forward and helped himself to a handful as well.
"No idea. But hey, dude doesn't have to wash his hands, right?" He figured. Arthur let out a derisive snort.
"That is the most convoluted pile of crock that I've ever heard," he said. "I mean, what did this Robert fellow have to gain from betting his hook-hand? Why did you even want his hook-hand, anyway? If there was a point to this story, it absolutely eludes me," Arthur finished, snorting again.
Alfred threw him a brief glance before picking Arthur up and tucking him under the table, out of sight. "Any more questions?" He asked, turning his gaze on the other two, who shook their heads.
"None whatsoever," Francis said.
"Nah, I'm good," Matthew added. Alfred leaned back into the sofa cushions and changed the television station to the Chiller Channel, which was airing the program Masters of Horror.
"Who wants to hear about the chain reaction of explosions I accidentally caused?" He said abruptly. Matthew and Francis raised their hands eagerly, but Arthur, who was still crammed beneath the table and quite irritated by it, dissented.
"The hell you caused a chain reaction of explosions, inadvertently or otherwise," he said waspishly. In response, Alfred kicked the coffee table.
"Quiet you."
"Prick," Arthur mumbled.
Eye ticking violently, Alfred lifted the table off of him only to throw it so forcefully that it burst through the wall of the siting room and through the wall of the house across the street.
"Oh God, my eye!" His eighty-five-year-old neighbour Mr. Silverstein shouted in a raspy voice. Alfred paid no heed, as his muscles were currently expanding at such a rate that his jeans ripped at the knees and the buttons on his shirt popped off with the force of bullets, lodging themselves into the furniture. Veins bulged in his neck and rippling muscles, pulsing beneath his flesh and looking like thick grey worms. His eyes took on a bloodshot look. As the grand finale, his testicles shrank to the size of raisins, nearly retracting into his body and creating a sort of pseudo-vagina, which somewhat negated his newly frighteningly ripped physique. Well, at least Alfred managed to retain some semblance of normalcy by his skin not turning green. That would've just been silly.
"I think those syringes were full of steroids," Matthew concluded.
"Oh no, you think?" Arthur snapped, and was promptly stomped into a bloody crater by the Hulked-out Alfred. He remained still, not wanting to attract any more attention (also, his spine was broken), but Alfred apparently had heightened senses in his current state of mind and could smell fear, because he lifted Arthur up by the throat and flung him upwards so violently that his head wound up stuck in the ceiling, leaving his legs to dangle and kick as he remained trapped between floors.
Throughout this mindless act of violence, Matthew and Francis lay curled up in the corner, clinging to one another. Francis took notice of their position and propositioned the younger man.
"Care for a bit of sex before we die?" Francis asked hopefully.
"No thanks, I'd rather toke up," Matthew answered, pulling a tightly-wrapped joint out of his pocket and lighting it. Before Francis could express his disappointment, he found himself being dangled upside-down by his ankle by Alfred, who swung him around overhead like a lasso before flinging him through the window, which unfortunately happened to be closed. The xylophone glissando of breaking glass sounded as Francis crashed through the window, only to roll off the lawn and into the road, where he was promptly struck by a passing ice cream truck, which was playing a tinkling rehash of the song Ring-Around-the-Rosie.
The ice cream man, who was actually a woman, so technically the term should be ice cream person, stepped out of the vehicle, took one look at the bruised and bloodied Francis lying unconscious in the street, screamed in terror, and tossed a Choco-Taco at him as compensation for fracturing his ribs. Straightening her cap, she then jumped back into her ice cream truck and sped away, spitting gravel in every direction (mostly on Francis' prone body), and covering him in exhaust, adding CO2 poisoning to his list of problems.
Erstwhile, Matthew was still smoking weed despite being lifted over Alfred's head and about to have his back broken in a similar manner to the way Bane did Batman's. "Man bro, your ceiling is like…Talking to me, or something," he said dreamily. Matthew was so stoned out of his gourd that he didn't even feel it when Alfred instead opted to throw him into the staircase, shattering the wooden railing on impact and winding up impaled on a sharpened bit of wood sticking out of the wreckage.
Hearing Arthur's screams, Alfred yanked him out of his ceiling-prison, causing a large chunk of plaster to crash onto the living room floor and accidentally pulling his trousers down around his ankles in the process and revealing that he was wearing skivvies featuring an oh-so-elegant Tinkerbell pattern. Even in his current steroid-driven mind-set Alfred was able to raise his eyebrows in bewilderment before seizing Arthur by the top of his head and snapping his neck like a twig. Tossing him aside, Alfred fell to his knees, grasping his head as though his skull were about to give birth to a parasitic alien before finally passing out and shrinking back to normal.
Half an hour later, Alfred awoke with a groan. "Ugh, what the fuck…?" He muttered, rubbing his temples. Looking around at his trashed sitting room, he gasped, breath catching when he noticed the bodies of his slain family. Jumping to his feet, he peered out of the broken window and saw Francis lying in the middle of the road, covered in tire tracks and legs lying at strange angles with an unwrapped Choco-Taco on top of his chest.
Running into the street, he pulled the Frenchman onto his lap. "My God, what have I done?" Alfred whispered. A single manly tear dripped began to form in his right eye. Throwing his head back, Alfred screamed his fury up towards the uncaring heavens. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" His lung-rattling dramatic screaming was interrupted by a tug at the hem of his tattered pants.
"I'm alive," Francis croaked. Alfred shoved him out of his lap, causing Francis' head to bounce painfully off the asphalt.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" He screamed, ten times louder than before. Satisfied that Francis was good and dead this time around, Alfred then pocketed the Choco-taco and stepped back inside of his house, where he threw himself onto the couch and began to watch basketball while Arthur and Matthew's corpses mouldered around him.
Two hours later, the game was over, he'd eaten the Choco –Taco and his family was back to life and good and pissed off at him, which they expressed by incessantly bitching at him.
"What the bloody fuck is wrong with you?" Arthur thundered.
"I still cannot feel my penis, I mean my legs!" Francis wailed.
"I never got to finish my weed," Matthew said sadly.
Alfred waved his hand nonchalantly at their complaints. "You talk and all I hear is blah blah blah, why'd you kill us, Alfred/?', blah blah blah 'my dick got run over by an ice cream truck, blah blah blah, I'm a pothead, blah blah fucking blah, bitch bitch bitch," he muttered. "Geeze, you guys all on your periods or something?"
Eyebrows quivering with rage, Arthur opened his mouth to respond, but Alfred waved him away again.
"Shut the fuck up, I've got an idea!" Alfred shouted, leaping to his feet, eyes bright with excitement.
"Pray tell, what?" Arthur said dryly, crossing his arms.
"Roshambo," Alfred answered in a deadly serious voice.
"Ro-what?" Francis said.
"We kick each other in the balls over and over until only one of us is standing to settle this," Alfred explained.
"That's bloody me-Arthur began, only to be kicked in the crackerjacks by Francis.
"Take that sourcils!" Francis shouted triumphantly, only for a wheezing Arthur to slam his foot into his nads before keeling over and going to join his brethren in Valhalla. Francis promptly slumped on top of him, and, despite his testicular trauma, gave Arthur's ass a hearty squeeze before falling unconscious as well.
Alfred and Matthew engaged one another in a stare-down, both of them drawing their legs back at the same time, fingers curling and uncurling in preparation. There was dead silence for a moment, broken by the both of them shouting "ROSHAMBO!" as one and single-mindedly planting their feet into one another's crotches with the intention of turning one another's genitalia into a hot foot bath. They hit the floor as one, their testicles reduced to stew, moaning in agony. Alfred retched, spewing up half-digested bits of Choco-Taco. Matthew swallowed his gorge and gave his brother a thumbs-up.
"Fucking eh," he choked out in a high-pitched falsetto.
"Hell yeah," Alfred whispered back, his voice also sounding as though he'd inhaled helium.
When the four of them pulled themselves to their feet twenty minutes later, they decided to forgo any pretences that they might have had earlier about enjoying the day together as a normal family and just settle their difference…Using power tools.
"Balls and bollocks!" Arthur screamed, clutching at his left eye, which was bleeding profusely. Blood and something clear and viscous trickled between his fingers and onto the floor. "Why did Francis get the dental floss while I got a FUCKING DRILL IN MY EYE?!" He snapped.
Alfred shrugged. "You lost at rock-paper-scissors."
Arthur slammed the leather-bound book in his lap shut, the dog-eared pages letting out an audible groaning sound and releasing a puff of dust into the air. "And that's why we never visit our family unless we have absolutely no choice," he explained to Peter, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the roaring fireplace.
"That's a load of crock!" The little sailor-suited boy shouted. "I mean, what the bloody hell was even GOIN ON in that stupid story?! Why would you even agree to that game of rock-paper-scissors when you could've just gone home? I mean, what did you have to GAIN, or to LOSE?! And the mechanizations of that ball-kicking game completely ELUDE me!"
Stony-faced, Arthur picked his little brother up and promptly shoved him beneath his overstuffed chair. "Fuck you, kid, I don't owe you any further explanations," he muttered.
The End.