Disclaimer: The characters, products, television shows, and corporations mentioned are not mine. I'm just borrowing some concepts, characters, and catchphrases for a little while.
A/N: My friend and I have been challenging each other with writing prompts from her book 462 Things to Write About by San Francisco Writers' Grotto. The most recent one – "You are a serial killer. What TV shows are on your DVR? Why?" – inspired the following crack-ish story.
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He never meant for things to get so out of hand. He never meant to go down the path he was on, but once he'd started upon it, he never wanted to stop.
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The first time had been an accident, and he'd panicked. His job with Post Foods was very nearly his whole world, the only thing he had left since he'd lost the only two other beings he ever truly cared about.
Captain Jolly was one of the few friends he still had from back when he first started his job as a product spokesperson. Every once in a while, the two of them would get together and commiserate with each other over beers about the vagaries of their industry. Most people had no idea what it was like to be a part of their industry. The majority who tried to make it in the business failed to achieve any sort of long-term success. Only about 5% made it past five years on the job. Even now, so many years later, he wondered if all the humiliations and heartache he'd gone through for the company had been worth the limited rewards he'd gained from being on the job.
One evening, he decided he didn't want to spend another night alone in his apartment and, having not seen Captain in quite a while, invited the older man over for pizza and beer and to watch one of the games he'd recorded on his DVR. After the game, in which their home team had spectacularly lost, they'd begun discussing and complaining about some of the things they'd been through when they were younger.
Jolly had never had the best name to go with the type of life he'd had up until that night. He lost his right leg in a freak accident while out alone on his fishing trawler. In debt, and unable to make a living while in the hospital, his boat was repossessed. As a result, he barely had any money to pay his medical bills let alone afford to get a proper prosthetic replacement for his ruined leg. Instead, he was forced to endure the indignity of a peg leg, which had been his only affordable option. A former ship's captain with a peg leg; Jolly's life had become a cliché, the ultimate joke.
It took a while for Captain to get back on his feet, but eventually, through the combination of a uniquely powerful and seductive voice and what was, at the time, a distinctly fresh look, he landed a gig with Post as the spokesperson for the company's Sugar Corn Fetti cereal. He had a good run, but nearly six years later he was fired due to circumstances beyond his control. He was just a spokesperson, and had nothing to do with the actual formula, but he ended up being a convenient scape goat nonetheless. The problem was that the most recent version of the cereal could easily cut a person's mouth because it stayed hard as a rock no matter how long it had been sitting in milk. The only blame that could truly be laid at Captain Jolly's door was that he had done his job as spokesperson and touted the cereal as the sweetest, crunchiest product available.
It didn't matter though, the cereal's reputation was shot and, in order for Post to distance themselves from all the bad publicity, they fired Captain Jolly, renamed the cereal, and hired someone new to be the sugary weapon's new spokesperson. Well, not so much a spokesperson, but more a spokes-being. Jolly could've handled the whole situation just fine if the powers-that-be at that time hadn't hired that walking, talking vegetable, Cornelius C. Sugarcoat – a freakishly friendly corn on the cob – to replace him.
Jolly had gone on a downward spiral after that and never really recovered. He mostly supported himself through occasional voice work, but just as often he spent his days trying (and succeeding) to get to the bottom of a bottle of booze while wearing the stupid pirate costume the company had let him keep and talking to an imaginary parrot from time-to-time. Captain was drowning in clichés and refusing to get or accept help, yet despite the ups and downs in their lives and careers, they managed to remain friends and had stayed in touch over the years.
That particular night, Fate had reared her ugly head and brought him to his knees in sorrow only to lift him back up again with a new purpose in life.
Discussing the old days had required something with a little more kick than simple beer, so he got out the bourbon. With each successive drink, his friend became more and more agitated, pacing back and forth across the small living room and complaining loudly and at length about the injustices that Post had visited upon both of them. His peg-legged friend had finished the bottle of bourbon and had turned toward the kitchen to grab a new one. Thinking the older man had had enough to drink, he' grabbed Captain's arm to stop him from getting another bottle. Jolly jerked his arm out of his hand too forcefully, stumbled, and fell, hitting his head on the coffee table on the way down. At first he thought his friend had simply knocked himself out, but upon checking, he was surprised to discover a broken neck.
Captain Jolly was dead.
Immediately, he'd dug into his pocket for his cell phone, but after dialing 9-1-1, he paused when it came to pushing the button that would put the call through. He hesitated for a few moments with his thumb hovering over the button, before he pressed 'cancel' and re-pocketed his phone.
He couldn't report this to the authorities; it would ruin him. Proof of that fact was lying right in front of him. Successful product spokes-beings were in no way involved in any sort of scandals if they expected to keep their jobs. Post would rather dump him like yesterday's trash before they would bother to stand beside a long-term asset to their company whose reputation was under fire.
He needed this job like he needed to breathe. Giving up so much for the job, then being forced to give up even more, he couldn't imagine what his life would be like without it. No. Wait. He could imagine it. Looking at the body of his long-time friend, he could imagine it. He did know what it would be like without his job. He would end up lost and pathetic and half-crazy just like Captain Jolly.
He could not let that happen.
In order to protect himself, he decided to do the only logical thing – get rid of the body. Luckily he'd just caught up on several episodes of Person of Interest on his DVR. In one of the episodes a female doctor planned on getting rid of the body of her sister's rapist by dissolving it in lye. No body, no evidence, right?
The only problem was where he could find lye at this time of night. Grabbing his cell phone back out of his pocket, he started his browser and was just about to Google 'lye' when he realized that he was about to leave a digital data trail that might just implicate him in the future if anyone began to investigate Jolly's whereabouts during the current night. He'd watched enough episodes of NCIS on his DVR to know that there are people clever enough to figure out what sites he'd visited on the Internet via his cell phone.
Instead he searched his drunken-idiot dead friend's pockets and used Captain's smart phone to search the internet for where to buy lye. He hoped using someone else's phone would be enough, but then again he knew the shows he has watched don't reveal all of law enforcement's secrets to catching criminals.
Figuring out where to get the lye was incredibly easy as was going out to purchase the amounts he would need with cash the next morning. He thanked his love for procedural shows for advice on how to avoid the mistakes other criminals made in getting rid of the evidence. Multiple disguises (including temporarily changing the color of his fur) plus multiple changes of clothes and various modes of transportation were all employed to avoid detection and recognition. And it worked. His plan worked so well that he was confident that no one would ever know what had happened to Captain Jolly let alone know that he had any involvement in the older man's disappearance.
When it was over and he'd finally had time to realize what he'd done, he didn't feel guilty or relieved. Instead, he felt a thrill; he felt alive for the first time in years, perhaps even decades. That was when the idea came to him. It didn't strike like a bolt of lightning, but rather it came over his mind like a gentle wave breaking upon the shore. The idea came on so gently that he didn't even realize there was anything wrong with it; he simply accepted it as part of his life and carried on much as he did before he'd begun this new 'hobby' of his.
It would take planning, but he was confident he could do it. He would not be a second- or third-tier product spokes-being any longer. If he got rid of the competition's spokes-beings, then his cereal's share of the market would increase. He would be popular, rich, and perhaps even regain some of his dignity back. And if it fit into his plans, he might just be able to teach that condescending hag, Granny Goodwitch, a lesson for her part in what happened to his siblings. Sugar Bear would get his revenge at last.
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Since his first 'kill' had been an accident and he'd successfully gotten rid of the body using an idea from one of the shows he usually recorded on his DVR, Bear (he refused to go by the name Post had forced upon him) spent all of his free time watching hours and hours of television for more hints and tips.
Like many others in the world, he watched and recorded many procedural shows, crime dramas, and the like, so that alone would not raise any alarm bells. He was careful in what he chose to add to his Scheduled Recordings list, making sure to not program his DVR to record anything too violent or what would be considered 'true crime,' and instead watched as many of those shows as he could live so he could remain above suspicion as much as possible and for as long as possible. He couldn't risk someone being able to download his DVR's memory and see that he'd watched shows which taught him how to be a better killer.
All of his shows in one way or another impressed upon him the importance of not leaving any record of his plans. Writing things down was an absolute no-no as was using a computer. Instead, he came up with the genius idea of using his own body as a mnemonic device for his plans. It required secretly learning anatomy but each part of his body, from his appendages to his organs, would eventually come to stand for some aspect of his plan.
Choosing his victims was the most difficult part. Bear knew that if he wasn't careful, if he acted too impulsively, that the authorities would catch on to his plan and try to thwart it. His choice in kills had to be random, but according to an old NCIS: Los Angeles episode he'd recently recorded, he couldn't allow the randomness itself to become a pattern. He also learned from that same episode another way to not leave trace evidence behind. Win-win.
As ridiculous as it sounded, he used a dice game on his smart phone to help keep his actions random, even if certain aspects repeated themselves. The game itself wouldn't arouse any suspicions and only he would know what each outcome of the game actually meant. Hopefully it would keep the authorities on their toes for just that much longer.
In compiling a list of victims, his Chosen Ones, he originally came up with 15 overall possibilities (some included duos or trios which he counted as a single kill), but decided in the end to scale it back to 12 with a total of 15 individual victims. He hated that he'd had to scale back his list, but there just weren't 15 of anything related to his anatomy. Supernatural, a show he'd always enjoyed (except for the episode with the suicidal teddy bear – for obvious reasons), made him realize just how difficult it would be to kill some of his possible Chosen.
For example, General Mills had a trio of monsters on their payroll who were the spokes-beings for their "Monster Cereals". According to multiple episodes of Supernatural, killing Count Chocula would require him to somehow behead the creature without being overtaken by the vampire's super strength. And in order to get rid of Boo Berry, he'd have to somehow find out who the ghost had been in life and then dig its corpse up before salting and burning the bones. God only knew how to get rid of Frankenberry. Would the creature be considered a zombie or something else? It simply wasn't worth the extra hassle to go after those 'guys.'
He'd also had Kellogg's Sunny, who represented Raisin Bran, on his mental list, but how does one get rid of miniature sun without causing serious collateral damage? One wrong move and he could potentially fry the surface of the planet. And if he did manage to pull it off, there was no telling what kind of damage the kid's dad could do in retaliation to the earth if he was to unleash a series of powerful solar flares or coronal mass ejections.
The California Raisins had been dropped from his list when he'd found out the sun-dried show-offs had been let go from the company several years ago. Their popularity having shriveled up to nothing, Post Raisin Bran had decided to go without a spokesperson heading into the future. Going after raisins with two scoops of ego and fading singing voices seemed to be like adding insult to injury no matter how satisfying it would be to use pieces of them in his oatmeal cookies.
If he was honest with himself, he would admit that he wasn't too sure about the twelfth being on his list. The Quaker Man had been the first cereal spokesman and had retired many years ago. Quaker still used his image on their products, but these days the old guy very rarely made any public appearances. Quaker Man had paved the way for all the cereal spokes-beings which followed; could he really go through with killing the father of the industry? He guessed he would find out when the time came.
The part of his plan that he'd struggled with the most was the fact that all the shows he watched said he couldn't keep any trophies. Despite the fact that he really wanted something to remember his kills by, trophies from the victims were always found no matter how well they were hidden. Some killers ate the trophies they took off their victims' bodies, but he didn't think he could do that with some of his Chosen Ones, and he felt it should be all or nothing in this regard.
It was too bad really that he wasn't going to take any souvenirs, given the wonderful variety of his Chosen. With Trix Rabbit, he could've finally had a lucky rabbit's foot – he'd always wanted one of those as a kid. BuzzBee of Honey Nut Cheerios fame could have led him to the best honeycombs and honey ever produced, which would have satisfied his addiction to sweets for years to come. Toucan Sam's beak would've made a beautiful goblet for him to drink from. His love for hats (something he rarely was able to indulge in) would've been satisfied with those from L.C. Leprechaun and Snap, Crackle, and Pop. He was absolutely positive that Sonny, the spokes-being for Coco Puffs, and Cornelius Rooster of Kellogg's Corn Flakes would've been big enough to make several magically delicious meals if he wasn't so paranoid that a stray plucked feather would give him away. And he was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to have the lovely throw rug that Tony the Tiger would've made on the floor in front of his fireplace.
Several victims on his list besides Quaker Man were human. He'd relish killing Cap'n Crunch in homage to Captain Jolly. It would probably be a mistake to potentially link his victims, but he'd have fun chopping off one of Crunch's legs and watching the old sea captain bleed out. Why that idiot has been able to keep his job for so long, Bear would never know. And, speaking of idiots, wouldn't he be doing the world a favor by offing two of the worst idiot spokes-beings ever hired – Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble of Fruity Pebbles fame?
For his human victims, he couldn't ever imagine keeping any trophies, because if it wasn't for humans, he would still have his siblings. More specifically, if it wasn't for Granny Goodwitch and some now-dead executives of Post, his brother Dandy and his sister, Candy, would still be alive. Several of the corporation's executives decided long ago that they didn't need three spokes-beings for their cereal; that no one could tell the difference between individual triplets. With the aid of Granny, they got their way.
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One night, when he was young, he and his siblings had gone to bed after having a 'special snack' of milk and cookies that a 'fan' had sent them. The next morning, when he woke up, Dandy and Candy were not in their beds. He looked all over the house and the grounds, but they were gone. When he raised the alarm, he found out that his siblings had been taken by two Post executives. The idea was to create a clean break and avoid the hysterics likely to be displayed with the enforced separation. He cried, wailed for his siblings, the other parts of his soul, but it had been no use – they were gone.
It wasn't until a week later that he'd accidently heard of his siblings' fates. The executives had been on their way to drop Dandy and Candy off at a foster home when a truck came out of nowhere and hit the car. Somehow the fuel in the vehicles ignited causing an explosion. Everyone involved in the accident had perished. His family was never coming back; he was alone in the world except for corporate flunkies who could care less about him.
How does one get over that kind of loss? How does one ever get over never being able to say goodbye? Basically, you don't. Instead, all you can do is just keep on living, taking each day as it comes, and missing your family every day. In the back of his mind though, he always felt that he was missing something important about that night, and hoped one day he would figure it out.
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Over the years, his new handlers from Post Foods insisted he change his name, his image, basically everything about him. He was forced to give up the name his beloved mother had given him, Handy, and was rechristened 'Sugar,' which he always felt was a girl's name. Of course, he was pretty sure the new name was to place further emphasis on not only the name of the cereal but that it was a honey-sweet treat. All the cereal really ever did for him was to get him addicted to sugar. Try as he might, he couldn't kick the habit because no matter where he turned there was more Sugar Crisp cereal.
It wasn't a well-known fact, but his addiction was the inspiration for the stupid jingle he always had to sing during his commercials. "Can't get enough of that Sugar Crisp… Sugar Crisp… Sugar Crisp… Can't get enough of that Sugar Crisp… It keeps me going strong." That damned cereal didn't keep him going strong, it kept his addiction to sugar going strong – something that he thought the executives didn't necessarily plan, but certainly used as an advantage.
Another thing he was forced to change about himself was his clothes. When he'd first started in the business as Sugar Crisp's spokes-being, he was allowed to be himself which meant going au naturel. Not long after his name change, his bosses forced him to start wearing an ugly sweater, citing public decency laws. Didn't they realize how stifling a sweater would be to a bear? How stifling it would be especially during the summer? He'd lost count of the number of times he'd passed out from heat exhaustion.
What choice did he have back then? He was a young cub with no family. Post Foods acted as his guardian and provided for him until he was of age. Then, as an adult, he continued to work for the company as one of their more well-known spokes-beings – not that Post had that many to begin with.
In the Sugar Crisp commercials, he was mostly paired with Granny Goodwitch and portrayed as a thief of her precious boxes of cereal. Off camera, they didn't get along, and barely tolerated each other. Every once in a while, the bigwigs at Post would attempt to get them to reconcile and be friends, but it never lasted for very long.
It was during one such period of reconciliation that he recovered an elusive memory from the devastating night his siblings had died.
After filming their most recent ad spot, Granny invited him over for an afternoon treat. Even though he resented the fact that she was essentially enabling his addiction to sweets, he of course agreed, hoping to keep the peace between them for just a little while longer. When he tasted the cookies that she served, he nearly choked after he'd recognized their taste. That's when he remembered the 'special treat' he and his siblings had shared during their last hours together; since that night and until that day, he had never had any other cookie that tasted the same exact way.
Bear finally had the last piece of the puzzle that was the night of long ago; Granny Goodwitch had been involved in taking his family away from him.
He just barely managed to keep his composure and not let on that he finally remembered Goodwitch's part in the deaths of Dandy and Candy. He barely succeeded in keeping the milk (something he rarely drank) and cookies down once he realized that it must have been the milk and not the cookies that had to have been dosed with a sleeping potion. The cookies tasted the same as back then, but he realized now that the milk that night had tasted funny. Granny was known outside of her spokesperson gig for being a master at making potions. Why hadn't he seen this before? And why would the old woman be complicit in taking away his family?
Maybe one day he would find out the answers to all his questions.
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Captain Jolly's death had opened the door for Bear to not only get those answers, but for him to finally exact his revenge upon Granny Goodwitch. He looked forward to making the smug old woman pay for what she had helped do to his family and hoped she would be one of the first of his Chosen Ones to be selected for him to kill.
His plans were nearly complete and no one had yet to realize that Captain Jolly was missing. Bear only met with the old man maybe once every month or so, so it was still plausible that he hadn't discovered his friend had gone missing. He had all the time in the world to get started on setting his Chosen free from their horrible lives.
When he was ready, the dice game he used to help keep his actions random indicated that Sonny, the cuckoo bird that represented Cocoa Puffs, would be his first victim.
And after all his intense preparation, it was ridiculously easy for him to kill the first of his Chosen Ones. His plan was perfectly executed and Sonny had had no idea that he was walking towards his death that moonless night. When he returned home after his first official kill, Bear was never more thankful for his DVR. Without that machine and all the shows he'd recorded over the years, he knew he wouldn't have succeeded.
Captain Jolly's death may have been an accident, but now that he'd caused another's life to be snuffed out, he realized that he never wanted to stop.
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Several days after Sonny had become intimately acquainted with a meat grinder, the police showed up at his door wanting to talk to him about Captain Jolly. His insides froze at the request, but he managed to act normally and answer their questions.
He told the officers the absolute truth: he hadn't seen or heard from the Captain lately. It was a good thing that the police hadn't asked his definition of the word "lately," because his was a very liberal one.
When they left, Bear had the feeling that he needed to be more cautious than ever at his extracurricular activities. Thankfully, his dice game indicated that his next kill wasn't for another couple of weeks, which should help throw any possible suspicion off from him. As much as he wanted to once again experience the thrill of killing, he would be patient and wait. All of the shows on his DVR inferred that patience was essential in order to get away with murder, especially serial murders.
Bear's next victim was L. C. Leprechaun, also known as Lucky. Given the little man's unnatural amounts of luck, he'd had to plan extra carefully and set up multiple alternatives in order to complete his mission. That night luck had been on his side and he set another Chosen free having buried the leprechaun barely alive at the bottom of his own pot of gold. Without thinking, he'd taken Lucky's hat and tried it on briefly as a reward for another successful kill. It felt right on him but then he'd come to his senses, thrown the hat down on top of the gold coins before filling in the hole he'd dug at the landfill.
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Sonny's disappearance had generated a bunch of news stories, but it was nothing compared the media storm created by L. C.'s disappearance. With his randomness, he hadn't taken into account the actual date – St. Patrick's Day was only a few days away. How could he have not noticed the date?
Cursing his stupidity, he put his plans on hold for the immediate future. It was extremely difficult not having the killing to look forward to now that he had a real taste for it and knowing that Granny was continuing to go unpunished.
The following day he knew he'd been right to hold off on any more kills when he'd seen the newspaper's headline. Some reporter had managed to find out about Captain Jolly and then promptly linked all three disappearances. The reporter's headline had wondered if there wasn't a 'cereal' killer on the loose. He'd groaned aloud when he'd read that; he could have gone his whole life without reading such a bad pun.
Then it happened. Some treasure hunter had found L. C. Leprechaun's body at the landfill. And it seemed as though luck hadn't really been on his side because they found the body on St. Patrick's Day. Cereal aficionados and those of Irish descent banded together and were calling for revenge at this outrage; they wanted the killer caught as soon as possible – preferably more dead than alive.
At first, Bear hadn't worried at this development since he'd followed all the rules the shows on his DVR had taught him. But as the hours ticked by, the worldwide fervor towards wanting Lucky's murderer caught only increased.
Should he keep going? Should he continue to set his Chosen free and get his revenge on the last one alive who had ruined his life?
He decided that he didn't care about the consequences. He had to keep going. He needed the thrill his kills evoked in him. And, above all, Granny Goodwitch needed to die.
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With the death of the little guy, the 'Cereal Killer' story gained lots of traction. The searches for the missing Captain and Sonny were intensified. The day after the Lucky's body was discovered, the police sent police officers around to the studios where the commercials were being filmed and gave a safety lecture. He'd had to use all of his not so inconsiderable acting skills to keep from busting out laughing. Inane safety lectures weren't going to prevent him from getting to his chosen victims.
That night, two detectives showed up at his door claiming that they were talking to each of the various spokes-beings to see if anyone knew anything about the victims, if they had sensed anyone following them, if there had been any odd occurrences lately. He let them come into his house, let them snoop, and then let them leave after they found nothing that could implicate him. He'd shut the door when they left and bust out into silent laughter. The shows he watched on his DVR might be fictional, but they were realistic enough to teach him when to know the cops thought he was a suspect.
He had no idea how they had decided upon him as a suspect, but honestly Bear didn't really care. All it meant was that he'd have to be extra careful from now on.
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A couple days passed and it seemed the authorities had no leads. His randomness generator had decided that the next kill would be the night after next with the Fruity Pebbles guys as his victims. But knowing that the cops might be on to him, he instead decided to go after Granny. If he was to be caught, he didn't want to not have exacted his revenge on the old hag who had ruined his life.
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Finally, it was time. Decades of hurt and loss and humiliation would be avenged. His siblings would finally be able to rest in peace, and just maybe he would find some peace as well. He deserved it after everything he'd been through in this life.
There were competing schools of thought on how to get rid of a witch, so he decided he would use a multi-pronged attack and hope for the best.
He easily slipped into Granny Goodwitch's house having been on her property multiple times and thus knowing how to avoid all her security. He'd noticed that for a new house, there were no fire sprinklers as required by law, which meant that watching the recording of the Wizard of OZ so many times on television, would finally pay off.
Just as he was about to spray Granny with the water in his rifle-like water pistol, bright lights suddenly came on along with shouts for him to not move and to put his gun down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman sit up in the bed. With a slight turn of his head, he saw that it was not Granny.
He was caught. It was over, and he had failed to achieve his ultimate goal.
Now the only question was how he wanted this story to end.
With a smile on his face he started to hum the song Rosemary Clooney used to sing about him and his siblings. Then, amidst shouts for him to put his gun down, he turned and pointed his weapon at the gathered police. He heard the guns fire, but barely felt the bullets as they entered his body.
Sugar Bear, originally known as Handy Bear, was finally reunited with his beloved siblings Dandy and Candy.
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The end.
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A/N: The website, "Topher's Breakfast Cereal Character Guide," provided invaluable information, which I then twisted (exploited? lol) and used to write my story.
Thanks for reading!