ONE:

Monkey Boy

Summer, 2008...

Just like any other boy's room, Chris Griffin's was dull, cramped, and unbearably depressing. There was, however, one little special addition to the place that made it horribly original and unique: A monkey dwelled within the black depths of Chris' closet.

Sure, as unlikely as this sounded, it was true. There was a prime ape lurking within the fat, blond-headed boy's closet and it had ravenous eyes, vampire-like teeth, and the annoying habit of pointing at anyone it just so happened to see whenever it dared to venture out of its liar, which wasn't often but often enough that Chris was becoming more than a little paranoid about the beast.

In fact, he was frightened of monkeys in general, and this was the very reason why his parents would never take him to the zoo. Chris knew this because, whenever the Griffins would go on an outing to the zoo, his father would ask him: "Now Chris, you remember what happened the last time?"

Chris would then be forced to go up to his room and recall, exactly, everything that had taken place during his first and last trip to the zoo…

Last summer…

The zoo. Chris and his bespectacled sister, Meg, had always wanted to go. Stewie, their demonic, baby brother, could've cared less about such a place of childish wonder; the football-headed toddler was more fascinated by the idea of destroying the world. Brian, the family's small, white talking dog, would've rather been at the bar getting drunk.

So what was so great about the zoo? Chris was determined to find out, and he did one summer day in mid-July. Well he sort of did, but the zoo wasn't exactly the kind of place he imagined it to be.

For one thing, the place was hotter than hell. Chris actually thought that he would melt like that witch in the Wizard of Oz, a movie that still gave him nightmares.

Another thing, the place stunk like crap. Everywhere you walked animals were pooping, creating a gigantic stink hole.

The last thing that made all these others even worse: the animals liked to hug you. A year later after the accident, Chris could still smell the breath of an orangutan that had tried to do just that, causing him to flee from his family in pure terror. It had taken them the rest of their whole day there to find him, hours later, in a garbage dumpster.

Chris had never been back to the zoo since.

Back in his room, Chris eyed the closet door with fearful dread. He dared that evil monkey to come out. He dared that devilish little bastard to come out and scare the piss out of him…

Then it did. Chris had been sitting on his bed for no longer than five minutes when the door to the closet began to creak open, slowly revealing the monster that resided inside.

"Mom! The evil monkey's back!" he shouted, leaping behind the bed and hoping to put it between himself and the devilish monkey that was out for his blood.

"Peter, was that Chris?" Lois asked her overweight husband, Peter, who had one of his beefy arms wrapped around her as they reclined on the sofa, Brian sitting on the floor at their feet.

Peter laughed. "Yeah, it sounds like that evil monkey's back," he giggled. Brian perked up an ear.

"That's not funny, Peter," he said, pointing his bulbous, black nose at the fat man and his wife. Shuddering he added, "That monkey is freakin' evil."

"Why don't you go kill it then, my strong handsome guy?" Lois asked.

Brian stood up (an odd thing for a dog to do but Brian managed it) and shook his head."I'm flattered, Lois, really, but I can't. Got to go get the mail." He headed for the door. Turning to look back at the Griffins he suggested, "Why don't you get Stewie to do it? He's always talking about killing stuff."

With that, Brian strolled out, shutting the door behind him. Stewie, who had been sitting on his mother's lap, raised his eyebrows at the woman who he so desperately wanted to kill.

"Stewie, would you go kill the evil monkey for mommy?" the hated, red-headed woman asked her son, who hopped from his mother's lap with an angry huff.

"I'm on to you, woman!" he shouted, pointing a small, trembling finger dramatically at his mother before fishing out a blaster from one of his pant's pockets and trotting up the stairs to Chris' room.

Once inside the fat kid's bedroom, Stewie took a look around and realized instantly that the monkey had, indeed, emerged once again and it was his duty to put it down once and for all.

"Blast you to hell, monkey devil!" the baby roared. He began firing a volley of shots at the monkey, who was actually well-dressed and possessed excellent reflexes, for he kept on leaping safely out of the reach of Stewie's death blasts.

"Shoot it! Shoot it!" Chris wailed, placing his pudgy hands over his ears in an effort to block out the deafening explosions that Stewie was producing rapidly.

"Damn you, monkey boy, I'm trying!" Stewie bellowed over the hail of blasts and whooped gleefully when, suddenly, the monkey dropped form the ceiling, dead and spouting blood profusely as it hit the floor with a loud THUMP.

"You got him, Stewie!" Chris cried, triumphantly, slowly rising from his hiding place. "Way to go!"

Stewie dismissed the fat boy's praise away with the wave of a tiny, clinched fist. "Nothing to it." He walked out the door, Chris waddling behind him.

Right after they had left, the mauled body of the evil monkey began to twitch.

Humming to himself, Brian plunged his paw into the mailbox and rummaged through it, hoping for some interesting news and no bills.

He didn't get any of those things. Instead, what he brought back out of the mailbox wasn't a badly rolled up newspaper or an overdue bill (which was a shocker because Lois' dad was rich but her family was dirt poor) but a letter, a letter from his gay cousin Jasper. It read:

Dear Brian,

How's it hangin', handsome? How are things going? Have you banged Lois yet? If you have I'll never forgive you!

Ha! Just kidding. Anyway, I wrote to you to tell you that my family and I will be coming over for a visit. We are leaving from our home in the country to go vacationing. We just thought that we'd stop by Quahog on our way. Don't know when we'll get there but it'll be sometime around the end of this month. Just thought that I'll let you know ahead of time that way you will be prepared to meet my new date. He's a huge, purebred Doberman hunk.

Hope your family doesn't mind.

Love,

Jasper.

P.S.: Ricardo is dead. He was shot a couple of years after we were married. We shall not speak of this accident at all though I do wish to tell you that I moved to the country with a new family in the hopes that I could just let everything go. Please don't tell your family this. It would only upset them, especially Lois. See you soon!

Shaking his head, Brian folded up the letter. He carried it inside the house, furrowing his brow in deep thought and hurt. He didn't know how his family was going to take this but…he had to tell them while making sure not to spill out the fact that Ricardo was dead. Now, standing before the Griffins, he cleared his throat and announced, "Guys, I have some great news that you are all going to love…"

Like him, they didn't.