1 The Beginning of Beowulf's End
In the darkness outside of Herot's Pub stood a lone figure, clad in a leather jacket. He looked about cautiously and pulled the glowing cigarette away from his lips. The smoke curled up from the tip and mingled with that which seeped from the man's mouth.
He shook his head back and flicked the butt away into the night, felt the cool wind blow over his face, and sighed. Tonight would be the night. He would come. Beowulf trembled inside the jacket in excitement and anticipation of the battle. One of his gang, the Geats, came out from the bar to stand at his side, and he spoke.
"He'll come for us tonight," Beowulf said in a deep rumble. He gave a confirmatory nod.
"We're ready," the newcomer informed him, and looked out over the blackness. "I wonder what he looks like."
"He'll look like one dead monster when I'm through with him," Beowulf confidently stated, and shot a couple of punches into the air. "I'll bet he's never seen anyone like me before. I'll kick his can and he'll go running back to his mommy."
The other man chuckled and pulled out a tube of Brille Crème and ran a dab through his hair, slicking the black locks back over his head.
"Give some of that here!" Beowulf said, and smoothed back his hair as well, then rubbed his hands on his jacket to get rid of the grease. Afterwards, he turned and headed back inside the pub to address the rest of his gang. "Listen up!" he called, and the others looked up from their drinks. "We're camping out here tonight, and I'm gonna smear that little mother Grendel. And, I'll do it." he pulled the revolver out of its holster suspended from his shoulder and slammed it onto the table, ".unarmed. Anyone afraid to die should leave now."
After a moment of silence one man stood up. "We're here for ya!" he shouted, and the rest of their gang cheered and lifted their mugs in salute. Beowulf smiled and nodded at his gang, the men whose respect he had earned over many months, years in some cases. He cracked his knuckles and threw his hands into the air in anticipation of victory.
"His body will hang from this ceiling!" he shouted, and the gang cheered even more. The celebration inside the pub sent strident laughter echoing through the woods behind it. The faintest whisper of joy crept into Grendel's ears, who was standing at the opposite edge of the forest waiting for his moment. The sound of happiness upset him, and he curled his lips back in anger and bellowed with a voice that would a Swedish yodeler to shame.
Back inside the pub, no one noticed this roar over the loud chords of "Heartbreak Hotel" playing on the jukebox. The partying had reached a new height when one of the gangsters jumped onto the bar and began dancing after several stiff drinks and much encouragement from his chums.
The gang finally settled down and nestled in for the night at Herot's. Eventually, each man slumped over his table or fell over onto the floor, heavy with sleep. Beowulf, though prone, was awake and alert, completely coherent, lying in wait for Grendel to arrive. He shivered again while thinking ahead to the battle. In his mind it played out: he would kill Grendel, then move on to wipe out the rest of his family, and eventually own the city. "Oh yeah!" he whispered to himself in bubbly thought, grinning broadly and inspecting the room for about the twentieth time that night.
A sharp jiggling sound on the handle of the door attracted his attention, and he jerked his around. The doorknob bounced, then stopped, and a quiet splitting sound followed a few seconds later as the lock was pried open with a crowbar. Grendel entered filled the doorway and tossed the bar aside, as Beowulf dropped his head to the floor, feigning sleep.
Grendel moved softly over the floor, looking cautiously over the sleeping gang. He pulled his fist back at his side and hissed, "Yes!" to himself. He flexed his fingers and looked over the crowd, trying to decide which would be his first victim. At long last, he chose his prey and slit the man's throat, then stabbed him a few more times for good measure.
A half-full mug of beer was sitting nearby, and Grendel picked it up and drank the rest, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and felt refreshed. The rest of the gang hadn't been awakened by his actions, so he searched the room for another victim to feel his wrath. A rather beefy looking man caught his eye.
"Well, well, well," Grendel said to himself. "What have we here?" He extended a hand to grab the man, but before he could touch the man, his would-be victim grasped Grendel's wrist. "Eek!" he shouted in fright and tried to pull away, but to no avail. "Lemme go!" he screamed and tried to run, but was pulled back by his captor. "Lemme go, you jerk! What did I do?"
Beowulf pointed to the blood-soaked table, and the dead body that sprawled lifelessly over it. "Oh, right," Grendel said sheepishly. "That. I'll make you a deal. let me go, I won't kill you, and I'll never come back."
"No deal," Beowulf firmly replied in a low voice. He tightened his grip, and Grendel grabbed frantically at Beowulf's meaty hand. Grendel's mind panicked now, just when he needed it the most to escape this grave situation.
Something hard smashed Grendel over the back of the head, and he jerked his head around to see several other gangsters drunkenly swinging bottles and broken chairs above their heads. He laughed at their pitiful attempts to fight, but the pain Beowulf was inflicting upon him brought him back to the moment. Madly, Grendel whipped his arm to the side, but succeeded only in flinging himself into a table, which collapsed underneath him. He picked himself up again and tried to punch at Beowulf but missed.
"Now you die," Beowulf growled at Grendel, and with a smile jerked his arm around his body, flinging Grendel into the wall. Grendel shrieked and tried to pull away again, but Beowulf's grip was too strong. He felt a deep pain in his shoulder and pulled away again, and a powerful stinging and a cracking replaced the pain sound as his bones broke. One more mighty pull and his arm separated from the shoulder, freeing him from Beowulf's grip. He fled while clutching the bleeding stump, feeling the life leave his body.
Beowulf held the arm high over his head and bellowed in victory. The drunken gang cheered him on and celebrated the defeat of Grendel. Still energized from the battle, Beowulf stood on a table, used a bit of thread to tie the arm to one of the lighting fixtures, then performed a victory dance and hopped off the table. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from inside his rolled up sleeve and put one in his mouth, then pulled out his lighter and lit it. Then he picked up a bottle of beer and downed it, and held it and the cigarette high above his head.
"We win!" he shouted, and threw the bottle into a corner. "So let's party!" The crowd before him cheered even more and got all the more rowdy. Beowulf downed several more alcoholic drinks before collapsing in a drunken heap.
Beowulf woke up the next day inside his friend Hrothgar's home, which he only recognized because he had memorized the water stains on the ceiling after waking there after heavy drinking several times. He held his head and sat up, then noticed Hrothgar sitting in the chair across from his couch.
"Man, did I drink." Beowulf said. Hrothgar held up a hand to cut him off and spoke.
"Yes, you did, and thanks for waxing that little wretch Grendel. After you killed him, though, his mom came looking for you, but killed one of my best friends instead."
"Crap!" Beowulf exclaimed. "I forgot about her. Where's she live? I'll take her out too, right now." He pulled out his switchblade and jabbed the air for emphasis. "She'll regret messin' with the Geats!"
"She lives about five blocks south, in the little house next to the crack house the cops shut down last week. Watch your back; she's killed many times before, so she won't hesitate to make diced meat out of you."
"She can try," Beowulf confidently stated and stood up. He flicked the blade out of his knife and headed for the door after lighting another cigarette.
Grendel's mom was sitting on a rocking chair on her porch, attentively watching for someone to come for her. She threw herself on Beowulf and tackled him to the ground, tearing uselessly at his leather jacket. Angered, she dragged him into the house, a run-down shack with only a few items scattered across the floor. Beowulf recovered enough to fling his body at Grendel's mom and tackle her, but she got up quickly and wrestled the knife from his hands. Repeatedly, the blade rained down on his back, but as luck would have it, Beowulf hadn't sharpened it in many weeks, and so the blade deflected harmlessly off of his tough leather jacket. He spun around and clapped the monster's ears, then squirmed out from under her weight and stood, quickly scanning the room for anything he could use to fight with.
A lead pipe in the corner caught his eye, and he dove for it, grabbed it, and jumped to his feet, facing Grendel's charging mother. He swung the pipe madly in front of him and felt the shock as it connected with the old woman's head, who fell to the ground in an undignified heap. He smashed her skull with the pipe a few more times, then looked up to see Grendel's body lying in the corner, where his mother had dragged him after slaying Hrothgar's friend An axe lay nearby, and with a heavy yell, he heaved it at the one-armed body, decapitating it. With his new trophy in one hand and the axe in the other, he triumphantly headed back to Hrothgar's house to celebrate his newly unopposed authority in the city.
The Seldom-Told Aftermath
Three days after the events of this account, Beowulf was arrested following a liquor store robbery. He was later charged with arson, burglary, and three counts of premeditated murder. The burglary charges were dropped after Beowulf divulged the names of the other members of his gang, the Geats. They were all ticketed and fined for disorderly conduct, and a few were arrested for unpaid parking tickets. Currently, he is serving three consecutive life terms without parole, and was permanently moved to solitary confinement after he and some of the Geats attacked a prison guard in an attempt to escape. The other Geats were moved to a maximum-security prison in the middle of the Arizona desert.
Hrothgar was eventually arrested for fraud after trying to collect insurance money when he set fire to his bar, Herot's Pub. Further investigation revealed him to be the mastermind behind the Geats, and he was admitted to the California Institute for the Criminally Insane.
Grendel and his mother turned out to be Egyptian nationals, and not the monsters they were previously thought to be. The Egyptian government, outraged over the murder of two of its citizens, declared war on America for their failure to turn over Beowulf. The Geats who had not been imprisoned were later drafted into the army during the ensuing war, after which Egypt became a territory of the United States. PharaohLand, a privately owned amusement park built around the Great Pyramids, is now the most popular attraction in the Middle East.
Herot's Pub was destroyed by the fire, and what remained was cleared away for the construction of a brand new Seven-Eleven. Urban sprawl eventually caught up to it, and the forest was bulldozed to make room for a strip mall and parking lot. Wilderness Creek, an outdoor sporting goods store inside the mall, currently attracts more nature lovers than the woods ever did.
In the darkness outside of Herot's Pub stood a lone figure, clad in a leather jacket. He looked about cautiously and pulled the glowing cigarette away from his lips. The smoke curled up from the tip and mingled with that which seeped from the man's mouth.
He shook his head back and flicked the butt away into the night, felt the cool wind blow over his face, and sighed. Tonight would be the night. He would come. Beowulf trembled inside the jacket in excitement and anticipation of the battle. One of his gang, the Geats, came out from the bar to stand at his side, and he spoke.
"He'll come for us tonight," Beowulf said in a deep rumble. He gave a confirmatory nod.
"We're ready," the newcomer informed him, and looked out over the blackness. "I wonder what he looks like."
"He'll look like one dead monster when I'm through with him," Beowulf confidently stated, and shot a couple of punches into the air. "I'll bet he's never seen anyone like me before. I'll kick his can and he'll go running back to his mommy."
The other man chuckled and pulled out a tube of Brille Crème and ran a dab through his hair, slicking the black locks back over his head.
"Give some of that here!" Beowulf said, and smoothed back his hair as well, then rubbed his hands on his jacket to get rid of the grease. Afterwards, he turned and headed back inside the pub to address the rest of his gang. "Listen up!" he called, and the others looked up from their drinks. "We're camping out here tonight, and I'm gonna smear that little mother Grendel. And, I'll do it." he pulled the revolver out of its holster suspended from his shoulder and slammed it onto the table, ".unarmed. Anyone afraid to die should leave now."
After a moment of silence one man stood up. "We're here for ya!" he shouted, and the rest of their gang cheered and lifted their mugs in salute. Beowulf smiled and nodded at his gang, the men whose respect he had earned over many months, years in some cases. He cracked his knuckles and threw his hands into the air in anticipation of victory.
"His body will hang from this ceiling!" he shouted, and the gang cheered even more. The celebration inside the pub sent strident laughter echoing through the woods behind it. The faintest whisper of joy crept into Grendel's ears, who was standing at the opposite edge of the forest waiting for his moment. The sound of happiness upset him, and he curled his lips back in anger and bellowed with a voice that would a Swedish yodeler to shame.
Back inside the pub, no one noticed this roar over the loud chords of "Heartbreak Hotel" playing on the jukebox. The partying had reached a new height when one of the gangsters jumped onto the bar and began dancing after several stiff drinks and much encouragement from his chums.
The gang finally settled down and nestled in for the night at Herot's. Eventually, each man slumped over his table or fell over onto the floor, heavy with sleep. Beowulf, though prone, was awake and alert, completely coherent, lying in wait for Grendel to arrive. He shivered again while thinking ahead to the battle. In his mind it played out: he would kill Grendel, then move on to wipe out the rest of his family, and eventually own the city. "Oh yeah!" he whispered to himself in bubbly thought, grinning broadly and inspecting the room for about the twentieth time that night.
A sharp jiggling sound on the handle of the door attracted his attention, and he jerked his around. The doorknob bounced, then stopped, and a quiet splitting sound followed a few seconds later as the lock was pried open with a crowbar. Grendel entered filled the doorway and tossed the bar aside, as Beowulf dropped his head to the floor, feigning sleep.
Grendel moved softly over the floor, looking cautiously over the sleeping gang. He pulled his fist back at his side and hissed, "Yes!" to himself. He flexed his fingers and looked over the crowd, trying to decide which would be his first victim. At long last, he chose his prey and slit the man's throat, then stabbed him a few more times for good measure.
A half-full mug of beer was sitting nearby, and Grendel picked it up and drank the rest, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and felt refreshed. The rest of the gang hadn't been awakened by his actions, so he searched the room for another victim to feel his wrath. A rather beefy looking man caught his eye.
"Well, well, well," Grendel said to himself. "What have we here?" He extended a hand to grab the man, but before he could touch the man, his would-be victim grasped Grendel's wrist. "Eek!" he shouted in fright and tried to pull away, but to no avail. "Lemme go!" he screamed and tried to run, but was pulled back by his captor. "Lemme go, you jerk! What did I do?"
Beowulf pointed to the blood-soaked table, and the dead body that sprawled lifelessly over it. "Oh, right," Grendel said sheepishly. "That. I'll make you a deal. let me go, I won't kill you, and I'll never come back."
"No deal," Beowulf firmly replied in a low voice. He tightened his grip, and Grendel grabbed frantically at Beowulf's meaty hand. Grendel's mind panicked now, just when he needed it the most to escape this grave situation.
Something hard smashed Grendel over the back of the head, and he jerked his head around to see several other gangsters drunkenly swinging bottles and broken chairs above their heads. He laughed at their pitiful attempts to fight, but the pain Beowulf was inflicting upon him brought him back to the moment. Madly, Grendel whipped his arm to the side, but succeeded only in flinging himself into a table, which collapsed underneath him. He picked himself up again and tried to punch at Beowulf but missed.
"Now you die," Beowulf growled at Grendel, and with a smile jerked his arm around his body, flinging Grendel into the wall. Grendel shrieked and tried to pull away again, but Beowulf's grip was too strong. He felt a deep pain in his shoulder and pulled away again, and a powerful stinging and a cracking replaced the pain sound as his bones broke. One more mighty pull and his arm separated from the shoulder, freeing him from Beowulf's grip. He fled while clutching the bleeding stump, feeling the life leave his body.
Beowulf held the arm high over his head and bellowed in victory. The drunken gang cheered him on and celebrated the defeat of Grendel. Still energized from the battle, Beowulf stood on a table, used a bit of thread to tie the arm to one of the lighting fixtures, then performed a victory dance and hopped off the table. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from inside his rolled up sleeve and put one in his mouth, then pulled out his lighter and lit it. Then he picked up a bottle of beer and downed it, and held it and the cigarette high above his head.
"We win!" he shouted, and threw the bottle into a corner. "So let's party!" The crowd before him cheered even more and got all the more rowdy. Beowulf downed several more alcoholic drinks before collapsing in a drunken heap.
Beowulf woke up the next day inside his friend Hrothgar's home, which he only recognized because he had memorized the water stains on the ceiling after waking there after heavy drinking several times. He held his head and sat up, then noticed Hrothgar sitting in the chair across from his couch.
"Man, did I drink." Beowulf said. Hrothgar held up a hand to cut him off and spoke.
"Yes, you did, and thanks for waxing that little wretch Grendel. After you killed him, though, his mom came looking for you, but killed one of my best friends instead."
"Crap!" Beowulf exclaimed. "I forgot about her. Where's she live? I'll take her out too, right now." He pulled out his switchblade and jabbed the air for emphasis. "She'll regret messin' with the Geats!"
"She lives about five blocks south, in the little house next to the crack house the cops shut down last week. Watch your back; she's killed many times before, so she won't hesitate to make diced meat out of you."
"She can try," Beowulf confidently stated and stood up. He flicked the blade out of his knife and headed for the door after lighting another cigarette.
Grendel's mom was sitting on a rocking chair on her porch, attentively watching for someone to come for her. She threw herself on Beowulf and tackled him to the ground, tearing uselessly at his leather jacket. Angered, she dragged him into the house, a run-down shack with only a few items scattered across the floor. Beowulf recovered enough to fling his body at Grendel's mom and tackle her, but she got up quickly and wrestled the knife from his hands. Repeatedly, the blade rained down on his back, but as luck would have it, Beowulf hadn't sharpened it in many weeks, and so the blade deflected harmlessly off of his tough leather jacket. He spun around and clapped the monster's ears, then squirmed out from under her weight and stood, quickly scanning the room for anything he could use to fight with.
A lead pipe in the corner caught his eye, and he dove for it, grabbed it, and jumped to his feet, facing Grendel's charging mother. He swung the pipe madly in front of him and felt the shock as it connected with the old woman's head, who fell to the ground in an undignified heap. He smashed her skull with the pipe a few more times, then looked up to see Grendel's body lying in the corner, where his mother had dragged him after slaying Hrothgar's friend An axe lay nearby, and with a heavy yell, he heaved it at the one-armed body, decapitating it. With his new trophy in one hand and the axe in the other, he triumphantly headed back to Hrothgar's house to celebrate his newly unopposed authority in the city.
The Seldom-Told Aftermath
Three days after the events of this account, Beowulf was arrested following a liquor store robbery. He was later charged with arson, burglary, and three counts of premeditated murder. The burglary charges were dropped after Beowulf divulged the names of the other members of his gang, the Geats. They were all ticketed and fined for disorderly conduct, and a few were arrested for unpaid parking tickets. Currently, he is serving three consecutive life terms without parole, and was permanently moved to solitary confinement after he and some of the Geats attacked a prison guard in an attempt to escape. The other Geats were moved to a maximum-security prison in the middle of the Arizona desert.
Hrothgar was eventually arrested for fraud after trying to collect insurance money when he set fire to his bar, Herot's Pub. Further investigation revealed him to be the mastermind behind the Geats, and he was admitted to the California Institute for the Criminally Insane.
Grendel and his mother turned out to be Egyptian nationals, and not the monsters they were previously thought to be. The Egyptian government, outraged over the murder of two of its citizens, declared war on America for their failure to turn over Beowulf. The Geats who had not been imprisoned were later drafted into the army during the ensuing war, after which Egypt became a territory of the United States. PharaohLand, a privately owned amusement park built around the Great Pyramids, is now the most popular attraction in the Middle East.
Herot's Pub was destroyed by the fire, and what remained was cleared away for the construction of a brand new Seven-Eleven. Urban sprawl eventually caught up to it, and the forest was bulldozed to make room for a strip mall and parking lot. Wilderness Creek, an outdoor sporting goods store inside the mall, currently attracts more nature lovers than the woods ever did.