The Gremlin Files
Chapter 2, Stripe's Story by the Jekyll Hyde Club
Note: These gremlins are from The Gremlins 1 and 2 movies and not our property.
Time period, near the end of Gremlins 2
Location, outside science lab under some stairs where it is nice and dark
Here you finally get to learn what really happened to Stripe at the end of Gremlins...Cause a Gremlin king never dies!
Telling his story to this scarred faced gremlin was more difficult than Stripe ever could've guessed. It brought up the feelings of fear and shock and even some hurt that he'd felt when he realized Billy and his stupid little furry friend were actually for real trying to seriously kill him! As if he'd done anything that bad. As if he'd done anything worth being killed for. As if people didn't do worse daily, and no one was killing them! Stripe had been accustomed to feeling happy, gleeful, even annoyed and angry, but not frightened, shocked or hurt, and he'd not liked it one bit!
"So everyone thinks you're dead," the scarred gremlin said, his words pulling Stripe somewhat from his own thoughts.
Deciding to answer the question on the other's face he shrugged, shaking his head.
"I almost was."
Those words had been harder to say than he'd expected too and he swallowed hard.
"I..."
His gaze slid past the head of the scarred gremlin to stare at the brick wall behind him for a moment.
"I went under the water by reflex when the sun hit me. It really hurt! That's why I understood about your face...I get how something like that feels. They assumed I was killed because they saw my skin burning off and because I didn't come up for air for a long time. That was mainly luck, though. I was too hurt to come up. I couldn't move...not for around half an hour I guess. We can breathe air or water, you know, though the water breathing stuff has its limits. I'm guessing around an hour but I've never had to push it and find out."
The scarred gremlin's eyes rounded in astonishment.
"Really?"
Stripe nodded.
"Yeah. It's interesting I suppose... when you take time to think on it which I had no choice but to do lying in agony under the water for half an hour!"
He felt the rage growing as he spoke. In a way that was good. Rage was better than hurt and fear and shock.
"Of course water on our skin creates other gremlins, but when we're really hurt, as in almost dying because of our skin being burned off by the sun, we're too weak to reproduce so the water just heals us instead. I think our body sees healing as 2nd rate to multiplying like its only second choice or something."
Stripe shrugged, finding it difficult to put what he inherently understood into words.
"By the time I'd stopped hurting enough to be able to move and come up for air my skin had mostly grown back and Billy and that stupid little furball were gone. I still had to stay in the water all day, hiding and just coming up every few minutes for air, just a breath at a time or I'd get burned again."
Stripe realized then that he'd brought his arms up to hug himself for comfort at the memory. All that day he'd been upset and afraid and fearful that he'd die either by the sun or by someone coming to try and kill him again. This was something the striped gremlin couldn't quite put into words. He wasn't even sure he wanted to. He hated remembering how frightened and shocked and...yes, uncertain he'd felt so he doubted expressing any of it in words would be nice.
The fascinated stare of the scarred gremlin before him prompted Stripe to continue.
"When it finally got dark I came out of the water. I considered killing Billy and Gizmo to defend myself against any attacks in the future should we accidentally run into one another but their house has an electric fence and too many alarms. I thought I could break them, but it didn't work out.. for me," he reluctantly admitted.
His eyes flashed with rage again, recalling all the frustrations he'd had with that cursed alarm system...well there had been several, actually, layered over one another. It seemed Billy and the little furball had developed a few unresolved fears even though they believed they'd probably killed all their green scaled gremlin enemies.
"So you came here to get them," the other Gremlin asked.
Stripe nodded, then frowned. He was growing annoyed by having to always think of him as the other gremlin, too many words for a name. Tone peevish he asked, "What are you called?"
"It's Phantom."
"Good then. Now I know."
After a moment Stripe added thoughtfully, "Nice name. It sounds properly scary."
He grinned and Phantom, obviously pleased with the compliment, grinned back.
Disclaimer, these gremlins are not our original characters, and this is only a work of fan fiction inspired by the Gremlins 1 and 2 movies. If you're interested in more Gremlins fun check out our rare figures reviews for gremlin toys and figures from 84 and 90, on youtube channel JekyllHydeClub.