A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
--Friedrich Nietzsche
"Oh god," Edgar says, and cackles. "Oh god, where's a camera, hold on."
"Get me out!" Johnny calls. "I hate you so much!"
"Okay, okay, lemme find a rope."
"No, can't you just float me out?"
"What am I just going to beam you up with, my brain?"
"You're a vampire! Don't you have magic powers and shit?"
"I'm not that kind of vampire," Edgar says, and wiggles his fingers sarcastically. "No mind beams."
"Fucking lameass vampire," Johnny mutters.
Edgar drops a length of dirty plastic balloon ribbon into the pit.
"You're welcome," he says, not very sincerely.
"Who even digs pit traps along a jogging trail?" Johnny mutters, examining the ribbon. It is purple.
"Yeah, it's not very efficient," Edgar agrees. "I just string a tripwire across the path and then pounce."
As if on cue, a very large, very hairy man pounces from the bushes, a crossbow held threateningly in his meaty paws.
"Lo, thou foul scourge of men," he declaims, "now that I have caught your unholy catamite--"
"His WHAT?" Johnny yelps.
"--in my diabolical trap--"
"It's a big pit," Edgar points out.
"Yes, my diabolically clever pit trap--"
"We both saw it," Edgar says. "You didn't even cover it up with leaves."
"I'M HIS WHAT?" Johnny screams from the pit.
"Yes, but your little whore fell for it," the man perseveres.
"YOU FUCKER," Johnny screams. There is energetic scuffling from the pit.
"I pushed him in," Edgar says. "He's pretty when he's angry."
"Yes, but the point remains--" The man lowers his crossbow again. "You're really argumentative for a vampire," he says plaintively.
"Oh, no, we're all this bad," Edgar says. "You live a few hundred years, you get a little crotchety, you know how it is... I'm sorry, what were you saying?"
The man huffs. "As I was trying to say, now that I've caught your debauched harlot, your undead slut, your, your--"
"YOU FUCKING FUCKER I AM GOING TO FEED YOU YOUR OWN ENTRAILS," Johnny screams.
"My slice on the side," Edgar supplies, helpfully, as the man shoots the pit a worried look.
"Right, that," he says, refocusing, "now that I've caught him, you have to engage me in mortal combat." The man hesitates. "Well, mortal and undead combat. A you versus me scenario. A mutually combative situation." He waggles his thick eyebrows meaningfully. "I'm going to put a stake through your black heart, is what I'm saying," he says.
"No, thank you," Edgar says, and takes a neat step backwards.
Johnny, covered in mud and scratches, garrotes the big man with the length of purple balloon ribbon.
The man gives a sharp gurgle, then his neck cracks and he keels over at Edgar's feet.
"Fuck," Johnny says with feeling, and kicks the man in his side. "Fucking come on, that was it?"
"Kind of anticlimactic," Edgar observes.
"I hate you so much." Johnny says to Edgar, and pulls out a long thin knife from his right boot. "You're not getting this one," he says, kneeling down and working the knife between the cervical vertebrae. "This one's mine."
"He's big," Edgar says, pointedly.
"He is," Johnny agrees distantly. "We should probably just dump him in that pit. I'm going to keep his head in a pickle jar until his eyes grow mold."
There is silence for a while, the kind of peaceful morning park silence made of lots of little noises blending into one vague blur. The birds chirping, the trees rustling, the wet ripping noses as Johnny works on the man's bull-like neck with his long thin knife.
"I'm hungry," Edgar comments, watching blood soak into the dirt. He can smell it. There's so much blood, he'll be able to smell it in the earth on this spot for a year.
"I'm not your whore," Johnny says abruptly. His knuckles are pale as he works the thin blade around the man's neck. There is a dangerous gleam in his eyes, which is only exacerbated by the copious amount of drying gore smeared across his face.
"No," Edgar says.
"Or your eternal-- eternal catamite. None of that." Johnny hacks at a piece of gristle.
"I only want you for your blood and your many, many personality disorders," Edgar says. "No sex whatsoever."
"I'm not little, either. Am I? I'm five-nine, that's totally average height for your average male." He gives the neck another moody stab. The blood on his face shines wetly in the morning sunlight.
"Can I lick you?" Edgar asks.
"No," Johnny says shortly, and rips the head away from the last flap of neck skin. It's a big head, and he turns it awkwardly in his hands. "Fuck, I think this is bigger than a pickle jar," he says. "Even the gallon jars. I hate my life."
"Ho, foul demon!" a woman shouts, stepping from the bushes. She is tall and pale, with ruby lips and some kind of leather fetish. She is wielding a crossbow, and a pair of impressive DD-cups. "You may have dispatched this swaggering buffoon by the vile treachery of your ensorcelled love-slave, but I'd wager you shall not find a vampire slayer such as I such an easy mark!"
"His what," Johnny says dangerously, and puts the head, very slowly, down on the ground.
"Fuck this," Edgar says. "I'm going to wait in the car."
