HALLOWEEN
2021
PRESENTS
2021
PRESENTS
John Constantine, Hellblazer
“The Tomb”
Written by Chris Munn
“The Tomb”
Written by Chris Munn
The corpse hung from the ceiling fan, legs swaying back and forth as the blades spun. The noose was a nice touch, as was the footstool lying just beneath the dead man's heels, pushed aside to allow the successful hanging. No one was weeping for Oliver Short, though the four individuals surrounding the hanged man all had their own reactions.
For Mary Scott, it was a feeling of panic.
For Ephraim Miller, it was a feeling of relief.
For Patricia Fitzpatrick, it was a feeling of elation.
The fourth's reaction was strangest of all. For John Constantine, it was a feeling of utter and absolute disbelief.
A locked room, no exit available, and four individuals trapped with the dead body of a bastard suicide. Constantine smirked and lit up a Silk Cut. "So," he said to his companions, "who had Ollie down as the first one to die? You win the betting pool, I imagine..."
“This can’t be fucking happening,” Mary whispered to herself as she turned away from the swinging corpse.
“Should we cut him down?” Ephraim asked almost rhetorically. No one actually wanted to touch the body.
“I feel like its bloody Christmas morning,” Patricia said with a smile, “waking up in a room with a dead asshole as a stocking stuffer.”
John remained silent, but he noted mentally what Patricia had just said. The last he, or any of them, remembered was All Hallows Eve, the pub and the copious amount of alcohol they were ingesting. A black spot in their minds followed, with each of them awakening inside the empty square room to find their drinking mate Oliver dangling over them with shit in his pants.
“This is your fault, Constantine,” Ephraim accused, “I should have known better than to spend a night out drinking with you. Fucking weirdness follows you around like a personal storm cloud, dunnit?”
“Anyone actually remember why we were all drinking together?” John questioned, ignoring Miller’s accusation.
“We weren’t celebrating; things were too somber for that. We were drinking out of mutual misery, not out of fellowship.”
“Everything was fine,” Mary answered, “until Oliver arrived. He was a walking buzzkill; you could feel the sadness coming off of him in waves. It brought us all down to his level; we were wallowing in his personal depression.”
John nodded in agreement. Mary Scott was an empath, tuned to the emotional state of those around her; but even without that particular gift, John had felt and understood what she meant about Oliver Short and the gloom that sat down at the pub table with him.
“I could tell he was down,” Ephraim said, “but I didn’t think he was so far gone that he’d top himself.” Ephraim Miller was an investigative journalist, a blog writer with a few big exposes on his resume, and his curiosity was overwhelming his survival instincts. John walked up to him and pointed at the man’s face.
“You’re bleedin’ out the nose, mate,” Constantine pointed out.
“I don’t…what…?” Ephraim asked in confusion and disorientation as his nose began to gush like a fountain of blood. Suddenly, the man began to scream and he fell down to his knees like a gunshot victim. John grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted his head back, and what he saw caused the two women behind him to gasp in fright.
Miller’s eyeballs had exploded, covering his face with blood, and he was choking in a desperate fight for air.
Ephraim lurched forward in Constantine’s arms, and with a wrenching cough he spat a large chunk of bloody meat onto the floor between them.
Then he died, prompting John to toss his body to the side in order to investigate the object spat onto the floor. “I don’t believe it,” he said as he poked the red tissue with his finger, “Miller just literally puked his brains out.”
Constantine stood, wiping the blood on his hands across the pant leg of Oliver’s still-swinging leg. He took a drag off his cigarette and eyeballed the two women across the room. Mary Scott was in full blown panic mode, her empathy getting the better of her as she felt the amplified terror from Miller’s final moments. Patricia Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, had yet to lose her cynical exterior.
“Can I get one of those fags?” she asked as she sauntered up to John, all tits and attitude.
“Sure,” Constantine answered as he tossed her a cigarette from his pack, followed quickly by his lighter, “but in return, care to let me know why you hated Ollie there so fucking much that you get a case of the grins when you see his corpse?”
Patricia jabbed the cigarette between her lips, but paused before lighting it. “The arsehole and I used to date,” she answered, “and he got way too possessive when I dumped him for Ephraim there. ‘Course, I dumped him too after a while.”
Constantine made more mental notes as Patricia lifted the lighter to her face. She flicked the Zippo, sparking the flint…but instead of a small flame to light her fag, the lighter exploded with a blast of blue fire, lighting the screaming girl aflame. Patricia fell backwards, kicking and screaming on the floor as her flesh melted from her face and her hair went up like kindling.
“Shit!” John yelled as he dove at her with Miller’s coat in his hands, trying desperately to put out the fire. After a few futile seconds, John noticed that the woman had finished screaming and stopped her frantic movements. He stood and looked at Mary, who had tears streaming down her face. “Another one dead,” he said, “and I’m fucking sick of this shite.”
John moved quickly to the room’s only door and slammed into it with his shoulder, feeling it budge only slightly. “You’re the sodding psychic Mary,” he said as he slammed into the wooden door again, “any idea why Ollie Short would drug our drinks, drag us in here, and then kill his stupid self?”
“Oliver came to me a week ago,” Mary said through wheezing gasps, trying to hold back her tears, “he was upset, wanted me to exorcise his emotions or something fucking stupid like that. He hated Patricia for dumping him and he hated Ephraim for taking her away from him. When I told him I couldn’t help him, he became angry; violent…I had to threaten calling the police to get him to leave.”
“That’s it then,” John said as he rested with his hands on his legs, bent over in frustration, “Ollie hasn’t liked me since that business with Napoleon’s cursed trousers. The fucker set us up, and now he’s topping us one by bloody one.”
“But how…?” Mary asked. “He’s dead isn’t he…?”
Mary didn’t get to finish her sentence, punctuating her words with a choked scream as she felt herself lifted into the air with a rush. John dashed across the room, reaching her just as the invisible force slammed her hard against the ceiling, bouncing her down onto the floor, and again against the ceiling once more for good measure. John heard her neck snap as she hit the ceiling the second time, and she fell to the floor in a lifeless heap.
“That’s it, you wanker,” John said as he moved toward the hanging body of Oliver Short. “You may have killed yourself, but something’s kept your spirit here, hasn’t it? You wanted to die, and now your ghost is exacting revenge on the people you think drove you to suicide. That about right, innit?”
Constantine ripped open the button-down shirt and revealed Oliver’s exposed chest, into which was carved an ornate series of sigils and symbols, marking his skin with the spell of a death curse. John bent down and retrieved his Zippo lighter from Patricia’s dead hand and with no hesitation or doubt he set the clothes wrapped across Oliver’s body aflame.
The body went up like it had been doused with kerosene, and in the smoke John saw a wisp of a figure. A wraith was screaming as the spell that held the spirit in this realm was destroyed by melting flesh, but the agony of the ghost wasn’t enough for John Constantine. With a whispered chant and a wave of his hand, the flame extinguished itself before the body was totally destroyed, leaving the barest echo of the sigils carved into its chest.
Constantine heard the howl of a wounded soul echo throughout the room as he dipped his fingers into the wax-like pool of liquid flesh puddled beneath the hanged body. “You want to be a ghost so bloody bad,” John said as he walked to the door, “so fucking be it, then.”
John kicked the door hard right below the knob, splintering the wood as it blew open. As quickly as he could, he crossed the threshold of the doorway and crouched down, the liquid skin still oozing from his fingertips. He saw the smoke-bodied ghost of Oliver Short billowing toward him, a horrific scream bouncing against the room’s empty walls. Constantine smeared the threshold of the doorway with a line of fleshy wax, and with his lighter he again lit the skin aflame.
The ghost slammed into an invisible wall while the line of flame crossed its way down the bottom edges of not just the doorway but the entire room itself. “Lock me in a room you sad little fucker,” John said as he pocketed his lighter and scowled at the moaning soul of a killer damned to eternal torment, “what goes around bloody well comes around.”
John stood up and walked away, ascending up the concrete stairway that led from the small custodial basement to the graveyard above. Locked inside that cursed tomb were the bodies of three friends and the ghost of a fourth, and nothing would ever break the spell holding the evil inside.
Constantine lit a Silk Cut at the top of the stairs and allowed himself a backward look, still hearing the tortured wailing of Oliver Short’s disembodied spirit. “Sorry mate,” he said before walking away, “I’ve thrown away the key.”
The End
For Mary Scott, it was a feeling of panic.
For Ephraim Miller, it was a feeling of relief.
For Patricia Fitzpatrick, it was a feeling of elation.
The fourth's reaction was strangest of all. For John Constantine, it was a feeling of utter and absolute disbelief.
A locked room, no exit available, and four individuals trapped with the dead body of a bastard suicide. Constantine smirked and lit up a Silk Cut. "So," he said to his companions, "who had Ollie down as the first one to die? You win the betting pool, I imagine..."
“This can’t be fucking happening,” Mary whispered to herself as she turned away from the swinging corpse.
“Should we cut him down?” Ephraim asked almost rhetorically. No one actually wanted to touch the body.
“I feel like its bloody Christmas morning,” Patricia said with a smile, “waking up in a room with a dead asshole as a stocking stuffer.”
John remained silent, but he noted mentally what Patricia had just said. The last he, or any of them, remembered was All Hallows Eve, the pub and the copious amount of alcohol they were ingesting. A black spot in their minds followed, with each of them awakening inside the empty square room to find their drinking mate Oliver dangling over them with shit in his pants.
“This is your fault, Constantine,” Ephraim accused, “I should have known better than to spend a night out drinking with you. Fucking weirdness follows you around like a personal storm cloud, dunnit?”
“Anyone actually remember why we were all drinking together?” John questioned, ignoring Miller’s accusation.
“We weren’t celebrating; things were too somber for that. We were drinking out of mutual misery, not out of fellowship.”
“Everything was fine,” Mary answered, “until Oliver arrived. He was a walking buzzkill; you could feel the sadness coming off of him in waves. It brought us all down to his level; we were wallowing in his personal depression.”
John nodded in agreement. Mary Scott was an empath, tuned to the emotional state of those around her; but even without that particular gift, John had felt and understood what she meant about Oliver Short and the gloom that sat down at the pub table with him.
“I could tell he was down,” Ephraim said, “but I didn’t think he was so far gone that he’d top himself.” Ephraim Miller was an investigative journalist, a blog writer with a few big exposes on his resume, and his curiosity was overwhelming his survival instincts. John walked up to him and pointed at the man’s face.
“You’re bleedin’ out the nose, mate,” Constantine pointed out.
“I don’t…what…?” Ephraim asked in confusion and disorientation as his nose began to gush like a fountain of blood. Suddenly, the man began to scream and he fell down to his knees like a gunshot victim. John grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted his head back, and what he saw caused the two women behind him to gasp in fright.
Miller’s eyeballs had exploded, covering his face with blood, and he was choking in a desperate fight for air.
Ephraim lurched forward in Constantine’s arms, and with a wrenching cough he spat a large chunk of bloody meat onto the floor between them.
Then he died, prompting John to toss his body to the side in order to investigate the object spat onto the floor. “I don’t believe it,” he said as he poked the red tissue with his finger, “Miller just literally puked his brains out.”
Constantine stood, wiping the blood on his hands across the pant leg of Oliver’s still-swinging leg. He took a drag off his cigarette and eyeballed the two women across the room. Mary Scott was in full blown panic mode, her empathy getting the better of her as she felt the amplified terror from Miller’s final moments. Patricia Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, had yet to lose her cynical exterior.
“Can I get one of those fags?” she asked as she sauntered up to John, all tits and attitude.
“Sure,” Constantine answered as he tossed her a cigarette from his pack, followed quickly by his lighter, “but in return, care to let me know why you hated Ollie there so fucking much that you get a case of the grins when you see his corpse?”
Patricia jabbed the cigarette between her lips, but paused before lighting it. “The arsehole and I used to date,” she answered, “and he got way too possessive when I dumped him for Ephraim there. ‘Course, I dumped him too after a while.”
Constantine made more mental notes as Patricia lifted the lighter to her face. She flicked the Zippo, sparking the flint…but instead of a small flame to light her fag, the lighter exploded with a blast of blue fire, lighting the screaming girl aflame. Patricia fell backwards, kicking and screaming on the floor as her flesh melted from her face and her hair went up like kindling.
“Shit!” John yelled as he dove at her with Miller’s coat in his hands, trying desperately to put out the fire. After a few futile seconds, John noticed that the woman had finished screaming and stopped her frantic movements. He stood and looked at Mary, who had tears streaming down her face. “Another one dead,” he said, “and I’m fucking sick of this shite.”
John moved quickly to the room’s only door and slammed into it with his shoulder, feeling it budge only slightly. “You’re the sodding psychic Mary,” he said as he slammed into the wooden door again, “any idea why Ollie Short would drug our drinks, drag us in here, and then kill his stupid self?”
“Oliver came to me a week ago,” Mary said through wheezing gasps, trying to hold back her tears, “he was upset, wanted me to exorcise his emotions or something fucking stupid like that. He hated Patricia for dumping him and he hated Ephraim for taking her away from him. When I told him I couldn’t help him, he became angry; violent…I had to threaten calling the police to get him to leave.”
“That’s it then,” John said as he rested with his hands on his legs, bent over in frustration, “Ollie hasn’t liked me since that business with Napoleon’s cursed trousers. The fucker set us up, and now he’s topping us one by bloody one.”
“But how…?” Mary asked. “He’s dead isn’t he…?”
Mary didn’t get to finish her sentence, punctuating her words with a choked scream as she felt herself lifted into the air with a rush. John dashed across the room, reaching her just as the invisible force slammed her hard against the ceiling, bouncing her down onto the floor, and again against the ceiling once more for good measure. John heard her neck snap as she hit the ceiling the second time, and she fell to the floor in a lifeless heap.
“That’s it, you wanker,” John said as he moved toward the hanging body of Oliver Short. “You may have killed yourself, but something’s kept your spirit here, hasn’t it? You wanted to die, and now your ghost is exacting revenge on the people you think drove you to suicide. That about right, innit?”
Constantine ripped open the button-down shirt and revealed Oliver’s exposed chest, into which was carved an ornate series of sigils and symbols, marking his skin with the spell of a death curse. John bent down and retrieved his Zippo lighter from Patricia’s dead hand and with no hesitation or doubt he set the clothes wrapped across Oliver’s body aflame.
The body went up like it had been doused with kerosene, and in the smoke John saw a wisp of a figure. A wraith was screaming as the spell that held the spirit in this realm was destroyed by melting flesh, but the agony of the ghost wasn’t enough for John Constantine. With a whispered chant and a wave of his hand, the flame extinguished itself before the body was totally destroyed, leaving the barest echo of the sigils carved into its chest.
Constantine heard the howl of a wounded soul echo throughout the room as he dipped his fingers into the wax-like pool of liquid flesh puddled beneath the hanged body. “You want to be a ghost so bloody bad,” John said as he walked to the door, “so fucking be it, then.”
John kicked the door hard right below the knob, splintering the wood as it blew open. As quickly as he could, he crossed the threshold of the doorway and crouched down, the liquid skin still oozing from his fingertips. He saw the smoke-bodied ghost of Oliver Short billowing toward him, a horrific scream bouncing against the room’s empty walls. Constantine smeared the threshold of the doorway with a line of fleshy wax, and with his lighter he again lit the skin aflame.
The ghost slammed into an invisible wall while the line of flame crossed its way down the bottom edges of not just the doorway but the entire room itself. “Lock me in a room you sad little fucker,” John said as he pocketed his lighter and scowled at the moaning soul of a killer damned to eternal torment, “what goes around bloody well comes around.”
John stood up and walked away, ascending up the concrete stairway that led from the small custodial basement to the graveyard above. Locked inside that cursed tomb were the bodies of three friends and the ghost of a fourth, and nothing would ever break the spell holding the evil inside.
Constantine lit a Silk Cut at the top of the stairs and allowed himself a backward look, still hearing the tortured wailing of Oliver Short’s disembodied spirit. “Sorry mate,” he said before walking away, “I’ve thrown away the key.”
The End
Bizarro
Treat or Tricking with Bizarro!
Written by Travis Hiltz
Treat or Tricking with Bizarro!
Written by Travis Hiltz
Flying with all the grace of a manatee, Bizarro landed with a thud on the sidewalk.
The hulking, pasty creature stood in the small crater he’d created, peering around, with a puzzled frown.
“Why me here...?” He muttered, scratching his head. “Me come to Earth...not remember why...probably cause of Superman....”
Thinking not being Bizarro’s strong suit, the man-monster shrugged and started trudging along the sidewalk.
The night was mild, a gentle breeze ruffled the few leaves remaining on the trees.
Unlike his previous visits to Metropolis, where his mere presence was a source of fear and chaos, arriving on Halloween, he was seen as just one more costumed pedestrian.
In fact, he received several comments on his ‘zombie makeup’ and people kept trying to give him candy.
After a block, the imperfect duplicate was growing increasingly grumpy. His frown deepened and his forehead became even more furrowed.
“Why people say nice things to Bizarro...?” He muttered. “Compliments hurt me feelings...”
He turned down a side street, hoping to get away from the well-wishers and free candy. To a Bizarro, it was the equivalent of a mob pelting him with rotten apples.
The crowds thinned out, and the streetlights got farther and farther apart.
Sitting on the front stoop of a dingy apartment building, was a kid, draped in a white sheet.
There were faint sniffling noises coming from under the sheet.
Bizarro reached forward and with a thick, pasty-white finger taped on the top of the costumed child’s head.
“Hey, kid in tent, why you so happy?”
“What?” A voice asked from under the sheet. “ Tent...? I’m a ghost...this is my costume.”
He pulled back the sheet revealing a blonde boy with large eyeglasses. He tilted his head upwards to peer at the still puzzled Bizarro.
“You know, like Charlie Brown,” The boy continued, in a small, unsure voice.
“Me not know him,” Bizarro shrugged. “Just got here. Why everyone all dressed up nice?”
“It’s...uh...Halloween, Superman. Isn’t that why you’re made-up like Frankenstein?”
“Not know that guy either. Me Bizarro.”
“I’m Timothy.”
“Why everybody being nice to Bizarro? Me not do anything...yet.”
“It’s Halloween. Don’t you have Halloween...where you...uh...come from...?” Timothy asked.
“Sure, me do. It day when all kids dress up like tax accountants and substitute teachers and go from house to house, Halloween morning, and give candy to grown-ups. If kids give away all their candy, they get nice piece of cauliflower or arugula as reward.”
“Um...?” Was all Timothy could think to say in reply.
“So, why you here and not with other kids or leaving out boxes of raisins for great pumpkin?”
“My friends went to check out this haunted house,” Timothy said, sadly. “There was...something there...and then we ran...I can’t find them...!”
Bizarro contemplated the forlorn little trick or treater.
He’d come to Earth, from his home planet, hoping for a restful and relaxing fight with Superman, after a tough week of putting cats in trees, stopping old ladies from crossing the street and thwarting his arch-friend Lex Luthor’s plan to re-shape Bizarroworld from a square to a sphere.
Normally, Bizarro didn’t mind seeing a sad child.
He’d often pause on his patrol over Bizarretropolis to pop a child’s balloon or give them a noogie. Hearing their happy sniffles brought a smile to his pasty face.
But Timothy just looked forlorn and sad, and somewhere deep within his imperfect genetic structure, a tiny spark of the heroic source material for his imperfect DNA breathed compassion and nobility through his hulking frame.
“Okay,” Bizarro nodded. “Let’s go look for friends. Then, maybe, I punch that ghost...scaring kids and give them no treat...!”
“I don’t think you can punch a ghost...?” Timothy muttered, standing up and pulling his sheet back over his head. He then had to adjust his eye holes, to line up with his glasses.
“Me am Bizarro #1!” The white skinned creature announced. “Me do six impossible things for breakfast! Let’s go find haunted house.”
Following along, behind the little ghost, Bizarro walked through the neighborhood, growing grumpier as they encountered other pedestrians. Though, the occasional frightened shriek his appearance caused cheered him up.
The pair moved out of the neighborhood, the streetlights grew further apart and few were reliably working.
Not many of the houses had any lights on, to welcome trick or treaters.
At the end of the street was a house, grey and squat, with an overgrown yard, and dark windows.
“Okay,” Bizarro said, smiling. “Where haunted house?”
“That’s the haunted house...!” Timothy exclaimed with an exasperated gesture.
“That cute place?” Bizarro mused. “Reminds Bizarro of home.”
Timothy shrugged.
“We can go look inside,” he suggested. “Maybe you could use your X-ray vision...?”
“Bizarro’s X-ray vision only good at seeing through lead,” Bizarro said, walking across the unruly lawn.
Reaching the front steps, Bizarro reached up and gently tapped on the front door. His hand went through the wood.
Pulling his hand free, a panel from the door came off as well.
Bizarro flung the broken piece of wood away and opened the front door. He and Timothy stepped into the foyer. It was thick with dust, shadows and cobwebs. The rug and curtains were faded and frayed.
“Whoever live here, good housekeeper,” Bizarro said, looking around appreciatively. “Make Bizarro miss girlfriend, Lois. Where we go?”
“There was a big room, over there,” Timothy pointed. “I think it was the living room. There’s a big hole in the ceiling. That’s where we saw the ghost.”
Whether due to Bizarro’s height or the house being small, the top of his head brushed the ceiling and he had to duck to enter the living room.
There was a large hole in the ceiling, and a broken sofa. The rest of the room and furniture was worn and dusty, but intact.
“No ghost...?” Bizarro muttered. “Is this treat cause me no give you trick? Me might have some lima beans...?”
The man-creature ruffled through his cape pockets.
Timothy wandered, hesitantly, into the room, looking around wide-eyed.
“It was here...!” He breathed. “It...it was very tall and green...!”
“Huh,” Bizarro said. “Not see any ghost. Nice place. Homey. Bizarro like comfy-looking couch...”
Enamored with the broken sofa, Bizarro was caught completely off guard by the energy blast and sent crashing through the front wall.
Bizarro landed, with a thud, on his back, in the overgrown front yard.
“Guess that was ghost,” He muttered, sitting up.
He flew back through the hole, returning to the living room.
Floating, above the broken sofa was a tall, green spectral being, its hands glowing with green energy.
It was vaguely translucent, but otherwise, not terribly ghost-like.
It was the figure of a man, clad in a green bodysuit, a purple cape and bullet-shaped, purple helmet.
The being was in a fighting crouch, prepared to strike again.
Timothy scrambled behind the, questionable, shelter of a decrepit easy chair.
Bizarro, brushing grass and splinters out of his hair, walked up to the glowing ghost, his pasty, wide brow furrowed in thought.
“Me know you...?” He muttered, scratching his chin. “We meet at Luthor’s! You...uh...it come to me...green stone...blue pebble...white gravel...?”
“I am Blackrock!” The ghost intoned, firing another blast at the imperfect duplicate.
Bizarro stumbled backwards, fell into a chair, which promptly collapsed under his weight.
“I am Blackrock!”
“That’s what he said to us!” Timothy said, peeking out from behind the chair.
“Humph,” Bizarro said getting to his feet. “Hard to chat with all that zapping.”
He dug in his heels, bracing himself, as he walked through the barrage of energy blasts, to reach the angry phantasm.
“That feel good.” He said, flinching as a bolt of green energy ricocheted off his cheek.
“I am Blackrock!”
“You good conversationalist,” Bizarro said. “But, redecorating house without asking and not giving kids at least a Brussel sprout if you scare them, not okay.”
He swung at Blackrock, his large, pale fist going right through the spectral super-villain.
“Huh...?”
Bizarro punched several more times, convinced if he kept swinging, harder and faster, he’d eventually make contact.
He wasn’t meeting with much success, and the wind generated by his punches and the energy blasts Blackrock continued to fire, soon reduced all the furniture in the room to kindling.
When his chair shelter collapsed, Timothy ran for the doorway, and peeked in, from the hall.
“Um...are you okay?” He asked.
“Me fine,” Bizarro replied. “Not sure why Blackrock not let me hit him...?”
A double blast sent Bizarro stumbling backwards and crashing through the last remaining intact piece of furniture.
Sitting amidst the broken pieces of wood, Bizarro frowned thoughtfully at his ghostly attacker.
Bizarro had slowly come to the realization that his punches weren’t actually accomplishing much, besides redecorating the room.
He had encountered Blackrock before and was trying to remember something about him. The constant barrage of energy blasts was a bit distracting.
“How come he use both hands...?” Bizarro said, scratching his head with a rough fingernail. He looked from his attacker to the hole in the roof and then down at the broken sofa.
With a determined expression, Bizarro leapt up and flew across the room, crashing though the remains of the already damaged sofa.
“I am Blackrock!” Blackrock raged, as he fired wildly at the pale man-monster.
Bizarro got back to his feet, holding a rough, fist-sized stone that was a shiny obsidian color.
Winding up his arm, like a professional pitcher, Bizarro hurled the stone through the roof of the house and into orbit.
Blackrock fired a few more blasts, but he then began to flicker, like a disrupted television signal. His ghostly form was then sucked up, through the hole in the roof.
After several minutes of quiet, Timothy ducked his head around the corner.
He saw no sign of Blackrock, just a smugly satisfied Bizarro, sitting on the remains of the sofa.
“Bizarro definitely getting one of these,” He said, contently patting the arm. “Look great in League of Bizarro Justice headquarters.”
“What...what happened...?” Timothy asked, pulling back his ghost sheet, as he walked into the room.
“Me remember that Blackrock not just guy, he also a rock,” Bizarro explained, as Timothy came and perched on the arm of the sofa. “Rock full of alien energy and...stuff. It need host body to move around. So, rock crashed here and tried to attract body...”
“But cause it landed here on Halloween, all it did was scare people away,” Timothy nodded. “So, it’s a haunted rock...?”
“Guess so,” Bizarro shrugged, getting up. “Me not know science.”
“Well, thanks for helping,” Timothy said.
“No tell anyone,” Bizarro said, sternly. “Me got reputation. We go look for friends now?”
“N0,” Timothy said, with a little smile, as he adjusted his glasses. “Now that the...uh...Blackrock is gone, they’ll probably come looking for me.”
“Okay,” Bizarro said, heading towards the large hole in the front wall. “Me think me head home. Was gonna go punch Superman, but me think me go home. See Bizarro Junior.”
Okay,” Timothy said. “That sounds nice.”
Bizarro nodded, glancing upwards and then back around the room.
“Me then just say ‘hello’ and be on way,” he said, distractedly.
“If you’d like, you could have the sofa,” Timothy said, with a smile. “You know, as a kind of thank you present.”
Grinning broadly, Bizarro raced over, scooped up the battered, sagging sofa, hoisted it on his broad shoulder and flew off.
Timothy, wrapped in his sheet, stood in the hole in the wall, waving, until Bizarro was lost in the night sky.
“Is he gone?” A voice behind him asked.
“Yes, he’s gone,” Timothy replied, still waving, as he glanced over his shoulder.
Two figures floated behind the costumed boy. One was tall and muscular, with a head like an egg. The other looked like a purple brain, with a face, as well as spindly arms and legs.
“Thanks kid,” the brain-ish looking creature said. “I mean, I could have taken that Blackrock mook, except, my bad shoulder was acting up...and he caught me off guard.”
“No problem, Glob,” Timothy said, floating up off the ground, as he drew the sheet back over his head.
“Superman didn’t look like I thought he would,” The muscular spirit muttered, scratching the top of his bald head.
“Figured he’d have better hair.”
“Idiot.” Glob grumbled. “While I’m glad we got rid of that green, glowing party crasher, what’re we going to do about this place?”
“Yeah, they broke my favorite chair,” The big guy said.
“I was thinking more about the big friggin’ hole in the wall!” Glob exclaimed, punching his brutish partner, with his tiny fist.
“We’ll just have to find another house,” Timothy shrugged. “Or we could just hang out in the attic...?”
“Gonna be chilly,” the Brute said, thoughtfully.
“Come Christmas time.”
The hulking, pasty creature stood in the small crater he’d created, peering around, with a puzzled frown.
“Why me here...?” He muttered, scratching his head. “Me come to Earth...not remember why...probably cause of Superman....”
Thinking not being Bizarro’s strong suit, the man-monster shrugged and started trudging along the sidewalk.
The night was mild, a gentle breeze ruffled the few leaves remaining on the trees.
Unlike his previous visits to Metropolis, where his mere presence was a source of fear and chaos, arriving on Halloween, he was seen as just one more costumed pedestrian.
In fact, he received several comments on his ‘zombie makeup’ and people kept trying to give him candy.
After a block, the imperfect duplicate was growing increasingly grumpy. His frown deepened and his forehead became even more furrowed.
“Why people say nice things to Bizarro...?” He muttered. “Compliments hurt me feelings...”
He turned down a side street, hoping to get away from the well-wishers and free candy. To a Bizarro, it was the equivalent of a mob pelting him with rotten apples.
The crowds thinned out, and the streetlights got farther and farther apart.
Sitting on the front stoop of a dingy apartment building, was a kid, draped in a white sheet.
There were faint sniffling noises coming from under the sheet.
Bizarro reached forward and with a thick, pasty-white finger taped on the top of the costumed child’s head.
“Hey, kid in tent, why you so happy?”
“What?” A voice asked from under the sheet. “ Tent...? I’m a ghost...this is my costume.”
He pulled back the sheet revealing a blonde boy with large eyeglasses. He tilted his head upwards to peer at the still puzzled Bizarro.
“You know, like Charlie Brown,” The boy continued, in a small, unsure voice.
“Me not know him,” Bizarro shrugged. “Just got here. Why everyone all dressed up nice?”
“It’s...uh...Halloween, Superman. Isn’t that why you’re made-up like Frankenstein?”
“Not know that guy either. Me Bizarro.”
“I’m Timothy.”
“Why everybody being nice to Bizarro? Me not do anything...yet.”
“It’s Halloween. Don’t you have Halloween...where you...uh...come from...?” Timothy asked.
“Sure, me do. It day when all kids dress up like tax accountants and substitute teachers and go from house to house, Halloween morning, and give candy to grown-ups. If kids give away all their candy, they get nice piece of cauliflower or arugula as reward.”
“Um...?” Was all Timothy could think to say in reply.
“So, why you here and not with other kids or leaving out boxes of raisins for great pumpkin?”
“My friends went to check out this haunted house,” Timothy said, sadly. “There was...something there...and then we ran...I can’t find them...!”
Bizarro contemplated the forlorn little trick or treater.
He’d come to Earth, from his home planet, hoping for a restful and relaxing fight with Superman, after a tough week of putting cats in trees, stopping old ladies from crossing the street and thwarting his arch-friend Lex Luthor’s plan to re-shape Bizarroworld from a square to a sphere.
Normally, Bizarro didn’t mind seeing a sad child.
He’d often pause on his patrol over Bizarretropolis to pop a child’s balloon or give them a noogie. Hearing their happy sniffles brought a smile to his pasty face.
But Timothy just looked forlorn and sad, and somewhere deep within his imperfect genetic structure, a tiny spark of the heroic source material for his imperfect DNA breathed compassion and nobility through his hulking frame.
“Okay,” Bizarro nodded. “Let’s go look for friends. Then, maybe, I punch that ghost...scaring kids and give them no treat...!”
“I don’t think you can punch a ghost...?” Timothy muttered, standing up and pulling his sheet back over his head. He then had to adjust his eye holes, to line up with his glasses.
“Me am Bizarro #1!” The white skinned creature announced. “Me do six impossible things for breakfast! Let’s go find haunted house.”
Following along, behind the little ghost, Bizarro walked through the neighborhood, growing grumpier as they encountered other pedestrians. Though, the occasional frightened shriek his appearance caused cheered him up.
The pair moved out of the neighborhood, the streetlights grew further apart and few were reliably working.
Not many of the houses had any lights on, to welcome trick or treaters.
At the end of the street was a house, grey and squat, with an overgrown yard, and dark windows.
“Okay,” Bizarro said, smiling. “Where haunted house?”
“That’s the haunted house...!” Timothy exclaimed with an exasperated gesture.
“That cute place?” Bizarro mused. “Reminds Bizarro of home.”
Timothy shrugged.
“We can go look inside,” he suggested. “Maybe you could use your X-ray vision...?”
“Bizarro’s X-ray vision only good at seeing through lead,” Bizarro said, walking across the unruly lawn.
Reaching the front steps, Bizarro reached up and gently tapped on the front door. His hand went through the wood.
Pulling his hand free, a panel from the door came off as well.
Bizarro flung the broken piece of wood away and opened the front door. He and Timothy stepped into the foyer. It was thick with dust, shadows and cobwebs. The rug and curtains were faded and frayed.
“Whoever live here, good housekeeper,” Bizarro said, looking around appreciatively. “Make Bizarro miss girlfriend, Lois. Where we go?”
“There was a big room, over there,” Timothy pointed. “I think it was the living room. There’s a big hole in the ceiling. That’s where we saw the ghost.”
Whether due to Bizarro’s height or the house being small, the top of his head brushed the ceiling and he had to duck to enter the living room.
There was a large hole in the ceiling, and a broken sofa. The rest of the room and furniture was worn and dusty, but intact.
“No ghost...?” Bizarro muttered. “Is this treat cause me no give you trick? Me might have some lima beans...?”
The man-creature ruffled through his cape pockets.
Timothy wandered, hesitantly, into the room, looking around wide-eyed.
“It was here...!” He breathed. “It...it was very tall and green...!”
“Huh,” Bizarro said. “Not see any ghost. Nice place. Homey. Bizarro like comfy-looking couch...”
Enamored with the broken sofa, Bizarro was caught completely off guard by the energy blast and sent crashing through the front wall.
Bizarro landed, with a thud, on his back, in the overgrown front yard.
“Guess that was ghost,” He muttered, sitting up.
He flew back through the hole, returning to the living room.
Floating, above the broken sofa was a tall, green spectral being, its hands glowing with green energy.
It was vaguely translucent, but otherwise, not terribly ghost-like.
It was the figure of a man, clad in a green bodysuit, a purple cape and bullet-shaped, purple helmet.
The being was in a fighting crouch, prepared to strike again.
Timothy scrambled behind the, questionable, shelter of a decrepit easy chair.
Bizarro, brushing grass and splinters out of his hair, walked up to the glowing ghost, his pasty, wide brow furrowed in thought.
“Me know you...?” He muttered, scratching his chin. “We meet at Luthor’s! You...uh...it come to me...green stone...blue pebble...white gravel...?”
“I am Blackrock!” The ghost intoned, firing another blast at the imperfect duplicate.
Bizarro stumbled backwards, fell into a chair, which promptly collapsed under his weight.
“I am Blackrock!”
“That’s what he said to us!” Timothy said, peeking out from behind the chair.
“Humph,” Bizarro said getting to his feet. “Hard to chat with all that zapping.”
He dug in his heels, bracing himself, as he walked through the barrage of energy blasts, to reach the angry phantasm.
“That feel good.” He said, flinching as a bolt of green energy ricocheted off his cheek.
“I am Blackrock!”
“You good conversationalist,” Bizarro said. “But, redecorating house without asking and not giving kids at least a Brussel sprout if you scare them, not okay.”
He swung at Blackrock, his large, pale fist going right through the spectral super-villain.
“Huh...?”
Bizarro punched several more times, convinced if he kept swinging, harder and faster, he’d eventually make contact.
He wasn’t meeting with much success, and the wind generated by his punches and the energy blasts Blackrock continued to fire, soon reduced all the furniture in the room to kindling.
When his chair shelter collapsed, Timothy ran for the doorway, and peeked in, from the hall.
“Um...are you okay?” He asked.
“Me fine,” Bizarro replied. “Not sure why Blackrock not let me hit him...?”
A double blast sent Bizarro stumbling backwards and crashing through the last remaining intact piece of furniture.
Sitting amidst the broken pieces of wood, Bizarro frowned thoughtfully at his ghostly attacker.
Bizarro had slowly come to the realization that his punches weren’t actually accomplishing much, besides redecorating the room.
He had encountered Blackrock before and was trying to remember something about him. The constant barrage of energy blasts was a bit distracting.
“How come he use both hands...?” Bizarro said, scratching his head with a rough fingernail. He looked from his attacker to the hole in the roof and then down at the broken sofa.
With a determined expression, Bizarro leapt up and flew across the room, crashing though the remains of the already damaged sofa.
“I am Blackrock!” Blackrock raged, as he fired wildly at the pale man-monster.
Bizarro got back to his feet, holding a rough, fist-sized stone that was a shiny obsidian color.
Winding up his arm, like a professional pitcher, Bizarro hurled the stone through the roof of the house and into orbit.
Blackrock fired a few more blasts, but he then began to flicker, like a disrupted television signal. His ghostly form was then sucked up, through the hole in the roof.
After several minutes of quiet, Timothy ducked his head around the corner.
He saw no sign of Blackrock, just a smugly satisfied Bizarro, sitting on the remains of the sofa.
“Bizarro definitely getting one of these,” He said, contently patting the arm. “Look great in League of Bizarro Justice headquarters.”
“What...what happened...?” Timothy asked, pulling back his ghost sheet, as he walked into the room.
“Me remember that Blackrock not just guy, he also a rock,” Bizarro explained, as Timothy came and perched on the arm of the sofa. “Rock full of alien energy and...stuff. It need host body to move around. So, rock crashed here and tried to attract body...”
“But cause it landed here on Halloween, all it did was scare people away,” Timothy nodded. “So, it’s a haunted rock...?”
“Guess so,” Bizarro shrugged, getting up. “Me not know science.”
“Well, thanks for helping,” Timothy said.
“No tell anyone,” Bizarro said, sternly. “Me got reputation. We go look for friends now?”
“N0,” Timothy said, with a little smile, as he adjusted his glasses. “Now that the...uh...Blackrock is gone, they’ll probably come looking for me.”
“Okay,” Bizarro said, heading towards the large hole in the front wall. “Me think me head home. Was gonna go punch Superman, but me think me go home. See Bizarro Junior.”
Okay,” Timothy said. “That sounds nice.”
Bizarro nodded, glancing upwards and then back around the room.
“Me then just say ‘hello’ and be on way,” he said, distractedly.
“If you’d like, you could have the sofa,” Timothy said, with a smile. “You know, as a kind of thank you present.”
Grinning broadly, Bizarro raced over, scooped up the battered, sagging sofa, hoisted it on his broad shoulder and flew off.
Timothy, wrapped in his sheet, stood in the hole in the wall, waving, until Bizarro was lost in the night sky.
“Is he gone?” A voice behind him asked.
“Yes, he’s gone,” Timothy replied, still waving, as he glanced over his shoulder.
Two figures floated behind the costumed boy. One was tall and muscular, with a head like an egg. The other looked like a purple brain, with a face, as well as spindly arms and legs.
“Thanks kid,” the brain-ish looking creature said. “I mean, I could have taken that Blackrock mook, except, my bad shoulder was acting up...and he caught me off guard.”
“No problem, Glob,” Timothy said, floating up off the ground, as he drew the sheet back over his head.
“Superman didn’t look like I thought he would,” The muscular spirit muttered, scratching the top of his bald head.
“Figured he’d have better hair.”
“Idiot.” Glob grumbled. “While I’m glad we got rid of that green, glowing party crasher, what’re we going to do about this place?”
“Yeah, they broke my favorite chair,” The big guy said.
“I was thinking more about the big friggin’ hole in the wall!” Glob exclaimed, punching his brutish partner, with his tiny fist.
“We’ll just have to find another house,” Timothy shrugged. “Or we could just hang out in the attic...?”
“Gonna be chilly,” the Brute said, thoughtfully.
“Come Christmas time.”