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From the dawn of time they came, watching us.

They have the ability to draw, from the most seemingly insignificant stuff of society, a near religious frenzy.

We know of their existence, we just don't care.

We mock or ignore while their power and influence grows like the all-concealing shadows that spawned them.

Only one man has the courage to recognize them for the threat they are and take a stand, attracting some measure of public ridicule for himself in the process.

He is Frank Burton.

He is a slayer of the damned.

He was dressed sharp, this one.  Three-piece suit.

Armani, I think.

Or a decent knockoff.  A Keravin, maybe, but with better production value.

Either way, Mr. Neil here was dressed better than the scum I usually deal with.

Begs just the same, though.

"Please, please don't hurt me.  I'll give you whatever you want, I swear it, I just - I have a family!"

"No you don't."

"I do, I swear!"

"Been watchin' ya, mate.  You live alone."

"They're out of town!"

"Answer some questions for me."

"Don't hurt me!"

"Where do you work?"

"I own a business."

That explains the suit.

"What kind of business?"

"M-memorabilia!  A chain of memorabilia stores!"

"More."

"I bought the business from a guy that told me it was a solid investment, I swear to you, that's it!"

Uh huh.

Good cover.

I ready my gun.  Desert Eagle.  With a smiley face cut into the side.

His pants go wet.

Either he's scared. Or fantasizing.

I'd rather not bet on which.

He's pleading with me now not to hurt him on the souls of his children, which he doesn't have anyway.

He'll never tell me what I need to know like this.  Call me silly, but I like to hear it - even when I'm sure.

So I pull the trigger on the smiley-faced Desert Eagle.

And a rain of pink lemonade hits him in the face.

"I ha, ha - what?"

I smile - it sickens me - and hand him a business card.

"Happy Practical Jokes?" He reads.  "What?"

"Your friend Melon signed up for a deluxe package," I reply, snapping a Polaroid of the mark in the gutter, pants soaked.  "Getting you back for his last birthday."

Neil began to laugh.  He stood now, as I put away my prank gun and waited.

"That cack!  I didn't - ha!  How much did he pay?"

"Quite a bit, sir." I smiled.

"Oh this is too much.  I'll have to - what are your rates?"

"Phone number is on the card, sir."

"You can't tell me?"

"Have you ever seen the episode of Star Trek where Kirk was turned into a robot by these evil space cyborgs, and"

"Kirk?  Are you off your nut?  That was Picard, The Next Generation, season three cliffhanger, opened season four, CLASSIC!  How can you not know that?"

Gotcha.

I pull out my Desert Eagle.

"Okay, I think the joke's gone on far enough."

No smiley face on this one.

"You're done."  I shoot and cut the fanboy in half over the course of the alley wall.

Did he deserve it?  Well, he'd been brainwashing kids for years; Babylon 5 tapes with subliminal messages. Star Trek comic books that - when held to a mirror -show how to assemble pipe bombs.

Pokemon.

Sick twist, this one, but he finally got his due.

And now on to the next mark; a twenty-seven year old bottom dweller that steals money to buy stamps enough to send daily love letters to Carrie Fisher and George Lucas.

He's also online.

God help us all.

The night air was crisp, and cold. I had forgotten my snappy trench coat at the office. Why? I don't know. But I intended to get to the bottom of it.

...As soon as I solved this case.

I was called out  to pier 49 by an anonymous tipster by the name of Gil Matlock. Gil was a salesman, a bad one I might add. Which led to his cough syrup addiction. I offered him a bottle if he gave me some more info.

That's where things got weird. He said he couldn't and quickly hung up. Now tell me, what kinda' salesman would turn down a free bottle of cough syrup?

Not me! I can tell you that much. But this case wasn't about cough syrup. Or was it?

...The answer, was no. But it coulda' been!

To tell the truth, I had no idea why I was standing here on pier 49 with no pants on. Hmm. Maybe that's why I was cold.

It had been about a half-hour since I arrived on the scene and things were starting to happen. Damn, I hate it when that happens.

...I also hate the butter they use at the local Bijou Theater. Tastes like cough syrup.

Damn, I really wanted some cough syrup right now.

The boat was huge. Obviously one of those. Big. Class. Boats. ok, so I knew jack about boats. But this one stood out to me for some reason. Maybe it was because it was the only boat at the dock. OR MAYBE it was its cargo!

...Yeah, that would seem to make more sense. Or at least make for a more exciting plotline.

I could see the thugs plainly now. Well, ok, I didn't know for sure that they were thugs, but my keen P.I. sense told  me that these guys were thugs. They were doing something by the cargo port. From here, behind my hiding place, it looked as though they were unloading their cargo. The boxes said, "SQWIGGLE WIGGLE WIGGLE"

It had occurred to me, that I was too far away to read what they actually said. But I'm pretty sure that it was something incriminating.

So I did what any good private detective would do. I ran out into the open wearing nothing but my hat, boxers, and my loafers waving my six shooter dubbed "Ol' Shiny Pony" around and screaming,

"Ok, boys! The jig's up!"

Unfortunately I neglected to take into account the pile of rope on the dock.

...Yeah, so I tripped and fell unconscious! So what! Do something!...that's what I thought.

OH NO KIDDIES! WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT THRILLING INSTALMENT OF THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF. HERMAN SPITTLEFARTH P.I.!

On the corner of 38th and somewhere, stands Officer Robert Tatters.  He stands there because kind hearted Widow Simpkins brings him an apple turnover every morning.  And he stands there so the Thumble Street Kids run by and tell him all the new jokes and shine his shoes for a nickel.  And he stands there to watch Lola Dorino bend over every morning to pick up her
mail as she enters her boutique.  And he stands there so that loveable rascal, that jovial, silly little clown of a brother of his, can find him. Yes, Bobby stakes out that corner so he can be sure he'll run into his older brother that everyone knows and loves, Patch Tatters.

And just as any other day, Patch came strolling by.  His nearly round body bounced like the dancing ball over the words in Saturday Matinee sing-alongs.  He smiled so wide and brightly that Bobby or anyone else couldn't help but smile back.  And he wore his coat.  That raggedy, gawdy multicolored coat that was little more than rags sewn together.  Patch wore
it as if it were the greatest thing on earth.  Because his brother'd had it made for him.

"Howdy ho, Brother Bob!"

Bobby Tatters chuckled.  "Hey there, Patches.  You're looking mighty happy go lucky.  What's going on in your world?"

"Well, Bob," Patches put his hands behind his back and bounced on the balls of his feet, "I just went out and stumbled into me a job!"

"Really?"  Bobby Tatters said, obvious surprise on his face.  "Stumbled into it how exactly, Patches?"

"Same way I stumble into everything else, Bob.  My right foot tripped over my left one and over and down I go, right on top of Mr. Hoopnoddle."

"And Mr. Hoopnoddle is?"

"My new boss.  He owns Hoopnoddle's Hardware three blocks over and hired me as a deliveryboy!"

"Good for you, Patches!"  Bobby patted his brother on the back proudly.

"Bob," Patches said, his hands still behind his back, a sheepish look on his face. "Can I borrow fifteen cents from you for lunch?  Just 'till Mr. Hoopnoddle pays me?"

Bobby smiled, dug his hands into his pocket and said, "Sure, Patches." Pulling out the change, he dropped it in his brother's open hand and said, "Now you go on and let me know how your first day goes!"

"Sure I will, Bob!"  Patches waved with both hands as he waddled away to his new career.

Four hours, later, Bobby Tatters saw Patches' bulbous nose peeking around the corner of Vermucci's store.  He waved for Bobby to walk over to him. So, Bobby did just that. And when he did, Bobby saw that his brother's left eye was swollen black and blue shut.

"Patches, what happened??"

"Well, Bob," Patches said, his voice a bit lower than usual, "I went over to Mr. Hoopnoddle's store to go to work.  And I did three jobs for him, Bob. Problem is, I took Mr. Jenkins' handsaws to Willamena Lewis and took Willamena's flowerpots to the Catholic Church and took Father Flannigan's toilet plunger, to Mr. Jenkins."

"Oh," Bobby said, still confused.  "But how did you get the shiner?"

"Well," Patches said, "When I got back to the store, Mr. Hoopnoddle was so hot you coulda fried an egg on his head.  I told him I'd done the best I could.  Then he said if I had any sense, he'd punch me in the eye!"

Bobby slapped his forehead.  "Oh no, you didn't-"

Patches cut him off, "So I gave him the fifteen cents you loaned me for lunch and, wouldn't you know it, Bob, he sure enough punched me in the eye!"

"Oh, Patches!"  Bobby Tatters sighed, shaking his head.

DATELINE: TWO DAYS AGO IN THE OFFICES OF SLAP & STICKY INC.

"Mr. Matlock, I've been going over your file, you've missed your sales quota for the last 10,896 consecutive months."

Mr. Hill was a broad shouldered man of high standing in the door-to-door sales world.  To cross him was to, well, it wasn't a very good idea.

Across from him sat a short and sad man of what he would call "a slight glandular problem'. Yes, with glasses too thick, and his sales case in hand, sat, Gil Matlock.

"Sir that's a physical impossibility. If that information were correct, I would still have been in my mother's womb at the time."

"DON'T TRY TO CHEAT THE SYSTEM, GIL! COMPUTERS ARE NEVER WRONG! You haven't even sold one unit of our new Nuclear Pocket Reactor, The Mega-Con Streamlined Booster-Gold Reactor #3! And don't give me any poppycock about how nobody wants one! It's quite possibly the cleanest form of in home nuclear energy ever developed for the homeowner! Who wouldn't want one!

Gil was hungry and hungry fat men sometimes do stupid things.

"Well sir, it doesn't even work.  Frankly it sucks."

"I"LL SAY WHO AND WHAT SUCKS IN THIS OFFICE! GIL MATLOCK, YOU'RE FIRED! GET OUT!

Well at least he could hit the cafeteria on the way out.

"Well that's another job lost, Gilly Ol' boy! I can never seem to make a sale, What am I a loser!? Nah, I'm too precious for that!"

Gil lay on a beach towel in the sand box at the local middle school pondering the meaning of life, and the finer points of Honey Roasted Peanuts. mostly the later.

Just as he was attaining inner peace, the silence was broken by a high pitched whining sound coming from the sky, the kind of sound Gil heard for a few hours after sticking his head in the microwave. As soon as Gil heard the noise, it was replaced by a large crash and a smoldering hole not twenty feet from where Gil himself lay.

Quickly jumping, no wait, slowly hobbling to his feet, Gil Matlock, the living lunch box waddled with great caution toward the hole. As he approached the rim of the crater, he picked up a local stick and started poking around to see what had created the disturbance.

With all the care and brainpower of a five year old, Gil quickly, well as quickly as a land whale can, discarded the stick and started digging around with his bare hands.

What he found he would later describe as Awe inspiring! Hell, he would later describe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as Awe inspiring as well.

He picked up the smooth black object, a square with a cylinder jutting out of one of the sides. What he saw was potential and a way to make money! So he could buy some honey-roasted peanuts.

What he saw was,

"Swanky!"