VAE VICTIS PRESENTS

KERRY KUROYAMA,  SCOTT HUNTER & CLAY BYRD

IN…

 

THE HUNT FOR PRIDE

THE OCTANE OF DOOM

Slow Glenn Miller-style swing music softly played in the background. There was no perceivable source for the music, but soon Scott Hunter sauntered into view. Suddenly all that did not make sense in the world made so much sense. Scott was wearing a blue trenchcoat and matching fedora, looking as if Dick Tracy fell into a giant vat of blue paint. He had a candy cigar in his mouth that he chewed patiently. From the scenery around him, we could tell that we were somewhere near the Santa Monica pier. Scott had always wanted to visit Santa Monica, given his love of sitcoms. That may seem like an odd mention at a moment like this, but Scott Hunter is a connoisseur of sitcom fare. It wasn’t until he arrived down here by the pier that he realized Santa Monica was not where Courtney Cox annually dressed as St. Nicholas to amuse little children during the holiday season, so he was dejected slightly, sure. But Scott had a backup plan. Oh, he had a backup alright. And this would be the day, oh it would finally be the day, that he would search for and locate one of the important locations in American sitcom history. Scott’s eagle-eye observational skills were on full display as he noticed something just off the side of the path. He knelt there, taking some of the sand into his hand, and let it fall through his fingers. “Yes, there you are.” His eyes darted forward, and he shuffled a few feet further down the path, kneeling and once again marking a spot in the sand. “Here…” He did it again, making a third mark… “And here…” And last but not least he… you guessed it… made a fourth mark. “And… here…” He stood up satisfied. This was the spot alright. It was right here, some forty-seven years ago, where Jack Tripper fell from his bicycle while riding down this very path because he was too busy staring at a beautiful woman. A single tear began to form on the corner of his left eye, but just before it could fall, Scott’s attention was diverted by a flashing neon sign near the pedestrian entrance to the pier. The sign was on the side of a building on top of the pier, to the left of the main pathway. Its words were flashing in a consistent pattern:

FORTUNE TELLER

Scott had always been wary of fortune tellers. When he was young, his mother told him, ‘Scott, be wary of fortune tellers.’ And he was. But for some reason, this one mesmerized him as he stared at it, and he found himself slowly walking toward the bright lights and colorful artistic display. Before he knew it, he was on the pier, standing at a door that read ‘Madame Contessa’ in bright yellow letters. Slowly, he opened the door and found himself in a smokey haze. Hastily a middle-aged woman puts a cigarette out in a cracked ashtray and hustles over to a small table, upon which is set a crystal ball. “Ahhhh… a customer!! Sit! Sit! Madame Contessa sees all!!” Scott… warily… walked closer. Madame Contessa stared at him but started to get annoyed by his slow approach. She reached back and scratched her ass. That’s all Scott needed to see. Deciding she was legit, he pulled out a chair opposite her and sat down. “Lightning” crackled from the crystal. She began to wave her arms and moan. Scott thought she sounded like Henry Keyes the time he challenged Clay Byrd to a ‘who can eat the most jalapeño cheddar sausage links in one hour’ contest and ended up having to get his stomach pumped. Scott chuckled at the memory. He looked back up. She was still at it. “Looooooooook into the cryyyyyystal baaaaaaallllllllll….” Scott was distracted by a signed poster of Don Knotts as Mr. Furley on the wall. On the poster Mr. Furley had his devilishly sexy grin on his face, and he was holding a small gift in his hands. Scott smiled as well. “I SAID LOOK INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL!” Scott jerked his head back and stared at Madame Contessa. She was angry. Scott decided she meant business. So he looked into the crystal ball. A jolt ran through Scott’s spine. Suddenly his eyes went wide and he screamed. “OH MY GOD!!!” Madame Contessa froze in place. “What?” Scott pointed at the crystal. “I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!! DID YOU SEE THAT??? AND I FEEL… DIFFERENT!!” Madame Contessa looked confused… “What did you…. I mean, YEEEEEESSSS!! MADAME CONTESSA SEES MANY THINGS!!! YEEEEEEEESSSSS!!!!” Scott leaped to his feet suddenly. “I have to find Kerry and Clay!! They’ll never believe this!!” Without another word, Scott turned and ran for the door, shoving it open and sprinting out into the night. Madame Contessa slumped in her seat, shaking her head. “What a weirdo.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Within the hour, the Vae Victin’ trio of Scott Hunter, Kerry Kuroyama, and Clay Byrd were on the hunt.

The Emerald Apex led the procession, consulting a laminated map of celebrity homes with a line drawn in marker showing the path to their intended destination. The trail went on seemingly for miles, carving a long and winding path through a jungle made of concrete. With stoic resolve, they trudged onward through the meandering, uneven sidewalks, accompanied by the unsettling cacophony of noises from the wild and untamed city.

Sweating profusely beneath his leather jacket, Kerry pulled up the brim of his fedora and wiped away a layer of perspiration. The evening was smothered in a wave of Southern Californian humidity, leading him to wonder if agreeing to the Indiana Jones bit was a good idea.

“It should be just ahead,” he informed the others, glancing at the map and pointing to a canyon-like alleyway ahead of them.

“We couldn't take a cab?” inquired Clay Byrd, his ten-gallon cowboy hat adorned with a burgundy red fez.

Scott spoke up, suspiciously in a Californian accent. “Clay, at this time of day?? It’s gonna be jammed!!” Clay rolled his eyes.

The passageway between the buildings was narrow but manageable. Coming out the other side, they were greeted by the sight of the Pacific Ocean beyond a vast harbor.

The ancient and mysterious floating temple loomed before them. It stretched in both directions the length of two football fields. Across the slate gray wall of the silent tomb were cryptic hieroglyphs that read “USS OCTANE”. For years, experts have studied their meaning and purpose, only to come up empty-handed… because there is no meaning or purpose.

Kerry glanced over to Scott Hunter, adorned in a beige checkered shirt and a New York Yankees cap.

“You’re sure it’s in there, Scott-Round?”

Hunter nodded. “I know what I saw,” he said with confidence. “It’s in there…”

Kerry readjusted his hat.

“Fortune and glory, kid,” he said whimsically. “Fortune and glory. Lead the way.” Scott’s eyes perked up and he looked back one last time before turning and hurrying ahead. “Okey dokey, Doctor K, hold on to your potatoes!”

Byrd pointed to a spot along the portside of the ancient aircraft carrier.

“There… that’s our way in.”

Kerry’s eyes followed the finger until he spied the rounded rectangle of a doorway leading in.

And, just below it, a conveniently placed rope ladder, securely rolled up into a tight bundle.

“Towel, Scott-Round,” he said, holding out his hand.

Hunter’s white ring towel was soon within his grasp and being rolled into a long, taut band of cotton. A flick of his wrist later, the whip-like towel cracked through the air, its tip lashing the rope ladder and leaving it unraveling down to the waterline.

Byrd approached without hesitation and began climbing. Kuroyama went up after, with Hunter taking the rear.

“You seem familiar with this place,” said Kerry up to Clay during their climb. “Any idea of what we can expect inside?”

“Got a real good look of it when I spent about two weeks here. It’s a dark terrible ship, a temple to madness and madmen, a danger wherever it stays, and full of mythical beasts and creatures. You’ll see horrors beyond your imagination, where we’re headed, it’s a dark place.”

True to Clay’s word, darkness was what waited for the three of them as they pulled themselves up to the square doorway and went inside. Kerry took a cobweb-smothered torch from the wall of the aircraft carrier and lit the end, bringing forth an orange light to show their path forward.

“Okay… let’s find the brig.”

The hallways of the carrier were labyrinthine and sprawling. Kerry had no way of knowing how to navigate the vast size of a World War II naval vessel--nor could he apply any logic to its purpose within the sport of wrestling--but a gut-driven sense of precognition spurned him deeper into the ancient Octane’s black interior.

After a few minutes of wandering through the murk, they stopped short of tumbling down into an inexplicably wide chasm in the floor that gave way to a black void several decks below.

Peering over the edge, they could scarcely make out a writhing and hissing morass down at the bottom.

“Why is the floor moving?” asked Clay.

Kerry dropped a second torch into the pit, revealing the unspeakable horrors awaiting them below.

“Mini-estrellas…” he muttered woefully. “Why’d it have to be mini-estrellas?”

A myriad of masked faces scowled at them from below.

They promptly reversed course… until an ominous click broke the silence.

Kerry and Clay whipped around in unison to spy Scott with his foot pressing down on a pressure plate. From within the walls of the aircraft carrier, old rusted gears began to grind.

A second later, a large panel in the ceiling came swinging open!

“SHITLOOKOUT!!!”

Instinctively, the triad tumbled clear of whatever unknown terror was about to descend upon them…

…only for nothing to happen.

“ZZZZZZ… ZZZZZZ…”

The snoring rattled on endlessly, reverberating through the metal walls of the shaft overhead. Kuroyama, Byrd, and Hunter stared up into the darkness, their faces locked in utter confusion.

“I don’t get it,” said Kerry. “Was there supposed to be a giant boulder or something?”

“ZZZZZZ… ZZZZZZ…”

Clay shook his head. “A giant Bobby, more like it. But he’s… well he’s Bobby.”

“ZZZZZZ… ZZZZZZ…”

Sure enough, ‘Bobby’ was above them jammed into the hatch opening and sleeping soundly. Scott-Round gasped. “GAHHH!! NO!! HE’LL EAT ME!!!!” Kerriana placed a hand on Scott-Round’s shoulder to reassure him. “It’s okay, kid. He’s far too big to fall through that opening.” Scott-Round stood to the side slightly. “I don’t know, I once saw my Aunt Edna try to fit through an innertube at Splashtown in Tampa. We didn’t think she’d make it, but with a little jostling and a moderate amount of freshly churned butter, she finally fell through….” Scott-Round eyeballed the pudgy underside of ‘Bobby’. “Buuuuut I don’t see any butter… so we should be safe.” With a reassuring pat on Scott-Round’s back, Kerry turned and led them on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kerriana Kurones and Scott ‘Short-Round’ Hunter stumble through the door, breathing heavily. They look back anxiously.

“Doctor K, do you think he’s okay?” stammers Hunter, eyeing the doorway while clutching Kerry around his barrel chest. A small tear forms in the corner of his eye as the seconds begin to tick.

“He’s fine,” says Kerry, after a beat. “It’s Clay. He’s tough as nails and he knows this place. But you and I need to keep going.”

“But Doctor K!”

“We gotta move, kid!”

Kerry straightens his hat and clutches his trusty towel. He looks up at Hunter and nods as the two continue their quest deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Octane, carefully tiptoeing down the final set of steel stairs.

At the bottom, the handsomest man in Vae Victis finds another torch on the wall.

“OH NO!”

Hunter reaches for Kerry’s shoulder and quickly points up to the ceiling. Kerriana’s eyes finally adjust to the darkness and he notices the trip wire tied to the torch.

“Egg shooters,” he observes. “Nice catch, kid.”

Kerry reaches up and pats Scott on the head and Hunter’s grin is ear to ear, like a little smudgey puppy getting a treat. Kerry takes a deep breath and moves toward the sealed door at the end of the hall.

“Is this the brig, Doctor K?”

“Hell if I know… I’m just opening random doors.”

Kerry cranks the wheel sealing the door, and right before he rips it open a bang and a clang rings out through the stairwell.

Without thinking, Kerriana grabs Scott-Round and slams him up against the wall as orange and yellow light floods the passageway. A hand over Scott’s mouth stymies whatever random question he’s about to spout off. Hunter’s eyes grow wide as the situation washes over him.

The clang of boots on steel begins to bounce off of the hard steel walls, but finally, a torch holder emerges. Kerriana and Scott’s eyes struggle to adjust but an enormous figure steps through the light.

“Good seein’ ya fellers here.”

As the words echo from The Behemoth’s lips, Scott storms out of Kerry’s grip and grabs Clay with a fierce hug. Byrd scoops up Hunter with one arm and swings him around in a circle as Kerriana Jones smirks.

“Good seeing you again, Clay,” Kerry and Clay share a bro-hug that clearly could have ended a lot differently.

“Yeah, turns out that big feller isn’t too bad of a guy, ya know? Didn’t see the forehead, shades, or the lil guy, watch yer step,” The Behemoth gestures towards the door.

“Doctor K said it’s the brig!” Scott shouts in The Behemoth’s ear, still sitting on his hip. Clay drops Hunter to the floor suddenly and turns toward the other Vae Victis members.

“It’s the goddamn Gallows, I lived on this ship for two weeks, with Jiles. I know what the fuck it’s called. Besides, it’s a dark place. Dangerous. Forty doors lie beyond these walls, the most unimaginable things behind each one.”

Scott slowly crawls to his feet during the monologue by the gigantic Texan, as Kerry looks very quizzically at the big man.

“It’s a brig, Clay, that’s what it’s called. That’s how it works, it’s called a brig, because… it’s a brig.”

Kerry reaches for the door, but a sigh from the Behemoth insists the conversation hasn’t found its final act.

“Ya ever live in one of these rooms for a week, with a bucket for your only bathroom?”

The question stuns Kuroyama who looks towards a more confused than usual Scott Hunter and turns back to Clay.

“No…”

“Then I’ll call it whatever the fuck I want to call it.”

“Okay, you win,” says Kerry with an eye roll. “Let’s get into the Gallows then. Sooner we find this thing, the sooner we can--SCOTT!!!!” Scott, relieving himself into an oddly placed fern, looks back over his shoulder to Kerry.

“I’ve had to go for like fifteen minutes and we haven’t even gotten to Clay’s big speech yet!” Kerry shrugs in disappointment. “Still, who pees on a fern?” he asks insistently. “And why is a fern even here? All this shit is over my head, and it doesn’t make a lick of sense!” Scott finishes the deed, zipping his pants very carefully, and walks over to his best bud in the whole world.

“Your problem, Ker-bear, is that you think everything has to make sense. It doesn’t. Look at me! Do I usually make sense??” Kerry just stares at him, offering no answer. Nevertheless, Scott thrusts a pointy finger forward. “Precisely! And I haven’t lost a singles match in well over a year!” Clay looks at him, flabbergasted. “You haven’t even had a singles match in well over a year.” Scott looks at him blankly for a moment, then breaks into a confused shrug. “I really don’t see your point.” Clay, flustered, throws his hands up. “Can we get back on task, please??” Scott’s eyes go wide. “OH!! Riiiiiight. Where was I?” Scott straightens himself up. “Right this way, Doctor K!!” Kerry sighs. “You’re quite the thespian, kid.” “I know,” Scott says smiling. “I’ll probably win an Oscar someday.” The Behemoth storms forward shaking his head and opening the door. The steel squeals and Byrd stops in his tracks. The smell of dead careers, odd French cuisine, and sulfur permeates the nostrils. He turns back towards Kerry and Scott.

“Ya sure ya don’t know which door?” Clay asks Scott.

“Nope,” replies Hunter with a shake of his head.

“Forty doors down here, we’re checking each one.”

Kerry steps forward and takes the handle of a door and Clay takes the handle of the door across the hallway. The two yank the doors open and both immediately slam them closed.

“I saw some kind of pit? Looked like a cage?”

“Yeah, Aceldama pit, every fucking arena has one. Mine just smelled like Old Spice and maple syrup, fucking Rick…”

The Behemoth moves forward with Kerry and the pattern continues all the way down the hallway. Behind each door a new horror from the pit called forth. But the artifact they’re looking for still eludes them as they get to the end of the hallway.

“That’s forty…” says Kerry, looking wide-eyed at Clay. The horrors those eyes had beheld. Clay nods unaffected. Some type of immunity is built up. Hunter steps forward shaking his head and presses his hand against the wall.

“It was in one of these rooms…”

Hunter’s arm brushes a cloud of dust off the wall. There, clearly labeled, is a forty-first door.

“I thought you said you counted these rooms a hundred times while you were down here?”

More dust breaks free from the wall. The door even has numbers in big obnoxious military lettering.

“I musta missed one… I dunno how…”

Kerry prepares himself, does the Harrison Ford face-rub, and yanks it open.

The room is almost pitch black, a single pedestal sits under a single bright spotlight. Empty.

“Hello,” a voice with a thick British accent calls from the back of the room.

“You’re…”

The tuxedo-clad, lithe, British man steps forward.

“Farthington. Lord Farthington.”

A beautifully wrapped gift box in his hands. Its #HEXCODERED bow twinkles in the light as he looks Kerriana Kurones up and down.

“HE HAS IT!”

Scott points to the blue and yellow wrapped gift in Farthington’s hand. The red bow all but assures him.

“Cecilworth.”

The Behemoth steps into the room, looking at Lord Farthington.

“Nice to see you, Clay!” Cecilworth exclaims.

Kerry and Scott stare perplexed as the two men shake hands and share a hug.

“Nice ta see you,” says Clay. “Whatcha got planned fer the box?”

“Oh, this old thing?” Farthington responds. “I just came by to give it a look over. Still surprised Dan never came back and got it.”

Hunter and Kerry’s eyes shift back and forth frantically.

“Maybe he will someday…” Hunter says, holding out his hands.

Farthington offers the beautiful gift box to Scott.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suddenly we are back in the present. Scott runs as fast as he can through darkened streets while Harry Connick Jr.’s version of “It Had to Be You” plays from the magical phonograph in the sky. He passes a flower vendor, a hot dog vendor, a newspaper vendor, a poster of Vin Diesel, a Venn diagram showing the relationship between Egg Bandits and outdated fourth-wall-breaking jokes, and finally, a cat. Finally, he comes upon an old dusty door and busts in without knocking. There he finds seated on either side of a small table his compadres, his battle buddies, his amigos, his… anyway it’s Kerry Kuroyama and Clay Byrd. Clay is holding a small yellow and blue gift in his right hand, just about the size of a small action figure box, with a little red bow on top. Scott stops, confused. It’s the same gift in the poster of Mr. Furley from the fortune teller’s place. Wait just a second… The last thing Scott can clearly remember is looking deeply into Madame Contessa’s crystal ball after she scratched her ass and moaned like Henry Keyes in digestive distress. Could it all have been a dream?? Clay hands Scott the gift, and Scott is unable to contain his glee. Clay had been a hard nut to crack, but Scott was starting to feel the trademark camaraderie that Vae Victis has always been known for. If he and Clay could find common ground, could become buddies, could become pals, could become…

The Behemoth gets to his feet and wraps his arm around Scott, turning him back towards the door.

“Scott, don’t fuck us against Gamble, Jiles and Avalon. Don’t fuck this up.” Byrd hisses in Scott’s ear. But Scott’s mind is elsewhere. The camera focuses on the gift box and the scene fades.