Under the cover of darkness, they approached the cottage. Greta was humming softly and Tim was weeping openly.

Wearing nothing but a coil of rope, Cooper took his position below the window of the room Greta and Tim were in.

Dave nakedly walked around to the other side of the house and stood outside the kitchen window.

Julian stood outside the front door, unrolled the scroll in his sweaty hands, licked his dry lips, and nodded to Ravenus, perched up on the roof.

"Caw!" said Ravenus. It was the agreed-upon signal, for Cooper's benefit.

Shortly after, Cooper began shouting the famous Bourbon Street chant.

"Show your tits! Show your tits!"

"What in the name of the gods?" said Greta. "You again!"

"Show your tits! Show your tits!"

"How dare you show your face again! You will rue this day!" Only a little more calmly, she spoke to Tim. Julian could only just make out what she was saying over Cooper's chanting. "You stay here, Krum. Mommy will take care of that filthy pervert."

Julian felt the earth tremble slightly as she stomped through the house, and that's when Dave joined in the chanting.

"Show your tits! Show your tits!"

"The nerve of you!" Greta screamed. "Why can you not leave decent people alone? Oh, the bees shall eat well in the coming weeks. I can promise you that!"

The ground shook more violently with each step she took closer to Julian. His hands were trembling so much that he could barely make out the magical writing on the scroll. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and then heard the latch being undone on the other side of the door.

"Enlarge Person!" Julian shouted as soon as the door swung open.

"Wha!" screamed Greta and slammed the door shut. He must have startled her.

"Did it work?" shouted Dave.

"I don't know," Julian shouted back. "She closed the –"

A foot crashed through the window next to the door. It was almost as long as Julian was tall, but surprisingly feminine for a foot so large.

"Um…" said Julian. "Yeah, it worked." He ran around to Cooper's side of the house in time to see Tim climbing up the rope and out of the window.

"Horse!" said Julian. A sturdy grey horse appeared before him.

"Horse!" he said again, and a brown horse appeared next to the grey one.

"What the hell are those for?" asked Dave, coming around the corner. "Let's just walk. She's not going anywhere."

"There's something I forgot to mention," Julian lied. "That spell is only going to last for a minute." That part wasn't a lie at all.

"What the fuck, man!" cried Dave. "I can't ride a horse. Look at my ass!"

"Hey Dave," said Cooper.

"What?"

Cooper punched Dave in the face.

"What the fu—"

Cooper punched him again, this time knocking him out cold. "Let's go." Cooper mounted the grey horse, leaned over, and picked up Dave by the arm.

Julian and Tim mounted the brown horse, and they galloped back toward the pool by the willow trees.

"Come back here, you filthy perverts!" Greta screamed after them. "Come back with my son!" Gradually her screams faded as the group lengthened their distance from her. She was fast, but she wasn't horse fast.

When they reached the pool, Cooper tossed Dave's unconscious body into the water. A few seconds later, Dave was on his feet, coughing and cursing.

"My fucking face!" he cried, covering his face with his hands.

"Your ass feel better?" said Cooper.

"I really hate you, Cooper," said Dave. "And thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"Are you okay, Tim?" asked Julian.

"Physically, I'm fine," said Tim. "But psychologically, I don't know. That was pretty messed up."

"Oh boo-hoo," said Cooper. "Poor little Tim had to suck on giant titties all day."

"Dude, they dressed me in a diaper!" Tim spread his arms out to show off the thick, white, fluffy fabric wrapped around his waist. "It was humiliating."

Cooper waved his hand dismissively at Tim. "You're describing some men's wildest fantasies."

Everyone stared silently at Cooper.

"What?" he said defensively. "Not necessarily mine. I'm just sayin'."

Julian suddenly remembered the smoking bottle and took it out of his bag.

"Is that the smoking bottle the giant was using?" asked Tim.

"Yeah."

"Nice grab."

"I'm sending it back."

"Like fuck you are!" said Tim.

"I don't feel right keeping it," said Julian. "Thorak needs this for his livelihood.

"For his lively—" Tim stammered. "Thorak? When the hell did you two become such good buddies?"

"I feel sorry for them," said Julian.

"They just tried to murder you and feed you to bees!" cried Tim. "They put me in a diaper and sexually assaulted me! Dave, Cooper, are you listening to this bullshit?"

Dave frowned and averted his eyes from Tim's glare. "I don't know."

"Have a heart, man," said Cooper. "She just lost a son."

Tim shook his head. "Un-fucking-believable. Fine. Do whatever you want. Let's make absolutely sure that this entire expedition was another glorious waste of time."

Julian secured the bottle to the brown horse's saddle and gave instructions to the horse. "Go that way. Stop when you reach the house." The horse ran off into the night. About a minute later, way off in the distance, Julian heard the dreaded equine scream and knew that he had once again sent an innocent magical horse to its death. He was pretty sure it was far enough away such that the others wouldn't have heard it, so he mourned his short-lived companion in silence.

"We should get moving," said Julian.

Dave and Cooper scavenged Tim's clothes, which were barely sufficient to cover their junk. Tim remained in his diaper. Only Julian was fully clothed as they walked back to Cardinia.

Tim reached into the folds of his diaper and pulled out a large hunk of white cheese. "I grabbed this before I left, if anyone's hungry."

"Nice!" said Dave, smiling through his blood-crusted beard.

"Oh hell yes!" said Cooper. "I'm hungry as fuck."

Julian smiled at Tim and politely declined.

⁂

[ Cooper's Christmas Carol ]

Cooper grimaced down at the dead boar he carried under his right arm. Ravenus had eaten its eyes, but Cooper still felt like the boar was looking back at him, mocking him, with the inside of his testicle even now drying on its tusk. Dave's Heal spell had repaired Cooper's nuts well enough, but it hadn't done anything for the lumpy rash spreading out from his left armpit. That much, at least, he couldn't blame on the boar. Still, fuck boars.

Nobody else was in any better a mood as they trudged back to the Whore's Head Inn. A boar was good for a bit of food. And to be fair, this was a decent-sized boar. But it wasn't treasure. It wasn't a prize the four of them could hold their heads up high while offering. It was a notch above a completely wasted day. Cooper knew this. But just in case he didn't, Tim had mentioned it about forty thousand times since they started back home.

"Frank is going to be pissed," said Tim. "Four guys. Twelve hours. That's forty-eight man-hours, and what have we got to show for it? A pig."

"It's not all that bad," said Julian. "Look at the size of it. That's enough meat to feed the whole pub for a couple of days."

"Look at that thing," Tim snapped. "Half of its hair is missing. It was coughing up blood before we even attacked it. It's obviously riddled with disease and parasites. And that's not even taking into account that it's been marinating in Cooper's pit-juice for the past hour and a half."

"Still," said Dave. "It's not like we're coming back completely empty-handed."

Hopefully, Tony the Elf would be on door duty when they arrived. They didn't exactly like one another, but at least he didn't fuck around with secret passwords and all that kind of bullshit like Gorgonzola. He'd just slide the window open, roll his eyes like he was hoping you had died out there, and then open the door. Cooper didn't need a warm welcome. What he needed was a cold beer… maybe a shot of stonepiss.

When they arrived ten minutes later, the question of who was on door duty turned out to be moot. The door was wide open, with four dumbasses trying to shove a pine tree through it.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" said Cooper.

"Oh, good!" said a dwarf whose name Cooper had forgotten. "Could you give us a hand?"

"I can give you a foot in the ass if you don't get that fucking tree out of my way." Cooper didn't like many of the dwarves at the Whore's Head Inn, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. Dave was easy enough to figure out. He didn't like Dave because Dave sucked. But he didn't have that specific a reason not to like the guy asking him to help move the tree. The best he could come up with was that the game dictated that half-orcs and dwarves just didn't get along. He didn't like that explanation because it made him feel like a racist.

"You don't have to be a dick about it," said the elf who called himself Scorn. "Come on. We don't need his help."

"I'm sorry," said Cooper. He dropped the boar and palmed the chopped up base of the trunk. He shoved as hard as he could, but the tree wouldn't budge. It was jammed in there real good.

"Okay guys," said the dwarf. "On three!"

"Fuck that," said Cooper. "I've got this." He cracked his knuckles and his neck on both sides. "I'm really angry!"

His heart-rate picked up the pace as hot blood surged through his body. His man-tits ballooned out into mighty pectoral muscles. The growth spread out to his arms and legs, all the way out to his fingers and toes. His vision turned pink.

"FUCK YOU, TREE!" he shouted, shoving the tree effortlessly through the doorway. Most of the branches on the bottom half broke, but there was no avoiding that. His task successful, he ceased his Barbarian Rage. He inhaled deeply, inviting in the soothing scent of pine.

As his muscles relaxed and his vision lost its blood-tint, Cooper found that he had knocked over a number of tables and chairs, and caught several patrons in the branches of the great tree. He stood vulnerably amongst the silent crowd staring at him.

"Merry Christmas!" said Frank, clearly plastered. Gnomes got a bonus to their Constitution score. He had obviously skipped the beer and gone straight for the stonepiss. For some reason, he was wearing a Santa Claus hat, but not a shirt. If his skin, for whatever reason, were to turn blue, he'd be the spitting image of Papa Smurf. Cooper tucked this observation into an easily accessible pocket in the back of his mind for further consideration at a later time.

"What the hell?" said Tim. He and Julian had followed in the path of furniture carnage Cooper had left in the tree's wake. "It's barely autumn."

People were laughing. Booze was flowing. The man they most feared was shitfaced and shirtless. It was just like Tim to start asking questions at a time like this.

"We do this every couple of months," explained the booze-sodden gnome-shell of Frank. "It helps keep morale up." He hiccoughed and raised his mug. "Merry Christmas!"

"Good enough for me," said Cooper. He picked his kill up off the floor, took it behind the bar to the kitchen, and set it on Barney's preparation table.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with that?" asked Barney.

"Cook it."

"That's the most sickly-looking boar I've ever seen. Did you kill it, or just find it dead in the woods?"

"Dude," said Cooper. "This is fresh meat."

Barney picked up a meat cleaver and chopped into the hindquarter of the dead animal. The muscle beneath the patchy-haired skin was tinted green and crawling with little worms.

Cooper frowned. "Those will die in the oven, right?"

Barney crossed his arms. "I'm not cooking this thing."

"Fuck you, dude," said Cooper. "I'll cook it myself."

"Do you have any ranks in the Cooking skill?"

"I didn't even spend a skill point to get Literacy," said Cooper. "You think I'm going to blow one on Cooking? Seriously, how hard can it be?"

"Suit yourself," said Barney. "I'm done for the night. The kitchen's all yours."

Cooper opened the oven door and looked inside. There was still a pretty strong wood fire burning beneath the rack. Nothing to it. He shoved the boar carcass onto the rack. A few of the worms fell out of the post-mortem wound and into the fire, making a satisfying popping sound.

"Merry Christmas, you squirmy fuckers," said Cooper. He closed the oven door and went back out to the bar to get a drink.

The few resident druids at the Whore's Head Inn had healed the broken lower branches of the tree. It stood upright in a corner, its trunk planted in a barrel. Cooper had to admit, it didn't look half bad.

"All right!" said Frank, waving a stonepiss bottle in the general direction of the tree. "Now the magic users. Work your magic!"

All of the wizards and sorcerers, who far outnumbered the druids, crowded around the tree and began to cast their spells. The dull corner suddenly exploded with light. Glowing, illusory ornaments hung from every branch. Multi-colored lights twinkled and orbited the tree in haphazard directions. Someone even cast a Light spell on an armored glove to place on top of the tree. It was a sight to behold.

Cooper wiped away a tear and sniffed back some snot, but then decided it wasn't worth the effort. People were used to seeing fluids seep out of his face. He let it flow.

"Now that's a fucking Christmas tree!" said Frank.

Cooper necked one mug of beer and poured himself another to take back to the kitchen. He opened the oven door to check on his boar. It didn't look any different than it had when he put it in there.

"It's not going to cook if you keep opening the door," said Julian, his slender elf body silhouetted against the twinkling Christmas lights beyond the doorway.

"Thanks," said Cooper. "But I got this. Does your bird ever lay eggs? We could make some nog."

"Ravenus is male," said Julian. "And even if he did lay eggs, I don't think he'd appreciate you drinking his potential offspring."

"Just a thought." Cooper opened the oven door again. No perceptible change. "I think I need to turn it over." He reached into the oven and grabbed the dead boar. It was hot to the touch, but not painfully so. His half-orc hands were leathery and rough, and were usually coated in a protective layer of filth. Having a Charisma score of 3 had its perks. No need for oven mitts.

The hair on the bottom half of the boar was singed. Cooper gave it a satisfied nod, flipped it over, and shoved it back into the oven.

"You don't have to eat that, you know," said Julian. "There's plenty of food out there that isn't crawling with disease."

"That fucker gored me in the nuts," said Cooper. "I'm going to eat him."

Julian shook his head. "Just make sure you let it cook a while longer. Come on. Let's go top off your beer."

The communal area of the Whore's Head Inn was bustling with Christmas spirit. Bards played Christmas carols, and everyone drunkenly sang along. Cooper had drunk half a dozen more mugs of beer before he remembered his boar in the oven.

"Fuck!" he said.

"What's wrong?" said Julian.

Cooper scrunched up his face at Julian. "You sneaky bastard. You used Diplomacy on me to make me forget about my boar, didn't you?"

"I just didn't want you to get sick."

Cooper stomped back into the kitchen, bumping against the door frame on his way in.

"Come on, man!" Julian called after him. "Let it go! You killed the thing. How much more revenge do you need?"

"I will have my revenge when I turn that tusky bastard into poo!"

Cooper pulled the oven door open, expecting a cloud of black smoke to billow out. There was no smoke. The fire had died down to barely glowing embers, and the meat only looked to be charred on the bottom. Perfect. He took the boar out of the oven, held it before him, and prepared to bite into it.

"Cooper!" said Julian, standing in the doorway again. "I'm begging you, man. Don't do it."

Cooper flashed his own tusks at Julian before ripping into the boar's belly. It was juicy and tasted of salt… and something that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"That's so fucking gross," said Julian.

"Tastes like vengeance!" said Cooper, boar juice flowing down both sides of his mouth onto his chest. Once his tongue had had enough time to explore the subtle complexities of flavor, he had to admit, if only to himself, that Julian was right. It actually tasted pretty shitty.

"Oh my god!" said Julian, looking at the boar when Cooper lowered it. "That's not even meat you're eating. You bit into its intestines."

That explained the shit taste. Cooper swallowed. "I could use another beer."

He left the boar on the preparation table, halfheartedly intending to come back and finish it. He and Julian rejoined the party. It took three more mugs of beer before Cooper was able to taste anything but pig shit.

Cooper scanned the crowd. He was happy to see that even Tim looked to be having a good time. Dave, for all his dwarven bonus to Saving Throws vs. Poison, looked well on his way to being hammered, fucking up the lyrics to Holly Jolly Christmas. Someone had even magically changed the leopard fur on his forearm to green with red spots.

Looking back at the table where Dave and Tim had been sitting, Cooper saw it was littered with empty beer mugs, shot glasses, stonepiss bottles, and Dave's gloved gauntlets. A foul idea began to brew in Cooper's head even as something even fouler brewed in his bowels.

Sneaking over to the unattended table, Cooper tripped over four chairs and knocked over two other tables. Fortunately, the only people who seemed to notice were the ones sitting at them. Having reached his target, he swiped Dave's gauntlets and made for the front entrance. He had a bomb ticking in his gut, and it was going to be a photo-finish race.

He slammed the door shut behind him, only just managing to get Dave's gauntlets under his loincloth before his ass exploded like an angry volcano, spraying the inside of the gauntlets as well as the outside of his own forearms with worm-riddled liquid shit. He wiped his arms and the outside of the gauntlets on his loincloth until they were passably clean.

He was just about to knock on the door when he spotted Julian's familiar, Ravenus, staring down at him from his perch atop the sign for the Whore's Head Inn. That fucker had seen everything.

"Not a word from you, understand?" Cooper knew Ravenus couldn't understand his words, as the bird was only able to communicate in the Elven tongue, but he hoped his threatening grimace communicated his warning well enough.

Ravenus squawked back at him and flew away. Cooper pounded the door with his fist. He was sweating, and he wasn't quite sure that he had done all the shitting he needed to do. His stomach was turning like a contortionist trying to escape a straightjacket.

The window of the door slid open. Julian was on the other side. His eyes widened.

"Cooper! What's wrong with you? You look like shit. I mean, even for you."

"Just open the door, would you, I've got to –" He doubled over and puked on the wall of the neighboring building.

The door opened behind him, and Julian was soon at his side. "Are you okay?"

"Better now," said Cooper. "Thanks."

"I told you not to eat that boar, you ass!" Julian scolded him. "Look at you! You're sweating and shitting and puking and— Hey, are those Dave's gauntlets? Why do you have those?"

Cooper's heart was racing and his vision was beginning to blur as the world spun around his head, but he still managed a weak laugh. "I took a shit in them."

"Why the fuck would you do that?"

Cooper steadied himself against a post. "Don't get your pussy in a knot."

"My what in a what?"

"It's just a prank. Trust me. He'll think it's –" Cooper dropped to his knees and splattered Julian's shoes in vomit. "—hilarious."

"No he won't, you stupid asshole," said Julian.

"Come on, man," said Cooper, climbing up the wooden post to get on his feet again. "Where's your sense of Christmas spirit?"

"That's what you call Christmas spirit?" said one of the four Julians swirling around each other. They all looked pissed. The tips of their big elf ears were almost glowing red. "I've never felt more proud to be Jewish. Now come on inside. You need to get cleaned up and rested. Leave those out here."

Cooper looked down at his hand to see what Julian was pointing to. He had a pair of gauntlets in his hand. "Where the fuck did these come from?"

"Jesus Christ," said Julian. "You're delirious. Just drop them."

Cooper dropped the gauntlets and took a step toward the swirling images of his friend. He slipped in his own vomit puddle and slammed the ground hard with the back of his head. The world slowly faded to black.


When Cooper woke, his mind was clear and his vision focused. He looked down at his hands. They weren't covered in shit. He was in a bed much too large for him. The polished wooden bedposts were as thick around as he was. Each had a sconce attached about five feet above the comforter, holding a torch. The dim, flickering light from the torches was not enough for Cooper to see the top of the bedposts. They might have continued up forever for all he knew. He felt like a kitten. But as huge as it was, the bed felt warm and safe, which was more than he could say for the dark void beyond it.

The silent illusion of security inside his torchlit sphere was shattered by a sound from the outside. It was faint and distant, but it was definitely a sound, and it was getting closer. It didn't take Cooper long to identify the sound as chains, rattling in a rhythmic pattern, which Cooper soon judged to be that of approaching footsteps.

"Who's out there?" cried Cooper, pulling the comforter up over the lower half of his face. He was all but paralyzed with fear.

"Coooooooper," a not entirely unfamiliar voice called back to him.

Chink, clink. The chains rattled.

"What do you want?"

"Coooooooper," the voice called again, this time a little louder.

Chink, clink.

"I'll kick your ass!" said Cooper. "Fuck off!"

"COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPER!" the voice bellowed. It obviously didn't appreciate being threatened. It sounded like it was nearly right on top of him.

The rattle of the chains was now deafening. Chink clink, chink clink. A black man covered in chains stepped into the torchlight. His hands were manacled together, as were his feet. Seemingly purposeless chains were wrapped arbitrarily around his body, the ends of them dragging behind him.

Cooper swallowed hard and mustered his courage to speak. "Django?"

"No, mon," said the figure. He grinned at Cooper, and his white teeth shone like high-beams. Suddenly, his voice, his face, his dreadlocked hair all clicked together in Cooper's mind.

"Bob Marley?"

"Ya, mon."

Cooper lowered the comforter. "It's an honor. I'm a big fan. That song… um… I…"

"I Shot the Sherriff?"

"Dude, it's cool," said Cooper. "I chopped a guard's head off."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. I'm confused."

"You don't know any of my music, do you, mon?"

Cooper hung his head. "I'm sorry. I swear it's not because you're black."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I just never got into reggae. Jesus, this is so embarrassing."

Bob Marley lifted his chained hands in a peaceful gesture. "Don't sweat it, mon! I'm not here to talk about music."

"Why are you here?" asked Cooper. "And why are you all chained up? I've got to say, I'm not entirely comfortable with this imagery. I mean, between the whole black-dude-in-chains, and your shitty Jamaican accent, I just feel like there's some racial insensitivity going on."

"It's your dream, mon," said Bob Marley. "If there's sometin' here you uncomfortable with, maybe you need to look inside yourself."

"Thank you for your insight, Bob Marley. Can you please go away now?"

"I cannot!" said Bob Marley. He seemed to resent the question. "I am doomed to walk in these chains for all eternity. And you will be too, unless you change."

"My loincloth?" He lifted the comforter to look down at it, and his eyes started to water at the smell of escaping fart. He had a mean dutch oven going on down there.

"Your heart, mon!" said Bob Marley. "You be a miserable excuse for a human being."

"I'm a half-orc."

Bob Marley shook his head. "I got no more patience for you, mon. I'll say what I came to say, and then I'll be on my way."

"Is that from one of your songs? It's beautiful."

"You will be visited by tree spirits. They –"

"What, like nymphs?"

Bob Marley rattled his chains. He was getting flustered. "Tree spirits! One, two, tree!"

"Oh, three spirits. I'm sorry. Does that include you?"

"No, mon. Three more. I should have made that clear." Bob Marley was pretty chill if you didn't provoke him.

"Should I prepare somehow? Are they going to ask me questions?"

"It's time I must be goin', mon." Bob Marley stepped backwards, out of the torchlight.

"No, Bob Marley!" cried Cooper. "Don't leave me alone in the dark!"

"Change your heart, mon." The voice was no longer coming from a focused point of origin. It echoed in from every direction.

"Bob Marley! Please, wait!"

"Change your heart!" It was fainter, but more commanding.

"Don't go!"

"Chaaaaange your heeeeeaaaaaaart…" This time it was barely a whisper.

"Fuck you, Bob Marley!"

Once again, Cooper was alone in complete silence, with only the quickened beat of his pulse to keep him company.


Cooper lay on the bed for what might have been minutes or months. Time was murky in this place. Panic eventually gave way to boredom, and he thought about having a wank, but he didn't know whose bed he was in.

He was just drifting off to sleep again when he heard a sound which did not come from his own body. It was a mixture of grunts, snorts, and pants, like a fat guy running to catch a bus. Cooper sat upright, determined to face this demon without fear.

The grunts and snorts grew louder until Cooper was able to pinpoint a direction. He stood up on the bed and waited, fists balled at his side. Finally, the creature emerged from the shadows. It was the sickly boar that Cooper had killed. It was burned black on one side and slightly singed on the other, just as it had been when he'd taken it out of the oven. It even had a large chunk missing from its underside.

The boar looked up at him. "Donald McKinley Cooper?" It's voice was husky and dry.

"Who wants to know?"

"I'm the ghost of Christmas past."

"Shit," said Cooper. "I wish I'd known that back when you gored me in the nuts. We could've worked something out."

"You seem out of sorts. Do not be afraid. I mean you no harm."

"I'm just a little concerned about my heart. Bob Marley said I needed a transplant. But then, I don't expect he's a licensed cardiologist."

"Because he's black?"

"Fuck you, pig!"

The boar's empty eye sockets squinted as it snorted and wheezed at him. Cooper assumed that's just the way cooked boars laugh.

"Come, Cooper!" said the boar after it had finished laughing at him. "Take my hoof. I have something to show you." It stood on its hind legs and reached out a charred, blackened foreleg to Cooper.

The torches on the bedposts flared bright for an instant and then went out completely. Cooper was in total darkness holding hands with a dead pig. They were floating in the void, for the bed beneath him was gone.

"Open your eyes, Cooper," said the boar.

Cooper hadn't even realized his eyes were closed. When he opened them, he was sitting on the curb in the parking lot outside a Waffle House. The boar was next to him. The torches had been replaced with electric lamps. It was still dark, but the night was filled with stars.

"What the fuck are we doing at Waffle House?" asked Cooper. "You want to fuel up before a long trip?"

"The long trip is at its conclusion," said the boar. "This is our destination."

"You wanted to show me a Waffle House?"

"Not just any Waffle House, Cooper. Come, follow me." The boar waddled across the parking lot toward the entrance of the restaurant, right into the path of a Ford Taurus with some drunk asshole at the wheel.

Cooper jumped to his feet. "Pig, watch out!" He flinched as the car met the boar, but his fears were unwarranted. The car passed through the animal like it wasn't even there.

The boar turned around to face him. "You needn't fear the physical objects of this world. We currently exist on the Ethereal Plane. We can do nothing here but observe."

"Sweet!" said Cooper. He ran out onto the I-10 just in time to catch a tractor-trailer moving at least ninety miles per hour. It rushed through him fast and noisily, like a hurricane wind. It was exhilarating.

"Cooper!" the boar shouted at him. "Get back over here right now!"

Cooper did as he was told. The boar walked through the front window of the Waffle House, and Cooper followed. Walking through a pane of glass wasn't as much fun as being hit by a truck, but it was still pretty cool.

The restaurant was empty, except for the beast of a woman behind the counter. She looked like the Hutt that Jabba had rejected for the prom. She was an easy deuce and a half, with a dark, hairy birthmark on the left side of her face. Nice big titties though, and probably an easy lay. A chill ran down Cooper's ethereal spine at such a thought.

"Does she look familiar, Cooper?"

"She looks like she fell out of the ugly tree and… I don't know, fucking ate it or something. What does the Waffle House or that fucking yeti have to do with Christmas past?"

"These are your memories, Cooper," said the boar. "I am but a guide. This is a Christmas seven years ago. You spent it at the casinos on the coast."

Cooper grinned. "I remember that Christmas. I nailed this chick in the bathroom of a Waff—" Clearer memories began rushing into his head. The Waffle House. The fat chick. The Ford Taurus. The drunk asshole. "NO!"

The bell on the door rang behind him, and Cooper quickly turned around. A younger, human version of himself stumbled through the entrance.

"Ho ho ho, baby!" said the bumbling idiot through a cloud of his own cigarette smoke.

"What can I get for you?" said the thing behind the counter.

"Maybe it's me who's got something for you," said human Cooper, staggering toward the counter like he was being controlled by an unskilled puppeteer.

The big girl raised a bushy eyebrow and laughed. "You couldn't handle this, sugar. Not in your condition. Seriously, what do you want?"

"Beer's fine," said Cooper, finally slumping down on a bar stool.

"We don't have beer."

"Jack and Coke?"

"Do you know where you are?"

He looked up into her eyes. "I know where I want to be."

"Jesus fuck!" said ethereal Cooper, trying to slap his human self. His huge half-orc hands just breezed through his human head, not even stirring a hair. "Knock that shit off!"

He sat through two cups of coffee and some of the most painful and desperate flirting he'd ever heard. Eventually, she started to succumb to his drunken charm.

During his third cup of coffee, the she-beast came out from behind the counter.

"Where is she going?" Cooper asked the boar.

"I think you know."

She locked the front door and hung up the "Closed" sign.

"No!" cried Cooper. "You can't close the Waffle House! The Waffle House is never closed!"

She turned around and gave human Cooper a come-hither look. Spirit Cooper wanted to puke his ethereal guts out, but human Cooper had a conspicuous bulge in the crotch of his jeans. She took his hand and led him to the women's restroom.

"Let's go, man," Cooper pleaded with the boar. "I really don't want to hear what goes on in there."

"You shall hear!" the boar shouted at him. "And furthermore, you shall see!"

"No, ghost pig!" cried Cooper. "You can't make me!" But even as he said it, his ethereal body drifted involuntarily toward the bathroom door.

As he got nearer, the sounds coming from within the bathroom grew louder and more disturbing, like a mop wringer.

Cooper's head was level with the boar's, facing the women's restroom door and almost touching it.

The boar turned to Cooper. "It is time. Behold!"

Their heads went through the door simultaneously. On the other side was a ghastly sight. The first thing Cooper homed in on was his own bare ass. He was standing upright, pounding away into her from behind. She was bent over the sink, just a stack of moaning fat rolls. It looked like he was raping the Michelin Man.

"Make it stop, spirit!" cried Cooper. "Please make it stop!"

"Okay," said the boar. "I can't take much more of this either."

Sight and sound began to fade until Cooper was once again in silent oblivion.


Cooper's sensory deprivation was so complete that he even started to doubt his own existence until he felt cold stone beneath his feet. He dropped to his knees and pawed at the ground, looking for a clue as to which way he should proceed.

The dilemma was solved when two torches burst into life on a wall directly in front of him. Between them, they illuminated an ornate golden door. A pair of cherubs, one high and one low, held either end of a staff, which served as the door's handle.

Cooper stepped forward and gripped the handle. Testing it, he found the door moved freely in either direction. He pulled it open just enough to take a peek at whatever might be on the other side.

"Cooper!" a voice boomed from within the next room.

There was no point in trying to hide. He'd been made. He opened the door wider. Mordred sat on a gilded throne at the far side of the room. His stupid purple cloak had transformed into a plus-sized Hugh Hefner smoking jacket, exposing more of his pasty man-cleavage than Cooper could stand to look at. He looked like the king of the Bacchus parade.

"Come in and know me better, man," said Mordred. His voice echoed in the chamber like a god's.

"This is well more than I ever wanted to know you," said Cooper.

"I'm sorry," said Mordred, cupping a hand around his ear and leaning forward. "Could you speak up?"

Cooper's eyes readjusted. The room was far larger than he had first assumed, which made Mordred proportionately larger as well. He must have been about forty feet tall. It might have been his giant bed Cooper had woken up in. He was glad he'd reconsidered masturbating in it. That would have been weird.

Cooper raised his voice. "What do you want?"

The giant Mordred smiled and shrugged. "Peace on Earth. Good will toward men."

"So you're the ghost of Christmas present."

"What do you think?"

"It makes sense," said Cooper. "You've got more than eighteen hundred fathers."

Mordred frowned. "It's brothers."

"I know," said Cooper. "That was just a cheap shot at your mom. The implication was that she's a big whore."

"Yeah," said Mordred. "I got it."

"You mind if we get this show on the road?" asked Cooper. "I'd kind of like to hurry through this part. I'm still pretty pissed at you for sending us here and giving me perpetual diarrhea."

Mordred stomped his great booted feet on the ground and rose from his throne. The room shook. "Is that any worse than what you did to me?" he bellowed. "Blame me not for the consequences you bring upon yourself! Your heart is dark and your deeds are wicked!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Giant Mordred grabbed a torch from a sconce on the wall and walked toward Cooper. He must have been shrinking as he walked, as Cooper's perception of his size never changed. By the time he reached Cooper, they were approximately the same size. "Take my sleeve."

Cooper did as he was told, and the chamber began to crumble around them. Giant chunks of the stone ceiling smashed into the floor, obliterating both on impact. The walls crumbled away to nothing. The great throne melted away. When it was all done, he and Mordred were standing on a quiet, snow-covered street. It took Cooper a moment to realize they were standing outside the Whore's Head Inn.

"Hold on a sec," said Cooper. "Why's it snowing? It's not even cold out."

"Your mind is confusing your current reality with more conventional images of Christmas," Mordred explained. "Pay no mind to the snow."

In front of the door, Cooper saw his own body lying unconscious on the ground. "Am I dead?"

"Ho ho ho!" Mordred chuckled a hearty Santa Clause laugh. "Not yet, friend."

"Is this what you wanted to show me?"

"This much even you could have figured out on your own," said Mordred. "Be patient, man. Watch."

He didn't have to wait long. The door opened, spilling out multi-colored flashing lights and the sounds of merrymaking. Julian led Dave and Tim to Cooper's unconscious body.

"Can you help me drag him inside?" said Julian, the only one who looked even remotely sober.

"Is it snowing?" asked Tim.

"Of course not," said Dave. "You're just trashed. Hey, what are my gauntlets doing out here?"

"Wait, Dave!" cried Julian. "Don't –" but it was too late.

"What the fuck?" said Dave, pulling his arm back out of the glove. It was slimy and brown. The leopard fur band on his forearm was slathered in half-orc shit.

Spirit Cooper nudged Mordred with his elbow. "What did I say, huh? Fucking hilarious."

"Do you see anyone laughing?" asked Mordred.

"Julian's too uptight, Tim's so trashed he barely knows where he is, and Dave's the butt of the joke," said Cooper. "Of course no one's laughing now. But they'll come around tomorrow."

"Will they?" asked Mordred. "Will they laugh when Dave dies of dysentery? Will they laugh when Tim shrivels up to a mere husk of a halfling and loses the use of his legs?"

"No!" said Cooper. "Not Tiny Tim! Hold on… I didn't shit in Tim's gloves. How's he going to get dysentery?"

"Let's go back to Dave for a moment," said Mordred. "He's the real Bob Cratchit of this story."

"Wait a second. How many Bobs are in this story?"

"Just the one."

"But what about –"

"Your mind jumbled the memories of Bob Cratchit and Jacob Marley, creating Bob Marley. It's because you're stupid."

"Ah, I see."

"Why do you treat Dave so badly?" asked Mordred. "What have you got against the guy?"

"Dave sucks."

"Can you be anymore specific?"

"No," said Cooper. "It's a general suck."

Dave threw the gauntlet down at Physical Cooper. It bounced off his face. Cooper grunted. His eyelids twitched, and he put his finger in his nose.

Spirit Cooper turned to Mordred. "See?"

"You felt that was undeserved?"

"He attacked me while I was sleeping."

"Come on, guys," said Tim. "Let's get back to the party. Leave this dickhead in the snow."

"What snow are you talking about?" said Dave.

"You two can stand out here and freeze your asses off if you want," said Tim. "I'm going back inside."

"What are you talking about?" said Dave. "It's not even cold."

"Screw this," said Tim. "I need a –" His little halfling arms flailed out as he slipped in Cooper's vomit puddle. Dave caught one of them to keep him from falling down, thus answering the question of how Tim contracts dysentery.

Dave led Tim back inside the Whore's Head. Julian hesitated, looking down at Cooper, but eventually abandoned him as well.

Spirit Cooper frowned. "I didn't want to hurt anyone. It's my Intelligence. You said so yourself. I'm stupid."

"Let's take a walk," said Mordred. "I have one more thing I want to show you."

Cooper gloomily followed Mordred to the apothecary across the street.

Mordred pointed his torch into the alley between this building and the one next to it. "After you."

Cooper walked into the alley. It was dark, in spite of Mordred's torch behind him, so he proceeded cautiously, keeping one hand on the brick wall to maintain direction. The alley went on far longer than it should have. He seemed to be walking for miles, and maybe even descending.

After an indeterminate length of time, Mordred spoke. "Stop. We have arrived."

"How can you tell?" asked Cooper.

Mordred walked past Cooper and thrust his torch forward. The flame flared bright, illuminating the end of the alley.

They were at a dead end. Ahead of them, two emaciated children – a boy and a girl – were shackled to the wall. Their eyes were milky white, and they snapped their teeth at Cooper, as if trying to eat him, but their chains held true.

"Jesus Christ!" shouted Cooper. "Who the fuck are they?"

"His name is Intelligence and hers is Charisma," said Mordred.

"What the fuck are they doing chained in the alley?"

"I should probably remind you that you're dreaming right now," said Mordred. "Weird shit happens in dreams."

Cooper nodded. "Fair enough."

"Beware them both," warned Mordred, "for they are not your friends. But blame them not for your actions. The choices you make are yours alone."

The light from Mordred's torch began to fade swiftly. By the time Cooper turned around, he was in complete darkness. It wasn't the void, like the previous times, as he could still hear the snarling and snapping of the kids chained to the wall.

"Mordred?" Cooper called out. There was no answer. "Mordred!" The word simply echoed down the long, dark alley. "You fat fuck! Don't leave me alone with these freakshow kids!"

He reached out, and was relieved to find the brick wall where it was supposed to be. He walked briskly away from the two rabid children, and was surprised to find the journey back to the street only took a few seconds.

Cooper ran out into the middle of the street and waited. He was still shaken up by the two kids shackled in the alley, but he was more excited by anticipating who might represent the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

He stood in the middle of the street, closed his eyes, placed the clawed tips of his index fingers on his temples, and tried to will Doc Brown to blast onto the scene in his DeLorean. It was his dream, after all. Surely he could choose the last ghost.

Several minutes passed without any lightning-engulfed cars or wild-eyed mad scientists. Now that he thought about it, nothing at all was going on. The street was eerily quiet, even for as late at night as it must have been. He gave up on meeting Christopher Lloyd and walked back to the Whore's Head Inn.

The first thing he noticed was that the front windows were broken. He must have missed a hell of a party. He peeked into one window to find that the place was empty. A layer of dust covered the floor and furniture, suggesting that it had been empty for quite some time.

"Hello?" he called inside. There was no answer.

He walked over to the entrance, surprised to find it wide open. Also surprising was the fact that his own body was missing. Had he woken up? Had the guys had a change of heart and dragged him inside?

A loud caw startled Cooper out of his speculations. Ravenus looked down at him from his perch on top of the tavern sign.

"Goddammit!" said Cooper. "Not you! Anyone but you!"

"There is no one else but me!" said Ravenus.

"Whoa," said Cooper. "How come I can understand you?"

"Because you're dreaming, fucktard."

"Oh, right."

"Follow me," said the bird. He flew in short bursts, perching on tree branches or lamp posts as he waited for Cooper to catch up.

Cooper followed Ravenus out of the Collapsed Sewer District, to the outer-regions of the city where there were more open spaces than buildings. In the middle of one such open space stood a single tombstone.

Ravenus flapped down to land atop the stone. "Behold!"

Memories of Scrooge McDuck started to manifest in Cooper's head, and his heartbeat quickened. "Whose grave is this, spirit?"

"What kind of question is that?" asked Ravenus. "Read it."

Cooper hung his head in shame. "I'm illiterate. It's part of being a barbarian."

Ravenus shook his bird head. "Unbelievable. It's Dave's, you moron."

"Oh, thank fuck." Cooper breathed a sigh of relief.

Ravenus stared at him with his beady little judgmental bird eyes.

"What?" said Cooper. "It's a bummer about Dave. I'm sorry about that. I just thought… wait a minute. What did you mean before when you said there's no one else but you?"

"How many ways can you interpret that?" asked Ravenus. "An epidemic of dysentery swept through the city. Dave here was lucky to be one of the early ones. He got a proper burial at least. Most residents wound up being dumped into mass graves and burned."

Cooper's lower lip quivered as he asked the first question that came to mind. "Tim?"

"Dead!" cried Ravenus. "All of them are dead. You killed Dave. You killed Tim. You killed Julian, damn you!"

"And me?"

"Don't worry, Cooper," said Ravenus. "You're alive and well. You survived because your body was accustomed to constantly shitting itself. I survived because I'm a carrion eater. I eat nastier shit than you can poop out on a daily basis."

"Say it isn't so!" cried Cooper. "I'm stuck here forever, alone with you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say alone," said Ravenus, spreading his black wings wide. "This is a city of death now. My kind has taken over." He let out a loud caw.

The caw was answered by at least a dozen more in the near vicinity, and then a hundred from the darkness beyond, and a thousand more beyond that.

Cooper looked up at a nearby tree. Every branch was covered in ravens, standing shoulder to shoulder, eyeing him hungrily.

Cooper backed away, but there was nowhere to go. The night was alive with the flapping of black wings.

"You can't eat me!" he cried. "I'm not dead, and I'm disgusting!"

"We're willing to overlook all that," said Ravenus. "Just this once." He bolted from his perch toward Cooper. Ravens swarmed in from everywhere, scratching and pecking at his skin.

"Nooooo!" Cooper cried, but his plea was drowned out by a cacophony of cawing and screeching. He could neither see nor breathe. He was literally drowning in black feathers. Consciousness faded, and he was once again in the void.