GuNNhead

I had the Phil Hartman nightmare again. Yeah, that one, you all know it.

The one where it’s a movie in the 80s/90s, and these thieves have broken into a government facility. Though it’s seemingly already a bit ransacked in the lower parts. Almost as if there was a problem, or they’re trying to leave in a hurry. So there are still some few scientists around. The thieves split up to find what they came for, and maybe pick up a little something extra on the side.

The main character (POV you/me in the dream, Steve Martin in the movie, iirc), gets what they came for by threatening a scientist who just wants to get out of there and doesn’t care about the experimental tech. This time it was like 5-6 of those blue PS4 game cases with white paper cover inserts, black sharpie titles. Experimental videogames and the console to play them on all in a cardboard box, wires included. (It changes every time I have the dream.) As the main character starts to leave with the bounty, the scene cuts to one of the other thieves.

The next thief, Jon Lovitz, snooping around, sees a sealed door heavily marked with all sorts of “Do Not Open” and “Danger” warnings. He shuts off a bunch of the fail-safes, and greedily licks his lips and rubs his hands together in anticipation as he opens the door to find Phil Hartman wearing a green and purple polo shirt tucked into blue jeans sitting on the floor, handcuffed to a table in the special room. Phil lights up to see Lovitz, and is real friendly, happy to be freed. Lovitz gets in close asking this handcuffed man about what kinda stuff there might be to steal in this place. Phil is eager to help for his freedom, says he knows lots about this place, but then lunges at Lovitz, breaking the cuffs, biting deep into his throat.

Then we follow Danny DeVito thief, and he runs into Phil, who is super friendly again, but Danny isn’t having it, being all ‘get outta the way, chump, or I’ll put a bullet in ya’ but Phil won’t leave. He keeps on talking friendly small talk, so DeVito takes a swing at him with his gun, but Phil is too fast, so DeVito starts shooting, Phil dodges it all, and begins chasing DeVito, crawling on the walls and vanishing and stuff, all the while smiling with a creepy grimace of a smile. DeVito soon thinks he lost him, looking around, but turns to find Phil looming over him from the darkness.

Cut back to the main person with the box of stuff, where we hear DeVito’s blood curdling scream of death, so I try to make it out with the box, but am constantly chased by Hartman, appearing in front of me, saying stuff like ‘how about that weather’ or ‘what’s in the box, neighbor’ I make it to the final exiting area, but the army is there, and I ask for their help, but there’s nothing they can do, they’ve come to shut the whole place down, destroy it now, since the experimental weapon has escaped. One soldier gets spooked by Hartman, though, and shoots the glass and metal separating us, and then I can only see glimpses of Hartman biting them, tearing through the ranks as gun flashes silhouette them. He then comes for me. He keeps smiling, looking me dead in the eyes, walking closer and closer. I drop the box out of fear. He leans in and says “I think we’re gonna be great pals.” Then the dream ends.

Fighting through the cold and knee-high snow, I make it back to the museum, and see a figure inside. I fire two shots at it through the large bay window before jumping through the window itself. The alarms go off, and the figure vanishes. By morning, the RCMP arrive and attempt to question me. My badge and the security video answer all they want to know.

“Geeze, I thought I asked you to help, not trash the place.”
“I am helping. I caught your thief off guard, but if what I found out was true, we have a much bigger problem on our hands now. These stones each hold a great, other-worldly power, but there are not five, there are six, and your thief now has it almost completed. Where are those lenses?”
“I had them on me, here.” He hands them to me, I hold both up to my eyes, and look at the first stone. Then, the past is revealed to me…

“The undead!” Events of the past and future tore through his mind as he stabbed his wife in the chest, and kicked her off the final snowy precipice of the cliff face. Stopping more than one heart in the process.

I saw it all, thousands of years in an instant within that stone. A long-since forgotten group of our people who discovered the stones in the ice, fallen from out of space, appearing from holes in the sky and clouds. Unlocking their power, they were able to prosper over many generations. One day, an elder misguided by his own hubris and heartbreak sought the power for himself. He rose the dead as an army, but was thwarted by one man, who shattered the stone being used to channel these powers, breaking the elder’s control over the dead. However, with the stone now destroyed, he could not lay them back to rest, and fled with his wife and the rest of the stones. When the sun his his face upon reaching the top of the cliff, the stones spoke to him, and told him of his wife’s sudden but inevitable betrayal. He hid the remainder of the misused shards in a false-bottom of the unused cradleboard he had brought with him, and triggered an avalanche, burying all traces of the event and his peoples, never to return.

“We got a big problem here, a big problem.”
“What do you mean, like, moreso than what’s already happening?”
“Much more; how much do you know about these stones?”
“Only that they hold a great, mysterious power, whose power is only eclipsed by its mystery.”
“Wonderful. Call the RCMP, tell them to meet me at the graveyard.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“No. No I do not.”

“Nephew, I’ve come to you with this because you’re family and I can trust you, but more pertinently, from what I’ve heard, you’re an outstanding government agent and I need your expertise on something important.”
“Well, then, lets not beat around the bush with pleasantries.”
“Right, as you may know from holidays, I work as the manager to this museum for our people’s artifacts and treasures, what you may not know-”
“You’ve recently had a theft.”
“Right, but more than that, the thief left more here than the one object he left with, a tattered old cloth containing two rectangular lenses. This purple one, and this clear one. We’re not sure of his motives yet, but-”
“The stones. The most valuable things in here, not just by our people, but any one in the world. They’re a complete enigma.” I grab the purple lens of his desk, and go to the old false fireplace mantle with the five ancient multi-colored translucent stones. I hold the lens up to my eye, peering through at the stones.
“Dammit, nothing.”
“Be careful with that, it’s still RCMP evidence. Besides, we’ve already tried that.”
“Any luck?”
“None.”
“Then let me do my job. Pass me the other lens.” I look at each stone individually; on the final one, I notice a reflection on the lens, behind me. I turn around and look out the bay windows, but see nothing. I look again, checking amongst all the stones, only the last one offers the reflection.
“I’m going outside to investigate,” I hand him back the lenses, “these are safe here for now.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing, I just have a hunch.”

Outside, I walk the path of the reflection, and before long, I arrive at a flattened clearing of snow, nothing around it. Getting a closer look, my foot catches a hidden patch of ice, and I slide into the clearing, breaking through and falling 10 feet onto cold, hard dirt.

When I awaken, I’m tied down by my hands, kneeling, buried up to my neck in snow. Luckily whoever did this didn’t bother to search me at all. My combat knife is still in my belt-holster behind me. I cut my bindings, and dig my way out. Unluckily, it’s night now, which means the lenses are no longer safe.

I think back to the security footage I saw earlier of the robbery, this thief wasn’t nimble, but they got in and out mostly undetected, until the alarm went off at the display for the stones. What they took was seemingly worthless, but I wonder… Taking out my flashlight, I see see handmade desks, with scattered parchments, mortars, pestles, retorts, calcinators, and alembics.

“Alchemy.”

This one I re-made from scratch, but added the name! It’s based on the cover of Issue #16. Could even be better than the first time I made it, yup. Also, it’s off-center because I like it more like that?