So I've kind of started university. Moved to London last Monday and was living in a house in Stepney Green with friends. That went to buggeration last Thursday and on Friday I found myself a place in halls of residence. I have yet to get my own Interweb connection, I didn't bring any disks with me because my new laptop doesn't have such a drive, and so this is being written on a university computer. As was the attached chapter of the meandering Yorrick saga edited, though written by Cass in New Zealand. I meant to write a ninth chapter myself a couple of weeks ago but then I didn't. I'll probably write the tenth once I get ahold of some disks. Or I could just keep emailing it to myself. But no. I now live just off Finchley Road in Hampstead. Call me on 0870 484 6225 should you wish to talk, or email me if you want me to go to the extra effort of remembering my username and password. Nothing more for now. Or rather loads more but I can't be arsed.

Later,
Caleb


~


Yorrick, Chapter 9
It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Written by Cassandra Courtney


Night had fallen on the cabin, and it looked spookier than ever. The evening mist took on a green tint from the swamp gas, while the trees were groaning as they swayed in the slight wind that had built up. In short, anyone with half a brain would have taken one look at this scene and run away with a quick 'fuck this'. However, people with brains seem to be in short supply these days. So out of the mist appeared the faint outline of four people and a dog.
    "Gee, guys, I really wish we'd filled up on gas like, before we decided to look for that spooky old cabin!" Shaggy mourned.
    "Rhee-hee-hee!" The dog giggled.
    "Yeah, even the old writers could come up with better plot devices than this one." Fred agreed.
    "Look gang! There it is!" Velma bounced up and down excitedly, pointing to the dark form of a cabin at the end of the forest trail. "Looks like someone's home too."
    "Great! I'm starving! Maybe they'll have some 'snacks'" Shaggy cheered up at this thought.
    "Rhee-hee-hee!"
    "If you didn't smoke so much dope then maybe you wouldn't always have the munchies." Daphne frowned.
    "Oh, fuck off, bitch." Shaggy growled.
    The others all looked at him in open-mouthed amazement, as he moodily stalked off in the direction of the cabin.

Bruce Campbell was once again slumped in the rocking chair. He'd had no luck finding his hand, and decided to get a bit of rest before the nightmare that would begin any time soon. There had already been a slight kick in the teeth when he discovered that since the cabin inexplicably changed to a different one, someone had nicked the couch, hence the rocking chair. He was just contemplating holding a conversation with the moose head on the wall, when someone entered the room.
    "Shit!" He leapt to his feet and pulled out his shotgun. "Where the hell did you spring from?!"
    Giles looked at him innocently. "From the Purple Pelican's beak." He answered. "Who the hell are you?"
    "Name's Bruce... Err... Ash. Housewares." He said with a hint of pride.
    "Well, Mr Housewares, what are you doing?" Giles asked, looking round at the empty room.
    "I was just about to have a conversation with that moose head." Bruce informed him. "You?"
    "I just watched two hands shagging."
    "Okay... Wait! Hands?!" Bruce looked down at his hand, a worried expression on his face, but was relieved to find his hand was still there. He glanced back at Giles. "Did one of them look anything like this?" He asked, waving his hand.
    "Well, yeah. I guess." Giles admitted.
    "Wahey!" Bruce leapt to his foot, and rushed from the room.
    Giles sat it the now vacant rocking chair, and looked around the room thoughtfully. After a few moments he cleared his throat and turned to the moose head.
    "Err... Hello?"

Yorrick swore loudly. He'd been in the cabin for hours, and he still hadn't found anyone apart from the madman with the chainsaw. At first he thought that Widget had set him up, but he was resolved. Well, he had been resolved, but now he had a sinking suspicion that he was in fact wandering around in the walls of the cabin. Squeezing his way around a group of pipes, he peered round the corner, only to be confronted with another long corridor of nothing.
    "How sodding big is this cabin anyway?!" He despaired.

"Okay gang, let's look for that tape recorder! Why don't we all split up, and meet back here?" Velma announced as the group stood awkwardly in the hallway.
    "Sssplit uuuuup?" Shaggy stuttered. "Why?!"
    Nobody could think of an answer to that.
    "Come on, Daphne." Fred said. "Let's go and, um, look by ourselves."
    They all smirked knowingly.
    "What?" Fred said defensively.
    More smirks.
    "We work well together!" Fred said indignantly.
    The smirks got bigger.
    "Ah, whatever. Daphne, let's go."
    The remaining trio watched them disappear into the nearest bedroom. Shaggy idly rolled a joint as he and Scooby wandered away. He lit it as the two of them entered the lounge.
    "No, that's because the Second Law of Thermodynamics describes how the amount of useful energy is decreasing." The moose head explained.
    "I see." Giles lied.
    Shaggy looked at his joint in amazement. "Zoiks..." He muttered under his breath.
    "Can I help you?" The moose head asked him.
    "Err... Tape recorder?" Shaggy managed.
    "On the table."
    "Thanks man." Shaggy wandered over to the table. There sat the tape recorder in question, and beside it, a filled baguette, jar of mayonnaise, and a knife. "Well Scoob, best make sure this is the one the Prof. wanted destroyed. Let's see what's on it."
    "Rhee-hee-hee!"
    Shaggy pushed the play button, and an eerie chanting filled the room.
    'Conda, necropsuu, talmancha frabatchi mun mun nyip-'
    "Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Bruce rushed into the room. "When will you screwheads learn not to play with things that aren't yours!" He slammed the stop button down, and looked around furtively.
    The whole cabin started to shake. Several small tasteless vases fell off a previously unseen shelf. The moose head began to giggle. Scooby hid behind the rocking chair. Bruce started up his chainsaw. Suddenly, the baguette on the table flipped open. Hundreds of slices of tomatoes rolled onto the tabletop. They started to giggle, then rose a couple of inches into the air.
    "What the..." Shaggy muttered.
    Suddenly, the tomatoes spoke.
    "We are things that were and shall be once again." Said Tomato number 1.
    "We want what is yours." Said Tomato number 2.
    "Life." Said Tomato number 3.
    "Life." Said Tomato number 4.
    "Dead by dawn." Said Tomato number 5.
    "Dead by dawn." Said Tomato number 6.
    "Dead by dawn." Said Tomato number 5 again.
    "Dead by dawn." Said Tomato number 6 again.
    "Dead by dawn." Said Bruce.
    Everyone turned to look at him in confusion.
    "Hey, it's kinda catchy!" He defended himself with a shrug.
    Then every tomato there began to chant in unison.
    "I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!"
    "Christ, their conversation leaves a lot to be desired." Giles muttered.
    "Tell me about it." Bruce agreed. "But for a vegetable, it's impressive."
    "Actually, they're fruit - they have seeds." The moose head objected.
    "Enough!" Bruce screamed. He revved the chainsaw to full speed, and lay into the tomatoes. Red ketchup-like goo flew everywhere, covering them all from head to toe. Shaggy joined in, stamping on the tomatoes enthusiastically. Giles picked up a heavy book and began to squash the tomatoes on the table. Finally, all the rogue salad items had been destroyed. The room looked like the scene of a blood bath, with red splashes everywhere. All five of them, including the moose head, looked as if they had been swimming in bolognaise sauce.
    "Go on," Giles said reluctantly. "You know you want to."
    Bruce grinned. "Groovy!"
    Without warning, the book Giles had used to battle evil flew out of his hands and started to flap around the room. It circled above the group, then dived down and attached itself to Giles' face rather like the young alien in the popular series of Alien films.
    "Look! He has a book attached to his face rather like the young alien in the popular series of Alien films." Shaggy pointed out unnecessarily.
    "Aagh!" Came a muffled shout of agony from Giles.
    "What do we do about someone with a book attached to their face rather like the young alien in the popular series of Alien films?" Bruce asked.
    "What did they do in the films?" Shaggy wondered.
    "I don't know, I didn't see any of them." The moose head complained. "I got banned from the cinema because-"
    "Hello! In case you'd forgotten, I have a book attached to my face rather like the young alien in the popular series of Alien films. Now, could someone please help me before we get yet another pointless running gag?!" Giles shouted at the group.
    Shaggy took the initiative, and pulled the book away from the ex-librarian. He dropped it to the floor, where it landed with a dull thud.
    "What's an ex?" Bruce asked.
    "Huh?" Replied everyone.
    "I mean, whatever they are, why do they need a librarian? Can you borrow them?"
    Giles turned round and punched him in the nose.
    "Why you-" Bruce snarled, but was stopped as he noticed the table was starting to shake. There was an expectant hush. Then the knife flew up in the air and flew towards Bruce. He was too slow to stop it, and it flew straight through his neck in a shower of blood. Bruce's body stood resignedly, one hand trying to stop the bleeding from his neck, and his head fell with a loud splodgy noise.
    You know what's coming next, don't you?
    "YOU DIRTY BASTARDS!" He screamed. "GIVE ME BACK MY BODY!"
    There was silence. They all looked at each other.
    Suddenly Velma rushed in, chased by Bruce's missing hand.
    "Shaggy! There you are! You'll never believe what happened! I was in the kitchen and suddenly I felt something! I looked, and there was this hand in my knickers! Doing things you couldn't ever imagine!"
    "Heh heh heh!" Giggled the horny hand.
    "My God! How terrible for you!" Giles responded, shocked.
    "Err... Yes..." Velma replied, not looking particularly traumatised.
    "Son of a bitch!" Bruce's head rolled, with some difficulty, and peered at his hand.
    "Now that you have your hand back, what are you going to do?" The moose head asked.
    "I'm gonna sew it back on!" Bruce said triumphantly.
    "That wont work."
    "No, but then neither would replacing your hand with a chainsaw."
    "Point taken." The moose head admitted. "But not only was there a reason you cut it off in the first place, I'd say it was a rather moot point now, wouldn't you?"
    "Err... That wasn't very well thought out was it?"
    "No."
    "I tell you what," Velma interrupted. "I'll take it home with me, use it for um, experimental purposes."
    "All yours baby." Bruce said, looking at the hand.
    The hand scampered up to her shoulder, and began to tickle behind her ear. Giggling, she turned to the door, then stopped. "One other thing." She reached to the tape player, sent it crashing to the floor, and stamped on it until it was in pieces. "Problem solved."
    "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?" Bruce cursed.
    "Because you're an idiot." Velma explained, then left, followed by the dopehead and his dog.
    Bruce's body sank into the rocking chair.
    "Would you stop doing that?" Giles complained.
    "What?"
    "Sinking into the rocking chair. You've done that far too often in this parody."
    "Well, what else could I do?" Bruce's head frowned.
    "Well, you could 'recline', 'fall', 'descend', 'drop', 'lower yourself'-" The moose head supplied helpfully.
    "Whatever." Giles interrupted. "I'm off to find a plot..."