Introduction

Socrates: Tell me, O Meno, whether pulp fiction is something good, or if not good, can it be something worthwhile, or at least entertaining? And if any of these are true is it something that comes to human beings by publication or some other way? Meno: It is not hard to tell, Socrates. First we must know what the virtue of a pulp story is. If it’s the virtue of hard boiled crime you want, it’s easiest to say that it’s this you want: a detective who does well to his friends and manages the affairs of dangerous dames and crimes, and a nemesis who does harm to his enemies, and the detective who avoids the twists and turns of convoluted plot points. And if it’s the virtue of a space opera that you want, that’s not too hard. It is to manage well the breaking of the laws of physics and to boldly go where no man has gone before. And the virtue of horror, and of fantasy, and of parody, and light poetry, and there are a great many other genres, so that there is no difficulty in knowing what the virtue of pulp fiction is. Socrates: I have asked you for a definition, and you have given me The Swarm. Meno: Yes I have.

In this exciting issue…

Bloodcurdling tales from beyond the grave in: The Séance, by Kurt T. Strom! A deleted scene from senior prank!

The electronic adventure of Amber the Cat-Rabbit! ...and much more!

The Séance Kurt T. Strom Lyle never believed in ghosts, ghouls, goblins or God for that matter. For that reason, when he was invited to a late night séance by acquaintances from his work, he was reluctant to join them. It was only after he found out Linda Stevenson was going that he quickly agreed to meet his new friends that Friday night, at Gold Cemetery. Gold Cemetery was neither golden nor a cemetery. It was a graveyard. Lyle knew the difference between the two; a graveyard was usually small, serviced a single town or church and was no longer in use. A cemetery was larger, interred more people and was still used. Lyle knew this difference because he came from a long line of either gravediggers and morticians. Lyle himself aspired to something more, but always felt as if it was a destiny he could never truly escape. When Lyle first arrived at the cemetery he found that there were four people there in total: Linda Stevenson, Axel Winters, Andrew Willard and, of course, himself. “Only four people?” Lyle asked as he sat down on the ground forming a half-assed circle with his new friends. “I thought there’d only be three,” Axel responded. “I’m surprised you showed up. I heard you don’t believe in any of this stuff.” “Who me? Oh, you know I love the strange and unexplainable.” Lyle said, feigning a smile at Linda who nodded in approval. “Then you will be pleased this evening. Tonight the four of us are going to contact the most notorious ghost in these parts,” Andrew began. “The ghost of…The Bloody Bastard.” Lyle was confused, he had never heard of any ghosts in his town let alone any with such a ridiculous name. “The Bloody who? What?” Lyle asked, attempting to remember if he had heard anything about this strange figure. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Bloody Bastard,” said Axel “The most famous ghost in the town. Everyone knows the story!” “Not me,” Lyle retorted with an air of confidence, knowing that the others must have been playing a trick on him. He never heard of any such thing from his father, grandfather or great-grandfather, all of whom were noted storytellers. “Well,” Andrew began “every tenth of June, especially if there’s a full moon, the Bloody Bastard roams Gold Cemetery…” Lyle felt the need to interrupt.“Graveyard. It’s a graveyard, because, well, you know…never mind.” “Anyway,” Axel picked up the story from where Andrew left off, “four-hundred years ago, when this

town was run by Puritans, a woman had an affair, and a child out of wedlock. For that crime the Village elders condemned the woman and her lover to death. They were burned at the stake. And the child, the bastard child, was forced to live in the dirty town orphanage, where he was beaten, mocked and tortured daily because, after all, Puritans had no love for bastard children.” “I’m listening,” Lyle said, his head propped up by his hand. “Well, after he came of age he was released from the orphanage, but he was a cold-hearted man, intent for revenge on those who wronged him.” “What did he do?” Lyle asked, gaining interest in the story, though he still did not believe a word of it. “Why, what would you do in that situation? He murdered all the village elders, burning them alive as they had burned his parents many years before, and thus condemned himself to a hellish existence.” Andrew anxiously chimed in “Now get to the best part, the part about the burial and…” He was quickly interrupted by Linda who called out, “Shut up!” She then turned back to Axel and asked him to proceed with the story. “Ah, yes, when he was finally caught the townspeople had to decide what to do with this ‘Bloody Bastard’. The elders were dead, and no one could judge him. So they formed a lynch-mob and dragged him out into the street, blinding him, burning him and burying him alive, in this cemetery, in an unmarked grave.” Andrew was shaking with giddiness. “Oooh, this is the best part. Are you listening Lyle?” “Yes, I’m listening.” Lyle said, slightly annoyed at how giddy Andrew was acting. It was only a ghost story, and a rather clichéd one at that. Axel continued the story, “So, because he was blinded, he couldn’t find his way to hell, and he roams the earth, searching for his body, or a body he can possess.” With that, Axel finished the story and leaned back, as if telling the story had exhausted him in one way or another. “Wow, that story gets better every time, every time man, great story” Andrew applauded. “Yea, whatever. Seven generations of my family have not only worked in this town but in the towns’ graveyards and cemeteries; they’ve never mentioned

any “Bloody Bastard”, so to me, it’s just a bloody story” Linda spoke up “Tsk, tsk, tsk…remember the person who doesn’t believe always gets killed by the ghost.” She gave a quick laugh and Andrew and Axel followed. Lyle was less than amused, but kept it to himself. “Now now, don’t spoil the fun, Linda,” said Andrew. He then pulled a round object from his backpack. “What’s that thing?” Axel asked, looking at it quizzically. “This, my friends, is a soul orb, a soul communicator orb to be precise.” Andrew placed it in the center of the circle. Lyle moved to grasp the orb. “Yeah right. It looks like a bowling ball.” Andrew smacked his hand away before he could grab it. “It isn’t a bowling ball, you foolish unbeliever. Does anyone know that occult store on Billings Street?” A collective “no” came from the group. “Well, I got it there; the store owner said that it glows when a spirit wishes to make contact. Red when angry and green when content.” “Psh…I knew it, a scam alright” Lyle quickly grabbed the orb and examined it. “Where do you put the batteries in this thing?” he asked sarcastically. Andrew yanked it from his hands and placed it on the ground. “Don’t believe me? Just wait and see. Who wants to ask the first question?” “I will” Axel responded, clearing his throat. “Bloody Bastard, did that story I told make you happy?” The Orb began to glow a dim, fluorescent green. “This is so awesome,” Andrew blurted out. All Lyle could say was “Oh brother, are you all idiots.” At that the Orb began to glow red, blood red. It began thumping on the ground, bouncing under its own power, levitating and shaking in mid air. “Hey cut it out, it ain’t funny anymore!” Lyle said, covering his eyes, shielding them from the orb’s intense glow. “I ain’t doin’ anything. You just pissed off the Bloody Bastard, man!” Andrew shouted. The orb grew brighter, levitated higher and began making a pulsing, heart beat sound that started soft but grew louder. A few seconds later the orb exploded into a ball of flame. Lyle ducked for cover behind an old gravestone with Linda. Lyle began to breath normally again and the events of the past ten seconds played in his mind over and over. As he went over those scenes he began to laugh to himself. He turned his head around the stone to see where the “séance” had occurred. He laughed again, louder this time. The space was clear, tranquil, not at all the domain of a vengeful, murderous ghost.

“What’s so funny?” Linda asked. “You and I. We were so foolish to fall for their prank.” “Prank? What do you mean?” “Oh, come on. ‘The Bloody Bastard?’ I knew that was nothing but a farce.” “Farce?” Linda asked as she brought her hand down on Lyle’s shoulder. “Oh, Lyle, how can you still be so dense?” “What are you talking about?” Lyle asked as he looked down at her hand and then back up at her. “I admit, their story was a bit fantastical, but what can one expect after a story has been circulating for over three-hundred years? Don’t get me wrong, there was a bastard child, but she was not blinded. No, she has perfect eyes to see her victims. How could it be otherwise?” Before Lyle could respond to her rather puzzling remark, he felt her grip grow tighter on his shoulder. He turned down to look at her hand once again, it had changed, and it was far more claw-like, with a thin layer of yellow and scarred flesh stretched over claw-like fingers. Her fingernails were cracked or broken off entirely. Breathless, Lyle shifted his gaze from her hand to her face. Her face, too, had changed; her hair was all but gone, replaced by a scalp that seemed freshly burned. Her eyes, once a pleasant blue, were bloodshot. Linda laughed and brought her other hand up to his shoulder. “Now do you believe in ghosts Lyle?” she asked with a contorted grin, flashing crooked and bloodstained teeth at him. Before he could even respond, she had set herself upon him. Even if he could have screamed, he wouldn’t have. That would giving the ghosts what they wanted, and Lyle didn’t believe in those sorts of things.

A Senior Prank Deleted Scene Jason Ritzke, Daniel Dausman

[CAMERON, DAUSMAN, JACK and RITZKE enter, holding strange objects] JACK Assemble the candidates, so that they may hear the sacred liturgy! [The candidates are assembled] DAUSMAN Before the fall of Atlantis the Earth was ruled by reptilians from outer space. These godlike beings stood astride the world for a duration of a million bozars, or about three weeks, before they were utterly destroyed in a cataclysm caused by the atomic swerve. But before they fell, their written wisdom was carried to ancient Egypt (where they kept their spaceship landing pads) and become known to all the great minds of antiquity, such as Homer, Plato, and Alcibiades. King Solomon himself hid the last written copy under the Temple in Jerusalem, where it was mistaken for bathroom literature for over a thousand years before being rediscovered by the Knights of Saint John in the First Crusade as foretold by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. Their plans to bring enlightenment to the world were thwarted when Jerusalem was lost through the perfidy of the Knights Templar, and the Knights of Saint John were hounded through Europe by the Templars and their successors, the Freemasons and the Bavarian Illuminati. But they persevered, and after helping King William of Orange to the English throne to thwart the papist Stuart conspiracy he rewarded them with a haven in the New World. CAMERON Enter Samuel Kutler, an Elder of the illustrious order of the Knights of St. John, who, at the time of the chartering of King William's school, established a branch there as “The Esoteric Order of Leo Strauss”, uttering for the first time the holy words “I knew a man once...”. Not long did the order go unmolested, however, before the rise of the United States threatened the Knights of St. John, its new leaders consisting largely of freemasons. The Order, throwing in its lot with the anti-freemason party, wheathered the storm, but public opinion of the party waned, and we were forced into the public form

of a mere frat. Further humiliation awaited us in the 60's, when the fraternities of St. John's were forced out of existence by secret actions of the Rothchilds and Swiss Bankers. We persisted in secrecy, and now, our time is come again, as we see a resurgence in the in freshman seduced by esoteric philosophy, due largely to the actions of that great and most incomprehensible of philosophers, Ayn Rand. RITZKE Only four have ever been in the inner circle of our order, one from each year, so as to maintain a perfect ratio of unity. Bring forth the candidates, that they may participate in the trials of the mind. RITZKE [asking stage questions of the candidates] Can virtue be taught, and if so by what tutors? What are Aristotle's secret guidelines for the prophetic reading of a sheep pluck? What is the 3rd person plural hortatory subjunctive of luo? What is the exact text of Kant's 3rd antinomy? Suppose truth were a woman? What then? [Regardless of answer, all of these earn a sudden “wrong” and a stage slap] RITZKE Since you have all failed abysmally the trials of the mind, we shall now subject you to a trial of the flesh. Bring forth the fleshpot! [Plastic containers of meat are set on stage] At the bottom of this chum bucket are the keys of Adam Smith. It is said that he who holds them will command the almighty invisible hand. He who retrieves them shall become our new initiate. Get them! [DAUSMAN, aside, whilst the candidates are rooting through the chum bucket] You know, that meat is %100 dis-enabled sophomores. You might even say that it's your old school chum. [candidate retrieves the keys] JACK In order to consecrate your induction into our most sacred order, and to celebrate our emergence, we will perform our most sacred ritual. Bro Cameron, bring forth the sacrificial prospie! CAMERON

We don’t have any prospies on senior prank night. Incidentally, I don’t think the administration likes it when we sacrifice them before they pay their tuition. JACK What! We always pay the fine on time! What are we going to do now? CAMERON It seems appropriate, on this special occasion, to make a more exalted sacrifice. [DAUSMAN snickers] [CAMERON, DAUSMAN and JACK turn to RITZKE] RITZKE Oh no. [DAUSMAN points off-stage] DAUSMAN Look, over there! [RITZKE, distracted]: What? [CAMERON, DAUSMAN and JACK stab RITZKE]

JACK The sacrifice has been made. With the purified blood of this enlightened senior we bring you into the inner sanctum of our order and celebrate our orders emergence into the new dawn that awaits us! [The cult members throw off their uniforms, revealing their frat-boy outfits.] JACK Bro DAUSMAN, Beer me! [DAUSMAN hands Jack a beer. Jack steps to center stage and raises both his beer and sword above his head.] JACK Welcome, unenlightened wretches, to our new world! [to CAMERON] Perform the Cartesian mind trick, so that these proles do not remember our presence. [CAMERON, waving his hands at the audience]: You will doubt you ever saw this! [CAMERON, DAUSMAN and JACK exit dragging RITZKE]

The Cat-Rabbit Kevin Finson’s fairy tale for those fond of quantum mechanics Once upon a time there was a rabbit. Her name was Amber (or Ἤλεκτρον). Amber was a very peculiar rabbit. In fact, she might not be a rabbit at all. This the story of a journey she once took, originally described in our Senior Lab Manual…

Amber’s story begins in the laboratory of a scientist named Mr. Thomson; although Mr. Thomson didn’t call her Amber, he called her by a different name. Amber had to be discovered in a laboratory, you see, not simply observed in the wild like our ordinary quad-bunnies. This was because Amber is very small. In fact, she is many, many times smaller than anything you have ever seen. Unfortunately, the only way Mr. Thomson could observe a rabbit as small as Amber is was to gather her up with lots of her little friend-rabbits and throw them all across the room very, very fast. Amber didn’t like this very much, so she left Mr. Thomson behind and went to meet someone else.

Several years later, Amber met a man called Mr. Millikan. Mr. Millikan did not engage in any of this silly throwing rabbits about, but rather observed Amber by letting her ride up and down on a very small drop of oil between two electrically charged plates, sometimes for hours at a time. By doing this

over and over again and measuring how long it took Amber’s oil drop to go up and down Mr. Millikan made an amazing discovery. Amber was the fundamental unit of electrical charge! This means that Amber is the smallest electrical charge anywhere in the world and that all charges are multiples of her. Isn’t that an amazing thing for a rabbit to be?

Eventually all that going up and down on oil drops gave Amber a stomachache, so she thought it was time to continue her journey. She next met a man named Mr. Rutherford, who told her that she shouldn’t run around by herself so much, but should rather run in circles around a much larger nucleus. Then she met a man named Mr. Bohr, who said she mustn’t run around the nucleus any way she liked, but now had to travel in certain paths at definite distances from the nucleus and wasn’t allowed to travel through the space in between these paths. Amber was confused by this, so she went looking for someone else to explain it to her.

Along the way she met a man named Mr. de Broglie who said she should be more like a cat, just because she had a cousin named Photon who seemed to be cat-like some of the time. Then Mr. de Broglie explained further that what she ought to do was spend all her time following around a very strange sort of cat which insisted on traveling faster than the speed of light. Now Amber can run very fast, as far as rabbits go, but no rabbit can go faster than the speed of light. That would be absurd! Amber got tired of trying to follow this absurd cat around all day, so she went looking for help from somebody else.

Unfortunately for Amber, this notion of a cat just would not go away. Mr. Schrodinger thought that Amber may have really been a cat (or even a group of cats) all along, and Mr. Davisson even saw Amber climb a tree.

Surely, you may say, rabbits don’t climb trees! But all along now we’ve been thinking that Amber was a rabbit. Is it possible that our friend the rabbit is really cat? Mr. Davisson didn’t think so, he even wrote down a list of all the reasons we have for knowing that she is a rabbit. Sadly, our Senior Lab manual here at St. John’s College sees fit to omit this portion of Mr. Davisson’s paper, so I will have to guess that he saw Amber doing something perfectly rabbit-like and not at all cat-like, such as eating lettuce. This tree-climbing business was still problematic, though, and led Mr. Davisson to declare that not only might Amber be a cat, but certain cats we know might be rabbits.

Now Amber was more confused than ever. The last scientist she met on her journey was a man named Mr. Heisenberg. Mr. Heisenberg was a very strange man who told her that she was both a cat and a rabbit (although never at the same time). He devised an experiment where Amber had to first climb two trees (maybe at the same time) and then eat some lettuce, in order to prove his point. Because of this he said it was impossible to know where Amber was and how fast she was moving at the same time. At best one could determine Amber’s probability of being anywhere by asking the squared amplitude of a partially imaginary cat named Ψ. Even worse, now nobody was allowed to talk about anything happening to Amber when she wasn’t being looked at in Mr. Heisenberg’s apparatus: things could only happen to her when he was watching. Finally, Amber ran away from Mr. Heisenberg and found herself in the clutches of a three-headed monster! The three-headed monster was called The EPR, and he wasn’t really very monstrous. It’s just that when you have three heads everyone assumes you must be a monster, because if you weren’t a monster you would only have one head. Now The EPR thought that everything Mr. Heisenberg said was really quite silly and that he obviously hadn’t finished explaining Amber properly. Surely a complete account of a rabbit would tell you both where the rabbit is and how fast the rabbit is moving, The EPR said. This was when one of The EPR’s heads uttered the immortal words, “God does not make cat-rabbits and then play dice with them.”

The EPR spent many years arguing furiously with Mr. Heisenberg, Mr. Bohr, and many other people about this. Unfortunately they all made so much noise with their shouting at one another that Amber got scared (as both cats and rabbits are wont to do) and ran straight out of the Senior Laboratory, leaving this Johnnie, for one, still very confused about what she is.

Time Enough To Bleed Leonard Franks WARNING: The images described below may strike some with a cold terror that reaches deep into the bones; others may faint or be driven to madness. I assure you that this timeline is not a prediction; it is merely a possibility. A terrifying, terrifying possibility. 2012: The apocalypse comes. The sky turns to fire, the air to water, the earth to sky, and the water to blood. Two collections of humans survive the slaughter. One is in Santa Fe. The other is in Annapolis. 2013: The students of the two colleges notice that something has happened outside of the protective Johnny bubble. Graduated seniors are concerned for

the lack of jobs, and the administration realizes that the complete lack of human population will drastically reduce admissions. 2015: The graduated classes begin to establish a primitive infrastructure curiously rich in massage therapists. The administration tries to encourage students to mate for the sake of future generations. In this endeavor, condoms are removed from halls,

rooms are shrunken, and The Oresteia is dropped from the program. People choose not to ask how the dining hall continues to serve food. 2017: Among the dangers of humanity without laws, the Annapolis students choose a sovereign and form a kingdom based on the principals of Thomas Hobbes. The Santa Fe students, who thanks to excessive marijuana use are more or less immune to the dangers of humanity without laws, split into graduated classes and form a republic based on Plato. The two communities live peacefully, but separately. 2018: The last students graduate from both campuses. While awaiting the next freshman class, the campuses build up a monopoly on books, thus establishing themselves as quasi-religious powers. The President is officially given the power to marry graduates. 2019: The infrastructures of both campuses improve. Pastries and couches are invented. Diplomatic relations, however, remain cold. 2023: The golden age of the two colleges is reached. Literature and philosophy flourish. People begin to believe that the St. John’s college education, with its focus on improving the students, may actually lead to a superior world. They are wrong. 2024: Inevitably, war breaks out between Santa Fe and Annapolis. Ostensibly it is a question of defending land, but it is well known that it in fact concerns whose Ptolemy stone is cooler. After a meeting, it is decided that the war will be decided by a giant game of Spartan Madball. Unfortunately, due to the lack of official rules, the game drags on for three years.

2027: Officially, peace is declared, marked by a huge both college seminar about Wittgenstein. Reconstruction begins. 2028: Reconstruction ends. The Johnny mentality is suddenly unleashed in full blast by the end of the war, which people see as a triumph of reason. Productive labor is completely replaced by the search for truth, virtue, or a proof that those seeking truth and virtue are morons. Meanwhile, penguins in Antarctica form a representative democracy, but that is a different story. 2029: Society begins to fragment. Since all of the people are educated in the art of taking radically different philosophies on equal footings, most of the breaks are on entirely petty grounds, but with nothing but rational discourse and debate to heal the wounds, they are not healed. 2030: A very brief period of union is created when a group of elders conquers the entire polity. But due to drunkenness and poor administration, this mayfly government perishes one day after it was created. This bloodless revolution is known as Senior Prank. 2032: It has now become practically impossible to hold a meaningful conversation without spending at least an hour beforehand defining terms. There is no system of law except for trust in the virtue of the citizens. Unfortunately, all of the people have read through the texts of senior year. Mass chaos erupts along with a complete apathy towards it. One student described life aptly as “solitary, poor, nasty, literate, and short.” 2033: A freshman year class arrives at St. John’s and is immediately isolated by the Johnnie bubble. Are they the new hope of the world, or the promise of worse to come?

Draft of a Failed Twilight Zone Script Marco Damiano (Opening shot of a college campus. A man walks up the stairs to the quad and crosses into the dining hall. After he getting his food he sits down at a table full of people talking. A girl sees him sit down.) GIRL: Let's ask Billy. What do you think Billy? (Billy looks up from his food) BILLY: Huh? Think about what? GIRL: The quadium bomb. What else? (Billy looks away.)

BILLY: I don't really follow the news. GIRL: Well they say it's over a thousand times more powerful than the A-bomb. (Billy stares out the window looking disinterested). BILLY: Really. GIRL: Yeah! They say it-(Suddenly Billy's eyes widen. Cut to the wall of the dining hall. It looks different then before, now it is blown to pieces and outside is

showing, also looking desolate and blasted. Cut back to the girl talking.) GIRL: -blow up a continent!...Are you ok? (Billy shakes his head and looks at the wall again. It is back to normal. Billy turns to the girl confusedly.) BILLY: Yeah, yeah Gwen, I'm fine...must not have gotten enough sleep. What were you saying. GWEN: Just that they say that quadium has three neutrons and no protons or electrons, and that's how it has such tremendous power. (Suddenly another boy chimes in.) BOY: And I've been trying to tell her that's ridiculous! Such an element would be too unstable to exist- (The table again explodes into conversation. Billy gradually begins to look more comfortable. Move camera to Rod Serling standing to the right of the table, smoking a cigarette. He looks at the camera.) ROD: Meet Billy Wachowski, a young boy living in an old world. A world of bricks and books and perhaps even bombs. But soon enough Billy Wachowski will find out just how old his world is, a discovery that can only be made in...The Twilight Zone. (Cut to Billy walking down the steps to a field later. As he reaches the bottom step he pauses. Cut to a scene of him and Gwen on the field looking up.) GWEN: It's a beautiful night. (Cut back to Billy, once again shaking his head vigorously and mumbling.) BILLY: Really need to get some sleep. (Cut to Billy lying in bed that night. He stares up at the ceiling for a few minutes recalling the images he saw. Finally he rolls over and attempts to fall asleep.) (Shot of the next day. Billy and his friends are walking to across the field to a building.) BOY 1: I can't tell you guys how excited I am for this. I haven't had time to relax in ages. BOY 2: I hear ya, it's been nothing but work work work lately. This party is what everyone needed. (Billy nods his head.) BILLY: Yeah, should be good. BOY 1: What, that's all you have to say? “Should be good.”

BOY 2: Yeah Billy, I figured you would be more excited. (Billy looks at him questioningly). BILLY: What are you talking about. (Boy 1 gives Billy knowing look). BOY 1: Come on, you think we haven't noticed. BILLY: Noticed what? BOY 2: Oh don't play dumb with us Billy. The way she's been looking at you, the way you two have been spending time together, what do you think we're talking about? You and Gwen. You know she'll be here. (Billy smiles quietly and shakes his head). BILLY: Knock it off guys, we're almost there. (They enter into a large room full of people socializing. The party is fairly tame but some are drinking and it is hard to hear over the music and the talking. Billy and his friends go over to the food table and start talking to some people. Gwen is with her friends in a corner. Billy looks at her, she glances his way as she is talking. The party goes on for awhile and as it does so the two continue to share glances.) (It is night now, the party is still going on. Billy is now alone talking to someone else while Gwen sits on the couch, still with friends. He looks like he is barely paying attention to the man, who is holding a beer and seems somewhat drunk.) MAN: So, so, so I tells him, I tells him that it's a lovely house, shame that it's going to get destroyed soon though. (Billy, suddenly attentive, turns to the man). BILLY: What do you mean. MAN: Whadyamean, whadyamean? Haven't you heard? With this new U-bomb thingamajig, or was it V-Bomb? W-Bomb? BILLY: Q-bomb. MAN: Anyway, with is new Y-bom thingamajig, it's only a matter of time before we all die. Might as well live it up now, that's what I always says. (The man staggers a bit before holding up his foaming beet and takes a drink from it.) MAN: Did you know that they say it can wipe out a whole continent. And even if the Russians or the Iranians or Chinese don't get it they can't be too happy that we do. Yesiree, only a matter of time I say. Only a matter of time until a loud sound flying overhead and then Bo-(Billy angrily interrupts.)

BILLY: Shut up! Will you please, shut up! (Suddenly everything stops, and all the guests turn to look at Billy.) I was having a pleasant time, no troubles, and then you had to come with your stupid doomsday tales! (The man looks taken aback.) MAN: Sorry man, I was just trying to make- (Billy does not stop). BILLY: There is no Q-bomb, and there is no threat of nuclear annihilation! That ended years ago, can't you see that you drunken buffoon! Do I have to spell it out for you people! Read my lips. THERE. IS. NO. QUADIUM. BOMB! (He stops and looks around, noticing how everyone is looking at him. He stops when he sees Gwen staring as well. Billy quickly turns around and storms out, grabbing his coat on the way. Cut to Billy standing on the grass looking at the sky.) GWEN: Hey. (Billy turns around. Gwen is standing behind him. He looks at the ground.) BILLY: Hey. (Gwen also looks downward). GWEN: I...I saw what happened in there. (She look at him( Wanna talk about it? BILLY: Not really. GWEN: Oh. Ok (She looks sadly downwards again.) BILLY: It's just...just- (Gwen stares at him expectantly. After a few minutes Billy starts to look at the sky again and sighs.) It's just that things are going so well. School is good, friends are good, I even have a chance at...at...(He looks at Gwen. She does not look away)...at having a bright future. (Billy starts to get really worked up) And now all I hear about is “Quadium bomb this. Continental destruction that.” It's infuriating. I was hoping to get away from it at the party tonight, and I was before that....that...that drunken oaf got involved, and now I made a fool of myself in front of everyone, in front of yo- (Gwen kisses Billy on the lips. They separate and Billy looks at her dumbfounded.) GWEN: Billy, shut up. BILLY: Yes ma'am. (He pulls her in for a longer kiss. Finally they separate. Gwen looks slightly embarrassed and looks down while Billy looks away.)

BILLY: So.... GWEN: Yeah...(After a few minutes of awkward silence Billy smiles and looks at the stars. Gwen eventually does the same. They watch in silence for a while. Then overheard the sound of airplanes are heard.) GWEN: It's a beautiful night. BILLY: Yeah, you said it. (Suddenly Billy's eyes grow wide. He turns and looks at Gwen, who is still transfixed on the sky.) BILLY: What....what did you just say? (Suddenly there is a loud explosion and the earth shakes viokently.) (Cut to morning. Billy is wearing the same clothes, now looking disheveled and ripped. He stands up to find the campus destroyed, looking quite like how he saw it in the dining hall. Where Gwen was there now is a pile of rubble. Show Billy wandering around, dumbstruck and shocked. As he makes his way up the steps to the quad though the buildings start to change into more and more how they used to look in the first scene, and Billy becomes less and less shocked. Finally as he walks to the top things look as they once did, and Billy looks normal, in dress and demeanor. As he enters the dining hall people slowly begin to form out of nothing. By the time he gets his food the building is full of noise. He sits down at a table and a girl looks at him.) GIRL: Let's ask Billy. What do you think Billy? (Billy smiles.) (Move to Rod Serling, who is standing nearby with hands behind in his pockets. He turns to address to the camera.) ROD: There you have it folks. Billy Wachowski was boy who dreamed of a bright future. A future free of war, death, and all the things in between. A world where he could live with those closest to him in peace. What he got was the next best thing. He got a future so bright it blinded him to the past; a past which he now relives, day after day, week after week, in...The Twilight Zone.

Hardin Loveless: Campus Security Officer A defective tale by Jack Farrell Name’s Hardin Loveless. I’m an Officer with the SJCPS (Saint John’s College Public Safety), one of the toughest beats this side of the Mason Dixon. Yeah, I been working the night shift here since the fall of ’87, ever since the case at SJU went bad. But I don’t like to think about that night…Nights on the SJC beat can get pretty heavy. Writing up drunken freshman and letting people back into their dorm rooms ain’t the cakewalk that it sounds like, let me tell you, buster. I remember once I had to walk all the way from Gilliam to McDowell alone when my walkie-talkie was out of batteries. That meant I had no way to call for backup, and nothing to protect me but the snow boots my grandmother gave me for Chanukah. This wasn’t high-school security I was dealing with, this was the real deal. This was the SJC. I did a lot for the polity, and it asked for a lot. Protecting the law was what I was born for, and the SJC called out for defense. Every night I answer that call. April 14th was a night like that. I was sittin’ in my office (well it was the security office, but I would have my own office if the college could afford the space), sipping a cup of coffee. It was a lonely night that night, and the coffee was stale. It was as cold and stale as my feelings for my ex-wife Janine. A tall, thin blonde walked in, sashaying the two feet from the door to my desk. Well, she would have been tall, thin and blonde, if she weren’t a short, stocky redhead. She had a look on her face that would bring a centipede to its knees. All two hundred of them. I had seen it before and I knew exactly what it meant: she had a case for me. Her voice eked out like an alto’s song during freshman chorus. “Uh, hey. I lost my keycard, and I was wondering if maybe somebody found it and turned it in here?” This was a sob story I’d heard a hundred times before in a thousand different languages, and I knew just how to deal with it. I put my coffee down and gave the girl a long, hard stare, just to let her know she wasn’t dealing with no two-bit street walker. I’d been spun over by too many fast-talkers to be played for a patsy by some college girl. I was the real deal, and she was about to find out. “So kid,” I said, laying on the Bogart real thick, “Someone biffed your cud, and now you’re on my turf looking for sanctuary. Well before you come running into my office like a French hunchback, let me lay something down for you: you go thinkin’ you can lay me out you better turn right around and march back to the Court of Miracles, cause this gargoyle don’t sing. So go

ahead and start talkin’, but watch what you say or you won’t be ringing that bell come senior year.” The dame was as dumbstruck as that deer that I hit in my Fiat last week. “Uh, okay. Maybe I should just…come back later.” Now I had the broad roped like a Christmas tree on the roof of my car. She knew where she stood, and the only thing left was to put her in my living room and cover her in dangly lights. “Hold up there, kid. Let’s have you sit down and spill your sob story. Maybe before the night’s out I can break some appropriate heads and find you a new place to set your jives.” The skirt was still as confused as a Frenchman in a soap store, but she wasn’t going anywhere. She knew the best Security Officer on the beat was sitting in front of her in his vomit-proof boots, and she knew I was the only hope she had of getting justice in this town. “Well,” she said, “it’s just like I said before. I lost my keycard, and I thought maybe someone found it and turned it in here. My name is Alex Vance, and I’m a Junior.” I gave the kid another one of my patented scrutinizing stares (Okay, I admit the patent is pending, but you still can’t use it without written authorization). Alex Vance? Seemed legit. I’d seen enough fake IDs and heard enough pseudonyms to be able to tell when someone was trying to pull one over on me. “Okay kid. I’ll see what I can do.” I opened my (okay, the school’s) desk, and started looking through the keycards that had been turned into the PS in the past week. Second from the top was the oven-jockey that had just recently stalked her way into the office. I slid it across the desk for her, making sure to watch her hands for any tricks. “You’re in luck, kiddo. Looks like your story is straight. Here’s your key to the kingdom. Now don’t let me see you around here again unless you’re obeying the law.” Ms. Vance grabbed the card and left the office, looking confused. She was probably wondering how I was able to solve her case so quickly. But that was my job. I close cases. I protect the polity. Because I’m Hardin Loveless: Campus Security. And this was just the beginning.