The Return Of The Thing

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The Script For Today's Comic!

RETURN OF THE THING

SCENE:
It is late at night at a laboratory somewhere, with medical instruments and assorted lab stuff strewn over the tables. Through a window, we can see a full moon. Two young lab assistants are talking to each other, trading stories on All Hallows' Eve, and looking scared despite the fact that it's the night shift.

LAB1: ...and then I had to put his eye back in.

LAB2: MAN, that's creepy.

LAB1: That's my scariest real-life Halloween story. So what's yours?

LAB2: I’ll tell it. But don't blame me when you can’t sleep tonight...

(CUT TO: Guy working at a vet.)

LAB2 (Box): I was working the late-night shift at the vet's when this crazy leather guy kicks in the doors, SLATHERED in blood.

(And Tanner, just like he did at Tom's house, kicks in the door, a possum in his arms. Except, this being a Halloween story and being told from an outsider's perspective, Tanner is fcking terrifying, with all the details wrong. We cannot see what he is holding, not yet.)

TANNER: TAKE CARE OF THIS!

(Scene: Close-up of the possum, mangled and beaten and looking like an accident victim - not cute at all - flung on the desk carelessly atop of some papers and maybe a keyboard.)

LAB2 (Box): And the guy throws a mangled possum on my desk.

LAB1 (Box): He wanted you to KILL it?

LAB2 (Box): "Take care of it," he said. And from the looks of the thing, he'd been torturing it for hours and it wouldn't die.... I think it was some sex thing....

(Scene: Open bars in a window in back of the vet's. They are pulled open, just a bit, with a trail of blood leading up to and over it where the possum has escaped to freedom.)

LAB2: So I bring it in back to put it down. And when I turn my back, even though it was at death's door... It vanishes.

LAB2: And when I get back out the door to tell the guy... HE'S vanished.

(Cut back to lab techs.)

LAB1: So this maniac beat a possum half to death, wanted you to finish it off, and it ESCAPED?

LAB2: It was a ghost possum. And it wanders down the roads, a patch of skunk leather over where its left eye used to be... Seeking revenge on the man who crushed it. It could be out there now.

LAB1: That's scary.

LAB2: Hold me, Phil.

NEW!

Check out The Ferrett's new comic, My Name Is Might Have Been, co-written with World Fantasy Award-nominated author Catherynne M. Valente! Updated Mondays and Thursdays!

Ferrett Says

We decided to have a little fun with today’s strip; if you’re a new reader who’s lost, realize that this is a Rashomon-style retelling of some of the off-screen events in this storyline. The ultimate events taking place here are canon, even if the interpretation of those events by the characters within may be a little…. off.

And yes, we’ve had this planned all along. There’s more to this, oh yes.

In other news, today is the first day of the TopWebComics voting system, and I guarantee you – if you vote today, you will see breasts. Why are we promising breasts? Because voting today is the one shot we have to move into the Top 10, no matter how briefly, which gives us additional readers that we desperately need. So please – vote for us, in the droves that only you can provide, so that we may flourish and prosper and show you the many long-term storylines we have to offer.

Really. He’s comin’ back one day. Magical realism, here we frickin’ come.

Roni Says:

So. Much. Blood. This is one of my favorite strips thus far, despite being pretty time intensive.

But yes, please vote for us. There's more sex and violence where that came from.

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