Tourist Season (The Witch Challenge) (Fin)

[ForceFusion]

At Tiana's suggestion, I'm giving this its own thread. Tis a funny story. To understand some of the humor, you must understand LAP's "Witch Challenge." I will copy the challenge below.

 

 

I challenge someone to write a novella about a huge box full of Witches exploding over New York City. The explosion doesn't kill the Witches, but merely distributes them throughout the city, into each section, including the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. None of the five burroughs are Witch-Free, and it's safe to assume the amount in each one is about the same. I'm thinking about 600 Witches in each, for a grand total of 3,000 Witches. If you want to add more Witches in New Jersey, that is also acceptable, but that particular batch, or coven if you will, cannot exceed the regional Witch Quota anywhere else. I speculate that 3,600 Witches is an acceptable and doable amount, but only for the inclusion of Jersey.

 

IMPORTANT GUIDELINES

 

1. The Witches have to win.

 

2. The forces of good must lose, badly.

 

3. The main character has to be in the process of turning into a Witch. The story may end with this character just becoming a Witch, or at least that character must ALMOST be a Witch. The main character can be good or evil. I don't care which. (Pun)

 

4. The philsophical theme of "being" and "becoming" (a Witch) isn't manditory, but encouraged. It'll make your writing better this way. Trust me. I'm a professional.

 

5. A large many of the characters have to engage in drinking blood, or at least this story must include a flashback, of great significance to the story, in which many of the prominent characters, perhaps in child form, drink blood.

 

6. The Witches must be able to cast a spell called "Witch Blast" or there must be an instance of characters fighting a "Witch Elemental." I'm giving you two options, because I am encouraging creativity here. You'll thank me later.

 

© Witch Storm

 

Without further ado...

 

Tourist Season

 

There once was a young man named Lance Arthur Perez. He had never been to New York, until one summer, when he saved up all his money and flew there. The flight was long and he'd flown economy, so he hadn't slept a wink and didn't feel so good upon arrival. Stretching his legs he walked down the street next to the Empire State Building, watching the locals make and eat hot dogs and pizza and make generally unpleasant noises at each other (though he did find the accent quite infectious) when suddenly a box fell from the sky and slammed into the concrete before his feet. "What the?" he questioned.

 

The box was an ordinary box: cardboard and slightly stained possibly from coffee, possibly from wine (it was an old cardboard box, you know the type: had a couple hobos living in it in its days). But despite its utter ordinariness, there was something out of the ordinary about it, something that would perhaps be referred to as extra-ordinary.

 

Lance thought it slightly more than ordinary that the box stayed in tact after the obviously long fall. (Who was dropping boxes from atop the Empire State building, anyway? Kids these days, he might've grumbled if he'd been an elderly man. Alas, he was not, and henceforth, did not. Instead, he muttered...) "Extraordinary."

 

And indeed it was, for just at that moment (Lance had said the key word [that is, the word that works as the key to the box] without knowing it) the box burst open, and somewhere between 3,000 and 3,600 (there was a group still in the abyss that were debating if they wanted to visit New Jersey) beings came flying out of the box. The skins on the beings were noticeably greener than a normal human's skin might be (that being because their skin was, in fact, as green as the "green" crayon in the box, and I don't care how sea sick you get, no one's ever that green) and their noses were slightly larger and as misshapen as a minor-league hockey player who has perpetually played on the third-line. Only a few of them had warts (and they weren't the most modest [modestest?] of witches, if you catch my drift) (most witches despise the wart cliche that is so overdone by mainstream media, anyway).

 

The most striking thing about the witches though, was not their green skin, nor their misshapen noses, nor the occasional wart, nor even the brooms upon which they flew and the pointy hats which they wore, but instead their beautiful voices. Indeed, these were musical witches who had come to see Broadway and the other sites New York has to offer (the ones debating about New Jersey aren't musical but they do have relatives in Newark which they aren't entirely sure they want to visit). As Lance listened, he noticed that they were not singing in a strange, witchly language, but rather they were singing one English word over and over again. "Accursed! Accursed!" they sang to him, in quite melodious tones, tones so melodious that they did not match the generally ugliness of the word they sang nor the message behind it.

 

"Accursed?" Lance asked, at first to himself, but as his discomfort grew (mostly to the swarming witches), he began screaming his single-worded question quite loudly.

 

He was not paying attention to the music, but if he had been, he would have noticed that the song was going through its climactic swell, and would soon be over soon. When it did end, Lance's loud question rang awkwardly in the resulting silence. He smiled and bobbed his head in that embarrassed way that people smile and bob their heads.

 

Many of the witches were flying away, but a large number stuck around, and one friendly witch (who might've been pretty if it wasn't for the green and the nose [Does that make me shallow? Lance thought.]) landed to addressed him. "Yes, my friend, accursed. You are accursed! You are becoming a witch!"

 

"Well, I had studied a bit about neopaganism," he admitted.

 

"No, fool! A witch! Like us! Look," she cried as she shoved his hand into view.

 

"Ah!" he jumped. His hand was turning green! "What's this?!?"

 

"I told you," the witch replied impatiently. "You're turning into a witch."

 

"But I thought only women were witches."

 

"Common misconception. Men can be witches, too. How do you think we kept reproducing after all these years?"

 

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. What are you doing here, anyway?"

 

"Eh, we just come to see the sights."

 

Lance gaped.

 

"What, we witches have to have a holiday once in a while, too. We come during tourist season just like you humans!"

 

Astounded, Lance moved on. "How many of you are there?"

 

"Oh, about 3,000...unless," the witch looked down into the box. "Hey! You bunch decided yet?" she called impatiently.

 

"Give us a minute!" a stressed out voice answered from the abyss.

 

"Well hurry up! The box is closing soon!"

 

"Go close your own box!" (Non-musical witches have quite the inferiority complex about musical witches.)

 

"Yeesh. Anyway, you've just got a few hours before your one of us. Then I'll see about getting your hat and broom." She took off without another word.

 

"Uh, thanks?" he said, whilst hiding his green-turning hand.

 

Around him, New York was bursting into pandemonium. "They're everywhere! The Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, everywhere!" someone cried.

 

In a similar cry, someone else asked "Have they gotten to Newark?"

 

"Oh, crikey, would you all calm down," the box said, from the abyss. That was all the answer Lance heard.

 

"Look at them, they're wicked!" sang a concerned group. "No one mourns the wicked!"

 

Just then, a group of rowdy british men who looked and acted suspiciously like rowdy british men who would appear in a Monty Python sketch came onto the scene. "Witches! More witches!" they cried, attempting to grab the witches and pull them from the sky.

 

Lance tried to slink away from them, but then noticed a short, angry looking man pointing his finger like a vicious weapon who looked suspiciously like a man from a Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman novel. The man was muttering about killing witches. Lance, then, decided to try to play it cool. His hands were inside his jacket, after all.

 

Yet the Monty Python band spotted him and sensed something strange about him. They grabbed poor Lance before he could struggle and began hauling him away. He kicked and screamed, but couldn't do anything.

 

"He's a witch!"

 

"You're a witch!"

 

"We got a witch!"

 

They cried many things involving the word "witch" at him.

 

When they had gotten into a building (Lance didn't see where, as he was too busy struggling and attempting not to smell the men's breath), one of them finally said, "Well, he doesn't look much like a witch."

 

"Hmm...."

 

"Yes, well..."

 

There was a minute of long silence only broken by occasional mutterings similar to the above. "But he's a witch!" somebody ejaculated.

 

A ten minute frenzy ensued. By the end of the frenzy, Lance had a fake nose strapped around his face, and some of them had scribbled on his face with a crayon marked "green."

 

"Much better," the ringleader declared. "Now, let's take him to the Wise One."

 

Another frenzy ensued. During this frenzy, however, Lance was moved into another building, up an elevator, down a flight of stairs, and through a door (which was not wide enough to fit the entire band and Lance through at once, though they did give it their best shot).

 

"Oh great Tee Anna," began the ringleader, addressing a beautiful woman atop a lavish throne, "we bring you a witch!" A minor frenzy, which Tee Anna quickly silenced, lived a short life. "What should we do with him?"

 

Another moment of silence ensued, whilst the Wise One pondered.

 

An overzealous witch hunter interrupted the silence. "Drink his blood!"

 

"No, no!" Tee Anna cried, but it was too late, they had already jabbed him in the ankle with a pointed stick, and drawn blood. "Oh bloody hell," she sighed while the men licked and sucked the blood that dripped from his ankle.

 

Lance was too filled with confusion to react. Mostly, he was just mortified that these crazy people would find out he actually was becoming a witch.

 

"I'm not a witch!" he finally cried.

 

The crowd gasped, offended that they would be called liars. "You're not?" Tee Anna asked calmly.

 

"No! They did this to me!"

 

She cast a glowering look over the crowd. "Is this true?"

 

"Well..." the ringleader offered.

 

"We did the nose..."

 

"And the skin..."

 

"But he's a WITCH!" This frenzy was slightly more powerful, and took Tee Anna a few longer moments to get it under control.

 

But when she did, more chaos erupted. The window to the room, which overlooked Manhattan, shattered, and a small group of real witches barged through, combatting the crowd of witch-hunters. The witches sang as they fought. The witch-hunters cried declarations of the witches witch-hood as they fought.

 

Amongst the battling witches was the witch which (ha!) had first spoken to Lance. "What are you doing?" Lance cried, as confused as ever.

 

"Witch Blast," she answered, while blasting an approaching hunter across the room. "It's a special combat spell we use."

 

"No, I mean, what are you doing here?"

 

"Oh. Well, we're saving you, of course. You're almost one of us."

 

"Oh, well, thanks. I had it under control, though."

 

The witch gave him a look as if to say "Sure, buddy. I see through your masculine arrogance." (Tee Anna was also giving him this look, but Lance could not see her, as she was behind a swarm of witches.) He sunk into himself with shame. The witch blasted another approaching hunter.

 

When the hunters had retreated in defeat, the pack of witches, Lance in their midst, turned to Tee Anna, who was still sitting calmly. Lance's witch friend flew up to her and glared. Tee Anna returned the glare.

 

They glared held for long moments.

 

Then both of the women burst out laughing. The crowd of witches shortly joined them. Even Lance had a chuckle, though he didn't know why.

 

"Having fun, are you?" the witch questioned through her joyous giggles.

 

"Oh, always. Got to keep myself entertained somehow."

 

"Righto. Well, we're about done here. Scared some hunters, got out next recruit, saw a preview of "Wicked!" the musical. Think we're about ready to be off."

 

"Bad guys win again, eh?"

 

"As always."

 

"Good to see you again."

 

"You, too. Take care."

 

And then they flew out the window, Lance in the arms of his witch friend, and back to the box into the abyss. Once safely inside the box, the witch turned to Lance. "How's the skin coming along?"

 

He looked down and noticed that it had come all the way up his neck. "All right, I guess," he said, not knowing how else to answer.

 

"Should be done in five minutes, I'd guess. You look good in green."

 

"Thanks." He blushed. Now that he, himself, was becoming green, he didn't think he could judge her looks by the color of her skin. "So do you."

 

"Thanks." She blushed, as well.

 

"Say, how do I get the nose?" he joked.

 

"You'll see. I think you're about ready to fly. Yep, here's your broom." A broom appeared out of nowhere into his hands. He was astounded. "Give it a shot," she encouraged.

 

He did. He sat on the broom and (having read the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, he knew the secret to flying) flew. "I'm flying!" he cried, in surprise. "I'm really flying!" He looked back to wave at his pretty green friend. She pointed, as if to warn him of an approaching object. He looked, too late, and slammed into a wall, nose first.

 

She flew up to him. "That's how we get the noses."

[Dartha Athanth]

LOL That's really great! I think LAP will have to concede defeat. Love the MP references, pity they have real weighing scales instead of ducks ( it looked quite large, though.) Liked the final line, real punch!

 

Now i'm off to sleep after a nice bedtime story...

[Tiana Calthye]

Real punch. XD

 

(giggles over that)

 

Punch. AHaha.

 

I reviewed in the other thread already, lovely British humor, nicely done, etc. I'm too lazy to critique right now.

[Anakin T Skywalker]

Wow, I can't believe somebody actually did this!

 

That said, it certainly was hilarious!