THE GIANT MONSTER ATTACKS! by Billy Langdon

It was a normal morning in America, and a normal boy named Willy was sitting at his desk in school when all of a sudden CRASH! A huge giant monster attacked the school! There was a big hole in the wall where the monster's foot came through.

"It's a giant monster!" screamed Willy's teacher, an old woman who didn't give Willy very good grades, especially when he wrote stories. "Look out kids! He might step on--"

And then without warning the monster stepped on the teacher, and she went SQUISH and never gave Willy a bad grade ever again. The other kids were running around screaming and freaking out, but Willy knew how to handle giant monsters because he watched Godzilla movies all the time.

Willy jumped up. "I need to go to Japan and get another giant monster to fight this one! It's the ONLY way to defeat it!" Outside, the Army was shooting tank bullets at the monster, but they were just bouncing off of it as the monster stepped on buildings.

"GRAAAARRGGGHH!" said the monster.

"Oh, no!" said the General. "The monster just stepped on the museum, and the dentist's office, and some other lousy places! We have to kill it before it smashes up a cool place like the comics shop or the pizza place!"

Willy ran up to the General. "I'm Willy!" he said. "I write awesome stories and I know all sorts of stuff about monsters! Also, I know way more about sex than my teachers think, such as that sometimes women like it when guys put their wieners in their mouths! I saw it in a magazine that my dad hides in the back of the closet!"

"Ahh, the famous Willy! Yes, it is true that men and women do that all the time when they make babies. You're a very smart and advanced young man. But how do we kill this monster! It's stepping on people!"

By this time, the monster had stepped on the mailman (the same one who brought home notes from Willy's teachers and his report cards and stuff) and also the mean lady who wouldn't let Willy play with his cars in the library which is a place that the monster also smashed up.

Willy told the General all about how he had to go to Japan, and also that he saw some Japan women doing some really weird stuff on dad's computer once, which he's not supposed to get on but his dad never puts any sort of password lock on it. "Japan women indeed like weird stuff," agreed the General, and then he called for an airplane, and it landed and Willy got on it, and the giant monster tried to smack it out of the sky but the pilot flew out of the way of the monster's arms and WHOOSH they flew off to Japan, which is a small island that America dropped A-bombs on once but we're all good friends now.

Willy wondered if there would be women all over the place doing weird stuff, because he wasn't sure how you were supposed to react when that was happening everwhere. But as it turned out, they did all of that stuff behind curtains where Willy wasn't allowed to go, and so he concentrated on tracking down the other giant monsters.

And he found a giant monster that was like a giant grab with a bear's head and, like, octopus tentacles, and Willy played a magical flute and the crab-bear totally followed them all the way back to America.

"GROOOWLLL!" said the bear-crab.

"ROOAAARRGGHH!" said the original giant monster.

The fought, back and forth, and stepped on that one kid that made Willy cry at the playground, and smashed up Willy's dad's lawyer's office where nobody ever has any fun and every other place that doesn't like it when kids run or sing songs or dance when people are eating dinner.

Finally, the giant crab-bear took one of its huge crab-claws and snipped off the other giant monster's head! Blood went WHOOSH out of the giant monster's head and splashed all over the place like a flood!

"Gross!" said the General.

Willy played the magical flute again, and the crab-bear went in to the sea to go back to Japan. Everybody went "Hurray!" and then they made Willy the Hero of the Town Forever.

The End

Written by Billy Langdon
Mrs. Beecher's class
Fifth grade

Steggar the Mirthless in "The Spire of the Ubermages"

Steggar was born to Urion the Valiant and his wife, Velma the Fastidious, in the Village of the Elders in the third century of the Age of Hytophrexes, beneath a blood moon as the baying of the carrion hounds echoed mournfully across the Betur Plains, which everybody agreed was a mouthful to print on the birth announcement, but Velma, as her nickname would suggest, was insistent that every little detail be just so. Steggar was bathed in yak urine as per the tradition that nobody was certain to the origin of, and Urion and Velma were showered with many gifts of yak meat, yak hide, and wind-chimes made of the bones of yaks. The yak-poor were allowed to forego gift-giving provided they had a daughter of "taking" age who was willing to offer herself hound-style to the village chieftain. Most civic disputes were solved in this way. The relative merits and faults of the system are open to debate, but it was the only system they had, and the chieftain wasn't about to change things any time soon.

Steggar's childhood was a blur of violence, circumcision and ritual yak-blood drinking and is best not dwelled upon. Upon the reaching of adulthood, Steggar decided that he cared not for anything and took the nickame "the Careless", a decision he didn't think through very well. "Watch your feet, Steggar," the other warriors in the village would giggle. "Steady with that pile of boulders now, Steggar," the elders would cackle through their beards. "Are you sure that hut's properly constructed?" the youngsters would wonder. "I don't think you took the proper care in thatching that roof."

"Okay!" Steggar roared after a few short weeks of this ribbing. "I get it!"

"You have no sense of humor, Steggar," the village chieftain said, and he quickly re-dubbed the younger man Steggar the Mirthless. Steggar, happy to be shed of his hastily-chosen nickname, threw himself into the role, and for the next 13 years was never seen to bare his teeth for any reason but hunger or battle.

Then a few years of other events happened of no consequence, leading us to the situation with which this story is concerned.

To Be Continued

PRAIRIE WARS

The street was empty, with no movement save that kicked up by the restless wind. Two men stared into each other's eyes from opposite ends of the street. Slowly, they neared, until they were separated by a mere ten feet.

One figure was much younger than the other, barely a man, really. His thin form was wrapped in the traditional dress of the plains Indian. His hair was long, his demeanor solemn. The other man, much older, possessed of a gaunt face lined with scars and cruelty, was dressed in black from head to toe, red accents showing on his hat, his vest, and on the handle of his gun, still in its holster.

"My step-sister was right," the youth announced. "This was a trap. Where are you keeping them?"

The man in black smiled. "That's for me to know, kid." He gestured around himself. "This is a big town, Butte City...my town, you understand?"

"This town belongs to--"

The dark man shook his head. "Not anymore. We had a deal, but I altered the details a bit. Butte City is now wholly operated by the Creekridge Mining Company, and when that railroad comes in, boy howdy! I'm gonna be a rich man."

"You are a silver-tongued murderer."

"Perhaps." Suddenly, the dark man's gaunt form was racked by violent coughing. He folded at the waist and hacked a wad of bloody phlegm into the dust. He straightened, wiped his chin, and adjusted his hat.

"You have the wasting disease."

"It's called consumption, you ignorant redskin, and yeah, I do." He put his hand on his pistol. "But I'm still fast enough to take the likes of you. Let's get this started...I reckon you've got a head full of blood since you saw me shoot down that old hermit. He was kind of like your pappy, wasn't he?" The dark man's teeth were specked with blood as he smiled.

Slowly, the youth pulled a long knife from its rawhide sheath. "My name is Luke Walks-in-the-Sky," he announced. "You shall die this day, Dan Vetter!"

"I'm already dyin'," Vetter whispered.

Luke moved, lightning fast. The knife soared, piercing home just as Vetter drew. But it was off-target. It wasn't a fatal wound, merely an inconvenient one. Vetter smiled, trying his best to disguise the pain as he removed the knife from the superficial wound it had left in his right side. "Impressive," he said to Luke. "Old Ben taught you well." He dropped the knife to the ground, and then his right hand cocked his pistol and fired. Luke flinched, and his right hand exploded in a shower of blood. He fell to the ground, cradling his bullet-torn hand, now missing two fingers. "Not well enough, but, eh..." Vetter shrugged as he closed the distance between himself and the felled boy, wincing with every step. "I could'a killed you, kid, but I didn't. Why do you think that is?"

Luke held his ruined hand close to his face. "What do I care?" The words were full of hate.

Vetter smiled, then holstered his pistol and crouched down on his haunches. "Ow, shit...that hurts, kid."

"Good."

Vetter looked to his left and right, just in case any of the townsfolk cowering in their storefronts were eavesdropping. "Did...did that Old Ben ever tell you about your father?" he asked quietly.

"He told me plenty...how you killed him when I was just a pup."

Vetter laughed and shook his head. "No, Luke...I'm your daddy. That's why you're still alive."

"No!" Luke's face went through a catalog of emotions: shock, denial, hate. "That's not true! That's impossible!"

"I think you know it is, son. Ask around. Anybody'll tell you that old Dan Vetter had a weakness for squaw. Now..." He straightened back up, staring down at the boy. "Are you gonna join my side, or what? It's where you belong."

"I'll never join you!"

In the distance, the faint sound of hoofbeats, and Luke, from his position, could see dust rising in the distance through Vetter's legs. He allowed himself a little bit of a smile. Help was coming.

Vetter hadn't heard anything yet. He raised a fist. "If only you knew how powerful this company is, son! It's progress, and it's comin'! If you join up with me, we can tame this valley together! As father and son!"

The approaching horses were impossible to ignore. Vetter spun. "I said clear the street!" he shouted, but he saw soon after that these weren't quickly cowed townsfolk. He recognized the faces through the kicked-up dust: Luke's step-sister Lily O'Malley, the drifter Hank Solo and his partner Bear, and following up at the back of the group: Lawrence Delricio, the man Vetter had sworn he had an arrangement with. "That sonofabitch set them free..." He drew his pistol as the horses came down on him. "You set them free!" He raised the gun to fire.

Hank Solo leveled his own pistol over his horse's head and fired two times. One bullet ripped the gun from Vetter's hand, and the second took his hat straight off. Vetter fell on his ass. Solo and the others came to a halt. "I guess you're not the fastest after all, Vetter!" Solo called down through a wide grin. To put a point on the insult, Bear spat a thick stream of tobacco between Vetter's legs. "All aboard, kid!"

Luke stood, cradling his injury, and with effort slid onto the back of Solo's horse.

"I suppose you'll kill me now," Vetter said.

"Now, that would hardly be sportin', would it?" Solo winked. "Yeaaawww!"

The four horses road hell-for-leather until they were free of Butte City. Soon they were specks in the distance.

Vitter stood, picked up his bullet-ridden hat, and dusted it off. He put it squarely on his head. His throat rasped with phlegm and blood and dust. He coughed and spat a bloody wad.

This wasn't over.

GANG WARS

The room was dark, lit by a single weak overhead bulb, and small, with barely the room for the table and the few people in it. The air was choked with smoke and the palpable threat of violence. There were two men at the table. One one side was an older man, weathered, weary, dressed in a smart brown suit and a hat that had seen sharper days. On the other was a younger man, brimming with cold rage, dressed in black from head to toe, his hair slicked back and so shiny it could have been a helmet.

"So, who starts?" asked the old man.

"No skin off me, whoever," replied the other, and he took a heavy suck off of an asthma inhaler. The rasp had a faintly menacing sound about it. "But since you're the aggrieved party, right?"

"You want to go indendent, split off from my gang, and take half of my territory with you, so, yeah, you could say I'm aggrieved."

"I want to make money, Ben, and you're just too weak to do what's necessary."

Ben breathed easily. He was much calmer than the younger man, with less to prove. "Nobody in this organization has ever complained of going hungry."

"Or of being too full!"

"I taught you everything you know, Vinnie."

Vinnie took another rasp of the inhaler. "I was once a leaner, yeah, but what you can't see is that now I am the master!"

"Only the master of evil, Vinnie."

The comment took Vinnie aback. "Evil? Huh, what?" He looked around to his boys backing him up and they all shared a laugh. Across the room, Ben's men shifted uncomfortably. Vinnie locked eyes with Ben. "Evil, Ben? What have I done that's so evil?"

"Your button-men have been knocking off competitors all over this city. Hell, you blew up an entire building because you thought somebody inside was plotting against you, but you got wrong information...you killed dozens of innocents. That's not the way we do things."

Vinnie jumped to his feet. "It's the way I do things! I do whatever needs to be done!" He reached under the table, and there was a ripping of tape. His hand came up with a shiny .45, tape still hanging from the barrel.

"There weren't supposed to be any guns here!" shouted one of Ben's men, an impulsive teen, and he was restrained by another. "Don't start anything, kid," said the man holding him back.

"I see you've made your decision," Ben said calmly.

"Yeah, you could say I have," Vinnie sneered, out of breath with the impending thrill of the kill. He drew on his inhaler. "Good-bye, Ben."

"NO!" shouted the struggling youth behind Ben.

Ben's face changed. It both hardened and softened at the same time. He'd accepted his fate. "If you strike me down, Vinnie..."

"Yeah?" Vinnie asked through a clenched animal grin.

"I'll become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

Vinnie barked a laugh. "You old fucks and your martyr complexes." The gun barked three times, and Ben flinched and jerked in his chair as the bullets tore at his flesh. Blood splattered the table. The old man was dead.

Vinnie grinned savagely at Ben's remaining men, specifically the kid struggling to escape the restraining arms that held him. "You'd better keep a lid on that little shit, Solo...if you want to live long enough to make your mind up about where your loyalties lie."

"Kid, this isn't the time," Solo whispered in the boy's ear. "We'll regroup, figure things out...don't let the old man's sacrifice be in vain."

The kid snarled at Vinnie: "This isn't over by a long shot!"

Vinnie twirled his pistol gunslinger style. "Cool down, son...we'll meet again. Now..." He pointed the gun. "Get the fuck out of here before I change my generous mind."

The room emptied, slowly, of Ben's men and then, after he screamed for them to leave, Vinnie's as well. Vinnie was alone with the corpse. He walked over to it and poked it with his gun. As confident as he was in his decision earlier, he was starting to think maybe he'd make a rash mistake. That kid...the fire in his eyes.

Vinnie had never been scared before.

"Huh," he said.