Deciding a mime is better company than re-animated corpses, you run after him, down a flight of stairs, through the wings and on-stage. The mime darts to center-stage and collapses dramatically, in the middle of an array of alumni wearing full-body suits that leave their faces featureless.
Offstage, you recognize two old college friends whom you’ve fallen out of touch with since graduation, Ajax and Achitophel. Ajax sports a wild mane of red hair and looks like he just left a Korn concert (your older cousin listened to them, not you, you assure yourself – your inner monologue making that reference doesn’t make you old. Though they did appear in that one South Park episode). Achitophel, on the other hand, is wearing the same clothes you saw her in last – seemingly the entire Vineyard Vines Summer 2014 catalog – though she’s also holding a massive two-handed Infinity Bludgeon. It is an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age: the adamantium handle is sixteen hands long, and laced with a criss-crossing inlay of silver which blossoms out like a mandala over the bludgeon itself, a heavy boulder famously dug up by the school’s founder, Erich von Straussheim, in The Year of Our Lord 1744.
Before you can say anything, the mime is gesturing frantically to Achitophel, communicating something. Eventually, she nods her head and says, ‘I see.’
‘Achitophel! Long time no see,’ you say, cautiously, ‘this looks like a fun… theatre performance, just like old times.’
‘Berna’vida-mal, entath!’ she cries with a flourish, and all the sudden the faceless alumni are grabbing you and dragging you to center-stage.
‘No! Wait! Don’t!’ you cry helplessly, but it’s too late: you’re being torn limb from limb, who the hell can guess why, you’ll never know, cause…
Homecoming of Horrors 