Smol Drunk Creep on the Road to Perdition.

(Or how Joe became a Creep.)

Smol Joe Drunk Creep did something he shouldn’t have. For the first time in a thousand days or more, he downed a bottle of effervescent gold.

The pain numbed quickly. He missed this feeling.

He opens another. Empty. Another. Empty.

A bottle breaks on the rocks. The campfire flickers. He killed a man today. The knowledge stings. It’s the law of the jungle, he thinks, and I’m the beast you don’t mess with.

Joe stands up, wobbling, and looks over the dancing flames. I’m the beast you don’t want to mess with. His hands are stained with blood. I’m the beast you don’t want to mess with.

A tear wets his dirty cheek. He looks around, remembering he’s all alone. But they can’t call it liquid courage, Joe thinks. He’ll take that victory to his grave. That was all me.

He sits down with his back to the fire and stares into the infinite darkness. His drunken mind wonders what lies beyond the black, and beyond that, and beyond that, and…

The cool evening mist fills his lungs as the once hungry fire slowly dies. Eyes heavy, heart weary, Joe lays his head on a rock and sinks into sleep’s warm arms.

Morning arrives with a song. Birds chirping. Dry leaves rustling. Joe rises to nature’s rhythm and pisses on the ashes. He looks around at the waste. The trampled grass. The small pieces of unconsumed wood ringing the ash heap.

The horses neigh. They need water. He hurries over to the Friesians still harnessed to the wagon, fumbles with a bucket and water, and helps the two horses drink.

With a lingering headache and watered horses, Joe climbs up on the seat and leans into the lazyback. He pulls the reins. The carriage rides away from the littered campsite and the bludgeoned body of the stranger. Joe looks at the man’s vacant eyes and wonders where he sent his soul.

Crisp sunlight rolls over the soured field. Burnt corn. Salted soil. Winter wheat trampled by a lifeless hoard 700 strong. An ungodly assemblage of bare-boned creatures with not a spark of love in their glowing eyes.

For a full day, Joe travels across this wasted land. His empire. His legacy of dust and ruin. Once fertile fields that fed millions now smolder and rot in the Creep’s wake. He looks down at his still blood-caked hands. Maybe I’m no better than he.

An unease crawls under Joe’s skin as he rides into town. He expected a warm welcome. Not a celebration, but at the very least, relief for the provisions he brings. Joe provides. Never shall he hear the strained voices of those screaming, “Joe, do something!”

The wooden wheels squeak into the silent town. “Woahhh…” Joe calls softly to the ink-black Friesians. He looks around at the abandoned square and sees not a sign of life. Not even the wind moves here.

But then, from the shadows, he spots a figure near the saloon. Arms grasp a fluffy toy tight. Perhaps sensing his gaze, the figure steps into the light.

Bones. White, polished bones. An ungainly form hunched over with glowing red eyes and cuddling a plush teddy bear.

The creep steps forward unafraid. Words choke in Joe’s throat. This is no man you can bludgeon or strangle. This is no man at all. He wishes to be gone with this hell-sent creature but knows no method how. And if the teddy bear cuddled by those cold and hard arms wasn’t strange enough, the sock in the other hand sent a message Joe somehow understood.

This creep needs a cuddle.

Joe steps off the carriage. The horses neigh in protest, those wiser beasts. And as he approaches the calcium sculpture, the undead ivory puppet, he sees his own reflection in the saloon’s window.

Beneath the blood and dirt and homely visage are eyes of red. Bright, blood-red eyes fierce as fire and screaming one truth and one truth alone: I am no man, no humble farmer, but a mere creep soul bound to this withering world.