Today was going to be a good day. Yesterday was the usual slot-machine loss of a day, but today was already different. The sun was shining and no pollen was evident in the subtle cool breeze.  No mail had come, and no junk email in the inbox. The newspaper actually showed up on the doorstep for the first time in a month instead of the usual dogshit, and the downpour from the night before must have helped to keep down the potent smell of urine on the front door; cat, dog, or human, it couldn’t be certain. Even the coffee from Cuppa Joe’s Coffee Cart didn’t seem to have the usual phlem flavor that had become so unfortunately familiar. Yes, Mufflick could tell that today would definitely be a good day. Things were going his way today.

Mufflick smiled as he stepped on to the bus with his coffee and paper. He moved down the center aisle surveying the seating, homing in on one seat closer to the back adjacent to the rear door. Another stroke of luck. This was his favorite seat, the easiest and quickest way to get out of the bus, which was only ever blocked when the excess commuters had to stand due to a lack of available seating. He raised his thick eyebrows and smiled at the hansom woman that slid closer to the window to make room for him, or get away from him, as he sat down. The look on her face was obvious annoyance at the intrusion to her space, but Mufflick barely noticed. Most people he came in contact with gave him similar looks. It was nothing new to him. It was the same look his mother would give to him regularly, but without the revulsion.  Settling the paper on his lap, he said, “Thanks Ma’am” to which the hansom woman replied, “I’m a fucking guy!” And there was the revulsion.  As she – no, he got up and moved roughly out, he left behind an “Asshole,” not very quietly, adding another brown stain to Mufflick’s tie, this time from the coffee. He sat confused and alone, looking out the window, the entire seat to himself. Yes, today was going great.

Mufflick was an easy person to dislike. The reasons were many, lending an option for almost anyone to find a severe distaste for him. With stringy limbs and a ridiculous paunch, topped with a bad haircut on a large flat dandruff speckled head, he quite resembled a cartoon character. Although he wore thick coke-bottle glasses, he tended to squint with an upturned overgrown mustached lip, as if trying to see something off in the distance. This was his default expression. Even his movements were an exaggerated lethargy. He was the type of guy that, instead of answering with “Yes”, would confirm the affirmative with a nod that required the movement of his entire body. Every time, no exceptions. Pelvis thrusting forward as his chin hit his chest, that same squinty look on his face, he gave the appearance of one of those dashboard dummies without the side to side movement to change it up. He was also the type of guy that would go to a party – and this was only when his name was not specifically ejected from the list of employees from the office, which was particularly hard to do when he worked in the mailroom – just to stand in the corner near the food, munching away open-mouthed and only speaking when someone else would briefly stop by to grab a snack, accosting the passer-by with some comment on how much he liked or disliked that particular pig-in-a-blanket or fruit tart. All the while he’d dance the same way he said yes to the music, whether it was playing or not, with no apparent rhythm or the slightest semblance of grace. At some point, often when the food ran out or he physically couldn’t push anymore down, he would try to engage in a conversation with the nearest person, but it always ended quickly due to his failure to adapt to simple social interaction. Either he had food still lodged in his mustache which would fly into someone’s face when he laughed at his own bad humor, or he said something inappropriate at the wrong time – and that was most of the time. But that didn’t stop him from trying again, as if that was simply how mingling worked. It honestly didn’t matter what he did. His very presence was usually enough to aggravate the common person.
The sad truth was that he probably didn’t have a single friend in the world. Even his own mother couldn’t stand him, not that Mufflick seemed to notice. His first clue should have been his name, which undoubtedly could only have been given to him as a test of will in life by a spiteful wretch of a woman so disgruntled in life that she had to pass it on to her only offspring, a constant reminder of the donor from one fateful lonely drunken night nearly 43 years ago in the bathroom stall of The Stagger Inn, and only because it was the wrong stall. While his mother often blamed him for never having a father – and this could be partly true – it was probably more likely that no sane or sober person in the world would ever go within 10 yards of her if it could be helped, due to generous amounts of whelping from the proverbial ugly stick and a more pungent version of the nails-on-the-chalkboard while you’re strapped to an uncomfortable chair naked in the cold getting sandpaper sponge-bathed personality  inherent to Mufflick. He and his mother talked rarely anymore, and usually only when she threatened to kick him out again, which of course he never even listened to anymore, after several unkind requests followed by the occasional rat-poison in food attempts (which never succeeded due to the rat-poison being left out next to the food).

Somehow, Mufflick was still moderately and uncannily functional in life. He fumbled through it like a dog with tape on its nose. No friends, no prospects, and completely forgettable. People took pains to avoid him if they noticed him at all. He was an unassuming pest, a classic loser, a tragic idiot, and a travesty of social custom.

That was why he was the perfect choice.

All of the passengers exited the bus, all at once, at the stop before Mufflick’s. While it would be clearly odd to most people, Mufflick continued to squint on, peering out through the window at the buildings that landmarked his usual route. And because he was who he was, he also failed to notice that only one person had stepped onto the bus. As the bus moved on, the stranger sat down two seats behind him and didn’t make a sound. Turning down the very next street, something occurred to Mufflick. His usual route was different somehow. It took another 5 minutes and a few city blocks for the pieces to finally connect. He’d missed his stop. And he didn’t know where he was.

“Hheeyyy!” The window didn’t respond so Mufflick directed his attention to the bus driver. “You missed my stop. Hey, you missed my stop!” Reaching up, he began to press the red button on the pole repeatedly with the same hand he held his coffee in, resulting in splashes all over the pole and the seat in front of him.

The bus driver gave no response at all. Mufflick stared at the back of his head, back out the window, and then back ahead through the windscreen. They were heading into a tunnel. It must have finally dawned on him that nobody else was on the bus, because he slowly squinted around the bus, checking every seat as if he expected someone to jump out from underneath. By the time he had his neck craned around to the back, he noticed the stranger sitting exactly two seats behind him. “Oh.” The cup of coffee fell on to the floor and he pushed his glasses up into place. Details were hard to see on the stranger, with an unmarked broad-rimmed hat covering all but a stubbly chin and a bit of jaw. His head raised slowly and eye contact was made briefly before everything went dark. The tunnel. Unable to see, Mufflick fumbled around with arms outstretched, twisting around in his seat. A small whimper escaped his lips. The lights flickered and he slipped off his seat. The stranger was standing over him looking down at him, huge eyes seeming to glow like a cat’s in the dark, even after the flickering stopped. With a sharp intake of breath and a slight loss of bladder control, Mufflick’s legs began to flail in an attempt to push himself back away from the stranger.

“Don’t! No! I missed my stop! Missed…Just do- back- I’ve got- uhhnnnnuughhhAAHHH!” Continuing to whimper, Mufflick curled up against the side of the bus and stared into the dark in front of him.

“Mufflick.” The voice was loud and whispery at the same time. Mufflick screamed in response and threw his wallet at what he hoped was just a mugger in the dark.
Sliding up the wall, Mufflick realized his own legs were not supporting him. He began to swing his arms in front of his face chaotically, as if a swarm of flies were attacking him.

“Mufflick.” The voice again, same volume, same tone. He stopped moving. “Good. You’ve been chosen Mufflick.” A few long seconds passed. All of a sudden the glowing eyes were right in front of him, green, then black. This sent Mufflick into another fit of flails and screams, hitting nothing but air. The voice broke through the screams like they weren’t even there. “Your life is about to change.” The stranger’s mouth didn’t move. “It’s a gift.”

Mufflick’s hands appeared in front of his face, fingers crossed in a ‘T’. “I don’t want your goddam gift!” His voice was high pitched and his words were running together. He began screaming again, “Rape! Raaape! Rr-!” Mouth left hanging open, his words were somehow cut off. He tried a couple more times, but no sound escaped his mouth. Hanging there limply with his crossed fingers in front of his face, he stared wide-eyed at the fathomless eyes in front of him, which looked a little angry now.

“You’re not..” the voice started, sounding a little short. “It’s not rape, and I’m not a vampire, so you can put your ‘cross’ away. We’re going to be family, and I’m going to introduce you to the rest of your family soon.”

Mufflick shook his head without looking away, snot dribbling down his ridiculous mustache. Some unseen force pushed his limbs against the bus, spread-eagle style. A cold clammy hand gripped his his forehead. Odd bumps, metal and some tiny orange lights ran along the back of the hand and on the wrist. Then a sharp pain, like a tiny pin prick entered the middle of his head. Directly after, a sound similar to the charging of a flash on a camera emanated near his chest. At the pinnacle of the charge, a massive amount of pressure followed by a searing heat entered his chest, right about where the heart lay. Trying to shake his head more, trying to scream again, Mufflick experienced the worst pain he’d ever felt. It seemed like it would never stop, but after only a minute, the pain was over, the pressure released. With a loud clang he fell to the floor. Gripping his chest, Mufflick turned his head back up to the stranger, who was still standing there, looking calmly down at him. What little of him could be seen was becoming blurry, but Mufflick just caught a glimpse of a small screen on a mechanism he held. It was shut quickly, the little bit of light going with it.
“Be ready Mufflick. You will have your time. And we ours.”


The lights flickered again. Blinking repeatedly, Mufflick looked around. The stranger was gone. Mufflick was sitting back in his seat on the empty bus. Light blazed through the windows as the bus exited the tunnel. Dazed, he sat there, trying to figure out what just happened. Jolted out of his stupor by some yelling, he looked up to find the bus driver looking at him in the rearview mirror.

“Hey! You alright Man? Hey Guy, you with us? Are you O K?” The bus driver made a gesture with his hand.

“I missed my stop. I- you missed...today was gonna be a good day.”
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:48, Sat 14 Apr 2012.