Black Forest

Black Forest

The day of Mr. PCP's last appearance - in a Wild West saloon oh so many pages before - Jens had been there. Watching. Taking notes. For little did the cowboys present that day know that Mr. PCP was actually neither a giant celestial manatee-bird hybrid thing, nor a 50-year-old Mexican woman who cheated like a bastard at cards, but exactly what he was seeing now. A demon.

Vampires weren't real, zombies weren't real, angels weren't real, William Howard Taft wasn't real (it's a long story), Buddha wasn't real, and basically most of the supernatural wasn't real. But werewolves, of course, were real, and so were demons.

Demons were pretty much what you'd expect: they traveled the world and general screwed things up for humans and tripped them up on their ways. For reasons of efficiency, most of them specialized in a single vice, fault, or form of suffering, such as Mr. PCP's specialization, psychosis. They were as immortal as werewolves, but their harm was limited by their narrow-mindedness and lack of a significant interest in cooperating with humans, or even each other, to achieve their goals.

Most demons had a minor supernatural power or two in addition to near-immortality. Mr. PCP, for example, could shapeshift.

"Why me, Mr. PCP? I'm already psychotic enough. I'd be a waste of effort for you."

"I think you want to tell the world about me. I want to stop you."

"Awfully long-term plan for a demon."

Mr. PCP's cheeks grew red. Redder. "Well, it's mine," he huffed.

"Look, I don't... care... about you."

"I saw you at the saloon all those many pages ago."

Jens' cheeks grew slightly less white. "Yeahhhhh... I thought you were stalking me. So I wanted to know my enemy."

"Look, I didn't care about you. And you knew it! You're lying!"

"Am not."

"Are too!"

"Am not."

"Are too, and I'm going to stop you from harming me forever, and make you permanently psychotic! It'll be glorious!" he cackled. "For I shall fold you so that you are doubled-over and stuff you into the trunk of my 1986 Škoda 130 while you are unable to resist due to your weakened physical condition, then drive you hundreds of kilometers away into the Black Forest, where I will lock you in an impenetrably secure room deep in a hillside where you will remain, lost in psychosis, until the END OF TIME!"

"But wouldn't it be more convenient to just build a room right here in the Alps, since I'm already here, and have been here a while, and have been here in the past, and we're deep in the mountains where it'll be a real pain for my allies to find me?"

Mr. PCP sighed. "I know, I know. But it's SO hard to find contractors who will ride out here to Bumfuckville Austria for the work. And anywhere, I'd have to spend more time communicating with them. Disgusting humans." He spat.

At this, Mr. PCP folded Jens so that he was doubled-over and... well, you get the idea. Jens' weakened physical condition kept him helpless to escape the Škodá's musty trunk all the way up to Rudach, on to Dornbirn, to Bregenz, and on around Lake Constance. Mr. PCP played an aging tape of The Best of the Carpenters in one boom-box on the front passenger seat and an aging tape of Switched-on Bach in a second boom-box on the front passenger seat the entire time.

By the time he was free from his bonds, he figured he might as well wait to confront his opponent until they reached their destination.

While he was tanking up in Todtnau, Mr. PCP declared really loudly, to make sure that Jens could hear him in the trunk, "Since you are powerless to resist me, I will reveal your final resting place. We shall be quite close to Feldberg, yet far enough from all ski resorts that you shall have no hope of being discovered and rescued by a lost skier! HAHAHA!" The gas station attendant glared at him, but calmed down after Mr. PCP handed him a 100 EUR note and told him to keep the change.

This was quite welcome news for Jens, for his hours of contemplation in the trunk had led him to a forehead-smacking realization: he had forgotten all about his suicide-by-wormhole plan! "And the secret wormhole," he gloated quietly, "is right here in the Black Forest."

N'est-ce pas?