The Chamberlain Look

When Chris and Billy dumped pigs blood on her at her prom queen inauguration, many assumed Carrie White got her revenge via the fire and electricity and telekinesis. She did, naturally. But that wasn't her only revenge. By all accounts, it wasn't even her best.

The best revenge, they say, is to live well, to succeed in spite of others. It was too late to live well—her mother had seen to that—but that did not mean she couldn't still succeed after everything that happened.

After all, Carrie was prom queen, and everyone wants to be a prom queen. Soon it was considered the height of fashion to wear fine gowns drenched in blood. Even animal rights activists, who didn't care for the slaughter of their furry friends, found ways to ride the trend, often showing up at PETA rallies in fake fur and waiting to be doused in red paint.

The Chamberlain Look as it came to be called (so named for the small town in Maine Carrie destroyed) became an institution with its own rules. Cow's blood for winter, chicken for summer. Never wear heels. Hair down. And of course, one couldn't dump the blood on herself, for the Chamberlain look historically was not something you did, but something done to you. Blooding salons popped up all across the country, each offering their own styles and methods. The Classic Bucket, the Pollack, the Hose, the Shower, the Sprinkler.

It was a better revenge than Carrie could have hoped for, if only she were alive to enjoy it.

- Originally mailed to H. Kay of Portsmouth, England

Tin Men

Once a beloved but clumsy wood cutter, the Tin Man had become a monster since he took control of the forest in a bloody coup. People dreaded the coming of his “justice” which fell upon them as quickly as the blade of his axe. He was a heartless tyrant who cared nothing for his subjects. There were attempts to overthrow him, but most weapons the poor peasants could fashion deflected effortlessly off his metal body, and they learned soon enough that the few that could puncture his iron hyde did nothing, for the Tin Man was as hollow as he was heartless, a foul ghost trapped in an empty metal suit. So great a dissatisfaction cannot go unaddressed, however, and though they dared not speak their thoughts aloud for fear of his axe and they could no more assassinate him than change his mind, they resorted to an anonymous protest, crafting men of tin cans and leaving them hanging from the trees of the forest and the poles in town.

- Originally mailed to J. Cox of New Orleans, Louisiana

Getting Rid of Fairies

Terrance's bathroom had a serious fairy infestation. He couldn't turn on the lights without seeing them flock to the mirror to primp and preen and admire their wings. They would take the caps off of his toothpaste to use as cups. They would destroy his cotton swabs to make dapper walking canes, even though they rarely walked. They would hack his wash clothes and hand towels to ribbons to make dresses and they would use his lotions to, well, to moisturize their skin, which wasn't weird so much as annoying, because that lotion was his, darn it. He considered hiring the Ghostbusters to deal with his infestation, but the cost of supernatural pest removal, even pint sized sprites like these pixies was cost prohibitive on his retail cashier salary. Thinking himself a clever man, he fashioned a “Protected by Ghostbusters” sign and ensured their commercials ran continually throughout the day to discourage the tiny menaces. His plan failed miserably, however, because it hinged upon one tiny logical flaw, one reasonable assumption that as it turned out was completely false. He assumed if he put up the warning sign and played the commercials, they would be fearful and leave, but he assumed wrong. What he should have assumed when dealing with fairies is that they do not care in the least about anything he does.

- Originally mailed to A. Perkins in Metarie, Louisiana

The Crystal Skull

Spencer Escobar always held a keen fascination with the legend of the crystal skulls of ancient Mesoamerica. He wondered at their mystical powers and arcane origins. He pondered their purpose and delved deep into the recesses of the internet for any facts, theories, rumors, or gossip he could find about them. So devoted was he to the crystal skulls that he visited every known collection and exhibit, drank only Crystal Skull vodka. He even saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls more than once and swore up and down to any who would listen that the movie was actually good, making him the only person on record to do either. No scientific evidence or analysis could persuade him. Crafting techniques were too modern? Made by a now extinct advanced civilization. Materials were from the wrong part of the world? Aliens aren't concerned about oceans. Dating techniques revealed they were made in the 19^th century? What a mystery! The ancients who made it could have been time travelers, or used some other yet unknown technique! He refused to have his beliefs debunked. His biggest wish was to one day discover a crystal skull of his own. Then he could prove they were not fraudulent, as he would know his was no forgery but a real authentic piece of legend. As it happened, he found himself at a Halloween party, and there in the punch bowl, he saw one, laying among the red mix of fruit juice and rum. He rushed home to get a proper case, something that would keep the skull safe from damage or theft, something that would let the world know this was his find and they should not touch it. Naturally, he had planned for such a find years ago, but alas, when he returned to the party, the skull was gone. His only clue as to who had stolen it was the punch itself, which was a bit more watered down than when he had left.

- Originally mailed to J. Lawrence in Roseland, New South Wales, Australia

The Shopping Demon

Oh the ridicule Beelzebub endured every year come late December when he haunted the halls of the uptown mall, searching for the best deals on clothes and shoes and sunglasses. The other denizens of the infernal pits would torment him for this (verbally, of course, not the blades and fire and acid sort of torment reserved for their day jobs, because who wants to take their work home for them?). Not that they had a problem with shopping. No, demons loved the infatuation people had for mindless consumption and consumerism. It was like gluttony and greed and pride and avarice all rolled into one, and on Black Friday, they could even squeeze in a little wrath. Few activities aside from genocide and DVRing Jersey Shore* could be so evil. No, they teased him for going to Christmas sales.

“I'm just shopping to over commercialize the religious holiday. Just trying to undermine the message of goodness and generosity and care for one's fellow man by spreading the enthusiasm for rampant selfishness.”

But they knew the truth. He was an amazing demon, but his shopping addiction had nothing to do with it. Sometimes a demon just wanted a stylish suit.

*Jersey Shore may not seem so evil, but it is actually a lynchpin in one of the more diabolical and secretive of Hell's nefarious schemes too complex to discuss in this post card. 

Originally mailed to M. Wilkes in Ridgeland, Mississippi

The Dark Defender

Rupert Graves, alias the Dark Defender, felt a calling from the time he was a child to don a mask and serve his community as a vigilante crime fighter. Where as other boys and girls saw comic books as escapist fantasy, he viewed the role of caped crusader as a viable career choice. He spent his teens and early twenties honing his body and mine, trying to stay sharp, to be at his peak when criminals struck. Unfortunately, he lacked the powers of Superman or the Flash, and thus he could not quickly run from one side of town to the other, let alone to the other side of the world. He lacked Batman's resources, so he couldn't invest in a fast car to get him to distant crime scenes, and he had no super computer, no super hearing to let him known where mayhem was afoot. Because crime fighting paid so poorly, he didn't even have a police scanner. Still, a calling was a calling, and so he accepted his limitations and made do. He couldn't defend the whole city, but the five thousand block of Mayfair Avenue from the post office to the tire shop and the grocery store in between were under his protection, and he would fight to the last breath to keep those five hundred feet safe.

- Originally mailed to R. Cox of Biloxi, Mississippi

The Actor

The life of a animal actor is not as glamorous as that of a human actor. They do not receive lavish salaries or fancy homes or media attention. Their own species is often utterly indifferent to their chosen profession. For this reason, animal actors are often far more dedicated to their roles than any human could imagine. If an animal becomes an actor, he does it entirely for the love of the craft. So it was with Colin, who in his youth played Babe in one of many direct to video sequels and got to be Young Wilbur in a production of Charlotte's Web. As he got older, he played Napoleon in a remake of Animal Farm, Habeas Corpus in a Doc Savage webseries. He played a pequinino in one of the Ender's Game sequels. He came full circle and portrayed Grown Wilbur in Charlotte's Web again, and critics agreed he was “some pig.” As he got older, he had fewer roles to choose from. After all, there weren't many stories about old pigs, as most were eaten before then. Still, he did get to play Old Major in a made-for-TV version of Animal Farm. But that was the last role left for him. Or so he thought, for one day, someone approached him to play the title role in a film called The Lord of the Flies. He was excited to play a title role again. Even when he read the script and saw what the part entailed, he still took the job, for as he always said, “I'm an actor until the day I die.”

- Originally mailed to J. Schwartz in Keller, Texas

Petra Fan

Sue McDaniels loved the Ender's Game series, particularly any parts dealing with Petra Arkanian, the only girl in Ender's jeesh. The character represented all that women could accomplish, being the commander of an army who can stand on her own, who could stay strong when others crumbled around her. She possessed the keen sort of intellect that could help mastermind an escape from a virtual prison. She was everything Sue wanted to be. Every year for Halloween, she would dress as Petra in one form or another. Salamander Army Petra. Dragon Army Petra. Launchie to Command School and beyond into Bean's Shadow books. Sue served in the air force and married a short guy named Julian. She named her seven children appropriately. She lived her life as Petra. Many told her she was obsessed on the verge of insanity. They teased and mocked, but she didn't care, for on reflection at the end of her days, she looked back and saw that like her hero, she had not lived a life of fear. When times of crisis came, she rose to the challenge, she faced adversity head on, and fought to protect the people and the nation she loved. She lived a life she could be proud of. There were worse role models to have.

- Originally mailed to C. Townsend from Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Resurrecting Dinos

For as long as she could remember, Clarissa wanted a pet dinosaur. As child, she envisioned playing fetch with her pet stegosaurus, sending her pterodactyl to fetch frisbees that had gotten stuck on the roof, or in her more cruel fantasies, playing tag with her very own t-rex, knowing she would win easily against his tiny arms. After seeing Jurassic Park for the first time as a child, her whole world changed. Dinosaur pets were no longer mere fantasy, but an actual possibility. All throughout high school and well into college, she poured over the science and dived head first into any cutting edge research regarding paleontology, cloning, or a combination of the two. When a professor finally gave her the cold hard truth, that science couldn't bring dinosaurs back from extinction, she wept for weeks. Not one to give up so easily, however, she persevered and finally found success in the one avenue for dino resurrection left to her: necromancy.

 - Originally mailed to C. George in San Diego, California

Bartleby, Cattorney

Bartleby Black, Cattourney at Law (his marketer's idea, not his) took all proceedings with the solemnity of a church. It gave him no pleasure to conduct business in conditions such as these, surrounded by pop culture and other common geekery, but he needed to see the alleged forged issue of Detective Comics #27 for himself before he agreed to file suit. “My only condition,” he said, “is that you must handle the comic book yourself. I will not have any accusations that I have somehow tampered with the pages.”

“Besides,” he said. “I have no thumbs.”

- Originally mailed to M. Krell in Horn Lake, Mississippi

The Blurs

The Blurs put on an amazing show that night, and much to their fans' great pleasure, performed a broad selection of tracks spanning their entire discography. The big hits that topped the charts and the obscure sleeper b-side classics that only the die hards knew the lyrics to, each wove one into another blurring the lines between one piece and the next. It was a celebration of thirty years of music that for three glorious hours flowed like a river, at times peaceful and others powerful but always beautiful to behold. A critic from the times who had never much been a big supporter of The Blurs was forced to admit in his review of the concert the next day that their music was “respectable enough if you like that sort of thing” but was nothing short of impressed with their ability to perform live and out of focus.

- Originally mailed to T. Switzer from Biloxi, Mississippi

Shriners

No street gang alive could match the Shriners. They had guts beyond measure. They smoked their hash pipes openly and with class and a man bold enough to pull off a fez could do anything. Men quivered at the thought of a Shriner drive-by, dozens of tiny cars cruising down the avenue, each packing a strapped geriatric. When something went down, the Shriners shot first, and when things went south, while other gangs had to rely on back alley surgeons, the Shriners would simply roll into their well-stocked and staffed hospitals, get patched up, and then hit their enemies back while they were still recovering. So when the West Side Vice Lords woke to find Bob Dobbs emblazoned on their door, they know their time ruling the projects had come to an end. This was Shriner territory now.

- Originally mailed to H. Longino of Gulfport, Mississippi

Knitted Cthulhu

 Among scholars of the necronomicon, there is a great debate as to the true nature of the great old one Cthulhu. Some said he was a giant from beyond space, capable of devouring worlds. Others claimed he slumbered beneath the seas. There were camps that said he had bulbous yellow eyes the shone like the fires of hell and some said they were like a man's eyes but for the inhuman emptiness behind them and others claimed he had no eyes at all. None disagreed, however, that to look upon him guaranteed a man lose his sanity. On the evening of November the twenty-seventh, 1932, Nicholas Watkins forswore reason and dared to summon Cthulhu that he might say with certainty what the dread god looked like. When he later told his peers that the endless lord was a tiny fellow of knitted blue wool with button eyes and red cap, they knew he had glimpsed Cthulhu, for he had clearly been driven quite mad.

- Originally mailed to J. Witten in Oxford, Mississippi

Saturday Night Trooper

They called him the Saturday Night Trooper, the Sequined Sargeant, the Disco Commando. They teased every time they raided a rebel outpost, saying his sparkling helmet would attract blaster fire, that his three piece suit offered no protection. He gave the usual replies, that a blaster clipped right through armor and maybe being lasers, the beam might be deflected by the sequins and glitter. His dancing skills and fancy footwork certainly helped him dodge his share of heavy enemy fire, and no one could argue that his sense of style often put him front and center of any post-battle victory photos. In truth, he didn't mind the friendly ribbing, but when a disco convention on Coruscant saved him from the first Death Star explosion, and suspension without pay for countless uniform violations spared him from the second he found he could no longer stomach the jokes about “Stayin' Alive.”

- Originally sent to B. Nowell from Newport News, Virginia

Ming

Ming loathed his nickname. It was wholly unfair. He wasn't merciless. Yes, from time to time opponents would threaten his power or his life and he would be forced to dispense righteous violent justice upon them. This, he would say, was not a lack of mercy but simply common and reasonable practice. One cannot abide traitors or assassins if one's government is to have any sort of stability. For this they called him merciless? What about the puppies he adopted, or the time he took everyone in the office to lunch at the food court? No one would dare call him merciless now, not if they wanted a brownie with their sandwich and lemonade.

- Originally mailed to B. Bowser in Brandon, Mississippi