MATTHEW AND CASSIUS GO BOWLING, CONCLUDED.

What follows is a brief summary of what happened with Matthew and Cassius and innocent bystanders at TipeRover Lanes. I do this only because my story died on the operating table of my bri-zain and I have absolutely no flipping desire to try to revive it. It has a DNR order; I must honour it.

***

Matthew and Cassius played three games. Their scores were as follows: Matthew bowled a 152 the first game, a 139 the second and a 95 the third, after which the shit had hit the fan. Cassius bowled a 253 the first game, a 287 the third and a perfect 300 for the third game. Suzie Tomlin continued to gape at our fearless bowlers and, eventually, having been raised a devout Catholic, came to the conclusion that Cassius was the Devil himself. So she did what any sane person would do: She called her brother, Rudolph, who happend to be a Roman Catholic priest. Rudy showed up half an hour later--he'd been busy counselling a troubled 11-year-old boy--and right away he knew that he was dealing with the epitome of Evil.

What followed was an extremely uneducated attempt at an impromptu exorcism. It ended badly. (Rudy's head ended up being used as a makeshift bowling ball...it left a 7-10 split; unfortunately, it was deadeye straight on the one-pin.)

Yes, it ended badly. Suzie Tomlin dialled 911 and the cops had shown up 12 minutes later. Big and beefy and unprepared, the two cops were no match for the blindingly-quick Cassius. Their eviscerated and mutilated corpses littered lanes 16 and 25.

A total of 14 people (16, including the pigs) had been privy to Matthew and Cassius's first and last bowling excursion. Only one person, Suzie Tomlin, had survived the massacre to relay the events to another human ear. She had been cowering behind the counter, hiding behond the shoe rack, when the Pair of Evil had passed. Cassius had paused, sniffed the air and turned directly to face Suzie.

He removed his sunglasses and Suzie saw what he'd been hiding: The red rheumy eyes of an almost half a millennium old being. She had felt her bladder let loose in a sickenly-warm flood. "Pl-please don't hurt me," she'd said.

Cassius laughed softly and removed his baseball hat and ran a long-fingered palm over his hairless head. It rasped like centuries-old sandpaper. "Young mith," he said. "Do not fear me. I have been walking this curthed planet for 500 yearth. I grow weary of the animalth that populate this watheland. I kill now only to to feed; but I mutht, you underthtand, kill to protect mythelf and my thubject?"

Suzie nodded, eyes squinched tightly.

"I came here becauth it getth very very boring living my life in the prithon of the houth." Cassius sighed and snugged his hat tight against his cue-ball cranium. "I needed thtimulation. And thith ith what I got...more of your weak human rathe trying to cage me. I leave you alive for one reathon and one reathon only, young mith: You will tell of the Great Cathiuth. Athurredly you will be greeted with thcorn and derithon, but tell my thtory you will. Tell of my great power and tell of my incredible conqueth. Tell of theth happeningth or die an unmerthiful death. Capicthe?"

Suzie nodded slowly, whimpering, and Cassius gestured towards the door. "Matthew. We go."

The pair strode, cocksure, into the blinding night of bowling alley suburbia.