Opening Day

Chapter 1: Home

The pile of laundry stirred. Shirts, socks, and underwear heaped onto the bed shuddered and began to collapse. A pair of socks with matching holes in the heels fell to the floor, followed by a worn black t-shirt with a faded picture of The Sandman on it, followed by an empty bag of Doritos. Beneath the lonely mountain of fabric rose a hand, that became a fist, and that fist smashed the stupid alarm clock that had interrupted its slumber. Max emerged from his cocoon like a ghoul from its tomb. He rubbed his eyes, belched and looked around sleepily. He reached back into the pile and pulled out his glasses. A pair of thick lenses encased in equally thick, black frames. It had been over a year and this pair had remained completely intact, something Max took as a sign of personal growth. He scratched his scruff that was quickly becoming a respectable beard and looked out his window to survey the day ahead. The trailer park was still quiet at this hour and outside it was brisk with a very light breeze; it was a bright, clear day in late October. There were only a few months left in this year of 1996, but before it could wrap things up, there was today. A day more important to Max than any other day. More important than next weekend's Halloween traditions, more important than his Uncle Lucky's famous deep-fried turkey on Thanksgiving. Today? Today was...

OPENING DAY

Still in his undies, Max got down on his knees, made the sign of the Cross, and clasped his hands together.

"I'm not really a praying man. And, um, I never really ask you for much, so if you could just watch over us today, and show any mercy you believe us to deserve, I would be really, really grateful, thank you very much, Amen. I love you." He kissed his fingers and placed them lovingly on the poster hung on the door in his room.

The poster was of his favorite movie of all time, the one film franchise he had been obsessed with since he was ten years old: Chain-Slaughter. A dirty, grungy, gorefest, with a body count that rivaled any horror franchise to date. A gorehound's delight, Chain-Slaughter and its sequels boasted lovingly realized grisly practical effects, an always more than game cast and crew, and, in Max's opinion, the greatest slasher in the history of slashers - the Chainsaw Maniac, the Gore King of Rose Hill, the legend himself, Edgar Salt.

Max's particular poster was signed by not just Bill Rasputin, who had starred as Edgar Salt in every Chain-Slaughter flick, Margot Lee Quinn, the final girl and Edgar Salt's twin sister, but Rutger Wolfe himself! The reclusive writer and director of the original Chain-Slaughter trilogy. Max's prayer was especially important today, because today was a high holy day of horror. It was opening day of the newest installment in the franchise, Chain-Slaughter 6: Forever Gore.

Searching through his dresser drawers he finally found what he was looking for, he pulled out a plain white t-shirt, the collar had a tear in it and there was a hole in the right armpit, but those details barely registered. Beside his bed was a night stand, once white, but now completely covered with stickers of all kinds - bands, movies, comic books, any sticker he could get his hands on. He opened the top drawer and rummaged through the random junk he had stashed away. Thumb tacks, keys, interesting rocks, batteries, shoe laces, pieces of broken headphones, condoms, loose candy, rivets, a pair of needle nose pliers, buttons and pins. Finally he found what he was looking for, a chunky red Sharpie marker. He put the marker in his mouth and popped off the cap, holding it under his right incisor. That tooth was particularly fang-like and always appeared when he smiled. His crooked smile always made him look like he was planning something and had gotten him into unearned (and earned) trouble more than a few times. He cleared some space and laid the shirt out on his bed. With care he wrote out the words "GORE KING" in big, sketchy, block letters onto the shirt, including some artistic blood drips for effect. The fang reappeared as he admired his work. He popped on the shirt and completed his outfit, tying a red and black plaid shirt around his waist. Max grabbed his well-loved leather jacket off the floor as he headed out of his room, he suddenly stopped and rolled his eyes at himself. Heading back to his bed he reached into the nest and pulled out his Popcorn Video smock. It was a green bowling shirt with a yellow collar and matching piping on the sleeves with "Popcorn Video Entertainment" embroidered over the right breast pocket. Over the left was his name tag, a plastic caricature of the Popcorn Video mascot "Poppers," an anthropomorphic bucket of popcorn. A speech bubble came from his mouth with an engraved "And Now, Your Feature Presentation!" and underneath was where Max was supposed to write his name, instead he had written "Haywood Jablome, Jr." Max put on his smock and headed to the kitchenette to grab something to eat before he ran out the door.