The Scarlet Fire

Graveyard and Family

In a graveyard the next day Y/N leans against his motorcycle, gazing at the headstone of Johnny Blaze as a stone angel watches over him. The sound of a deep booming of a thunderclap can be heard in the distance. 

"Looks like a blue norther..."

Y/N turns to find a powerful-looking old man standing before him. He wears work gloves, a battered fedora, and holds a blunt shovel in his hands. This is Caretaker, at the age of sixty he's tougher than most men half his age. 

"That's what my dad used to call it."

Caretaker nods before spitting a stream of tobacco juice. 

"Folks call me caretaker."

"Y/N..."

Lightning strikes as thunder booms again, closer now. 

"Some folks believe that thunder is the Devil's stomach growling."

Caretaker sizes him up for a beat. 

"What do you believe?"

Weird. Y/N shrugs it off and fishes for a cigarette. 

"I believe I'd better get a move on before the storm hits..."

Y/N flicks his Zippo lighter as Caretaker nods. 

"Looks like it's already here."

Y/N stops as he sees the flame bending towards him. He snaps the lighter shut. 

'What the hell?' 

He looks over to see the old man walking back into the cemetery.

"Hey...hey wait a minute!"

As Y/N steps over the hill, he notices Caretaker is gone. 

In an alleyway that night, an oily black rat waddles through a filthy puddle. The rat stops and squeals as it suddenly decomposes. A minute later, the shadow of death rises over the alley. 

"It's like the Tower of Babel on the brink of collapse. Where everything has a price but nothing has value..."

The Red Light District of Downtown Dallas, one of the hardened arteries that leads to this city's dead heart. Blackheart stands there, seemingly all alone...

"They don't deserve their souls."

Gressil appears at his side. He wears a long black coat and has taken on a youthful appearance similar to Blackheart's own. They both stop as a shadow passes over them accompanied by the flapping of wings.

"Show yourself, brother..."

Suddenly, a rush of hot air blows past them as the sinister shadow drops down into the alley. Its oily wings cloak its head like a giant bat before it re-emerges in human form, Skinner. 

He has a shaved head apart from the tight white mohawk that runs down the back of his neck. As his skin ripples, his mohawk fossilizes into rows of razor-sharp bone.  

He tenses his forearm as bony protrusions appear from underneath his skin. These talon-like weapons can cut through anything. Like the others he cloaks himself in a long, black duster. 

"Welcome to the land of the living."

Inside a body piercing shop, a young punk steps out holding his swollen mouth.

"Keep it clean and that swelling should do down in a few days..."

"Othay. Thee oo ater."

A burst of lightning rips the sky as rain beings to fall. The punk curses as he bunches up his coat and starts for home. 

The raindrops are trickling towards each other across the wet street, pooling together to form one shimmering liquid mass.

The punk takes a short-cut through the alley but stops when his Doc Marten's step into a deep puddle of rain water. 

"Aw, thit."

He shakes the water from his boots as the water from the puddle behind him starts rising up. The punk slowly turns around as the translucent face of Wallow emerging from out the water wall. 

The punk starts to scream as a burst of water hits him. A tongue stud clatters to the street below and then a clear hand reaches down and picks up the punk's black coat. 

"Wallow..."

Blackheart, Skinner and Gressil stand before him. Like the others, Wallow now appears young, pale, and heroin-chic thin. A neo-goth rendition of The Lost Boys. 

"Welcome to the Family..."