Horror 100 Volume 2

Cultist

The ratings had been suffering. Ever since that pretentious bitch Oprah started her own channel, shock talk shows like Tommy's had taken a hit to their core audience. The competition was fierce, every topic being covered like ants on a toddler's lollipop left inadvertently on the sidewalk. The writer's and staff had been challenged to come up with sure fire topics to garner ratings worthy enough to keep the advertising money flowing in.

The problem was every topic had been sufficiently hammered. There was nothing original or shocking anymore. The news had desensitized the masses. Nothing was off limits and the days of family friendly newscasts had gone by the wayside just as the family values had been cast aside. When every event is either an emergency or catastrophe, no matter how trivial, the undertaking of shocking an audience had become a daunting and almost fruitless task.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" Tommy demanded of his staff during their weekly meeting. "Oprah is kicking our asses and that droll piss-ant Maury is killing us with his paternity tests! I am Tommy Dafinger damn it! I am bigger than Jerry, Maury, and Dr. Phil combined. You'd all better come up with something or we will all be in the poor house and soup lines sooner than later!"

Tommy had built his fame on the heels of others suffering. Cheaters, transvestites, and white trash real life soap operas played out on his set on a weekly basis. Incest and homosexuality ran rampant if you took the cross-section of Tommy's guests and used it as a template for society. The sorted cesspool constantly put forth entertainment for the masses; a regular Roman circus. Yet, the well had begun to run dry.

Even Tommy's catch phrase "Come on my show and if you want to butt heads with me, I'll give you Dafinger!" had grown tiresome and cliché to the folks that still managed to tune in to his show. One lone writer spoke up. "I have an idea. Paternity tests are the hot topic right now. Maybe if we found some extreme cases, or even invented them ourselves, maybe that would put us at or near the top of the rankings again."

There was silence as Tommy looked at the writer, many wondering if an obscenity laced tirade was about to spring forth from his mouth at any moment. However, a smile etched across the once angry face of Tommy. "That's great. Hit the internet folks. Let's find us some really outlandish paternity cases. Tell them we will pay top dollar. That ought to get the poor white trash fired up and creative."

The fury had begun. Writer and producer alike began to comb tabloids, personals, blogs, and message boards of all types in search of the perfect guests for the new show idea. In an obscure newspaper from someplace called Cassadaga, Florida, one of the producers struck talk show gold. Florida had been a plethora of white trash topics, always good for child abuse, whether sexual or physical, incest, or just plain deviant behavior which seemed to be the norm for the Sunshine State.

The writer found a personal ad asking for help from any of the psychics that resided in Cassadaga. The little town in Florida had gained quite a reputation for the supernatural and was the destination for many a psychic or paranormal investigator. The woman claimed that she was pregnant and that the father was a secretive cultist and that she had great concerns of not only what the future was for her baby, but what would become of her if she was forced into this cult. The writer could not respond fast enough and showed Tommy the potential ratings buster.

"Hot damn! This is GREAT!" Tommy exclaimed. "Thank God for inbred hicks. This is going to be the show of the year. Buckle up folks. Now, go out and find me some more guests with paternity issues and we will feature these two as the anchor of the show."

Eric Drummond had been given the crucial task of contacting the poor girl whom had been impregnated by her cultist boyfriend. It took him several days to finally get in touch with her. Her name was Charlene, and she would not give her last name for fear of her whereabouts being discovered. She confided in Eric that she had given birth already, a shocking event considering she was only 5 months pregnant when she delivered.