PeterDavid.net

Jakob was filled with nerves and a primal fear of getting anywhere close to Dick Cheney while still looking like a were-chicken, which just happens to look astonishingly similar to a monster-sized quail.

He struggled to change back to his human, or at least a shape close enough to it, form as he spoke out…

“How could you possibly go up against Quayle, the Potato King? You don’t have that sort of power!”

Dick Cheney snickered loudly in only a way Dick Cheney knows how, guttural and terrible, frightening and sublime. Every newborn baby in a twenty mile radius went blind, all the livestock in that same area fell under a mysterious disease, and thunder crackled in the distance announcing a coming storm. The group did not learn of all this until a later date, but it wasWoeisme that, in act of mixed discomfort and despair, interrupted the snicker that seemed to go on for an eternity.

“Jakob, you clearly don’t know Dick!” she said in a manner that was just a tad louder than she intended. (more…)

With some of the craziness cleared up, Edwood and Bela
embraced like the not-quite-so-young lovers trying their hardest to reestablish
the early dew-eyed phases of their puppy love that they had become. Edwood stared at
Bela, who stared back at him. If only, he thought, there had been one
spelling of “vampire.” No, wait. “Vampyre?” Oh no…

If only, she thought, if only our lives were as uncomplicated as a potatoe…simple,
but able to take so many forms, each enjoyed by so many people on a daily
basis, from the poorest wage-slave to the richest CEO! (This message paid for by the World
Potatoe Farmers for World Domination, not to be confused with the World Potato
Farmers for World Domination.) (more…)

NOTE FROM PAD: Richard came up to the hairy edge with character names here, but I let it go because–although he used a popular alias for the individual in question–it’s not the character’s real name..

The stranger whipped out a black billfold from his pocket and flashed
the contents at the confused foursome.

“As you can see here, I am Dr. John Smith, licensed potato inspector
for this county and you have clearly run into a doozy.” (more…)

The Honda Civic practically buried itself into the driveway of Sullen Manor as Edwood leaped from the driver’s seat, barely bothering to shift the car into park. Jakob, Woeisme, and Something nearly trampled over each other trying to exit the car as Edwood hit the front steps of the porch within three bounds.

“Hey, Dad!” Something cried out. “Think we ought to have a plan before we just go busting in there?”

Without the slightest pause in his movement, Edwood turned his head ever so slightly to his son. “That is the plan!” (more…)

Bela froze as the short man approached her. His full, thick eyebrows
reminded her of her beloved Edwood, yet on this intruder she found
them thoroughly off-putting. More disturbing was the ungainly helmet
he wore, his name emblazoned across the front in large sans-serif
letters: MIKE DUKAKIS.

“I hope I haven’t alarmed you, young lady,” said Dukakis. “I assure
you, I mean no harm.”

“No harm! You’ve scared me half to death lurking in the shadows like
that! It’s one thing to skulk about if you’re young, lithe, and hot.
It’s quite another if you’re… well, you! What do you want, you
troll?” (more…)

“Will someone explain what’s going on?” shrieked Woeisme as Edwood revved the engine into a fine red whine.

“How to explain the immortal perspective?” began Edwood. “I’ll try. Over 50 years ago, encrypted messages began appearing in newspapers. Strings of seemingly random letters could be decoded by keen eyes to spell out answers to questions.”

“You mean those Jumble puzzles?” asked Jakob.

“I do,” said Edwood, betraying no emotion. “I’ve honed my skills over the years, and can unscramble such sequences into the form that makes the most sense. Woeisme, how many letters are in your name?”

“Seven.”

“Right. Jakob, how many letters in ‘potatoe’?”

“Six.”

“I was pronouncing the silent E.”

“Oh, right. Six.” (more…)

They drove into the drive-thru. It took Woeisme hitting Edwood on the back of the head to get him to stop at the right section. He glanced at the menu, but it all seemed like meaningless gibberish to him. Just like the past few days. Just like all of his life, really, but he tried not to think about that. It was rather depressing and made him destroy furniture, and he knew how Bela hated to come back to a broken home.

“I’ll have a…a,” he floundered, aimlessly. Behind him, cars honked in impatience. Even their honking sounded like his beloved’s voice.

“French fries!” Woeisme snapped. “Smothered in ketchup, drizzled with salt-”

“I want a hamburger!” Something interjected. (more…)

“Edwood, why are you sparkling at night?” Woeisme asked.

“Oh, sorry,” Edwood said, and took off his sequined jacket. “I’m not going to let you have her, Quayle,” Edwood growled. “She’s my daughter. And she’s Jakob’s… something.”

“What?” Something asked.

“Not you.” Edwood rolled his eyes.
(more…)

NOTE FROM PAD: This sets a new record as our speedy contributors have given us three chapters in less than twelve hours. Outstanding work. Hugh Casey chose to give his chapter a title; subsequent contributors can follow suit or not as they see fit. And I feel confident in saying that with the revelation of the Potato King, we’re hitting new heights of lunacy.

Woeisme, sailed through the woods, riding upon the back of Principal Flutie, and thinking to herself all the while that this was REALLY inappropriate, and would probably get him fired if she reported it, but then if the whole “I’m a werewolf” thing didn’t get the principal canned, then running though the woods with a sixteen-year-old-looking-but-really-an-eight-year-old-girl on his back was really small potatoes.

Speaking of which… (more…)

Edwood’s brow was deeply furrowed, as if by a team of horses ploughing furrows of soil into which could be planted, well, almost anything. His hands inched over the soft yielding King Edward potato, caressing it into a highly passable version of Jakob’s features. He was deeply frustrated. Making a voodoo doll of a shapeshifter was so frustrating.

At Jakob’s house, Woeisme was kneeling next to a mooing were-cow. “But mother, he isn’t even a bull.”

“Not now, Woeisme.” Belas eyes were fixated on the pack of werewolves watching from the garden. They had told her that the Potato King wanted to meet her daughter, to talk, but Bela knew in her heart of hearts, that somehow this was all about her. (more…)

Meanwhile, in Europe, a small boy was born. Unfortunately, that didn’t help Woeisme since was she currently was hanging upside down outside Jakob’s kitchen window.

Woeisme didn’t have any tracking ability. Bela was simply a terrible driver and had left a pretty clear trail of destruction in her SUV. Finding it parked in the radish bed outside of Jakob’s house, Woeisme heard voices from inside. Using the “Spider-Man’s Completely Safe Wall Crawling For Kids” play-set she got for her 4th/16th birthday, she scrambled up the side of Jakob’s house, and, with an exaggerated flourish that would send Michael Bay’s heart a-twitter, she dangled upside down outside the kitchen window, listening. (more…)

“What?” Bela couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t believe that when she had come to Jakob in her vulnerability that he would ask not about her but about her daughter.

Immediately Jakob knew he had made a mistake as Bela’s face, being the face of a human and not that of a vampire, betrayed her emotions. For she was a human, a human in love with a vampire, but she was also a human who was supernaturally bi-curious about a werewolf. (more…)

At midnight the next evening, thunder boomed, nearly drowning out a timid knock on the door.

Jakob was sitting in the kitchen and practicing his russet carving skills. Bela’s rejection had shaken him so that he dared not risk another true potato under his untalented blade. Instead he was practicing on marble. It was far easier to carve Bela’s beauteous countenance in the cool stone, but it was the potato that would truly show the lengths he would go to love Bela (until, of course, Woeisme reached a legal age).

But the knock, it was faint, but truly there! Jakob put his carving tools away and went to answer the door.

There stood Bela, soaked to the bone, tears spilling down her cheeks like the raindrops falling down from the sky. In fact, it was only the redness of Bela’s eyes and Jakob’s keen senses that told him she’d been crying at all. (more…)

As the sounds of Madonna’s Vogue drifted out from inside Sullen Manor,
Edwood shifted his position to strike another sculpture-like pose.
This allowed him to see the potato still grasped in Bela’s
aluminum-foil-jacket-like grip.

“What is that?” he asked in a voice which audibly sparkled in the dim light.

“Oh, just a tuber that Jakob carved to try to look like me.”

“So it’s a YouTuber?”

Even Edwood’s horrible puns seemed to Bela to sparkle. (more…)

Note from PAD: David Oakes currently holds the land speed record for Potato Moon, turning in his contribution less than four hours after getting the call.

Lost.

Lost.

Lost.

Emotionally crushed by Edwood’s indifference, Jakob was thrown under the bus
of time and into the memory of his experiences on the island. When he was
completely isolated. Totally and utterly alone. With no one around to
understand his absolutely unique and inconsolable solitude.

Well, except for the village. But he had good reasons to never talk to
them. In fact he was sure there was as many as six. (more…)

PAD here. Ten entries since last Friday, so we’re ahead of the curve. Congrats to all contributors for a smooth first week.

Jakob’s pants burst into flame. He thought of how this was the perfect metaphor for his feelings for Bela. He made a mental note to write it down in his journal later. Then he remembered the that flames weren’t metaphorical and started screaming.

A cold foam sprayed over Jakob’s body. The freezing sensation reminded him of the cold showers he took several times a day to calm his flaming libido, tame his unbridled heart, and sooth his incessant athlete’s foot. When the mist cleared the flames on his pants were gone and Edwood stood petulantly before him holding an equally petulant fire extinguisher. (more…)

“Handle you?” Bela’s eyes seemed then to mist over, and he stared at her, puzzled. “Your heat,” she said, and he swore she was panting now, like an overeager werewolf cub after too much rough and tumble – no, he thought, don’t think tumble, don’t think, but I am thinking it! he thought dramatically, a tumble amongst the King Edwards with–

With a gasp, he dragged his thoughts away from his desires – that similarity to the hated name! He growled and hunched and drew closer to Bela again. “What were you saying?”

“Your heat,” she whispered throatily, and then she emitted a small, delicate cough that made him tremble in places he had never known could tremble, at least outside of tremors in the earth and a mouthful of a particularly rank kind of Jimson weed that werewolves would eat when they needed to get more into their werewolfish spaces, or purge to maintain their slim, muscled shapes. Bela waved a delicate hand delicately before her face. “Your heat,” she said a third time. “You’re so hot it’s making you steam.” (more…)

PAD here. I just want to take this moment to say that I am, quite frankly, blown away by the quality of submissions we’re getting. Great job to all concerned, and keep it coming!

Jakob stopped, perplexed. Most women had shot him down by this point, and a few were normally calling the police. What DID he have to offer? He looked down at the spurned spud in his hands, realizing that his macaroni art was even less accomplished than his attempts at effigy.

Taking his silence as a silent confirmation of her fears, Bela said, “That’s what I thought.”

Jakob bridled and replied sharply. Bela looked at him, confused. Jakob removed the bridle and repeated himself, “I have plenty to offer you, not the least of which would be an intriguing mystery to discover what I have to offer you.”

Bela studied him, noticed the uncontrolled quivering of his lip, the glazed, sweet look of his eyes that reminded her of donuts, the sheen of sweat on his forehead that made him sparkle like an adolescent with a gland problem… (more…)

NOTE: This is the second entry within the past day. So be sure to read part 6 by Michael Davidson before you start on this one!

The room grew cold and colder in the night shade, and a wild wind whipped the flickering flambeaus on the façade into a flashing frenzy.

“Castle Thunder” grumbled throatily outside as Jakob stared into the face of Bela, the selfsame Bela who had just mocked his ardent devotion. Her eyes, usually as soft as triple-pureed adirondack blues, were now cold and devoid of affection.

“Woe is me,” sighed Jakob.

As if on cue, an apparition drifted into the room like steam over a bowl of boiled lilis. It was Woeisme, her raven hair standing out against her yellow-scalloped nightgown stamped with maris pipers, which only poorly disguised the growing shapeliness of her form. (more…)

His hands moved rhythmically, spurred on by ancient, guttural tones. The lights flickered, spasming like a fish too far from water, or a careless electrician.

Jakob’s face stressed and contorted. Sweat began to bead on his over-long forehead. His eyes rolled back, his body slacked. He was done. (more…)