Hot Potato Campfire Story (part 2)

Continued from the first section.....

PART 8
Just as Warrick revealed the elusive truth about their parents, he flicked a
cigarette into the hay bales beside the 'stables' in the S&M room. Tigger
stared at the bales, not understanding. Suddenly, Tigger heard an odd sound.
It was like crackling. He spun around to see the room starting up in flames!

"Why?" he screamed at Warrick.

Warrick just laughed an evil laugh, and pointed at the body of Deirdre on
the floor.

"For her. My true love."

"What?" Tigger screamed. He was confused! Who was this Deirdre, if not his
potential sister, and what had happened to her? What was her relationship
with Warrick?

Distraught by the flames, Tigger ran to the door to escape, but there was
none to be found, the room was locked from the outside, better to serve
their clients. And no-one would answer screams coming from this room. Tigger
had been kept up nights just listening to the horrible and yet pleased
sounds.

Warrick's maniacial laughter rang though his brain as Tigger stared at that
doorway. The only thing in his sight was the Ninja star that Ninja James T.
Kirk had left behind. "Filthy Ninja" Tigger thought, spitting on the
ground.

Suddeny, he had an idea. On instinct, Tigger grabbed the star out of the
door, and flung it at Warrick. He had no idea why.

The evil laughter stopped.

Tigger turned back to Warrick, in anguish. The star had slit his throat, and
Warrick was gargling for breath. Tigger rushed to his side, prepared to
finish him. But he couldn't do it. The overwhelming knowledge that he was a
fighter and possibly a Ninja himself coursed through his veins. How was he
trained? Who trained him? Why was his instinct to kill his brother, and was
Warrick REALLY his brother? And why couldn't he have been born a pirate?

Warrick tried to speak. Tigger leaned in to hear his last words, the room
burning around them....



Part 9
"Montreal. The answer lies in Montreal, near the peachtree." With
that, Warrick was gone, and although Tigger tried to grieve, he found
he wasn't sorry, really. Warrick was a freak and a creepy one at that.

Montreal...was that really where the Answer was?


Part 10
Tigger slipped through the brothel quietly while the customers took their
pleasure and the ladies feigned desire with the help of opium and rum. No
one seemed to be aware of the fire burning upstairs yet, but Tigger was not
at all surprised. The brothel was a weird place.

He went room to room, ignoring the trusting gentlemen while delicately
stealing wallets from discarded pants flung on the floor. In the fourth room
he entered, he heard someone scream in the hallway and shouts of 'fire!'
were heard through the house. In a panic, Tigger leaped over the pair on the
bed and jumped out the window.

The window was not high above the ground, but Tigger had the misfortune to
land on a pair of Siamese twins, killing one of them. The living twin
screamed as her sister died of a fractured skull. Tigger scrambled off the
pavement when he felt hands reach out and grab him.

Part 11

TIgger shrieked and kicked away the hands of the surviving twin, the impact of his booted foot crushing HER skull and sending her to her destiny alongisde her sister. He scrambled to his feet, cramming the wads of customer's money into his pirate pockets and patting his eyepatch in panic.

Tigger ran straight toward the local Denny's where he knew he could get a stack of pancakes doused in hot syrup for a just a few bucks, and where he could plan the next steps in his escape from the madhouse that his life had become.

But oh! He had forgotten about his mother! Where was SHE? Was she all right? He AHD to go back to the brothel, and even though he'd heard somone say "you can't go home again" he hadn't really been gone that long, and didn't expect much would have changed.

He followed the blazing orange light in the sky and the smell of charred wood and singed hair to the burning brothel, where dozens of scantily clad women and panicking men ran franticlly in the streets, one of whom was calling his name in a thick Jersey accent.

His mother! He had found her! Tigger ran toward her just in time to see ....

Part 12 Redux

Boom goes the Dynamite. There are explosions all around. “What the hell is happening?” thought Tigger (who knows he is too young to use the word ‘Hell”). Just then his mother was blown into a thousand pieces. That fire in the brothel was no accident. “It must be a terrorist attack” thought Tigger “and it’s probably because of all of the damn French people, everyone hates French people.”

Tigger looked up to see bombs and missiles coming from the sky. “This is no terrorist attack!”, “terrorists don’t have jets.” Just then one of the jets flew dangerously close to Tigger and he saw an American Flag on the Tail as the pilot blew him a kiss from the cockpit. “They’ve finally done it” he thought. “The Amercians got tired of our Canadian attitude and decided to take us over.”

Tigger took refuge under a large piece of steel wreckage, he’d take his chances and wait out the attack. When he awoke in the morning the entire city was destroyed. Was he the only person left alive in the city? He started yelling out “hello?”…

Part 13:

The brothel was gone His mother was dead. Warrick was dead. Everyone who could help him figure out what was happening was gone. Tigger wished he never found the box with the Deirdre's bones. He just wanted to go back to playing a pirate cowboy sheriff.

Tigger sifted through the rubble of the destroyed brothel, looking for anything that might help him. He located the charred area that used to be the bedroom he shared with his mother. "I'm sorry Mamma.", he cried. Tigger couldn't take it anymore and fell to the ground sobbing. The sun was rising and he could see the sunshine coming through the broken windows. The light clearly showed the destruction around him.

He saw a portrait of his mother on the ground. She was proud of this portrait. "A famous artist painted this portrait of me, Tigger." The portrait was now torn and burned but his mother was still beautiful. "What's that?", Tigger asked out loud. There was something protruding from the backing of the portrait. He reached in and took out an envelope. The front of the envelope said "For Deirdre". Tigger opened the envelope slowly....

Part 14

It looked familiar. He himself had received and envelope just like this before his accident. He went from slowly opening the envelope and examining it to tearing it. Instead he found the most remarkable letter. It began…"We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

“Witchcraft?!? That might explain his surviving his fight with that Ninja. Maybe it would even explain his ability to use the Ninja star. That’s silly,” he contintued to talk to himself, “Wichtes don’t use Ninja stars.”

“Not Candian wizards.” He heard a voice muffled yet close, it sounded like his Mom. Tigger turned in every direction trying to find her. “Mom, where are you?” he shouted tears rolling down his check.

“Oh Baby. I’m so sorry I waited to tell you. I’m sorry I took your letter. Please forgive me.”

“Mom…where are you? I saw you die in the attack.”

“The paiting my dear.”

Tigger turned the corner of the portrait over again and there was his Mom, smiling and waiving at him.

“If I had only told you and not tried to hid it from you...” his Mom in the portrait begain to weep.

“Tell me what Mom. What is going on?”

“The attack. It was HIM.”

“Who Mom?”

“He-who-shall-not-be-named.”

“Mom, work with me here. What is going on? Who is HIM? Who is Deidre?”

“Deidre is your sister. There is so much I never got to tell you. About Deidre, school, your real name, your father…but you are in terrible danger here. You must go to Montreal, you must go to school, you must see the headmaster…he will protect you. He’s the only one who can.”