#its like someone came up to my jack in the box and cranked the handle until i popped out

[bd-wlf]

These are The Old Men btw...

On this episode of Fuck Or Befriend your average lesbian ponders the question whether she wants to Fuck Or Befriend That Old Man...

[phoebe-of-ivalice]

FFXIV Write 2021 Prompt #8

Adroit (adjective) clever or skillful in using the hands or mind.

The Hunted: Part 2 (cut placed due to length)

Phoebe paced the floor of the Rogue’s Guild nervously. She’d been there all night, lurking in the corner as she waited to see her old mentor, Jacke. She’d need his advice on her current situation if she wanted to find this Hunter before… she shuddered at the thought of what any of it could mean. The man sent after her the last evening was obviously a decoy who was meant to put fear in to her mind. It angered her that it had worked so well. She’d need to get ahead of her enemy if she wanted to protect herself.

Finally, around 5am Jacke came stumbling in, smelling of cheap perfume and plenty of booze. If she didn’t catch him now, she never would. Phoebe stepped into his path, blocking him from his room where he’d sleep the entire day away. He paused for a moment and a confused look crossed his face. Who dared to stand in his way? He stared at her chest for a good solid minute before he spoke up. “Hold on… I know… I know these tits,” Jacke said. He finally glanced up at Phoebe, who was rolling her eyes. “Ah, Phoebe! What brings ye to my side of this here fine city? ‘Ere to pay your respects to yer favorite guild master, eh?” He waggled his eyebrows at her. She shoved his shoulder playfully as she groaned. Under normal circumstances, she’d have made a joke in return, but right now there were more pressing matters. “Jacke, I need your help. I’m in a spot of trouble,” she whispered to him once he’d stopped laughing. He seemed to sober up enough at that, nodding and grabbing her lightly by the arm. He guided her into a side room, as close to an office as the man had. He shut and locked the door behind them, indicating for her to have a seat. “So what’s got you runnin’ back ‘ere to ol’Jacke for help? Ye was always one to ‘elp yerself as I recall. Gave ye that pair o’fine stabbers and off ye went.” Jacke has never quite let go of her leaving the Rogue’s guild to run off to the Far East. He liked the shinobi well enough; even learned a thing or two himself from them. She had been his favorite for quite some time, in a number of ways, and he was sorry to see her leave. “One of my contacts has been missing for days Jacke. They aren’t like that, one of my most dependable in fact. Had some vital information about my next target they’d wanted to tell me in person. Then last night some creep followed me down to the wharf. Had to kill him before I could get anything out of him. The body fell into the water, so it’s either gone out with the tide or the guard found him. The only thing he said was that someone was hunting me. Not sure if I should be terrified or flattered,” she chuckled, trying to cover the worry in her tone. Jacke sat across from her, mulling over the information she’d provided. He leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin. Phoebe arched an eyebrow in his direction as time seemed to come to a halt. She cleared her throat, bringing Jacke back to the present. He beamed at her, a sign that nothing good could come from this conversation. “I ever tell ye about my favorite stabbers? Sharp as can be, inlaid with gold and emerald in the hilts. Right beauts they were… til I made a fool of meself an’ lost ‘em in a bet to Captain Rhoswen. She’s been a right witch about it ever since. I dinna think I’d ever hear of ‘em again. Well, one of me boys was beddin’ a Sanguine Siren the other day. Told him where she keeps my lovely stabbers locked in a safe. Now, if someone were to recover those for me, I may be willin’ to owe ‘em a favor of sorts,” he made his terms quite clear to her. Always one to want his back scratched before helping someone else… he never changed. “Fine. Where is this safe then?” she asked, pursing her lips to express her annoyance. “Ahha! You’re the best for the job. Now, the safe is in the cellar of the Missing Member. You’ll need your lockpicking kit I gave ye. Still got it, yeah?” Phoebe nodded her head. It was with her all the time practically. She listened to the rest of the instructions and Jacke started to ramble in his inebriation. She held a hand out to him, letting him

know she had enough to go off of and was ready to set out. “I need to get this over with, if I take too long that only gives this Hunter more time,” she quipped, closing the door behind her. Back on the docks, she pulled her hood into place. She scanned the area for anything suspicious but there was no one to be seen. She'd need to wait until it was dark out if she wanted her best chance at getting in unseen. She’d need to figure out how she could drop two stories below the main floor of the Missing Member without being seen. She’d need to cause a distraction most likely. Then when everyone was busy, she’d have to climb the roof and drop down the back of the building before anyone saw her. It would be tight but if anyone could do it, it would be her. First things first…. She needed to find a rat.

———————————————————————

One angry squeaking box later, Phoebe climbed up the stairs to the Upper Decks and made her way over to the Missing Member eatery. The rat she’d managed to catch would be good and angry by the time she’d release it into the front door of the restaurant. She casually walked across the main courtyard, and over the bridge to the doorway. Luckily there were only a few guests standing outside that were too busy talking to even notice her. She cracked open the door, sliding the box in on its side to allow the creature to escape. She stood off to the side as far as she could and waited.

It didn’t take long until a few screaming guests charge out the door, followed by screams from the inside. The few people who had been waiting decided it would be better to make themselves scarce. It was the perfect time for her to move. Phoebe nimbly climbed up to the rooftop, grasping onto the spire as she secured a rope from her pack around it. Lowering herself over the edge, she repelled her way down the sheer side of the white wall. She chuckled as she neared the window of the kitchen, yelling and cursing could still be heard from within as they chased the rat around. It worked better than she’d hoped.

Down two more stories, she found the small window Jacke had described to her earlier. He’d need to consider himself lucky if Phoebe was able to clear the frame with how small it appeared. Using a small glass-breaking tool, she cleared out one of the panes and flipped the lock. She pushed the frame open and stuck her head inside to make sure no one else was around. It was dark inside, the only light was the small beam of moonlight falling through the window.

Phoebe squeezed through the opening, only slightly panicking as her hips stuck for a mere second. It certainly wasn't a place frequented by people, as she noted the thick coating of dust on most of the items stashed away. Old paintings stacked across one side of the room, several locked trunks, and a large safe took up most of the small space. A ladder on the far side of the room most likely led to a trap door up to the next floor.

The safe would be simple enough for her to open. It had a classic style lock, instead of the fancy combination locks many of the nobles had in the wealthier cities. Phoebe removed her lockpicking tools, rolling the case out on the floor so she could select the right ones. Her hands worked quickly, one long ear pressed closely to the safe to listen carefully to each successful click. She deftly tested each tumbler and slid in the torque pick to prevent them from falling back in place. As she heard the last tumbler fall into place, she pulled the crank handle open on the safe... and an alarm sounded from the chest. How the hells had they rigged that up?

Phoebe rifled through the safe as quickly as she could. There were a number of small treasures in the safe, and Phoebe's fingers itched to pocket more than she needed. There was no time now thanks to the pounding of running feet on the floorboards above. The daggers were in a small box on the bottom shelf, and she shoved the beautiful knives into her pocket inside her coat. She couldn't resist grabbing a lovely ruby hairpin that sat in the very back corner as a reward for herself. The pirates above were now fighting to get the trap door open, as the lock seemed to have rusted shut.

Phoebe shimmied out the window and scaled the wall as fast as she could. As her coattails disappeared over the roof, a very angry Captain Rhoswen was shouting obscenities out the broken window below. By the time the captain had made it to the main floor, Phoebe was long gone.

Phoebe dropped the daggers on the table with a loud clang. Jacke had been asleep, chin on his chest and feet propped on the table. The noise made him jump and he unsheathed his knives as he cursed.

"Settle down, you ol' fool," Phoebe grumbled, "There are your stabbers back. I hope you have some information that was worth my time getting those."

"Aye, that I do. Found out sumthin' while you was out. Your contact is dead, strung up in a tree jus' outside Ul'dah. Might want to make yer way there. Body was taken by the Flames for inspection."

Phoebe sighed, "Thanks Jacke, I better go catch the last airship for the night. And watch out for Rhoswen, she's going to be spittin' fire."

"Thanks lass I... wait what do you mean?! Phoebe wait!" she closed the door behind her with a wicked smile as Jacke called after her. She had an airship to catch and no time to waste.

part 3>

[aion-rsa]

How Arachnophobia Became the Perfect Creepy Crawly Horror Comedy

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There’s a moment in Arachnophobia where Jeff Daniels’ Dr Ross Jennings, lying in bed one night worried his new hometown of Canaima is under attack from venomous spiders, spots an eight-legged intruder lurking in plain sight on his bedroom wall. The scene builds to a terrifying crescendo when the panic-stricken Jennings, who has a pathological fear of spiders, decides to confront the arachnid – only to discover it’s a coat hook.  

It’s a prime example of the power Arachnophobia still possesses, 30 years on from its release. The power to have audiences breaking out in cold sweats one minute and fits of laughter the next.  

The story of an ordinary American town that becomes infested with a deadly new species of spider unwittingly transported over from the Amazon rainforest, Arachnophobia might have been a very different prospect in the hands of another filmmaker.  

Fortunately, Arachnophobia had Frank Marshall at the helm.  

A long-time producer who had worked with everyone from Orson Welles to Martin Scorsese prior to founding Amblin Entertainment with his wife Kathleen Kennedy and long-time collaborator Steven Spielberg, Arachnophobia represented Marshall’s directorial debut. In many ways, he couldn’t have picked a better project.  

Never work with animals and children 

While the old Hollywood adage claimed you should never work with children or animals, Marshall had an impressive track record with both – especially animals. He had overseen the uses of several snakes in Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and orchestrated the plague of rats that pop up in the sewers of Venice during Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  

More importantly, like Spielberg, he wasn’t averse to cranking up the PG scares whether it be a melting Nazi or the desiccated corpse of a spider bite victim. The key to cooking up a scare in Arachnophobia, however, were the arachnids themselves.  

Marshall and his production team auditioned a variety of spiders for the film, whittling it down to a shortlist of four distinct species, including wolf spiders, tarantulas, and huntsman spiders.  

“I held what I called the Spider Olympics,” he explained in an interview with Amblin. “I really put them through their paces to see if they could climb a glass, if they looked scary, to see how big they were or if they looked good on camera and how we could motivate them.”  

He eventually settled on three-inch wide Delena spiders; a huntsman arachnid native to Australia that had arrived in New Zealand in the 1920s.  

Hundreds of little Marlon Brandos 

Over 300 were shipped to the US for filming, with more arachnids added as filming continued.  

“We had a spider condominium where we had different drawers with spiders that could climb better than others and some that were faster than others. It was really a science of different spider actors.”  

A variety of techniques were used to direct the spiders. Hot and cold air proved effective while the crew also hit on the use of Lemon Pledge cleaner to help guide their movements.  

In some of the more complex shots, microscopic leashes and tiny steel plates were used but even they had their limitations.  Even so, takes regularly ran into the double digits with the film’s arachnid performers guilty of going off script like a bunch of eight-legged Marlon Brandos.

Sometimes things went like clockwork, like the scene where spiders begin to burst out of a bathroom sink.  

“We blew hot air and they came bursting out of the drain,” Marshall said.  “I never dreamed they would just explode.”  

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Other times, however, it proved difficult, with the director citing the scene in which the town coroner and his wife are offed when a rogue arachnid gets inside their bowl of popcorn.  

Marshall said: “The popcorn was probably the hardest one and in the shot that we got, the spider comes out and we follow it. That’s all ad-libbed by the spider.”  

It required meticulous planning on Marshall’s part and a wealth of patience from stars like Daniels, who acknowledged to the New York Times that it took a “special kind of actor” to work with spiders. It was all worth it though. 

The practical approach proved crucial, imbuing Arachnophobia with a sense of realism and a timeless quality missing from the many CGI-led spider monstrosities that have followed in the years since. Not that Marshall was averse to a little technical wizardry though. 

While a real-life Amazonian bird-eating tarantula was cast as larger spider credited as “The General” in the movie and known as “Big Bob” on set, Marshall knew the arachnid was neither big enough for some of the film’s stunts nor trained enough to pull off many of the film’s crucial scenes – including any and all close-ups.  

Instead, a 15-inch mechanical spider was built in his place by then-rookie special effect whizz Jamie Hyneman, who would go on to find fame on the TV series Mythbusters. 

While the handling of the spiders was crucial, Marshall also understood the importance of grounding Arachnophobia in reality was equally important. That required two crucial elements: good casting and relatable set pieces.  

Killer casting 

One of Arachnophobia’s strengths lies in the fact the film takes the time to establish characters and setting before tearing the whole thing apart with a childlike glee. For Marshall, setting out the stall of the movie was crucial to cranking up the scares – and the fun.  

“What’s important in all of these movies is you’ve got to care about the characters,” he told Amblin. “I tried to cast really great actors in the character parts and the smaller parts. I did feel it needed a little bit of comic relief in this story because it was going to be so creepy.”  

Populating the town’s doomed cast of characters with seasoned performers like Henry Jones and Mary Carver as well as comedic actors like Stuart Pankin and Peter Jason proved a masterstroke and ensured, by the time the spiders were closing in, you actually cared for their safety. When the arachnids did descend, it was often to disrupt an otherwise familiar scene of life in small town USA: a garden party, a night in watching Jeopardy or a football practice. In another nightmarish set piece, the town’s soon to retire doctor is bitten by a spider hiding in his slippers.   

“I thought what’s scariest to people is everyday common things that we all would freak out by,” Marshall said. “I know that every morning when I get up to put on my slippers, I still shake them off.”  

In the wrong hands, Arachnophobia could easily have become a straightforward enough horror movie – and, for a brief period at least, it was. According to Jeff Daniels, when he first signed on the film was a far more serious affair.  

“You could tell that the lines were kind of written by computer,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News.

With time ticking on both Daniels and Marshall eager for the film to have a streak of black comedy running through it, producer Kathleen Kennedy went in search of help. In December of 1988, she found it in Wesley Strick.  

Low-hanging fruit 

By then filming had already begun on the movie, with work complete on all of the scenes charting photographer Jerry Manley’s horrifying death at the hands of a spider in the jungles of Venezuela and subsequent transportation back to the US with an arachnid in tow.  

Strick had been working with Spielberg on the script for a remake of Cape Fear. When he got the call from Kennedy, he was settling in for a quiet Christmas with his wife and young children. He didn’t know it yet, but Christmas was about to be cancelled. 

“Kathleen called and asked: ‘do you have holiday plans? Would you be available to work for two or three weeks on a film called Arachnophobia for my husband, Frank Marshall?’ It sounded like fun and I was stuck at home, so I said yeah,” Strick tells Den of Geek. 

Arachnophobia had been in development long before Marshall took charge and, with time ticking on, Kennedy felt it would be beneficial for Strick to glance through some of the previous revisions of screenwriter Don Jakoby’s original script. There were quite a few revisions, as it turned out.  

“A messenger showed up from Amblin with basically a massive box full of scripts,” Strick says. “I had never seen so many drafts. It had been in development for a long time. She sent me like 12 scripts that had been written over two years.”  

Strick immediately identified the issue. 

“The early drafts were both funny and horrific. But by the time I got to the draft they were working with I could see they had developed out most of the horror and the humor. This kind of thing happens in development because studios often seek clarity over entertainment. They believe the audience should be spoon-fed everything.”

But without “the horror and the humor” Arachnophobia wasn’t working.  

“In this instance, however, the changes had ended up flattening out the plot in an effort to make the story clear,” Strick says. “They forgot that it also needed to be funny and scary. In these prolonged development situations, people kind of lose focus on what it is they are really trying to do while trying to solve very literal problems. That’s why it’s beneficial to have another writer come in with a fresh eye. Someone who hasn’t been worn down by two years of search and can fix what got broken by accident.”  

Something else that jumped out at him too – nobody in the script had arachnophobia.  

“That struck me as a huge missed opportunity,” he says. “It was such low-hanging fruit. I started to question my own sanity like, how could they have missed that? So, I called Frank and Kathleen and said ‘hey nobody has arachnophobia; do you not think Ross Jennings should have arachnophobia? And they were both quiet and just kind of said ‘well do you?’ and I said ‘Yeah’ and they were like ‘well go do that’”  

While Strick acknowledges such changes come off as “screenwriter 101 stuff”, the decision to make Jeff Daniels’s character an arachnophobe proved crucial in tying the plot together.  

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“It helps the movie a lot. It became the dramatic arc of the story,” Strick says. “Things like the moment, early in the film, when Dr Jennings recalls how he became an arachnophobe after a spider crawled up his body as a child. That plays out again in the final act, when he’s pinned down and ‘the general’ is crawling over him. He’s forced to overcome that primal fear. Those moments play great and provide the spine of the picture. Without it, I don’t know how the story would play. It would be a series of set pieces. Maybe that would have been good enough but it’s hard to imagine it without that through line.”  

Strick’s role was also to reinvigorate some of what had been lost in the multiple drafts, in an editing process known as “punching up.”  The screenwriter and script doctor explains it perfectly in the context of Arachnophobia.  

“With a film like this, you were essentially building a ride at a theme park,” he says. “You want to deliver thrills so there needs to be a forward momentum to it.  It can’t meander. The dialogue has to crackle. That’s how movies entertain. I am always looking to focus scenes. Often, you read lots of scenes that are fine and have a clear point, but the dialogue isn’t focused. That’s where polishing comes in. It’s looking at every single line and making sure it’s right down to the number of syllables. With Arachnophobia, I had to liven it up. Add some energy and a bit of humor.”  

Over the course of three weeks, Strick worked in a garage converted into a makeshift office, “punching up” the script.  

“There was a lot of pressure because it was already in production but I had a sense of what was needed,” he said. “Even so, it was a little dicey. There was a lot hanging on it.”  

Good times and Goodman 

Both Kennedy and Marshall were thrilled with the changes Strick made. It struck a chord with Marshall’s desire to make Arachnophobia more like a ghost train ride at an amusement park than a night in a haunted house.  

“I liked his dialogue and he wrote creepy scenes,” Marshall later told Amblin. “I thought that was fun… he wrote good characters.”  

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Daniels echoed that sentiment, explaining to the Orlando Sentinel how the fresh injection of comedy helped the film ebb and flow. 

“We approached it as a comedy with a couple of thrills,” he said. “We knew we had the thrills in there, so we worked hard to make sure the movie had a sense of humour about itself.”  

The humor, he said, “kind of relaxes the audience, so that we can come in and get them again.” 

Strick ended up staying involved in the project, albeit in a removed capacity – Marshall would occasionally phone him from the set to bounce around ideas. Whether he can be credited for John Goodman’s performance is up for debate, though he did write several of his lines. Goodman’s cameo remains a source of some contention among Arachnophobia fans. Riding high off the success of Roseanne at the time, it was Spielberg who suggested Goodman appear as exterminator Delbert McClintock.  

Marshall had been eager to inject some humor into the proceedings but Goodman’s exaggerated performance – supposedly based on a real-life exterminator he knew and an old science teacher – jars with the straight-faced approach seen elsewhere.  

Testing and Box Office 

Not that it mattered all that much to movie-goers.  

“I went to a few test screenings and the whole audience would be shrieking and just generally reacting,” Strick says.  

Those test screenings did pick up one issue though, the original ending, which saw the film conclude immediately after the spider nest is destroyed, fell flat. It was Strick who came up with the idea of showing that the family had moved back to San Francisco.  

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“They wanted something they could shoot in one day. It had to be simple.”  

Billed as the first “thrill-omedy” – a term widely ridiculed by the press at the time – Arachnophobia went on to enjoy modest success at the box office, drawing $53.2 million off a budget of $22 million.  

Strick has his own theory for why the film underwhelmed.  

“I remember my younger sister, Charlotte, told me she couldn’t see it because she was too scared of spiders. I realized a lot of women felt like that. They say when couples go to the movies it’s the female that picks the movies. I’m not sure if that’s true but that’s gospel in Hollywood. I worried that if women were afraid to see it men wouldn’t either.”  

In any case, like many films of the era, Arachnophobia went on to enjoy a second life on video, helped by some standout scares that proved popular with the rewind/slow-motion generation of VHS hounds.  

Remake 

While Strick tends to avoid revisiting his own work, he was pleasantly surprised when rewatching Arachnophobia. 

“I was reluctant to watch it again in case it was a relic of another era of Hollywood but it’s still loads of fun,” he says. “My wife was jumping and shrieking and she’s the ideal audience because she’s terrified with spiders. It’s a very funny movie and yet a lot of people die.”  

With talk of a potential remake on the way, Strick has one bit of advice: “Don’t do it”.  

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“I don’t especially see how or why they would need to remake it for a modern audience. There is something timeless about the original and the way we made it.”  

30 years later, Arachnophobia remains a true one-off.  A film equal parts horror and comedy and one that would fall flat if either side hadn’t been up to muster. In that sense it’s wholly unique and might be better off staying that way.  

The post How Arachnophobia Became the Perfect Creepy Crawly Horror Comedy appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[pyre-prism]

Creepypasta Story - Never Meant to Be

I wanted to play a little with LJ, mainly to see how I might write him for any other project. As a character, I find him to be very interesting, so... yah. I actually wrote this a little while ago, but wasn't sure whether to actually post it.

This is a 'what if?' of the angel who made him (deliberately left rather ambiguous) finding him after the events of the origin story. What happens after this one finishes, I'll leave up to the imagination of those who read it, at least for the time being.

Story below

~*~

The box had changed a lot over the years; once-pristine paint had chipped and flaked, mahogany wood that had originally been firm and straight was now warped, the bright and cheery designs and lettering emblazoned across every surface had dimmed… becoming something that made her throat constrict. The crank handle still jutted out of one side, the lid’s hinges still moved without a sound, and the music-box mechanisms inside the box still worked just fine…

All of these, she expected to some degree. Time had a habit of making objects wear down, a phenomenon that effected practically all forms of life as well, and she couldn’t fault them for falling prey to such a powerful force as that.

She did, however, find the room she was in to be nothing like what she’d hoped it would be.

Watery eyes swept over the room yet again… The walls looked almost identical to the last time she’d been there, over a decade ago, if she ignored the tattered cobwebs and thick layer of dust mixed with splatters of blood and bits of flesh. The shelves that she remembered being on one wall had collapsed –that was where she’d found the neglected toy– and the bed had been converted into some manner of torture-table.

What she had yet to truly investigate, however, was the throne-like chair in the corner. The glances she’d either been unable to stop or had given it by accident had told her more than she ever wanted to know. It stood as a proud but twisted declaration of something that she couldn’t understand, and –more than anything else– it made bile rise in her throat, which she had to swallow back down several times while she simply stood there and stared forlornly at the box in her hands.

A sigh came unbidden from her mouth, and she knew what she had to do next. Her eyes closed as her hands started to glow and she disappeared from the agony-filled room; when she reopened them, she had been transported to a lonely carnival, and –just as she had with the dusty bedroom– she found herself staring around the fairground with her jaw hanging open, her eyes wide, and her brow deeply furrowed.

She knew intimately what the place was supposed to look like… It was supposed to be cheery, fun, and inviting… it was supposed to be somewhere that anyone with a sense of childish wonder could feel as if they belonged… Most importantly, however, it was not supposed to be silent, nor were any of the rides or stalls or tents supposed to look more than ready to collapse into themselves.

Chills prickled at every nerve in her body as a lilting voice wavered its way into her ears, singing a song that she had personally woven into the workings of the box. Ignoring the unease tightening in the pit of her stomach, she raced towards the sound, hoping to find something in the whole mess that she may still be able to salvage.

The voice cracked and dipped into silence more than once while she tried to find the source, eventually locating it in the shockingly-barren big-top. Sitting cross-legged in the performance ring and holding a stuffed toy with the delicacy of someone paranoid of breaking what they were touching… was the jack of the box. She paused long enough to steady her breathing before taking careful steps towards the lanky creature, trying to keep herself from panicking at the changes wrought upon the being she’d crafted over a decade before…

When she made the jack-in-the-box toy, everything had been colourful and the jack himself had been covered in a plethora of gaudy rainbows… now, however, her heart was twisting in sympathy for the monochrome creature before her, every colour bled out of his form as if he no longer knew any form of joy or even love.

As she drew closer to him, his voice hitched. As she knelt down beside him, the song stuttered to a halt. As she reached out for his feathered shoulder, his malleable body twisted away from her touch –the pied feathers lifting slightly as if they were hackles– at the same time as his head came around to face her. She shuddered at the wild yet lost expression on his face, then sheepishly withdrew her hand and offered him a small smile.

“Hello, Laughing Jack.” Almost as if hearing a voice other than his own had flicked a switch in the creature’s brain, his entire frame jolted, and a few seconds later found him moulding his expression into an insincere grin –she suppressed another shudder at the sight of sharklike teeth in his mouth. “It seems this visit is a bit overdue… How are you?”

The question seemed to catch him off-guard and his grin faltered for a moment. “What a strange thing to ask… Why, I’m perfectly fine, how are you?” His voice came out just as shaky and raspy as the singing had been, making the knot in her stomach tighten and sink into her gut.

It was such an obvious lie that she had to force herself not to berate him for it; now wasn’t the time to pick apart the creature’s word choices, and –taking the deflection in-stride– she widened her smile a bit. “I’ve been quite busy lately, and haven’t been able to stay on top of things. I’d have to say that I’m feeling a little confused today, though. Think you might be able to help me work a few things out?”

He blinked slowly a couple of times, tilting his head to one side as if to literally look at her from a new angle, making her smile gain some comforting honesty. “…Like what?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his new claws digging into the stuffed toy in his grasp, but –just like her other observations– she decided not to mention it. Instead, she tried to come up with how to phrase the questions burning in her brain. “Well… I suppose I should start with what’s that you’ve got there?” She gestured at the stuffed toy, and his gaze followed hers, giving a low hum in the back of his throat.

A strange sort of fragile quiet descended over them while she waited for any sort of response, and after a while, he finally heaved a sigh. Those long fingers that she had wanted to create wonder tightened around the soft fabric, twitching as if the jack was fighting with himself as to what to do next… Suddenly, with a feral-sounding snarl, he threw the toy at the side of the tent with all of the force that he could muster. “It’s nothing,” he hissed, curling in on himself for a moment before bounding to his feet and giving her another wide grin –this one even less sincere than the last.

“I… see. Uhm…” She allowed a small frown to appear on her face. “Alright. Then… can you tell me what happened to the carnival? When I was here last, it looked… well, newer?”

He bent his body to one side, bringing a hand up to his face to tap at his chin. “Hmm? You were ever here…? When was that? I don’t remember…” The playful tone that she’d originally expected to hear in his voice had finally shown itself, but concern soured the relief she felt at the change, and he must have seen it because his expression changed… although, not to what she’d expected it would. The creature’s grin widened even further than she’d thought possible, and he let out a quiet snicker.

She stood and brushed the sawdust off of her clothes, straightening her back, squaring her shoulders, and locking her eyes with his. “You didn’t answer my question, you know.”

“You didn’t answer my question, you know,” he parroted back at her with a short giggle as he righted his lanky form.

“I came here once, when you were still very young. When I last saw you, your nose was in the process of developing its colours.” She stated, pointing at the striped cone-shaped nose set in his pale face –the gesture had him crossing his eyes to blink owlishly at it for a second or two, then he shrugged and let out another low hum. Undaunted, she continued with the next question, the one that demanded an answer the most. “I left your box for a boy named Isaac… What happened to him?”

A frightening change came over the jack standing in front of her at the sound of the boy’s name –in truth, the child was also supposed to be his charge, not just hers– and the shift had her heart beginning to pound against her ribs. The nearly-relaxed ragdoll-like nature of his whole body tensed and he even started to curl his fingers into claw-like shapes, making the actual claws he possessed somehow seem even sharper. His pale eyes flickered from narrowed to wild and back again. His lips pulled away in all directions they could, baring even more of those unnaturally-sharp teeth…. and from behind the animalistic barrier, a full-blown cackle bubbled out into the air.

“What happened to Isaac?” she pressed, taking a step closer to her mutated creation, barely paying any mind to the hard glint materialising in the jack’s eyes. He wrapped his overly-long arms around himself as his laughter grew in volume and force, to the point that he was forced to bend over to keep from falling back to the floor. The noise was raucous and unsettling, but she stood her ground, shaping her expression into a firm grimace.

All of a sudden, the laughter stopped. The jack stayed doubled-over for a few moments before straightening and cocking his head to one side, a quiet chuckle starting to build up. “Oh, you want to know what happened to the kid? Do you really? Well, that’s a story and a half! You sure you’ve got the time for such a mundane little thing, Miss Important?” he jeered. He didn’t allow her to reply, raising his arms and making an overacted show of shading his eyes to look around the interior of the big-top. “He’s not here, that’s for sure! But then…”

She forced herself to swallow the lump that was trying to grow in her throat when he trailed off and seemed to become oddly blank, until his feathered shoulders puffed up and he hissed through his teeth. Cautiously, she urged him to continue. “But then… what?”

That brought his focus back to her from the nowhere that it’d retreated to. “He never did come here… not even once.” The monochrome creature paused, narrowing his eyes at her in a speculative manner and then –once again, before she could properly respond– he let loose another bark of laughter. “Bloody hell, that wasn’t what I wanted to say! See, the thing is… Isaac’s gone. He’s gone, gone, gone, gone! Went off to school and… never came back.”

“Never?” she interjected, frowning slightly. Had the most obvious changes to her charge’s childhood bedroom been done by someone else, then? She needed to know, but the jack’s strange behaviour unnerved her, switching gears at less than the drop of a hat and incorporating facets that she just couldn’t understand the source of.

“Nope!” he crowed, leaning in close to her face. “Sure, there was someone who looked a lot like him, but they weren’t my Isaac –far too old and grumpy. Not his father either, that waste of air went and got himself killed, I’m pretty sure…” A spark of sheer glee entered into his expression. “That reminds me! Isaac taught me this really interesting game… do you want to play?”

A cacophony of warnings rang in her head and she took a few steps back –away from him– before she’d even realised what her body was doing. At her reaction, he burst into a fit of giggles, sauntering around to her side in a couple of springy strides; she turned, determined to keep the creature in her sight for the time being, no matter what it took. He circled, she pivoted, and the cycle continued. “I thought you said that he never came back? Did Isaac teach you the game before he left?”

The jack’s movement faltered, resuming quickly as if nothing had happened. “Did I? Silly me, then. I meant to say that ‘my Isaac’ never did… That man, he wasn’t ‘my Isaac’, though I guess you could say he was ‘an Isaac’…?” His shoulders jerked in what she could only assume was an awkward shrug. “That one taught me the game, though I don’t think he knew I was watching for the first few playmates he had.”

It was now crystal-clear to her… if she wanted to know what had happened, she needed to take the risk and at least pretend to be interested in this ‘game’ he was talking about. With a small smile, she dipped her head in a tiny nod. “Tell me about the game you learned. I’d rather know how it goes before I play.”

“Ooh, goodie!” The childish shout was accompanied by the first true sign of the toy she had left in Isaac’s bedroom all those years ago –honest and even innocent cheer… it made her eyes start to water. He ignored the tears dribbling down her cheeks and looked around the tent with more purpose than his play-acting earlier. After a couple of seconds of this, he stuck out his tongue at the emptiness of the big-top and plopped himself back down into the sawdust, gesturing for her to do the same. “Now, I’m not entirely sure of the rules of the game, but I certainly know how to play it… It’s pretty simple, really, now that I think about it… very artsy too.”

She was confused, and felt her forehead crease. “I’m not sure I follow…?”

“I’m getting there,” he replied with a snicker. “I think you need at least two players, so we’re set. You also need… hmm…” Sharp claws tapped his chin once, twice, and then he shrugged and held out his hands; a long metal spike materialised an inch above his palm, which was held out for her to take –she did, but only once the eagerness in the jack’s face had slipped a little. “I used these, along with a few other things, to play with the ‘other Isaac’, just a… day… or two? I think? Not important! Anyway, things that break skin are really useful, it seems, though if you want to make anything out of it then it’s probably best to avoid too many holes—…”

Her stomach twisted and her hands dropped the spike to the floor before she could come up with a convincing reason not to. “H-holes? In skin…?” she asked, wincing inwardly at the way her voice shook.

The creature stared at her in wide-eyed surprise, his gaze flicking between the spike and her face. “…Yes? How else are you supposed to get it off? Or keep them from struggling?” He paused, letting out another laugh. “Oh, wait, I guess tying them up works, too, for that part. Silly me, that’s what the ‘other Isaac’ did, anyways.”

“And… then what…?” She didn’t really want to know the answer, but at this point she was far too deep into the situation to just get up and leave. Isaac was her charge, the jack of the box was her creation… Whatever had happened… was her responsibility.

He hummed. “You’re supposed to pick them apart like they’re huge presents and then make them into something nice. I made the ‘other Isaac’ into a sort of sock filled with sweets.”

She couldn’t take much more of it, knowing that the jack was referring to people with each and every statement… “That’s not what I made you for… I made you to make Isaac happy, not… that.” She turned her head away, unable to bring herself to watch the creature’s expression twist –first in confusion and then in boiling hatred– but she could feel the emotions rolling off of him in toxic waves. “You were supposed to be a perfect match for him, the best friend he could ever ask for, and you—…”

“Don’t say it like it happened all in one night, you goddamn twat!” the jack snarled, shifting his body into a half-crouch. “Thirteen years! It took thirteen bloody fucking years for him to come back!” He took advantage of her startled silence to lean in close to her face. “I was all that, and more! I was… but he… He forgot me. So I made sure he couldn’t forget me, ever again…”

“…You can’t forget anything if you’re dead, is that right…?” she said, barely above a whisper, eying him with open wariness.

To her surprise, the creature cocked his head to the side. “Dead? Nah, gone, but not dead.”

Her entire body felt cold as a horrific idea struck her. She scrambled to her feet, searching for the discarded stuffed toy. Behind her, the jack’s laughter had turned malicious and mocking, rising in volume with each and every peal that left his mouth. She found the toy in the folds of the tent walls, half-buried by the black-and-white striped fabric where the wall met the ground. Picking it up with trembling hands, she inspected it properly for the first time.

It looked like any other stuffed toy, taking the form of a dog if her idle guess was correct, and there wasn’t even anything that special about the materials it was made from… What made her blood run even icier than it had at her creation’s statement, however, was the definite impression of… another being, inside the velveteen exterior –a very familiar being, at that.

“This is Isaac…” she breathed out, certain that the jack wouldn’t hear her over the discordant mess of painfully-mirthless laughter he was producing.

The noise stopped entirely.

“What was that?” he hissed, mere centimetres away from her right ear, making her jump and step away from him before turning to face his frosty scowl. “I’m not quite sure I heard you, there… Could you repeat that?” When she did, more sickeningly-certain that she wasn’t wrong, he actually looked confused behind the anger. “Not sure where you’re getting that from, but… if it is, it’s only what’s left of him…”

The tenuous confirmation was too much, despite only reaffirming what she’d suspected in the first place. She cradled the toy dog to her chest and let out a small hiccoughing sob. Followed by another, and another, until she sank to her knees and was bawling at the monochrome jack’s feet. He watched her with an air of frustrated bewilderment, clicking his tongue a few times and cocking his head so far to the left that his torso had bent at a right-angle.

“I don’t see why you’re crying, Miss Important…” he stated flatly, squatting down and wrapping his arms around his legs. “You can’t’ve been that invested in this whole situation…”

Between the sobs, she managed to control her breathing enough to get out, “It was my job to keep him safe… my job to keep him happy, through you…” She didn’t notice one of the jack’s hands reaching out towards her until it came to a rest on top of her head; when he started to stroke her hair as if she were a child, it lit a spark of hope in her heart –maybe the creature was still salvageable if he could show such care to someone he clearly didn’t like that much.

“Oh, poor, poor little weasel… You’ve been chased a little too much, hmm?” the jack crooned. “Don’t worry, I’m sure this here monkey’d be glad to help out…”

She felt his fingers slide down to the back of her neck and curl around it until the tips of his claws tickled the thin skin of her throat, making her body freeze. “L-Laughing Jack…?” The tears still streamed down her face, and her chest still spasmed, but her mind had finally latched onto the potential danger being posed by their positions.

He shushed her, flexing his fingers for a bit before releasing her neck entirely, then grabbing her chin and tilting her head up to look at him. “Let go of the toy, little weasel, all the other children may need it…” Her confusion must have shown through her tears, because he snickered. “Simple… ‘My Isaac’ is gone, so… I’ll find more friends to play with.” He shifted his grip to encompass her entire lower jaw. “I’m not going to be left alone, trapped in that bloody box for years and years and years ever again!”

At last, she understood –not all of it, but enough to feel fresh sobs clawing at her throat. “This was never supposed to happen… I never wanted this, and I don’t know how to fix it… to fix you.”

“If only wishes actually mattered, eh, little weasel?” was the last thing she heard before her head was snapped to the side with a loud and painful crack.

[itsworn]

Mopar Front Suspension Rehab: Get Handling With Stock Looks!

Yes, it is possible to have a modern, sure-footed feel in the handling and steering department using the vintage K-member torsion bar front end. The aftermarket offers us plenty of upgrades to retain our beloved torsion bars while improving the road-holding abilities of our classics. There are tubular K-members, control arms, poly bushings, adjustable strut rods, retrofit swaybars, and thicker torsion bars, to name a few. On the other hand, there’s almost no end to what’s available when you consider coilover suspensions and rack-and-pinion steering systems. Look no farther than our 1968 Plymouth Valiant project to see some of that action! But that’s not we’re after here. We wanted to maintain a stock-looking suspension when someone takes a peak underneath, yet have a responsive, good handling B-Body that can keep up with today’s driving demands and roads.

Like most others Mopars with five decades on the clock, all of our suspension’s rubber bushings were cracking and worn out, showing excessive play and sloppiness. The left upper control arm (UCA) was making metal-to-metal contact from its worn-through missing bushings. The ball joints were also showing excessive looseness. Strut rod bushings were compressed thin and nearly non-existent. With issues like those, our ’65 Coronet—which is the future recipient of an 825-hp Ray Barton Racing Engines-built 528ci Street Hemi—was in dire need of a stronger front-end suspension, and a steering rebuild. Sure, there’s no argument that modern aftermarket suspension systems can outperform our vintage stock setups, but what we’re doing here will return much more responsive handling than a stock-type front-end rebuild.

We’ve enjoyed very satisfying results in rebuilding the K-member and torsion bar suspension on our other test-mules (1967 Dodge Coronet R/T and 1973 Dodge Challenger). What we’ve learned is that when using tough poly bushings throughout to replace the wimpy rubber, there is much less deflection amongst all of the suspension components. Moving to thicker torsion bars and adding a swaybar (or a beefier-than-stock unit) will reduce body lean while improving the steering response. Tubular control arms or even a tubular K-member (like QA1’s) will help stiffen all the components to function as a team. Choosing the right brand of performance shocks will effectively add to the handling and ride quality, and need to be considered into the package. Other important considerations are wider wheels and tires that’ll fit. These complete the package and make for better handling too.

We put in a call to the suspension gurus at Performance Suspension Technology (PST) for a cost-effective prescription plan. We started our order with their super front end rebuild kit which includes polygraphite bushings, upper control arm cam bolts, inner tie rod ends, adjusting sleeves, and idler arm. PST’s famous lower control arm (LCA) rebuild kit was also a must-have, and includes stiffening plates, torsion bar adjusters with polygraphite bushings, and greasable pivot shafts. We added a pair of 1.03-inch torsion bars that will handle the extra weight of the incoming Street Hemi, and paired them with PST’s Bilstein performance shocks with digressive valving for handling control. Completing our list of PST components are pivoting strut rods; one of the most innovative products to come along for the classic Mopar torsion-bar suspension. The whole PST package came in at just over $1,400.

Without using a swaybar, the rebuilt suspension system would not be up to optimum cornering. On today’s congested roads, we wouldn’t think of driving without a front swaybar to reduce body roll for safer vehicle control. The folks at Hellwig have been manufacturing vehicle stability control products since 1946 right here in the USA. In my past experience with a friend’s car with Hellwig sway bars, none of the late-model Vettes or Trans Ams of the time could keep up on the twisty North Jersey mountain roads. For the ’65 Dodge, we had the choice of a solid 1 1/8-inch or a tubular 1 3/8-inch front sway bar. We ordered the latter for more roadholding stability and lighter weight. We also grabbed a 7/8-inch rear bar, which we’ll get to once we tackle the rear suspension.

Here we’ve gone the route of restoring, rebuilding, and lightly modifying the stock K-member and torsion bars. We could have gone the tubular route, but we wanted to maintain that stock look. Future mods will include an upgrade to Wilwood 12.19-inch front disc brakes and swapping to a faster-ratio Borgeson power steering box. With that fat Hemi thumping under the long, low hood, we’ll need to make sure the rest of this B-Body is up to snuff!

1965 Dodge Coronet

Front Suspension Rebuild

Description: Cost: PST Super Front-End kit with Polygraphite bushings $439.00 PST LCA rebuild kit $209.00 PST adjustable strut rods $289.00 PST torsion bars 1.03-inch $263.00 PST Bilstein Shocks $228.00 PST solid adjusting sleeves $29.00 Hellwig 1 3/8-inch swaybar kit (part No. 55903) $269.00 Total cost $1,726.00

Our B-Body\’s loose-as-a-goose front suspension needed a rehab. We elected to use a PST super front end rebuild kit. Polygraphite bushings will replace wimpy rubber to reduce deflection at the pivot points. Shown center are the LCA stiffening plates. For a good ride and handling, Bilstein shocks will keep the tires in contact with the road.

We decided to drop the complete K-member front suspension, steering, and brakes at the same time. To get started, we unbolted the UCAs, brake lines, and shocks. In an upcoming story, we’ll be ditching the 10-inch drum brakes for Wilwood 12.19-inch discs.

Next, the steering column coupler was disconnected from the factory power steering box. In a future story, the stock unit will be replaced with a Borgeson quick-ratio power steering box to match the more aggressive suspension. Note the absence of an engine connected to the K-member. We pulled the 383 out over 10 years ago!

The torsion bars need to slide back out of the LCA. We’ve used this tool for years to properly remove torsion bars. (Removing torsion bars with vice grips will damage them.) The stock .920-inch bars will be replaced with 1.03-inch torsion bars from PST for a better handling B-Body.

Once the bolt at each corner of the K-member is removed, it’ll drop right out. Not shown: the steering box was removed to even the balance weight on the floor jack before lowering the K-member.

The floor jack was placed center and rearward so the K-member assembly would not teeter back off the jack. It was lowered evenly until it rested on the garage floor. Notice the components previously installed from the US Car Tool chassis stiffening kit. Less body flex aids in better handling and drag launches, too!

The control arm assemblies were easily unbolted from the K-member by loosening the LCA pivot shaft and strut rod nuts. While on the ground, all the components were disassembled for rebuilding, replacing, cleaning, and refinishing. In the background are the tie rod ends, pitman arm, idler arm, and center link steering assembly.

The K-member was powdercoated semi-gloss black locally. We brought it to “In Gear,” a shop in Manasquan, New Jersey. They did an outstanding job powder-coating our K-member!

We bolted our K-member to a US Car Tool K-Frame stand (part No. USCT7M1001, $399.00). The K-frame stand is strong enough to hold the complete K-member with its suspension, engine, and transmission assembly. It allows removal or installation from underneath like the factory did it.

Our first task was to weld the stiffening plates to the lower control arms. PST’s LCA rebuild kit strengthens the stock arms for less than half the cost of tubular arms and they still look stock. The vice grips held the plates up to the bottom of the arm for welding. Afterwards, we ground the welds smooth for a clean appearance.

We used our old puller tool to remove the pivot shafts. Once the pivot shafts are removed, the old rubber bushings can be easily pried out with a flathead screwdriver. The original outer bushing shells and inner sleeves can be cleaned-up for use with the poly bushings. Front-end suspension tools like ours can be purchased at Mancini Racing.

The poly bushings, inner sleeves, and outer shells were lubed with the provided grease. The new bushings slid all the way into the LCA outer shells by hand. The inner sleeves and pivot shaft slid most of the way in. We used a press to completely insert the pivot shafts. Both arms were cleaned-up and painted with chassis black.

It’s easiest to attach the strut rod to the LCA and slide them together into their respective holes in the K-member. We upgraded to PST’s adjustable strut rods with pivoting Heim joints to provide smoother suspension travel. Suspension and steering response will be much improved. It’s an important upgrade to any torsion bar suspension.

The pivot shaft and strut rod nuts were made only snug tight. We’ll torque them to specs once the car is at rest. Here we installed the lower ball joint and cranked the nut tight until we could fit the cotter pin in place.

Next the original spindle (cleaned up and bead blasted) and Wilwood disc brake caliper bracket were bolted to the lower ball joint. We cleaned up and reused the original nuts and bolts except for the specially made tapered bolt for the caliper bracket.

The new tie rod ends and HD solid steel adjusting sleeves were measured to ensure they were the same length as the stock units before installing. Excuse the missing jam nuts. Solid tie rod adjusting sleeves eliminate flexing and the possibility of the tie rod ends pulling out of the hollow sleeve adjuster. We’ve seen it happen. Not a safe situation!

We bolted the idler, pitman arm, center link, tie rods, and adjusting sleeves to the K-member and lower ball joints. Only the pitman arm was not a new piece. The missing stock sloppy power steering box will be replaced with a new quick-ratio Borgeson unit. Together, the steering and suspension system will be matched and much more responsive.

Trying to remove the old bushings without the proper tool cost us two broken vices, so we brought the UCA to Shore Wheels, Tuckerton, New Jersey. Having the proper socket made it easy to unscrew the old, then screw-in the new ball joints. Light taps of a mallet placed the UCA in position to install the cam bolts and nuts.

Using US Car Tool’s unibody lifting tool (part No. USCTRM1001, $149.00) with our engine hoist enabled us to lower the B-Body onto the K-member suspension. Unfortunately, our Ray Barton 528ci Street Hemi was too wide to fit between the shock towers for installation from underneath. The typical Wedge, Poly, or LA engine will fit for an easy underneath install.

To handle the extra weight of the incoming Street Hemi and to firm up the suspension, PST’s beefier 1.03-inch torsion bars will replace the stock .920-inch units. PST offers Bilstein shocks featuring a stock-like black finish instead of the usual yellow. These shocks offer better road control without ride harshness due to Bilstein’s patented digressive valving.

The addition of this Hellwig Products 1 3/8-inch swaybar kit (part No. 55903, $269.00) to our rehabbed suspension package will bring us closer to today’s standards in cornering performance. This high-quality, American-made swaybar package will greatly reduce body roll and make crisper handling and better steering a cinch.

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