The Goat Pen Underground Story Factory

[wyvernxk7]

A tall man with long, dark hair falling straight across his face stood staring at his car. It had a huge dent in the roof. Protruding from that dent was a large sign that said, "Thank you for eating at Burger Hut". He knew it would be a long day. He went back inside to his refrigerator, which he had left open. It was completely empty. He looked out his window. It was raining.
Ipsen had moved to Bronson county about twelve weeks ago. He hadn't really bought the new house, because he had no money. He'd actually just gotten really lucky at a guess on some rich person's credit card and figured that guy wouldn't mind. Hopefully, the person would go bankrupt or something and then he wouldn't have a problem. It had been a long time since he had last seen Trix, a slightly shorter man, thinner, far less built than Ipsen. They had travelled together for quite some time, even had gotten together with Trix's twin, Camden here and there.
Bronson was a weird county. Ipsen looked out the window again. He spotted at least three sets of telescopes pointing toward his house from his neighbor's windows. He decided to go to work. His workplace was in the midst of the industrial section of town. He had found a job in an obscure joint making different colored bulletin boards. The company never made much money due to the abstract concept, but his boss was always oblivious. Ipsen wondered why the small building needed so many cubicles. He had never seen any other workers there, and his boss insisted that he keep his eyes glued to the screen of his computer, in order to figure out what that had to do with bulletin boards.

[Fleck]

The building was really just a glorified warehouse, and not even a large warehouse at that. The roof was thirty or forty feet above the dividing walls of the cubicles and was home to an assortment of birds that often crapped on the cubicles below. There was only one door and it occasionally stuck so that Ipsen had to lower his shoulder into it to pop it open.
Ipsen worked hard at his job, but accomplished very little. That’s because the computer he used had Windows 98, crashed every 5 minutes, and was plagued with viruses and ad-ware. Between fighting to keep the computer online and beating back the sea of pop-ups that offered everything from debt consolidation to free porn, Ipsen was kept very busy.
After a few hours, Ipsen decided it was break time. He went to the water cooler and filled his glass (his boss was too cheap to cough up the money for paper cups so Ipsen had to bring a glass from home). As he stood by the cooler, slowly sipping his glass of water and gazing down the rows of empty cubicles, he heard a doorbell ring. Ipsen paid no attention to the noise, passing it off as his imagination playing tricks on him or maybe an exotic “Doorbell Bird” had made a nest in the rafters and was chirping like a doorbell. Not likely, but still more possible than a doorbell at a warehouse. But when the doorbell noise returned, louder and more urgent than before, he did what any of us would do, he opened the door to the office. Outside in the rain stood fourteen people in yellow rain slickers. The one closest to the door spoke first.
“Who are you?” the man asked indignantly. Without waiting for an answer, the man pushed past Ipsen and into the office. His friends followed behind him. Unsure of what to do next, Ipsen went to his boss’ office while the intruders made themselves comfortable in the empty cubicles.

[Bob]

Ipsen opened the door to his boss' office and found the obvious ringleader of the fourteen strangers inside. He was relaxing in the boss' chair with his feet on the desk (all sorts of mud dripping off his boots), one of the boss' Cuban cigars dangling out of his mouth, and a picture of the boss' family in his left hand. He kept staring at it and laughing maniacally.

"Can I help you?" Ipsen inquired.

The man glanced up at Ipsen. "You again, eh? Listen, you're pissing me the hell off. If you don't leave this room with your constant passive agressive questions, I'm going to have to have you shot."

"Did I ask more than that question?" Ipsen inquired.

The man jumped to his feet angrily and marched toward Ipsen with his head low but his eyes looking straight up into Ipsen's.

Suddenly a man burst into the room and saluted the ringleader. "Sir! The SSS has finished thrashing the office and we're ready to leave without leaving any signs of our being here so as to get this man in trouble with his boss while he stepped out."

"Wait, the SSS?" Ipsen asked.

"It stands for the Seventeen Slicker Syndicate," the lackey said.

"Seventeen?" Ipsen asked, checking his math on his fingers.

"Three soldiers had to have their slickers cleaned after last night's encounter. Funny story."

And so he proceeded to tell the funny story...

[KennyD]

"Well, it all happened when we were on a routine Hotdog stand siege. We had got in there, spilt the vendor's merchandise, stole a few cherry cokes and were aiming to get outta there pronto. However, three of our number took part in some tom-foolery that eventuated in one of our elite slipping on a weiner and falling into a pool of mustard and ketchup. He then proceeded to tackle the other two, thus making all, extremely, dirty."

It was at this point in time that all 14 of the SSS burst out into hysterics. Ipsen said nothing. After the SSS had recovered themselves, Ipsen stepped forward oncemore.

"That wasn't very funny you know..."

"Thats it!" exclaimed the SSS leader, "I've had enough of your Bureaucratic bull-poop! SSS, move out!"

With that, the SSS made their efficient, boot clomping, slicker squeaking departure.

What in the world, thought Ipsen. He made his way back to his cubicle in the glorified warehouse in which he worked, only to find a most dreadful sight.

[wyvernxk7]

His cubicle was in shambles. The walls had collapsed and his desk was overturned. The SSS had taken everything of value from his cubicle, so the only thing left was the computer. The desk was broken and there was mud all over the floor. Realizing that he would have to sit in mud and work on a computer that barely worked to begin with, all in a futile effort to get work done, Ipsen came to a better conclusion. "Screw this place...I'm done for the day. Hell, if the boss isn't even here...why should I be?"

He departed from the warehouse to the industial district. He ventured through town until he reached the cafe. He walked in and ordered a tall Mocha Espresso Supreme.
"Axskews mae?" Said the waitress, "Duey look lake a freeggen Starback's, yeung leud? Wut is thees deem warld caming to?"
She was still off on a rant as he got up, went to the register, purchased a Dr. Pepper, and headed for the door.
"Keeds theys days..."The waitress continued, but slammed into the door Ipsen had abruptly shut behind him. He looked around, finally realising something that had been pretty obvious already...It hadn't been raining since he left the house...Why was everyone in town still walking about in rain ponchos or wielding umbrellas?

He ventured home. He checked the refrigerator, which somehow had some leftover frozen lasagna in it, and ate it cold. His microwave had been broken in a freak "Frat house party-crashing" accident, so he was forced to eat all his food without heating it. He didn't even notice that his TV was on, or that a fourth telescope was now pointing toward his house, and ventured to his car to find something to do.

[Fleck]

He got into his car and drove down the street with no particular destination in mind. He happened to glance at his fuel gauge and noticed that he was past "E". But wait, hadn't he just filled it yesterday? Fortunately, he knew there was a gas station nearby and he hoped his car would last that long.
But luck was not on his side. About a block and a half from the gas station, his car sputtered, coughed, and rolled to a stop. The instant forward progress on his car stopped, it began to rain again.
"Dammit!" he yelled. He got out of his car and walked toward the gas station. He noticed that it only seemed to be raining in a three-block radius surrounding him. When he was almost to the gas station, he heard some commotion behind him. He turned and noticed three men around his car, one was behind the wheel, one was busy hotwiring the car, and the other was quickly dumping a quart of gas into the tank.
"DAMMIT" he yelled again and ran back to his car. Before he got there, the man hotwiring his car finished and jumped into the passenger seat while the third man jumped into the back. The driver did a u-turn and sped off.
Depressed and without a car, Ipsen shambled back home. When he got to the spot where his car was parked (before it was stolen of course) he noticed a note on the ground. On the front, in pink crayon, it said "Your car has been stolen by the SSS. Thank you for your patronage." On the back, in really small letters (but still in pink crayon) it said "Spazmodicilia". Wondering what the hell Spazmodicilia was, Ipsen stuffed the note into his pocket and continued home at a jog. Then he saw something so bizarre, so completely unexpected that he almost passed out (it was THAT unexpected).

[Bob]

A man stood on the side of the road holding an umbrella above his head. He was clean-shaven and he wore a black pinstripe suit and a black zoot hat. It was a frightening sight to see a man dressed as a mobster on the side of the road, but it was hardly unexpected, especially with the constant encounters with the SSS.

Ipsen had nothing else to lose, so he approached the man, hoping to at least share his umbrella for a moment.

"Umm, excuse me," Ipsen said to the mobster. The mobster looked over at him. "I was wondering what a guy like you is doing on the side of the road on a rainy day like today.

"I've been waitin' fo' ya," the mobster said, reaching his hand into his pocket. "'Bout damn time you show your face around here. My name is Tony, but everyone calls me 'Gary.'"

"Why Gary?" Ipsen asked.

"I don' know, they just do, ya dig?" Gary said. "But it don' matter. I'm gonna make this quick."

Gary stared at Ipsen under the brim of his hat, then pulled his hand out of his pocket holding a box of Girl Scout cookies. "I'm wit' Troop 252.5 an' this is my last box, ya dig? I gotta sell this before I go back to the troop. If I don' sell it my entire troop will be disgraced! You betta buy this box or else, ya dig? Now it's three bucks. Fork up the cash or be prepared to face consequences."

Ipsen reached into his pocket and came to a startling conclusion.

[KennyD]

Ipsen had nought but 2 dollars and his American Express card.

"Do you take credit card?" enquired Ipsen with a hopeful lilt to his voice.

"No, where ya expect me to swipe ya card punk, in my ass?" growled Gary.

"Not a very organised troop then, are you, are you?" said Ipsen with a somewhat rare aura of confidence. He took a step closer to Gary, which brought him almost eye to eye with the mobster.

"Wise guy eh? Well listen punk, if you ain't gonna buy this box of cookies, ya gonna get it, ya dig?" said Gary menacingly.

"You know what, Tony, I dont give a god darn heck what you do to me, coz I have had perhaps one of the worst days in the history of mankind...without dying. For a start, I'm a loser. I work in a building that to be honest, is a lame excuse for a structure created by an intelligent race. Then these absolute weirdos dressed like the characters in some kinda perverted man's misguided fantasy of the musical "Singing in the rain" come into my place of work and trash my office. Then I went home and ate highly nutritionous yet cold lasagna. Afterwards, my car gets stolen by the same people who trashed my office, and by the note they had left, it appeared that they had robbed the supplies of a child day care center. Now, some freak with a really cool umbrella comes up to me and tries to force me to buy his crappy girl scout cookies. Or else. I dont care anymore, show me this what else is! Do your worst wannabe wog!" ranted Ipsen as he finished with a defiant thrust of his index finger in Gary's chest.

Gary scratched his head under his zoon hat. "Ya know, I was just gonna take your belt, ya dig? But seein' as youse has had such a bad day and all, I kinda figure that wont be enough ya dig? So, I'm gonna have to shoot you."

With that, Gary stepped back, and reached into his pocket...

[wyvernxk7]

He pulled out an open girl scout cookie box. Within it was a .22, which he pulled out and aimed at Ipsen.
"Any last words...punk?"
There was a flash of light and movement. Suddenly, a medium sized guy appeared between Ipsen and Gary. Taking the advantage of having dumbfounded the two, the man pulled out a dollar fifty.
"Mister, I believe your bike is broken."

Ipsen knew what to do. In the moment of silence that followed, he handed the two dollars to the new man, who in turn bought the cookies.
"Wait a minute...I don't have a bike! That was all just a ploy! Who the hell are you?"
"Where I come from, Girl Scouts don't swear, and their cookies cost $3.50." The man then delivered a swift, hard punch to Gary's face. As Gary fell to the ground, the man sped off, yelling, "Cameo!!!"

Ipsen leaned over the fallen Gary. "And by the way, little miss prissy. Never try messing with Trix...He'll probably confuse the hell out of you." Ipsen picked up the gun, ventured toward the gutter, where he tossed it down to the water below. He continued walking away from the teary mobster, who had begun wailing loudly.

"So, Trix was here...I wonder why? You know...this life could get a bit more interesting with Trix around...what am I saying!? Everything he does and says is used to confuse and manipulate people...Well, he never did any hurt to me...except for that seventy nine bucks that I lost when we stopped at that transparent foodmart. And that car garage he blew up...well, that wasn't really his fault...but, well...I'm not even going to think about what could happen...enough of that." Ipsen continued walking around, mumbling to himself, wondering what his good friend Trix was doing in Bronson.

[Fleck]

Ipsen wandered aimlessly, heading in the general direction of his house. He was completely lost in his thoughts. He wondered if he could somehow get a hold of Trix (he also wondered if he even WANTED to get a hold of him).

Suddenly, he felt the ground shake underneath him. "A quake?" he wondered. He discovered that it wasn't a quake, it was loud music with the bass cranked up. It seemed to be coming from a run-down building across the street from him. He saw a morbidly obese man standing in front of the building. When the man saw Ipsen, he waddled over as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. Ipsen knew he could outrun the man, but curiousity kept him rooted to the spot. When the man reached Ipsen, he bent over panting, sweat dripping from his face. He took a moment to recover, then turned to Ipsen.

"You wan' good sex?" the man asked in a thick mexican accent.

"What, with you?" Ipsen asked, digusted.

"No no no. Not wi' me...unless you wan' it tha' way?" Ipsen shook his head violently. The fat man continued.

"I mean wi' sexy ladies inside th' 'Love Shack'" he said, pointing to the run-down house.

"No thanks, my day's been crappy enough, I don't need herpes right now," Ipsen said.

"Sexy ladies make all th' pain go away. I make all pain go away for big strong man like you," the man said, groping Ipsen.

"Ahhh! Get away!" Ipsen said, pushing the man away and bolting down an alleyway. As Ipsen was hiding behind a dumpster, he heard someone come out of the "Love Shack". He couldn't see the person, but judging by the voice, it was a man. A very GAY man.

"Bruno! You scared away the customers again!"

"I sorry" the very fat man said.

"It's okay, come back inside, Will and Grace is on. It's your favorite episode!"

"Oh boy!" Bruno said, rushing back into the house. Thoroughly weirded out, Ipsen snuck out of the alley and continued down the street, praying to god that he never would see that house again. He wondered if there were actually any ladies in that house and decided that there probably weren't any. At least not any that were ANATOMICALLY female.

"What else can happen today?" he asked himself.

[Bob]

Ipsen looked behind him as he walked. The Love Shack sank into the distance, which was always a very good thing. The crazy thing about his situation was a strange old school gray trashcan that Ipsen could've sworn was the same one that was next to the Love Shack. Instead of sinking into the distance, it was gradually getting closer. Ipsen observed the trashcan and saw a pair of blue sneakers poking out the bottom of the trashcan through an obviously cut hole in the bottom.

Ipsen approached the trashcan and started to lift up the lid, but the lid pulled down with an unforeseen strength. Frankly, the stench that spewed out from the brief opening of the trashcan was so horrible that he never wanted to try it again.

"You following me trashcan?" Ipsen asked. He knocked a couple times on the lid. "On any other day I'd push you over and roll you down a hill, but you caught me on a weird day. What's your name, trashcan?"

No response.

"Okay then, I'll make up a name for you. I'm going to call you Shitstank." Ipsen said. "Do whatever you want, Shitstank. I'm going to see a movie though, and I'm not paying your way in."

Ipsen found a nearby theater and bought a ticket to see the new gangsta spoof comedy, "Shootout at the Ai'ight Corral." Shitstank also approached the ticket window and tossed a few disgusting looking dollar bills through the slot. He grabbed his ticket and followed Ipsen inside the theater.

[KennyD]

Ipsen took a seat at the back of the theater. Shitstank plonked itself next to him.

"You seen this film, Shitstank?" enquired Ipsen "Its a really good one, a crazed man goes running around with a chainsaw cutting down trashcans."

Ipsen thought Shitstank trembled slightly but couldn't be sure.

Ipsen watched the film and began to feel slightly peckish. His stomach began to rumble. Shitstank noticed this so it pushed a half eaten packet of mouldy peanuts through its slot onto Ipsen's lap.

"Dude, is this trash?" asked Ipsen before tossing the the packet back through Shitstank's waste disposal slot. Ipsen never littered.

Suddenly, the doors to the cinema burst opened, the movie switched off and a group of men ran into the room immediately forming a perimeter.

The SSS were back.

[wyvernxk7]

It would appear to Ipsen that this time they had the full seventeen members. Still wearing their bright yellow garb, they began to search the audience. Ipsen dropped to the ground and began crawling across his row of chairs. Since Shitstank was in a garbage can, he couldn't have noticed Ipsen's departure. Ipsen reached the aisle and began to crawl toward the exit at the bottom of the theatre. He was glad he usually wore heavy black clothing, because it made him harder to see. He got up at the exit and felt his clothes. Thoroughly disgusted at the sticky sugar and grease that had applied itself when he was crawling, Ipsen took off the jacket and ran outside. He heard the SSS yell, "We've got him!" He looked back into the theatre to see that the SSS were all converging on the poor Shitstank. Ipsen knew they'd probably have business with him too, so he turned around and closed the door.

In the parking lot, he easily spotted his car. He quickly took out a marker and wrote on a piece of paper, "Serves you right, suckas," and got into the car and drove away. As he was driving, he found it hard to look in his rightside mirror. The dent in the roof easily blocked his view, so he had to be extra careful to make sure he didn't hit anything. He turned onto the interstate.

He drove for twenty miles doing ten miles over the 65 mph speed limit, and continued until he reached a sign. He pulled over to study it.
"Hmm...Last exit in Bronson county...I don't know..." he looked across to the heavily armed entrance to Bronson on the other side of the interstate. He knew how hard it had been for him to get there the first time. But the SSS were everywhere and his life was nowhere. He had to make a decision.

[Fleck]

As he was thinking, he heard a phone ring in the car.

"I don't have a cell phone," he thought. But the ringing continued. He followed the sound and saw a small cell phone stashed under the passenger seat. One of the SSS must have dropped it or left it behind. He wondered if he should answer, then decided to see who it was. Maybe he would learn something about the SSS.

"Uhh..hello?" he said.

"Ga-Tim?" the voice asked. Ipsen wasn't sure what he had heard. Maybe the voice had said "Got him", because that made a hell of a lot more sense.

"Uhh, yeah. We got him. He's right here." He pulled the phone to arm's length and yelled "Ahhh somebody help!" Then he slapped his own face yelling "SHUTUP BITCH!" Ipsen hoped to convice whoever was on the other line that he was safely in custody. Only later did he realize how stupid he must have sounded.

"What the hell are you talking about Ga-Tim? You always were a weird one. Put Ga-George on the line."

Now Ipsen was really confused. But he paused a little to allow time for an imaginary phone transfer, then answered in a deep voice.

"Hello?"

"What the hell! I asked for Ga-George not Ga-Andy! Stop messing around and do as I say!"

Ipsen knew that he wouldn't be able to guess the voice of whoever "Ga-George" was so he did the only thing he could think of.

"Sir! Krrrrrrsshh" He said, making a noise like static "You're breaking up Krrrsssshhh! We'll krrrrrssshhh then krrrssshhh back krrrrssshhh!"

Then he shut off the phone. He then had the phone show the number of the man who called. It was 1-555-867-5309. Now, if he could figure out the address of the place the call came from, hopefully he'd find the SSS HQ and put an end to this nighmare day. Looks like he was going to stay in Bronson after all.

[Bob]

Getting back to Bronson was going to be a pain in the ass. He'd already passed the off-ramp and was now on his way to a town called Hell. Well, it may not have been Hell, but the remaining letters on the roadsign spelled out Hell. Hell or not, Ipsen didn't want to go there, so he promptly jammed on the brakes and spun the car around. Now driving the wrong direction on the freeway, Ipsen hauled ass into oncoming traffic until he could finally find a break in the median and cross to the correct side. Luckily there was only one other car on the road, and the driver was asleep, so he didn't notice Ipsen anyway.

Ipsen reached down to his car radio and turned the volume up, only to find Ashlee Simpson music come on. Ipsen grabbed his head and screamed, then quickly reached back and turned the radio off.

"The bastards changed my station," Ipsen grumbled to himself.

Finally up the road he saw his way back into Bronson. I plot hole. He drove through the plot hole and before he knew it he was cruising the streets of Bronson. There was one man walking down the street, so Ipsen pulled over next to him. The man wore a familiar pinstripe suit.

"Hey, Gary!" Ipsen yelled out his window. "It's me! The guy you wanted to kill!"

"Oh, hey, long time, eh?" Gary responded, holding an ice pack to his head. "Whatchu need? Ya need some cookies?"

"No, no," Ipsen said. "I'm looking to thrash SSS HQ. Know where it is?"

"Okay, whatchu're gonna do is drive down this here street, ya dig? Then, flip a louie and come right back 'ere to me. Then, look across the friggin' street."

Ipsen looked over his shoulder and saw a building with giant neon letters reading SSS.

"Oh. Thanks, Gary," Ipsen said as he put the car in park.