ORIGINS, McVandalay

“Come here, mascot boy! I’ll show you the best scorpion pose you’ve ever seen!” A young college cheerleader was clearly under the influence of some sort of intoxicant as she brutishly tried to seduce a young college man. She continued, “I’m the most flexible girl you’ll ever be with, I promise you that!” 

The young man grinned to himself underneath his mascot headpiece as he walked over to the young woman. He was still fully dressed in his mascot suit and was still playing in character as “Lumpy The Lumberjack.” Having said nothing, he simply grabbed the horny girl and bent her over some bleachers as she giggled excitedly in her intoxicated yet highly aroused state of mind. 

The arena was now completely empty except for the two of them. The only light in the whole place came from a few emergency lights above the exit doors. Both of them had been attending a very expensive college cheer leading camp for the past several days. The young man had been surrounded by rich, young, athletic women who loved to get whacked on drugs and have lots of sex. This moment was simply par for the course. After an hour of loud, rough coitus, the young woman collapsed in pure satisfaction as the mascot left her smiling and unconscious in a heap of sweat drenched cheer leading clothes at the foot of the bleachers. 

He exited the dark arena and took off his mascot head piece. The cool night air felt good in his nostrils. He sweated hard in his mascot suit and said to himself, “I need bacon. Lots of it.” Bradburne Shoeman walked towards the neighborhood midnight diner in his mascot suit. He jaywalked across the deserted road in the middle of the block. He stopped in the middle of the road and froze as the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. 

About the time he’d hit puberty when he was ten, he had developed a strange ability to sense when a shit storm was about to come raining down around him. For whatever reason, his instincts told him that a vortex from an evil dimension had just opened up and demons were about to jump his ass. In the distance, the crickets stopped chirping as the night air dropped twenty degrees. 

Suddenly a pick up truck full of a dozen gang bangers came ripping around one corner of the block while another pick up truck full of a dozen hardened street thugs came ripping around the other. Bradburn was frozen in the middle of the road wearing a lumberjack mascot outfit while holding the mascot head under his arm. While crossing the street at this exact moment in history, he now was an innocent bystander in the middle of a gang war. 

Instinctively he tucked and rolled towards the sidewalk. As he rolled, the gangs opened fire on each other from their vehicles. While somersaulting forwards, he tossed the large mascot helmet straight up in the air while simultaneously grabbing a quick handful of random gravel that was on the road. As he completed his tuck and roll, he popped up to one knee. He started flinging gravel at the first truck at insane velocities, then snapped his body 180 degrees and did the same towards the other pick up. The windshields on both vehicles imploded while each vehicles’ engine blew up from the impact. Normally gravel obviously wouldn’t do any real damage to any vehicle, but when flung at 10,000mph, it was like getting hit by a meteor from hell. 

Both pick up trucks flipped over and flew in flames towards each other. They connected in mid air and exploded with an ear splitting “FUCKY!” of a boom. Bradburne had quickly rolled several dozen feet away. When he opened his eyes to see the carnage, he saw the mascot head fall back to the earth, riddled with bullet holes and smoldering a little bit from the flames of the wrecked vehicles. 

In that moment, a man in a trench coat seemed to materialize out of thin air from the shadows. He stood behind Bradburn and spoke. “That was pretty damn impressive.” 

Bradburne was scared shitless but quickly regained his composure. “Ah, yeah, well it was better than getting mowed down by their gang fight, that’s for sure.” 

The tall, thin stranger was calm as he said matter of factly, “you smell like sex and burning gasoline. That’s fairly common in my line of work.” Bradburn was clueless as how to respond to a comment like that, but the stranger continued. “I’m Speck, and I’d like to offer you a job that would utilize your unique abilities. What’s your name?” 

Bradburne’s head couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on as he said, “Bradburne.” 

Speck smiled and said, “Not anymore. If anyone asks you what your name is from now on, tell them your name is Bradley. Bradley McVandalay. Here’s my card. Call anytime, day or night. Ask for Speck.” 

Bradburne felt like a robot as he mechanically raised his arm to take the business card from the stranger. He looked down at it. It only had a 1-800 number on it with no name, address, or any other kind of information. He raised his head to reply to the stranger, but the tall man had vanished as if he were a ghost. Bradburne muttered to himself while grinning, “I like that guy.” 

He didn’t linger long as he quickly gathered the mascot head and got the fuck out of there. “First, I still need bacon. After that, I gotta call this number.” The ramifications of his first decision resulted in culinary happiness and a full tummy. The follow up decision to call the number changed both his name, and his life, forever