Fodder (Fod-er)

Noun.

1 coarse food for livestock, composed of entire plants, including leaves, stalks, and grain, of such forages as corn and sorghum.
2 people considered as readily available and of little value:
cannon fodder.


Corey Smith stands in the back lot behind the enormous mansion to his fairly, newly inherited estate, FKA the Dyson Manor. The place is a breath of fresh air to what it once was. This unexplained guilt trip he’s been under and constant grip to his past has forced a strong hand of generosity pushing him from behind. Upon taking ownership of the estate, he almost immediately opened up the doors to anyone in need and they are welcome to take residence there as long as deemed necessary.

The entire place is a bright ray of sunshine compared to before. The folks that stay there, whether they have to or not, chip-in and keep the place, basically, a self-sustaining little community. It is a quite wholesome scene to see small children frolic in the fields and clean sheets blow dry in the wind.

Corey, with his hands firmly in his pockets, strolls down a paved sidewalk and passes several people carrying bushels of fruits and vegetables towards the house. Smiling and waving, he continues down the path and pauses when he sees Dolly Waters standing by her lonesome in the middle of a field, staring blankly into the distance towards a hillside.

Dolly!

Corey shouts out, but Dolly remains still and continues to stare as if she didn’t hear him.

Hey!

He turns around to a small group that was gathered by the patio, but everyone that was just back there has vanished.

Hey, anybody know what’s up with---- Where… Where did everybody go?

The backlot was just crowded with children playing and different folks going about their own chores; Corey was shocked to find it completely empty aside from himself and Dolly… He walks with a bit of caution to his step towards the field where his friend has remained completely still this entire time. When he gets close enough, he speaks to her again.

Dooooll-lllyyyyy….?

Corey sings with again no response. When he gets within an arm’s length he reaches out and touches her shoulder. She doesn’t budge again and as he steps beside her to face her she swiftly turns to him and growls. Corey stumbles backward and falls to his back as Dolly stands over him with complete darkness in her eyes.

Doll---?

He’s here.

Dolly’s soft voice can be heard somewhere in the deep, demonic growls that expel from the little girl’s mouth. Her neck turns way, way, WAY too far around backwards swiftly with a loud, stomach churning crack and she faces the direction she faced before Corey interrupted her.

Who’s here? Dolly, what the fuck?! What’s going on?! Are you alright?!

A dark blanket of clouds have long already begun to cover the estate turning a once beautiful, sunny day into a storming midnight. Thunder rumbles across the sky and a heavy wind picks up as lightning clashes a nearby tree causing Corey to close his eyes and shield his head with his arms. After a moment he peaks with one eye and sees that Dolly is now also nowhere to be found. He quickly looks over to the tree that suffered the blast which is now a blaze.

Corey scrambles to his knees and up to his feet only to be blown back over by a strong gust of wind. He fights it to stand back up and looks over to the house to see garden tools fall and lawn furniture blown over and drug across the ground. Every newly painted shutter on every window flaps in the wind if their hinged grips already hadn’t given it up. Corey looks up the hill to where Dolly was seemingly directing him to go and, against his better judgement, starts up the hill. When he reaches the top, he looks down at what seems to be an endless cornfield. If it is not endless, it goes beyond what he can see in all directions. It is brown and yellow and worn down as if it was not maintained in many, many years and through all of the confusion and guilt that he’s already plagued with, he almost feels a bit sorry for the dead and forgotten crop.

Was this always here?

It couldn’t have been….

Could it?



A softball forms in his throat when he sees Thaddeus Duke emerge from the ruined cornstalks. Thaddeus stands for a moment, stares up at Corey and says nothing.

Thad? THAD!!

Could this be who Dolly was talking about? THAD’S here? That doesn’t make any sense. Corey’s thoughts are racing, crossing lanes, and he can hardly make sense of any of them. Before he realizes it, his instincts have already kicked in and he’s hobbling down the hill towards his friend making every attempt at keeping his balance. Thad turns around and walks back into the dead field.

Thad! THAD! STOP! WAI---

Corey screams then loses himself at the base of the hill where he does a somersault forward. He rolls straight back to his feet like he meant to do it and goes into a solid sprint towards the edge of the field.

THAD!

He reaches the edge and does a dead stop then tries to peer through. Even through the deadness of the crop, the leafy, brown stalks are so dense that there’s no way he can see through.

Fuck. Damn it! What the fuck?!

Corey paces back and forth as more thunder rolls overhead. A freezing cold black rain begins to fall and seizes him. He stands in place and shivers for a moment before shaking it and screaming out his own growl then finding himself on his knees after several bloody images flash through his brain. The black rain becomes colder by the second before it turns into snow. Corey breathes heavy and sees his own foggy breath as he covers himself with his own arms. He shivers for a moment and is stabbed with another couple of horrific images in his head. He leaps up to his feet, pulling himself together and quickly snaps out of it.

It’s snowing in Florida, dude. Something ain’t fucking right. He’s brought his thoughts back to at least a two-lane highway and eyes up the cornfield beside him. The wind gives him a strong gust behind him which causes him to catch himself with a step forward…

Yeah, yeah…. I’m going.

He takes a deep breath and steps into the dead cornfield in search of his friend. After walking straight into the dense nothiness for a moment or so he shouts out:

Thad!

His shout was met with what he expected. Nothing. He continued forward, keeping one arm wrapped around his shivering frame and using the other to brush the dead corn stalks aside. There’s no path to follow, nothing beaten down, no trace of Thad walking ahead of him through this crap. After a few minutes of trying to keep a sense of direction in this dense nothingness, Corey began second-guessing his decision to enter. From the outside, this seemed to go on forever. Would Corey just walk and walk and have to live inside this cornfield for the rest of his miserable days? Is this how it’s really going to end? It was then when he pushed through and found himself standing in a small clearing. It was cut perfectly square in what looked like about twenty-feet by twenty-feet and in the middle of it hung a scarecrow on a post.

Corey swallows another softball and rubs his arms with his palms to stay warm before giving his new and only companion a long stare. Frozen by the cold and uncertainty, he remains still until his feels a

”vtttt…. vtttttt…….”

in his pocket.

A lightbulb goes off in his head and he reaches into his pocket to retrieve his phone. He clicks it on and swipes to a text message from Thad.

where you @?

Dumbfounded, Corey immediately attacks the phone with his thumbs until he notices from the corner of his eye something falling from the scarecrow’s front pocket. He stops mid-tap and stares at the base of the pole at a cellphone sticking out of the snow. He looks down at his own phone, closes out the message, then puts it away.

The scarecrow isn’t even scary. A tight pair of denim bibs and a flannel shirt are stuffed full of straw while a white burlap sack is wrapped around the top as a head. A sorry excuse for a scarecrow if you should ask, but then again, it was there to scare off the thievin’ rodents and birds, not curious Corey’s. He pulls the cellphone out of the snow and examines it. Clicking it on it's obvious that this is Thad’s phone. The background pic says it all. Giving a slow glance up to the scarecrow, Corey reaches out and pokes it in what would be its stomach. He presses in and lets out a sigh of relief hearing the straw packed on the inside crackle and break. He looks down at the phone in his hand and suspiciously back to the scarecrow. The face of the sack begins to turn red and fills up quickly like the face was bleeding. Corey reaches up and pulls at the sack around the head, but has to untie the nylon rope wrapped one hundred times around the neck first. A tear wells up but freezes in his one eye as he pulls the sack off from the top of the scarecrow to a cliche thunder and lightning clash to reveal nothing but a sack full of straw.

Help me.

A voice whispers through the wind past him.

Hel--- eeee….

Hello?! THAD?! DOLLY?!

Ha! THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE!!

Thad is standing behind Corey a several feet away in the clearing with the headless scarecrow hung between them. Corey turns to him and is immediately suspicious of his friend; otherwise, he would have probably tackled him by now for pulling whatever shit this is. Thad is dressed in all black and has heavy bags and a dark color to his eyes with his hair all greasy and slicked back. Corey stares him down and Thad does the same with a smile from ear to ear.

Hey, man. Yar’right?

Corey says calmly as he takes a step towards Thad who takes two steps back and away.

Uh, yeah? I’m great! Man, you should’ve seen the look when you pulled that---

What are you doing out here, Thad? What the fuck is going on? And are you sure you’re alright? You don’t look it.

Dude, I’m fine! Do you have my phone?

Corey holds the phone out as soon as it starts buzzing and ringing. He looks and sees an incoming call from “DOC”.

Expecting a call?

You can answer it. He probably wants to talk to you, anyway.

Corey swipes the phone towards the red circle ignoring the call then throws the phone into the snow.

Yeah, I think not.

DUDE, MY PHONE!

Thad reacts but stays in place.

Come and get it.

Corey’s phone begins going off from inside his pocket now.

Gonna throw your’s in the snow, too?

Having enough of the nonsense Corey begins a b-line towards his friend when suddenly the scarecrow between them bursts into flames. The heat sets Corey back and the bright flame blinds him for a moment. Getting his sight back he sees he is no longer standing in the clearing in the middle of a cornfield back but standing in front of the estate like the first night he arrived.

As preserved as the property looked that night, it’s nothing like that right now. The grass is overgrown, the windows are boarded up, the front door is blockaded shut, and the place was completely trashed.

Corey has been convinced for a while now that this is some nightmare being orchestrated by his new tag team partner. The scoundrel. The fiend. The deceiver. Surely the same crap that Thad had dealt with weeks leading up to High Stakes.

You wanna do this?

Corey takes a couple of heavy breaths before stomping up to the front door and pounding on it three times with his fist.

OPEN UP!

Corey turns around and boots the door three more times.

I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE! I’M PLAYING YOUR GAME NOW LET!!

*KICK*

ME!

*KICK*

IN!

Frustrated, he leans with his face against it.

What the fuck do you want?

He throws another weak kick at the base of the door and with a loud creak the entire thing, boards and all, falls in and smashes on the floor.

Honey, I’m HOME!

Corey steps over the door and listens to his voice echo back to him from the many halls of the mansion. It’s dark and untouched from the day that Madison Dyson was murdered despite the look from the outside. He notices a glow coming from the main room and immediately heads there.



A flash in his brain nearly brings him to his knees, but he comes back in less than a few seconds and continues towards the room with the glow. When he gets there he cuts the corner and sees the fireplace burning away with two chairs placed across from each other in front of it. Above the fireplace is the same portrait he discarded months ago of the former owner. A cold sweat begins to run down his back and forces a shiver out of him.

Enough tricks, old man. ENOUGH TRICKS!

The fireplace burps and roars in response. Corey was over it and quickly makes his way across the room to the two chairs where one is empty and welcoming him and the other occupied by who Corey was assuming as the conductor of this crazy train.

Sitting in the chair, calmly watching the fire burn, is the person from the painting.

Hey.



Another flash cripples Corey for a second and the chair is empty. He quickly looks around and the outside of the room has grown dark and the walls barely visible. From what he can see, they move and breathe like a living organ. Ascending from the shadows are two glowing eyes and a red spark that slowly move towards him.

Corey balls his fists and holds his ground waiting to see what is coming next.

Hello, my friend.

The raspy voice of the one Corey’s been expecting the entire time whispers calmly through a cough. Doc shows himself and walks slowly towards the fire. Corey wastes no time and runs towards Doc and falls right through him.

Come! Sit with me, Mister Smith.

Corey looks back to see Doc taking a seat in the chair previously occupied by a different nightmare. He looks up above the mantle of the fireplace to see a new portrait on the wall, as well. Corey punches the ground and picks himself up. Doc lights up a cigar and Corey joins him in the other chair. They sit in silence for what seems like hours. Corey periodically breaks his stare at the doctor to watch the fire, but Doc’s eyes never leave it and the flames reflect in the darkness of his eyes like a mirror.



Corey can no longer hold his silence and leans in towards his guest. Or is he the guest?

I guess it wasn't safe to assume that you thought of me a little higher than this crap, huh?

Doc finally breaks his stare into the flames and turns to Corey as he takes a long drag from his cigar.

What crap, Mister Smi---

DON'T!

Corey snaps.

Don't. THAT crap, Doc. The "Mister Smith" crap. THIS crap. The hocus pocus crap. Your attempt at mind games. You realize this isn't my first rodeo, right? And THIS is the best you can come up with? Bringing me back to THIS? Oh, and real cliche with the cornfield, by the way.

Corey spits out his tongue and points to it going blaaaah. Doc sits in silence.

Why? Why Thad?

Doc looks astray and ponders for a moment.

I could ask you the same thing.

Right, but we’d have different answers.

Yep… And that’s the problem. The boy… You… .. You both refuse to accept what you can truly be. All the two of you have done since I’ve acknowledged your existences is try to make up for something that you feel terrible for. You’ve spent so much time grieving and making up for things that you’ve forgotten what your true purpose is in life.

Corey shakes his head and tries to stand up but can’t.

You never answered my question!

Doc laughs and takes another long drag from his cigar.

How?

Doc exhales and through the cigar smoke an image of Thaddeus Duke, XWF Universal Champion, stands before them.

Just with a little bit of fire under his ass he’s unstoppable….

The two admire the image for a moment before Corey looks to the doctor and scowls at him again.

You’re using him.

No more than you are.

Liar! I’m not!

The two let silence have a moment to itself and stare together into the fire ahead of them.

Perhaps I am or perhaps the boy is using ME. Since I’ve pulled him from that grave he’s done nothing but succeed and rise to the top of this FINE federation, you know… Not taking any credit but I was there for BOTH of his wins. You were only for one.

Doc laughs. Corey does not.

Look, I guess, right now, it doesn’t matter WHY you’re…. Tag Champs with Thad… Or why… I’m teaming with you defending them. All that matters is that we are, right? You didn’t do all of this for nothing.

Doc chuckles again while Corey again keeps the straight face. Doc fixes himself and looks to his friend.

You really care for that boy’s safety, don’t you?

Corey continues looking Doc dead in the eye.

Close to more than anything.

Doc smiles.

That’s what I hoped you would say.

Doc holds his arms out and claps his hands together shattering the reality he’s currently living in into a million pieces like little shards of glass. He pulls himself up out of the shattering chair and walks past a shattering Corey into something nothingness and relights his cigar. Watching the world drift away and sitting in a complete void of darkness now is the good doctor. The Fiend. The Manipulator. The Decepticon.

If you would ask him, he would deny such a title and that’s just what makes him the hero. But what’s a hero without a villain? What is light without dark? What is good without evil?

Well, if you’d ask nearly anyone I’m sure that they would say “BORING”. If you would ask me, I would say it makes either side weak. Since I’ve met with the boy’s side he’s become nothing but stronger by the day and winning the UNIVERSAL Championship under all of your noses only emphasizes that. I warned of the XWF UNIVERSE of how terrible the XWF would be if Chris Chaos got his grimy mitts on the title and Thaddeus Duke prevented the ever-so armageddon that we all dreaded.

Now look.

Chris PAGE rises up once again and is humping the crap out of my partner’s leg for another match at another pay-per-view another month. And how convenient, right?

Wrong.

So here I am in a complete mismatch. Corey Smith, my tag team partner’s friend who he awarded a belt for no reason. The Left Hand, which last I checked was borderline irrelevant and non-existent. And Arby Beef 2.5, because TK is only worth about .5.

I’ll give the Left Hand a little bit of credit. He had the right idea, but it only caught the attention of those who really didn’t see the big picture. Folks like Marf and Lycana… Ash Quinn when she was with all of you was the BEST example…. You just follow. And as you come forward with the intentions and feeble threat of taking what is MINE, I can’t help but try and stop you beforehand. Take your left hand and lower it. Stick it in your pocket and forget about Snow Job. Forget Baphomet. Forget this pale horse. It's not any of your fault that you just don’t know what you’re walking into here. You could take every fight you’ve ever had up to this point, ladies and gentlemen. Every fight, every battle in every war… And it is not going to compare to succumbing to the forces that you’re up against. I feel sorry for the two of you that some malevolent force has convinced you that you actually stand a chance in this fight.

As for BOB? No mercy. No sorry’s. I would ask why the two of you were even here, but I know the answer. The same reason that Cataclysm remained the champions for as long as they did. The same reason that I will, once again, remain a Tag Team Champion until I’m tired of being one.

Fodder.

There’s no one else to throw at us, so we take whoever is ready. Whoever begs for the chance. Whoever deems themselves worthy.

Mister Bourbon surprises me a bit. After all of the times we’ve met in the ring and all the times I’ve admired your work, and all the times I’ve adjusted your hopes, I’m shocked that you are so eager once again to get your head adjusted. And to drag Thunder Knuckles into this, as well? Tsk. Tsk.

Bobby, I know even through your transition from Robbie to Bobby, that you’re still a man of the people and I, Doctor Louis D’Ville, am still a Bourbon Man! Heed my warning better than those lefty’s. Be careful what you wish for.

You all may look at this as a chance of a lifetime. You may see an opportunity while two polar opposites try to contain a similar interest. As different as Corey Smith and I are, we are coming into this with one agenda. We’re here for the same purpose. Our goals match. He comes with a flaming fist to defend his friend, yet, he has trouble keeping his heart where it belongs knowing that I’m so close…. What he doesn’t realize is that I don’t care about that. What Thaddeus finally realized was I cared about the lion that lived inside of him. What Corey must realize is that I know he’s an M80 and he's disguising himself as a Roman Candle.