🌔The One You Feed Pt. 2

More Lycanthropy

Feb 11, 2025

Episodes of Storymaze feature: writing tips or a work-in-progress; something creative I’m digging; + a quote that’s got me thinking.

Hope everyone’s weathering February well, and set for some ❤️ on Valentine’s Day — even if it’s just to love yourself! Just got word I will be at GalaxyCon in Richmond, VA at end of March: keep an eye out for more deets soon.

*PAGE 2*

*PANEL 1

INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE - DAY

Dr. Gellard is holding up a vial of blood, rolling his eyes at Foster's concerns. Foster is sitting up, putting his shirt back on.

DOCTOR

There is something unusual in your bloodwork.

FOSTER

Show me.

*PANEL 2

Tight on a top-end medical display. It displays a close up of Foster's blood cells. Circling around them, moving between them, pushing against the edges, angling to get in are a stream of strange black biological invaders. Their shape evokes that of a wolf's head.

FOSTER

(burst/off panel)

That's in me?

FOSTER

(off panel)

W-what are we looking at, doctor? Is that -- cancer?

DOCTOR

(off panel)

No. Some kind of infection. I'll prescribe antibiotics.

DOCTOR

(off panel)

It's not full bore -- yet.

*PANEL 3

A curious Gellard and a concerned Foster on opposite sides of that display. Gillard is pointing at the blood and the invaders.

DOCTOR

But I am concerned about its potential for progression.

DOCTOR

In 30 days this thing could really have its teeth in you...

KEZIA/CAPTION

"Your well-paid doctor speaks some truth..."

*PANEL 4

INT. GYPSY PARLOR - NIGHT

Madame Kezia walks around Foster, gently waving a pendant in the shape of the moon. A wide-eyed Foster eyes her with worry and suspicion.

KEZIA

...but all he knows is "science."

KEZIA

You're beyond that now, Mr. Trillian. In less than a month the full moon returns.

KEZIA

And what is inside will claim you forever.

*PANEL 5

A dangerous-looking Kezia deals out dire tarot cards: the moon, the beast. Foster has his hands up, denying the reality of what's happened to him.

FOSTER

What about before it..."claims" me?

KEZIA

Do you know the story of the two wolves inside us all? One of dark, one of light.

KEZIA

And the one who wins...is the one you feed.

*PANEL 6

Two-shot of a crafty Kezia and a worried Foster. Behind them is an ancient, tattered tapestry with the pattern of a vile wolf woven into it.

KEZIA

It may be possible to pass the growing hunger to another.

KEZIA

But it must be in the old ways.

KEZIA

(double outline around balloon)

The way of teeth and flesh...

*PAGE 3*

*PANEL 1

INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY

A shaky Foster is at the counter, trying to find words to place his order. The annoyed barista -- a tatted, pierced Gen Z named MADISON -- is impatiently tapping the counter.

FOSTER

G-grande, bone dry, five-shot ristretto, e-extra-whip, six-raw-sugars cappuccino.

MADISON

Name?

*PANEL 2

Foster stares intently at Madison. As she rolls her eyes at him, he's looking at the nape of her neck, wondering what it would be like to bite another person.

Foster's Stares at tatted barista, she's saying name

MADISON

(icy balloon)

Name?

FOSTER

(whisper)

F-foster.

*PANEL 3

These next two panels are "faux action" -- they're not real, just in Foster's mind. (For the moment.)

Foster suddenly, savagely lunges across the counter to grab hold of the freaking-out Madison.

MADISON

(burst)

Get out of my space what are you --!?!

FOSTER

(whisper)

T-teeth --

*PANEL 4

A jittery Foster bites down into Madison's tatted neck. As the woman shrieks, Foster's eyes say, "What am I doing?"

MADISON

(ragged balloon)

AIIERRRG

FOSTER

(rough balloon)

-- and flesh!

SFX

(biting neck/grisly style)

SHRRRPP

End "faux action."

*PANEL 5

A dazed Foster at the pickup window, shaken-by and shaking-off the horrible vision he just had. Madison -- totally unharmed -- is pushing the man's coffee order across at him: the name on the side is "Frosty." Her expression is "Why me?"

MADISON

Espresso sugar-bomb for Frosty.

FOSTER

P-possible...

*PANEL 6

Foster holds his coffee in two shaking hands, bloodshot and watery eyes over the edge of the cup, wondering/worrying over his next move to break himself of this curse.

FOSTER

...to pass the hunger to another.

Part 3 next week!

Share Into the Storymaze

Evil' Renewed For Season 3 By Paramount+

Evil is the “The Exorcist” meets “The X-Files” you didn’t know you needed. But once you’ve taken a bite of this apple, it’ll be hard to shake its wild and weird takes on very bad things happening to good (or at least ordinary) people. A trio of “assessors” — David, the priest, Kristen the shrink, Ben the scientist/skeptic — are hired by the NY Catholic Church to investigate spooky stuff: possessions, night terrors, curses, haunted places.

They’re great characters with fab chemistry and complicated extended stories, each with their own supporting casts. There’s a palpable sense of pervasive dread to what they unearth — which is just as often upended by some completely “rational” explanation — and then again twisted around to confronting the audience with a full-bore five-eyed demon from the pit. And it’s got Andrea Martin (!) as a devil-fighting nun, and the best pop-up book from hell animations evah. (You’ll see.)

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My new comic — Axles Infernal #2 — in in prelaunch on Kickstarter. I’d be grateful if you’d sign up for alerts on its launch — that’ll also get you in first thing on early bird reward specials. In the meantime, here’s something from the original series proposal. Much has changed, so this may not all still come to pass as described *here* — but it’s an interesting look back at this hellish book of genesis.

SHIFTING MORALITY

Virgil Shift could always depend on one thing through his forty-odd years to both get him out of trouble and land him in hot water: his killer smile. On most men, that description would be no more than a metaphor. Considering Virgil's body count while in the land of the living, it's like saying his eyes are green.

That they are, and flecked with gold, like a deep forest glen catching the late afternoon sun. They're not the eyes of a murderer. But they're not Virgil's complete soul-mirrors, either. It's more like they're the man's "soul-anchors." The compassion in those eyes is a touch-point to a time when Virgil Shift felt he had meaning. They were from a time when Virgil felt anything at all.

Virgil had a wife and a daughter he loved beyond anything. For that, he was rewarded with the sheer nightmare of coming home to them from a long haul to find them [REDACTED] by a gang of thugs. Vile and inhuman, they weren't the product of "environmental conditions" — they were just plain bad. Virgil snapped, somehow managing to tear through them in a red fury.

Virgil at the wheel. Final comic in full color, check out the pre-launch preview.

In the aftermath, when the bodily wounds had healed and the investigation had chalked up [REDACTED] to the thugs, Virgil found what he had left inside was all cold, devoid of feeling. Nothing "good" — work, friends, exercise, sports — could raise a blip on the emotional radar screen. The last time he remembered feeling anything was in the rage.

And in a moment born of more than a little madness, Virgil Shift decided that to feel just a little something he should kill again.

It didn't help. But insanity thrives on a chance to rationalize a situation, so Virgil decided it hadn't been enough. So he took another. Nothing. Maybe that one didn't go far enough. One more death. Still not there. Bloody months and a Quantico serial killer profile later, Virgil was still trying. Although now he finally felt a little something: fear.

Fear that any chance he ever had of reclaiming himself was dying, or already dead.

All that "saved" Virgil was his recruitment into the Underworld Transportation Authority by demonic dispatcher Necros Terminal. It gave Virgil time to clear his head, and hope — and plan — that someday there might be chance for redemption.

Virgil's clearly far from a saint, and revealing his dark past at the wrong moment could destroy his relationship with Percy...not to mention the reading audience. His secrets are intended to come out over time, and to maximum effect.

“If you dream of something worth doing and then simply go to work on it and don’t think anything of personalities, or emotional conflicts, or of money, or of family distractions; if you just think of, detail by detail, what you have to do next, it is a wonderful dream even if the end is a long way off, for there are about five thousand steps to be taken before we realize it; and start making the first ten, and stay making twenty after, it is amazing how quickly you get through those five thousand steps.”
— Edwin Land

Amazing Times

I’m D.G. Chichester. Seems pretentious to me, so if you’d rather just call me “Dan”, and have a go at the last name as Chai (like the tea) Chester (like it looks).

I earned my word-cred writing comic book titles like Daredevil, Terror Inc., Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. I like weird tales, so if things here bend that way — now you know why!

Folks seem to like the comic book adventures I’ve written, so if you haven’t checked one out — please do. Many are now available in fab collected editions — including the recent rad retro