035_tentacles.jpgA strange sensation envelops me.  For a moment, I think I’ve been bushwhacked by the Space Chiller.  My back slides against the wall as I shine the candle about, slapstick at the ready.  All I see is an old poster for the Jaws rip-off Tentacles, which features a giant octopus.

A memory at the back of my head stirs, but I can’t quite place it.  There’s another movie, before this one, which is important somehow.  For now, I visualize the poster for Tentacles, which is an image of a woman screaming as a gigantic octopus head creeps up behind her.

It dawns on me.  This monster, this Space Chiller, is really a gigantic space octopus captured by my Bad Ronald when she was smaller, the way he captured those people in the movie Bad Ronald.  He was keeping them in the basement because he didn’t know how to integrate the real people with his own disturbed fantasy life.  That realization was probably what caused him to burst his bonds in the movie, despite the cost.

That’s why I can’t find this darn monster; she’s trapped inside the between-brain hallways.  She’s grown too large to escape the way she was brought in.  I got to pry open some floorboards and smash down the weak wallpapered drywall junk.  This giant space octopus has got to go back into the wild.

And my Bad Ronald has bitten off more than he can chew.  This Space Chiller has gotten the better of him, chasing him about.  It’s a sick, twisted arrangement that needs me to settle up accounts.

I wander into the prison-like halls and look about.  That Space Chiller is hiding in there somewhere, having broken free but still trapped.  She’s a big girl now.  I get her to chase me—what giant space octopus doesn’t like eating a human being down to the skeleton?  I keep those whirling tentacles away with the slapstick and move quickly back towards the poster.

I start kicking at the wall, which gives way rather easily.  I hate to ruin the poster, but what the heck.  I ruined many a cool movie poster my folks got me back in the day.  You have to bust lose and take the blows sometimes.

It’s a weird dance, beating back tentacles trying to drag me into the beak from hell for tasty morsel goodness, while I kick aside rotten boards and moldy wallpaper.  I push my way through and back into the lighted (if still spooky) halls of the haunted house proper.  The space octopus, being flexible, squeezes through after me, its tough hide not taking a scratch from the still jutting splinters and rusty nails.

I run to the front door and open it up.  I suppose I could look for a giant vacuum particle aquarium in here, but I’m taking the guess that this strange gal wants to take off.  Sure enough, she changes into a whirling vortex of hypnotic psychological energy and flies through the front door.

Should I have let this thing loose into the world?  I think things will work out.  I’ve also got a big hole in the wall now.  I don’t know how my Bad Ronald will react.  This is a breach in the separation between us, which I don’t think can be undone.