Shonen Otaku's Diary of Frank West, Day 1 Part 3

I was a little less bummed about the katanas once I finally got out of the North Plaza.  Even if I could use my three katanas at once, they all broke before long because I had to use them to swath through zombies like adventurers do to outgrowths with their machete.

I also had to hike through the gigantic Leisure Park again, which thankfully gave me enough room to maneuver around the zombies.  Of all the things I expect to see in a public park (striped elephants, screaming banshees, salesmen who grant wishes), I never expected what I found.

Teddie!  Sitting right next to a bench, Teddie had somehow been brought back to life!  It was a miracle, but one that soon turned back into a tragedy.  As I frolicked across the field with Teddie in my arms, a zombie attacked us out of absolutely nowhere, and Teddie threw himself at it to defend me, ascending to the heavens once again when he could do no more.

Why?!  Why does fate conspire to separate me from my best friend?!  Why can I not spend just one hour of life with my precious Teddie?!

Teddie’s second death only pushed me further to get the best of these damn zombies, so I picked up a nearby weapon no man, living or dead, stands a chance against: the mighty rock!

Nothing man or beast can defend against the raw density of the earth!  Every time I swing that rock upon the undead, their heads cave in with its divine, perfectly-crafted might!  The only rock more powerful than the one I hold in my hands is Dwayne Johnson, and lifting him would be inconveniently heavy!

With it, I was ready to charge in and brutally bludgeon whatever was giving Brad a hard time, but first I took a moment to mow some of the outside grass.  I’m not sure why.  I think all that detention time mowing lawns at Bullworth Academy has conditioned me to start mowing grass whenever I see a lawnmower.  Some zombies got in the way to the point that they jammed the blade, so I had an excuse to stop.

Honk honk!

The very second I walked into the food court, someone shot at me and I was forced to take cover, conveniently in the same place Brad was.  Luckily he didn’t question my wardrobe consisting of children-sized Ratman clothes, a shaved head, and sunglasses even though it was dark out.  Maybe it’s because he doesn’t think anything can bring down the bald head look.

I knew Brad was under attack before I came in, but I didn’t think it was against someone armed with a gun!  I was ready to get out of there and just leave him, but I never got the chance to slip out.

He tasked me with helping him bring down whoever was shooting at us.  I tried to get out by telling him I’d never fired a gun at a person before, not counting that time I dared my friend to eat a churro off my gun barrel and he bumped my finger, but he didn’t care.

"Your baldness is inferior to my glorious mullet."

I didn’t think I’d have to shoot the guy once I saw who it was.  It was my BFF from earlier!  The one who greeted me when I first arrived!  I thought we could talk things out as friends, so at first I didn’t shoot at him and instead went up to the scaffolding to show him how cool my new rock was by shoving it into his face.

I don’t think he was impressed though.  His response was to shoot me about 9 times at point blank range with his machine gun before roundhouse kicking me 15 feet down to the ground.  Ordinary men would be killed by such injuries, but not I!  I just downed some wine bottles I assume used to be water from the nearby bar and was all better without any kind of adverse effect.  The bullets in me weren’t ejected out of my wounds though, so I’m pretty sure I still have a few grams of metal stuck in my gut.

When I realized that, I also realized that was my BFF’s intention all along.  He wasn’t shooting at us because he wanted to hurt or kill us.  He thought we were underweight and wanted to add some pounds of metal to our body!  My dietician said I needed less iron in my diet, but she’s also the person who told me to “put the gun down”, so screw her!

With that in mind,, I found it only right we return the favor to my BFF with our own bullets.  He is kind of on the skinny side.

Hey kids!  Real guns are where the fun is!  Those Nerf guns are for losers!

It was during the ensuing fire fight and yogurt chug I took at look out the window and saw the sun moving!  Time is moving once again!  In fact, it has been ever since I first entered the food court!  That means the doors in this mall are more than just doors!  They’re all some sort of space-time stabilization device for every area in the mall, and if just one gets jammed, time freezes in place!  It wasn’t until I opened it the jam was fixed and time returned to normal.  I knew the mall was big, but I didn’t realize it was cosmic!

After my BFF gained enough weight, he ran away on some sort of rope to the ceiling, sadly before I got to ask him for his name.  He seemed to be in quite the hurry, so I assume he was late for his cousin’s baby shower.

I asked Brad, but he doesn’t know his name either.  He was ready to just leave me behind, but changed his mind when I flashed my picture of the old jerk.  If Samuel Jackson and Danny Glover have to go undercover, I knew they would be on the lookout for criminals, and based on his actions and Jessie’s reaction, I brilliantly surmised that the old jerk in the entrance was one of the most wanted men in America.  No doubt for assault, rape, and landing pterodactyls on public property.

It turns out Jessie, Brad and I assume Otis, are all agents for the Department of Homeland Security, and they are indeed looking for the old man.  I love being right.

No!  Mine!

We wasted no time in heading back to the entrance plaza to bust the putz.  I could play out what would happen in my head.  We were going to go over to there wearing sunglasses, point our guns at him and say “You’re under arrest.  Sentence: eternity in hell.” Before blowing his brains out and getting a nice brutality shot for Kent.

But no, when we got there, he was grated inside a bookstore and all Brad did was politely ask him to come with us (in the process I learned that his name is Dr. Bumblebee).  Of course, he refused to leave without having a secure way out of the mall.  I could have brought up my helicopter ride, but I was sure the big badass DHS agents had their own.  All we can do now is head back to the security room.  No guns, no convictions.  This sucks.

Shonen Otaku's Diary of Frank West: Day 1 Part 2

It turned out the ducts led to the mall’s barren rooftop with not a zombie in sight.  Immediately after I got up there, I found a couple of old married fatsos looking for help.  After punting a soccer ball into the old lady’s gut for whining at me, I led the two of them over to the giant vent just a few feet away they apparently didn’t see.  Otis did tell me to try and rescue other survivors if I could; for emergency rations, I’m sure.

Unfortunately, the old jerks had trouble keeping up thanks to their cardio issues and I accidentally left them behind.  Naturally I went back to show them where the only human-sized vent on the rooftop was.

When I did, I saw that the two were somehow injured even though there wasn’t a single zombie on the rooftop!  I checked!  In the five seconds it took me to go back for them, a zombie attacked them, they killed it, and then ate it and lapped up the blood!  They aren’t just fat because of a bad diet!  They’re monsters!  I asked Otis to let them fight with me in the mall, but he told me they might get a heart attack.  As if eating a whole zombie wouldn’t do that!  If they won’t get off their ass and help me fight, they’ll at least make for good food themselves.  Those two should last us a month.

I'd be cautious about going to giant eating establishments if I ate a whole corpse too.  If she starts acting weird, I'm going to cap her.

With that little errand out of the way, I finally started to get into the meat of things.  The elevator on the rooftop led to a warehouse full of TVs, mannequins, buckets, and other equipment.  I think I heard the mannequin say something to me.  “Kill Otis,” they said.  To that I say no.  I like Otis.

Before I could get much further, I heard something in the exit hallway.  At first I thought it was a zombie, but then I remembered there wasn’t a single one on the way there.  I could hear a distinct clacking sound in the footsteps, and the only person I knew was wearing heels was Jessie.  Given her involvement with “Brad”, I knew she had to have some kind of firearm on her I could use to shoot the old shit I saw earlier.  I was ready to sneak attack her around the corner and bash her skull in with a nearby fire extinguisher, but I got spooked when I saw she had her gun out.  Luckily she was startled too and hurt her ankle anyway, making it the perfect time to get the gun.

She told me that Brad was under attack and she was going to go back him up.  Under the guise of helping him, I convinced Jessie to give me her gun.  She was reluctant at first, but I cleverly informed her of the fact that I had covered wars and she immediately trusted me.

I could have told her that all I meant was I wrote a plot synopsis of an episode of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series, but details weren’t important.  If I hadn’t wasted enough time already, I would have told her more interesting tidbits about my life.

I’ve opened doors, my skin has pores, I’ve slept with whores, I’ve wrestled boars, I hate Pauly Shore, I’ve done chores and I’ve eaten s’mores.

Maybe later.

I know how to use that gun, of course.  All you have to do is point it at bad people and they go away.  With my new toy in hand, I set off into the heart of the Willamette mall, already been completely overrun with the undead.  I could have gone to help out Brad in the food court across the park, but I’m pretty sure Nick Fury can handle himself.

Besides, he would have gotten in the way of the fun.  When there’s no living person around to see it, there’s only one thing you can do in a mall: loot!  And my first target just had to be the toy store nearby, where I seized some new duds only slightly smaller than my size, and a new friend: a giant bear I christened “Teddie,” named after that funny blue guy I keep seeing in my TV.

Teddie and I were ready for hours of fun, but tragedy struck prematurely when a couple of zombies wandered into the store and started to attack me!  I was able to keep them away using Teddie for a while, but then it happened.

Teddie broke.

He sacrificed himself to protect me, and those zombies killed him!  My best friend had just been murdered!  I was so upset I couldn’t control myself and wailed on their heads until there was nothing left but liquid stains all over the store.  I tried to pick up Teddie for one final burial, but his body had already ascended to the heavens.

Goodbye Teddie.  I will never forget you.

Five minutes of sobbing and zombie-smashing later, I started getting hungry.  After all, I hadn’t eaten anything for hours, and my Twinkies are still in the parking lot, locked safely away in my briefcase where the zombies can’t get them.  Luckily for me, the food court wasn’t very far, according to the handy dandy map Otis gave me.  Zombies must be pretty picky about what they eat, because I found three entire custard pies ripe for the eating and wolfed one down without a second thought like it was a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup!

It’s at that point I noticed something about the food in this mall.  When I took the last bite of that pie, the gashes and bite wounds all over my body disappeared!  In fact, that has happened whenever I eat anything!  All the food here has magical healing properties!  This mall is apparently so glorious and heavenly, it’s blessed by the power of Christ himself and has an enchantment placed that gives its food the power of healing!  Or, considering Jesus isn’t one for materialism, this may actually be the work of Santa Christ.

But I could do more than just eat entire pies in just three chomps!  The food court conveniently has blenders to make use of.  Some people just put fruit or smoothie mix in a blender for a nice treat, but that’s for people who aren’t hardcore!  I shoved a pie and some coffee creamer in there and made a hardcore, white super drink.  I should probably alert the nearest technician about the mixer though, because it rather violently spat the container out.

I then also added an apple into the mixture for a taste of flavor.  If I can find some gasoline somewhere, I can put that in with some coffee mix and really fuel myself up!

I didn’t realize at the time that while I was goofing around with the mixer, it was starting to get dark.  Hours had passed and forgot to back up Brad at the other food court across the park!

Not wanting to have Brad throw the F word at me, I made a B-line straight for his location, hoping to make it in time.  However, seconds after I stepped into the enormous Leisure Park, Otis informed me of another journalist taking photos right where I just was.

I knew the guy who handled a plane full of snakes could handle himself for a while longer.

I immediately U-turned right back into Paradise Plaza to look for this other journalist, whom I found in the food court taking pictures.  Luckily it seemed he didn’t lay a hand on any of the pies, meaning he had permission to live.

His name was Kent Swanson, a younger lad with more equipment for capturing photographs than I had, but I don’t need anything but my fine leather jacket.  At first I was suspicious of Kent’s twitchy movements, cackling laughter, irrational joy out of hurting zombies, and tendency to insult me, but he had spiky hair and a goatee.  In my experience, you can always trust anyone with spiky hair and a goatee.

Kent had a challenge for me, either as a way to train me to be as great a photographer as him or to feel good about someone taking photos of his handsome, goatee’d face.  I couldn’t argue with either reason, really.

All I had to do was take pictures of the guy doing various poses, first alone and then with zombies around.  I got poses like him performing his physics-defying flying jump kick, him taking a photo himself, and a shot of him doing his fist pumping gesture (which isn’t nearly as awesome as Ralf Jones’).

Rockin'. 

There’d be no challenge in it if he just did the damn poses when I told him to, as you do when you set up any other photo shoot.  He just went off and minded his own business, posing when he felt like it and calling me an old sack of crap when I missed it.  That Kent is one tough coach, but I’m older than him, so what do I know about how young people act today.

Once I had proven myself to be at least a competent journalist, I got an even harder challenge.  All I have to do is take pictures better than his most dramatic, sexy, and violent shots, which should be easy because the ones he had were so inferior I had to swat the camera away out of disgust when he showed them to me.

I could just use the timer on my camera to photograph me performing Hamlet with a zombie’s skull, stripping and sawing my own arm off, but that’d be too easy.

At the time of this writing, I believe I have a better dramatic and brutal shot, but I’ll have to try hard to get something that looks sexy when almost everyone in the mall is dead.

I thought I might be able to get my sexy shot by taking a picture of Brad, but just as the idea came into my head, I remembered I had to go back him up!  I wasted no time in rushing across the park to the North Plaza.  I got distracted again.

I couldn’t help it!  Otis told me there was a cutlery store there!  Or rather, he told me eventually.  I kept dropping the transceiver because of the zombies attacking me, to which Otis kept telling me that it was rude for me to cut him off.

I understand it when someone gets peeved at poor manners, but I feel he forgot just what I’m doing while he’s chilling in the security room.

The North Plaza was absolutely flooding with the things!  It was by and large the most zombie-packed area I’ve yet seen in the mall.  It’s a good thing the place is still partially under construction so I could travel on the scaffolding, because otherwise I’d have to plow through enough zombie guts to fill a swimming pool (one I would very much enjoy swimming in; I need to write that down).  I did try to see if the zombies might carry me across the place, but it turns out they aren’t very good at mosh pits.

Once I learned the zombies’ inability to mosh pit, and after I subsequently chugged my three gallons of Santa Christ orange juice, I found the cutlery store, just as Otis had told me!  They had some nice hunting knives, but to my squealing delight, they had Japanese katanas as well!  Obviously the first thing to come into my head was to put three of them between my fingers, jump from the scaffolding, and shout “phantom dive!”  Alas, it turns out putting Katanas between your fingers is harder than it looks.  Maybe with enough practice I will someday be able to do it like the masters of old.

While I was there, I also used the knives to shave my head.  With some sunglasses I swiped earlier, I look just like Vin Diesel, or the Engineer.  Or Brad.

It took me just as long to get to the bathroom as it did to get to the cutlery shop, and it was when I was headed back that I noticed that time has halted!  Literally, my watch has stopped moving and the sun is no longer going down!  Something in this mall seems to be causing some sort of temporal disruption that has trapped everyone in it in a stasis or purgatory of some sort!  Could it be we are all trapped in a certain period of time like in Stephen King’s The Langoliers?  Are we all doomed to be eaten by saw-toothed meatballs?

Not if I have anything to say about it!  I’m going to do some heavy investigating, but I can’t do it alone, so I’ll have to go get Brad.  But first, I still need to piss out all the Messiah Juice I’ve been chugging.

Sometimes it's nice to be alone.

Shonen Otaku's Diary of Frank West: Day 1 Part 1

September 19

I met Kakashi at our local McDonalds this morning to discuss my brilliant story idea.  Thankfully he wore sunglasses this time, so I didn’t sustain any injuries.  After avoiding the fee by beating him in Sausage McGriddle chugging contest, we immediately took the chopper to the Willamette Parkview Mall.  I don’t think anyone in the parking lot minded the noise, but if they did, they aren’t there if we can’t hear them.

As we approached the city by air, I noticed groups of military men camping out on the roads leading into the city, even going so far as to set up their own little forts in case a snowball fight broke out.  Why would the military have campouts on the road?  Don’t they know they’ll back up traffic?

That wasn’t a concern to us in the air, but I can’t help but feel sorry for the people who have to rely on cars.  Somewhere a man is trying to get to work, and I don’t think government road campouts are a valid tardiness excuse.

That’s not the only reason I felt sorry for them.  During the flight to the mall I looked down to get some pictures overhead and saw some very interesting photo ops.  There was a man on the top of his car and three other people climbing up trying to get him.  The guy was swatting at them trying to get them away from them like a bunch of bees.  It's a picture I've taken plenty of times.  There must be a Brony convention in town and that poor bastard let it slip that he didn’t watch My Little Pony.  He should know better.

Beware the Bronies.

It got better.  I also saw a gas station explode in a spectacular display of fire and shrapnel.  I always thought gas stations had safety valves to make sure such an event never happens, but there must’ve been one incredibly persistent smoker down there.  I almost asked Kakashi to lower the chopper so we could rescue the injured, but gas is expensive and it wasn't like there was a place to get some anymore.

My camera scoping had to be cut short when military helicopters arrived.  At first I couldn’t imagine why the military would want us, but it didn’t take me long to realize that we had something they wanted: my Twinkies!

I wasn’t about to give up their creamy baked goodness to the likes of the feds!  In an act of flippant defiance, I dropped my suitcase with the Twinkies overboard into the mall’s parking lot.  Try to get them now!

Now I'll just have to get the hell out of here and recover them later.

With little time left, I had Kakashi get as close as he could to the mall and told him to come back and pick me up in exactly three days, assuming he wasn’t gunned down minutes later or beaten to death in interrogation for my Twinkies.  20 feet in the air, I jumped out of the chopper and landed on my feet like Rambo!

Didn’t feel a thing.

The roof was eerily quiet, but there was another man hanging out on the roof, so it’s not like everyone was dead.  We chatted it up, I told him about my job, and he kindly informed me that the mall was actually hell, but he must have been mistaken.  I have yet to see a single Ubisoft game or Hannah Montana DVD.

Before I left to go shoot for the story, the man told me he was looking forward to some great pictures.  What a nice guy.  From that moment onward, we wer Best Friends Forever.  I forgot to ask for his name, but such trivial details are not needed among BFFs.

"This, my friend... Is hell."

Coming in from the rooftop I found myself in a security room of some sort, but nobody was around.  At first I thought I could use the intercom and say obscene poopy words, but then I realized nobody was there because they were probably off saving money on those big deals!

I really had to book it, but something caught my eye on the way out.  I glanced at the security monitors and saw, to my horror, what may be one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen: Three hungry-looking citizens forcing a woman out of her car… And eating the flesh right off her body… Raw!  Uncooked!

That’s just not right!  Meat should be medium well when you eat it!  Any other way is just wrong!

The reception on this TV sucks!

Averting my eyes from the horrific spectacle, I walked my way to the mall’s primary entrance, where a bunch of guys were piling furniture as a barricade for a horde of creatures outside.  At first I just thought they were trying to keep out a bunch of really hungry hobos that were informed of the big event, but the man in charge assured me that they were actually zombies, which was a relief.  Zombies I can handle.  Hobos are something else.

I know there were other things to be alert about, but I was completely captivated by the giant bee mascot on display there.  It’s a majestic, towering work of art as big as the e-mail had told me.  I could tell just by looking at its bright, happy face that this was going to be a mall trip of fun.

But then something else caught my eye.  Right behind a really hot chick was a poster for Tyke Tots!  My all-time favorite clothes store in the entire U.S.A.!  But before I could get a closer look, that old fart jumped in front of me, implied that I was checking out the chick, and barked orders to help with the barricade.

I think he could stare directly into my soul, and I into his.  His was full of evil.

Nobody interrupts my poster time!  He had to be taught a lesson.  A lesson in pain!  So I hatched a plan.

An old lady nearby was looking desperately for her missing dog, so I gave her some peace of mind and told her that her dog was outside with the “hobos”, but that she would have to move the furniture out of the way to go get it.

All I had to do then was get as far away from the door as possible and wait for the shit to hit the fan.  As I was waiting by the grated-off area on the opposite end of the plaza, I saw another old fart behind it.  I thought he might feel more important if I took some pictures of him without his consent, but when I did, he tried to attack me through the grate with his walking cane and yelled at me!  I managed to get some pictures of the incident for evidence of his assault, after which he backed off.

I hope he realizes just what he’s done.  I won’t forget this old man!  I will never forget!  I will never forgive!  Nobody attacks Frank West with a cane and lives unless it's a candy cane, in which case I can eat it!

Before I could rip the grating apart and shove the old man’s cane down his throat, the stupid old lady moved the barricade and opened the door in order to get her precious doggie, just as I had planned.  It turns out the doggie really was out there, but it didn’t make a difference anymore.  The zombies started to pour in through the doors and killed several people, including the horrible man that blocked my vision.  That’s one victory for me.

Not only had I delivered justice, but the front door was now wide open, which means I could go outside and get my briefcase full of Twinkies!  There were zombies coming out of the front, but I’d go through a fire to get my baked snacks!

As I was about to start running, a screaming man on the second floor distracted me, but it was no ordinary man.  I was in the same mall as Samuel L. Jackson himself!  Samuel screamed at everyone downstairs to go up the stairs near the entrance the zombies were coming from.  It seemed kind of crazy at the time, but I would never question Master Windu.

"Get your ass up here!"

As it turns out, zombies are smart and fast.  After looking at Samuel for just a few seconds, I looked back down and saw that everyone on the first floor was already surrounded by them!

It shouldn’t have been a problem for me though.  I’ve been trained by the very best martial artists from around the world: Wade Wilson, Geese Howard, Kenshiro, and even the great Wimp Lo!  I could have plowed through every single one of them and cleared out the plaza in a few minutes, but something was wrong.

I attempted to unleash master Kenshiro’s Hundred Crack Fist, but all I could do was flail my arms like a kid just learning how to box!  I couldn’t remember how to do it!  I couldn’t remember how to do anything!  Apparently when I jumped out of the helicopter, the impact of the fall made the tendons in my legs shoot up into my skull and wipe my memories of how to fight!  Why does science have to be so mean?!

With my combat skills tendonized, I had no choice but to improvise.  I picked up a nearby baseball bat and started to whack through those flesh-eating monsters like the umpire’s head in a baseball game.

Being the saint with clear regard for human life that I am, I tried to rescue some of the other people around.  I couldn’t save them all, but I thought I could at least save a few… If they cooperated.

I was able to clear the nearby area of the zombies and swathed a path for the two innocents that managed to survive, but even with safe passage, the stupid cunts wouldn’t move!  It’s as if their brains were completely shut down!  They just stood there, waiting to be eaten!  Almost as if they were…. Stoned.

This could only mean the pot smugglers have reached even the small city of Willamette!  Now they’re costing even more lives in a whole new way!  I will not stop until every one of those monsters pay!  On the bright side, the stoners make for good bait.

I made my way to the front of the mall, naturally while being bitten and clawed at the closer I got, but it would have been worth it just to know my Twinkies were safe!  It would be, but the doors were locked.

Then how did the zombies get in?!

I tried breaking the glass on the doors, but they must be made from some kind of bulletproof glass, because I couldn’t even make a crack in them!  Frustrated, I made my way to the stairs like Samuel said and took even more injuries on the way.  Luckily it didn’t ruin my spiffy jacket.

When I got upstairs, I retreated back to the security room, where Samuel and a couple of his friends were hiding.  One was a blonde-haired woman in very feminine attire named Jessie, while the other was Danny Glover!  Danny welded the doors shut as soon as I came in, apparently because Samuel thought we’d best not use the door so long as those “things” are in the mall.  Since I’ve yet to see any zombie open any door with a knob on it, I assume he was referring to any other survivors.  Don’t want them crowding the hallway.

Instead, we’re using an air duct to go in and out of the mall’s rooftop.  People in Willamette must have some kind of nasty sinus condition, because these are the biggest air ducts I have ever seen!  They’re big enough to be a hallway!  It’s as if they were made to be passages for guys our size!

Then again, what if it is?  What if they’re used to smuggle marijuana into the mall?  That would have to mean the architectural engineer is in on it!  There are so many questions that have yet to be answered.

After Samuel left to explore the mall, I showed off my badass picture album to Jessie, who told me that the badass black dude’s name is Brad.  I then saw Danny’s name tag: “Otis.”  Brad and Otis must be some kind of aliases Samuel Jackson and Danny Glover are using for a top-secret mission here.  I don’t want to blow their cover, so I’m playing along.

Looking at my camera, Jessie seemed particularly interested in the picture of the old man.  She denied the guy having done anything, but I know that look she made.  That is the face of a woman who has been violated.  Now I have two reasons to kill that sonbitch.

I could have waited out the whole thing until Kakashi got back with his helicopter, but there was so much I had yet to understand.  I may have lost my moves, but I can just as easily learn some new tricks.  I have an entire mall filled with murderous monsters in almost every area, a map of the whole place and a transceiver Otis gave me (that will come in handy).

It’s go time.

Shonen Otaku's Diary of Frank West: Prologue

[You’ve played the game, but was it the truth?  The story of Frank West’s adventure at the Willamette Parkview Mall was once one of the most sensational in history.  Or so we thought.  As it turns out, the government ended up removing certain points of the incident and downplaying others leading to a similar story, but in an entirely different light on it.  The posts you are about to read are a diary of the events of the Willamette incident Frank West kept.  The true events, as recalled by Mr. West himself, and not fabricated by me.  Through this we will learn what really happened, and what was going through my Frank’s head as the horror unfolded.]

September 18

I thought it was going to be just another day for photojournalist extraordinaire Frank West.  When a publication needs pictures, I’ve got the best around.  But today was different, and not because I was transported to another dimension and beat up costumed superheroes.  Today, I accepted what may be the ultimate challenge for any photographer.

It was an ordinary afternoon at first.  I went to the warehouse I found out about yesterday and took the same pictures I usually did during my crime fighting/photographing: exploded heads, burnt bodies, fire-breathing hell hounds and a nice shot of me shoulder slamming the organs out of some poor sap’s gut.

After I made sure nothing in the place was moving, I opened the boxes and, to my disappointment, didn’t find any marijuana, but instead several crates of Hostess Twinkies.  And no, none of them had marijuana where the cream filling was.

That’s the third time this week I’ve hit the wrong place, but I can’t let myself be discouraged.  Those smugglers are still out there and I’m so close I can just smell the smoke!  On the bright side, I got some free Twinkies.  Heavenly, delicious Twinkies.

The ultimate challenge came after I finished organizing my photos.  I was checking my e-mail and came across one with a most peculiar subject title: “BIG BIG BIG DEALS!”

It told me that “everything here at the Willamette Parkview Mall is going big!”  There’s going to be big deals, big stuffed animals, big savings, a big park for big people to relax in, and not to mention all the tools I could need for finally building that mech suit I’ve been planning on.

They’ve got allen wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters, trash compactors, juice extractors, shower rods and water meters, walkie-talkies, copper wires, safety goggles, radial tires, BB pellets, rubber mallets, fans and dehumidifiers, picture hangers, paper cutters, waffle irons, window shutters, paint removers, window louvers, masking tape and plastic gutters, kitchen faucets, folding tables, weather stripping, jumper cables, hooks and tackle, grout and spackle, power foggers, spoons and ladles, pesticides for fumigation, high-performance lubrication, metal roofing, water proofing, multi-purpose insulation, air compressors, brass connectors, wrecking chisels, smoke detectors, tire gauges, hamster cages, thermostats and bug deflectors, trailer hitch demagnetizers, automatic circumsizers, tennis rackets, angle brackets, Duracells and Energizers, soffit panels, circuit breakers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, calculators generat

Sorry about the previous paragraph.  I couldn’t get that song out of my head and I can’t erase pen.

This is going to be the story of the century!  It has to be!  Sure, the e-mail was in the spam folder, but something with a subject header in all capital letters has to be good to warrant such size!  I had to get there, and soon.

Without hesitation I immediately set up a flight with Kakashi for tomorrow.  To prepare, I’ve read a few news articles about the mall.  Apparently the area is being quarantined by the government at the moment.  They’re trying to keep me from covering the story, just like when they put the neighbors under witness protection!  They should know that’s never worked before and it isn’t going to work now!  My magnum opus starts tomorrow!