Strange Came the Naked

The last of them finally disappeared over the fence.

"This is unbelievable," he muttered.

It was unbelievable. Walimer looked on in horror, frozen and unable to react, as the referee reached for something.

"You'll regret that," the anthropomorphic ferret hissed under his breath, "because no one crosses the all-ferret inmate football team!"

The red card fell out of the referee's hand just as the hand fell off of his arm, and several of the unlikely gang of animals immediately began fighting over the new prizes.

Horatio shook the ferret off, but it was too late - he was functionally immobilized. Rendered helpless, Horatio and Walimer watched until none of the convicts were left alive, and the other wardens had driven off in their mud-coloured jeeps.

The men slowly gazed down at their forearms covered in juicy bits of human. Walimer wiped the blood and brain matter off of his hands and joined Horatio in taking account of the shocking scene that now greeted their eyes. The men stood still and surveyed the bloodied and battered ruins that surrounded them, the only sound coming from the occasional settling of the rubble.

"It is done," said Walimer gravely, breaking the silence.

As Horatio was tossing and turning, he felt the familiar drowsiness of an oncoming schizophrenic episode, and sure enough, there they were: Boris Yeltsin in the role of an abusive sex tourist, and Loretta, the star of his favourite porn movie, cast as a despairing mother, forced to sell her children for fear they'd otherwise starve; this time, the episode seemed to be particularly violent, and he flinched several times, despite telling himself the horrid pictures he could see weren't real- thankfully, just then, the explicit part of the hallucination seemed to come to an end.

Boris Yeltsin put down the jagged "abuse bottle" and brought out the feast, much to the children's relief.
"Well, I never thought that would happen," Loretta sighed, "but at least the children won't go hungry, even if they are sore."

Horatio turned over yet again, tossing aside the remnants of what had once been a blanket. He should have been able to sleep, what with the recently-completed gradual release of several months of tension, but something still held him back.

The pills went down much more easily than he thought, and took effect almost instantaneously. Horatio fell into a slumber wrought with nightmares about ferrets and hookers.

The next day:

Horatio patted Walimer's shoulder as both men stared wistfully into the sky.

"If you think about it," mused Horatio, gingerly rubbing the spot where the ferret had bitten him, "this didn't really go as badly as it could have."

The last 4 weeks had been a whirlwind of action, reaction, and serendipity, infused with a sizeable dose of poor judgment. Horatio wondered when would be a good time to tell Walimer about the "scabies incident."

"At least they never caught the prostitutes," replied Walimer; "because they never would have forgiven us."A gust of cool wind brushed the two men as they pulled their shirts down over their heads.

"And to think," laughed Horatio, "if it hadn't been for former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, none of this would have happened!"