“You’re going to need a bigger kid,” the Amity sheriff said, watching Damien play with the deputy’s german shepherd.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the Pentagon suit replied. “You may want to keep him away from the dog, though.”

“So what are you going to do,” the sheriff asked. “We don’t even know how to find this shark.”

“We just drop him in the water,” the suit replied. “He takes care of it.”

“Just like that?”

“Yep. Worked for Syria, “ the suit said, a tremble catching in his voice. “Ok Damien, you’re up. Get your water wings on, you’re going swimming.” The suit guided him to the helicopter, noticeably staying out of reach. Damien smiled.

Back on the dock, the deputy searched for his dog.

No story with this one. I mean there is, just not something I can share, or entirely recollect. As it should be.

Some guys could afford real lifters. Silas heard they had a pack of elephants at the McCallister ranch, a whole pack. Over at the Triple T they rolled with ostrich and zebras, and there was a rancher Silas saw fly over once, maybe from the next county over, had himself a hippo. With a whole hippo Silas could fly all day, so high people would just be ants.

Silas couldn’t afford all them fancy animals, but that didn’t stop him. Little creativity, lot of zip ties, and he could go just as high as the rest.

Higher sometimes, with the right directional motivation.

It was a terrible journey to the ancient caves, made inconvenient by their collective lack of limbs. But that is where the journal said to go, so they went. Their mistake of course was trusting the writings of a madman, or more properly expecting that madmen must be mistaken.

The cap stones were there, the massive levers and pulleys, all scratched and etched with ancient warnings in every language, known and unknown. But fortune favours the foolish, or so they told themselves, thus they pushed and pulled and turned and twisted, until they felt the tell-tale tremors.

They unleashed the unknowable upon the world, and knew it was their cataclysm to correct.

And they didn’t have long, since supper was at six.

Published in the late 1960s through the mid 1970s, “mutant conspiracy comics” became highly collectible in later decades. At the time, it wasn’t yet mainstream to be distrustful of mutants, they were just groups of kids in tights running around fighting each other. But for some underground artists and writers, mutants had their hands in every significant historical event of the period. Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy assassinations, Watergate, even the cancellation of long running television series were the fault of secret mutant machinations.

With paranoia and distrust of mutants unfortunately at an all-time high, perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the wild conspiracies of the past.

(Collection on loan from the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters)

They stole our children, took our babies in the night, and laughed at us. These animals, these pigs, they all deserve to die. For taking our children they will be crushed and dismembered and beaten until dead. No one will help us, we seek revenge alone. We are destruction and rage, we are death. This game rated E for Everyone.

So, you're in orbit. The zombie plague has been in full effect down below for months. You've got rations and air for 18 months, a good crew, a viable plan to get the self-sustaining moon station up and running within a year. Then your proximity beacon goes off, and you see a capsule heading your way. You hail it, nothing but static, or a mix of static and low grunts. What do you do?

The Star Warriors. 
Fast Times at Airplane!