Private Detective Frank Uture stepped out from behind his privacy screen with a bloody mouth and tremors in his steps like they'd installed all his bones upside down and the wrong way around.

The corpse; my corpse, not my corpse but the one that I put there, lay on the brown-washed pavement not breathing — a sure sign that I'd done what needed to be done. As a junior detective, I didn't have much to do at the time. I hadn't worked a scene like this before. I didn't think I'd get assigned to it, but I had to show up for there to be any chance of my getting sleep without a lead suppository. As a general rule, the cybo-brass always call in private detectives when a cop has been found dead, since it's almost always another cop that's done it but I didn't realise they had staffers on the sidelines too.

Frank opened his mouth, stuck out his mangled tongue with all the sharp little shards sticking out of it like he'd just sucked on the end of a fibreglass cigarette, and went "ahhhhhh!" to prove he had, in fact, swallowed a whole clock — hands and all. I was then instructed to wail on him with a big metal stick to, quote, "ring in the dang ol' new year."

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WELCOME TO THE NEW STINK; THE BONE ZONE HALF HOUR - NIPPING AT YOUR CHEEKS ONCE A MONTH LIKE THE GHOST OF A FLEA!

TWO STORIES AND A JOKE IN THIS ONE, AREN'T YOU A LUCKY LITTLE GUY?

IF YOU LIKE THIS, SEND MY REGARDS TO YOUR MAMA AND THEN SEND ME MONEY ON PATREON.COM/SBDA

STAY SAFE, OR DON'T! x

I'M YOU, FROM THE FUTURE

a boy wakes on christmas day to find an intruder in his smart-home that looks just like him, and if you can't tell just from the title what's going to happen, then there's no hope, is there?

WOULD YOU STILL LOVE ME IF I WERE (A) WORM?

how many times will my wife ask me this question? many, many times because this tall tale cannot be considered an answer. angular tommy, third-generation bumpkin, turns into an earthworm whenever he looks at the moon day-or-night, and that's no good considering his whole job is keepin' birds outta corn fields.

ALL THE SWIFTNESS OF THE DAY ITSELF

having cheated death twice, punishment is endured; they are forced to live through the myriad deaths across time, and there is only one way out.

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WELCOME TO THE NEW STINK; THE BONE ZONE HALLOWE'EN HALF HOUR - ARRIVING ON THE DAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FIVE YEARS x

IF YOU LIKE THIS, SEND MY REGARDS TO YOUR MAMA AND THEN SEND ME MONEY ON PATREON.COM/SBDA

STAY SAFE, OR DON'T! x

It was the sudden realisation that everybody else was living their goddam American dreams that snapped him out of his vibe-walk. Dirk Steveman coasted all the way through his shift in the jetpack mines, gotten back home to his Le Grand McMansion, opened his mail, washed his nutsack in the sink, brushed his teeth, ate his dinner, washed his nutsack again, and gotten all nice and tucked up in bed and all it had taken to break him out of his trance was the realisation that, no matter how many bedrooms he had tacked onto the side of his 200,000 square-foot domain, no matter how many bars of gold he had hidden in his fridge-freezer, or how many Bent-bourginis in his garage, no matter how many sinks he had built specifically to scrub his nutsack clean, he would never feel whole until he could achieve his truest calling.

Dirk Steveman, richest man alive, couldn't buy his own happiness.

Dirk Steveman, jetpack dynamo and all-round top-shagger, didn't want to be any of those things.

Dirk Steveman wanted to be a comedian; L.A's bread and butter, America's sweethearts, Earth's mightiest heroes.

💀 💀 💀 💀

WELCOME TO THE NEW STINK; THE BONE ZONE HALF HOUR - NIPPING AT YOUR CHEEKS ONCE A MONTH LIKE THE GHOST OF A FLEA!

ONE STORY IN THIS EPISODE, BUDDY-BOY! NEXT MONTH? MORE! WOAH!

IF YOU LIKE THIS, SEND MY REGARDS TO YOUR MAMA AND THEN SEND ME MONEY ON PATREON.COM/SBDA

STAY SAFE, OR DON'T! x