Requested by Todd;

Dedicated to my late pen-pal Beverly/Veberly (???? - 2021)

The bizarre town of Neila, Utah was home to three equally bizarre creatures:

The first, called “the Clogger”, lived in the Alexander Tile Woods and had four octo-claws and no feet. It liked to eat bugs, leaves, and socks.

The second, called “the Raker”, lived in a cave on Mt. Desktop. Nobody knew anything about it (per a privacy agreement between it and Neila’s mayor) aside from the fact that it howled in pain whenever you played disco music while hiking up the mountain where it lived.

And the third and most mysterious Neila-dwelling creature lived beneath the Ottoman Bridge on Stone Street. Nobody had seen this creature and lived to tell the tale — UNTIL TODAY…

Silly, cheerful girl AJ Arquette was marching through the snowy streets of Neila, sporting a two-sizes-too-big-for-her pink coat and banging two pots together while yelling a bunch of random crap.

“A bunch of random crap, a bunch of random crap!” she chanted.

AJ’s self-proclaimed “archenemy”, Derek Nunley, had decided to play a trick on the poor girl by telling her that if she made enough annoying noise, she’d summon the “Great Grape Wizard” (AJ LOVED grapes).

(To be fair, at least Derek had seemingly moved on from wedgies and Indian burns).

Presently, AJ made it to the Ottoman Bridge, where she was greeted by a pair of bright, silver eyes staring at her from beneath the Bridge.

Instantly, entranced by the evil-looking eyeballs, the silly girl dropped her pots. A frightened look spread across her face as her mind flooded with all her worst nightmares: showing up to school in her underpants, heights, gruesome flashes of red liquid, people finding out she still liked Ride’em Pony, the monster in her closet (she’d already settled things with the one under her bed), and Pauly Shore.

Chuckling, the owner of the evil eyes stepped forward to reveal itself as an old-looking creature with khaki-colored skin, a badly-shaven beard, spikes along its spine, and a necklace around its neck that said “7734”.

AJ stared at the creature for a couple minutes, then she smiled and said, “Bonjour! My name’s AJ, what’s yours? Is it Lucius? I’ll bet it’s Lucius. It’s Lucius, isn’t it?”

The silly girl, naive as always, returned the creature’s blank stare with a cheery grin.

So the creature turned its powers on full-blast for the little third-grader, turning her even paler than normal before AJ’s best friend Twist Holloway showed up, her blue coat flapping in the breeze as she threw a pinecone at the creature, who screamed as its nose was shattered.

Twist snapped AJ out of her nightmarish trance and warned her about who “Lucius” really was: a Dark magical creature called the Jerkloder that preyed on its victims’ fears. The brave girl had learned about it while reading a library book called Dark Magical Creatures That Your Stupid Best Friend Might Attract.

The girls tried to run away, but then the creature recovered from Twist’s attack and swatted the brave girl away with one claw-like hand and picked AJ up by the collar with the other. Twist hit the trunk of a nearby banana tree with her head and became temporarily dazed.

Snarling and growling, its eyes flaring with malice, Lucius brought a squirming, wiggling AJ up to its bearded, gnarled, not-at-all-attractive face, making the girl gag at the foul stench that was the creature’s breath.

However, just as the Jerkloder was about to fear-feed off the silly girl, a pleasant, soothingly soft voice began whispering in Twist’s ear: “Use faith, Twist. It’s the enemy of fear.”

Gasping, her eyes opened wide with realizational brilliance, Twist shook herself out of her daze and signed everything her guardian angel told her to AJ, who nodded and let out her twinkling laugh. Screaming, Lucius dropped AJ and exploded in a shower of gold sparks.

So the girls, now freed from the fear-feeding wrath of Lucius the Jerkloder, dusted themselves down and started to walk home when the Great Grape Wizard suddenly appeared…WEARING A REALLY FANCY-LOOKING BANDANA.

“Did somebody say ‘a bunch of random crap’?”

~The end!~