THE FROG MAN

Please be aware that I plan to circle back to this document and rework it. As is, it's not very good - but certainly shows imagination.

THE FROG MAN

         Philip came back different. After being sucked into the drain of Driskill High's olympic sized, indoor swimming pool, he'd been ripped into a million pieces, shredded. The last time Gage had seen his best friend, he'd been a pale, meek seventeen year-old, with curly brunette hair. Now, Philip was completely bald; his flesh, covered in green reptilian scales, and colored cotton fabrics. His eyes were swollen and yellowed; his torso and arms seemed to have shrunk; his hands were more like grippy claws that stuck to everything he touched; his mouth, lined with razors. Philip sat hunched back, ready to spring forward, like a frog might; he was either a killing machine, evil spirit, or hallucination. Gage couldn't be sure. Not since quitting his lithium cold turkey, a week before, after Philip's murder..
         Gage stood there, looking back and forth between Drano, the person who'd flipped the switch ushering Philip's transformation, and the frog man that his best friend had become.. His death; all the others, they'd been so pointless..

         Drano was angry about the daughter he'd lost; not at Philip or Gage, or anyone in particular. He was mad at life. He believed that if he asked God for an answer, God would provide. So first he fixated on finding a way to bring her back, then he lost sight of reality, and finally, himself.
         One night, he had a dream about her. Her name was Ariel, and she returned in the form of her favorite mermaid. After her mother ran away with a strapping young suitor the year before, she’d drowned herself, in severe depression, in the swimming pool her father had built in their backyard. Dream-Ariel told Drano, “Retire, and relocate to Driskill, where you have one last pool to build..”
         The site happened to be over an abandoned air base, where he could dig up several salvageable turbine engines. He could install them to the pool's undercarriage, so they would suck. He could construct the pool entirely of flexible, elastomeric cement, so their force would not crack it. She then instructed he create a drug-cocktail by mixing LSD, truth-serum, chlorine and muscle relaxants, and douse the pool's water. She told him whoever was exposed wouldn't be aware; his drug would remain dormant until specific vibrations from his jets triggered it. The vibrations would summon God himself from the heavens to deliver his true form upon their sacrifices; exchanging their lives, for hers.
         When Drano woke from his dream, he was changed inside. She'd told him to sacrifice, and kill. So, Drano built; he sacrificed; he killed.

         He doused the small town slowly, hosting Gala events and school dances. Always wanting to take them out with a foul swoop, but he knew better. After the natatorium opened, children came up missing here or there, every few months; Drano was always sure to catch them late, alone, before flipping his switch.
         His engines would roar to life and create a cyclone of titanic proportion, swirling victims round and round his tornado of hatred. His drug would cause their brains to bleed with plagues of intense imagery; their worst nightmares came to life. They'd see snakes, or an alligator, or abusive-parents, or stump-grinders, churning, chugging them closer; pulling them ever toward certain death, before finally, their shredding.
         Philip had seen something unique; an uncommon childhood phobia.
         In his last moments, while a strange ball of unidentifiable fleshy, decaying creatures were pulling him toward the drain, he saw someone from his past just inside, waiting for him, smiling; as green as ever.

         Philip had loved his stuffed Kermit the frog so intensely as a child. He'd taken him everywhere; school, temple, shopping with his parents, the movies.. They were inseparable, until he nearly drowned inside his mother's bathtub on his eleventh birthday. His hair had gotten caught around the metal drain-stopper for nearly two minutes. He laid there, an eleven-year old expecting death, staring up at a terribly ironic Kermit poster that said something like, 'keep clean, or you'll wind up hopping the sewer's with us frogs!'
         ..Those chilling eyes; his stuffed friend staring back at him from the edge of his mother's tub, on a chair. Philip surely would have died right then, looking up at that terrible poster and his tattered doll, if he hadn't ripped his scalp free. ..Later that night, he wondered, was Kermit mocking me? He stood in front of a garbage can, debating his green friend's fate, then threw him into the darkness and shut the lid, hoping never to see him again.

         Drano knew better than to dabble in his own chlorine-product, but a week after Philip's murder, Gage was there, and didn't care. He'd seen Drano watching the two of them from the other room when the pool had roared to life. He'd expended every ounce of his football player strength to save Philip that day; it wasn't enough, but today would be different. He'd found Drano's turbine switch, and was standing in front of the man whom he believed had murdered countless children. Gage tossed him like a rag-doll, into the pool.

         Philip the frog man sprung forward and clutched to Drano's back. "GOOD TA'SSSEE YA!" He hissed manically, before sinking his fangs into flesh. The pool builder screamed; he thrashed and punched and beat at the half-muppet, half-man, but Philip's claws were as sharp as needles, and eventually Drano realized he was bleeding out. His body swirled around the dark drain. It lit up and a bright light shot out from it. He couldn't see what at first, but soon, dream-Ariel was there, and she was speaking to the frog man. Philip hissed at Drano, then whispered tales of sacrifice into her ear.
         Ariel screamed out fiery pains; her eyes darkened like marbles and she flung herself through the water, grasped her father's chest, then drug him toward the drain. His shredding.

         ..Philip the frog man looked towards Gage; he licked his lips.