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Purple Moose
Matt Spencer
Hey, folks – Here’s my first attempt at fan fiction, a little piece I whipped up on a whim, speculating on how Hyde might view various things in contemporary society. I make no attempt herein to explain Hyde’s inexplicable time-travelling, so let’s just assume that after whacking the board of governors, he decided to take a little vacation to celebrate, and “borrowed” H.G. Wells’ time machine.
Throughout New York City, pedestrians hurried onward, anxious to reach whatever destination for which they were bound, to be out of the cutting winter winds, which raged up and down the streets like the pillaging troops of an invading army. Edward Hyde walked calmly down Broadway towards the theatre district, watching with amusement as they hurried past him in all directions, and he pulled his thick purple fur coat tightly around himself.
As he neared Times Square, the sound of many impassioned,
indignant voices filled his ears. He
came in sight of a large scaffold and plywood stage, atop which a muscular black
man wearing dreadlocks and Jamaican garb shouted into a bullhorn of how the
human race was descended from blacks, and how the day of the White Devil was
coming to an end. Half a block
down, another scaffold stage supported a fat white man who shouted fire and
brimstone passages from the Bible and also verbally masturbated about his own
fantasies of the apocalypse before a reverence-struck crowd.
Edward grinned darkly as he passed, wondering how many little girls or
boys either of these “holly men” had slept with lately.
Perhaps, later tonight, he’d encounter one of them in one of New
York’s many alleys or restaurant back lots, in the middle of one such liaison.
There were few things he enjoyed more catching some uppity
hypocrite in the act of their sordid secret pleasures, and then taunting and
bullying them, all the while watching their eyes as they crumbled inside beneath
their own shame. Sometimes, when he
saw that he had truly shattered their defenses, he would batter them around with
his cane some in their helplessness. The last time he had done this, it had actually been someone
he knew and loathed, that stupid, paunchy Bishop, just saying goodbye to that
sweet little prostitute, and Edward had ended up killing the poor fool.
He did not regret this in the least, in fact had found the deed intensely
pleasurable, only he wished he had maintained enough control to prolong the
event longer. Even now, he could
feel the smack of his cane against the Bishop’s skull, feel it reverberate up
his arm, making his heart race, flecks of the Bishop’s blood spattering across
his face, the smell of kerosene as he’d dowsed the poor fool’s body, the
heat of the rising flame, the odor of cooking flesh filling his nostrils.
Edward shuddered with pleasure at the memory and felt himself become
aroused. He suddenly wished he’d
brought along his sweet Lucy with him on his trip to New York.
He passed the M-TV building. Apparently, there was some pretty-boy celebrity being
interviewed in the building above, some silly boy-band or other most likely, for
a cluster of hysterical teenage girls stood behind a picket line, screaming in
delirium at the possibility of catching a glimpse of their magazine poster idol.
As Edward passed, he thought of coming back here later, when they began
to disperse, perhaps to spirit one of the supple young beauties away.
Should he be found in the act of defilement, he would not crumble inside
as he’d seen others do, but would stand and gloat with pride, for Edward Hyde
felt no shame.
In the meantime, Edward planned to take in the new Broadway
production of “The Rocky Horror Show,” for how could he resist the
opportunity to go to a live theatre production where he and the rest of the
audience were actually encouraged to act up, make noise and throw things in
response to the goings-on on stage? He’d
hoped to catch that other fabulously fiendish monster musical, the one
chronicling his own exploits, to see how the latest actor portrayed him in all
his dark glory, but unfortunately it had closed before he could make this
particular trip to New York.
After the show, Edward planned to head down to Greenwich
village, to check out that pub he’d heard of named after himself and his
troublesome alter-ego, and then to perhaps seek out one the village’s rumored
underground S&M clubs. To be on
either end of the whip or the riding crop was an appealing thought to him at the
moment. He eagerly anticipated an
evening’s courtship with whatever dominatrix might try to tame him, or
whatever pretty submissive would bend beneath the pain and pleasure to be
offered by Edward Hyde.
He passed a group of protestors picketing outside some
fancy clothing store, and did not pay much attention until he heard someone
shout indignantly, “Murderer!”
He turned curiously, cocking one eyebrow, a smile on his
face. One of the protestors, a
middle-aged woman glared at him wide-eyed.
One by one, other members of the rally were turning their eyes to him.
“Murderer!” the
woman repeated emphatically.
Edward glanced up at the poster-board sign, which the woman
had stapled to a wooden stick. “Pet
animals. Don’t Wear them,”
it read. He perused some of
the other signs that the protesters held up.
“Fur Is Dead.” “Outlaw Fur.” “Fur
Is Murder.”
Edward glanced down at the purple fur coat that he wore.
He rolled his eyes. The
woman stormed forward, stopping just shy of the picket line.
Edward stalked forward calmly to meet her.
“Do you know how many animals died to make that coat?”
she proclaimed. “How many whales were killed to make that purple dye?”
“Just one,” he
replied, grinning, getting right in the woman’s face. “Only one animal died to make this coat, the Purple Moose,
the only one I’ve ever known to exist! He
saw me, and he decided to charge me, thought he could take down me, Hyde!
But I killed him! I killed him with this!”
As he growled this last word, he grabbed his crotch.
“Bastard,” cried
the woman, “Murdering son of a
bitch!” A chorus of indignation
and lamentation joined her from her fellow protestors.
“Yes,” Edward
said calmly. “As a matter of
fact, I am a murderer. Why, just
last week, I clubbed a priest to death and burned his body.
Then I hunted down one of his friends, and shoved this into his mouth and
out the back of his head!” Hyde
held up his cane and waved it in the woman’s face.
“You should have heard the sound his skull made when I drove it home!
After that, I caught two more of them outside of a restaurant.
I gutted that simpering twit Archibald right there in the street, and I
strangled that bitch Lady Beconsfield with her own diamonds!
I caught the last one, that coward Teddy, at the train station.
I dare say, he thought me the devil incarnate, risen from hell to
rightfully claim his hypocritical soul, as I slowly crushed his neck.
What do you think of that? Does
that outrage as much as much as the fact that I find this piece of old dead
animal skin comfortable to wear in the harsh winter weather?
How about those two fools back down that way, making such amusing
spectacles of themselves in the name of their fundamentalist faiths?
All of you probably have some sin upon your head, perhaps even by default
of your birth, for which either of those two idiots would happily, piously
dispatch you were they not so snivelingly afraid of the consequences of the law!
How does that make you feel? Why
don’t you go and protest that?!?”
By this point, Edward had worked himself into a gleeful
tirade. The woman and the crowd
behind her had all fallen silent.
Edward glanced down at the woman’s leather shoes. Throughout the cluster of protesters, he noticed a few moccasins and cowboy boots, as well as tennis shoes with leather parts, and even the odd leather jacket. “Splendid how you hypocrites hang together,” he said to the woman.
“What?” she
stammered.
He pointed down at her shoes. “That is lovely footwear, I must say, melady.
How you must love the feeling of butchered cattle skin against the flesh
of your feet. Tell me, my dear, how
many cows do you think were killed so that you might have those exquisite
shoes.”
For a moment, the woman said nothing.
Edward merely stood there, reveling in the disillusionment which he saw
forming in her eyes. Then with a shriek, she sprang forward, her hands hooked into
claws, aimed for his eyes. Casually,
he caught her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.
“No one touches Hyde,”
he snarled, “NO ONE!”
With that, he threw her backwards, sending her crashing
into her fellow protesters, knocking the lot of them askew.
Edward turned and walked off, his maniacal laughter echoing
through the street. No one had
moved from the sea of cowards to try to stop him, just as he had known they
would not, just had no one had done anything when he had slaughtered Archie and
Bessie in the street.
Within minutes, the incident with the protestors had slipped from Edward Hyde’s mind. The sky was growing dark, and the city awaited him.