Had to take a couple of weeks off when things got busy on the homefront, but I’m back now (and apparently my 1-2 weeks became a month and change. That wasn’t my intention).
The Ballad of Bonaduke—
Episode 12: Whose There?
DETAILS: Series: The Ballad of Bonaduke, #12 Format: Kindle Vella Story Read Date: December 2, 2022
“May I come in?” She asked from bluish lips that flashed a pair of pointed teetch as she spoke. I felt like a rabbit in the presence of a snake.
Or a fly to a spider
The Story So Far…
A drunken Michael Bonaduke decides to use a grift (with maybe some sort of magic/magic-like “help”) to win on a scratch-off lottery ticket so he has money to buy more to drink. He pulls off whatever he did, gets his money and some booze and stumbles off into the darkness to drink himself into oblivion so he can start again the next day. He’s hit by dark memories (probably what’s driving him to the drinking) of fire, pleading, and screaming. There’s going to be a price to pay for his grift, and he’s trying to be ready.
Before then, he gets himself drunk and we get some of his tragic backstory. As he ponders this, he decides to use some of his ill-gotten-gains to buy more booze and walks into a liquor store robbery. He foils it in some sort of magical fashion, gets some more to drink, and heads off to the park to drink until he’s arrested (probably for the failed robbery). At least that’s his plan, but it gets interrupted by being hit by a car. He wakes up on some sort of short, metal bed and is unsure what’s going on. It turns out that some group is subjecting him to a test—if he passes, everything will be explained to him (and hopefully the reader, too). He passes—and is brought somewhere for answers, or maybe training, or maybe another test. Time will tell (or things are going to get really annoying).
What’s Whose There About?
Before the conversation started in the last episode can bear any fruit, there’s a knock at the door. Before the door is opened, Bonaduke feels a chill—at first you think it’s the kind of chill someone gets when they’re nervous/worried—and he is both, but there’s more. It’s a physical chill that he’ll feel a lot of (and more intensely) as the episode goes on. It’s a relative he hasn’t seen in more than a decade—who apparently is one of the people who put him in this situation. Or maybe she’s just working with the people who abducted him—I’m not sure yet (although I lean toward the latter).
She delivers some bad news and some conditions to the others in the apartment, messes around with Bonaduke (she is not warm and fuzzy to her relative), and leaves. One of the men in the apartment leaves, and the other tells Bonaduke that it’s time to give him that explanation he has been waiting for (the reader, too).
Naturally, that’s when the episode ends.
So, what did I think about Whose There?
We start to get some answers here, and more are promised. Of course, we get new questions, too. Regardless, this is the best episode in quite a while. Things happen, a little more supernatural ability is thrown around, and it looks like the story is about to go somewhere.
Okay, the editing on this one was just bad. Distractingly and annoyingly bad. It happens (I know that better than anyone). But ick.
Regardless, I enjoyed this one, and am eager for the next.
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