Deep, deep in the darkest part of the woods, where even your dad is afraid to go, dwelt Smap Waptey and his band of bad boys.

Please understand that when I say “bad”, I don’t mean mischievous or rascally or even the kind of kids who try cigarettes at recess behind the storage sheds. I mean they will suck the meat right off your bones and afterwards make your skull into a puppet and make it say stuff like, “Oh no! Please don’t eat me! Oh my poor leg meat, you’re sucking it right off my bones! Ow! Ow! Ow!” and then laugh, and all their friends will laugh, and Smap Waptey will laugh the hardest of all, not only because the impression is so spot on, but also because they are all totally SUPER EVIL!

I’m sorry if that scared you real bad, but I just think it’s important that you know that these guys are not to be fucked with no matter how plucky you are feeling that day.

Now normally, wizards don’t concern themselves with monsters who live in the woods and eat children every now and again. Those kind of dudes have been around since pretty much the beginning of time, and wizards have better things to do than save some dumb kids who don’t know any better than to wander off into woods without a machine gun or flamethrower or anything to protect themselves. Occasionally, a wizard will put up a sign that says “Beware all ye who enter here” or just a board with a skull and crossbones, but people always think it’s either a haunted house or that someone is giving away free bones and walk right in. This goes to show how dumb most people really are.

But this time, a wizard DID get involved. His name was Cimbri, and he got upset with Smap Waptey for having loud parties in his cave every time he and the boys killed some new kid.

Before I go any further, it’s important to note that while the boys were just normal boys (albeit really bad ones), Smap Waptey was an actual monster with horns and fangs and devil stink and all that stuff. He was only 3’ 8”, but he was strong for his size, and his main power was that he was very, very persuasive. For instance, most of the boys who hung out in his cave were only sort of bad to begin with. Smap Waptey would come to them when they were skipping school or loitering in a Walgreens parking lot and say something like, “Oh, I heard you were a badass, but you look pretty normal to me. I guess I’ll go find some kids who are cool.”

And then the kid would say, “What? No, I’m rad as hell my dude! Trust me.”

And then Smap Waptey would say, “Oh so you’d have no problem helping me with these other lame kids whose flesh and bones I want to eat, would you?”

And then kid would go, “Ummmmmmmm….” for a long time.

Little by little, Smap Waptey would wear the kid down. Eventually, he built a whole army of boys who spent all their time in the woods having fun and murdering people.

Anyway, so like I said, Cimbri probably wouldn’t have cared too much, but they started eating more and more kids and having louder and louder parties. One day, he was working on a prank potion that would make a person think they knew a word that rhymes with orange, but every time they went to tell someone, they’d forget it. Right as he was about to add the final ingredient, some boy yelled, “Smap Waptey Rules!” and made him drop the bowl on the floor of his hut, and frog guts and magic dirt went every place.

“That… Is…. It!” yelled Cimbri grabbing his wand and marching over to the other side of the valley.

When he got to the cave, all the bad boys pointed and laughed at him. “Hey, this guy has a pointy hat and a stupid dress on!” they cried. “What are you doing in the woods little girl? You must have been lost a long time to grow such a fine beard! Ha ha ha!”

But Smap Waptey was not laughing. He knew a wizard when he saw one, and he figured he was in trouble big time. “Hey there friend,” he said. “Sorry about the noise. See, the boys were just excited because of this kid we ate. You know how it is, right? You see, my name is Smap Wa–”

“I know who you are and what you do!” snapped Cimbri. “Just try to keep it down over here, will you?”

“Sure. Of course. No problem. Will do,” said Smap Waptey trying to sound cheerful.

Cimbri started to walk away when something suddenly occurred to him. “By the way,” he said, “Why is your army all boys? I know there are girls in town who drink alcohol and stay up super late after their parents go to bed. Why haven’t you ever recruited any of them?”

“Oh, um yeah, I thought about that,” said Smap Waptey. “But you know, if it was just ‘bad kids’, there wouldn’t be any alliteration. It’s the same reason I eat the boys before they turn 18 and become men.”

“Do what now?” said of few of the older boys looking around.

“So what, you’re some sort of monster/poet?” asked Cimbri.

“I mean I wouldn’t go that far,” answered Smap Waptey looking down and digging his toe into the dirt. “I suppose I just think a little artistry is nice, that’s all. You know, otherwise what’s the point?”

“Jesus fucking christ. Whatever weirdo. Just keep the noise down,” said Cimbri storming off.

Turns out, he didn’t have to worry about loud parties again after that. No one knows who let the word out, but two nights later a bunch of the town’s baddest girls showed up while Smap Waptey and the boys were asleep and beat them with sticks until they ran off. Smap Waptey tried to put a new army together for awhile, but at that point his reputation was pretty much shot. He ended up moving back to Monster Island and just working in his dad’s warehouse, which was okay but not very exciting.

The moral is that form should always follow function.