A lone figure stands looking out over a soft verdant landscape. What memories this place holds.

Suddenly the pastoral scene is shattered by the sounds of war. He hears the Gentleman Outlaw cursing the Cheesehead and vice-versa. He looks toward the Outlaw's house and sees the two draw on each other. Gunshots ring out and they both fall in a pool of their own blood.

A twelve-foot Grizzly rises against the man in the black duster and black hat with the blacker heart. The man, called Animal, fires every round from both pistols but as the Bear falls in its berserk death throes it catches hold of him and squeezes the life from him as all 2,000 pounds falls on top of the man.

The blood from the bodies of all four figures flows into the stream, which seems to run with the life force from the hearts of these fallen...

Meanwhile, a lone female figure has been darting around, placing charges of dynamite all over the valley. She stares defiantly up at the shocked and horrified figure standing over the valley.

"Brother!" She screams up at him, "I warned you!"

She has dynamite strapped to her body and wires running all over the valley to strategic locations attached to a detonator device in her hand.

"Why did you bring anyone here? Why? You fool! You knew better."

They stare at each other.

He has been through so much today. He cannot talk or think.

"Monika. Please...Don't..." She will destroy herself and the whole valley...

"You should have been more careful than to bring her or anyone else here. How could you have?" She breaks into tears. "Damn you, big brother! You have killed them all!"

"Monika, wait..." But the deranged girl has started laughing maniacally. As she begins twisting the detonator knob he screams out, "Monikaaaaaaaaaaa..."

And while he is screaming she looks up at him and shouts, "Remember what I always say, big brother...'All men are assholes and all women are bitches!'"

****

****

The concussion from the blast threw him backward, away from the edge and...He got up with a start...Oooooooohhhhhh...The pain, the pain...but he had to see...

As he looked into what used to be a soft, green, hidden valley there was a mass of molten lava flowing through it. The detonation must have triggered an underground volcano. The lava looked to him as red as the blood that had filled the stream earlier except that the lava was destroying everything and filling the valley with molten rock. Soon, the valley filled and where once lay beds of flowers, soft enough for lovers, the cooling lava created a scab of rock on the land, not showing how deep the wound was or what crazed creatures had ever lived there.

The End