For 2022, I’ve been wanting to write more ‘creature features’ and generally improve my short story writing. My partner got me a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual for my birthday so I came up with the idea of writing a story every week based on a different creature from that – All There in the (Monster) Manual. Hope you enjoy!

This Week’s Inspiration: Grell

They cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be bargained with, they absolutely will not be stopped. Genre conventions, logic, and good taste cannot restrain these merciless and multi-talented brains. Only one thing is for certain, they will not obey.

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Title Card: The Brains That Wouldn’t Obey

(Legions of tentacled brains with squidlike beaks hover through city streets, in grainy black and white. Citizens flee ahead of a barrage of blasts from their laser weapons.)

V/O:

“Where did they come from? What do they want?”

MAN:

“These brains! They just won’t obey!”

WOMAN:

“Who can save us!?”

(The shadow of a brain the size of a blimp falls across the city. With one tentacle it picks up a tank that looks suspiciously like a plastic miniature, firing blasts that look like firecrackers. The giant brain flings the tank through the cardboard cutout of a building.)

BIG BRAIN:

“I WILL CRUSH ALL OF YOU!”

V/O:

“But will they obey… their hearts?”

(Saturated by a steamy red filter, one brain pursues another brain through the halls of an opulent English manor. Hundreds of candles light the rooms. Just a huge fire hazard number of candles. The pursuing brain takes the pursued by one of their tentacles.)

BRAIN:

“We can’t! It’s forbidden!”

BRAIN:

“I want to disobey what is forbidden!”

(The brains latch their beaks together and passionately embrace.)

V/O:

“They won’t obey the rules, when it comes to seeking justice!”

(A black police chief angrily jabs his unlit cigar at a brain hovering on the opposite side of his desk.)

CHIEF:

“You’re a loose cannon, brain! You’ve got to start obeying the book!”

BRAIN:

“I’m done obeying your human police rules and procedures, chief!”

CHIEF:

“That’s it! Hand in your gun and badge!”

(Cut to a sidewalk where the blimp-sized brain hovers over the broken body of his human partner, killed in a drive-by shooting one day from retirement. It raises its blood stained tentacles to the sky.)

BIG BRAIN:

“SUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAARRREEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZ!!!”

V/O:

“There’s no standard of good taste or modesty these brains will obey!”

(Filmed by a shaky camcorder, two drunken brains bobble around a cheap hotel room. Several crewmembers wearing ‘Brains Gone Wild’ t-shirts watch them suggestively shake their tentacles.)

BOTH BRAINS:

“Woooo! Spring break!”

BRAIN:

“Suck my ganglia, baby!”

(One of the brains wraps its tentacles around a crewmember.)

BRAIN:

“Do you like, like, Japanese cartoons?”

V/O:

“They won’t obey any of society’s rules!”

(A group of delinquent brains spray graffiti on the underside of a bridge. One toys with a switchblade in its tentacles.)

BRAIN:

“Cheese it! It’s the cops!”

(Inside a police station, the same angry, black police chief confronts one of the delinquent brains. A pair of handcuffs dangle off two of its forward tentacles.)

CHIEF:

“What are you disobeying against?”

BRAIN:

“What’ve you got?”

(The roof is suddenly torn off the police station. The giant brain hovers overhead, casting the top of the building aside. A massive ring pierces the side of its beak.)

BIG BRAIN:

“FUCK THE POLICE!”

V/O:

“But can they learn to obey… themselves?”

(Half a dozen brains hover around a circle of chairs in a drab institution. A human counsellor gently coaxes the group to share. The words ‘NOMINATED FOR FOURTEEN ACADEMY AWARDS’ occupy much of the screen.)

BRAIN:

“It’s like my addictions just take hold, I can’t obey myself. I can’t obey my own desire to stay sober.”

(The roof tears off the top of the rehab centre. The giant brain hovers overhead.)

BIG BRAIN:

“I LIKE HEROIN!”

V/O:

“The Brains That Wouldn’t Obey! Coming to a theatre near you! Obey the call!”

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Sean: I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking with this one. I actually love the Grell design but couldn’t come up with anything for them to do except be the villains in an old B-movie. Then I came up with the genre jumps and I couldn’t get the idea out of my head until I wrote it.

Next Week’s Inspiration: Wereboar