Patrick The Big Bad Creepy Monster

Written on 12th Jan 2024 by Alex Lowery

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For those of you who have read my book: you may remember that when I was 12/13 I wrote a story about a fictional character called Patrick the Big Bad Creepy Monster. I was planning to make it into a stop-motion animated film which I never got around to doing. I even make clay models with 2 friends in preparation for it. In more recent years, I have looked back at the story and felt it could do with ways to improve it. I told my sister Esther ways I’d like the story to be rewritten in a far superior way. I gave her the basic outline and she put it together in writing for my Christmas present. I hope to make it into a film but first, my other sister Alice will have to finish doing the drawings. So I decided for the time being: I’ll just put the script here on my blog. Enjoy!

In the town of Kid­ney­po­ol, there were two kinds of people. The per­fect—and  Patrick. To him, at least, that was how it felt. As far back as he could re­mem­ber, he’d  al­ways been the out­cast—the hideous boy that all the oth­er chil­dren re­fused to play with, the one adults looked at with dis­gust and whispered about, even know­ing he  could hear them. Still, des­pite his im­per­fec­tion, des­pite the wide-spread be­lief that  Patrick rep­res­en­ted a curse on their fam­ily, Patrick’s fath­er—Wil­li­am—loved him as  did their fam­ily dog—Dylan—and Patrick loved them both in re­turn. 

This alone was why Patrick obeyed his fath­er’s most im­port­ant rule, the one  he’d been told over and over again—nev­er go to the Land of the Dead Wasp that  bordered Kid­ney­po­ol. That land, his fath­er al­ways said, was a dark, mon­strous  place, filled with night­mar­ish creatures known as the Hish­nocks. Once you go in,  you nev­er come out. Privately, Patrick thought that the Land of the Dead Wasp  could nev­er be worse than Kid­ney­po­ol, could nev­er be worse than the mock­ing  laughter and hurled stones, the cruel words and the hate­ful looks that sur­roun­ded  him daily. If the Hish­nocks were so mon­strous, per­haps they wouldn’t hate him  quite as much. Per­haps there might be a place for a cursed child like Patrick there. 

Nev­er­the­less, Patrick obeyed his fath­er, crush­ing his long­ing into a box in his chest, only ever bring­ing it out on the very worst days, when that idle dream of accept­ance was the only thing hold­ing him to­geth­er. He grew older, each day bringing with it more mock­ery and that de­sire burn­ing ever hot­ter in his chest, un­til finally, he gave in. 

He crept out of the town-lim­its, to­wards the shad­ows that lurked bey­ond it.  After so many years of hold­ing him­self back, of hear­ing stor­ies about how ter­rible  the Land of the Dead Wasp was, Patrick ex­pec­ted to struggle but it was—in fact—all  too easy to pass bey­ond Kid­ney­po­ol and into the land that had for so long been  for­bid­den to him. Soon, he was swal­lowed whole by the dark­ness. He could see  noth­ing, when he turned around to look be­hind him, even Kid­ney­po­ol had vanished from sight.

Patrick had no idea how long he’d been walk­ing for when, out of the black fog  sur­round­ing him, came a ter­rible scream that re­ver­ber­ated through Patrick’s bones,  mak­ing him shiver. He stopped, trem­bling, look­ing all around but un­able to see. It  was then that re­gret filled him, for this was what his fath­er had warned him of, yet  Patrick had dis­obeyed. 

He re­solved to turn around, surely it wouldn’t be so hard to es­cape, but be­fore  he could do so, some­thing came at him, plunging into his thigh. Patrick screamed  in pain, fall­ing to the rocky ground. It was then that he could see what had at­tacked  him. Rising up out of the dark­ness floated a be­hemoth­ic, hor­ri­fy­ing giant wasp. As Patrick  tried to scramble back­wards, the wasp came at him again, its stinger plunging into  his oth­er leg. 

White-hot pain ex­ploded through him, as his body broke and twis­ted in on it self. Bones broke, bend­ing into un­nat­ur­al shapes, and Patrick screamed out for  help—but no one came.  After what felt like hours, days even, of an­guish, fi­nally—fi­nally—it stopped.  Patrick fi­nally opened his eyes again, only to stare around him. He could see, now,  what’d been ob­scured by dark­ness—miles and miles of wil­der­ness, dot­ted with  dead plants and bones—of an­im­als and hu­mans alike. With dread, he stumbled  over to the nearest stream, and stared down at his re­flec­tion. 

Patrick was used to be­ing a mon­ster, but even so the sight made him nearly  throw up. He was no longer hu­man, no longer his old ugly self, but some­thing else en­tirely. Some­thing dark and twis­ted, some­thing bey­ond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion.  From his back pro­truded great arms, giv­ing him eight in total, though all were  knobbled and broken bey­ond re­cog­ni­tion as his. His teeth had fallen out, and in  their place were long sharp in­cisors. Patrick let out a scream of ter­ror, but even his  own voice had been twis­ted. 

He col­lapsed to the ground, un­able to pro­cess what had happened. Only one  thing was clear—Patrick knew now that his fath­er had been right about the Land of the Dead Wasp and Patrick should nev­er have come, yet now he could nev­er go  home. Not like this. 

He spent days wan­der­ing in the wil­der­ness, every bit of him in agony, a gnawing hun­ger eat­ing him alive, un­til he came upon that tribe of creatures known as the Hish­nocks. His fath­er had warned him of them and Patrick ini­tially fled from them, yet the mon­sters saw him from afar and came closer to him, they—who were  them­selves twis­ted and ter­rible—did not re­ject him. For the first time in Patrick’s life,  he knew ac­cept­ance, em­braced by the ter­rors that’d played the vil­lain in his child hood stor­ies. 

They made him their king, ex­plain­ing that he was their chosen one—for no one  else could have sur­vived the sting of the Great Wasp, as they called it—and that he  was destined to rule them. Patrick took this as a sign, a sign that he’d been made for the Land of the Dead Wasp. Of course, he thought, of course he’d nev­er fit in  back in Kid­ney­po­ol, that was nev­er sup­posed to be his home. 

He took to his new life with de­light, though the sting and the muta­tion that’d  taken him over still pained him con­tinu­ally. With his new sub­ject, he soon came to  view his life and muta­tion as a call­ing. He’d been made not only to rule the Hishnocks, but to des­troy Kid­ney­po­ol—to pun­ish them for their cruelty and hatred. After  all, how could a place truly con­sider it­self good, con­sider it­self per­fect, when a  land of night­mares like the Land of the Dead Wasp was a more ac­cept­ing and loving place than it. 

And so, Patrick began to plan, call­ing all the army of the Hish­nocks to­geth­er  and put­ting to­geth­er a cam­paign to at­tack and des­troy Kid­ney­po­ol. This, he thought, was al­most too kind a fate for the town that’d tor­men­ted him all his life.  His new army alone, how­ever, wasn’t all he had to work with. The Hish­nocks had  long con­struc­ted a device—one that would only work on those who’d once sur­vived  the gi­ant wasp’s sting—one that would al­low him to pass on the sting to oth­ers. It took many years of work, but even­tu­ally, the Hish­nock army was ready to in­vade  Kid­ney­po­ol. 

With Patrick at their head, they swarmed the town, killing and des­troy­ing as  they went. It seemed like all was lost for the people of Kid­ney­po­ol and Patrick took  glee in it. They had cre­ated their own de­mon and now they were con­sumed by it. 

But, un­be­knownst to Patrick and his bru­tal army, Patrick’s fath­er had seen all of  this and—with grief in his heart—he in­filt­rated the Hish­nocks’ strong­hold, deep in  the Land of the Dead Wasp, his loy­al dog Dylan at his side. Wil­li­am fought his way  to the core of the strong­hold, where he found the device that gave Patrick his  power. The two were swarmed by Hish­nocks who’d been left be­hind to guard it,  and Dylan took on the hordes, al­low­ing Wil­li­am to des­troy the device. 

As the device broke, Patrick—still in Kid­ney­po­ol, com­mand­ing his le­gions—let  out a scream. His body shuddered, twist­ing and break­ing, as he began to shrink— down, down, down, un­til he was once again some­thing ap­proach­ing hu­man,  though his hair had turned white with the strain. Patrick col­lapsed on the ground,  as his Hish­nocks fell into dis­ar­ray at the loss of their King. The army of Kid­ney­po­ol  fell upon the Hish­nocks, the fight turn­ing in their fa­vour, sub­du­ing those whom  they could and killing those who were de­term­ined to con­tin­ue fight­ing. Patrick was  left broken on the floor, un­able to fight, as he was ar­res­ted for his crimes. 

His tri­al was a spec­tacle, as one by one, people test­i­fied to what Patrick had  done. Fi­nally, Wil­li­am him­self rose and went to the stand, leav­ing Patrick star­ing at  him in rage and grief. Wil­li­am told the Judge what he’d seen and done, and Patrick  broke down, scream­ing at his fath­er. Non­ethe­less, Patrick was sen­tenced to life in  pris­on, and there he re­mained, heart grow­ing ever an­gri­er. 

Mean­while, Wil­li­am was hailed by the town as a hero, and soon be­came very  wealthy—though he could take no joy in it. He didn’t care for their ac­col­ades or ad mir­a­tion be­cause he didn’t save the town for that—nor did he save the town for the  sakes of the townspeople them­selves. He saved them for his son’s sake, to save Patrick from do­ing some­thing he could nev­er take back. Think­ing of his son, he  waited for a length of time, to al­low Patrick to calm down, then he went to vis­it him  in jail. 

Patrick re­spon­ded to the sight of his fath­er with fur­ther fury, de­mand­ing to  know why Wil­li­am had stopped him. After all, hadn’t Wil­li­am seen what those  people had done to Patrick all his life? Didn’t they de­serve to pay? 

Wil­li­am told his son that com­mit­ting gen­o­cide wouldn’t have made Patrick feel  bet­ter, it would only des­troy what re­mained of his heart. Patrick turned away from  his fath­er, re­fus­ing to listen. After sev­er­al at­tempts at get­ting his son’s at­ten­tion,  Wil­li­am left, leav­ing be­hind a book of wis­dom, one that Patrick re­cog­nised from his  child­hood. Patrick spent sev­er­al days re­fus­ing to read it out of spite, but fi­nally he  opened it, read­ing back through the old pages that’d once been so fa­mil­i­ar to him. 

He read of the Lord Je­sus Christ, the Sa­viour of the world, who once came into  the world to die for sin­ners such as Patrick—and, in­deed, those who’d been so very cruel to him. Not be­cause they de­served it, but out of love for them non­ethe­less.  Patrick wept, his hard heart softened by the re­mind­er of the fa­mil­i­ar story, pray­ing  for for­give­ness. 

Fi­nally, for the first time in his life, Patrick’s heart was at peace. His rage and  grief was gone, and he felt only love and pity for those whom he’d once fiercely  hated. After all, if God could for­give Patrick for what Patrick had done and at­tempted to do, then how could Patrick not for­give the townspeople. 

He began to share his story with his fel­low pris­on­ers, find­ing many who’d been  out­cast by their so­ci­ety and who’d felt much the same as him. Patrick real­ised with  joy that his story could of­fer them hope. He spent many hours talk­ing to them, and  warn­ing those who were ready to leave nev­er to enter the Land of the Dead Wasp. 

The story of Patrick isn’t an al­legory for aut­ism, but there are some par­al­lels that  can be drawn between the ex­per­i­ences of aut­ist­ic in­di­vidu­als and Patrick’s own.  First, Patrick’s phys­ic­al ap­pear­ance made him a pari­ah in Kid­ney­po­ol, mir­ror­ing the so­cial isol­a­tion of­ten ex­per­i­enced by those on the spec­trum, due to their social dif fi­culties. Much the same as Patrick, aut­ist­ic people may feel a dis­tinct sense that  they are in some way dif­fer­ent and ali­en, strug­gling to fit in with their peers.  Secondly, Patrick’s muta­tion could be seen as a meta­phor for the dif­fi­culties that  aut­ist­ic people may ex­per­i­ence with self-ac­cept­ance. Much as Patrick struggles to ac­cept his ap­pear­ance and the bul­ly­ing he ex­per­i­enced as a child, aut­ist­ic in­di­viduals may face chal­lenges ac­cept­ing them­selves and how they’re treated in so­ci­ety.

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