Netherbeast Incorporated

"RONALDS BROTHERS PRODUCTIONS"

"DARRELL HAMMOND"

"STEVE BURNS"

"DAVE FOLEY"

"AMY DAVIDSON"

"JASON MEWES"

with "ROBERT WAGNER"

and "JUDD NELSON"

- Morning, Otto. - Good morning.

It was a long meeting, huh?

Yeah. I don't think lunch will ever get here.

You hungry?

Little bit.

Morning, sir.

Morning, Otto.

Good morning, Otto.

Good morning, Henry. Turner wants to see me.

- He does? - Yeah.

What about?

I'll let you know.

Alright.

You bet. Whatever you need to fix the situation is great.

Hi, you wanted to see me sir?

Yeah. Sit.

Absolutely, I'm putting one of my top guys on it.

Yes. Doug, could you give us 'til Wednesday on this thing?

It's starting out to be one of those days.

Sit down.

Super. You have my personal guarantee.

Okay, thanks again.

Otto, I need your help. And we don't have a lot of time.

What the hell's going on, Turner?

It's the proposal.

The initiative for Donigan Corp. It's a mess.

Oh, I, I mean, um, what, what happened to Mike?

I apologize. I meant to clean that up.

What I need you to do, in a nutshell,

is rewrite the Donigan Initiative by Tuesday.

Mike's version wasn't quite up to par.

Wasn't up to par?

No.

So, so you killed him?

Oh, no, lord no.

That had nothing to do with why I killed him.

Then, why did you do it?

Observe. Use reason.

There's a wooden stake in his heart.

What logical conclusion could you draw from that, Otto?

Mike was a vampire.

Now, the intro and the summary really aren't that bad,

but they definitely need to be punched up just a little bit.

What makes you think Mike was a vampire?

Otto, when you've been in management as long as I have,

you recognize the signs.

What signs?

You know, sleeps in a coffin, uh, drinks blood to survive.

Can't go out in the sunlight, aversion to garlic.

Awkwardness in social situations.

When did Mike start drinking blood?

It's hard to say. It could be hundreds of years.

Have you ever seen Mike drink blood?

He had some on his shirt when he came in here.

Must have dripped while he was feasting on

what I can only assume was his final victim.

Where on his shirt?

It's right there on the front.

Oh, well, I guess you got to take my word for it.

Turner...

- Hmm? - There's no such thing as vampires.

Then how come the only way I could kill him...

was to drive that wooden stake through his heart?

Did you try any other ways?

No. How naive do you think I am?

He's a vampire.

A vampire requires a wooden stake through the heart.

You wouldn't eat spaghetti with a skateboard, would you, Otto?

What?

It's a simple question to which the answer is 'no. '

You wouldn't eat spaghetti with a skateboard

because it's the wrong tool for the job.

- Mike wasn't a vampire. - If that's true...

then why did he recoil in terror when I shoved a crucifix in his face?

He was Jewish.

Otto, I would love to sit around here and talk about religion with you,

but the employee handbook strictly forbids indulging

in such volatile topics of conversation in the workplace.

It upsets some people.

Now, if you'll excuse me,

I need to sort through how we're going to replace Mike.

Damn his vampirism, today of all days.

Uh, two bullet points for your to do list:

rewrite the Donigan initiative by two PM on Tuesday.

Incinerate the demon Mike's unearthly husk in roughly, uh, one hour.

Oh, guys?

We're screwed.

Jeff, you might want to clean that up.

"NETHERBEAST INCORPORATED"

I'm Otto Granberry, and I'm 108 years old.

This moment began one of the darkest chapters in Berm-Tech's long history.

It could have been worse,

like if Mike Yarrow had been a likeable guy, for instance.

"44 Minutes Ago. " But he wasn't.

It makes me feel better for Turner

that the person he killed seemed entirely deserving.

Yeah, Dow, that's just what you need is another muffin.

Hey, come on, Mike.

Pad that ass, big boy.

A- hole.

Considering what happened next, Turner must have thought the same.

I've never understood why we've got this thing down here.

It seems so incredibly dangerous in a building this old.

Just following FERC regulations regarding sensitive paperwork.

I personally feel it's much more thorough than a paper shredder.

Oh. I won't argue the point, Otto.

All hands meeting, ten minutes,

assemble everyone in the meadow, if you would, please.

Will do.

Between you and me, I'm beginning to think

that Mike was just a low-level operative in

what appears to be a large network of the cursed

and undead here at Berm-Tech Industries.

And I can assure you that my actions were completely warranted

given the complex set of circumstances involved, visa vi, his vampirism.

But rest assured, I acted in the best interest of this company,

as well as your personal safety.

Personal safety, that's key.

Our Zero-Tolerance Program will be expanded to include this issue.

Eating co-workers, or any nonaffiliated personnel in accordance with the...

Hearing Turner toss around the term vampire is so foreign to my ears.

He's hated that word for as long as anyone's known him.

Yeah, Turner's one of us.

So this is clearly the retardations talking, which I'll get to shortly.

...vampires, they win.

And vampires shouldn't be winners.

That's not to say that Mike was a loser.

Maybe he didn't have a choice in his bloodsucking peculiarities.

Perhaps more accurately, Mike was an un-winner.

By way of illustration, a vampire walks into a bar.

Okay, let's get this whole vampire debate out of the way.

First of all, we're not vampires.

That's a whole media thing invented by Gram Stoker to sell books.

We don't have fangs, and we don't fly.

And yes, we have reflections.

Vampire makes us sound like, well, monsters.

In the Middle Ages we were referred to as 'Nether Beasts,'

but we prefer 'Nether Folk. '

We're really normal people with a slight birth defect.

The heart's the thing. It's what make us special.

We have an odd growth on our hearts.

It looks like a gristly, veiny clump.

This clump secretes an enzyme when someone is faced with an unnatural death.

Some sort of body trauma.

You'll recover as long as your heart's not destroyed.

And you're willing to feast.

Which brings up a naive notion...

...drinks blood to survive.

Oh, if it were only that easy.

Blood's great and all, but blood alone won't do it.

No, we need human flesh as well.

Through various connections we keep a steady supply of choice,

recently-deceased people in inventory.

See, we're not beasts.

Long gone are the days of murder and mayhem.

We enjoy human flesh and blood,

but try not to eat any more than we need to.

And in the hands of the master chef,

there are infinite ways to prepare human flesh.

Once the body has experienced the initial secretion, you're set.

No disease, and wounds heal quickly.

That doesn't mean limbs will grow back,

or your skin will mend flawlessly.

It's about survival.

Repairing life functions.

Not magic.

In our golden age,

when blood flowed like wine,

and flesh flowed like, well, much thicker wine,

we learned that our existence is reliant on a rare mineral

we call 'Nether Stone. '

It's securely locked and hidden away here at Berm-Tech,

and it's vital to our survival.

Nether Stone radiates and enriches the enzyme in our heart.

As long as we're within a mile of it,

and continue to feast, we can live healthy lives.

As healthy as you can be eating flesh, I guess.

And we need to put this behind us.

As the representative from Landry Ventures

will be arriving shortly after lunch.

Oops. I spoiled my surprise, didn't I?

Well, I will say that his presence here is a progressive step

towards moving Berm-Tech firmly into the 21st Century.

But don't worry, none of you will be affected directly,

although in fairness I should say that all of you will be affected somewhat.

Once we heard that an outside visitor, a 'first lifer' was coming,

we went into scramble mode.

Cleaning, hiding, covering up.

Except for an occasional maintenance person of civic inspector,

we don't allow visitors.

The lobby is manned by Jewel Hightower.

Maybe 'manned' is the wrong word.