Dead Comedians and Spicy Jokes (Part 2)

Everyone carries around his own monsters -- Richard Pryor

They started calling him “The Masked Comic.” No one knew where he came from, but once he hit the small-time circuit, he rose like a blood moon. He wore that twisted jester mask every set, grinning, cracked, and silent while his voice tore through clubs like fire through dry leaves.

At first, it was open mics in bars with broken speakers and beer-soaked floors. Then came the college tours. The underground buzz. A clip went viral. Then another. Streaming showcases came knocking, hungry for something edgy, something that felt real. Danny gave them that.

And what he gave was fire.

From the moment he took the stage, the mask became something more than cloth and bells. It was a channel. A wound that never closed. And through it came voices, not imitations, not impressions, but the souls of comics long buried, punching through the veil with spit, blood, and rhythm.

One night, he shrieked into the mic with a manic fire:

“Back in the day, when someone ghosted you, it meant they died in Vietnam! Not because you texted ‘Hi’ too fast!”

He roared like Kinison, and the crowd howled back. Their laughter felt like lightning crawling under his skin. His throat tore raw, but he kept going.

“Marriage is about compromise! You know what I compromised? MY WILL TO LIVE!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Another night, he leaned in smooth, eyes cold and sharp:

“Cancel culture? It’s just a bunch of folks trying to sit on the throne of moral superiority... naked.”

That was Lenny. The cadence. The bite. The venom disguised as wit.

Some nights, Carlin slipped through:

“AI’s gonna replace all our jobs? Good. Maybe the machines can finally fix potholes, because we sure as hell won’t.”

Other nights, the jokes turned inward, Hicks’s soul pushing through like smoke from a dying fire:

“We traded acid for Adderall, protests for podcasts... and you wonder why the revolution hasn’t started yet?”

And then Pryor, raw and bleeding and painfully funny:

“I went on one of those ancestry websites. Found out my people were property. The website said, ‘Oops.’ That’s it. Just—Oops.”

Danny didn’t remember writing any of it. The bits flowed: perfect rhythm, brutal delivery, thunder in his voice. He felt like a god onstage. Immortal.

But offstage?

He started vomiting after the shows. At first, just a little. Then every night. Pale yellow bile. Once, blood.

His skin became ghost white. Under his eyes: deep, bruised hollows that made him look like someone climbing out of a grave. His limbs ached. His chest felt heavy, like something inside him was growing roots.

And it wasn’t just his body that changed.

He snapped at a tech guy for adjusting the mic height. He slammed a green room door on a fan who only wanted a picture. He screamed at his assistant for booking him a hotel that didn’t have blackout curtains. The old Danny, the hungry, nervous comic who just wanted a chance, was gone.

Replaced.

He still got the laughs. Bigger than ever. Crowds chanted his name. But each time he stepped offstage, he felt less like a man and more like a battery being drained. The voices didn’t just speak through him; they moved into him.

And with them came the pain. Not just their rhythms and rage, but the weight of their sacrifices. Sam’s fury. Lenny’s courtrooms. Hicks’s bitterness. Pryor’s trauma. Robin’s heartbreak, humming quietly behind the punchlines like a ghost note.

Danny could feel it all.

He didn’t know if he was channeling them or being used by them.

But the mask wouldn’t let go.

And neither would he.

He used to do this because he loved making people laugh.

Now?

Now he was feeding something.

And whatever it was… it was still hungry.

The coffin rested deeply buried under an abandoned comedy club. There was a time in the 1980s when this club was the happening place. Now, it was just a decaying relic of nostalgia. The club had become a coffin of broken dreams and desires. Occasionally, a tourist would sneak into the club to get a peek into the past. The golden age of comedy.

When people told jokes that people are too scared to tell today for the fear of being cancelled. There are exceptions like Bill Burr and Dave Chapell but for the most part we are living in a time of safe comedy. Relatable comedy designed not to offend.

The vampire breathed air into his nostrils. He heard a familiar sound that he had not heard in close to a decade. He heard the sound of spicy jokes. Jokes that dared to test the limits. Brave jokes. The energy of the jokes flowed into his veins like he was receiving a blood transfusion. The vampire felt something inside of him. It was something like he hadn’t felt in a long time. The vampire felt his heartbeat. His eyes opened, and his soul awakened.

The club hadn’t changed. Same sour beer breath in the air. Same sticky floors. Same dying neon sign above the bar humming like it had forgotten the song. But Danny had changed.

The jester’s mask grinned from his face as he stepped onstage, red velvet bells dangling like blood drops. The crowd buzzed, already fired up—half from the liquor, half from the myth. The Masked Comic. The guy who killed. Every. Single. Time.

Danny gripped the mic. The lights dimmed around him, spotlight locking him in. The mask felt hot tonight. Heavy. But familiar. Safe. He opened his mouth and let them have it.

“I can’t believe I’m back here filming my Netflix special. I chose it here because this is where it all started. My therapist told me to ‘sit with my feelings.’ So I invited them over. You know what showed up? Shame, anxiety, and a bottle of Fireball. We’re roommates now.”

Laughter.

“AI’s replacing all our jobs? Good. Let it do stand-up. Maybe it’ll finally pay off its student loans without crying in the Trader Joe’s parking lot.”

The room howled.

“We used to get beat with belts. Now kids negotiate. My daughter said, ‘I don’t receive energy in that frequency.’ What the hell happened to shut up and clean your room?”

Danny moved like he was born on the stage, riding the wave, riding the rhythm. He didn’t even realize when the heckler stood up.

Until the voice cut through.

“Bring back the guy with the ukulele!”

Laughter again—but not the good kind.

Danny froze.

“This guy still sucks!” said Burt. Same potbelly. Same smug smirk. Like time hadn’t touched him, but it had gutted Danny completely.

The crowd murmured, shifting. Some laughed, some stiffened. Danny’s breath caught. His heart thudded against the mask. His fingers curled around the mic.

He could feel the mask wanting to speak. The old voices rising in his throat—sharp, polished, familiar. But this time...

He stopped them.

And slowly, with deliberate fingers, he pulled off the mask.

The crowd hushed. Even the drunk guy by the jukebox shut up.

Danny held the mask in one hand, the mic in the other. He looked directly at Burt.

“Burt, right? I remember you. You heckled me before, back when I bombed.”

“I sure did. And you know what. You might think you are some big, fancy comedian now. But you ain’t funny. You sucked then and you suck now”.

“Suck… what your mom’s titty?”

The crowed chuckled, wondering if it was safe to laugh.

Danny feeds off their laughter. He enjoys it because the jokes are his.

“Burt’s you’re the type of guy who thinks emotional intelligence is just knowing when to fake cry during a custody hearing. Heckling me is the most attention you’ve gotten since your kid asked the mailman to be their real dad.”

The room erupted.

“Burt, you remind me of every obituary that ends with, ‘He died how he lived—angry and confused at a Denny’s”

Laughter hit hard. The crowd surged with energy. Even the bartender stopped wiping glasses to watch.

And in the back of the room, partially veiled in shadow, sat the vampire. His smile widened. Then, for the first time in centuries, he laughed. Really laughed. Shoulders shaking, eyes welling up with tears.

Danny let the applause roll, let the crowd cheer him as himself—raw, angry, real.

Burt makes his way out of the bar.

“Did we hurt your feelings, Burt? Burt’s idea of accountability is saying, ‘I was drunk’ after ruining five lives and a family reunion. If rock bottom had a Yelp review, Burt would be the top comment.”

Danny’s roast receives a standing ovation as Burt storms out of the bar. Danny smiles. Revenge tastes so sweet. Danny then notices the crowd is all staring at him with blank faces, waiting for him to say something witty and clever again.”

There is an eerie quiet.

Danny stood there, his heart pounding, his chest rising and falling. He swallowed, suddenly aware of how alone he was without the mask.

He tried another joke…

“So... I told my goldfish my dreams, and he just stared back like my father.”

Silence.

A cough. Someone shifted in their seat.

The joke landed like a stone in water. No splash. No glory. No hot new comedian.

Danny’s chest sank. The silence hit harder than Burt ever had.

Then... he felt it.

The mask.

Calling.

His fingers moved before he could stop them.

He slipped the mask back on.

And like lightning tearing through bone, the voices returned.

“Back in the day, when someone ghosted you, they died in Vietnam!”

“The news doesn’t inform you anymore—it checks your pulse to see what pisses you off fastest!”

“You’re not canceled. You’re just boring, and people noticed!”

The room exploded. Thunderous laughter. Drinks spilled. Someone banged on a table in ecstasy.

But in the back, the vampire didn’t laugh.

He just shook his head... slowly. A flicker of despair crossed his ageless face.

Because he’d seen it all before.

And he knew what Danny had just lost.

Again.

Danny will never be a voice. He will forever be an echo.

It started with a flicker.

At first, Danny chalked it up to exhaustion. Too many shows. Too many sleepless nights. Too many miles between airports, green rooms, and motel beds that felt like coffins with softer padding.

But somewhere between Detroit and Kansas City, he started noticing a man in the crowd. Always seated in the dark. Never clapping. Never laughing. Danny only saw him laugh during his Netflix special at his old stomping grounds, and that was only once when he battled the heckler, Burt.

The same man.

A pale face beneath an outdated blazer. Something in the cut—something off, like he’d bought it in 1982 and never left the decade. He’d just sit there, watching. Head tilted slightly, like studying a specimen.

Danny blinked, and the man was gone.

The next night, the same face appeared in the third row. Center seat.

Gone before the lights came up.

He started dreaming of him, too. Shadowy clubs with flickering bulbs and empty seats, save for that one figure in the back. Watching. Smiling. Not with amusement, but with ownership. Like he was proud of something.

Danny would wake up gasping, the taste of old blood and dusty velvet on his tongue.

The jokes started fading.

Not all at once, but slowly, like a tape wearing thin. His set felt… wrong. Lines he used to deliver like lightning now felt clumsy, forced. The rhythm was off. The fire was gone.

The audience still laughed, but he could feel it; they weren’t laughing with him anymore. They were laughing because they were expected to because of the mask.

He didn’t recognize his own voice some nights. The words came out of his mouth, but he wasn’t sure who had written them. He wasn’t sure he ever had.

The mask fit too well now. Almost like it had adjusted to him, or maybe he’d adjusted to it.

One night, in Chicago, his mask felt heavier than usual as he stepped on stage. His bones ached, his skin felt tight, and he moved like a marionette.

Ten minutes into the set, something strange happened.

He told a new bit, something risky, something sharp, the kind of joke that used to split the room and leave everyone breathless.

No one laughed.

Except for him.

From the darkness beyond the lights came a laugh, slow, rich, and cold as winter soil. It echoed strangely, like it had bounced off walls that weren’t there. The crowd didn’t turn. Didn’t react. They just stared, unblinking.

Danny froze.

He scanned the room.

There he was.

Back corner. Half-lit. Grinning.

The vampire.

Danny stammered, trying to continue, but the rhythm was gone. His voice cracked. His timing shattered. The jokes felt like bones, dry and brittle in his mouth. People began shifting in their seats. Someone near the front whispered, “Is he okay?”

He wasn’t.

The lights buzzed overhead. The room spun.

The vampire leaned forward in his seat, smiling like a man reunited with an old friend.

Danny ripped the mask off mid-set and dropped the mic. He staggered offstage, blind to the confusion around him.

He locked himself in the bathroom and stared into the mirror. At first, he saw only himself, sweaty, pale, drained.

Then, behind his shoulder, the vampire appeared again.

Smiling.

Danny spun.

No one there.

But the grin still lingered… somewhere just beyond the glass.

The club lights were still hot on Danny’s skin as he stumbled out the back door into the alley. His ears rang from the roar of the crowd, though he couldn’t remember a single joke he’d told. He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jacket, hands trembling. The mask dangled from his fingers, wet with the condensation of his breath and the blood from the corner of his cracked lips.

He leaned against the wall and sucked air through clenched teeth. Another set. Another hit. Another piece of himself, gone.

That’s when he saw her.

She stood at the mouth of the alley like she’d been painted there, lean legs draped in black velvet, a trench coat cinched at the waist, and lips painted the exact red of fresh sin. She didn’t belong in this part of the city. She didn’t belong anywhere near this club. She looked like she’d stepped out of a noir film that had never been released.

Danny blinked.

She was closer now. He hadn’t seen her move.

“You were magnificent tonight,” she said, voice like smoke curling through keyholes.

He stared at her, his mouth too dry to form a reply. She smiled, sharp, playful, but just off enough to make his spine tingle.

“Don’t worry,” she cooed. “I’ve seen them all. Sam. George. Lenny. You have something they didn’t.”

He coughed a bitter laugh. “What’s that?”

“Desperation,” she whispered.

Danny looked down, shaken by the word. When he looked up again, she was inches from him, her fingers brushing his shoulder. Her touch was ice and fire all at once.

“You should come somewhere with me,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “There’s a club... an old one. Closed for years. But it remembers. The stage remembers. The floorboards cry out for truth.”

“I… I have a thing after… press”

“No,” she interrupted gently, her fingers tracing his jaw. “No more distractions. Just you. The mask. And the place where all great comics go to be remembered... or forgotten.”

He was breathing faster now. His heart thudded in his chest like a warning drum, but something about her-her smell, her voice, her presence, was intoxicating. It overrode the fear. Or maybe... maybe the fear was part of the seduction.

She leaned in, her lips nearly touching his ear.

“Meet me there, after the lights die down. Midnight. The old club on Mercy Street. You’ll know it.”

He nodded, though he didn’t mean to.

And just like that, she turned and walked away, her heels clicking like slow applause.

He stood in the alley long after she was gone, the sweat now cold on his back.

In his hand, the mask twitched.

Or maybe... it smiled.

Danny entered the old, dusty, run-down comedy club. Why on earth would such a beautiful woman want to meet him here? Then the man Danny had seen at all his shows walked out of the shadows.

“Are you disappointed?” said the vampire.

“What the fuck?” said Danny.

“You enjoy chasing shiny things, don’t you, Danny? I knew a red-lipped vixen would tickle your fancy.”

“Who are you and why are you at all my shows?”

Soft, low, almost tender at first…

“Do you know what I miss, Danny?

The sound of boots on marble floors. Of laughter rising in a stone chamber as I danced for kings who'd rather see me dead. The way the fire would catch on polished goblets while I told some wicked truth in rhyme, and the queen, God bless her, would cover her mouth so no one saw her smile.

I miss velvet curtains and flickering torchlight. I miss warm bread and chamber music and the smell of my mother’s hands when she’d press her fingers to my lips and say, ‘Careful what you say tonight, boy.’

I miss her laughter.
Not the kind that comes from amusement, but the kind that comes from release. The kind that cuts through despair like a blade through silk. She worked her bones into the dirt for a kingdom that never remembered her name… but for one brief moment, when I’d make her laugh, she was free.”

He takes a step closer, voice tightening, sharpening like a knife in cloth.

“You think comedy is just… rhythm and timing? No, boy. It’s sacrifice.

Do you know the price paid for every echo you’ve stolen?

Robin gave until there was nothing left to give. Sam screamed the truth until his throat bled, and still they wanted more. Carlin dissected the soul of America until he lost his own faith in it. Pryor lit himself on fire and still found a way to joke about the flames.

And you…
You have passion. I’ve seen it. Hunger, too. But no patience. That night with the heckler was beautiful. That night, you found your voice, only to let it slip through your fingers. I had faith in you that night. I laughed a genuine laugh, only to be later disappointed. I thought you were going to be one of the great ones, but instead you put on the mask and became another echo.”

“How do you know about the mask?” asked Danny?

“I know about the mask because I created it. I made the mask, and I have regretted it ever since.”

“Why”

“That’s a story for another time and place.”

“No, why would you regret it? The mask is beautiful. It changed my life.”

“It didn’t change it. It robbed it. If you are not worthy of wearing the mask, it will feed off you like a leech. You took their pain, their rage, their sacred madness, and instead of adding to it, for a future generation, you stole it and made it your own. You drank from the sacred cup of comedy like a glutton and filled your hollow desires for fame and fortune. I’ve lived for centuries on vibrations, scraps of truth buried in punchlines, the way laughter bends when it’s real. But what you offer… It’s hollow. You are an echo of echoes. And still, you wonder why you feel so empty? You were the mask. You think it gives you power, but the mask doesn’t amplify you. It replaces you. And I wonder how much of you is even left.”

“You see a lot, don’t you? You think I wanted this? You think I planned on putting on some creepy ass mask and vomiting up dead men’s voices for strangers who don’t even remember my name ten minutes after I leave the stage? I wore the mask because it called to me,” said Danny.

“You wore the mask because the mask was hungry. And it saw how weak and pathetic you are, so it used you.”

“No, the mask isn’t like that. The mask wanted me because I’m special.” Said Danny.

“I created the mask. I know what it wants,” said the vampire.

“Then why did you create it?” asked Danny.

“I created the mask for two reasons. The first was to find a fresh voice worthy of wearing the mask…”

“And the second,” asked Danny?

“To feast on the energy that the leech provided.”

Danny’s eyes widened as he watched the man wearing outdated clothes fangs grow. The vampire’s teeth were long and glistened in the dark. The vampire lunged at Danny. Danny tried to scream, but his scream was cut short as the vampire sank his fangs into his throat, the mask dropping from his hands with a dull, wet thud. Blood soaked the floorboards beneath them. Danny’s body crumpled to the floor, limbs twitching. His eyes, once full of desperate fire, were now glassy and still. The vampire wipes his lips clean, fully energized. He leaves the abandoned comedy club and enters the night looking for the next joke he may devour.