Showcase '95 #3
"Homecoming"
Dennis O'Neil (Story)
Rick Burchett (Art)
Winner of the Haxter Award for Best Short Story
(thanks to Martin Scherer for the following summary)

The story starts with a big blond haired man holding a nun in the orphanage, saying "Know what I been dreamin' about for twenty years, Sister Balbina? I been dreamin' about cutting you into little, tiny pieces."It then cuts to Vic Sage, in a truck getting a ride back to Hub City. Vic tells the trucker he's heading to the Hub City to go back to the orphanage, he's geting older and he wants some answers.Vic has a flashback of Sister Balbina hitting his hands with a ruler for tracking mud into the kitchen. He smiles at the memory, especially the part where she points to a fat blond kid and says "Why can't you be perfect like Ricky? Our perfect, precious little angel." To which the young Sage replies, "Why can't you go to hell?!" Vic's memory is interrupted by a file cabinet being thrown out the window by the same gang that was shown at the start of the tale. The head punk with the blond hair looks at the nun and tells her why he's doing it. "I'll tell ya why. First reason is to get even with you. 'Cause when I was alittle kid, you scared me. I was a pukey teacher's pet'cause I was AFRAID. I hate you for doin'that to me." Vic dons his mask, and runs into the abandon orphanage to save the nuns that are still in there. As Vic fights his way to the head punk, he stops, and asks, "Ricky is that you?", he then takes him out, and looks down at his defeated body, "I do believe I have died and gone to heaven." To which the nun replies, "Heaven's not where you're headed young man! You're headed in the other direction!" and continues to go rag him out. Vic Sage just thinks about how little things have changed.