BLAZING SADDLES, SMOKING TENTACLES CH.5 - HIGH NOON AT MULDER'S LOT

BLAZING SADDLES, SMOKING TENTACLES CH.5 - HIGH NOON AT MULDER'S LOT

by Mandy Ward

It doesn’t take you long to realise that the Sheriff is right. “Damn.” You grumble as you take the bridge back up and return the saloon to an approximation of normal. “You sure you want me to do this? It could kill as many as it could save.”

The sheriff chuckles. “If’n you’re right about this Garlock, then that’s more than he’d leave alive.”

Taking a deep breath you look at Sally. “I want you to go to the mine. Talk to my second in command, Veezlbez. Tell him that he was right all along and that we’re going to need to take Garlock down.”

She nods reluctantly. “You want me to go now?”

You return the nod, trying very hard to ignore the flashing light under the bar. “Tell him to step on it.”

She smiles and runs out of the door.

You wonder if she’ll return with Veezlbez and the rest of the crew or high tail it out of town and save her own skin. Obscurely, you hope that it’s the latter.

“What’d we need to do doc?” the sheriff asks, trying not to move his shoulder.

You sigh and slither over. “Let me look at that.”

He nods and looks away as you bring one of your smaller tentacles toward the wound. A quick jab and wriggle later, you’ve extracted the bullet. Using your inbuilt anaesthetic, antiseptic glue, you clean and close the hole.

The sheriff looks at it. “See. You’n the Doc still. I dint feel a thing.”

Shrugging you move back behind the bar. “Go round up the men folk. Tell the women and children to hide in the storm cellars. If this works, they’ll be okay to come up in a day or two. If not, then they’d best be able for a long stay.”

The sheriff looks worried. “How long a stay?”

About a hundred years. You think and decide to lie. “Food and water for a month at least.”

“How long have they got to prepare?” he moves towards the door.

You glance down at the display next to the flashing light. “Between four and ten hours. It all depends on if he decides to land his ship or beam down.”

The sheriff goes white and runs out of the door.

Three hours later, you’ve set everything up in the saloon. All the computational work is done and all you need now are the extras. You decide to don Doc’s skin one last time, just to make life easier.

The saloon door swings open. Veezlbez and the rest of the crew slip inside, looking green around the gills. Wonder of wonders, they’ve managed creditable human costumes. And no Sally.

“Where’d you want us, Boss?” Veezlbez asks.

“You come and sit at the bar, Vee. Security, dot yourselves around the perimeter and the rest of you pick a seat anywhere.” You watch with relief as they jump into action and settle themselves.”

“You want to do what we discussed on the way into this pokey planet, Boss?” Vee asks, toying with the glass of Malrovian Whisky you pour him.

“As close as I can.” You pour yourself a shot and toss it back. The alcohol makes Vee’s face blur and double for a second. “Whoowee, that hit the spot.”

The Sheriff wanders in, the men of the town following him and looking around nervously. You direct them to sit anywhere that is left and then check the display under the counter. “He’s come to a halt in orbit, Vee. He’ll be beaming down. You ready for this?”

Your second in command nods and swallows the whisky. “Now or never, Boss.”

You stand up on the Bar. “Gentlemen, we are about to have a visitor to this fair planet. You may have heard rumours of what I look like under this costume,” you pull at the skin you’re wearing, making it gape for a second around the eyes. “But this fella is three times as bad.”

The crowd mumble amongst themselves.

“All I want you human folks to do is be scenery. Sit, drink, chat. It’sall you need to do. My crew will do all the dangerous stuff.” You feel the tentacles at the back of your neck buzz. He’s here. “Just ignore the bloke and let me deal with it.”

The humans seem relieved that they don’t have to do anything dangerous or scary. You send one of your crew round with a tray of glasses and the weakest whisky you possess. Can’t have one of them getting brave-drunk and squaring off with Garlock.

A voice rumbles in from the street. “Rachorin. Come out here and face me.”

You step up to the doors, Vee selecting security team members to back you up. “Garlock, nice to smell you again.”

Outisde in the street, wearing a long tan duster and a black ten gallon Stetson, is the largest Golgothan you have ever seen. His skin oozes and flows as he moves in your direction and he leaves a trail of shit behind deep enough to mire a mule.

“Get out here, Rachorin.” The creature sounds irritated. “You’ve moved from star system to star system for the last four hundred cycles. Haven’t you got tired of running yet?”

“Not a bit.” You reply. Behind your back you give the signal for your crew to surround the faecal intruder. “I’m far younger than you and a lot speedier. What was your best oozing time? Forty microns?”

“Enough. Come quietly and I’ll let this miserable planet survive the blast from my engines.” All twenty of Garlock’s piss coloured eyes take in the surroundings. “If you don’t, then I reckon the Earth is about to become toasted Veedlebaz.”

Shrugging, you step out onto the veranda. “I’m not coming with you. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Sleeping with the Queen’s niece is nothing? Shit man, you got some nerve.” Garlock roars with laughter. “You’re a father four times over.”

“You should know, you are the shit after all.” You agree, checking where everyone is with a couple of handy hidden eyes. Four times over? I knew my sperm was strong but that many? You shudder, your costume rippling over your body.

Your crew have worked themselves around to safe positions around the foul smelling pile of excrement. Garlock spots most of them and one long rope of shit flings out and captures a figure.

Your Heart sinks all the way into your feet. Sally.

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - TAKE BACK YOUR HOUSE

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - TAKE BACK YOUR HOUSE

By Steven Novak

Milo slams his hand against the passenger door of your car. “Come on! Move your ass! Let's get the hell out of here!”

For the briefest of moments you consider doing exactly that. You have the keys to a relatively functional DeLorean in your hands and there’s a rabid horde of poop-soaked lunatics stomping through your mansion upstairs. Running makes perfect sense. Heck, flooring it all the way to Mexico, changing your name to Paco Sanchez, and living off the money you’ve stashed in your multiple offshore accounts makes even more sense.

Milo is leaning out of the car now. He looks really confused and equally pissed. He’s pounding his closed fist against the car’s metallic exterior and screaming at the top of his lungs. “Come on, moron! Stop dragging ass! What the hell are you waiting for?”

You don’t want to move to Mexico. Sure, the Tequila is great and the senoritas are spicy, but you don’t want to move to Mexico. You certainly don’t want to change your name to Paco.

You don’t look anything like a Paco.

Those freaky-damn shit monsters are tearing apart your place. They’re destroying every inch of it in a desperate attempt to find you. You can hear glass breaking and wood shattering. Not only are they making a mockery of your stuff, but they’re lathering it in what seemed to be mostly human feces. They’re mashing the disgusting awfulness into your carpet and rubbing it onto your cabinets and spraying it onto your bed. You worked hard for your carpet and your cabinets and your bed.

Well, actually, you didn’t.

You love your carpet and your cabinets and your bed.

Well, maybe, you don’t.

Still, that’s your damn carpet, not theirs! Those are your beshitted cabinets! That’s your motherfucking bed!

You know what you have to do.

You toss the keys in Milo’s direction. “Take the car.” They land almost three feet short, forcing Milo to crawl across the concrete to retrieve them, and admittedly, sort of ruining the impact of the moment.

He looks up at you from his hands and knees. “You’re not coming with?”

“This is my house, Milo. That’s my carpet. Those are my cabinets. That’s my bed those shit-covered assholes are rolling around in! Those are my sheets and my slippers! I can’t just let them destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for! I can’t! I won’t! I won’t let them destroy everyth–”

The tires of the DeLorean squeal and the car peels out of your underground garage.

Milo was always sort of a douchebag.

You spend the next ten minutes digging through your underground lair looking for anything remotely resembling a weapon while keeping an ear on the carnage above. It’s a warzone up there – a squishy, sloppy, slippery warzone. What sounded like mostly human voices when the PooCrew originally burst through your window has transformed into something else entirely. The screams have turned animalistic, guttural and moist, from throats clogged with the diarrhea of half-digested pasta and bargain basement soy sauce-heavy Chinese food.

After ten minutes of searching you manage to find yourself an axe and a crowbar. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. You slide yourself into some old catchers gear from your college baseball days and head for the doorway leading into the house.

Those shit-slappy assholes are going to pay. You’re not sure exactly how you’re going to make them pay, but you’re going to make them pay. You don’t really have a plan. Who cares?

Fuck plans.

Those dung-drenched dillweeds are probably stomping across the rug President Widmer-Schlumpf gave you when you visited Zurich last summer. One of those turd turkeys is more than likely wearing your Nobel Peace Prize right now. They might’ve even discovered your collection of Playboy magazines from the 60’s. Christa Speck’s boobs are probably smeared with corny bits of fecal matter.

No, the time for plans has long since passed.

The time for ass kicking has arrived.

The instant you burst through the doorway and into the house you’re greeted by the somewhat surprised faces of no less than fifteen shit-soaked wackos. They instantly halt their mindless rampaging.

The room goes silent.

There’s a pool of lumpy brown liquid at least an inch high on the floor. It’s up to your ankles. The god awful liquid is dripping from their bodies like the devil’s sweat. Awkward chunks of human nastiness cling to the few bits of exposed flesh of their otherwise coated faces. A river of chocolate terror dribbles from the chin of a wide-eyed, shit-slick-haired lothario in the back of the room who immediately sucks it back into his mouth like he’s sipping from a frosty milkshake. A woman with bright red eyes and a freakishly long rope of dookie dangling from her neck takes a single step in your direction and tilts her head to the side like a dog. A still steaming tube of toot-butter slips from beneath her dress and splashes to the drink. When she smiles she flashes you a set of chompers so stained with Cleveland fudge they look like a package of Slugworth’s chocolate covered raisins.

A log of Lincoln’s finest smacks you right between the eyes.

You drop your weapons and vomit.

Hands slippery with still-warm mush latch onto your limbs. The growling mass of brown and greenish-brown flesh hoists you into the air and carries your flailing body into the hallway. You’re weightless when one of their pooey digits worms its way into your mouth and partially down your throat. There’s an ever-so-subtle hint of burrito hidden beneath the gooey brown nastiness suddenly coating the interior of your mouth.

Paco’s not such a bad name. Mexico’s a pretty nice place.

You probably should have changed your name to Paco.

The crowd of shit-crazed freaks reaches the bathroom and deposits you into the melted puddle of buttnugget juice slathered across your obscenely expensive tile. Slippery fingers grab a handful of your hair and drag you to the toilet. Your eyes are burning. Your nose is filled with the scent of excrement and dingle berries and the combined, partially recycled scat of a million ample-waisted Americans. With the bowel explosions of an entire nation still pouring from the bowl of the toilet like cocoa lava from some butt-Vesuvius, the mob of fudge fiends shoves your face into what remains of the once porcelain-white bowl with a splash.

Chunky sewer sauce slips into your nose. It seeps into your ears. It sneaks past your lips and worms through the spaces in your teeth. When you try to breathe it fills your throat and finds its way into your lungs. You’re dying. You’re dying face down in a pool of the most awful of awful. When you open your eyes you see only an unending torrent of speckled brown.

This isn’t how it was supposed to end. Not like this. Not face down in the juicy rear end muck of the very same people who enabled you to buy the carpet and the cabinets and the bed you foolishly decided to fight for.

It’s difficult to tell, but you think you might have crapped your britches.

Not that it matters.

Miles away, Westbound on the 405, Milo turns off the radio and pops in a CD of The Human League’s greatest hits. In less than three hours he reaches the border of Mexico. In less than three days he’s changed his name to Eduardo Rodriguez. In less than five he’s being pushed back onto a soft bed as a particularly sultry Mexican girl pulls off her sundress and prepares to take him to heaven and back.

Eduardo is a much cooler name than Paco.

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