ECOPOCALYPSE CH.5 - SHIT STORM

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.5 - SHIT STORM 
By Annie Evett

You grab Madge’s hand, realising that she was always the strong one in the family. She had been the one to teach you to ride a bike, pick you up, and put a band-aid on your scraped knee.  She’d beaten up the bullies in the school yard. Hell, her best friend had been your first conquest. You’d always suspected she had been behind that and, looking in to her eyes, you are now sure that she is the one who has been behind everything good in your life.

“Madge , You go. Get the unit over to the CDC. You’re the best one for the job. I belong here. I should never have been the president of this dumb company. You should have.  You would never have gotten us into all this.”

“Shit.” she smiled.  “No I wouldn't have, but them’s the breaks, huh?”

You fiddle with the unit and make some unnecessary adjustments, unsure of what to say. Sharing emotions had never been one of the family’s strong points. 

“Well?” Madge taps the table next to the control box of the unit. “You coming or what?”

“I’ll stay. The unit is good to go, as good as I can get it right now. I’ll keep making adjustments and try and work out how to speed up the process. Something. I dunno. You better go. The President is waiting for us. For you. Go and save what's left of humanity, huh?”  You flick on the security camera system and pan around the hallway.

“Looks like any of the zombies that were here have moved on,” you snigger, attempting to stifle your own bad joke, but then break down into fits of hysterical laughter.

Madge slaps you across the face—except it's an oversized mitt thumping your fishbowl face helmet.

 “Oh, grow up. What is it about shit and farts that boys never grow out of?”

You collapse with more laughter, gasping for air in your hazmat suit.

“Later. Keep your hazmat suit on. The place is contaminated. Lord knows when or if the cleanup will start. Keep on geeking.”

You knock ham sized fists together, repeating your childhood motto.

She saunters out of the lab door. You watch her till the suit disappears up the hallway. The silence buzzes in your ears as the light in the corner of the room continues to blink. You see her helicopter make its way across the sky. 

The hazmat suit is cumbersome as you attempt to perch on the lab stool. Your oversized fingers are clumsy, and it's not long before you consider taking the whole lot off so you can start to pull one of the Environauts apart and explore every component. You have no idea what else to do. Here seems as safe a place to hang out and wait until the shit storm  blows over. 

A buzzer sounds as the corner light slows its blink. You stare at it and as moments pass; the blink eventually fades to a continual beam. The buzzer stops and a door unlatches. You stand and go over to the door, not remembering having seen it before. As you approach you realise that it had been concealed within the texture of the wall, and only as it opens that the outline reveals its position. 

You flush with anger and indignation. This was your lab, damn it. Who the hell had hidden doors leading off into the unknown in your own lab?  You turn the door handle. The space behind it is lit with floor lights and appears to be a large storage room. As you step inside, general lighting is automatically turned on to reveal rows of cages of now deceased, rotting animals. You are glad you hadn’t taken the hazmat suit off, but gag at the thought of what the smell might be like.

Dogs, cats, rats and squirrels slump inside their cages. Most are surrounded by puke and shit. Your heart squeezes at the sight of these helpless creatures, who have obviously died in a great amount of pain and suffering.  Your head spins, wondering where in the process animal testing had a place in your facility. You sadly realise you have been disconnected from the research unit for over a year, and anything could have been passed by you to sign and you’d not really taken any notice—another reason Madge should have been the CEO and not you. She would never have allowed animal testing.

A rattle in the corner shakes you from your depression. Your heart skips. Something is still alive. Perhaps you can do some sort of good today.

Crouched in one of the larger cages sits an emaciated orangutan. Its orange hair sticks out at right angles from its bony body. It looks up at you with its intelligent, pleading eyes. He gingerly puts out his hand through the bars. You hold back a tear and reach over to touch it, entranced by the gentle moment of trust. 

The ape quickly grasps your wrist and pulls you toward the cage. Its other limbs thrust out of the cage and grab hold of your suit. Your feet scrap against the metal flooring, sliding and finding no purchase as you are pulled in.

The ape grins and peels your helmet off. You try to hold your breath, but are at last forced to take a deep breath, gagging at the putrid smell of death and feces. The orangutan's lips pucker towards you as a dribble of brown trickles down its face. Your struggle renews as you realise that it is dying from the same virus affecting all the zombies. It bares its teeth. You scream, “But you’re a vegetarian! Everyone knows that.” 

The orangutan's mouth covers your scream. A mixture of vomit and shit warmed by the body gushes from the ape's mouth into yours. You feel its arms and legs tighten around you and your are slowly crushed against the bars of the cage. You feel your organs bursting as blood pours from your ears and eyes. You die screaming, clutched in the strong arms of a giant orange ape.

Oops...return to Chapter 5

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.2 - TO THE DELOREAN!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.2 - TO THE DELOREAN! By Annie Evett

You pound the table for emphasis. “ Listen up here, you bunch of sissies. You get paid the big bucks to react to shit like this. Do your freaking job.”

Milo bites his hand to stifle a giggle. The stress has obviously gotten to him.

“Where the hell is the Marketing team?”

A manicured hand shoots up in the back. “Maria Britanny from Marketing.”

You point at her. “Get a spin on this; blame the Chinese for their poor work practices and child labor factories. India can’t withdraw their contract. Remind them that most of the online and phone support from a large proportion of tech companies are routed to them, and they will lose billions if they do withdraw. Korea has problems with its whole weirdo government and hairstyles. Do something with that, will you?”

“Uh, the hairstyles of the government?” Someone clears his throat. “Are you talking about North Korea?”

“What?” You bluster. “Aren’t they the same place? North, South, not that different surely.”

The boardroom shuffles uncomfortably as a dozen sets of eyes bore into the table in front of them.

“What about Sweden?” quavers a question from the sides.

“I hate them because they all look so damned healthy and happy outdoors.” You puff your chest out, filled with an unnatural confidence. You feel like J.R. from the old Dallas show.

Paul Poppins from Public Relations glares across the table at the head of Marketing. “I think you’ll find that Public Relations will do a better job at negotiating those areas, rather than the gloss and pomp department.”

A shriek cuts the air as Maria’s manicured hands find their way around Paul’s throat.

“I don’t give a rats ass who does it. Make it so.” You look off into the distance, wishing you’d mentioned number two or tried for a better Pickard voice.

Todd Brammers taps on his iPad, darkening the room and illuminating the wide expanse of one of the walls. You wish he would use up to date equipment. He projects several channels of live news reports into spots around the wall. Images of tattered humanoids stumble across the wall. Wide-eyed reporters breathlessly relate to their audiences what they are experiencing—that is, until the shit-covered masses reach the TV crew and the camera is dropped, the operator is dragged away or fled. Real life re-enactments of the Blair Witch Project are relayed on multiple screens. Screams are cut off into gurgling, pathetic drowning sounds. You gulp.

“There is no way of making this go away with marketing OR public relations. Environaut is the cause for all of this. We need to shut down immediately and regroup under Chapter 11.”

You push your hands through your hair. You don’t even know what Chapter 11 is.

“Fine!” You yell. “ Do the Chapter 11 thing. Shut down production—but I still want my spin happening.” You cling to the J.R. image.

“Will you be coming with us then?” Scott Black, the Head of Mergers and Acquisitions, asks you.

“What? Me? No, Milo and I need to check out the Flux Capacitors and gamma reactors in the proton isolators. Science geek stuff. You know.”

Nods from around the room confirm that none of them understand what that means, but they are all relieved that they have a plan to execute without the CEO breathing down their necks.

“Come on Milo, we need to go.” You grab Milo's coat jacket and shove him through the door.

He explodes with laughter. “What the hell was that in there? Flux capacitors? And you know you still have shit on your forehead.”

You wipe it off. “If you’re not with me, go back to the boardroom and do whatever Chapter 11 is,” you fume. “This shit has gotten serious. I can’t understand what’s come unraveled and how it's happened so quickly.” You both stride toward the exit.

“So what's the plan, Kimo Sabe?”

“Get back to the DeLorean and just drive. I do my best thinking when I'm on the road.” Your mind is rattling off possibilities, reformulating the plans of the Environaut.

You and Milo climb into the car and exit the carpark. Hal waves as you leave, not bothering to stand. You are sure he is laughing behind the magazine in front of his face. The outer perimeter of the security fence surrounding the Smart EcoGen HQ is slowly filling with picketers. You drive out as quickly as you can, hoping they won't notice you.

“It can’t be the recycling processors,” you mumble.”That had been tested for years in the earlier versions.” You steer the car onto the freeway and headed south. If nothing else, a trip to Mexico would clear the mind.

“What does this thing do?” Milo pokes a covered switch.

“Surely the diagnostic console didn’t reboot after the—”

“Hey, if I push this, will anything happen?” Milo doesn't wait for an answer and pushes the red, candy-like button. The DeLorean accelerates suddenly. The speedometer slowly creeps up to 88 miles per hour.

“Did you say something about a Flux Capacitor?” Milo grins. ‘Don’t thank me now. Let's go back in time and fix this mess. Then you can shower me with gifts and double my salary.”

The body of the car begins to shake as the inside glows blue. You take your hands off the wheel. You paid a mint for the car, and the previous owner stressed its authenticity. You grin, suddenly thinking of all the dumbass things you are going to fix up on your trip back in time. You decide you will scrap the Environaut and introduce either the Wii or Xbox to the market years before the original developers have a whiff of an idea of the gaming platforms. Hell, you may decide to do both.

Dials on the dashboard spin. “Shit. We need to set a date. Let's set it for when we met at college, convince ourselves not to bother and —”

“Just set the date, idiot. We are nearly at 88 miles per hour.”

“And running out of clear road.” The freeway ends, and you enter suburbia.

The speedometer slowly creeps around as the car surges forward. Tiny blue lights flash within the cabin. You cover your eyes. “It's 88 miles an hour. So long present day. You suck!”

The Delorean slams into the wall of a low set apartment block. Glass splinters as the steering wheel drives its way through your chest. Your ribs shatter as your lungs burst from the sudden impact. Your neck whips back and forth, breaking in the process. It flops to the side as blood seeps out of your nose and mouth. Milo’s body is ripped apart from the impact. Gore hangs in tendrils in what is left of the Delorean.

You seriously didn’t think a flux capacitor exists, did you? Back to the start.

Oops...Return to Chapter 2

HARDWOOD BLOOD CH.2 - LET CURLY GO NUTS

BLOOD ON THE HARDWOOD CONCRETE CH.2 - LET CURLY GO NUTS

Written by Annie Evett

You stand up and swallow the bile in your throat. The Globetrotters continue to stare slack-jawed at the naked man on the ground. You wave your hands at them, attempting to break the horrified spell the flasher’s junk cast over them. You grin and correct yourself. Not enough to be junk, gotta be litter or dregs.

Curly demands to be let loose on the man. You push him back. “Just leave him. He’s not our man.”

Twiggy hoots and rotates a ball around his trunk. “He ain’t even a man.” You all laugh.

The man groans and rolls to an unsteady crouch.

“Stay down, you pervert.” Curly ricochets a ball towards his head.

The little man catches the ball, and his beady eyes glitter murderously at Curly as his lip twists in an uncomfortable grin. “Caught me unawares once, but not again, Fred.”

You notice Curly’s normal jovial behavior suddenly drop as he stares at the man on the ground. 

Wilt smooths his moustache and spins a ball on a finger. “Caught ya with your pants down, too. Not that anyone would notice.” You notice everyone laughing except Curly. 

Goose slaps Wilt on the back as he calls over to the flasher. “Slink away, you weirdo. Come on fellas. We are wasting time.”

You notice Curly bouncing his ball from hand to hand, flicking it deftly behind his back.

With a flurry of heavy material swishing like a cape, the flasher leaps to his feet and crouches low, growling animalistically, his long coat settling around him.

Curly’s grin is wider that the harbor. “Now this is what I’m talking about. You lot, go. I want to have some fun here. I’ll sort out this perv.”

Twiggy and Wilt nod and stretch their elongated limbs out toward you. “Yeah, come on man–the murderer will be blocks away. Chief ain’t goin’ to be real pleased if we dust up a citizen and leave a murderer on the loose.”

The rest of the team begin jogging down the alley way. You are left between the flasher and Curly’s big smile.

“I got this.” His grin never leaves his face. “You run along. Let me at him.”

You frown. Curly’s mouth, stretched into that plastic smile, is near cracking his face. Something ain’t right about the scene.

Curly kicks a trashcan over and bounces his ball at the lid. It spins up and scatters across the cobblestoned pavement, knocking the flasher to the ground again.

You grab Curly’s arms. “Come on Curly, snap out of it. He’s just a pervert. We got a killer on the loose. Let’s go.”

You feel a tight grip around your ankle before you are tipped, overbalanced. That last slice of lasagna has done it. You land on your swollen belly; the bile that had threatened to erupt before makes a loud and theatrical appearance. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the grace to majestically burst like a fountain away from your body. It gurgles and weeps in hot lumps down your chin, seeping into your collar, pooling in an armpit.

You try to ignore it and turn your head to face the leering mug of the flasher. Curly leaps on top of him and begins to swing punches at his face. You try to sit up but slip in your own vomit. The flasher bucks and twists, unsettling Curly’s position, forcing him to the ground beside your second-hand lasagna. The flasher fluidly stands and forces his coat back to display his naked glory to the two of you.

The coat theatrically sweeps upward again as the flasher fumbles inside it. Too late you see slender stiletto knives being withdrawn from their secret spaces in the hemline. Your mouth is still full of chunky tomato paste and badly chewed lasagna sheets. Curly’s face crumples in disgust, but is immediately replaced with a look of blank shock. One of the knives appears in his chest as seeping claret begins to color his shirt. 

A dull pain spreads across your chest. You think it strange, as you expected it to be sharp and hurt more. Your mouth empties the remains your stomach had retched up, and you now taste the acrid thin flavor of blood. 

The flasher strides over to you, places a foot on your chest, and pulls out the knife. He looks at it momentarily and plunges it into your throat.

THE END.

Oops...Return to Chapter 2