ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - JUST DRIVE!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - JUST DRIVE! By Wayne DePriest

You slip into the seat and crank the engine. Your DeLorean is one of the ‘AXI’ models, so you’re sitting on the right. You thought it was cool when you bought the car. One of the advantages of this model is it doesn’t have all the crap forced on it by the government for sale in the US, so it’s gonna be fast—just what you need at a time like this. The engine catches, you hit another button on the remote, and another garage door opens behind you, revealing a well-lit tunnel.

“What the hell?” Milo exclaims.

One more click and the car starts to rotate.

“Holy shit!” Milo is wide-eyed. “This is too cool! You never told me about this!”

“It was my little secret. My version of the Batcave.”

“Where does it go?” Milo asks as the car stops rotating, now pointed straight at the mouth of the tunnel.

“I don’t know,” you say as you drop the tranny into first and hit the gas. “I’ve never used it.”

The car leaps forward and shoots into the tunnel. You double clutch and hit second. Then third. The lights are a blur as you and Milo barrel down the tunnel. You shift into fourth and see the tunnel curve to the right ahead of you. Around the corner you see the end of the tunnel. The opening is obscured by some kind of brush. You figure the builder put it there to camouflage the entrance because he’d seen your Batman collection. The brush can’t be too dense, certainly not enough to stop a DeLorean. Milo grabs the seat belt, slams the buckle home and presses his feet against the floorboards.

“Are we doing 88 yet?” Milo’s laugh is just a bit hysterical.

“Close,” you say, glancing down at the speedometer.

“Be the shits to bust through into 1985 or something.”

Just before the DeLorean hits the brush, the obstruction drops away. You realize there’s a pressure switch under the floor of the tunnel, like at a busy intersection for a left turn. The car shoots out of the tunnel and rockets onto a weed grown two lane track through a stand of trees. You back off of the gas as the car jounces over the uneven ground.

Milo’s whooping and hollering like a kid on a thrill ride at the state fair. You’re trying to keep the damn car on the road so you don’t slam into one of the trees. Up ahead you see some blue sky, fewer trees. You’re breathing a bit easier as the car slips between the last trunks. Your foot stomps on the gas pedal and the car leaps forward the last few yards to the top of the hill.

And over.

Only there isn’t any over. There isn’t any anything. Except a long Thelma and Louise drop into the jumble of heavy equipment eighty feet below where they’re constructing another Environaut. The front end of the DeLorean crashes into the bucket on a front loader. The stainless steel folds like an unpaired poker hand. You and Milo are thrown forward as the engines pushes through the firewall, crushing both of your legs against the seat. Milo’s seatbelt snaps from the strain. Your head bounces off the steering wheel while Milo’s bursts through the windshield. A broken nose for you, to go with the mangled legs. Milo’s nose breaks, too, but not until his head rolls off the crumpled hood, bounces off a tire of the loader and lands face first in the dirt. Blood is running out of your nose, but not as much as is pumping out of Milo’s neck stump and you frantically pull at the seatbelt, thumb jabbing the button to release it. The pain in your legs and nose is making you dizzy as you struggle with the door. It won’t open. You start to puke from the smell and sight of Milo’s headless corpse. Knowing a human body voids waste when it dies is not the same as being trapped in a car with the body doing the voiding. The vomit splashes against the window when you turn your head. Physics being what it is, some of the nasty bounces back into your mouth, which sets off another round of ralphing. Somehow you manage to crank down the vomit-covered window and pry your useless legs free. The smell of smoke kicks a burst of adrenaline into your bloodstream.  You pull yourself through the window and tumble to the ground eight feet below, landing on your left shoulder and snapping the collar bone. A scream escapes your lips as the bone breaks and your mutilated legs flop into the dirt. A loud whump! makes you look up at the car teetering in the bucket above you. The gas tank has exploded, upsetting the delicate balance of the car. Bits of flaming debris hit you, scorching your clothes, your face, your arms. But it’s nothing compared to sight of the flaming DeLorean tipping backwards and slipping off the bucket. The last thing you see is the vanity plate.

Up close.

SHT HPNS

Oops...Return To Chapter 1

TIME DOUCHE CH. 6 - DAWN OF THE DOUCHE

TIME DOUCHE CH.6 - DAWN OF THE DOUCHE

By Steven Novak

Napoleon smiles at you in that greasy-gross way only he and his weird little face can. For the first time since meeting him, you realize that he looks an awful lot like a used car salesman. History’s most feared general looks like he should be selling you a Honda Civic at a jacked up price.

“Is this what you are looking for, my friend?” Napoleon says with a snarl and an almost comical raise of his eyebrow.

The gesture makes you want to punch him right in his sweaty round face. Marie’s grip tightens on your arm and her head peeks out from over your shoulder. Napoleon is laughing now, chuckling to himself while he dangles the translator in his hand. You want to grab him by the little strand of hair hanging over his forehead, spin him around and slam him into a tree. At that same time, you are completely aware of the fact that you won’t be doing any of those things. Sure, Napoleon’s a five-foot-nothing pipsqueak, but you’re not exactly the world’s most intimidating dude either.

He also has the advantage of knowing how to use a sword.

You once needed six stitches after slicing open your finger while chopping broccoli.

Car salesman or not, you’d be smart to keep your distance.

At the same time, you’ve seen enough time travel movies, and watched and enough episodes of Star Trek, to understand that leaving the translator in Napoleon’s hands probably isn’t the brightest thing to do.

Oh, well.

Without warning you shove Marie backward and into the time machine. She trips over her own feet, clonks her head on the rear paneling, and yelps. You follow her inside and shut the door behind you, but not before flashing Mr. Honda Civic the finger.

He has no idea what the gesture means. You honestly don’t care.

Once you’re inside, the machine begins to honk and beep and flash and whir exactly as it did when you first stepped in at Nubleman’s place. A green light emerges from a bulb behind you, illuminates the back of your head, then begins to slide downward until it reaches Marie. You can hear Napoleon outside. He’s banging on the machine and whacking it with his sword.

Though you have no idea what you’re doing, you start pressing buttons. Marie is on her feet now. She’s standing behind you with her hands on your shoulders, pinching at your skin nervously and gnawing at her lower lip like a side of beef.

“What are you doing?” She screams at the top of her lungs as the machine begins to hum and rattle, and Napoleon’s sword continues to whack against it from the outside.

“I’m not . . .entirely . . .sure.” You answer respond honestly, because you aren’t—at all.

The chair you’re sitting in starts to wobble and the panels in front of your face flash like something out of a video game. Suddenly you feel Marie’s mouth on your neck. Her tongue bobbles your earlobe. She rips your shirt backward and mumbles something breathily into your flesh that sounds a little bit like, “This is so hot.”

This girl is a real freak.

By the time she has her hands down your collar and has begun tweaking your nipples, the beeps and boops crescendo into a sustained tone. The very instant she bites your neck there’s a flash of light a hundred times brighter than any of the ones prior. For a moment, everything goes black.

When you open your eyes, you realize that you’re sprawled out awkwardly on the floor of the machine. Your head is pounding and you’re covered in sweat. Someone is tugging at the waistband of your pants and your blood is rapidly rushing to your genitals. It’s Marie. She’s trying to get your pants off.

Oh yeah, she’s a freak and a half.

You’d like nothing more than to see just how freaky she really is, but you decide it might be in your best interest to take a look outside and see where Nubleman’s piece of junk has taken you. After successfully prying horny Marie, The Eighteenth Century Nymphomaniac, from your bloomers, you reach up and smack the door-opening button with your palm. The metal slides open with a whoosh.

Unfortunately, it jams half way.

There’s a black, foul smelling smoke rising up from under the machine, and the outside is covered in dents. Flashes of electricity occasionally spark from the areas where the dents look more like gashes.

It seems the little car salesman did a heck of a lot more damage than you thought he could.

The moment you step out of the machine it bursts into flames. The fire singes the hairs on the back of your neck and something explodes under Nubleman’s pile of junk. You snag Marie around the waist, pull her away from the fire, and tumble together to the ground.

A puddle of greenish colored goop softens your landing.

Despite the fact that you’re partially submerged in what is essentially Nickelodeon Gack, almost instantly Marie has latched onto your neck again. In between kisses, and licks, and full on slobbers, she’s mumbling something about the fact that she’s “waited long enough” and that she wants you to “spank her, ravish her,” and remind her what it’s like to be with a “real man.”

Not only is she freaky, she’s obviously confused.

Through Marie’s flailing strands of hair, you notice that the sky overhead is remarkably red—far redder than you’ve ever seen it, or than it ever should be. The air smells like sulfur. It’s a bit thicker than you’re accustomed to. The temperature is absolute sweltering.

Marie’s hand slides down your shirt and heads south.

The landscape on either side of you is mostly rocky. Everything seems to be covered in a layer of reddish sand and dirt and there’s not a single bit of foliage to be found. Though you can’t tell for sure with Marie’s limbs flailing the way they are, you think you spot a volcano in the distance.

Speaking of crazy-Marie: she shoves her tongue down your throat.

That’s when it hits you. Though your knowledge of earth’s history is rudimentary at best, you suddenly know where you are. Nubleman’s machine really did a number on you this time. You’ve gone almost as far back in earth’s history as you could possibly go.

The goop your sliding around might just be the very same goop from which life itself will eventually spring.

Marie climbs on top of you, rips open her shirt and flops out in all her glory.

Oh, well. Marie was right about one thing; this is going to be pretty hot.

THE END