ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 4 - I WANT MY DADDY

ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 4 - I WANT MY DADDY
By Nandy Ekle

He’s gone. Milo is gone. Your best friend’s death is like a sharp finger poking you right in the middle of your forehead. You’re sitting across from Madge and she’s just going on and on, talking about what you have to do to fix this, but all you can think about is the fact that Milo died in a stew of his own sewage.

“Hello?  Earth to Mr. Poopy President. Are you listening to me at all?”

You look up from where your eyes are fixated, staring at a brown stain under your fingernail. Where exactly had that brown stain come from? Was it from the flying fecal matter at your house as you ran away? And what about that running away thing? What kind of leader runs away from his problems?

You look up into Madge’s eyes. “What?”

“I said, what kind of a leader runs from his problem?”

A gasp blasts out of your mouth. Did she read your mind? You’re sure you thought the question up yourself; or did she plant it in your brain? Does she have psychic abilities you never knew about? And how come you never got a share of that?

“I, um . . .”

Her eyebrows are scrunched up and her mouth is posed in a pucker as if she actually expects you to say something intelligent.

The answer suddenly pierces through your consciousness. Screw it! Screw them all! Your business is tanked. Your reputation looks like the offending crap all over your house. Your best friend is dead. And now your sister demands you pay attention to her as if she were the smartest person in the world. You don’t need this. You don’t need any of it and you damn sure don’t have to put up with it.

You stand up and turn your back to her in mid-sentence.  “Go to hell,” you say as you walk toward the door.

“Get back here! We have to get this worked out!”

You run out the door and head for the stairs leading up to the roof. You need to get away just for a moment to mourn Milo, your mom, your career, your life. You need . . . fishing. Madge said your dad was on the yacht in the Pacific. You feel a sudden urge to pull on Daddy’s pant leg and beg to be hugged and rocked to sleep.

As you reach the roof you jump in the chopper and aim it toward the west, your main thought: “I want my daddy!” The sun glints off the water below you—or is it the water leaking from your eye?

Surprisingly, Dad’s boat is not far out on the sea and the size of the yacht makes it easy enough to spot. Lowering the copter to the deck you jump out of the aircraft. You see your sixty-year-old father running toward you.

“Dad!” You throw your arms out to him as you yell his name.

Instead of taking you in his arms for a comforting paternal hug, he pulls his fist back and punches you a hard one across your jaw. Rubbing your face, you look at the man who raised you. “What the?” You ask in a stunned tone.

“Get the hell off my boat, you murderer!”

“It wasn’t my fault! The lab substituted components in the formula! I didn’t do it! I swear!”

“You sold those things all over the world and got rich off people’s doody, boy. I don’t want your disease close to me. I don’t want anything to do with you again. Now get this confounded whirlybird off my boat before I throw you and your toy overboard.”

“But you’re my dad. You’re supposed to be on my side.” The man who had helped you build a Pine Derby race car for scouts when you were eight years old now looks as though he would harpoon you like a whale and gut you like a fish.

“My wife is gone, and your sister probably will be too if she keeps working with your zombies. Even the dog died. You’re no boy of mine.” He takes a couple of steps toward you. “I didn’t raise you to turn the world into sewer zombies.” 

As you stand there rubbing your jaw, your father grabs your arm, runs you to the side of the boat and pushes you over. You hit the water and the only thought in your head is that the brown stain under your fingernail will finally be washed away.

The rhythmic sound of a cello plays from somewhere in the air. Your dad looks not in your direction, but past you. He laughs and points, and you’re afraid he’s gone crazy and will jump in and drown you.

As you start to swim toward the yacht, the cello music gets louder and more intense. Then a new thought jumps into your mind as you feel something massive brush against your leg. You know that music! As the identity of the sound gels in your mind you see the circle of red around you grow larger. Suddenly your left leg is cold. LEG? What leg? You realize your left leg is missing and the blood is coming from you.

You open your mouth to scream for your daddy when the giant great white shark clamps on your other leg and pulls you under.

Oops...return to chapter 4

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

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.8 FOLLOW THE PLAYERS AS PLANNED

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.8 - FOLLOW THE PLAYERS AS PLANNED

By Steven Novak

Taking a second to consider everything the former “king” of Mars has just told you, very quickly you come to the realization that he’s either a liar or an idiot. Maybe both. He’s a janitor, not a king. The idea that he could have gone from ruling an entire planet to wiping poop stains from the jet toilets in the bathroom outside the Mars-A-Bon seems so idiotic you can scarcely believe you even took the time to listen to him babble.

You need to focus on the task at hand –the assassination of President Womack and how you can prevent it. This is all that matters. Milling around in the crapper with a lowly janitor isn’t going to accomplish anything.

Off in the distance you watch as members of Team Earth step into a spacious Transporavator, lean forward and press the button for the sixty-third floor.

Your body moves before your brain can even complete the thought, and suddenly you’re running full speed in their direction, “Waitaminute! Hold that door!”

Charles Barclay wedges his rather sizable body between the slowly closing doors, keeping them open just long enough for you to slide inside. A bit out of breath, you thank Charles and move toward Michael Jardin and Patrick Pewing near the rear of the glass enclosure.

“No problemo.” Barclay answers back before stepping inside and allowing the doors to close. “What floor?”

“Ummm…sixty-third?”

“Hey no kiddin'? Guess that makes us neighbors. Hope we don’t keep you up too late tonight.”

Leaning back, Charles playfully elbows the comically large afro of Julius “Dr. P” Perving and chuckles heartily, “I know it’s turrible but we party as hard as we play, and Julius here didn’t get his nickname just because his last name is Perving…if you know what I mean.”

Julius sends a confusing wink in your direction. Immediately you try to pretend it never happened.

A moment later the crystalline glass surrounding you begins to glow. A thousand colors emerge from the nothingness, swirling, twisting, and slowly moving from the panes containing them and into the crowd of players. You look down and watch as an orange band of light whips around your leg like the tail of a cat before quickly spreading upward. Within a matter of seconds the glowing shapes have engulfed you completely. A second after that you no longer exist. All that remains of you now are a series of microscopic particles traveling sixty-three stories upward at the speed of light. It’s an admittedly odd sensation that you don’t particularly enjoy.

Stupid Transportavators – you’ve always hated them.

When the particles arrive at their intended destination the Transportavator pieces you together once again, and the mass of swirling lights retreat into the surrounding glass. The moment the doors in front of you open, you leap through, lean against a nearby wall and begin to gag.

Stupid Transportavators – such a dumb invention.

“Hey, you gonna be okay?” Barclay asks while patting you stiffly in the center of the back and chuckling just a bit at your reaction to what is essentially a rather common piece of technology.

While wiping hot bile from your lips, you manage to nod in his direction.

“Hey, when you’re feeling better why don’t you join us at the party tonight? We’re in room 6012…Penthouse suite…real swank and stuff…real classy. It’s got one of them new holographic hot tubs. Them things are great when your back is feelin' turrible after a hard game…” He nudges you in the ribs playfully and adds, “…among other things.”

Looking up you notice that Barclay is winking at you the same way Julius did moments ago. You aren’t sure what to make of it, and not sure you want to make anything of it.

He could lead you to Womack though, and it’s because of this fact that you agree.

You need to save Womack. The life of Womack is all that matters.

Plus you’ve always wanted to see a holographic hot tub.

Thanks to the copious amounts of highly illegal Martian Ale the team makes available to you, the rest of the night is sort of a blur. At some point Martian prostitutes of all three Martian sexes become involved. You don’t think you did anything with them, but you’re one-hundred percent positive Barclay didn’t share your reservations. You think there might have been an alligator involved somehow – even though that doesn’t seem plausible. At one point you can clearly recall a drunken “Dr. P” shaving his afro, gluing the mass of hair to his groin, and asking you to comb it for him.

When Barclay said they liked to party hard, he wasn’t kidding.

When you finally wake up the room is a disheveled mess of liquor stains, overturned tables, and unconscious prostitutes. Even the holographic water in the holographic hot tub has managed to spill onto the tile – which makes no sense.

There’s a Telescreen on the opposite end of the room that was left on, and a newscaster is reporting about the assassination of President Womack at the Earth Vs. Mars game earlier in the day.

Apparently a war has broken out as a result.

Outside you hear an explosion, which is followed almost instantly by a terrifying set of screams.

Nice job, dipshit.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 8