ECOPOCALYPSE CH.3 - WE NEED A PLAN

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.3 - WE NEED A PLAN By Ryan Hunter

“This isn’t right,” you say.

“Damn skippy,” Milo says. “This bird should be stocked with, like, peanuts or something.”

You cut your eyes to him just long enough for him to know you aren’t in the mood for his jokes. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“We need a plan,” you say.

“We have a plan: go to Mexico.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Why, did they close the borders? How would you know that? I’m wearing the cans too and I haven’t heard anything,” Milo says, tapping the headphones he’s wearing over his ears.

“No, they haven’t closed the borders, at least not as far as I know. But we can’t leave.”

“Why can’t we?”

“ Milo , look out your window. Whatever’s happening down there, we caused that. That’s our fault.”

“You don’t know that,” Milo says. “Not for sure.”

You glare at Mio again but choose not to respond. Instead you say, “I’m going to set her down outside of the city and we’ll figure something out.”

“Where outside of the city?”

“I don’t know, outside of it.”

“ Mexico is outside of the city.” You shake your head, hoping Milo doesn’t notice the grin pulling at the corners of your mouth. “It is, I can show you on a map.”

You pull a little on the stick to adjust but the helicopter doesn’t respond. You pull a little harder but still nothing happens. “What the hell,” you mutter under your breath.

“That’s not the sort of expression one dreams of hearing from one’s pilot,” Milo says.

“It’s just… I don’t…” you mutter. You look under the instrument panel to find a nest of wires, frayed and intertwined. You look closer and notice the teeth marks on the brightly colored wax that once covered the wires.

There’s a shuffling in the back and you and Milo turn to see a woman with the same pale complexion and dead eyes as the others.

“Sara?” Mio says. “Hey, it’s Sara Tobin from HR. Fancy seeing you up here, Sara. What brings you?”

Sara digs under her flower skirt and comes out with a handful of feces. “Oh shit,” Milo says.

She raises her hand to fling it at him but the copter pitches, bolting from horizontal to vertical.

You and Milo, secured in your restraints, remain in your seats; Sara, however, is thrown to the back of the copter where the handle of a fire extinguisher impales the back of her skull.

“Oh my God!” Milo screams. “I think we just killed Sara!”

“Yeah,” you say, swallowing back the bile threatening to fill your mouth. “Well, we’ll have to put that on the list of things to worry about if we land.”

“You mean when we land.”

“Well, we’ll definitely land, just how we do it is anybody’s guess. I don’t have any control.”

Milo shrugs. “Just hit the B button.”

You pulled desperately at the stick trying to reengage it by force.

“Seriously, hit the B button,” Milo says.

“Dude, no matter how much you want your life to be like Xbox it just isn’t going to happen. There is no B button,” you yell.

“The hell there isn’t,” Milo says, flipping a cover you never knew existed to reveal a large red button marked with a B.

“Where did that come from?” you ask.

“I installed it,” Milo says, slamming his fist onto the button.

An artificial female voice flows from the headsets. “Hello, Milo, how can I be of assistance to you?”

“Is that…” you mutter, “is that Siri?”

“I’d thank you not to mention that bitch's name in my presence,” the voice says.

“Huh?” you mutter.

“I’d like to introduce you to Biri,” Milo says.

“Biri? Really?”

“Oh, come on, it’s funny,” Milo says.

“Well, what can Si… excuse me, Biri do?” you ask.

Milo turns to look at the control panel in general and says, “Biri?”
“Yes, Milo?”

“We’d very much like to not die.”

“I can understand the impulse,” Biri agrees.

“Could you please straighten us out and land just outside of the city?”

“Yes, where would you like to land outside of the city?”

“Do not say Mexico.”

“Very well,” Biri says, “I will not say Mexico.”

“Just set us down at the first possible place to the east of the city,” Milo says.

“Very well.”

The copter levels out and flies east as if there had never been a problem with the controls at all. You relax into your seat. “Biri, huh?” you ask Milo.

“Yup, pretty handy, huh?”

“I have to admit, I’m glad she’s here. That bitch comment was a bit surprising.”

Milo shrugs. “I like my ladies saucy.” He turns and looks back at Sara who is lying a heap, her life’s blood dark but streaked with yellow, pooling beneath her. “But not that kind of sauce. Blech.”

The copter touches down softly on a meadow just to the east of the city and the doors automatically swing open “You have arrived at your destination,” Biri says.

“Thank you, Siri,” you say out of habit.

The doors slam shut and Biri says, “I asked you not to use that name in my presence.” Buzz saws on retractable arms slid out of hidden panels in the walls. “I’m afraid I’ll have to punish you now.”

You look at Milo. “Buzz saws? Really?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he says.

“How could it possibly…?” You start to ask, but stop when a saw slices through Milo’s neck, causing his head to tumble to the floor.

As the blade begins to slice through the skin directly below your hairline you have time to think, “Damn you and your saucy wom—”

Oops...Return to Chapter 3

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.3 - TO THE LAB!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.3 - TO THE LAB!

by John Elrod

Without saying anything more, you turn and walk right back out of the boardroom, leaving the actual suits to deal with public relations, lawsuits, and market projections. Frankly, you’re not usually any help with those things, anyway; you’re a scientist. You belong in the lab, which is exactly why you spend so much time there that, when you were having this state-of-the-art, skyscraping monolith constructed, you had them incorporate a private express elevator with three stops: the basement lab, where you almost always want to be; the boardroom, where you almost never want to be; and the roof, for when you want to be anywhere but here.

It takes a total of 47 seconds for the elevator to go from the boardroom to the lab. There is no ignominious Muzak or senseless dinging noise. In fact, the inside of this elevator is entirely without distraction; without those things shopping malls employ to keep you from realizing you don’t need to spend half a month’s salary on those shoes; without those tactics hospitals use to make you forget you’ve just seen a loved one for the last time. Yes, this elevator was absolutely boring in every way; you'd made sure of that because it takes a total of 47 seconds to go from the boardroom to the lab, and that’s 47 seconds of pure, unadulterated thought. It was in those 47 seconds that you had finally been able to think of how to bring the Environaut’s consumption-to-production ratio over 200%; it was those 47 seconds that had given you the idea for the iPoop, a toilet USB port that attaches to any toilet and uses your waste to directly charge any compatible device; and, on days like today, it’s those 47 seconds that simply keep you from going insane.

The opening of the elevator doors brings your serenity to a screeching halt as your ears are flooded with an expletive-laden tirade.

“How the fuck could this fucking happen? I fucking told those motherfuckers not to fucking use fucking mercury. This is un-fucking-believable.”

It’s Milo. He’s yelling at an empty room, but you know exactly what he’s upset about. Back when you and Milo were developing the Environaut, you hit upon a problem: it was introducing too much toxicity into the surrounding environment. Your solution was to replace the mercury you were using as a coolant with a gallium-indium alloy. It was an easy fix, but the Smart EcoGen board members weren’t thrilled about the expense of controlling the alloy’s wetting and aggressivity; it wasn’t cost-effective, but they agreed to the change—or so you thought.

Milo sees you come out of the elevator. “Can you fucking believe this? You’re the President and CE-FUCKING-O!”

“I know.”

“I’m the Vice Fucking President, for Christ sake.”

“I know.”

“This is just—”

“I know, and now we get to say, ‘We told you s—’”

Your snarky quip is interrupted by a video call from the boardroom. Milo is very eager to answer and throw some obscenities their way. He hurriedly presses the button, but on the screen is nothing but an empty boardroom.

“The damn thing must be broken.” Your voice tries to console Milo’s rage.

“Goddammit!” Milo’s rage is beyond consolation.

Suddenly a face come into the video’s frame. It’s Hal, the security guard. He’s still smiling through gritted teeth, but something is different about him. His skin is a jaundiced hue, his eyes are glazed over in a buttery haze, and his face is fixed in the same dead expression as those protesters who stormed your home.

“What the fuck?” Milo’s rage has given way to confusion, now.

“I don’t kn—”

You are interrupted once more, this time by a slurpy growl that seems to be coming from Hal’s throat. The gurgling gets louder, as Hal’s bite loosens just barely and his lips are overtaken by a thick, brown slurry. The sludge dribbles down Hal’s chest, while the lab has become a swamp of palpable fright. Slowly, Hal backs away from the camera, and you notice some of the board members are ambling about. Then you see it. There in Hal’s left hand, held firmly at the tuft of its neck, is the severed head of Smart EcoGen’s CFO, George Quellen Field.

“I second that ‘What the fuck?’” Now you’re the one speaking to the empty room as Milo has hastily evacuated to the elevator.

“Let’s make like Schwarzenegger and get to the fucking chopper!” How Milo can simultaneously make a pop culture reference and shit his pants, you don’t know, but he must be shitting his pants, because this is absolutely a “shit your pants” moment.

25 seconds into the longest 47 seconds of your life, and Milo is still rambling on about not knowing what is going on. Why doesn’t this elevator play music, or fucking ding, or just do anything to distract you from the thoughts wildly rampaging through your mind? There’s nothing to stop you from going insane! What sadistic bastard designed this torturous, 47 second device? But it’s not 47 seconds; not this time. This time, it’s 68 seconds, because you and Milo are going to the roof. More specifically, the helipad on the roof, and the two of you are getting as far away from this building as possible. Let the government come in and deal with this—literal—shit storm.

On the roof you both hop into the helicopter, but not before exchanging reassuring looks with one another. You’re both absolutely positive things are going to be fine. Maybe you’ll head down to Mexico for a couple weeks while things blow over. Sure, it’s a PR nightmare, and the stock is going to take a hit. Blah, blah, blah. None of that concerns a couple of genius lab rats like you and Milo. It’s fine.

You’re the pilot, of course, since you are the one with a pilot’s license. Milo, for lack of a better word, is your co-pilot, even though he can’t even manage to write with a Pilot pen, let alone have anything to do with piloting a helicopter. You set your heading for Mexico, and—

“What’s that?” Milo is gesturing downward.

You don’t want to look, but you have to. What you see are the streets clogged with abandoned vehicles and crowds of people moving at two distinctive speeds. Those running are doing so from those walking; those walking are those who didn’t run fast enough. You’ve seen this in movies, and you’ve lived this in video games. You’ve always thought it might happen, but you didn’t have any idea you could cause it. You can’t go to Mexico; you have to do something, because everything is decidedly not fine.

Do you...

A. Land the helicopter at the hospital, where your sister works, and see if she can help--if she's even still alive.

B. Land the helicopter at the police station, where you're sure to be abel to the get hold of some firearms, them come out blasting.

C. Land the helicopter somewhere outside the city and try to devise a plan.

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.

Oops...Return to Chapter 1