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

HARDWOOD BLOOD CH.6 - THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

BLOOD ON THE CONCRETE HARDWOOD CH.6 - THE OLD FASHIONED

By Steven Novak

Kareem Abdul Jabar is lying dead at your feet. The damn dollywad munched a cyanide tablet to keep from yapping, but it really didn’t matter. You’ve already put the pieces together and you’re done playing games.

The ‘Trotters – they’ve been playing you like some goosed up house-dick in a hash-house packed with bees the entire time.

It’s time for payback.

You pop the empty cartridge from your rod and slide another in. A slug slips into the chamber. She’s purring like a kitten itching to spit a hairball full of lead. No more pawing for pancakes like some patsy peterman anxious for a pinch.

The best offense is a good offense.

“What the hell happened here?” It’s the Chief. He’s charging down the alleyway with his fist in the air and his belly bopping him in the chin.

By the time he reaches you, he’s out of breath. One hand drops to his knee and the other clutches his chest. A squawk of blue and blacks is already clogging the street behind him. They’ll figure out what’s going on soon enough. The seven-foot corpse of the NBA legend spread out in the filth behind you will make it real easy.

You need to get to the ‘Trotters before they do.

The Chief pokes his sausage finger square into your chest. “I want answers. Start singing.”

You brush the chubby digit aside and step around the Chief without so much as a word.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going? Walk away and you’re out of a job! Do you hear me?”

Reaching into your jacket you retrieve your wallet, remove your badge and toss it to the concrete. It’s useless to you now. Time to settle the score the only way you know how. Time to punch a few bad tickets right in the tickers.

The Chief steps on your badge, points at you and screams so loud you can feel the alley move beneath your feet. “Answer me damn it!”

The kitten at your side continues to purr. She’s quiet for the moment, but she’s anxious to scratch. “Answers are like assholes, Chief…everyone’s got ‘em, but only sickos and perverts are anxious to tear off a piece. Tell the boys in the morgue to dig out five fresh body bags…cause I’m about to fill ‘em.”

Snagging a set of keys from one of the gap-jawed hoosegows called to the scene, you hop into his car and peel away. You know exactly where you’re headed – Gino’s. It’s the place all this mush started and it’s the place it was going to end.

The trip across town takes less then fifteen minutes. The sun is already beginning to set and the locals are headed home. This city isn’t safe at night for the normals. If you aren’t packing heat, every joe and junkie looking for a little jack will have their way with you when the sun goes down. Around here the night is for the hardened and the hard, and the hatchetmen and the heels.

The night is for people just like you.

Your car screeches to a halt just outside Gino’s. Though it’s an hour past closing, the lights are still on inside. You snatch your purring piece of alabaster, pull it to your face and press your lips to the barrel.

Time do go to work, darlin’.

The instant you exit the car, you’re charging full speed at the front door to Gino’s. Suddenly the lights inside go off.

Damn it.

They’re onto you.

The windshield of your stolen squad car shatters. When you turn around you spot a basketball wedged in the glass.

Sons of bitches.

Another basketball bounces off your head, and another still smacks you square in the gut. You can’t breathe. Your legs go as wobbly as a plate of Gino’s famous spaghetti. A third ball knocks the heater from your hand and sends it spinning across the concrete. A pair of lanky mitts snatches your trousers and pulls them down around your knees.

Damn, Twiggy!

When you reach for the knife stashed in your socks, another basketball slams into your knee and bends it in a way knees aren’t meant to bend. Bone snaps in two, and a moment later you’re flat on your keyster. For a fraction of a second you make out what you think is Sweet Lou, ten feet away and grinning through a mouth full of the pearliest marbles this side of the Mason Dixon.

He launches another basketball into your forehead and suddenly you’re flat on your back.

The world goes blurry – like you’re seeing it through the eyes of some lazy number hopped up on nose candy. Five dark, undefined shapes are standing over you and looking down with their hands on their hips.

The sound of Sweetwater’s voice finds its way to your ear. “You’re an idiot. You know that, right?”

Your leg is throbbing. You have a feeling one of your ribs is broken. You shake your head in a desperate attempt to clear the cobwebs, but it’s not working.

“Seriously, man.” The blurry image of, Sweetwater continues. “The hat, the jacket, the fact that you don’t own a cell phone. Plus all that stupid shit you’re always mumbling about…leadfoots and hoosegows, and gams and jingle-berried jaspers…what the hell is a jingle-berried jasper anyway? You know it’s not nineteen twenty-four, right? You do understand you were born in the 80’s, correct?”

When you try to get up, Meadowlark puts his size eighteen on your chest, cracks another rid and returns you to the unceremoniously pavement.

Sweetwater sighs. “Fuck it. We’re doing you a favor.”

Your vision returns just in time to see all five of the boys lift their respective basketballs over their heads. The muscles in their arms tighten. Their heads reel back.

Though your mouth full of blood you manage to squeak, “It’s a hooch-drunk hombre.”

The boys pause.

“What?” Sweetwater asks, a look of absolute confusion spread across his mug.

“A jingle-berried jasper…” You stutter in response. “A jiggle-berried jasper is a hooch-drunk hombre.”

Sweetwater sighs.

Three seconds later a barrage of basketballs puts an end to your life.


Oops...Return to Chapter 8

HARDWOOD BLOOD CH.6 - USE THE FORCE, MAN

BLOOD ON THE CONCRETE HARDWOOD CH.6 - USE THE FORCE, MAN

By Steven Novak

As the last of Missy’s finely aged honeypot escapes through the door you notice the old broad has left something rather peculiar behind: her face.

Spread across the hardwood just outside the doorway is a folded up mass of form-fitting latex and fake hair. She was wearing a mask. That cuckoo dame was wearing a mask!

Clive notices exactly what his mother’s left behind as well and seems as surprised as you. He drops to his knees and buries his head in his hands. “Ma? I don’t—? What’s going—?” His head flops to the floor and the waterworks begin to flow.

In a pinch you’re onto your feet and out the door, moving quicker than a snow-bird on his fourth bag of happy powder. There are clothes scattered throughout the hall; the dress Missy was wearing, her stockings and a lacy white bra stuffed with two cantaloupe halves.

That crazy sharp-shooting dame wasn’t a dame at all – just some shyster trying to pull the wool over your eyes!

Snagging the heater from the holster at your side you follow the trail of the fake Missy’s unmentionables downstairs. A single shoe and a pair of lacy panties with a maxi-pad still stuck to the crotch leads you right out the front door and into the street.

Even a maxi-pad? The gowed-up gink posing as the age, Mrs. Sinclair was certainly dedicated.

The city’s packed tight with flatties flopping flivvers, and eggs drowning their sorrows in eel juice. You hate this part of town: nothing but flophouses, flimflam men, derricks and dinguses. There are too many places to hide and too many people to hide behind. Some lousy bruno slams into your shoulder and sends you spinning. A leggy dame offers what’s hidden beneath her britches for everything in your wallet.

You’ll never find the pad-sporting son of a bitch in this mass of dummies.

That’s when it hits you: the Force. You’ll use the Force.

Don Forceman of Force Electric, that is.

He’s an old friend and his company has been hanging telephone wire in this part of town for over a week. You spot him at the end of the block, perched on a lift fifty feet in the air.

You scream in his direction at the top of your lungs. “Hey! Forceman!”

Surprisingly, Don hears you over the chatter of the city and waves in your direction.

You cup your hands around your mouth, shove past a pair of juiced-up hombres and yell, “Donnie! Did ya see some jingle-berried jasper come running out of this building?”

Forceman nods and points his finger in the direction of alley at the end of the block. You flash him a thumbs up and a moment later you’re plowing through the crowd of noodles with their oodles of nose-candy, sprinting full speed in the direction of Forceman’s all-knowing digit.

Don Forceman – a heck of a guy.

When you reach the alley you stop for a moment to catch your breath. Peeking carefully around the corner, you spot the red-hot you’ve been chasing, hidden in the shadows alongside a dumpster. His body is silhouetted against the lights from a neon sign a bit further down. He’s long and lanky and muscular. He’s a tall bottle of hooch to boot – well over seven feet. Unfortunately you can’t make out any specific facial features.

Once he’s done changing clothes, he reaches into a box at the foot of the dumpster, retrieves what you think is another mask and pulls it tightly over his head.

This roscoe’s no rube. He’s sharp. He’s well built and he’s quick. This trouble boy’s a master of disguise.

If he runs, you’ll lose him forever in the crowd. You can’t let him get away. You cock back the hammer on your rod, lift it to your head and spin around the corner. “Meathooks to the sky, palooka!”

He doesn’t listen.

They never listen.

Instead the lousy good for nothing bastard kicks a trash can lid box in your direction. You slip the airborne steel and fire a few rounds down the alley. A pill blasts past your ear and knocks the fedora from your noggin. Apparently he’s got a stick of smoking lead of his own.

Before you know it, the bullets are flying.

The brick wall to your left explodes. Two slugs ricochet off the garbage can next to you and send it spinning to the ground. Diving forward, you somersault and unload what’s left in the cartridge at your shadowy opponent. Your aim is better than his. His body whips against a section of chain link fence and drops to the concrete.

By the time you reach him, he’s gasping for air and clinging to his remaining breaths like a dope peddler clutching a handful of hot dough. Though you don’t recognize the face of the mask he’s wearing, you can’t help but take note of the incredible realism. The mustache alone is a thing of beauty.

After popping a fresh cartridge into your heater you point the barrel at his head. “I’m only gonna ask this once, ya lousy bum, and after I’m done asking you’re gonna spill like you’ve never spilled before. Got it?”

He shakes his head, struggling to breathe with a hole in his chest.

“Who are you and who sent you?”

Behind his award winning ‘stache, the son of a bitch’s lips curl into a smile. “I’m just the guy hired by the guys, asshole.” He chuckles a bit before coughing up blood.

His jaw moves forward and he bites down on something in the back of his mouth. A foamy white discharge begins to pour from between his lips and seeps down the sides of his face.

The lousy good for nothing is munching on cyanide!

Your hands fumble their way into the collar of his shirt and snag the base of the mask covering his head. When you rip it from his noggin you come face to face with the last person you were expecting.

Half submerged in a puddle of alley-filth and hobo barf is none other than NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was made an honorary Globetrotter in 1989.

The reality of what you’re looking at and what it must mean smacks you in the chest, and for a moment you stop breathing. Suddenly it all makes sense. You should have seen it from the beginning.

You know what you have to do.

A. Reload your heater, find the ‘Trotters and get some answers the old-fashioned way? 


 B. Snag a disguise from Kareem’s box of goodies, find the ‘Trotters and get some answers the new-fashioned way? 


 C. Strip naked, grab a steel pipe, find the ‘Trotters and get some answers the cave-man way?

HARDWOOD BLOOD CH.1 - HOTHEADED OLD GOON

BLOOD ON THE CONCRETE HARDWOOD CH.1 - HOTHEADED OLD GOON

By Steven Novak

The Chief is covered in sweat. His shirt is wrinkled, and the awful yellow stain of his pit juice is peeking out from underneath the crooks of his arms. He looks tired. He looks tired and beaten, and his face is more worn than the notoriously overcooked steaks at Rocco’s on the corner of 5th and Vine. He rubs his eyes, groans and sighs deep. When you offer him a cigarette, he waves it off. When you offer him a handkerchief to clean the rivers of perspiration running through the wrinkles on his forehead, he instead uses it blow his nose — then has the moxie to hand it back.

Lousy good for nothin’.

For a moment you consider reaching across the desk and bopping him square in the beezer. That would be stupid though — wouldn’t accomplish anything. Instead you opt to zip your gums and uncoil your meathooks. While it would be fun to put the old goat in his place, it isn’t worth your job and it sure as hell isn’t worth an unceremonious return to one of the flophouses downtown.

The Chief leans as far over your desk as he can before his belly impedes his progress. “We found two more this morning…both of them high priced girlies with gams for ages. He plugged ‘em both in the forehead, opened their chests like cans of sardines, pulled out their insides and tossed what was left in the dumpsters behind Rocco’s.”

Rocco’s? Yet another reason to stop waddling into Rocco’s at three in the morning, hopped up on goofballs and hungry for a tall stack of wheats. 

The Chief makes a fist and wallops your desk so hard you’d think it was his wife. “Find this son of a bitch! Do you hear me? When you find him, don’t you dare bring him in! The press is so far up my keyster on this one, I’m smearing them on my finger when I pick my nose!”

His eyes wide, his teeth clenchedb and his chest heaving like a doll on her back getting it all sorts of good, the old bull waits for a reaction after putting the period on his sentence.

You don’t give him one.

A second later the big lug is on his feet and heading for the door. Halfway there, he stops and turns again in your direction. “I want this egg boiled, peeled, and dropped in a Chicago overcoat by the end of the week. Got it?” 

After another puff of your cigarette, you nod. The Chief shakes his head and turns with a grunt. The fact that the seat of his britches is as soaked at the pits of his arms isn’t lost on you. 

You’ll need to burn the chair he was sitting on.

“There is one thing, Chief.”

The hotheaded old goon stops in the doorway. His back pops audibly when he turns toward you once more.

“Can’t do this one on my own. This jobbie’s playing with a full deck and I’ve got a hunch there’s a field full of dirty lettuce backing his operation. I’ll need some help.”

The Chief immediately knows exactly what “help” you’re talking aboutb and he’s immediately against the idea. “Oh no. No. No. No. You do this on your own. I don’t want those numbskulls anywhere near this case.”

You take another drag of your cigarette, lift your head and blow the smoke into the air. “You want this trouble-boy pinched? This is how he gets pinched. We need to take the direct route, Chief. No more fiddle-faddlin’ around the edge like a couple of crumb-bums betting on the bangtails.”

The Chief lowers his head and stares at his shoes over the mound of his gut. He knows you’re right. He knows you’re right and understands all too well it’s the only way. The aftermath of burger he swallowed down for lunch lurches up his windpipe and pops from his yap. You can smell half-digested onions from across the room.

“Fine. Do whatever you have to do. You bring those boys in and it’s on you. Got it? I’ve got nothing to do with this. If they drop the ball you’ll be dealing with the high-pillows, not me.”

When he leaves the room, he slams the door. 

Lousy good for nothin’.

Two minutes after that you’re on the horn with the only cats in town capable of finding the button man who’s been offing professional dames for the past month.

They offer to meet you at Rocco’s. You suggest Gino’s.

Thirty minutes later you stroll into Gino’s and spot your boys at the opposite end of the room. They’re in full gear — dressed to the nines in pinstripes and stars — afros reaching for the clouds.

They’re the best damn gumshoes the city has ever seen: Fred “Curly” Neal, Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, George “Meadowlark” Lemon, “Sweet Lou” Dunbar and James “Twiggy” Sanders. They’re the Harlem Globetrotters, and there ain’t a jingle-brained jasper been born that can put one over on them.

While Meadowlark meets you with a smile and shakes your hand, Twiggy sneaks up behind you and pulls your trousers down. The regulars at Gino’s erupt into laughter.

Despite the Chief’s reservations, you know you’ve made the right choice.

You fill the boys in on the situation over a family style plate of Gino’s three-meat lasagna. Sweet Lou dives in for seconds before everyone has finished their firsts. You let it pass — only because it’s Sweet Lou.

When dinner’s done and Curly has licked his plate clean, you loosen your belt, let your lasagna-laden belly flop free, and ask the boys if they’re willing to help.

Sweetwater retrieves a basketball from under the table, spins it on his finger and transfers it to the tip of your fedora. As expected, the trick elicits a round of cheers from Gino and his loyal patrons.

With a smile and a wink, Sweetwater adds, “Does that answer your question?”

Honestly, you’re not exactly sure.

Before you can respond, the sound of some chickie screaming just outside the front door fills the air. Sweetwater’s ball still spinning on your noggin, you and the ‘Trotters are on your feet quicker than a con in a creep joint. By the time you make it to the street, the leggy broad with the impressive screambox is already dead. Her chest’s ripped open and her intestines have been pulled halfway down the block.

A crowd of onlookers is already beginning to swell. The dames are in tears and a few of the Brunos don’t look much better. The damn newsie-leeches are already on the scene, forcing their way into the swelling crowd and starting a ruckus.

Out of the corner of your eye you spot a tall drink of water in a dark trench darting into an alleyway on the opposite end of the street. You retrieve the heater from the holster on your hip.

Time to go to work.

A. Round up the 'Trotters and hunt down the man in the trench?


B. Leave the 'Trotters to deal with the newsies and the crowd, and go after the jacketed goon yourself?


C. Forget about everything and go back into Gino's for another plate of lasagna?

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

TIME DOUCHE CH. 2 - FIGHT YOUR WAY BACK!

TIME DOUCHE CH. 2 - FIGHT YOUR WAY BACK!

By Steven Novak

“Get the hell away from Napoleon! Do you hear me you buffoon? Get away from him right now!”

It’s Nubleman. He’s screaming at you from your pocket and he’s apparently pretty pissed. Napoleon looks at you quizzically. His eyes drift slowly downward to the voice emanating from your crotch where his expression changes from confusion to revulsion.

“Pardon me,” He mutters while scratching his head, “but it seems there is a spirit haunting your genitals.”

Nubleman’s excited voice interrupts, “YOU IDIOT! GET AWAY FROM HIM NOW! YOU’RE THREATENING TO DESTROY THE VERY FABRIC OF TIME-SPACE!”

You don’t know what to do. Everything is happening so fast. Napoleon is eyeing your groin like it’s one of those stupid Sudoku puzzles your sister won’t shut up about; three very angry men are charging in your direction from behind; and that pompous son of a bitch Nubleman won’t stop calling you names from your pocket! Out of sheer frustration you punch yourself in the baby maker. Nubleman’s voice disappears with a crunch.

Admittedly, it’s not the smartest decision you’ve ever made.

No time to worry about that now. Three pissed off French dudes are less than fifty feet away, cursing at you from underneath elaborately curled mustaches and waving clenched fists in your direction.

Napoleon is still staring at your crotch, listening intently as the shattered piece of technology in your pocket hisses, pops, and occasionally sparks.

“Guess that killed the ghost,” you state with a nervous smile and half a chuckle. “I’m a regular Peter Venkman.”

He doesn’t get the joke. It’s not a very good one anyway.

With no time to run and nowhere to run to, you decide that you’re left with only one choice. It’s the worst choice and it’s the one with the absolute least chance of success. The only way you’re getting out of this mess is to fight your way out. This is the olden days after all, right? No one respects a pussy in the olden days. Time to knuckle up. Time to grow a pair.

Reaching forward, you snag Napoleon’s dueling sword. “I need to borrow this for a second.”

He lets it go freely and begins to slowly back away. Quickly leaping into the air you spin to face the charging Frenchmen and land in what you think is a “sword fighting” stance but looks more like you’re squatting in the bushes to drop a poop.

The first words out of your mouth are, “En garde, you ruffians!”

It’s stupid – stupider than your Ghostbusters joke even – which was pretty stupid.

Surprisingly, and for all the wrong reasons, it succeeds in stopping the mustachioed Frenchmen in their tracks. You begin flailing your sword, jabbing at the air and yelling “Ah ha!” over and over again. You’re not sure why you’re doing it. It looks stupid, but it somehow feels right.

The same as Napoleon minutes before, the confused eyes of Frenchmen drift slowly to your crotch. One of them removes his hat and scratches his head. Another begins to chuckle. Your nose catches wind of something – it’s smoke. Something’s burning. It smells like hair.

It’s your crotch.

The sparks from the shattered device in your pocket have lit your pants on fire. Your sword goes flying and within seconds you’re screaming at the top of your lungs while hopping around and smacking your burning pubes in a vain attempt to douse the flames. Remembering that corny fire safety video you had to watch in the first grade, you stop, drop, and begin to roll. Turns out those videos were more accurate than you thought, because it works.

Breathing heavily you roll to your back and begin to chuckle. You did it. You’re alive and your most private of areas remains relatively unscathed. Black smoke is still rising from your pants. You really dodged a bullet this time.

“Ceci doit être une certaine sorte de plaisanterie.”

Oh crap, the Frenchmen. You forgot about the Frenchmen.

Wait a minute, why are they speaking French again?

Propping yourself onto your elbows you look toward the three men and notice that they seem to be talking to each other rather than you. Half smiling and half confused, you aren’t sure what to make of the expressions on their faces.

“No me mire. No tengo cualquier cosa hacer con esto.”

That wasn’t French. That was Spanish. You took half a semester in Community College before flunking out – you’re eighty-six percent sure that was Spanish.

The universal translator – you must have broken it while rolling around.

The lead Frenchman – who happens to be the one with the largest mustache – shrugs his shoulders. “ดังนั้นสิ่งที่เราควรทำอย่างไร?”

What the hell language was that?

With an annoyed sigh, he pulls an elaborately decorated pistol from his side and points it in your direction.

“pItlh vam jIH 'oH” He mutters with a chuckle before pulling back on the trigger and blowing a hole in your head.

That last bit was Klingon.

Nubleman is such a nerd.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 2

WELCOME TO HELLYWOOD CH.1 - EAT ICE CREAM

WELCOME TO HELLYWOOD CH.1 - EAT ICE CREAM

By StevenNovak

What the hell are you doing?

Surgery from some weirdo named Dr. Skin? Seriously? Is this how low you’ve sunk? You told yourself that you’d never go down this road. You made a promise to yourself years ago that you wouldn’t fall into this trap – that you wouldn’t let Hollywood change you, and twist you, and morph you into something you don’t want to be. Years ago you told yourself that you were better than this.

No, you can’t do this.

You won’t do this.

“The doctor can see you tomo…” The receptionist on the other end of the phone is in midsentence when you hang up on her.

Leaning forward, you tap on the glass separating you from the limo driver. It immediately slides into the seat.

“Take me home.”

Less than thirty minutes later you find yourself curled up in bed with a tub of ice cream in one hand, a remote control in the other, and a serving spoon so large it looks like something dug up at the excavation site of some ancient civilization. The glow of your flat screen television on the opposite end of the room is the only light in the room.

You’re well aware of the fact that the ice cream is a temporary solution, but so what. It’ll make you feel better. At least it’s not permanent. You can jog it off tomorrow morning. At least you won’t be throwing away your morals and going back on a promise.

The forty-five year old idiot on channel seven that’s sporting a pair of low-rider jeans and the haircut of a kid half is age is reporting on the premiere of your movie. At one point he refers to it as your “swan song.”

You quickly turn the channel.

Channel five is more of the same.

On channel two Traywen Amber and Drevor Stone are flashing their million dollar smiles and billion dollar bodies, all while giggling like excited teenagers getting felt up for the first time and talking about how much of an “honor” it was to work with a “legend” like you.

Legend. You really hate that fucking word. You hate it even more when it spews from the mouths of half-brained idiots like Traywen and Drevor.

Drevor – what the fuck kind of name is that anyway?

You know for a fact that his real name is Don – Don Stonlowski.

Almost instantly you rip into the tub of ice cream melting away on your chest. God damn it’s good. You’re eating so fast and furious that you aren’t even sure what flavor it is. God damn it tastes good. When you finish the first tub you move onto the second. After you’ve polished off that one you inhale a third.

Fuck you, Don Stonlowski. Fuck you and your abs.

After you’ve gobbled up all the ice cream in your pantry, you dial the local grocery delivery service and order thirty more.

The woman on the phone gives you guff. “Thirty? Are you sure you want…”

“Is it your job to give me the third degree? No! It’s your job to take my order, put it in your little delivery car and drive it over!”

After slamming down the phone you feel bad about screaming at her. It’s Stonlowski’s fault, after all – that punk ass, snotty-nosed, know-it-all brat. All of this is his fault.

The hours after the ice cream arrives are a blur of gorging, self-indulgent awfulness. Before you know it your belly is filled to the brim with Rocky Road, and Strawberry, and ten or fifteen other flavors that have amassed together in a great pool of weighty, milky mush deep within your bloated belly.

Unfortunately for you, one of those ten or fifteen other flavors was called Pistachio Pudding. You were eating so fast – eating so angry - that you didn’t even notice.

The problem is, you’re allergic to pistachios. You’ve been allergic to them since you were a kid. Eating even a single pistachio can cause you to swell up and die.

Which is exactly what happens.

Fuck you, Stonlowski.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 1

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.11 HEADS WILL ROLL

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.11 - HEADS WILL ROLL

By Steven Novak

Scattered around you are the bodies of the Martians you’ve just dispatched, their normally gray fresh singed and burnt from the blasts of your laser pistol. The room smells like a barbeque. It smells like day old fried chicken.

It smells oddly delicious.

In ten seconds the Janitor King or the reinforcements for the corpses sprawled at your feet, or possibly both, will undoubtedly come rushing through the door. Your first thought is to use the light transporter that brought you here in the first place to get the hell out. It’s a perfectly reasonable plan. It makes complete sense. Plus it would be easy. It’s also the best chance you have for survival. It’s exactly the kind of plan you would have jumped at fifteen minutes ago.

Too bad this isn’t fifteen minutes ago.

Things have changed dramatically since the former “King” of Mars asked you to come with him and allowed you to log into his data cube. You aren’t the same person that woke up buried beneath Malloy’s underpants just twenty-four hours ago. You aren’t the same confused and fearful schmuck just trying to survive.

Sure, you still don’t fully understand what’s going on, but you think you might have the answers tucked safely into the pouch around your waist. You’re done running and you’re through being scared. If the bodies of the chicken-smelling Martian corpses at your feet prove anything at all, it’s that whoever is about to burst into the room should be scared of you, not the other way around.

Kneeling down, you snag a second pistol from one of the Martian corpses, and then a third from another. You grab a nearby rifle and toss it over your shoulder as well as a few percussion grenades, and a laser-knife – which you slide into the loop on your belt. After arming two of the still smoking pistols you point them at the still-closed door. Let them come and get you. Let them try. It’s about time you stopped searching for answers like an idiot and started trying to make some instead.

It’s time you grew a pair.

What comes next is mostly a blur. A group of Martian reinforcements blasts their way into the room and starts firing. Your body moves even before your mind has time to formulate anything remotely resembling a plan or a maneuver. This is muscle memory at its finest and most dangerous.

In no time at all the room has become a mass of laser beams, wild debris and billowing clouds of grayish black smoke. You’re sliding, and firing, and spinning, all while shooting holes in the chests of the attacking Martians at an astounding rate. One of the Martian guards manages to get close enough to take a swing at you with a four foot long laser-sword. You dodge the wild strike by dropping low and blast a hole in his stomach with one of your pistols.

Your other pistol takes off his head.

You’re moving too fast for the Martians to handle – your shots are too precise. Behind you something explodes. A severed Martian arm smacks you in the back of the head. A fiery torso slides across the bloody floor beside you, spinning like a top and spraying blood in every direction like a sprinkler. You ignore it.

As the Martians begin retreating into the hallway outside the room, you instinctively follow. They aren’t getting off that easily. No one is getting off so easily – not with you – not ever again.

Hoisting the corpse of one of your attackers into the air, you use the Martian’s body as a makeshift shield and continue to press forward. With your free hand you start firing into the crowd of reinforcements crammed into the tight quarters of the hallway. Though it’s difficult to get an accurate count through the smoke and the noise and the explosions, you think there might be thirty of them.

A Martin head explodes like a balloon inflated just a bit too far. A chunk of Martian brain bounces off the side of your ear like a NERF ball soaked in cottage cheese.

Better make that twenty-nine.

It takes you less than ten minutes to dispatch the remaining twenty-nine Martian guards, and the fifteen or so that swarm in afterward. A half an hour after that and you find yourself holed up in a modestly sized room in one of the Martian slums on the outskirts of the colony. You rented the place under a false name and used some Zircons you stole from the uniform of one of the corpses during your firefight.

You’re nibbling on some dinner you purchased on the way over – it's chicken. The gunfight left you very hungry for chicken. Go figure.

With a bit of creative tinkering you manage to connect the data cube the Janitor King gave you to the room’s rather crummy and remarkably simplistic Martian Television set built into the wall. The thing is so old it doesn’t even offer a brain interface – so old you’re surprised it even turned on. There’s absolutely no reason these two things should ever work in conjunction with one another, but making them do exactly that seems almost laughably simple to you all of a sudden.

You chuckle audibly; a lot of things seem simpler these days.

In no way prepared for the sudden jolt of information, the viewing screen of the ancient television begins to hum as the contents of the cube pop onto the monitor. The interface of cube and this antiquated bit of Martian technology isn’t likely to last long, and when the circuits are fried both contraptions will likely be useless.

You only need a few minutes though – five at the most – five measly minutes and you’ll have your answers.

Moments before the firefight you were smart enough to transfer the contents of the NOSSA surveillance cameras to the data cube. You need to finish watching the video you started earlier.

You chuckle to yourself again. In a weird way the Janitor King was right – turns out it does hold the answers to all your questions.

Quickly coding the transmission to the night in question you watch the screen carefully and notice the all too familiar forms of Saleen and Malloy entering quietly into your quarters back on Earth. With a wild static-buzz the camera shifts to the room's interior and follows the pair as they make their way past your couch, into the kitchen, and then through the door leading to your sleeping quarters.

The screen turns to static once again.

The television you’ve interfaced with is starting to overheat. The information is far too large for it to handle. It’s falling apart quicker than you imagined.

It won’t last much longer.

The static on the screen morphs into a twisty distorted image that stretches dramatically, leaving the feet of Saleen and Malloy on one end of the screen and their heads on the other.

With one hand you smack the side of the Television with your palm, “Come on you piece of junk. Hold together for a minute more!” Instantly the image clears.

You can hardly believe what you’re seeing.

Saleen and Malloy look to be standing alongside your bed. Not only that, but you’re standing right beside them – at least the you that’s dressed in black with dark make-up smeared across your face.

Even weirder than that is the fact that there seems to be another you lying sound asleep beneath the covers.

Like shaking a Frisbee loose from a tree, or the act of smacking that last bit of ketchup from the bottom of the jar, the bizarre image knocks loose the confused memories hidden previously within the folds of your brain. Immediately everything comes flooding back.

You’re not you.

You were never you.

Before the television screen overheats and fizzles out with a puff of smoke, you watch as Malloy fires a laser pistol at the you that’s snuggled under the covers with a stupid grin on your face. The blast opens a hole in your chest so large there’s barely a chest remaining when it’s over.

You were the secret weapon all along.

It all makes sense now. It’s all so clear. That’s why Big Boob Bob seemed to feel such a kinship with you. That’s why he was always winking at you and smiling knowingly. That’s why Malloy was so pissed and confused when you escaped. That’s why your memories have felt so disjointed, and uneven, and distant - they aren't even your memories.

You’re not an accountant. You were never an accountant.

They used the likeness of the accountant to get you into NOSSA and onto the transport to Mars.

Lifting your hand to your face you watch as it begins to morph into a shimmering, slimy blob of gelatinous goo. A moment later it transforms yet again into something more closely resembling a Martian hand, and then again into its original form.

You’re not you.

You’re nobody.

You’re a machine that’s gone haywire – an overheated television that’s burnt out.

The plan was for you to assassinate president Womack with the help of Bob, and then the pair of you – and a few others like you – would replace the Martian presidential cabinet and take over rule of the planet.

The plan failed.

They tried to use you. They tried to turn you into something you apparently had no interest in becoming.

No, you’re not you. You’re everybody. You’re anybody you want to be. And you’re going to make them pay.

Less than a week later, back on Earth, Tan’s body washes up in the sewage system underneath NOSSA headquarters. A day afterward Richardson’s laser blast-riddled corpse is discovered in stretched out in his bedroom. Only fourteen hours after that Saleen’s Amazonian-esque body is found stuffed into her modest locker in the NOSSA training center. Quite a few bones were broken and rearranged in order to get her in there, and it takes a day and a half and a laser-cutter to get her out. Only a day afterward, the NOSSA headquarters are burned to the ground. An investigation brings to light the fact that the company was neck deep into illegal experiments with Mutagenic Cell Alteration – which in layman’s terms means you.

A month later Malloy’s body is discovered in seedy hotel down south. He knew you were after him and had been on the run for some time.

While staring down at the corpse the investigating officer pulls the bed sheets covering him away from his body and is taken aback for a minute by what he sees.

He calls over the first officer onto the scene, “Was he like this when you found him?”

“Yep, exactly.”

“What the hell happened to his junk?”

“Dunno…guess someone cut it off.”

THE END.

RETURN TO CHAPTER 1