WELCOME TO HELLYWOOD CH.6 - STEP UP

WELCOME TO HELLYWOOD CH.6 - STEP UP

By Lael Gardner - Stalnaker
Indecision grips you hard as your mind races with the horrible possibilities. You snag your lower lip in your teeth and wear the cutest expression on your smooth baby face as you concentrate.

Okay, so be it. Usher has to die.

You might manage through a sing off, but a dance off just won’t work. You are getting pissed though, almost as angry as when that little bastard at laser tag got in your face and called you a faggot.

Wait… that happened to Bieber, not you! Ack!

His experiences are bleeding over into your mind. You really don’t want to know if the little twerp is actually into mansicles; you frankly don’t care.

What is important is getting your soul back. It is obvious that now that you have tried to reneg on the deal, Justin Bieber’s mind and soul are coming back to occupy his stolen skin. Usher is playing sly and hoping you won’t notice that attack as he distracts you.

Okay, that’s it. Usher has to die.

This weak little body notwithstanding, you are going to prevail. Damn it, if you have to live out your days in this skin, by the God you don’t believe in, you will have your damn soul!

“Ok, a dance off it is!” you yell to cover the noise of the tween herd thundering down the pavement toward you.

Usher grins evilly at you. As the herd approaches ever closer, you are desperate to keep the maker of your woes from catching on. You march straight up to Usher, throw your arms around his neck, stand on tiptoe and smash your lips onto his. Just to really drive it home, you shove your tongue in his startled mouth before he can resist or protest. While you aren’t attracted to the guy, it is kind of a turn on that you can’t help notice the twitch from the sadly proportioned anatomy below that you wish was bigger.

Usher finally reacts and shoves you so hard that you practically fly and land on your ass almost ten feet away. The tweens shriek in rage from right behind Usher. His eyes widen as he finally catches on to what you were really up to. The enraged pubescent estrogen horde slams right into his back, knocking him down in a picosecond. Feet slam into him over and over, keeping him from rising. The horde is so vast that they press up against each other, surrounding you in a wall of cooing girls (with the odd male in the mix) as they try to help you up.

Usher is a broken pulp before the horde disperses with your dulcet encouragement and thanks for their concern. You watch in feigned horror as the blob of flesh that was Usher is revealed. Then, turning away, you pull out the bottle that holds your soul trapped. With a final cry of rage, you slam the damned jar to the ground. This time it breaks into glistening shards. Your soul becomes a mist that surrounds you and then enters your nose, mouth and eyes.

By god, it feels wonderful to be whole again!

Now that you have that most important piece of yourself back, you can try to piece together a new life. Maybe you’ll actually learn to sing, perhaps not. You will, however, make wiser choices than you have in the past. For better or worse, you are stuck with this body, so you will use it. It can’t be all that bad, given a ready-made fan base to work on and years ahead of you.

THE END

RED PLANET STOWAWAY - CH.1 HIDE UNDER MALLOY UNDERPANTS

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.1 - HIDE UNDER MALLOY'S UNDERPANTS

By JA Souders


You quickly bury yourself under the pile of gray-colored, nasty, smelly underpants and hold your breath. The sticky fabric crunches under your fingertips when you pull it over your head.

Each of the captain’s footfalls is in time to your heartbeat.

Please don’t come here. Please don’t come here, you beg, although you know it’s hopeless. Where else would he go to retrieve clothes?

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Your eyes water from the fumes drifting off the raunchy clothes, but you try not to move. If Malloy catches you now, it’s all over. Better to let the salty tears run down your cheeks than taste the rusty blood when he knocks every single one of your teeth out of your head for seeing him naked.

Malloy continues to grumble under his breath about “fucked up alliances” and “gray-skinned bastards whose only interest in camaraderie is eating our still beating hearts once they rip them from our chests.”

You wonder, vaguely, what the hell he’s talking about just as he wrenches open the door to the storage locker. Surprised by the abruptness of the move, you accidently gasp. The pile of clothes you are lying in tumbles out and across the captain’s bare feet.

Fortunately, the sticky substance on the grody briefs seems to have stuck the cloth to you and you remain concealed. You cover your mouth with your hands and pray he didn’t hear your slip.

Malloy’s mutterings fall silent. One. Two. Three heartbeats.

A tickle in your throat is causing you to swallow fast in an effort to control the cough brought on by inhaling the noxious gases pouring from his clothes.

What is this man doing with his clothes? Why do they reek so badly? Then you remember the sticky stuff and think it’s better if you don’t know.

Finally, Malloy mumbles about having the laundry bot maintenanced. He steps forward and his bare, gnarled foot, stinking so badly of moldy cheese that it overwhelms even the stench of clothes, collides with your stomach.

You try to control the wince, but it’s no good and the air whistles out of you as he kicks your stomach again, knocking the wind from you.

“Bloody gray-skinned bastards!” he yells and then slaps something along the side wall.

A siren blares. The call for General Quarters. You don’t have to look to know the red lights are flashing and crews all over the ship are scattering like ants to get to their battle stations. Not to mention that security is even now on their way to save the captain from the “enemy.” You.

Captain Malloy reaches up and pulls a white polycarbonate helmet—the kind they use for space walks--down from the top shelf of the locker as you struggle to sit up and explain. But even as you open your mouth, Malloy is swinging the hard plastic bubble at your head.

Stars explode in front of your eyes and you collapse into the toxic pile of clothes again. He continues to beat you until your vision hazes and you feel the floating sensation that is your consciousness as it leaves you.

Just as you black out, you see Malloy grinning down at you. “Thought you could get the best of me, didn’t ya? Going to report back to your Hive leaders what you heard here today? Going to let them know you saw me in all my glory?!”

You black out when he kicks you in the stomach again.

What feels like only seconds later, light floods over your body. You moan and wavering shadows swim into view. You can’t make out what these beings look like, but you can tell one is shorter than the other.

“It’s still alive. The captain said he’d killed it,” shadow one—the shorter of the two--says.

“Guess not. C’mon. We’ll have to finish the job,” the tall shadow says with a lisp. He sounds like a snake and you wonder if you were handed off to those “gray skinned bastards” the captain talked about. More clothes get peeled off your body and you moan as the light stabs into your eyes and a headache pounds behind them.

“Wait! That’s not an alien, that’s…” the tall shadow exclaims.

“Oh, shit! You’re right! What was the Cap’n thinking?”

“Does it matter? He thinks there was an alien here. It isn’t our job to prove him wrong. We need to get this…thing to the space lock like he said.”

“But it’s human?”

“Not according to the captain.”

You finally realize what’s happening and struggle to sit up, as the two shadows argue back and forth. When they see you sitting up right, they glance at each other. The smaller of the shadows takes your feet, while the other takes your head. They carry you down the hallway to a room with another smaller room at the end of it. The small room has a large circular door on one end with a window in it.

You see the red haze that signals that the red planet is circling below you.

You struggle harder, but it’s no use. They’re too strong. And they toss you into the tiny room. Then they leave, and the door locks behind them, echoing with finality.

You jump up as the warning lights and buzzers sound. They’re planning on tossing you into space without a suit!

You bang on the door, but the man standing at the window only smiles, waves, and points to the doors behind you as they slide open and pull you into airless vacuum of space.

Your last thought is how you can still smell the captain’s underpants.

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 1

RED PLANET STOWAWAY - CH.1 CONFRONT MALLOY NAKED

RED PLANET STOWAWAY CH.1 - CONFRONT MALLOY NAKED

By Ryan ONeil


Malloy reaches out with his leathery paw of a hand and pulls open the locker door. The rush of fresh air is like a small piece of heaven. You breathe deeply and then deftly leap from within the confines of the locker surprising Malloy. Although he is old and the forces of simulated Earth gravity pull at his aging body, his tense muscles ripple like slabs of cut gray marble.

Hoisting your shirt up over your head, you swing it in frantic circles like a drunken football fan cheering on your favorite team. The knot on your head pounds worse than the worst hangover headache you've ever experienced.

“Where’s the party, Captain?” You sing out in your best Elvis Presley impersonation.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” Malloy shouts as his nakedness steps sternly in your direction.

His grizzled, bulbous nose is now only a few uncomfortable inches from yours. His breath smells much like his soiled undergarments, and it's a smell that will haunt your dreams for the rest of your life, however long – or short – that may be.

“Huh, funny story Captain,” you say, and audibly gulp.

Your hands fumble first with your belt and then with your zipper until you feel your pants loosen. With your hands at your sides you hook your thumbs inside of your underwear and push everything way south of your hips. Stepping out of your clothes you use your left foot to flick the pile behind you. You slowly begin to shake your hips to the rhythm of a long forgotten song that echoes in the vast chasm of your pounding head. “Dance with me Captain. Dance with me.”

“Oh, we’re gonna dance, sweet thing.” He replies. “We’re gonna dance.”

The last thing that you remember seeing is Captain Malloy’s gray sledgehammer-like fist as it smashes solidly into the bridge of your nose. “Boom, boom, boom and out go the lights.” Malloy sings.

Everything in your world goes black.

There is no sight.

There is no sound.

But weird, you can still smell those soiled undergarments…

THE END

Oops...RETURN TO CHAPTER 1