ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 5 - YOU'RE A SCIENTIST!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.5 - YOU'RE A SCIENTIST!
 By Wayne Depriest

You’ve got one chance to get this right; one chance to turn the tide; one chance to get you and Madge and the rest of humanity out of the shithole and back to normalcy. You need an antidote and you need it fast. You’re a scientist, for shit’s sake! You made the mess, even if it was some cost-conscious, bottom line-watching asstard who made the decision to use mercury. there’s no time to use any of the normal chelating agents like DMSA or DMPS. You need something that’s gonna flush the mercury out of a person’s system in minutes, an hour at most. It’s the damn mercury vapor that’s the problem. Get the unaffected to stop breathing until the units are stabilized is the perfect answer—not realistic, but perfect.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Gonetoshit, there are hordes of shit zombies sludging through the facility. For the moment you and Madge are safe. You’ve got some favors to call in; people who owe you big time and who can get some shit done in a hurry. You need to develop an antidote for those affected, one that will reverse the manure mange—or at least halt its progression through the body.

You flip back the hood of the hazmat suit, pick up the phone and punch 9 for an outside line, an idea twisting through your head. If we can get the...

You get no dial tone. You punch 9 again. Same thing.

“How the hell do I call in favors if I can’t make a call?”

“There’s no time for that anyway,” Madge  urges. “You have to do something and you have to do it fast.”

“Even if I make an antidote, how do we get it out and dispensed? I can’t even call for FedEx.”

“You’re the scientist. Just make the antidote. We’ll worry about getting it delivered later.”

You race over to the bench and start slinging test tubes and pipettes around like you know what you’re doing. But you don’t. You’re not a chemist, for God’s sake. You’re an industrial engineer. You throw some of this in a tube, add a pinch of that, some more of whatever this is and the damn thing blows up in your face. It burns like a bastard, but your eyes seem unaffected. The bright blue cloud of vapor floats across the lab and envelopes a pile of some former lab assistant. The congealed pile of crap starts to reshape itself into something resembling a human being.

“That’s it!” screams Madge. “That’s it!”

“What the hell is it?” you scream back at her.

“You made it—don’t you know?”

“Hell no.”

“You have to make some more. Lots more.”

You spend another twenty minutes trying to duplicate the formula. Finally you get a controlled batch, one that doesn’t explode. A good thing, too. You’re about out of hair. You get it into an atomizer and start working on a bigger batch, something you can push through the ventilation system here. That will give you enough time to make more and somehow get the formula out to other labs. You can have this thing whipped by tomorrow morning and be the hero again. There’s just one problem.

It’s that damn blinking light in the corner. Madge doesn’t see it. Or doesn’t know what it means. But you do. And you realize that all the determination in the world isn’t going to change what is about to happen. That little blinking light is a security breach indicator. Normally it glows with a soft steady light. When it blinks it means that someone has entered the security zone in an unauthorized manner. There’s always a guy monitoring that light. It’s his only job. When it blinks he’s trained to respond by pushing some buttons or something that will lock down the core of the lab inside a series of sheet steel walls that might yield to a nuclear weapon. Might. Anything less is like hitting a brick wall with a toasted marshmallow.

But Mr Security Breach Guy isn’t there. Well, he is, but he’s not much use as a slush pile of chunky diarrhea overflowing the office chair. And from the way the damn light is flashing, there isn’t any time to batten down the hatches, even if you knew how to batten down anything. Which you don’t. About the only thing you can do is try to get you and Madge out before the shit storm hits. The stool zombies aren’t going to care about a cure and the little atomizer isn’t enough for the mounds of muck on the way.

Of course, by this time there is no getting out. Cameras are showing hordes of shittards scraping along the corridors on the way to the lab. Every exit is blocked by shuffling schools of shit zombies, putrid poop pods plodding toward the lab. You and Madge ain’t in deep shit yet, but it won’t be long.

You search frantically for anything that will help. Of course there isn’t anything. You and your sister are on your own. For a minute you think about throwing her to the zombies. Maybe it will give you enough time to get away. You look at her and realize she’s thinking about making you the star of the Fecal Follies.

“What the hell are we going to do?” You can’t seem to control the panic.

“Just calm down. Let me think.” Madge waves a shush hand at you like your mother did when she wanted quiet. It doesn’t work for Madge either.

“What’s there to think about? We’re dead. They’ll rip these hazmat suits off us like underwear at an orgy.”

“Spray ourselves with the formula,” Madge exclaims. “Even if they get us, we won’t turn to shit. We can fake dying and hold out until they leave.”

You take a gigantic hit from the atomizer, sucking it deep into your lungs as Madge removes her helmet and reaches for the antidote. Just as she’s squeezing the mist into her mouth you feel your lungs ignite. You have time to see Madge’s eyes widen in surprise before your lungs explode and flames engulf her face.

Oops...return to Chapter 5

 

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.4 - KABOOM

ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 4 - KABOOM 
By MJ Heiser

As you watch your sister introduce herself to the switchboard operator at the White House (can you believe they still process phone calls through a freaking switchboard?), something inside of you snaps.  Last night you were partying Bruce Wayne-style: lots of strangers—most of them in varying states of undress—gallons of booze, and lines of narcotics laying around. Through it all Milo was there as he always was, suspended upside-down and beer-bonging his way into the record books.  Now those party guests have the world's nastiest case of rotgut, and Milo . . .

You've just watched Milo die.

"Gotta go," you tell Madge.  She looks up from her phone call, her mouth slack as she registers the look of madness and desperation in your eyes.  You turn your back on the room even as she begins to fling at you reasons for you to stay.

"Wait!  I can get the President to neutralize everything!"

Fuck that, you think to yourself.  Somebody's got to pay.  Something's got to blow the fuck up.

You decide you need backup and you burst into a silent waiting room full of quarantined and terrified people.  In one corner are several burly guys you hope are either football linebackers or Navy SEALs.  You can tell already that the hospital staff are none too happy with the way you violated their weak excuse for quarantine; somebody has taken it upon themselves to set off a loud, insistent alarm.

Considering the fact that unknown numbers of security personnel are on their way to throttle you, you decide to cut about 98 percent of your speech.  "You guys want to just sit here and wait to find out if you're carrying the shits, or do you want to do something about it?"

Just as you'd hoped, the big burly guys stand up, biceps and pectorals twitching.  The biggest of them—your mind has already nicknamed him Hoss—smiles menacingly and says, "We thought no one would ever ask."

You're suddenly glad you've never been the publicity hound Steve Jobs was.  You're a virtual unknown.  "I know where the asshole who caused all this is keeping the master switch."

A guttural cry of assent breaks out among Hoss's friends, and they—along with several other twitchy people—follow you out of the waiting room.  You run towards the Emergency Room, and you hear distressing noises behind you, like Hoss and his friends are using their fists to prevent your capture.  You refuse to look back.  It will only slow you down. 

You burst through the Emergency Room doors to a scene of depressing chaos.  There's shit on the walls in a startling variety of colors.  The smell in here is ghastly.  Your eyes start to water from the smell.

"Cover your mouths and noses!" you yell through your hand, hoping you haven't already caught the airborne nastiness.  You then spot the crash doors leading outside, and—miracle of miracles—there's an open ambulance waiting there.  "Come on!"

You weave your way through the equipment in the back of the ambulance and sit down at the driver's seat.  You feel the back of the ambulance sag a little under the weight of your burly new friends, and, without waiting to ensure everyone's on, you gun the engine.  You smell a distressing aurora of gasoline fumes around you and wonder if the last EMT driving this rustbucket ruptured a fuel line. 

Fuck it.  The gas gauge says I have enough fuel even if I spill half of it on the way.  Okay, I have my crew, you think to yourself, giddy with excitement and high on adrenaline.  Now I need some explosives.

"Any of you guys know where I can find a few bombs?"

Dead silence from the back of the ambulance.

You turn around and see that all of your new friends have brown fluid leaking from their eyes.

Fuck.

"Did you think I wouldn't know who you are?" Hoss asks you as he advances on you.

"Wait," you say, whipping your head back around to not crash into a building.  "Come on, man."

"Were you really so arrogant to think that big guys like us don't keep up with scientific principles or breakthroughs?  What did you think we were, linebackers?"

You say nothing.  Again, you're hoping he's just angry and, of course, sick.  "I'm not the person you're looking for, dude, remember?  I'm taking you to the person responsible."

"We're fucked," Hoss says, inching closer.  You think you hear a clinking noise.  Shit is getting too real, so you swerve the ambulance to the emergency lane on the freeway and put it in park.  Then you turn back to see what's waiting for you.

Hoss now has something brownish coating the inside of his mouth.  His eyes are producing so much brown fluid it's falling in droplets from the edge of his square jaw.  You see that he's carrying a cylinder of oxygen in his hands.

"We're so . . .fucked," he says, his voice slurring a little.  He stumbles, but regains his balance on the edge of the gurney.  "I speak for all my guys when I say we aren't going to wait for this shit to take us.  We're going out, man.  But we aren't going alone."

You know enough about oxygen to know it can't burn by itself—but suddenly, you realize it doesn't have to.  That spilled-gas scent is stronger.

One of Hoss's friends has a match.  Another one has the emergency escape axe.

What happens next is so quick you'd think it had been rehearsed.  The guy with the match strikes it on the matchbook, then sets the rest of the book on fire, dropping it to the bottom of the ambulance.  Next, the guy with the axe buries it in the oxygen cylinder's neck with such force it splits the tank open.

The concussion from the explosion isn't the worst of it.  The worst of it is inhaling pure fire down your throat.

Oops...head back to chapter 4

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - JUST DRIVE!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - JUST DRIVE! By Wayne DePriest

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

“What the hell?” Milo exclaims.

One more click and the car starts to rotate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And over.

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

Up close.

SHT HPNS

Oops...Return To Chapter 1

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - MONDAY

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.1 - MONDAY By Tomara Armstrong

You’re vaguely aware that the sun has risen. Shades of pink paint the inside of your eyelids, while the memory of last night is a blur of alcohol-scented flesh-colored money. You just want to sleep it off, but the swamp of saliva you’re resting in keeps bubbling and tickling 

your nose, preventing a deep, restful sleep.

The door rattles and footsteps cross the room. You’re pretty sure it’s Monday, which means Rosalinda, your cleaning lady, is here to clean up your weekend shenanigans.  She kicks a gaming controller across the floor on her way to the kitchen and flicks on the television. You don’t care that she’s cursing you in a foreign tongue—your leather sofa is like a cloud 

sent from heaven, cuddling you ever so gently.

Your head throbs, and you groan as Rosalinda pitches last night’s bottles and cans into the enviro-bin. You roll over, covering your head with a pillow, exposing your bare ass.

At what point last night did you lose your pants?

You shrug it off and smile, trying to ignore the draft and push further into your cavernous sofa.

She turns up the volume on the television, loudly announces that she intends to run the vacuum, and strongly suggests that you seek the comfort of one of your many bedrooms. You grunt, pulling the pillow tighter around your head, trying to drown out the TV.

… Our investigative reporter Gail Silverman is live on the scene. Gail?

Thanks, Dave. I’m standing outside of Smart EcoGen, President and CEO...

Your eyes pop open. Did she say your name?

Surely not. You close your eyes again, trying to get comfortable.

Picketers have started camping out in front of the mansion since reports first started pouring in that their popular waste recycling generator, the Environaut, is responsible for a slew of health related problems cropping up around the world. President and CEO…

You sit up. She definitely said your name. You fumble for your glasses and accidentally spill a beer on your cover of Scientific American. “Shit!”

...has yet to make a comment, but a Smart EcoGen representative stated early this morning…

You jump up, flinging the beer across the floor and onto the TV. Rosa shoots you the stink eye and stomps off down the hall.

…are looking into the reports, but insisted that the safety of the public has always been first and foremost…

You’re ashamed. Ashamed that you had too much to drink, ashamed that you had too many friends over, and ashamed that you burned the other copies of Scientific American to make s’mores—ten copies with you on the cover, sacrificed in the name of snacks.

…What started as a peaceful display of vulgar signs and chanting has become more…

While you mentally make the vow to NEVER drink again, something hits your window.

…Oh my god, Dave! Protestors are flinging…feces at the mansion! This peaceful protest just got ugly.

Your stomach turns as the clods of human waste thud against your home. Rosalinda is going to quit for sure.

“What happened to your pants?” You swing around and see your best friend, Smart EcoGen VP, Milo Sabe, sprawled out on an angora rug. While he has pants, he also has a moustache and “DERP” written across his forehead—you’re guessing with Sharpie.  You keep the information to yourself as you dig a pair of shorts out from under your couch.

“You hear what’s going on?” you ask, slipping on your shorts.

“Protestors outside—throwing shit? Yeah, I heard.” He rubs his eyes, shaking his head.

“What’s that about?” You walk over to the window and peer outside. “Uh…”

Outside, picketers have scaled the outer walls of your property and are quickly crossing the lawn toward the house. They’re dirty—real dirty. So dirty, in fact, you think that they’ve covered themselves in the very stuff they were flinging at your home moments earlier.

Milo jumps as a window breaks. You back away slowly at first, but as the bodies begin pulling themselves into the room and blood drips down the broken class, you decide it’s time to go.

“Come on!” You pull Milo’s shirt and run off down the hall, leaving the protestors' incoherent shrieks behind you. They’re still trying to get into the house and starting your way.

Heading toward the center of the house, you slip in a puddle of water in the hallway. You skid to a stop, but Milo slams into you, sending you through a bathroom door. You quickly hop to your feet, averting your eyes. “Sorry, Rosa.”

She is sitting on the toilet with her head down. The water is on, and the tub is overflowing.

“Rosa?”

She lifts her head, and looks at you, chewing on her thumb.  “Are you ok?”

Her bloodshot eyes stare through you, as she peels the fingernail off with her teeth and spits it at you. You watch it hit your chest and fall to the floor, sinking into the pool of water collecting at your feet. Drops of blood swirl for a fraction of a second then disappear with the current.

You feel beer vomit tickling the back of your throat as Milo pulls you back into the hall and gives you a shove. “Time to go!”

The sickness fades as you run toward your bedroom. Once inside the room, you slam and lock the door.

“What now?” Milo’s eyes scan the room as you palm your bookshelf, remembering the access combination for the secret passageway. “Plan ahead” was your motto when you had the house built five years ago—it’s finally paying off.

“Aha!” The door swings open and you pull Milo into the dark hallway.  You can hear protestors banging on the door as you close the entrance and head down toward the emergency bunker below the house.

Your hand traces the wall, flipping on the light. The fluorescent bulbs buzz and pop, illuminating a massive room filled with cutting edge technology.

“What the hell, Bruce Wayne? How long have we been friends? You never told me you had a Batcave. I hate you,” Milo says.

“Oh, shut up. What’s the point of having all this money if I can’t indulge in a little frivolous spending?”

“A little?” Milo snorts, looking over the extreme gadgetry and flickering control panel. “I want a raise.”

You fire up a large display, push several buttons, and instantly you can see the whole perimeter of the house as well as many of its rooms. It’s quickly filling with protestors. You see their painted faces and wild eyes on the monitors. A thought creeps into your head and you shiver. They’re hunting you.

Milo is staring at the screen too—the color drained from his face. “What button do I push for the Batmobile? You have one right?”

“Uh… Yes and no.”

You press a button and the room begins to vibrate. A door opens, revealing an impressive display room filled with boxes of comics ordered alphabetically. Action figures fill glass displays—some loose, others with original packaging. In the middle of the room, on a pedestal, sits the Batmobile—a miniature replica fit for a circus clown.

“Shit.” Milo deflates. “That’s not going to get us out of here.”

“No, but I have a car.” You smile and press another button. A garage door opens, exposing a custom DeLorean DMC-12.

“Of course you do,” Milo rolls his eyes. “Does it run?”

“Sh-yeah.”  You think it does anyway.

Milo hops in the car and you grab the keys, pondering your plan of action. 

Should you:

A. Head to Smart EcoGen HQ and see if you find out what's going on;

B. Hold your ground and take back your house; or

C. Screw this! Just drive!