by Sutter, D.
Spike sighed. He’d brought the little smart ass with him. “Tell Rufus to mind his own business, would ya’?”
The daemon stood on Megamouth’s shoulder, wearing an identical sports jacket and slacks, pulled his wiener out and gave Spike the finger at the same time. He then sat down on his perch and kicked his feet like a munchkin from Oz.
“Whatever,” Spike said. “You ready to get back home?”
Megamouth nodded, his gigantic nose shaking like a flaccid penis. “Home, home. I’m ready for home.” His last word echoed as it vacated his megaphone, as if it was the only thing in the world he wanted——to go home.
Spike hurried ahead like a gazelle, while Megamouth lumbered far behind, trying to keep pace. He loved his little brother, would always look out for him, but Spike was often annoyed by him, too. Thus, he allowed him to lag while talking to the friend on his shoulder, and talk he did.
“What about Carbie?” Megamouth yelled out as they progressed.
Spike hoped Carbie was okay, but they couldn’t waste any time looking for him. Too much time had already lapsed while waiting. If he was alive, he’d find a way home. He was a grown man. “He’ll find us.”
CARBIE LANDED AND broke apart, boxes flying through the treetops and sliding into the swamp. He could feel each and every part, not only the pieces connected to his central processing box, but those scattered through the forest. It took hours for him to coax his parts to return. One particular scrap, maybe a cereal box lid that was part of his eyebrow, just would not cooperate. It lounged in the orange stream, basking in bacterial sweetness.
He finally decided to leave it behind and bunched into his tattered and torn spandex suit. It was unfortunate to be trapped in the forest alone, for he knew the place belonged to Colonel Brimstone——one of his father’s archenemies——who rode around the forest with his troupe of elephant riders, kidnapping trespassers. Children were shrunk per order of the current Dictator (who last Carbie knew was Manservant Genesis), and held until the Dictator’s Ball. Adults were burnt alive, taken as food for Ignatius the Ape and his Tremulous Tribe, or sacrificed.
Father was adamant about turning his enemies to shadows, despite such vicious practices, but hopefully things were soon to change. Carbie was starting to believe in his brother Spike’s philosophy that more desperate action was necessary. After the last attempt to overturn the band of Dictators, they only captured Manservant Genesis and some of his trolls. Since he and his brothers had inflicted so much damage, Father suspended their animation.
Carbie’s ability to move slowly returned. First, he was walking at nothing more than a shuffle, but his strength grew and he graduated to a steady run, until he was dodging branches of trees and bushes that reached with thorny hands. In his swiftness, he passed a watching sentinel without noticing. The eyes lit up in the dark of the forest, red and vicious, and hurried off in a different direction.
IT WASN’T UNTIL Spike saw the white sign that he remembered where they were.
“All trespassers subject to shrinkage, imprisonment, or burning alive, without exception, per order of Colonel Brimstone.”
Spike told Megamouth he’d be right back and sprang twenty feet in the air, latching onto the peak of a tree. For miles and miles around he could only see forest, and could not remember the direction of the Crypt. After uncoiling from around the trunk, he dropped to the floor of the thicket, his two ridiculously sharp feet stabbing in like tent stakes.
“Damn it, loud mouth.”
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, “Only trees. I don’t see any way out of this place.”
Though they could endeavor into the woods, if they encountered Brimstone a provocation would occur. Spike wasn’t concerned about losing a fight, but wasn’t sure he could practice discretion and shadowtize Brimstone. Shadows had a way of sneaking off and becoming very troublesome.
“Guess our options are limited,” Spike said. “We go through the forest.”
However, as they started to walk away, Spike was startled by his loud mouth brother.
“Oh, oh, oh! Oh, wait!”
Spike turned towards the behemoth. “What?”
Rufus cupped his tiny hands around Megamouth’s ears, whispering a secret. The giant brother stupidly shook his head, his mouth hanging open.
“Remember? Me have shit wings! I can fly us home.”
The frame was still gripped in his hands, a large crack cutting it down the middle.
“What about your collection?”
Megamouth looked down at the frame that was nestled into his chest. He removed one of his hands and started to dig through his pocket. His hand reappeared holding an item that looked like a larger Swiss Army knife.
“Watch my new tool!”
The massive brother bent over and gently placed the frame on the ground. Rufus nearly fell of his shoulder, at the last moment grabbing his owner’s lapel.
Megamouth opened the tool, flipping an appendage that looked like a flashlight. He pressed a button on the side and a suctioning sound began. The frame warped, expanded, shrank until it was small as a cherry, and then vanished inside of the tool.
“For safe’s keeping!” he accidentally yelled.
Spike didn’t know what to make of the tool. So far as he knew shrinking tools were exclusive to his father’s professed enemies (five of the toughest creatures in the universe), known as the Flagrant Five.
“Where’d you get that?”
Megamouth stared, dumbfounded, at the device in his hand. Then, as if just remembering a question he was asked, snapped loudly “Me made it with bare hands!”
The behemoth showed his palms to Spike, all callused and worn, the skin peeling off. He was the only one of the brothers who’d had limited mobility, able to walk around within the belly of the volcano, Mount Pus. He was always Father’s favorite. However, Spike wasn’t sure of what he would have made the device. Where could he have possibly gotten the tools necessary?
“Ready to fly?” Megamouth asked.
Spike shook his head in amazement; sometimes his idiot brother truly surprised him. “As ready as I’m going to be.”
Megamouth grabbed Spike around the thin waist, holding him with the sort of strength reserved for a body builder. Then, Spike could hear a flapping of wings and the ground began to fade. The forest ahead stretched for as far as the eye could see, just one mass of ceaseless evergreens. Spike coiled around Megamouth’s hand, as an extra precaution. Though, he knew his Herculean brother would refuse to let him drop.
Spike tried his best to ignore the stench, but after hours and hours of flying the smell began to wear Spike down. It was the reason he’d originally opted to walk when they landed in the forest. The breeze was stagnant and the only wind was created of the vile wings, directed straight downward toward Spike’s face. Patience had always been one of his greatest virtues, but this most recent awakening seemed to have changed that.
Megamouth contained a sort of internal compass, intuiting him to certain places or things, but the trip seemed to be taking longer than necessary.
“How much farther, do you think?” Spike asked.
“Can’t you see?” he bellowed, abruptly.
Sure enough, spread out on the horizon was the expansive Havenshaw Crypt, the cemetery for the entire world. It wouldn’t be long before they were home to father, and able to discover why he’d awoken them. Hopefully, thought Spike, his father’s position on the Flagrant Five could be changed. He really was ready to spill some blood.
CHAPTER 4
BEING SUCH A heavy mass, it was difficult for Carbie to tread lightly, but he tried to move as swiftly and quietly as possible. The forest was barren where it had once thrived with thousands of species. There had been Goltens (volcanic golems of a very gentle sort), Marchovies (troops of fish-headed men who were able to sustain on land and water), Barges (an unusually vicious creature made from litter), and even Piestols (fresh blueberry pie beasts able to launch rotten berries at predato
rs).
Barges and Piestols had all but been killed off by Colonel Brimstone. The Marchovie and Golten populations were staggering and not much higher. There were other beautiful creatures of the forest as well, but they were forced to migrate. It made life easier, only having to worry about capture from Brimstone rather than falling prey to a creature, but was indeed a sad complication.
Carbie sliced away vines and branches using the sharp edges of his hands. Ten years before, just previous to the last stretch of sleep, he spent hours rubbing them against a whet stone, prepping to divorce Ignatius’s head from his body. How he would have loved to slice it clean off like the big round end of a pepperoni stick, watch the fucker’s blood spill like liquid candy from a piñata.
He hacked through a sapling, dove, and tumbled over a fell tree. They grew up out of nowhere in seconds, died in days. It boggled Carbie’s mind why the Five had never discovered a method of using the trees instead of shrinking children for their sick election. Could they not paint and carve the trees?
Yet, it was not up to Carbie. The Five had ruled the world for so long as anyone alive could remember. If it wasn’t Manservant Genesis pushing people to join his side, it was Brimstone, or Ignatius. They were large and powerful, and no one possessed the ability to overtake them, including the brothers. It had long been their father’s personal mission to turn them all to shadows and lock them away, restore order to the world. Carbie was starting to think the plan would never work.
Over the following hill Carbie was able to run much faster because of the widened trail. For one reason or another he was oblivious to the fact that trails don’t typically expand so wide in the forest, because the trees grow in such expedition. He was also unaware to being hot on someone else’s trail, unaware that ahead was a group who would’ve been more desirable to meet alongside his brothers. So, he continued on along the path of crushed bushes and mashed trees, grape vines devastated, and general destruction.
THEY’D FLOWN DIRECTLY over Colonel Brimstone’s embargo. It took all that Spike had to remain levelheaded and to not have Megamouth drop him like a paratrooper into the woods. Instead they landed safely as a pair (trio if you included Rufus) on the grounds on Havenshaw Crypt. They passed the familiar grey, chipping sign outside of the stone wall and entered through the black metal door, which was held closed by three vertical clasps.
Inside, the lights were not ignited. So Spike cranked up his lighter and sparked the flint. He eased the flame toward the oil and the fire spread in a thin strip along the spanning walls, in both directions. The tunnels were equally vacant and gloomy as he remembered.
“Daddy!” Megamouth shouted, and it echoed through the narrow halls.
Spike slapped him with one metal hand. It accidentally stabbed through Megamouth’s suit and into his plastic body.
“Ouch! What if I told on you?”
“Go for it,” Spike replied.
He could smell sulfur and walked cautiously toward the staircase directly across from the entrance. Something didn’t feel right. Something was completely amiss.
As they began to descend the wide stairwell, Spike could smell the stagnancy of an old candle, could see the snakes of smoke teasing the underground walls forged of skulls and bones. They seemed to be laughing at him, humored by his ignorance. His gait enhanced, worried for his father’s safety. Megamouth lumbered behind, yelling for Spike to “Wait up!”, but he didn’t slow.
At the bottom of the long stairs the hall opened into the massive chamber filled with sarcophagi and coffins, and oddly… walking corpses. How, Spike marveled, were beasts and men who were supposed to be no longer alive, walking about the room? Father was the only one in the known universe with the power to summon the dead, and he would never have granted it all back. Almost every coffin was lidless. Mummies had broken the restraints of their sarcophagi and walked about unheeded.
Megamouth released a resounding “Wow!” when he happened upon the scene and Spike was again forced to slap the back of his plastic head. The dead lacked the capability to control emotion, due mostly to the deterioration of the mind, but also from their jealousy towards those who still could eat, breathe, and speak. It instilled the last sentient part of their brain to yearn for the destruction of that which they could never again attain.
“You loud mouth,” Spike said, as the dead turned in unison to face them.
“Look what you’ve done. We’re fucked. These assholes are going to tear us to pieces.”
“Sorry. So sorry...”
“Don’t be sorry. Just watch it! Let’s move before they reach us.”
Spike felt like a babysitter and a protector for his youngest brother sometimes. He was a terror to control, but when used correctly could destroy battalions, could menace an entire stronghold singlehandedly. Keeping him under your thumb was the extremely difficult part.
They treaded along the back wall of the chamber, skeletal arms reaching out from the border between leering skulls and bony legs, which tried to run. Being the largest room, and therefore containing the principal quantity of deceased, the two brothers were aware of the need to swiftly depart. Yet, the minions of the dead wanted no part in letting them escape. They shambled ever closer, some of them in rapid decay and their pace reflecting, others freshly dead and moving with the same exhilaration.
A group of creatures blocked the exit leading to Father’s home. Spike readied for battle by bending his metal fingers into claws while he ran. They were thin, but sharp, and with enough force could tear through any materials, human, troll, Gary, or otherwise.
Speaking of Garys, he noticed a few of the dead were Garys. They were easy to pick out of a crowd, for they were all identical——black freckles, bushy brown hair, slightly green skin. Such an easily conquerable race thought Spike, easily controlled, easily manipulated, and easy to destroy if need be (especially dead ones).
Spike swam through the crypt air, between floating pieces of tissue and bacteria. His right hand ripped a Gary’s arm off and flung it at another’s head, which with due force tore free and splattered against a wall of compound bones. After he flipped over the pack and into the anticipating hall, he could see Megamouth pounding human bodies into Gary bodies, smashing them together like action figures, while wearing a look of determined anger. Rufus was gripping Megamouth’s suit lapel, wearing a wide O-mouth.
“C’mon, hurry it up,” Spike yelled through the melee.
Megamouth looked up, saw his brother waiting in the hall, and nodded. He swiveled in a circle, letting his megaphone blare the deafening cry of a foghorn. Heads exploded and bodies fell on top of each other, creating piles of rotting bloody corpses. One of the fell Garys tried to grab Megamouth’s foot, but he accidentally stepped on the things skull, crushing it like a walnut.
“Oops!” he cried.
They made haste down the following stairwell, finally reaching the door to their father’s home, where they’d all been crafted and grown. Spike opened the door.
The inside was dark and charred. There was no light or shadows. The walls were burnt completely and Spike marveled the small wooden house——constructed inside of the crypt——had not collapsed. Father was nowhere to be seen. Since he was no longer present in the Crypt, it was the reason the dead could re-animate. It also meant that Manservant Genesis was free.
CHAPTER 5
HE HADN’T HEARD them coming, hadn’t seen the cage falling, but sure enough Carbie was captured. The material encasing his body was not something Carbie ever encountered. He slammed against the bars, but they were reinforced so that his cardboard arms bounced right off.
The sentinels stood guard outside the cage, looking in with their arms crossed. Their red eyes glowed darkly in their sockets, which were carved into wolven faces. These were the keepers of the forest, paid with blood by Colonel Brimstone. They were deathly silent and moved with such grace Carbie hadn’t time to react.
One minute he was chugging along on the outskirts of the forest (he co
uld actually see the boundaries) the next he was caged up like an animal. Worst of all, was the silence as they stood there. They spoke no words, simply eyeballed him. He could hear the one they answered to headed his way——the pounding footsteps, the falling trees, the roar of the ensuing flames.
The trees in line with his vision swayed powerfully before falling. He could have been wrong, but Carbie sensed the slight hint of a smirk on the sentinels’ faces as the broad side of a giant grey animal came into sight. Colonel Brimstone led the pack, drowning the forest with his flamethrower in passing. Trees took to flame and he cackled in response, the inconsiderate prick.
Even across the distance, Carbie could see the gap between his teeth, could see the perspiration on his monocle, dripping down into his handlebar mustache. He pulled the trigger on the flamethrower and shot fire into the branches, tilting his head back and cackling as the flames poured free of the gun. They engulfed one of the Colonel’s men and he fell free of his elephant, scorching the side of the beast. Its trunk swung wantonly back and patted out the fire spreading on its leathery back, unflinching, as if it’d happened a thousand times before. Brimstone pointed at the flailing, screaming body, still rolling with laughter and disrespect.
He held his hand into the air, “Stop!”
The riders pulled on their reigns and some of the elephants reared. Once the group settled——and the only noise the ocean of fire, spreading through the greens——Brimstone swung off his animal and landed softly on the ground. The sentinels spread out, vanishing back into the woods on his approach. Carbie crossed his arms in an attempt to feign fearlessness. However, he couldn’t feel sure of himself without his brothers.
Brimstone slung the gun behind his back so that only the strap crossed over his chest. From his right side he withdrew a whip, which had been hooked under his belt. The tails of the weapon cracked over Carbie’s cheek, sending the pile of cardboard into the bars behind.