by D. M. Guay
“Devourer?” I didn't like the sound of that.
“The fish dude eats Loverboy, then he gets to eat the world. Human civilization ends, then fish guy remakes it into a steaming hot Eden for giant bugs and fishes, a steaming primordial sea of nightmares. My guess is fish man's on his way, and octopus guy's gonna slingshot Loverboy right into its mouth. Then, that's it. Game over, man. Game. Over.”
“What do we do?”
“Desperate times, desperate measures, kid,” he said. “I'll distract them. You free Bubby and close the gate before fish guy shows up. If you can't close the gate, get the critters out of alignment. Got it?”
“But...how?”
Kevin didn't answer. He crawled down my leg, up the counter, into the doughnut case and right up onto a devil's food doughnut with chocolate frosting.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking a chance, kid,” Kevin said. “Look. I'm a roach. Even if these dicks destroy the human world, I'll survive. My life already sucks. If these guys take over, it'll suck even harder. Trust me. That's saying something.”
Kevin chomped down into the doughnut. “Mmm. This is pretty good.” He took another bite. “Holy cow. This is amazing.” He turned back to me, his mouth circled in chocolate frosting and said, “If I don't make it, tell my roommates they're total dickheads, I hate them, and I hope they all die horrible deaths.”
With that, he dug in. As in devoured that doughnut in record time. His body vibrated. “Oof. Here we go. Hold on to your butt, kid.”
He convulsed and writhed and shook, and...grew? He doubled in size. He vibrated and shook and doubled again. Then tripled. He looked like a roach-shaped party balloon being inflated by a helium tank. Soon, he was as long as I was tall. “This is awesome!” He swiveled his roach head back toward me and said, “Press play, then kick some ass.”
He swallowed two more devil's food chocolate frosted doughnuts whole, opened his wings, and fluttered over the counter. A shiver ran over me. Roaches can fly? Blech.
By the time Kevin reached the open jagged hole of glass that used to be the front door, he was about two stories tall, his body smooth, flat and wide. He stuck his roach butt into the broken shell of the doorway and entirely sealed it off, just in time to stop the Flamin' Hot Crunchy Cheetos gnats from escaping. Tristan was still face down on the asphalt in the parking lot, writhing against the tentacle holding him in place.
“All right, boys,” Kevin announced. He slid into his best Mortal Kombat Johnny Cage stance, with some extra arms, but still. Kevin was ready to rumble. The hell beasts looked at him. “Which one of your asses am I gonna kick first?”
Chapter 19
Free Bubby, close the gate. Okay. Okay. I had to stick to the plan.
Kevin was in attack mode, butt firmly blocking the door, legs punching and karate-kicking Bizo, who refused to move out of his corner. The other monsters watched, but they didn't move from their spots, either. Huh. Kevin said they were in some sort of ceremonial configuration, just like in the picture, aligned to open the gate and let the hungry fish cross over. That wasn't good, but maybe that meant they wouldn't chase me if I tucked and rolled over to the beer cave to help Bubby.
Bizo seemed glued to his spot, no matter how hard Kevin punched him. Bubby struggled, still strapped in the corner. The octopus didn't move, just held tight to Tristan, the midnight snack who was outside the store, pressed against Kevin's butt. The spider was the only one active. He was shooting a web into the vortex like he was sending a rope into the gate.
Uh. Oh. Unless you're the fat guy in gym class, a rope can be climbed. Gulp. Or he's fishing. What if it was fishing line?
I heard a scream. “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!”
No. A battle cry.
DeeDee ran right at the spider's butt. The red light from the gate reflected off something metal in her hand. A sword? That's right, girl. Cut the line! She jumped in the air, put the thing to her mouth and a sad little honk fizzled out of it. Wait, that wasn't a sword. It was one of those weird little trumpets we had lying around everywhere. She blew it again. Honk. Honk. Honk.
It sounded like the squeeze horn I had on my bike when I was nine. Octopus guy began to ripple and writhe. The spider rolled its head and Bizo wrapped two tentacles around where his ears probably would be if he had a normal head. That tinny little honk seemed to really bother them. DeeDee kept honking, and the monsters recoiled.
This was it. This was my chance. I crawled over the counter and ran as fast as my beer gut and Pumas would carry me, sweating like I was an inch from the sun the entire way. Jesus, it was boiling in here! When I got to Bubby, he was wilting in the heat, whimpering in pain. “Hang in there, man.”
I grabbed a huge pair of heavy iron scissors out of the weapons cabinet and started cutting away at them. Webs slingshotted off but not nearly enough and not nearly fast enough.
Suddenly the room lit up. Some sort of bright green laser beam connected all the monsters, crisscrossing to make some sort of huge magical symbol that looped around them. One part of it shot straight into the center of the gate. Well, that wasn't good.
A big oval thing, glowing mean and yellow, like a lure bobbing on a line, emerged from the swirl of red. The octopus wriggled, its slimy tentacles slapping up and down, stretching down and out every aisle toward the gate, covering the floor. Tristan yelped and Kevin screamed “Hurry up!” as the octopus tried harder to pull Tristan inside.
“Cut Bubby loose, kid!” Kevin yelled, holding onto the door frame for dear life, holding his roach butt as hard as he could into the opening to keep Tristan out, as octopus guy tried to reel him in. The Flamin' Hot Crunchy Cheetos gnats thumped against Kevin's belly, desperate to escape.
“I'm trying!” I yelled.
A cavernous mouth lined with spiky fangs emerged from the angry red gate. It chomped up and down, breaking the spider web that had guided him out. Gulp. Fish guy. That yellow thing was his angler fish lure. And he was ready for lunch. The first thing he did was eat most of the aisle four end cap in one munch, crushing Honey Buns, oatmeal crème pies, and steel shelving like it was cooked spaghetti.
A gigantic icy white fish eye appeared next to me. Woah boy. Was it too late to run?
I'd never seen anything so horrifying and disgusting. Its scaly body was lined with sacs of milky liquid. Black dots moved inside of them. Oh, Jesus. Babies. It brought babies. Fish dude was a fish chick, ready to populate the world with more monster fish. Nope. I'm not gonna run. This is my last chance to do right. I have to try. I gulped hard and focused on Bubby, yanking, and cutting and loosening.
The gate opened far enough to knock Bubby's TV off one hinge. It dangled there in the corner, hanging on for dear life, just above the spider, and sparked on. Bubby's wrestling DVD must have been playing this whole time, because a guy had just stepped into the ring and said something about shamrocks and gold dust?
Bubby turned toward the screen. He couldn't see it. Fish chick's head was in the way. Bubby's expression changed, from sadness to resolve. Bubby pulled so hard against his bindings, they started to break. They cut into him, drawing blue gooey-blood, and he yelped in pain, but one popped, then another and another. Holy shit. Bubby wanted to see wrestling so badly he was freeing himself!
“Keep it up, Bubby!” I chopped at the webs, but I didn't need to.
Bubby writhed and pulled until he broke free and lurched forward. The green laser light linking all the creatures fizzled and went out. Bubby clawed away the webs on his mouth and howled. The Flamin' Hot Crunchy Cheetos gnats stopped thumping Kevin, took one look at Bubby's now-open saw mouth and scattered in all directions. That didn't save them. A few seconds later, Bubby was sucking them in, eviscerating them into mustard pus guts. Well, snap. Bubby was powering up with a late-night snack. When he'd finished them all off, his razor saw mouth was coated in bright orange Cheetos dust. He howled like a werewolf on the full moon.
The other monsters recoiled at the sound. Boy, they really hated nois
e. A moment later, Bubby was completely out of the gate, limping through what used to be the chip aisle. He grabbed a bag of Smart Pop and flipped the spider the bird.
“Hit the switch!” DeeDee yelled. She was crouched below the TV. The spider looked down at her, and she honked the tinny trumpet at it.
I flipped the manual override switch. The red vortex went still, sparked, then starting swirling in the other direction. It was still angry and red, but the edges began to recede. Yes! Yes! Yes!
Bubby, now furious and armed with a half dozen bags of Smart Pop, arched his back, opened his pincers wide and unleashed some sort of angry low-pitched lion's roar at the spider. Then, he punched a spider leg out of the way so he could see the television. The magical green laser fizzled out because Bubby was out of formation.
The vortex was shrinking quickly. It had closed in around fish chick, squeezing her tight. Her mouth had stopped chomping and her eye had receded. The gate was squeezing her back in.
Yes. Take that! Ha!
The Spider was stomping, angry, its head going up and down, eyeballing the edges of the closing gate. That's when Kevin screamed. “Grab him, kid! Or we're toast!”
I turned back to see Tristan flying through the air, straight at fish chick's mouth. No!
As Tristan tumbled through the air right at those giant dagger teeth, time slowed to the speed of oozing molasses. I reached out for Tristan. I ran toward him, but my legs were lead weights, fighting against the cosmic heaviness of watching the world end. Tristan flew toward that fish like he was on a greasy Slip 'n' Slide leading straight into her belly. He was only a few yards away from doom, still totally unaware of what was really happening, when something red shot up out of where the candy aisle once stood. The red thing arced through the air. It was a blood-red creature with wings and long, pointy ears. Wearing a blue cop uniform? Chewing on a Twizzler?
No way. In its monstrous features, I could just make out the faint hint of Morty's face. He was full-on red now, his human disguise fallen away and his demon incubus nature revealed. He flew right at Tristan, arms out, and caught him just as his tragically hip boot was snapped up by a fish incisor. The fish reared up and opened wide, swallowing the shoe. Then it looked a little confused, kinda how I'd feel if a pizza roll was snatched right out of the air the second before it landed in my mouth.
Morty flew Tristan, sacrificial snack, up up and straight through the front window, shattering the glass. They flew across the parking lot and right in through the front door of the Sinbad's gentleman's club.
I hate you, Tristan. You open the gate to hell, then get to look at naked titties while I'm left behind to battle all of your angry hell beasts. Dude. Life really isn't fair, is it?
The hell gate was still closing. Its edges were crunching in hard around the fish, cutting at him. Uh, her? She was straining, trying to keep it open, but wasn't winning. It was pushing her back in. Yes!
The other monsters didn't like this one bit. They writhed and slapped and punched against the walls, breaking out chunks of concrete blocks. Bizo was so mad one of his fwapping angry tentacles busted a hole through the ceiling and right on up out of the roof above him. The creatures seemed hell-bent on tearing the store apart.
Ha. Too late, suckers. The world's not going to end tonight! All that was left of fish chick was one eye, half a mouth, and her creepy glowing lure. Yes! We've won. Take that!
Bubby had gone full-on Charles Bronson. He was stabbing spider bits with the sharp-tipped ends of his legs, shooting that watery poison goop at it, and as you can guess, the spider was not happy about it. It clicked its fangs and prepared to fight.
“We've got to send them all back, so they can't make the formation again. It's the only way!” DeeDee had slunk away from the spider, rolled past the fish, and was running toward me.
Then Bubby howled, a sound so deep and long and pained, it shattered every remaining bottle of beer or barbecue sauce in the store. DeeDee and I looked up just in time to watch the angry spider spear Bubby through the gut with one leg, skewering him like a big blue kabob. He cried. His blue goo blood was everywhere.
“No!!!!” DeeDee screamed and tried to run for him. “Bubby!”
I grabbed her. “We can help him some other way.”
I pointed at the counter. Still untouched, still standing, stocked with rocks and weird shit we might be able to use. We had to regroup. Dude. Anyone who'd ever played Halo or The Walking Dead game knew you had to regroup every once in a while.
Of course, getting to the counter was a different story. The floor was completely covered in writhing octopus tentacles. DeeDee hopped up on one and sprinted off, straight at the counter, hopscotching around suction cups like she was on the playground. I watched DeeDee jump up off a tentacle, do a somersault right over the counter, then disappear behind the register.
Oh well, if she can do it. I swallowed hard. It was now or never. The universe didn't give second chances. I stepped onto an octopus leg and started running. Okay, more like Fred Flintstone-ing, my feet shuffling and slipping across slime. It wasn't fast, and it wasn't pretty. My shoes were soaking wet and covered in octopus goo, but I eventually made it to the counter. I jumped. I tucked. I rolled and landed gut first right into the hard edge of the counter. Again. Ow.
I struggled to lift one leg then the other up onto the counter where I lay for a second, beached like a whale, before mustering the ab strength to roll over onto the floor next to DeeDee. Don't let anyone lie to you. I don't care how much adrenaline you've got, you don't magically turn into Superman in a crisis.
“This isn't going so great.” I panted, way out of breath. Dude. I couldn't remember the last time I'd worked out that hard. Oh wait, now I remember: Never.
“Are you kidding? We've got them right where we want them.” She smiled, but it was a 'yep, we're doomed' smile. For the first time ever, she looked scared. And sad. She looked at me for a few minutes, like she wanted to say something heavy, but she backtracked at the last minute. “Is the sword still inside of Bizosoth?”
“Yeah. I couldn't light it,” I said. “I'm sorry.”
“It's okay. All we have to do right now is send them back, one by one, so they can't open the gate again. That's it,” she said. “Are you ready, Lloyd? The world's counting on us.”
I said nothing. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes off the floor, stood up and pressed no sale on the register. The drawer slid open. She grabbed a gold coin and looked back at me. “Don't be scared, Lloyd. If we die, I'll find you. I know where the gate to heaven is. I'll get us there.”
She hopped over the counter, and she was gone.
If we die? Hold up a minute. She had a plan for that? Jesus. No wonder she was so cazh! She had a post-death Plan B! Something hit my foot. The angel eight ball. It hit me again. “Not now,” I said, pushing it away.
It pushed back. “Shut up and listen, punk,” the triangle said. “Desperate love will breach the gate.”
“Yeah. I know. That's already happened!”
“Remember Henrietta's prophecy.”
Henrietta? The old lady who gave me the stupid angel eight ball? “She's just a crazy old lady!”
“No, dumbass She's an oracle. She was giving you tools. Now use them!”
The ball rolled, and the triangle turned again. “In darkness, three rocks might save you.”
“What?”
“It's dark, so use the rocks,” triangle said.
“What?”
“Oh my God, I really do have to spell it out for you, don't I? Press play, dumbass!”
Press play? That's what Kevin said. Rocks. The stereo. The music! Okay. I deserved that. Duh. If a tinny honk from a half-assed trumpet could upset these epic hell beasts, if a snake monster could be subdued by a Michael Bolton CD, what would Ronnie James Dio do? Oh Kevin. You just might be a genius.
I hopped up. Wow. Shit was really going downhill in here. Bubby lay limp, bleeding and speared by a giant sp
ider leg, whimpering as the beast webbed him back into his corner. Yep. It was gonna try to open the gate again. Poor Bubby. His eyes flickered as if he was moving in and out of consciousness. At least he was alive.
Once Bubby was secured, the spider retreated back into its corner, into formation. The magical green beam buzzed back to life, wrapping around all the monsters. It dialed up to full power, and the end shooting into the vortex now looked like a big fish hook. The bits that were left of fish chick—basically just a mouth—chomped down on it.
DeeDee was tiptoeing across angry, writhing octopus tentacles over to Kevin and Bizo, who were wrapped around each other in a jumble of swinging roach legs and barbed tentacles. Kevin was trying to pull Bizo out of formation, but Bizo was fighting hard to stay in. They were toppling slushy machines and punching chunks out of the walls, rattling the store as they fought.
Another huge chunk of the ceiling above Bizo crumbled in, opening up to the clear, black October night. I could see stars. Another fwap, and Bizo had knocked down part of the wall between the front of the store and the employee lounge, leaving Chef standing there in the gap, in his dark shades and chef's hat, stone still and silent like he didn't know what the hell just happened.
“Chef!” I yelled. “Get out of the way!”
His head turned like he heard me, but if the scene unfolding in front of him bothered him, he didn't let on. He just stood there, sniffing the air.
But the jerk halo of tentacles didn't move, even as an avalanche of concrete blocks tumbled over him. None of the beasts did. They were still synced up, the green laser held steady, slowly but surely holding the demon angler fish out of the gate.
Okay, Lloyd. Focus! The music. That'll slow them down. Kevin's Zune was covered in chunks of broken glass, but the two stones were still wrapped in copper wire, hooked into the speakers. I brushed the glass off of the Zune and stood there for a hot minute, trying to figure out how to work the stupid thing. Jesus, Kevin. Why didn't you at least buy an iPod?