Wacktards of the Apocalypse

by Jon Moon; Timothy Long

  “It does matter! There are people coming out of the ground. Dead people. Zombies! And we just shot a crapload of them. What the hell is going on?”

  “Those weren’t zombies,” Marcel snaps. “Those were … I don’t know what, but there’s no such thing as zombies.”

  “And I suppose there’s no such thing as angels either?”

  “Not since I shot it down!”

  The bubbling green goo that is the ex-angel smells like sewage, and the girls take a step back, pinching their noses.

  “That ain’t no fucking angel.” Marcel touches Edwina’s shoulder softly.

  “What the hell is going on?!” Edwina screams.

  Apocalyptic Stank

  Chuzz sits at the dinner table for a few minutes. He puts his head on his crossed arms and closes his eyes. Stuff rains down from the shattered roof, but he tunes it out for a few minutes. Save the world? That is just ri-goddamn-diculous.

  After dozing for a quarter of an hour, he lifts his head and takes a deep breath.

  “Should at least see what the crazy guy left,” he mutters to the room.

  The angel’s gifts turn out to be children’s toys and gadgets. There’s a Stretch Bangstrom that he pulls at for a while. The world may be burning around him, but he hasn’t seen one of these in over twenty years, and he intends to enjoy it. Stretch here, stretch there. Stretch Bangstrom stretches Evvvverywhere.

  The old commercial is fresh in his mind. He always wanted one, but Mom said men don’t play with dolls. They don’t play with their cocks either, but Chuzz had spent an awful lot of time sticking his into various things about the house.

  There is a toy with demonic images on it. A lever on the side resembles a big red dick. He pulls it, and an arrow in the center spins around and around until it stops over a pair of demons engaged in anal sex. A high-pitched voice comes out the back. “Fuck you too!”

  He almost drops the thing.

  He pulls it again and it rumbles. Then the earth shakes, and a bright red beam shoots out and rips another hole in the ceiling. Then the next floor, and at last the roof. He moves it, and the beam obliges by incinerating whatever it touches. And not quietly. The sound is immense, like a million bees all chattering with their buzzing wings.

  He hits the lever again, and this time it clunks. Emits a smell like ammonia and goes silent. He carefully sets it down.

  He picks up a short microphone that looks like it came from an American Idiot game. There are little red and green buttons all over the side, and when he pushes them, crazy things happens, things that freak him out. One makes the house shift sideways. He can feel the foundation pick itself up and just move. He hits the button and the house moves again.

  He shakes his head and hits another button. A pink string appears under his feet and snaps from the ground to the bottom of the mike. He almost drops the thing again. Instead he hurries back downstairs, and kicks Phil on his way to the bathroom. The pink string follows, and even when he puts it in his pocket, the stupid thing loops out the side of his pants and into the ground.

  A whole day of weird, and this is the freakiest yet.

  He chugs back a pair of Ativan and washes them down with water. Old faucet creaks and groans when he turns the handle. He leans over and takes a big old swallow, then another. Clean and cold. Just right. He opens his mouth wide and chugs more before a lump gets stuck in his throat.

  He backpedals and falls on his ass. Phil jumps up and down and does his monkey screech, which is the equivalent of a big fuck you laugh.

  The hell? He spits and belches and spits again. Tasted like piss and shit. Sure did, and when he stands up and looks at the faucet, he is horrified to see sewage running out of it. Guess the shifting house caused that. The shifting house? The shitting house!

  Nathan P. Chuzzle wants to go back to bed. He wants to hide under the covers and wait for all of this to pass as surely it must. It’s probably all the pills catching up with him. He tried to warn Mom that it was too much, but she insisted. He isn’t bipolar, doesn’t even know what the word means. He also doesn’t have posttraumatic stress disorder from the clown days, no matter what she says. He can look a clown in the eye just as well as anyone else.

  He took too much and is over the edge. That must be it. He looks at the wreckage of the room, at the smashed furniture and at the ripped-open walls and ceiling. He looks down at his pants where his hard cock sticks out like a tent.

  He closes his eyes and takes the microphone out of his pocket. He holds it up and opens his eyes, sure that when he does the string will be gone and it will be a toy again.

  But it’s not.

  “SHIT AND COCKBUGS!” he screams. Phil bounces around behind him again, shrieking at the ceiling.

  The microphone starts talking about Cockbugs. Starts singing about them all bouncy and peppy like it’s a kids song. It drives Chuzz right up against his last shred of sanity and twangs it like a loose guitar string. Twang twang. Twang! Shine your ebony guitar neck for a dollar Twang twang TWANG! Chuzz shakes his head and resists the urge to impale himself on a sharpened kitchen broom jammed in the bathroom drain. Tried to dig out a turd after Phil thought he could take a bath in the tub. Filled it all the way to the top and forgot to turn off the water. Stuff went everywhere like a mini flood. Took Chuzz days to clean up, but the turds stayed deep in the drain. He pretty much gave up on showers after that. Fucking Phil.

  He checks his computer, but it is dead. Won’t boot up. Won’t even flicker. Weird, because the lights in the house are on. He hits the power button again, and the vacuum flies out of the closet. It smashes against the wall, and a little red creature falls off and rolls over a couple of times. It comes to a rest, and a fire starts around it. Chuzz looks around for something with which to put out the flames.

  He snatches the glass off the bathroom counter and fills it with shit water, trying—unsuccessfully—not to get any on his hand, and then runs at the fire and tosses the stuff on it. The sludge splatters against the wall, the floor. It goes everywhere and smells like shit. Just like shit.

  “‘Cause it is shit,” he says.

  “Cockbugs!” the little demon screams and spits out a finger, no, a little penis that wriggles around. “Had to be water! Two thousand years old and I get taken out by shit water. What a fucking waste.” And the little thing shakes, compresses like a balloon out of air, and bursts into hunks of meat that smell worse than the shit water.

  Nathan P. Chuzzle has had some weird stuff happen in his life, and maybe he goes about the glory hole thing a little oddly, maybe a lot oddly. But he is not used to angels and demons popping up around him.

  Nor is he used to teleporting microphones that speak to him in a weird, stilted computer voice.

  “Chuzz … that you?”

  “What?”

  “Chuzz? You on a microphone or something?”

  Chuzz looks at the thing and hits the little green knob on the side. A blast of reverb nearly deafens him and rearranges his hair. His ears ring, and the microphone dances in his grip. He speaks into it.

  “Leon?”

  “Chuzz? That you?”

  “Leon?”

  “Chuzz, what in the blue vision fuck is going on? Are you trapped inside the pussy?”

  “Am I trapped inside the what? Are you out of your mind? How did you know about the blue shit?”

  “Blue fucking what? Never mind! I don't want to alarm you, Chuzz, but your voice is booming from something I fucked last night. The strange thing is, it doesn't really shock me. I think the world is ending, Chuzz.”

  “It’s not ending. It’s over. The craziest shit is going on.”

  “You’re telling me, Brother.”

  “I just had an angel visit me. He came inside and drank a beer, gave me a bunch of weird weapons and then flew off and was shot down by a missile. Oh man, Leon, it is good to hear your voice after the morning I'm having.”

  “No shit. What the hell is happening, Chuzz? Is this really the end
, or does the government just want us to think it is the end?”

  “The end. It's the end! I just killed a demon with shit water, Leon, and this gadget makes the place move, and if this is the government fucking with us, it’s a damn good trick. Everything is blue right now. BLUE! But that might be from the half bottle of Viagra I took on accident. BLUE! FUCKING BLUE!”

  “Okay, Chuzz, you have to calm down. If shit water kills them, then we can fight back! As someone constantly pushed around and fucked with, I refuse to die at the hands of some damn demon!”

  “You're right. Calm down. Phew. But what the hell do we do now? What do we DO? I can’t take shit water with me. It’s, like, this stuff that comes out of my faucet.”

  “Figure it out, Brother. We have to stop it! We can band together and attack the Apocalypse before it attacks us! Where are you, Chuzz? Are the Four Horsemen upon us already? I have to talk to Bud and the three priests at the church I clean; they can fill me in. It was insanely busy yesterday. I guess everyone else knew the world was ending.”

  “Attack the Apocalypse! Are you insane?”

  The old TV in the corner clicks on, and a beautiful woman stands on screen. She is dressed in a sharp business suit complete with a collar around her neck. Her eyes are darkened, surrounded by something so red it has to be blood. She holds a microphone shaped like a dildo.

  “Hang on. Something’s on the screen.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hang the fuck on!”

  Silence from the irritating device. Then it starts click click clicking. Twang twang, there goes his sanity again. No, hold on! Hold on! He shakes his head and turns his attention to the screen.

  The woman stands in front of a giant sign made out of body parts and flashing red and green lights. They spell out two words. SIN CITY.

  The landscape is changing. Shifting, altering. Sand is tossed in the air, and then the ground buckles. A giant hole opens up and everything around it turns red. A pair of hills rise out of the ground.

  “We’re standing live before the greatest spectacle the world has ever seen. He is back and he is pissed. So hold on to your butts, ladies and gentlemen. The end is here and so is he. I present to you. At last. The tower of power, the greatest gift to humanity ever. Even better than sex. Really. TRUST me on this one.” And she leans in to leer at the screen. She licks her blood-red lips and pants and huffs and puffs like she is having an orgasm.

  “Just kidding. It’s him! The Father of Lies. Oh my …” then the screen goes blank and Chuzz thinks about the sharpened stick in his bathroom again.

  “Let’s do it, Leon. Meet in Vegas. That’s where this is all going down! We can handle it. And Gabriel left me some stuff to use. Stuff we can fight back with. I'll bring everything!”

  “Sweet! We will beat the Apocalypse for every turned-up nose and every turned-down loan. We will decide our fates, Chuzz, instead of being tools for the Devil! We can meet somewhere between us. If we need a home base, Bud has a bomb shelter in the basement of Jerome's shop. We need to know where the Devil has risen. Washington DC? Hollywood? Or Las Vegas?”

  “Trust me, it’s Vegas. I just saw it on TV. I'd get on the net if I could, but my computer just took a shit. I want to beat the Devil. You want to beat the Devil and ... wait, who the fuck is Bud?”

  “Bud lives in a bomb shelter under the sex shop. Gray-haired fella, drives a spaceship. He knows more than me. He was telling me about the Devil rising and shit. We need guns! I'll go to the sheriff station and see if anybody’s left alive. Hopefully not, because then I can grab some of them sweet fucking shotguns!”

  “Okay, you bring guns and I’ll bring these crazy toys.”

  “And Chuzz, is Phil off the heroin yet? We may need him at the top of his one-armed monkey game.”

  “Fucking Phil hasn't had a clean day in years. Maybe I should leave him. I'll think about that. I'm heading your way. Vegas, here I come. I’ll be the guy flying a house or something. See you on the other side mutha fuckaaaaa …”

  “Flying? Uh OK. We'll be in touch! Stay fucking safe out there, Chuzz!”

  Foolish Weaver of Intricate Insults

  Father Maniwhore rants and raves at the increasingly large crowd of people seeking atonement in the face of the coming Apocalypse. He pounds his fist and screams so loud, his spit flies seven rows. It splatters across pale scared faces. Sweat drips down his long goatish face. His booming voice increases in volume when the sound of demons descending on the town creates a wave of panic that grips the enthralled throng.

  The sound of clawed feet scratching at the old brick building echoes down on them. Father Maniwhore raises his arms and tells the gathering of frightened flesh that doom is upon them!

  Finally, after all this time, he will attract his demon father with the ancient symbols he has studied over the years. The elaborate images he has carved into the building’s stone roof and outer walls, all to call his demon father home during the end days.

  Father Maniwhore is only half demon; his father a full-blooded badass big-dicked demon and his mother a full-blooded white trash crack whore. Dad went back to Hell, and Mom dropped him off at the church in accordance with Dad’s instructions. Maniwhore’s father built the church, but he couldn’t handle wearing the human suit that was required to run it. The human suit itched and pinched his prick when he walked. So he ditched the suit and the hooker and left the church to the young Maniwhore. As little Maniwhore grew, he adopted the title of Father, though he had not been trained for the priesthood. That’s what Father Michaels was for. Father Maniwhore had lived his whole life for the moment that was now upon him and those unlucky enough to find themselves in his half-unholy presence.

  Great chunks of the stone ceiling crack from the force of the hellborn creatures pounding on it from above. Father Michaels and Father O’Coddle fight through the panicked gridlock surrounding the confession booths. They are just in time to see a large section of roof fall and crush two pews filled with last-minute worshipers. Rays of sunlight, dirty with soot and ash, shine through the massive hole in the ceiling. Several horned heads appear at the rim of the hole to peer down at the speechless crowd.

  Once the majority of the dust settles, one of the demons leans down into the church. Its long goatish face quivers with unbridled fury as it speaks, “Who amongst you is the foolish weaver of intricate insults in stone?”

  Father O’Coddle looks from the demon to Father Maniwhore, standing behind his pulpit with his arms in the air and a look on his face like he just shat himself. Even Father O’Coddle’s meth-addled brain recognizes the family resemblance.

  After a minute of awkward silence, Father Michaels crosses himself and shouts up at the goat-faced creature, “Leave here, foul demon!”

  The demon scoffs, tears a chunk from the ceiling and throws it down at Father Michaels. It misses the priest, but brains the young lady standing next to him with a sick thud. Father Michaels scoots a few steps from the dead girl, who remains on her feet because it is too crowded for her body to fall. He shouts again, “Leave here, foul demon!”

  “Okay,” the demon says tearing loose another chunk of brick. “I get it. It wasn’t you. But you make me sick anyway.”

  With that he hurls his missile, again missing his target. This time, it caves in the skull of a fat man, and the crowd can’t hold his dead weight. He tips over, crushing people under his girth and against one wall of the church. Upon seeing the chaos caused by the brick, the other demons begin ripping away bricks and stones and throwing them down at the crowd. Father Michaels pushes his way through the mob, screaming his refrain of “Leave here, foul demon!” Soon the crowd is decimated as the demons tear the church down brick by brick and stone the congregation to death. Midway through the slaughter, Father Maniwhore slinks dejectedly out of the church and Father O’Coddle follows, dodging falling bricks as he runs.

  Eventually, the six goat-faced demons stand perched on the remnants of the walls catching their infernal breath while Father
Michaels, streaked with the gore of others but still very much alive, runs back and forth across the half-buried crowd screaming, “Leave here, foul demons!”

  The six demons exchange indignant looks, then dive in and disembowel Father Michaels the old-school way. Through his ass.

  Junk Monkey Perfector

  Nathan Chuzzle is going out of his fucking mind.

  He holds the toy and contemplates the conversation he just had with Leon. The crazy shit he just said. The crazier shit his friend said. He wants to grab Phil and run away, find a nice underground shelter and wait for the world to end, but the flying dude told him he would save the world. He can’t save the world; he can’t even save his own monkey from what is going down.

  The house shakes, and Phil rouses his hairy body from his pillow in the corner. He looks around with big eyes and then focuses on Chuzz. Phil smacks his arm and looks at his owner like the addict he is.

  “Ah sorry, Phil! I forgot!” He dashes back to the bathroom, which is threatening to secede from the rest of the house. A deep fissure opens up as the bathroom slides away. Chuzz jumps and lands on the linoleum floor then falls to his knees as the impact of his bulk on his sore foot makes him holler. He tucks the little microphone into the back pocket of his pants so he doesn’t lose the crazy thing. The pink string obligingly disappears when he turns the microphone off.

  He goes for the lock box and realizes he’s left his keys in the other room, so he’ll have to carry the damn thing. With a groan, he tears it off the wall and hobbles to the door. The fissure is deeper than he thought possible. It stretches away, and deep deep down in the hole he sees flamelike flashes of orange and red. Could that be the center of the Earth?