The End of Everything Forever

by Eirik Gumeny

  “I really, really hate Andy.”

  “It’s probably for the best anyway. I don’t have a car. Or shoes. Walking the three hundred miles back to New Jersey would be a pain in –”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Think of It as Recycling

  “Her phone died,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, staring at the handset.

  “Maybe she moved slightly,” offered Catrina.

  “Maybe she dropped it in the toilet,” conjectured Thor.

  “No, something’s wrong,” said Charlie.

  “Dropping your phone in the toilet can be pretty wrong,” explained the thunder god. “Depending on what’s in there.”

  “Vicky’s not afraid of fecal matter. Especially not her own.”

  “How –” asked Catrina.

  “Hey,” interjected Thor, “have you actually watched Vicky drop a deuce? Or heard it?”

  “I’ve cleaned it out of my hair.”

  “Was this before or after you saw her lady parts?”

  “After,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “If it had happened first I’d never be able to look at her sexually.”

  “Told you!” shouted Catrina.

  “Damn,” said Thor. “So does talking about Vicky’s poop violate the Feces Illati–”

  “Yes,” said Catrina and Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “Damn!” Thor punched his hand. Then he pointed at Catrina and said, “Wait, didn’t Ali shit himself when he had that stro–”

  “LALALALALALALA” Catrina sang loudly, sticking her fingers in her ears and turning away from Thor.

  “I did wha–” began Ali.

  “That’s not fair!” shouted Thor. “You know it happened!”

  “LALALALALALALALA”

  “Right, well, if you two are done being stupid ...” began Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “I’m done,” said Thor.

  “... we should probably go pick up Vicky and find out what the hell’s going on.”

  “Did you ever find out where she is?” asked Catrina.

  “Not exactly,” said the cloned president, “but she’s fighting the dinosaur army of a prominent femiNazi about three hundred miles from the hotel. I’d guess she’s in Old Maryland somewhere. Probably the western part.”

  “How –” began Ali.

  “Trust me on this,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  The world was ended for the third time when a highly-contagious bout of Baseball Fever broke out at a Baltimore Orioles game, most likely the result of a fan eating an off-brand hot dog made of horse and greyhound meat. Within innings, every single ticket-holder (and pretzel-seller) was dead. A few fans did manage to make it out of the stadium before collapsing into a pile of their own bodily fluids, which, in turn, allowed the fever to spread quicker than a Kenyan marathoner and, ultimately, decimated humanity.

  When a second outbreak began a few years later, the infected parties were immediately rounded up by the Department of Airtight Robotic Exoskeletons and Waste Disposal and tossed unceremoniously into Maryland. The state was then walled off and forgotten.

  Shortly after the world was ended for the eleventh time, the first dinosaurs were cloned in the archeological stronghold of Montana. Almost immediately, those first dinosaurs ate their creators, hightailed it for the outside world, and began terrorizing the country. Eventually, the escaped extinct reptiles made their way east and settled into Old Maryland, being huge fans of both Baltimore Harbor and meat that couldn’t fight back or run away.

  When the world was ended for the sixteenth time, the American public found themselves in a position to vote in an entirely new government. Using that responsibility as wisely as should probably have been expected, they elected nothing but celebrities and fictional characters, and then forgot to appoint them to specific positions. In the ensuing sing-off, gangsta rapper The Ultrapimp narrowly beat out sentient scarecrow Taylor Swift for the position of president. The Ultra-pimp’s first official act as leader of the free world was to banish all white supremacists and feminists to the abandoned, mostly-dinosaur plague-colony of Old Maryland because, as stated in his bill, “Man, fuck all them.”

  Chester A. Arthur XVII knew all this because he was a huge history nerd. How he figured out it was the western part of the territory, though, no one knows. Knowing him, he probably deciphered the sound of the wind currents over the phone or something.

  “If you guys are just picking up Vicky you don’t need me, right?” said Thor. “I wanna go back to that porn warehouse and get myself a hot, half-redhead, half-robot girlfriend!”

  “You left her there?” asked Catrina.

  “You do know I charge for my services, right?” asked the doctor.

  “How much electricity does this lab require?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII, looking at the humming equipment and blinking lights cluttering the metal recovery room. “Five thousand kilowatt hours a day?”

  “Fifteen,” replied the doctor. “There are a few other floors.”

  “So I’m assuming you have a large generator somewhere?”

  “I’ve got two in the basement. Plus a couple hundred solar cells on the peak, along with a directed lightning rod connected to a high-volume capacitor. Why are you asking?”

  Chester A. Arthur XVII smiled, then nodded to Thor. Thunder rumbled, loud enough that they felt it deep within the volcano.

  “What in the world ...”

  “You’re probably good for a least a year, doc,” said Thor with a grin. “Now, about that robot girlfriend ...”

  “Whatever you want ...” said the doctor absent-mindedly, staring at the capacitor readout on his computer tablet.

  “You’re OK with him bailing?” asked Catrina, turning toward the newly-cybernetic president.

  “He’s not the boss of me!” barked the thunder god. “I mean, not now anyway. Besides, we ran out of donuts a while ago and I’m not getting paid.”

  “I’ve taught you well, Thor,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, slapping his tungsten hand against Thor’s shoulder.

  “Why are you supporting this?” asked Catrina.

  “I don’t want to crush his budding entrepreneurial spirit,” said the president. “Plus he’s kind of a nightmare when he’s in heat.”

  “I’m not in heat,” said Thor. “If anything I’m kind of chilly.”

  “That’s not what they’re talking about,” said Ali, nodding towards the bulge in the thunder god’s jeans.

  “That’s my boner.”

  “You make an excellent point,” said Catrina, furrowing her brow.

  “Yes, yes I do,” said the thunder god.

  “God damn it, Thor.”

  “It’s better to let him do this,” replied Charlie.

  “Fine,” sighed the hotel employee, “but if Vicky ends up hurt because somebody wasn’t struck by lightning it’s on your head.”

  “She’s not going to get hurt,” Chester A. Arthur XVII said severely.

  “Right, well, what’s the fastest way out of here, doc?” asked the thunder god. “I wanna go and get that redhead before she starts to rot.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Enemy of my Enemy ... Is Still a Colossal Douchebag

  “Did you shoot my phone?” bayed Queen Victoria XXX, holding up a cell phone with a perfect hole through it. “You could’ve hit me!”

  “I was trying to hit you!” shouted Andrew Jackson II, his tattered clothes soaked in his own blood, as well as several quarts of dinosaur blood. He was hiding behind the now entrail-strewn fountain opposite Vicky, part of the head of the sarchosuchus still latched onto his leg. The president fired again at the monarch, the bullets thudding harmlessly into the belly of the dead tyrannosaurus.

  Queen Victoria XXX held what had become of her phone in her hand. Absentmindedly she poked a few of the keys.

  “All of my phone numbers were in there,” she said quietly.

  “I’m sure you backed them up,” said the president, reloading his revolver.

&
nbsp; “I didn’t!” barked the queen. “I didn’t expect it to be shot!”

  Queen Victoria XXX threw the phone at Andrew Jackson II. He shot it two more times.

  “Damn it,” said Andy, looking at his gun. Then he shrugged.

  The replica of the seventh president of the United States fired again at the clone of the longest reigning British monarch. The queen scrambled over the head of the tyrannosaurus, bolting across the lawn and away from the carnotaurus pack, before putting the dead body of a stegosaurus between her and Andrew Jackson II.

  “What the hell, dude?!” she shouted, trying to yank a spike free from the tail of the stegosaurus. “I thought we were friends!”

  “That was when Charlie was dead! If he’s alive I’m going to have to kill him all over again! And I’m pretty sure you’re going to try to stop me.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “So now I have to kill you, too.”

  “You could not kill either of us.”

  “That’s really not an option.”

  The herd of carnotaurus lumbered in between Andy and Vicky, roaring and sniffing at the cloned leaders. Andrew Jackson II shot the one nearest him in the face. The carnotaurus shook its head and glared at the president.

  “Actually, maybe it is an option,” shouted Andrew Jackson II, glaring back at the carnotaurus. “How about a truce until Susie’s been taken care of?”

  Another of the ten-foot-tall therapods began circling around the dead stegosaurus, ending up face-to-face with Queen Victoria XXX.

  “OK, sure,” answered the queen. “But only because it’s going to be harder to stop you from killing Charlie while I’m trying to stop a dinosaur from killing me.” The carnotaurus snapped toward her. She moved to the side, then wrestled her way onto the back of the horned, flesh-eating dinosaur. “But no promises.”

  “Fair enough,” said the president, heaving the clubbed tail of a talarurus into the head of the carnotaurus charging at him.

  “If one of you does survive, tell Charlie he’s a misogynistic bastard and I hate him,” said Susan B. Anthony, riding into the fray on the back of her large, swastika-ed styracosaurus. “Not that either of you is going to survive.”

  “Shut the fuck up, lady,” said Queen Victoria XXX, successfully riding the carnotaurus and driving it straight at Susan B. Anthony III and her spiked ceratopsian.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Hasa Diga Eebowai

  It had been nearly twenty-four hours since the infidels’ assault. After much crying and wound-tending, the residents of Wulfsburgh were beginning to pick up the pieces of their village, literally, using the shattered, smoldering frames of broken houses as a pyre for their fallen comrades.

  In the distance, a faint, low-pitched rumbling could be heard. The peace-shaman looked up and saw a man in a jetpack streaking towards them. The rumbling grew louder and louder until the werewolf was able to recognize the man as one of the earlier assailants. The man appeared to be uttering a single, prolonged word:

  “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  The dashiki-wearing werewolf raised his middle finger to the passing thunder god, then shook his head and went back to trying to make sense of his ruined society.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Also, She Needs Shoes

  The old lady thrashed in the lake, trying desperately to swim to shore. A plesiosaurus erupted from beneath the water and grabbed the woman in its jaws.

  “You guys are pricks!” shouted Susan B. Anthony III before being dragged underwater.

  “Right, well, time to kill each other I guess,” said Queen Victoria XXX wearily, watching as the reconstituted feminist Nazi was pulled to her death.

  “If you insist,” said Andrew Jackson II. He immediately drew both of his revolvers and pulled their respective triggers. The guns clicked. Queen Victoria XXX simply stared.

  “Look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but, seriously, you could not kill Charlie again, you know? I wouldn’t judge you. It’s been a long day. I’m tired, my feet are nothing but callouses caked in I don’t know what, and I don’t think either of us has had anything to drink for the last twelve hours except dinosaur blood.”

  Andrew Jackson II slumped to the ground, then began pulling the replicas of the teeth of an ancient crocodile from his leg.

  “Maybe a break is in order,” he said. “But I’m still going to get rid of Charlie. For the good of America. If I’m –”

  “Oh my god, shut up, I get it,” said the reincarnated queen, plopping down next to him, “I just think it’s incredibly stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid.”

  “It’s pretty stupid, Andy.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “OK, sure. Go with that.”

  Andrew Jackson II and Queen Victoria XXX sat at the water’s edge, staring across the now-still lake to the burning mansion and wandering dinosaurs on the far shore. A few coelophysis lapped from the water, while two stegosaurus trudged slowly away from the mansion. Beyond them, two tyrannosaurs appeared to be awkwardly high-fiving.

  The sun continued to inch downward, until a brilliant indigo dusk exploded on the horizon.

  “What if I just did Charlie last? Would that work for you?” asked the president. “You’d probably get a solid six more months with him.”

  “No, you’re not going to kill him,” said Queen Victoria XXX with no small amount of annoyance. “The insanity of your overall plan and the fact that I will stop you aside, he’s clearly found some kind of way to cheat death. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Well, I can’t just let him live. Everyone knows I hate him the most. Not assassinating him sets a horrible precedent.”

  “What if that’s your new reality, though?” asked the queen. “Maybe everyone can come back from the dead now, you don’t know. And even you’re not crazy enough to face down a legion of people you’ve violently murdered.”

  “That is, unfortunately, a good point,” replied Andrew Jackson II thoughtfully. “If my opponents aren’t going to stay dead, it really hampers the possibility of my plan succeeding.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m going to have to destroy the entire country,” said the president grimly.

  “A, there is no country anymore, we abolished it,” said the queen, “and, B, WHAT THE FUCK?! That is not what I said at all!”

  “I was sent here by providence to save this country, Vicky. From whatever the threat, at whatever the cost. And if both of those are the people themselves, then so be it. A country by the people and for the people cannot exist without those people. But if those very same people are the reason the country doesn’t exist, then the whole thing falls apart. And I won’t let that happen! I will not let America fall prey to its own failures and vices!”

  “THAT MAKES NO GOD DAMNED SENSE!”

  “Thank you, Vicky,” said Andrew Jackson II. “You’ve helped me see things clearly.”

  “You’re a colossal fuck-up, Andy,” said Queen Victoria XXX, planting her head in the palm of her hand. “I was already going to kill you to keep you from murdering Charlie. What do you really think I’m gonna do now that you’re trying to commit a holocaust?”

  Andrew Jackson II bit his lip. He looked at the blood-soaked Queen Victoria XXX, the righteous fury resurfacing in her eyes, and then at his empty guns.

  “I’m going to run away now.”

  The cloned president got up and began sprinting away from the lake.

  “Damn it, Andy!” shouted the queen, slowly rising from the ground. “I wanted to take a nap!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  They Call Them Blood Gutters

  Andrew Jackson II had hurried away from the smoking wreckage of Susan B. Anthony III’s mansion with Queen Victoria XXX inferno-like on his heels. They had continued south for miles, racing by the heaped corpses and cannibalistic social reformers of Old Maryland. Every so often, the cloned president would turn and throw a rock or a skull wildly at the reincarnated queen, but he kne
w he was outmatched. A righteous Vicky was only slightly less dangerous than a vengeful one, but a Vicky running on dinosaur blood and non-lethal doses of atomic energy ...

  Holy shit. Andrew Jackson II was screwed.

  Adding to his misfortunes was the convoy of exhaust-spewing motorcycles and armored cars currently crossing his escape route.

  “What the shit is this?”

  “You can’t sell coal like that!” shouted the unnaturally handsome, leather-clad Australian man towing a cart full of anthracite in front of a convoy of other vehicles. He raced his motorcycle down the road, turning and shouting through a megaphone to the dozens of roughnecks chasing him. “Sexual favors are not an acceptable form of currency! And you don’t even have standard rates. That’s just arse!”

  “We can do whatever we want!” shouted a man wearing football shoulder pads over a midriff top. “Who are you to judge our ways?”

  “You’re a thief!” shouted a woman with a sleeve of tattoos and a black bandana.

  “And an asshole!” shouted a woman wearing a dog collar and a black sports bra.

  “You’ll never catch me!” shouted the unnaturally handsome Australian. “I’m bringing this coal back to all the poor, righteous people who live in the empty mines!”

  “That’s not fair to us!”

  “It’s not our fault they used up all their coal!”

  “Why can’t they move here?”

  The Australian waved the replies off and turned from the townspeople chasing him, revving the bike and speeding away, black exhaust spewing into the air. The mob revved their own engines in pursuit, sending more exhaust into the air. Everyone started coughing.

  Andrew Jackson II, standing surreptitiously at the edge of the road as this went down, jumped onto the back of the leather-clad Australian’s motorcycle as it passed.

  Queen Victoria XXX, arriving at the roadside exactly one moment later, jumped into the back of a dune buggy being driven by two small, filthy, and possibly feral, children.