by Eirik Gumeny
“Prob’ly not,” answered Thor, signaling the waitress for another round. “Honestly, I never really read any of it. But, I mean, our shit was weird as fuck. Like, all the time.”
“You Old Testament-style guys had all the fun.”
The Norse God of Thunder smiled. “You don’t know the half of it. Dad was one crazy motherfucker back in the day. This one time, he traded away his eye – his fucking eye! – fer magic. And not even, like, fun magic. Jush the ability to see a little bit into the future. Heimdall could already basically do that! I don’t know why –”
“Wait, man. Wait. Hold up. Yer dad’s got one eye too?”
“What’re you – Too? Yer dad has one eye?”
“Yeah ...” said Jesus. “I mean, it happened pretty late in the game. He was away for a century or two, then he came back for a bit, only there was a eyepatch strapped across his face. But, like, he kept acting like it wasn’t anything, man, never bother’d to explain the thing. Anytime someone asked, he’d just shrug it off.”
“That’s weird.”
“I think it might be more’n weird, brother ...” began Jesus, knitting his brow like a grandma with a bunch of grandkids. “So, like, my dad and I were pretty close for a couple hundred years, right? Even after he, y’know, let me get murder’d, but then one day he kinda bounced. Came back ev’ry so often, but never stuck around much.”
“That sounds really familiar.”
“Your dad ever talk about what he did before he was who he was?”
“Well, he used to go on and on about how he created the world from the pieces of a frost giant he hacked up.”
“Yeah, uh, Thor, man ... my dad created the world too.”
“No way.”
“Yeah way ...”
“You think ...” He burped. “Are you sayin’ what I think yer saying?”
“Well, there’s only the one world, right?”
“Oh, holy shit,” said Thor. “Man, Mom is gonna be so annoyed that Dad fucked off and boned a human.”
“Well, technic’ly, he didn’t bone my mom. Don’t you know anything about Christianity, Thor? How is that even possible? They tricked the world into accepting my birthday as a secular holiday.”
“Man,” said Ali, blinking into existence next to Jesus, “knowing this a few centuries ago probably would’ve saved a few million lives.”
“I dunno, man,” replied Jesus, “we prob’ly woulda found something else to kill each other over.”
“People really are terrible,” added the waitress, standing unsteadily at the edge of the table and nearly spilling the tray of beers she was carrying.
“Catrina?” asked Thor, raising an eyebrow.
“Yo,” she replied from inside the waitress.
“Why’re you –”
The server’s possessed body shrugged. “She asked.”
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
Stop Dragging My Heart Around
The jarred head of Walt Sidney was being held by the burly and remarkably hairy Ukko, the former Finnish God of Storms, the two of them peering over the shoulder of Cthulhu, the trans-dimensional Elder God and head of the Information Technology department of the Walt Sidney Company.
“You’re sure this will get rid of the ghosts?” asked the frozen head.
“For the last time, yes,” replied the enormous, winged dragon-squid, sprawled on his back beneath a large server cabinet and existing on several planes of reality at once. “Stop asking.”
“Taft was able to repair the spectrum last time. I don’t want that happening again.”
“That’s because Satan’s guy only sent a virus,” replied the otherworldly horror. “I’m physically dismantling the heart of the internet.” He tossed a tangle of wires toward his feet.
“Shouldn’t that be in Japan?” asked Ukko.
“No, they had it shipped here, to Jackson, Mississippi, after Japan sank,” explained Cthulhu. “Thought it would be safer. Because who the fuck would go to Mississippi?”
With a tremendous wrenching and a strange sucking sound, the eldritch terror ripped the main engine of the internet free from its biomechanical harness. He slid out from beneath the cabinet and held up the glistening object.
“What the hell is that?” asked Elizabeth Báthory, sitting on a server tower behind her boss and her co-worker.
“The heart of the internet.”
“I, uh, I thought that was just an idiom,” replied the murderess, shaking her head slowly. She pointed. “That is an actual heart.”
“Well, yeah.”
After the internet was destroyed, Japanese scientists altered the sub-theoretical quantum electromagnetic spectrum of the planet, allowing spirits that weren’t accepted into any of the various heavens – or who just felt like dicking off for a year or two – to roam like free-range chickens, rather than being forever tethered to their bodies or points of death. The scientists soon realized that these spirits’ electromagnetic energies, should they be harnessed, could transfer significant amounts of data significantly faster and significantly safer than the old, flammable, corruption-prone internet.
Scouring the globe, the scientists eventually discovered that the heart of the Loch Ness Monster had all of the metaphysical properties they needed to exploit all that ghost power, and summarily tore it out of her chest, ruining Scotland’s tourism industry in the process. They then connected all of the internet’s tubes and cables into the massive organ, sealed it in a box, and put that shit to work.
Naturally, PETA threw a fit when they found out about all of this, but, after seeing how much more efficient the new internet was, they kind of let the whole ordeal slide.
“Good job, C,” said Walt Sidney.
“It’s Cthulhu, damn it.”
“I know that, C, but –”
“Cthulhu!”
“Look, I’m sorry, I really am,” replied the frozen head, “but I simply cannot pronounce that.”
The Elder God grumbled his dissatisfaction. A few of the weaker-minded dragoons guarding the door began seeing shooting colors and impossible angles in the air.
“You have tentacles for a mouth,” continued the jarred CEO. “How am I supposed to pronounce something spoken like that?”
“You could try,” replied a wounded Cthulhu.
CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
Last Dance With Mary Jane
The ghost of Catrina Dalisay hovered in the booth next to Thor Odinson, the pair sitting opposite the spirit of Ali Şahin and Jesus Christ. The pile of discarded dishes and empty glasses between them had grown to an alarming height, to the point that the former former hotel employee had to float a few inches higher off the seat just to see over everything.
Jesus, swaying significantly, attempted to stack another empty glass onto the pile, only to send the tower of drinkware cannonballing to the ground, where it exploded in a sublime symphony of smashing and shattering.
“Oops,” he said.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” slurred Thor. “No one’s been by to clean up in, like, a hour. Thash on the waitress, not you.”
“Hey, she’s got some serious shit going on,” replied Catrina. “Cut her some –” The Filipina woman flickered mightily, involuntarily blinking in and out of existence. “Uh oh.”
“I think the spectrum’s going again,” said Ali, before winking away. After a moment, he appeared again, significantly snowier, like a grandmother’s television after the kids haven’t visited for a while.
“It’s Walt Sidney,” explained the ghost of the man from Dunkin’ Donuts. “He’s taken out the heart of the internet, apparently solely to spite Thor.”
“Spite me? Why would he wanna spite me?” asked the thunder god. “Thash just gonna make me angrier.”
“I didn’t ... I didn’t ask, Thor. I was kind of busy trying not to disappear out of existence entirely.”
“Right.”
“So, thish no internet thing,” began the Son of God, raising an inebriated eyebrow, “it
affec’s you guysh ... how again?”
“The entire phantasmagraphic spectrum was tethered to and funneled through the heart of the internet,” explained the ghost. “With that gone, the spectrum is evaporating into the ether.”
“Shouldn’t that, like, not be possible?”
“Really?” asked Ali, briefly turning into a Picasso painting. “You want to get into a technical discussion about that n–”
The ghosts shuddered out of reality for a solid three seconds this time before reappearing – long enough for Thor’s heart to sober up and sink into his bowels.
“Catrina ...” he began.
“I think this is it, buddy,” she replied, her ghost stretching and contorting like a four-year-old’s finger painting.
“We can get Billy to fix it again.”
“I don’t think he can,” said Ali gravely.
“It’s OK, Thor. We like it here, in the afterlife.” Catrina flashed away and back again. “There’s no pain, no suffering, we don’t pay taxes, there’s skeeball ...” Then she smiled and said: “I love you, Thor.”
“I love you too, Catrina.”
The phantoms of Thor’s friends began to totally seriously flicker some more, like an old timey nickelodeon on the fritz.
“Oh, shit, here we go,” said Ali Şahin, shaking like a computer monitor that needed a good smacking. “See you in a few, Cat.” And then he was gone.
Catrina put her blinking, spectral hand above the table. Thor put his hand into hers.
“Is there anything you want me to do for you?” he asked.
“No, we’re happier than we’ve ever been.” The ghost smiled serenely. But she could see the hurt on Thor’s face, hidden beneath his beard and the buffalo sauce, the final understanding that she was really gone. She could see the desperate pleading of his heart, for one last gift, an apology, a goodbye, something to help ease his pain, something to let her know what she meant to him.
“Well, I guess there’s one thing ...” She smiled a little more sinisterly. “ ... if you’re asking.”
“Anything.”
“AveeeEEeenge meeee!” she said dramatically, lifting her ethereal frame into the air, her arms wide. “But be smaaaAAaart about it!” And, with a wink of shimmering light, Catrina Dalisay vanished forever.
Thor frowned, then smiled, then knocked back the rest of his beer, slamming the empty glass on the table.
“Hot damn.”
“Come on, brother,” said Jesus. “I thought you shaid you were done with the rampaging.”
“I am, I swear,” replied the Norse God of Thunder, hustling clumsily out of the booth. “I’m only goin’ after Walt Sidney thish time. I’ll be super-duper careful.”
“I ‘unno, man ...”
“He’s a total dick, dude. I promish.”
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
Into the Great Wide Open
Queen Victoria XXX, William H. Taft XLII, and a two-foot-tall animatronic moose containing the brain of Chester A. Arthur XVII rolled up to the east entrance of the Houston Crater truck stop in a pair of the mayor-king’s steam-powered all-terrain-vehicles, covered in dust and splattered bugs and radioactive fallout. Staring through the mess of their windshields, they found Thor standing in front of Jesus’s camper, jumper cables running from the vehicle’s battery to the thunder god’s nipples.
“OK, try it n–”
“What in the unpunched balls of Johnny Cage is going on here?” asked William H. Taft XLII, sliding up his round driving goggles before clumsily climbing out of his ATV, his bulk and still-slung arm making things difficult.
“Well, I can’t jush electrocute his RV, can I?” explained Thor. “I’d blow the whole damn thing up.” Then, proudly, he added: “I know how to learn.”
“Not one-hundred-percent sure this counts as learning, buddy,” replied Queen Victoria XXX, removing her children’s toy of a boyfriend from the passenger seat. She had managed to cobble together an outfit from all of William H. Taft XLII’s wives’ closets, and was now wearing a long duster over a short skirt and a midriff Misfits t-shirt. From where Thor was standing, her ribs still looked pretty messed up.
“Also, are you drunk?” she continued. “You’ve never been drunk. I mean, we’ve drank together before, sure, but ... How much did you drink, Thor?”
“Why’re you guys on scooters?” answered the thunder god.
“They’re ATVs, dude,” countered William H. Taft XLII. “They have four wheels. And engines.”
“Where’s is Charlie’s Batmobile? And where’s Charlie? And why are you wearing Bo’s clothes and carrying around a stuffed animal, Vicky? Is it a sex thing?”
“This is me now, Thor,” explained the stuffed moose. “This is my new body. I’ve been upgraded, for lack of a better beep boop searching thesaurus boop synonym. At least I’m autonomous again. I can do everything I used to be able to do.”
“Except nowhere near as well and not really,” clarified the queen.
“As for my car: I do not know what happened to it. Someone must have stolen it from where you and Catrina left it parked while we were distracted with the maiming and the monsters and the Satan beep boop searching thesaurus boop hootenanny.”
The former Norse God of Thunder, making a face, said: “I guess thash better than a scrap pile that only speaks Morsh code.”
“I’m sure your tank is very happy wherever it ended up,” consoled the queen, squeezing the fuzzy Chester A. Arthur XVII tightly.
“grumble grumble grumble,” replied the robot.
She held the moose out in front of her. “Did you ... did you just say the word ‘grumble’ instead of actually grumbling?”
“Blame Billy’s airquote scientists airquote.”
“Oh my god,” she said, burying her face in her hand.
“So, hey, shpeaking of,” began the Middle Eastern hippie stumbling over from the camper, slicking back his greying hair and thinking he was attempting to be suave, “hi, I’m Jesus Christ. Savior of All Mankind.”
“Queen Victoria XXX, homunculus,” the cloned monarch replied, stuffing the teddy bear under her armpit and shaking his hand. “But it’s the thought that counts.”
“What are you guys doin’ here?” asked Thor, removing the cables from his chest.
“We told you we’d find a way to get you to Sidney, right?” answered William H. Taft XLII triumphantly.
“Yeah ... so, did you?”
“No.” Then: “It, uh, it turns out he’s on his way here,” the non-stuffed presidential clone clarified.
“Oh,” said Thor. Then: “Wait.” A pause. “So ... my plan worked?” he asked. “My plan and not yours?”
“You don’t have to rub it in, dude,” said the mayor-king of the ruins of Las Vegas, starting to cross his arms over his chest and being met with tremendous pain. Trying not to grimace, the president leaned back against his ATV like nothing had happened.
“Yes. Yes, I think I do.”
“So, like, when you say he’s on his way ...” Jesus hiccupped. “How far is his way exactly? And wha’do we do about that?”
“Thish,” said the Norseman, plopping his ass down on a nearby parking block. Queen Victoria XXX shrugged and plopped down next to him, leaning her stuffed boyfriend against the concrete at her feet.
“What do you two think you are beep boop searching thesaurus boop engaging in as an action?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII, toddling away from them and attempting to cross his tiny arms across his tiny chest.
“Waiting,” replied the thunder god.
“Shouldn’t we, maybe, like, move it on down the road a little?” asked the Prince of Peace, pointing toward the vast expanse of nothing that started at the edge of the truck stop and ran for what seemed like forever. “You know, so no innoshents get murdered? Like you told me and promished your dead friend?”
“Oh. Right. Yeah. That.”
“Eh,” replied Queen Victoria XXX.
“Vicky,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“OK, fine,” she relented and very, very reluctantly got up.
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
Meet and Greet
The vehicles came to a halt in a grassy patch of nothing a hundred miles north of the Houston Crater Rest Stop. Queen Victoria XXX and William H. Taft XLII disembarked from their ATVs, the queen taking the stuffed Chester A. Arthur XVII with her. And then ... well, then the clones just kind of stood around awkwardly for a while. And then a while after that. Finally, a couple minutes after that, Thor and Jesus stepped out of the rear of the camper, the vehicle exhaling smoke for several minutes afterwards, like an oven with an overcooked chicken in it.
“Really, guys?” asked William H. Taft XLII.
“What?” replied the thunder god.
“We were sobering up, brother,” explained the Son of God.
“You’re high. High is not sober,” explained the clone.
“From the booze, I mean.”
“That’s not ... Weren’t you born a human, Jesus? Shouldn’t you know how human bodies work?”
“Yes? Maybe? What’s the question?”
The facsimile of the fattest president of the United States sighed. “There is some serious shit about to go down, you two,” he continued.
“And you didn’t invite me,” added Queen Victoria XXX.
“That’s not the issue here, Vicky.”
“I think it is.”
“I’ve got more,” said Jesus Christ, holding back a burp.
“Well, hot damn,” said the cloned monarch, casually tossing Chester A. Arthur XVII to William H. Taft XLII.
“Vicky ...” said the stuffed moose, cradled in the large man’s good arm. “What are you doing?”
“What?” she replied. “Like you’ve never gotten high.”
“Not when I need to focus on not getting annihilated.”
“How’s that working out for you?” asked the Son of God.