Slime Squad Vs the Last Chance Chicken

by Steve Cole

  Chapter Three

  DEADLY CHICKEN

  “Stop running away, Maynard!” Plog yelled as he pushed his way into the swirls of smoke. “You chicken!” But within seconds of entering this world of whiteness, he had to stop. Maggoty Maynard was nowhere to be seen.

  I’m lost, Plog thought. Which way had he come from? Which way led to safety? Where had Maynard gone?

  Suddenly something clucked in his ear. Plog jumped, gasped, raised his fists – and found Maynard right beside him, flapping his arms, stooped over and bobbing his head as if pecking at the ground.

  “What are you playing at?” Plog demanded.

  But it seemed Maynard could not hear him. “Cluck!” he said simply. “Cluck, cluck!”

  “You’ve been hanging around with your hen-faced boss too long. Come on, snap out of it. What’s wrong with you?”

  Plog looked at Maynard pecking the dirty ground. With his gas mask smashed, Maynard had been breathing the white smoke all this time. Could the smoke have done something to him? Plog wondered. Perhaps it’s made him go funny.

  “HA . . . HA . . . HA . . .”

  Plog stared around wildly as a booming laugh cracked out above him with the force of a thunderclap. A shiver ran from his top to his tail bone. And suddenly he glimpsed something ahead – something thick and yellow and twisted like a giant tree trunk. Then it launched towards Plog and Maynard like a gigantic missile. There was no time to dodge aside. THWAM! The gnarled, yellowy thing smashed into the monsters in its path and sent them flying through the air.

  “Whoaaa!” Waving his arms, Plog whooshed straight out of the fog, over Furp’s head and crunched down on top of Marvin and the other two maggot-men. Maynard landed on his butt a few metres away, jumped up and started shaking his rear – as if fluffing up invisible tail feathers.

  “Plog!” Furp bounced up to join him. “Are you all right? You flew out of that smoke like a seagull with a bomb up its bottom.”

  “There’s something massive in there.” Plog pulled his boot back on. “And Maynard seems to think he’s a chicken.”

  “Does he?” Furp looked back into the mist, his face frozen in horror. “Well, that really is a chicken!”

  Plog’s fur stood on end as a gigantic, ear-trampling squawk came out of the smog – soon followed by an equally gigantic but twice as terrifying chicken-monster. It was as big as a block of flats. Grey, metallic feathers bristled all over its body, with jagged edges that looked sharper than shark-teeth. Plog realized the twisted tree-trunk thing that had punted him out of the gas was one of the giant chicken’s claws. Each leg was like a vast hillside of quivering muscle ending in tremendous talons that shook and split the ground wherever the monster stepped.

  The bird-monster’s face was perhaps its most fearsome feature. A beak as big as a truck curved out from beneath orange eyes shining like floodlights. A colossal red rubbery bit wobbled about on top of its head like an evil jelly.

  But what scared Plog most of all was that he recognized the frightening figure. He’d seen its shadow enough times on two-way smellyvisions to know it anywhere – even two hundred times its usual size. “Furp,” he breathed. “It . . . it’s Lord Klukk!”

  “It can’t be!” said Furp weakly.

  “Cluck!” said Maynard. “Cluck, cluck!”

  “YES!” The chicken-beast’s exultant squawk echoed around the Badlands. “I am Lord Klukk – facing you in the flesh at last.”

  “Can’t say it’s an improvement,” Plog called bravely.

  “Buk-buk-but it is!” Klukk boomed. “Now I can squash you like grapes buk-buk-beneath my feet!”

  The spine-chilling chicken-monster raised one of his deadly claws, ready to bring it down on the Squaddies. Plog and Furp jumped aside as the foot thumped down and Maynard blundered into them. All three fell in a heap – then Maynard, still clucking, started to peck Plog in the face.

  “Get off!” Plog cried. “We don’t need chicken impersonators – we’ve got the real thing to deal with.”

  The king-sized Klukk turned with some difficulty and lifted a huge leg ready to attack again.

  “You should split while you can, Maynard,” Plog told him. “Your boss will crush you as well as us!” As the shadow of the fearsome foot fell over them, Danjo and Plog threw Maynard clear and barely dodged Klukk’s claws themselves.

  Marvin struggled up weakly. “Please, your lordliness,” he cried. “Don’t squash Maynard! He’s accidentally breathed your special gas, and—”

  “That idiot is of no further use to me,” said Klukk. “And neither are you if you don’t wake up your friends and get buk-buk-busy obeying my orders.”

  “What orders?” Plog demanded.

  But then, with a roar of racing engines, the Slime-mobile came zooming up! Plog glimpsed Zill’s determined face at the wheel – then the invisible monster truck smashed straight into Lord Klukk’s gigantic legs. The feathery fiend staggered backwards, his red wobbly bits trembling with fury.

  Danjo threw open the Slime-mobile’s doors. “Plog, Furp, jump in!”

  “We must bring Maynard with us,” said Furp.

  Plog frowned. “Bring that crazy guy? Why?”

  “Because the smoke made him crazy,” Furp explained, manhandling Maynard on board. “It must be some kind of . . . chicken gas!”

  The super-enormous chicken-monster was stamping back towards them, and Marvin and his two fellow hench-monsters were on their feet raising their chunky guns.

  Plog threw himself into the Slime-mobile and Danjo slammed the door shut after him.

  “Time we were gone,” yelled Zill, stamping on the accelerator. Swinging the wheel hard left, she screeched away from Klukk and the encroaching smoke.

  “Cluck, cluck,” said Maynard, pecking at the floor as if searching for grain.

  “Look at him,” said Danjo. “In a world of his own.”

  “And if that smoke keeps spreading, it’s a world we’ll all be sharing.” Plog pulled off his gas mask. “That crazy chicken-monster back there will turn everyone into crazy chicken-monsters. Trashland will be Klukk’s for the taking!”

  Chapter Four

  WEAPONS OF MASS DIS-KLUKK-SHUN

  Plog’s words hung gloomily in the air as the Slime-mobile sped away from the giant gas cloud and the chilling chicken. But suddenly strange missiles started whizzing through the air. Explosions went off all around them, rocking the Slime-mobile. Wisps of gas curled out from the craters.

  “It’s Marvin and the maggots,” Danjo realized. “They’ve got gas grenades!”

  Furp nodded miserably. “As if that giant cloud of gas wasn’t enough.”

  Plog checked the rear windscreen and saw it was true. The rotten maggots were firing their weird weapons high up into the air – and the grenades were raining down around the Squaddies, way too close for comfort.

  “Zigzag, Zill,” Plog shouted. “Make it harder for them to hit us.”

  “I’m on it,” Zill assured him, swinging the truck from side to side. Slowly, the explosions faded as the Slime-mobile sped out of range.

  “Well done, Zill,” said Plog. “But it’s round one to Klukk.”

  “I hate running away from him,” said Zill.

  Danjo shrugged. “What choice did we have? Next time we’ll slime him – just wait.”

  “There’s no time to wait,” said Furp, pulling off his gas mask so he could get back to finishing Zill’s and Danjo’s. “Firing those gas grenades must be part of the plan Klukk mentioned.”

  “But why?” Plog cried. “There’s a whole wall of gas at Klukk’s back – why does he need grenades too?”

  “I think I can answer that,” said the All-Seeing PIE, his voice crackling out from the computer screen. “The Slime O’Clock News has just shown these pictures from the Dirty Nappy Dunes . . .”

  Zill parked the Slime-mobile. “That’s quite close by to here,” she realized.

  Plog and his friends watched the screen while Maynard pecked idly
at the lav-lab’s toilet. They saw maggot-men crawling over the huge squashy mounds of dirty nappies. Some were firing gas grenades down holes in the ground, others were shooting them high up into the air, clouding the stained peaks of the highest dunes with the eerie white mist.

  “Of course!” Furp cried. “That gas cloud will sweep across Trashland but it won’t reach the highest homes or underground burrows and sewers . . .”

  Zill nodded. “So Klukk is using the maggots to get the gas into those hard-to-reach places.”

  “PIE,” asked Plog, “what about the Nappy Dunes’ population?”

  “Plop-ulation, you mean,” PIE corrected him. “So far, none of the natives have started acting like chickens. In fact, so far it seems the gas has had no effect.”

  Zill sniffed. “Ugh! What’s that smell?”

  Plog also caught a whiff – and choked.

  “Danjo,” he said accusingly. “Have you let one go?”

  “Whoever said it was me, it was he,” Danjo retorted.

  Furp cleared his throat. “Sorry, everybody. It was me who produced the popping. I suspect it’s a combination of extreme fear and that roasted cockroach.” He smiled sheepishly and held up two more futuristic faceplates. “Good job I’ve finished your gas masks, eh?”

  “Cool.” Danjo grabbed a mask as his own bot made a bubbling sound. “Oops!”

  “Guys!” Zill groaned. “There’s enough gas to deal with around here without you adding to it!”

  Maynard took his head out of the toilet for a moment, a pained expression on his face. Then he stuck it back into the loo even harder than before.

  Plog waved his tail like a fan dispersing the niff. His tummy was gurgling too, but he held his own rude noises inside. “I just don’t understand Lord Klukk,” he said. “He’s big and powerful and scary – so why has he stayed hidden up to now? How come he’s always used other monsters to attack Trashland?”

  “Maybe he’s been working out,” Danjo suggested.

  “And if he’s planning on turning everyone into brainless chicken-heads, why bother walking around in his own gas cloud?” Furp scratched his head. “It does seem quite peculiar. He’s not even wearing a gas mask.”

  “Well, he’s sort of a chicken anyway, isn’t he?” Danjo argued. “A super-massive evil chicken. That must be why the gas doesn’t affect him.”

  “I’ll run some tests on Maynard,” said Furp. “We must know more about this gas.”

  “In the meantime,” Plog went on, “we’d better drive to the nearest towns in the Mucky Mattress Marshes and clear everyone away before the gas reaches them.”

  “They might be OK,” said Danjo hopefully. “Like the Dunes-dwellers.”

  “Or they might go chicken-loopy,” said Zill. “Like Maynard.”

  Plog sighed. “If we can’t save Trashland, nobody can. The buck stops with us.”

  “Buk!” Maynard agreed.

  Zill drove as fast as she could, but Plog still found the journey to the Mucky Mattress Marshes slow going. Furp had placed his techno-helmet on Maynard’s head and was taking lots of mysterious measurements. Plog and Danjo just sat about feeling useless.

  “GROWWWL-BRRPP!” went Plog’s tum. “Why did I have that extra helping of roast cockroach?” he murmured miserably.

  “Well, I’ve checked Maynard’s brain activity,” Furp reported. “And there isn’t any! He really seems to have just a single thought in his head – that he’s a chicken. Nothing else matters to him.” He shook his head. “Once we’ve evacuated the mattress-mites, we can wait for the gas to roll in over the marshes and grab some in my jar for testing.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have to wait,” Zill called grimly, slamming on the brakes. “Gas sighted – up ahead!”

  “Oh, no . . .” Plog was first to join her at the front of the Slime-mobile, his heart sinking into his metal boots. A sprawling pile of bulky, battered mattresses loomed up ahead. Their faded patterns were all but lost beneath yukky stains, and rusted springs poked through like strange aerials. Sure enough, a thin white mist was already wafting about the damp landscape. The whistle and crump of falling gas grenades carried to the Squaddies’ ears.

  “The range on those maggots’ guns must be further than we thought,” Furp realized.

  “Not that much further.” Danjo pointed a pincer out through the rear windscreen. “Look!”

  Plog, Furp and Zill turned to find a familiar wall of whirling whiteness was already visible on the horizon behind them.

  “That gas cloud’s picking up speed,” said Zill helplessly.

  Furp peered through a pair of binoculars. “And it looks like Lord Klukk’s still just ahead of it.”

  Plog took the binoculars and nodded grimly as the sinister chicken-monster strode out from the fringes of the mist, maggot-men clinging to his feathers with one hand while firing grenades with the other. “He must have followed us,” Plog breathed. “He knew we’d try to save the mattress-mites.”

  “Here come the mattress-mites now,” said Zill.

  Swinging back round to face front, Plog saw the mauve monsters come scuttling out of their soggy, under-stuffed mattress homes like the overblown bedbugs they resembled. Plog seemed to recall the mites were a quiet bunch who kept themselves to themselves. But he was sure their boggle eyes were not meant to look so black, and that their three antennae should look less droopy.

  “They’re not acting like chickens,” Furp observed.

  “No.” Zill watched the mites mill about in the mist. “They look a bit . . . lost.”

  “ATTENTION!” A familiar squawk boomed out of the sky. “Calling all mattress-mites . . . Remember that you are the loyal servants of kindly Lord Klukk, ruler of all Trashland.”

  “What?” Plog spluttered.

  “In another life,” snorted Danjo.

  But incredibly, uncannily, the mites began to nod their heads. “Yes!” the cry went up, spreading through the crowd. “Yes, we are. Of course we are.”

  “What are you on about?” Zill yelled through the windscreen.

  “And remember, the Slime Squad are buk-buk-bad,” Klukk declared, his voice louder and more terrible than ever. “Very, very buk-buk-bad. You hate them! They make you mad! They must buk-buk-be caught, crunched and cronkled.”

  “Cronkled?” Furp echoed blankly.

  “YES!” roared the mites as one. “We hate the Slime Squad! They must be caught! They must be crushed!” The chorus of the crowd grew louder, angrier. “And at all costs, they must be cronkled!”

  To Plog’s disbelieving horror, the mattress-mites – eyes rolling with rage – began swarming towards the Slime-mobile, teeth bared . . .”

  Chapter Five

  “YOU ARE WHAT I SAY YOU ARE!”

  Danjo gulped. “Those mattress-mites don’t seem to be acting like chickens.” He eyed the oncoming swarm. “In fact, they look to be acting like highly-trained catcher-cruncher-cronklers!”

  “That’s it!” Furp cried, making everyone jump – even Maynard, who plucked his head out of the toilet in surprise. “I know what the gas does now – and why Klukk has to march along with it.”

  “I don’t think those marauding mites aim to give us a chance to chat about it,” Zill growled, slamming the Slime-mobile into reverse. “How about you explain while I try to get us out of here?”

  “It’s not chicken gas!” Furp was hopping from seat to seat in his excitement. “It’s a You-Are-What-I-Say-You-Are gas!”

  Plog hung onto his own chair as Zill steered them bumpily backwards. “Huh? I don’t get you.”

  “Remember when Maynard hared off into the gas without his protective helmet? You called him a chicken for running away . . .”

  “So I did,” Plog remembered. “I called him a chicken and he started to act like one.”

  “Exactly,” said Furp. “And when these peaceful mattress-mites breathed in the gas, Klukk told them they were angry and that they wanted to get us.”

  “And sure enough, they
are angry and they do want to get us!” said Danjo. “It’s like they’ve been hypnotized!”

  Plog ran to the lav-lab and grabbed Maynard. “You are not a chicken,” he snapped. “You are Maynard the maggot-man. Do you hear me?”

  “Cluck,” said Maynard.

  “It’s no good.” Furp tutted. “The hypno-gas makes its victims believe the first things they hear, and nothing more. That’s why Klukk is out there in the smoke – giving his orders the moment his gas takes effect.”

  Danjo groaned. “And with a voice that loud he can turn thousands of monsters into his slaves in one go!”

  “So why hasn’t he told the monsters in the Dirty Nappy Dunes what to do?” Plog wondered.

  No one had an answer – but Zill certainly had a problem. “I can’t drive away fast enough in reverse,” she yelled over the straining roar of the engine. The mattress-mites were still racing towards them, clambering onto the Slime-mobile’s bonnet, whacking their spindly arms against the windscreen, battering the bodywork.

  “Handbrake turn, Zill!” Plog shouted.

  Zill yanked up hard on the handbrake while spinning the steering wheel hard left. The invisible truck screeched and skidded in a tight circle, shaking the mites free before juddering to a stop. But more of the bug-like monsters were already massing in the gas, pouring out of sticky holes in the Mucky Mattress marshland to catch, crunch and cronkle their supposed foes.

  “That stunt was a hit – now it’s time to split!” Danjo shouted.

  Zill stamped on the accelerator and the chunky truck zoomed away from the smoky marshland. The marauding mites scuttled after them in a fury, but were soon lost from sight.

  Plog wiped his furry brow. “That was too close.”