by Mark Roman
“Mummy?”
“Yes my Sherbet Dip Dab.”
“Shouldn’t we be doing stuff to help us survive?”
“Such as?”
“Adapting the electricity generator to run on chicken guano would be useful. It gets really cold at night in my hovel. And there’s a whole year before Mayflower IV comes to pick us up.”
“That’s all very well, my brainy turnip, but there’s no time for fancy technological development. If we don’t collect enough sticks the camp fire will go out and we’ll freeze to death. And your father needs sticks for his important work.”
Tarquin turned towards his dirt-encrusted father, broken glasses hanging off his bearded face. A shredded lab coat – the last remnant of his previous life – was stretched over one of Emily’s special whole-body knitted pullovers. Brian was sharpening the ends of several crooked branches to make arrows for his inexpertly made bow. The boy watched his father load an arrow and fire it at a massive chicken coop no more than 10 feet away. The missile swerved and zipped between Zak Johnston’s legs.
“Hey, watch where yer shootin’ those sticks, man. Nearly skewered ol’ Zakker’s knackers,” complained the lieutenant.
At that moment, Tracey Brush, camp chef, sounded a small gong calling the colonists to their dinner. Emily Leach was the first to react. She emerged from her wigwam, hair bun now completely unravelled and her grey mane cascading down to her knees. She reached through the opening flap and hauled out the large flabby pumpkin that was Mr Darcy. The miserable, partially deflated doll blinked and made a sound that would not have been out of place in a hospital for those with chronic diarrhoea.
“It’s dinner time, Mr Darcy. We must keep our peckers up,” she said.
The gong summoning humans to their chicken dinner resounded in the ears of the giant chickens. The monster birds approached as close as they dared to the roaring fire and stared with eager eyes at the small, edible creatures assembled there. They were patient animals. They knew the fires would not continue burning for ever. One day, when the flames died out, they would enjoy some tasty nuggets themselves.
*
Church service over, the robots trooped out into the Martian evening and made their way home to Robotany Base. The last to emerge was Disa, wearing Flint’s lucky Leeds United football shirt – a reminder of her time with the Mission Commander. She sucked in the air and gazed towards the setting sun, remembering days when she had strolled hand-in-hose with her beloved Flinty, watching the orange globe slowly dip below the horizon. Her mind turned to Zak. He was nice, sure, but his personal hygiene habits left a lot to be desired. The robotic vacuum cleaner flicked an internal switch and the suck reversed into a long sigh.
Through the swirling dust cloud left by the departing robots her optics spotted a light in the sky. Jupiter, perhaps? No, not Jupiter. The light was moving fast towards her. She recognized it as a spaceship, but that only left her puzzled, and a little nervous. She backed towards the protection of the church. The large spacecraft slowed to a stop and hovered about a hundred metres above her head. Then a hatch slid open and a large blobby object lowered on a rope towards her. “Sling us yer ‘ose, Di,” called the blob.
In an instant, Disa’s fear evaporated. He had come back for her. He was here, reaching out to her,
Like a cowboy at a rodeo, the vacuum bot swirled her longest hose above her head and tossed it towards the approaching figure. Flint Dugdale caught the turbo dust-buster attachment and pulled her back towards the hatch. Disa gave a squeak as her wheels lifted off the Martian sand. Higher and higher they went. Not once did she look down, either to the ground, or to the retreating robots or to Robotany Base. Not because she was scared of heights, but because she only had optics for her Flint.
Inside the ship, the couple crashed onto their backs on the metal deck. They laughed like lovers who had found shelter from a sudden thunderstorm. Still panting from the exertion, Flint turned his head to drink in all of Disa’s features: the bot with the crazy sink plunger lips and mop-head wig who had won his heart and made him a better man. She met his gaze and her shrill motorised laughter softened to a purr. Tenderly, his hands found their way beneath the Leeds United shirt and unlatched her utensil compartment.
*
“Barb. Where are you, Barb?” Malcolm Brimble crashed through the front door, a huge grin separating his chin from the rest of his face. He checked the lounge and kitchen, leaving oily black hand-smears over walls and door frames as he did so. He called up the stairs, but no reply.
Then he spotted her. She was in the back garden, among billowing bedsheets, attaching her smalls to the washing line. His grin now wider, he limped arthritically at speed through the kitchen and out onto the lawn. Before Barbara could react he had linked an arm through hers and was singing and dancing a can-can, complete with high-kicks.
“Goodness, what’s got into you?” Barbara squawked, unlinking her arm and edging away from his filthy overalls. “You’ll soil my undies.”
Malcolm gazed into her eyes as though he had just won the lottery. “Fantastic news, Barb! Just heard it on the radio. They’ve taken him!”
“Who’s taken who? What are you talking about, you daft bat?” Her look was stern, but her eyes were soft and smiling.
“Dugdale! Who else? The aliens have got him.”
“Hang on a tick. Aliens? What aliens?”
“Little grey baldy guys, apparently.”
Barbara raised a hand to stop him, dropped her underwear and clothes pegs back into the laundry basket, and led her panting husband to a garden seat in an arbour covered by thorny roses.
“You mean: they’ve discovered intelligent life on Mars? Wow, this really is Big. It changes everything. We’re not alone in the Universe. The philosophical ...”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. All that. But you’re missing the point, dear. Dugdale's been abducted by aliens! When communications stopped, after the Germans left, NAFA sent a reconnaissance robot to check on the colonists. They’ve just received footage of Dugdale dangling from an extra-terrestrial space-ship, trailing a vacuum-bot hose behind him. Then the ship shot up into the sky.”
“Where did these aliens come from? I don’t remember that nice Mr von Grommel mentioning anything about aliens and I’ve watched all his interviews on television. Where did they take him?”
“Who cares where they chuffin’ took him. He’s gone. End of.”
Malcolm calmed and reflected on the significance of his words. He edged towards Barbara on the garden seat. Beneath the layers of his overalls and thermal underwear, something was stirring. Dugdale’s departure had released a side of him he had thought long since dead. He reached up and snapped a perfumed rose stem and gently proffered the love-token to his long-suffering wife.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Malcolm? That’s one of my prize blooms. Have you any idea how long it’s taken me to get this plant to flower? No, of course you don’t. You’ve always got your head stuck in that bloody car engine.”
Malcolm edged away and his under-overall stirrings subsided. He gazed at the clouds racing across the bright Spring sky and let Barbara’s voice dissolve into the background as his mind’s eye took him beyond the clouds, beyond the atmosphere and to the outer reaches of the galaxy where he imagined Dugdale on a slab with raised legs clamped into stirrups. A wicked smile formed on Malcolm’s face as he visualized the cross wires of a fiendish alien lance aimed at target Dugdale.
Suddenly, he was jolted from his reverie by an object dropping from the sky, spinning out of control, spraying liquid as it fell. Malcolm ducked in panic, covering his head and wondering what this unexpected danger could be: an unfeasibly large hornet squirting jets of poison, a fuel tank gushing petrol, or a hand grenade leaking neurotoxins. The object crashed with a splash into the Brimbles’ patio furniture before bouncing onto the crazy paving and skidding to a dead stop. Malcolm leapt up and warily flipped the intruder over with his foot. It responded with a final belc
h of frothy venom. On its belly the maker’s mark – a cowboy on a rearing horse – identified it as a half consumed can of Stallion lager.
Barbara tutted. “Bloody kids. I’m going to phone their headmaster and give him what for.”
But Malcolm wasn’t listening. “It’s him!” he uttered.
“Who?”
“Dugdale. He’s up there. In the sky. Laughing at me.” He pointed upward, scanning cumulus clouds for signs of a concealed UFO.
Barbara headed for the house, muttering, “Silly old goat.”
Over the garden fence the narrow alleyway leading to Grimley Comprehensive School was empty save for a fresh trail of litter left behind by passing Grimlians. A gust of wind funnelled through the alley sending an empty can clattering and bringing with it the distant chant of the culprits:
One Flint Dugdale … there’s only one Flint Dugdale …
Authors’ Note
Thank you for reading The Worst Man on Mars. We hope you enjoyed it. Please consider posting a short review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. You can find the links below:
Amazon // Goodreads
Reviews are a great help in getting an author's work noticed and would be much appreciated by us both. Thank you, again.
Mark Roman and Corben Duke
Acknowledgements
Firstly, many thanks for the great feedback received from all the members of the Comedy Literature Only Group (CLOG) who can be found at CLOG. In particular, to Rob Gregson whose dedication to the CLOG cause deserves some kind of medal. Make that two medals.
Thanks to the Grinning Bandits – Frank Kusy, Terry Murphy, Derryl Flynn and Cherry Gregory – for their continued support, feedback, suggestions, and friendship. A great bunch who have written some terrific books, worth checking out at: GrinningBandits.
Also, to the many members of Harper Collins’s Authonomy community for all their extremely helpful comments as the story developed. In particular Kevin Bergeron, Cindra Spencer, Alastair Miles, Andy Paine, Jake Vickers, Jon Nolan, and Paul Freeman, to mention but a few.
Thanks to David Taylor for his professional and high quality editorial services (http://theditors.com) which helped polish the manuscript. And to Craig Porter for his perceptive beta read.
Finally, special acknowledgement to Mrs Duke for the hours, days, months spent listening to Corben’s terrible accents (robots, humans and supercomputers) and for all her support and insightful comments. She really is the best. And so is Mrs Roman. Big thanks for her unwavering support and patience in the face of truly terrible humour.
About the Authors
Corben Duke
Born in a Yorkshire cave after his mother became stuck during a pot-holing holiday, Corben Duke was left behind and raised by bats. Later he became a shack-dweller on Doom Beach, Bernard Island in the Outer Hebrides where he now lives with his wife Mrs Duke and his two dogs, Crusher and Mr Fluffy.
Three years ago he found scientist Mark Roman wandering along his beach collecting and cataloguing brightly coloured pebbles. In return for a cup of hot seaweed tea, Mark gave him a copy of a fascinating book he had written speculating about the various rocks that might be found on Mars. Before burning it on the campfire for extra warmth (it’s cold on Bernard Island) he thought he’d better read it, and boy, was he glad he did. It reminded him of the story his great grandfather used to tell him about when he was a rocket scientist after WWII. Gramps claimed that a colleague had made a discovery enabling him to make the trip to Mars long before it became fashionable. As a young man Corben thought Grandpa Helmut was as crazy as a coconut which, in fact, he was. But Mark Roman’s book got him thinking about that old yarn and he decided to contact him with the idea of co-writing a story inspired by his great grandfather’s claim and Mark’s rock obsession. The Worst Man on Mars is that story.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Corben_Duke
Mark Roman
Mark Roman has never been to the Outer Hebrides, and never written a book about Martian rocks. Nor, indeed, has he ever met Corben Duke. He is a respectable (well, fairly respectable) scientist living in London with his wife and two teenage children.
His first contact with Corben was when a raving, rambling e-mail plopped into his inbox. A polite response was rapidly followed by an even more off-beat message. Quickly realizing the man to be delusional, and quite possibly dangerous, Mark started deleting the e-mails unread. But this was not a socially responsible way of dealing with the issue. Taking note of the creative potential in the ramblings, he reasoned that maybe a solution to the problem might be a course of occupational therapy; to harness Corben’s random mental outpourings and channel them into the writing of a science fiction comedy and the drawing of its map and 70 chapter illustrations. The result was The Worst Man on Mars.
It is too early to say whether the therapy has achieved its desired effect, for the raving e-mails continue ...
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mark-Roman/262645383823540
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MarkRomanAuthor
Ratings Game by Ryan C. Thomas
With their news stations neck to neck in the ratings, and the threat of hipper, younger anchors waiting to take their places, Roland Stone and Doug Hardwood know they must each come up with a juicy story to save their jobs. Suddenly, a horrific murder rocks the airwaves, and Roland Stone has the inside story. But great minds think alike, and it’s just mere hours before Doug Hardwood has the inside scoop on a different serial killer. Two desperate news anchors. One city. A whole lot of bloodshed. Story at eleven.
ASIN: B005O545IO
Last Stand In A Dead Land by Eric S. Brown
A small band of survivors is on the run during the zombie apocalypse. Led by a mysterious man with an arsenal of deadly military weapons, they must work together to stay alive. In a desperate attempt to locate other survivors, they find sanctuary in a lone farmhouse, only to discover the surrounding woods hold more dangers than just bloodthirsty undead. Featuring Sasquatch, roving rotters, and even more surprises, Last Stand in a Dead Land is an explosion of cross genre action that will leave you wanting more.
ISBN: 9780982945971
A Shadow Cast in Dust by Ben Johnson
The ancient order of the web spinners is changing. An old friend returns brandishing a curious silver knife, and Stewart Zanderson is drawn into a strange world of wonder and deceit. The ensuing bloody scene sets Detective Clementine Figgins on his tail, and into a case she could never explain. But the boy, escaped from the dreaded warehouse, now has the knife. And running from his captors through the canyons of San Diego with his new friends and special dog, he ties everything together. People fight. Some die. The ancient order will change, but who will rise when the dust settles?
“An engaging Urban Fantasy Adventure!” – Ryan C. Thomas, author of The Summer I Died
DEAD THINGS by Matt Darst
Nearly two decades have passed since the fall of the United States. And the rise of the church to fill the void. Nearly twenty years since Ian Sumner lost his father. And the dead took to the streets to dine on the living. Now Ian and a lost band of survivors are trapped in the wilderness, miles from safety. Pursued by madmen and monsters, they unravel the secrets of the plague...and walk the line of heresy. Ian and this troop need to do more than just survive. More than ever, they must learn to live.
Dead Things has been called “an amalgam of Clerks and everything Crichton and Zombieland.”
ISBN: 978-1-937727-10-9
Available in paperback and all ebook formats.
“Dead Things a first-rate triumph. Darst is taking the zombie novel in a really cool new direction.” – Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and Apocalypse of the Dead
“A first-class zombie story which takes place in a beautifully realized post-apocalyptic world. Highly recommended!” – David Moody, author of Autumn
FREAKS ANON by Matt Darst
Collection notices. Disapproving looks. Sleeping in a van. Life’s hard for a wanna
be superhero. Things get harder still when Centurion’s sidekick, Henry, dies. The police say Henry’s death was an accident. Centurion knows better. He needs to find the killer fast. In Chicago, his prime suspect has already set her sights on friends Astrid and Kim. But these teens aren’t like anything he’s ever seen. They’re special. Like Henry. Centurion will face spies, monsters, and the ultimate evil: the Chicago auto pound. If he doesn’t watch out, he just might find he’s the one in need of saving.
“Darst works his magic in horror once again, this time expanding into the realm of superheroes in an exciting mash-up that fans of both comic books and the paranormal are sure to enjoy!” – Stuart Conover, ScienceFiction.com
ISBN-13: 978-0692624937
DARKER THAN NOIR
When a mundane mystery needs solving, you call a private detective. But when the mystery involves ghosts, demons, zombies, monsters, mystical serial killers, and other supernatural elements, you call the detectives in this collection. They'll venture into the darkness and hopefully come back out alive. Just remember, they get paid expenses up front, and what they uncover, you might not like. Featuring tales from seasoned vets and up-and-coming talent, the game is afoot in a world that is Darker Than Noir.
ISBN: 9780982945957
ZOMBIE BITCHES FROM HELL! by Zoot Campbell
A plague has turned all the world's women into brain-eating zombies. Join reporter Kent Zimmer as he takes a hot air balloon from Colorado to Massachusetts in search of both his girlfriend and a cure. Along the way he encounters hungry undead, psychotic doctors, evil nuns, racist militias, zombie pregnancy farms, drag queens with machine guns, and neurotic stock brokers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
ISBN: 978-0-9829459-0-2
A PACK OF WOLVES by Eric S. Brown