"I'm not entirely sure if what we're talking about is astronomically possible, Bill."
Before Bill could waste much time brooding over this, the Chief arrived, along with his medicine man and a number of sinister-looking redskins carrying torches.
"Right," said Buffalo Billabong, spewing another keg-sized can of Foster's all over the place as he opened it. A few tantalizing drops fell upon Bill's pants leg, but alas, none in his mouth. "G'day, maytes. Today we play Morton Bay bugs on the barbie, right?"
"Is that entirely necessary?" whined Elliot. "Surely you'd prefer it if we bribed you with some wampum, right?"
"You wouldn't have any firewater, would you?" asked Bill, making feeble connections at last with his memories of his copies of ROARING KINKY WESTERN COWBOYS AND TRANSVESTITE INJUNS THREE DEE COMIX.
"Just what are you idiots talking about?" demanded Chief Thunder Bluster. "Would you speak English for heaven's sake and not that pagan nonsense?"
"But that's what you're doing now — a pagan ceremony, correct?" responded Elliot.
"Well of course," snarled Thunder Bluster. "How do you expect us to appease the heathen gods with anything less than a pagan ceremony? You don't think that they would be very impressed if we attempted to baptize you, do you?"
"Why don't you give it a try?" suggested Bill.
"Well, actually, this is going to be a very sweet and pleasant ceremony and not at all within our realm of bloodthirsty tradition," said Buffalo Billabong. "No, I think a cookout is of an entirely more appropriate nature, don't you? The gods will not only be appeased, they can have spareribs for dinner!" He pulled out a book from his hip pocket even as he sipped at his huge can of Foster's. His lips moved as he read the greasy-paged book, the corks on his hat bobbling in the midst of a cloud of flies.
"And I suppose that's a collection of implorations to the gods!" said Elliot. "Don't you see the entire thing is ridiculous? There are no gods! It looks as though your superstitious tribe are the victims of —"
"Stuff it, buster!" said Chief Thunder Bluster, "or I'll stuff a live prairie dog down your gob!"
The threat was enough to keep Elliot silenced effectively, and Bill as well. Particularly since the chief waved over his prairie dog handler with a couple of fat specimens and shook them in their direction with sinister intent.
"Bravo!" commented the medicine man, observing all this. He held up the book. Upon the leather jacket was inscribed, SERVING BLOODTHIRSTY PAGAN GODS GOOD. "Actually, it's a recipe book! Let's see ... Upchuckandpeck, the big god around here —"
"I thought it was Coaxialcoitus!" said Bill. "That's what you told us earlier."
"Oh yes ... so it is. There you go, mate. You see, you'll get a bit of education before you snuff it. Wrong recipe." He paged around until he found the appropriate one. "Well, well, well. Looks as though the dread and holy Coaxial is a man after my own heart — as well as after all the hearts of the sacrifices we rip out around this place. He prefers his meals marinated in Foster's lager!"
Bill's ears perked up. "Beer?"
"That's right, mayte!" Buffalo Billabong put his fingers into his mouth and whistled. Immediately a whole cartload of Foster's Lager cans were trundled in with great ceremony, dispatch and racket.
Bill's mouth started watering. He watched with unmoving attention as a pair of Indian braves opened a pair of beer cans and then stepped forward, faces intent with seriousness, muttering strange ceremonial words like "Schlitz", "Budweiser" and "Ole Frothingslosh, the Pale Stale Ale" under their breaths. Perhaps these Indians, Bill thought, were not as savage as Elliot had originally thought.
He closed his eyes and opened his mouth expectantly.
Instead of pouring the beer into his mouth, however, the Indians poured it over his head. It ran down his hair and ears, soaked into his shirt. At first he spluttered, then began to suck desperately at the runnels of brew coming down his face, only managing to extract the odd tantalizing sip.
When the can was empty, Bill opened his eyes. "Say, you know, Buff, I think some inside marinating would help!"
"Stop this nonsense! Get on with the lighting of the pyre," roared the chief. "Burn these idiots! The great god grows impatient."
"No, no, wait..." said the medicine man. "Perhaps he's right, Chief. That's not a bad idea."
"Oh, if you must. After all, you are the medicine man around here and there is such a thing as protocol. But be quick about it! You can't expect the gods to hang around all day waiting for a sacrifice."
Bill sighed happily. At least he'd get a drink or two before he had to face the flames. Still and all, it wasn't exactly something he was looking forward to. He watched as the Indian braves pried open Elliot's mouth and poured in a can of Foster's.
When the beer can came to Bill's mouth, he glugged it down in a single giant insufflation. This impressed the Indians so greatly that they decided they needed to pour another can down his gullet. Bill had no complaint of course, accepting it gladly, guzzling it quickly. However, after the third and the fourth cans he found it was getting a bit harder to take the beer, and on the sixth, with his belly painfully extended, he discovered that he was not only getting drunk, which was an okay thing, but he was also getting positively uncomfortable.
Bill then managed to burble the words that he never imagined he would say in his entire alcoholic life. "I think — blub! — that's enough beer..."
"I couldn't agree more!" said the chief. "Let's move this thing on! I want to see these paleskins well roasted. The gods must be propitiated! Let the barbecue begin!"
Bill belched contentedly. He was so marinated by now that he didn't really care. Elliot, however, who'd only been able to take a single can of Foster's, began to plead for his life, giving sound arguments for his release, appealing to their sense of honor and asking them what their mothers would think about a sacrifice like this. None of this impressed the Indians in any way.
"Now then, that's done," said Buffalo Billabong, nodding his head at the preparations and feeling through his pockets. "Hmm. Who's got the matches and the lighter fluid?"
"Here. Use mine!" said Chief Thunder Bluster obligingly, pulling out a can labeled Zippo Bar-B-Que fluid, as well as a disposable lighter.
"Right!" The medicine man grabbed the lighter fluid and squirted it on the mesquite wood around Bill's and Elliot's feet. "You know, maytes, this won't be so bad. You'll be crisped in just a flash. Then we'll salt and spice you up proper like, plenty of garlic, put some parsley around you and serve you up to the gods."
Bill, thoroughly squiffed on Foster's lager, considered death. He wondered, how can I die if I haven't been born yet? It didn't seem possible. Besides, Bill had never died before, so he didn't really know what to expect. There were times before that he'd almost died, but he'd been only half-crocked then as opposed to now when he was fully crocked.
Staring at the flaming lighter, Bill considered life and death. All in all, he was just as happy to go out now, if not in a blaze of glory, then at least a blaze. Tanked up on brew, brain flying high, visions of Avalon, Valhalla, Olympus, the Holy Bar and Grill dancing willy-nilly in his noodle Joan of Arc, watch out. Here comes Bill of Spark! he thought.
However, even as the trembling flame neared the kindling, Bill noticed from the corner of his eye that a curious cloud was putt-putting toward them from the horizon, a little bilious, blimp scooting along in the sky. Clouds, of course, were normally nothing to get excited about, but thus far Bill had seen absolutely none here in the southwestern past of North America. Also, (he blinked to make sure) it seemed to be scudding along at a goodly clip, directly toward them as though a cloud on a mission.
Bill's interest in the cloud vanished instantly, however, when, with a wicked crackling and whoosh of flame, things started to get a little hot.
He looked down in horror to see that the lighter had successfully touched the tinder, and flames were not only licking the wood, but were singeing and crisping his boots in a decidedly unpleasant mann
er.
"Oh ... Oh ... No, please, I beg of you noble aborigines!" cried Elliot. "I'm too young to die! There are missions yet to be fulfilled, women to be loved —"
"— beer to be drunk," agreed Bill. "Don't burn me either." He pleaded, searching for something appropriate to say, but found himself vacant of any inspiration other than losing his temper. "You bowbs will live to regret this!" Which wasn't very impressive and only drew sneers from the redskins.
The flames roared higher.
The smiles on the Red Indians' faces grew wider, and they started to do a wild dance to celebrate the delicious conflagration.
But something remarkable was about to happen. Something as inappropriate and impossible as a lawyer going to heaven.
The Indians beat tom-toms and worked themselves up into a hysterical lather, too high to notice the cloud stealing over them until it was too late.
With a crack of ear-destroying thunder, a mini-storm broke. Water rained down upon the mesquite fire, drowning it out with much smoky hissing and gurgling. A bolt of lightning frizzled down, striking one of the redskins and blasting him right out of his moccasins.
"Hark! It comes upon me that, perhaps, there is a message of some kind here!" intoned Chief Thunder Bluster. "I do think that this seems to be some sort of sign from the gods."
Bill was happy it was a sign from somebody. This little fire had almost put paid to any ambitions he might have had regarding progeny.
"Bollocks!" cried the frustrated medicine man. "Talk about raining on the parade! What did we do wrong, oh gods, that you should rain out our holy barbie in this manner?"
"Bill!" shouted Elliot. "Look!"
Bill looked.
Sure enough, there was something remarkable to look at.
"You're right! There are still full cans of Foster's lager on that cart!"
"No, you quasi-alcoholic military moron, no!" screamed Elliot. "Not the beer. The cloud! Look at the cloud."
Bill blinked his eyes and tried to focus his attention on the cloud. He saw that the vapors of which it was composed were moving — moving and moiling so as to form a face!
The face had a big clown nose, protruding clown eyes and frizzy red hair, with a painted-on frown. "Hark and honk!" said the clown god, honking a horn from within its little cumuloid assemblage of water vapor. "I am Quetzelbozo, the clown of ridiculous blood-thirsty pagan Aztec ceremony. I've been sent by Coaxialcoitus to tell you that you're doing this all wrong."
"Wrong!" said Buffalo Billabong. "Why, we've got them marinated to high heaven!"
The clown-god sniffed. "Yeah. I can smell them from here. But you didn't do the rituals right. Recipe seems right on, but the rituals we gods like have to be included to make it a proper sacrifice."
"Oh, damn! Of course! I forgot the pies!" said the medicine man.
"That's right!" said the clown-god. "Prerequisite to the proper ritual burning of sacrificial victims is a proper mashing of cream pies in the face!"
"That's about as bad as a poke in the eye with a burnt stick!" moaned the medicine man, slapping his forehead in self-abasement and derision. "I forgot the cream pies." He fell down to his knees before the clown-cloud. "What else has your humble, penitent servant forgotten, your Big-noseship?"
"The rubber chicken with its head bitten off!"
Buffalo Billabong's eyes went wide. "The rubber chook — of course! How could I have possibly forgotten the bloody chook! This is just not my flipping day.
"You got it that time, buster. Be prepared to take your punishment for absentmindedness, worthless servant."
The medicine man braced himself and closed his eyes. A spray of carbonated water squirted from the cloud, smacking him on the kisser, followed by a dead mackerel which slapped him wetly in the forehead.
Holy blood-thirsty laughter echoed through the canyons. Even Bill and Elliot had to laugh. This was better than dying, thought Bill. Now if they could escape — along with some more drink — everything would be pretty all right.
Buffalo Billabong sighed and gestured to the nearest Indian brave to go and procure the important items he had forgotten.
Meanwhile, Bill felt something around the vicinity of his wrists. There was a momentary constriction, and then he found his bonds falling at his feet.
"Huh?" said Bill.
"Shh!" said Elliot. "The fire and the soaking loosened the bonds. Don't move — and don't run until I do."
"You're on!"
"Pardon me, Mr. Quetzelbozo," Elliot said, "but I have an important philosophical question to ask you."
"Let me guess," said the cloud. "You want to know whether the universe is really perched on the back of a turtle held up by giant elephants?"
"Close but not quite on."
"Knock it off, buster — I'm not playing twenty questions with some prospective roast. What is it?"
"The answer to a very simple question. If you gods are so great how come you let the entire U.S. cavalry over there come and break up this rotten ritual?"
In unison every head — Including the god's — turned towards the dusty plains.
Elliot and Bill threw off their bonds and ran as though their lives depended on it. Which, of course, they did.
CHAPTER 11
Bill's rear end was singed. His stomach, filled with beer, sloshed and swung back and forth as he ran, panting and gasping, with Elliot gasping and panting and trundling along at his side. There were arrows zipping past his ears, lightning bolts from the clown god cracking at his feet, and off to one side just what they didn't need: that damned Cue-tip thing, snarling and hissing, coming toward them looking extremely on the bad-tempered side.
All in all, Bill wondered, close to exhaustion, if maybe he hadn't been better off back in the middle of that sacrificial fire, bombed out of his gourd on Foster's lager and about to be booted out of life well before he'd even been born.
"The doorway to the tunnel!" cried Elliot, dodging an arrow. "Where'd you say that doorway was?"
Bill — stumbling, cursing, and in the act of dodging an arrow himself — was hard-pressed to answer.
"There's that other damned Aztec god, Bill!" moaned Elliot. "You said the doorway was somewhere near the lizard god, so where is it? Hurry up, man, or if the Indians don't get us, that monster will!"
Bill could see that Elliot was quite correct. Cue-tip, mightily peeved and hissing with joy upon seeing the man who had just escaped its jaws within its sights again, roared and snarled and trundled toward them, obviously bent upon Bill's total destruction, mastication, digestion and undoubtedly elimination in more ways than one.
"The tunnel!" said Bill. "Right! It's over there!" His pointing finger wobbled as he tried to point in the direction where he'd seen that mysterious opening to the other world alluded to by Cue-tip.
"Bill!" cried Elliot. "I don't see it!" He cried desperately, recoiling as he ran — which is very hard to do. "I DON'T SEE IT BUT I DO SEE THAT GOD, AND THAT MONSTER IS HUGE!"
Sure enough, the saliva-dripping jaws of Cue-tip, to say nothing of the hissing rattlesnake kirtle and the scorpion-tail claws, were nearing them with extreme rapidity.
"Kill them!" ordered Thunder Bluster. "Shoot them!"
Another volley of arrows tore through the air. Bill did not exactly duck this time, though the consequence of the next event served the same purpose: he tripped. He tripped on a rock, and in doing so managed to knock Elliot Methadrine down as well. But good fortune doth come. Occasionally. For they both went down in a tumble, and the just-released hail of arrows tore through the airspace they had just occupied, banging and thunking into various parts of the anatomy of the Aztec god called Cue-tip.
Now it is written that even monsters of legendary nature are supposed to have been of flesh and blood, or something disgusting roughly resembling flesh and blood, so when Bill looked up he expected Cue-tip to be at least bleeding a little bit — and hopefully mortally or immortally wounded.
Instead, he was startled to see the Aztec god
going through strong reactions of a decidedly electronic nature.
One of its lizard heads had been blown clear off, exposing wires and computer components. Most of the arrows had bounced off its chest, but the ones that had connected were now fountaining showers of sparks. The snakes wiggled and squirmed, bolts of static electricity snapping between them.
"Argh! Zap! Snap! Crackle! Pop!" crackled Cue-tip. "Kill the infidels! Bowb the Emperor! Fie Fi Fo Fum Fizzle!"
It then slowly keeled over, spasming and spuming fire and sparks, to hit the ground with a decidedly metallic crash.
"You aboriginal Indian idiots!" cried Chief Bluster. "You shot the god."
"This I do believe," moaned Buffalo Billabong, "Is what might be called in the old outback definitely bad news!"
"Infidels!" exhorted the clown-cloud god, zipping over on its cloud. "They must not be allowed to escape. My wrath is mighty, let me tell you, and there are going to be some roasted redskins around here if —"
It was an ungodly sight, for the god never finished its goddamn sentence. Because a sudden arc of energy blasted up from the wreckage of the fallen Cue-tip, an arc of corruscating crapola, connecting with the cloud and exploding in its interior with a massive bang. Instantly coils and transistors rained down, along with a great splash of water that slammed onto the Indians, dousing them thoroughly and plopping them headlong into an instant lake of mud.
"Robots!" said Elliot. "Bill, both those gods were robots! Do you know what that means?"
"Not good! If this means that I'm back on the Planet of the Robot Slaves, then we are in for it."
"We're still in the same place, you idiot. There has got to be an explanation but this is not the time to worry about it! If you want to worry, look over there — keep moving!"
Bill looked. Sure enough, there in the canyon wall was the tunnel entrance. A section of the rock wall was rolling back with a grating, rock-against-metal sound.
On The Planet Of The Hippies From Hell Page 9