Hamsterdamned!

by Adam Millard

  *

  The hamster heaved itself up onto the roof, panting, wishing for nothing more than a huge bottle of water to nibble at. The human in its mouth had done something foul, and at around the three quarter mark the hamster had considered spitting the dirty little fucker out. Think happy thoughts, it had told itself. Wheels, space-cake, water, shavings, wheels, space-cake…

  Everything was peaceful up at the top of the tower; the hamster could see a light on the horizon. The sun would be making an appearance very soon, which was a bit of a setback since it had climbed up the tower for somewhere to hide, only to find itself more exposed than Richard Nixon at Watergate.

  Still, there was time for a little play. It opened its mouth, spilling the drool-sodden human out onto the roof. It didn’t look that appetising, but the hamster was certain it would taste okay, once it’d got past the stench clinging to it. That was the thing about being an overgrown hamster; you couldn’t afford to be choosy. It had to take what it could get, when it could get it, though that didn’t mean it would settle for any old tosh. It would rather go without than, say, chow down on a bus full of Donny Osmond fans.

  The human sat up, wiping slime and bile from its face. “You motherfucker,” it said, but the hamster didn’t understand. It sensed a tone, though, that suggested the guy was more than a little irate.

  The hamster sat back on its haunches, batted the angry person around a few times. Not too much, though. It didn’t want to kill it. They tasted funny dead.

  A sound caught the hamster’s attention. It sounded like the noise it had once made, rushing around that wheel in its tiny cage. An incessant whoo-ta, whoo-ta, whoo-ta. Standing, the hamster scanned the semi-darkness for the source.

  It was then that it saw the things hovering toward it. Like little flies, if little flies had little windmills attached to their heads. There was about twelve of them, flying in formation, circling the building. It was obvious they weren’t there to take photos of the nice, big hamster at the top of the building, and yet the hamster waited for the flash of Nikons, smiling just in case.

  What came next could only be described as uncontrolled chaos. As the helicopters fired upon the beast, it seemed to grimace, as if it hadn’t anticipated such brutality. Bullets shaved its fur; rounds shattered its bottom incisors. As the hamster spat out debris, it wondered if it would ever be able to gnaw through anything again.

  The human was on its feet, staggering for the centre of the roof, ducking bullets and generally trying to stay alive.

  Fuck this, the hamster thought, standing up on its hind legs. It beat at its chest with tiny arms. What should have been a warning to the helicopters suggesting they back the hell off only served to invoke more gunfire and ridicule. Well, I’ll be damned.

  Its top incisors flew from its gums, landing a few metres away from the cowering human, who glanced down at them as if they were the body of a dead relative. As more rounds ripped through the hamster, it realised that scaling the tallest building in the fucking city had not been its greatest notion.

  As one helicopter got too close, the beast seized its opportunity. Leaping into the air, it used its hind legs to knock the chopper away. It whirled, out of control, down beyond the edge of the roof. A huge explosion came seconds later; the hamster’s tiny stub of a tail was almost completely burnt off as the fire surged up over the edge of the roof.

  The helicopters were now loath to get too close; and simply unloaded on the creature from a safe distance. A much safer distance would have been Rotterdam. As they circled the beast, the pilots gawped from cockpit windows with an amalgamation of disgust and awe. That night they had gone to bed bored, myriad pornography tucked beneath their arms, and now here they were, shooting the shit out of a giant rodent. It was amazing how quickly the shit could hit the fan.

  One round penetrated the creature’s eyeball; a torrent of blood and aqueous humor spewed from the socket. The hamster tottered backward towards the edge of the roof. The helicopter pilots held their breath. When the beast didn’t, in fact, topple over the edge, the frustration was palpable; one chopper decided to return to base early.

  The rodent knew the end was nigh; it didn’t need a confused and bearded man wearing a sandwich board to figure that out. It edged forward, gripping onto the roof beneath its feet for dear life as bullets continued to ricochet off its not-quite impenetrable body. The tiny human it had carried to the top of the building was making a run for it, a string of saliva flapping behind it in the breeze.

  Oh no you don’t, the hamster thought. “Squeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak,” it said, dashing lethargically after the fleeing meal. Being gargantuan had its perks; the hamster reached the human in three steps, snatching it up from the roof with its clawed hand. At the same time, the door leading onto the roof burst open, and another tiny human stumbled out, screaming gutturally and looking like one mean sonofabitch.

  *

  Mike hadn’t realised just how big the thing had got; it towered over him, thirty foot of stinking rodent. The helicopters surrounding the roof had done a fair amount of damage, but not enough to bring the beast down. As Mike backed away from the creature, he tripped on its razor-sharp incisors, which had been left lying around the roof, ready to cause mass carnage, much the same way a piece of Lego did at the top of a carpeted landing.

  The hamster roared as the helicopters continued to fire at it. It was then that Mike saw what the creature was holding.

  John. Still alive, and screaming like a granny at a Rod Stewart concert. Mike’s heart leapt into his throat. Had he believed his friend already dead? On the way up in the elevator, with that tinny – and considerably annoying – muzak surrounding him like an eggy fart, the thought had crossed his mind.

  Seeing him gave him a renewed vigour. Where there was hope, there was a chance. Where there’s a will, there’s a hundred lost relatives…

  “You on the roof,” a robotic voice said. “Head for the exit. I repeat, head for the exit. We have everything under control.”

  It was one of the pilots, and from what Mike could see, they had exactly nothing under control.

  The creature responded to the monotonous, mechanical voice with a growl. John stopped screaming long enough to realise he was, for the moment, only attached to the creature by the back of his shirt. Claws pierced the collar, but if he could just…get…

  Mike watched as John dropped to the roof. The hamster was too busy staring at the helicopters to realise it had lost its captive. John quickly scrambled to his feet and ran for the middle of the roof.

  “NOW!” Mike yelled, gesturing to the helicopters. “FUCKING BLAST IT!”

  Lining up, the pilots managed to corner the creature; it had no choice but to back away, edging ever closer to the roof’s end. As they fired, the hamster yipped and squeaked. Fur filled the air; it was what Mike imagined a cheerleader slumber party pillow-fight would look like, though perhaps he was just making the best of a very bad situation.

  The creature looked solemnly towards the emerging sun before falling back and disappearing from the roof altogether. In that final moment, Mike felt something close to sympathy for the beast.

  Something close to it, but not quite…

  *

  The gathering crowd surrounded the fallen beast. Within seconds, pictures circulated the Internet. YouTube videos depicted the moment the creature fell from the tower, rupturing on impact with the ground like a water-balloon. By the end of the year, a cartoon version of the hamster would have a number one single and its own brand of pyjamas.

  “I can’t believe you came after me,” John said as they emerged from the tower to be swamped by a hundred reporters. “You are one crazy fool.”

  Mike smiled. “It was the least I could do,” he said. “You did set this trip up for me.”

  “How did you feel up there?” a beautiful female reporter asked.

  “Did you think you were going to die?” a fat man in a fedora said, forcing a microphone into Mike’s face.


  “Was it some kind of koala?” another said, rushing around them with a camera on wheels.

  *

  The phone clicked as the dial-tone abruptly ended. Mike’s heart raced; he was dreading this, and yet needed to hear her voice, to tell her how sorry he was.

  “Mike?” Beth said. God, she sounded good; a little nervous, but good, as if she’d been eating strawberries and drinking champagne. “Mike is that you?”

  He sighed. “It’s me,” he said. He hadn’t thought what he would say beyond that, which is why a whole torrent of bullshit began to fall from his lips. “Beth, I’m so sorry. I didn’t go to Blackpool. I went to Amsterdam, and I shouldn’t have, but it was John’s idea, and nothing happened…well, something happened, but it’s not what you think. Okay, there was a tiny thing with a bunch of midgets, but they were just being friendly, and…well, I wanted to tell you I was sorry because I almost got killed by giant hamsters today, and I thought I would never see you again, and the thought of not being able to marry you because I was all chewed up in a big pile of hamster shit made me realise—“

  “Mike, it’s okay,” Beth interrupted. “Oh, God, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. I saw it all on the TV. I like what you told that fat man to do with his microphone.” He was pretty sure she was crying on the other end of the line, though later she would deny it, stating that she had a bit of a head cold. “I knew where you were,” she said. “John and I organised it. At first I wasn’t sure, but I trust you, babe, and I wanted you to have the best time. John said it would be funny watching you squirm. He said he’d tell me if you felt guilty about it, which is good. It means you’re ready to grow up.”

  Mike felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. John – that conniving sonofamotherfucker – had organised the trip with Beth’s blessing, had kept it to himself just to monitor Mike for any signs of remorse. Removing his phone form the situation had made it all the more difficult to contact Beth, to apologise and confess. He should have been angry, and yet he was pleasantly relieved.

  “I love you,” he sighed, pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger as the onset of a migraine threatened to hospitalise him. To his right, John appeared. He gave Mike a thumbs up. Mike nodded; smiled even.

  “I love you too,” she said. There was a moment of complete silence, and then she said, “Just come home.”

  T he Great Brain Robbery

  The Man with No Name rode into Delamar. He did, in fact, have a name, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was. You see, Duke McCall (ah, there it is) was not the sharpest tool in the drawer. He could shoot—boy, could he shoot—but shooting was not the be-all and end-all. No, what he wanted more than anything was to be able to think clever things, to ponder the meaning of life, to converse with his cowboy friends without them taking the piss, and to learn how to play proper card games, and not just Snap!

  As he rode into town—on the back of a horse whose name also eluded him—folks began to stare. They probably mistook him for a dangerous drifter, the kind of person you didn’t look in the eye unless you wanted a hole where your face used to be.

  “Bang, bang, bang!” a child said as he rushed out onto the trail, pointing an invisible pistol at Duke. The child’s mother, panicked and in dire need of a decent babysitter just so she could pop to the saloon once in a while and get tanked off her face, reproached the child and dragged him away from the mysterious traveller. Duke tipped his hat and snorted.

  Shutters slammed all around the town (population 47, temporarily 48). Duke was nervous; so was his horse. The beast might have been leaving a trail of shit in his wake, but it was still marginally higher up on the intelligence scale than its rider.

  Church bells rang out in the street, and although Duke couldn’t tell the time (as far as he was concerned, either the sun was up, or the moon), he had a funny feeling the bells weren’t chiming to announce noon.

  They were a warning to the townsfolk. They had a stranger in their midst.

  Duke located the saloon, for that was where he would find what he was looking for. He reverse-parked his horse (much to the horse’s lament) and went in through the batwing doors.

  Yep, it was just as he imagined. Clichéd saloon, right down to the tinkering pianist in the corner. A veritable feast of whores (the collective noun for whores is actually a ‘sore’ due to how your genitals feel come morning) were dancing around, lifting their skirts and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. The bartender was spit-polishing glasses with a rag that obviously doubled as a floor-mop and, quite possibly, a horse diaper. Men surrounded tables, smoking pipes and throwing back rotgut; a couple of tables hosted card games, but Duke couldn’t tell you what those games were, as none of the cards matched.

  “Well, what do we have here?” a jolly voice said.

  Everything fell silent. The pianist paused mid-song, but kept his long, skeletal fingers on the keys. The dancing girls/barmaids/whores glanced over to Duke, who in turn glanced over his shoulder to see what they were looking at.

  “You, you dipshit!” a burly guy said, standing from his table. “You’re not from around here, are ya?”

  Duke stuttered for a while before anything came out; there was something incredibly off-putting about all those angry faces glowering at him, and picturing them all naked only made things worse. “I’m from Fort Griffin,” he said, though it was barely more than a lisped whisper.

  The burly man stepped towards him, smiling sardonically. His tombstone teeth would have given Doc Holliday nightmares.

  “Well, I suggest you go back to Fort Griffin, unless you came here looking for trouble, in which case you done found it.”

  “Hit him, Big Bob!” some ancient fart said from the back of the bar. It was followed by roars of approval, and Duke could see in Big Bob’s eyes that the fucker was genuinely considering it.

  “I ain’t gonna hit him,” Big Bob said, holding his shovel-hands out as if to prove he was a man of his word. “I just think our friend here made a little mistake, and in order to rectify that mistake, he’s going to turn around, get back on his horse, and ride on out of here.” He turned to Duke, who was still trying to figure out what rectify meant. “Ain’t that right, stranger?”

  Now Duke, who should have known better than to get into a fight with such a large and angry man, was in a bit of a predicament. He was passing through Delamar on his way to see his papa, who had shacked up with some schoolmarm from West Virginia. They were marrying next Thursday, you see. Turning ‘round and heading back to Fort Griffin wasn’t an option, and he was exhausted. He just wanted to find a room for the night, and head off in the morning – preferably into the sunrise, like all good cowboys did... or was it sunset?

  “I won’t be no trouble,” Duke said, nervously. “I’ll be gone first thing in the morning.”

  “Hit that sonofabitch, Big Bob!” the crone at the back of the pub reiterated. “He’s making a fool out of you.”

  Big Bob, whose eyebrows now knitted together into one, thick bush, said, “Are you, boy? Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of all these folks here?”

  Duke was about to speak when another voice got there before him.

  “Now, why don’t you leave this here boy alone?” said an elderly gent as he walked casually across the bar. His clothes suggested wealth, and his demeanour suggested he didn’t really give a shit what people thought of him. His beard was neat in comparison to the other patrons, who appeared to have strapped birds’ nests to their chins before leaving the house that morning. Whoever this guy was, Duke was grateful for him.

  “Stay out of this, Doc,” Big Bob said, though he appeared to have shrunk a little, as if the man’s sudden interference had ruined his fun. “This ain’t none of your concern.”

  “Well, I beg to differ,” the silver-bearded gentleman said. “From what I can tell, you just plain insulted a guest in our town. You don’t own this place, Bob. And you,” he said, turning in the direction of the
geriatric heckler. “You, Sam Roth, ought to know better.”

  The heckler also shrank, though he hadn’t been much to begin with. Conspiratorial whispers sounded around the saloon; Big Bob looked apt to explode, and Duke – The Man who Couldn’t Remember His Own Name – didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  “You’d better watch your dumb mouth, boy,” Big Bob grunted, jabbing a gargantuan finger into Duke’s ribs. “If I see you after sun-up tomorrow, I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

  With that, he turned and made his way back to the table he’d been sitting at. His cards had been fixed to lose, now. He didn’t care, though; he was too riled to play anymore.

  The well-kempt man – and Duke’s saviour – ordered two whiskeys from the bar. “In glasses that ain’t got your mouth-piss all over ‘em,” he added as an aside. At the back of the bar, away from angry faces and scheming whispers, they sat. Duke didn’t know what it was about the man sitting opposite, but he liked him. He had a look about him; a countenance that suggested you could trust him, and as long as you didn’t fuck his daughter, he’d be your friend for life.

  “The name’s Murphy,” the man said, taking two large gulps of whiskey.

  Duke was confused. “The man up there said it was Doc.”

  Murphy laughed. “Lord, if brains were taxed, you’d get a rebate.” Duke didn’t understand the insult; hell, he didn’t even know it was an insult. “He called me Doc because I’m a doctor.” He extended his hand across the table. “Doctor Obediah Murphy, and sawbones of this here small town.”

  Duke shook his hand. “Er, thanks for…what you did up there.”

  “Ah, I hate to see dim folks get bullied,” said Murphy. “Besides, we ain’t out of the woods yet.” He threw the rest of his whiskey down as if it was going out of fashion. As if by magic, a saloon girl appeared at the edge of the table, eager to refill. When she was gone, Murphy said, “That big burly bastard up there—“