by Tim Marquitz
“Slug bug!”
I leapt in and punched the thing again, choosing this time to hit it between a set of eyes. My fist sluiced through its rubbery flesh and sunk inside again. It was out and gone before the lash of tendrils could react. They grazed past me on the way back, the only thing hitting me was the disturbing realization of what it was gonna take to stop the creature since it seemed nearly immune to magic. I was gonna have to get medieval on its ass.
My stomach roiled, and I let out a tired sigh as the thing shifted about on its squirmy frame and turned its pissy glare my way again. Its funk wasn’t making my head feel any better. It started forward without hesitation, giving me no opportunity to rethink my plan of action. Nothing to use as a weapon nearby, I decided to use the next best thing: my brain. Good thing it wasn’t sharp or I might have cut myself.
The creature ducked low to snatch me up, and I waited until it was right on me. That was when I jumped straight into the air, letting its head swoop underneath. I came down on top of it and sunk my fingers in, grabbing gooey handfuls to stay in place. They held.
Perhaps realizing what I intended, the monstrosity rolled, turning its top half toward the nearest building, looking to scrape me off on a wall. I didn’t give it time to get that close. A quick shift of my handholds and I was staring right into one of its coal black eyes. Lights glinted across its face, and I knew it could see me, but there was nothing it could do. T-Rex arms slashed open air, but they were too short to reach me.
Before I could change my mind, I released one of my handholds and pulled my arm back as far as I could while clenching my fist.
“This is gonna suck.”
After a deep breath, I mustered every ounce of strength I had and punched the thing in the eye, throwing all my weight behind it for good measure.
The eyeball split like a ripe melon as I buried my arm in it up to the biceps...
…and then the monster went crazy.
It thrashed, slamming into the ground. I lost my balance as the impact knocked my grip loose. Then it flung itself upward and gravity—cruel bitch that she is—took hold. Biceps turned to shoulder, to half my face, and then I was swimming in the creature’s eyeball, my thrashing feet inadvertently driving me deeper inside. The tauntaun scene from the Empire Strikes Back flashed through my skull, and I could only hope the thing smelled better on the inside than the outside.
Fortunately, it did.
Mouth and eyes squeezed tight, it was as if I’d been dumped into a sensory deprivation tank. I sloshed around inside its gelatinous head and kept pushing myself forward. No clue which direction I was headed, I hoped I hadn’t got turned around. With any luck, I’d burst out through its opposite eye and we could put this unfortunate moment in Frank history behind us.
That wasn’t how it worked out.
Only a few seconds into my journey, I slammed into something solid. It drove the breath out of my lungs, and I waged a war with instinct to keep from trying to draw in more. I won, but just barely. The last of my air bubbled against the trembling barrier of my lips. Not that it mattered much since whatever I’d hit had killed all my momentum. I was stuck.
Over the years, I’ve had a ton of opportunities for fun and stupid epitaphs, but right then, I couldn’t think of shit. All I knew was that I didn’t want to die in the mushy skull of some deformed monstrosity. So, against my better judgment—as if that ever made a difference—I forced my eyelids open to see what I was caught on.
It was a glimpse into Bill Cosby’s most elicit of dreams. Everything around me was shaded in orange, as though I’d been buried in a casket of Jell-O. Right in front of my face was a vaguely spherical shape that resembled a hunk of cauliflower with veiny tubes running from it in every direction.
It didn’t take a genius to realize what I was wrapped about, which was a good thing because I didn’t have a genius with me.
The thing I was hugging was the monster’s brain.
I contemplated patting myself on the back, but my chest was growing tighter and tighter. There hadn’t been much air in my lungs before I crashed into Hannibal’s snack pack, and there sure wasn’t much left now. So, in desperation, I reached out and started yanking tubes loose. I managed about a dozen or so before a shudder ran through the goop.
Everything shifted and before I thought to hang on, I was sliding back the way I had come—I thought—slipping through the muck. Orange hurtled past, the perfect complement to the searing agony that were my lungs. Then, when I thought I would have to give in and suck down a mouthful of monster gut juice, my back slammed against something solid and all movement ceased.
The lizardy part of my brain recognized the uneven, crunchy surface and hit the self-preservation button. I spun around inside the nastiness and felt wet gravel beneath my palms, fingers digging in for traction. A moment later, my head slipped free of the monstrosity and sank to the asphalt. I gasped, drawing in the deepest, fullest lungful of stinky ass air I’d ever sucked before. It was delicious.
Not a few seconds later, I felt the weight at my back shift, and my heart sputtered at the thought the thing was still alive. I yanked myself around, ready to scramble free when I noticed a fashionable boot. I sighed and let my gaze follow upward along the shapely leg until I saw Veronica’s face. She stared down at me, the flicker of a smile on her full lips.
“Ah, good. I see you found it.”
Five
“What…the fuck…was that?”
Rala shrugged, and I had to restrain myself from unraveling her stripes.
Back at the hideout, still sticky from my brain bath, I glared at the little alien.
“You can give me the poop-eye all day, and I still won’t have a better answer,” she said, turning to point at the newly summoned portal. “Whatever it was, it came from in there. You know, from the doorway that keeps popping up because you want me to translate this stupid book.” She waved it in front of my face.
My gaze drifted to the emerald shimmer that floated in the center of the room. The portal was much bigger this time, nearly the size of a man, though it didn’t feel any different than it had the first time Rala had opened it. “How did something the size of zeppelin squeeze through that tiny little thing?”
“Have you forgotten your sex education classes already, Frank,” Veronica asked, muffling a laugh.
“Vaagggiiinnnaaaaaa maaaagggiiiccccc,” Chatterbox added his wisdom.
My glare shifted from him to her, and then back to portal, then to the trail of slime leading away from the gateway to the missing wall and chunk of roof that had been torn away. “Okay, I can see that.” I exhaled long and deep, hoping to blow out some of my frustration, but it wasn’t working. “We’re gonna have to do something about that.” I gestured to the half of the room that was missing.
The lights flickered as Veronica nodded. Her face shimmered in the dancing illumination.
“Not…so…secure,” Rala said, dragging out the last syllable too damn long. She was standing near Veronica, the tome tucked under her arm.
“Yeah. We need to—”
A flutter of movement caught my eye, strangling my sentence in my throat. A dark, wiggling tentacle wormed its way out of the portal. I yanked Veronica and Rala behind me and went to grab the thing when it sunk back inside and disappeared.
“That is creepy,” I heard Rala say at my back, and I couldn’t agree more.
Chatterbox started humming the opening vocal riff from King Diamond’s “The Family Ghost” for emphasis.
“I got it, dude, now be quiet.” Rala thumped him on his head and set his maggots to bouncing. “You’re freaking me out.”
CB muttered an apology, but it sounded half-hearted.
I could almost feel Rala glaring at him after I turned to examine the portal. The haze had lessened somewhat from the last one Rala had conjured, and I figured that had something to do with the size of it. Its colors swirled, green static between television stations. I leaned closer, cognizant of the thing
that had stuck its appendage through, and peered as hard as I could to pierce the glowing veil. Shapes moved beyond the shimmer, but unable to see anything with any clarity, there was no telling if what I saw was just on the other side or miles away. There was nothing to give me perspective. It was maddening.
Magical energy seeped into our world, but it was strange. There was no doubt it was a kind of living energy, warmth flooding my senses, but the feeling was so alien it made Rala look domestic. Yet, at the same time, it felt almost familiar. It was an awkward sense of contradiction I couldn’t unravel.
“This feels wrong, Frank,” Veronica said, clearly picking up the same weird vibes I was. “You should shut this down and leave it alone.”
I knew I should be afraid of messing around with the thing, but I only found it intriguing. Lucifer had wanted the book kept safe, far away from God and the other holy rollers, and that only piqued my interest more. Especially after the way he treated me. If the book—portal, whatever—was so important, why shit on the guy babysitting it?
Then again, there was something in his voice when he said his goodbye that didn’t jibe with the attitude he gave me. Besides that, why give me the gem if he was pissed? Had Lucifer been trying to tell me something? I sighed. If he had, I’d been too angry, too hurt, to catch it. But he would have known that, right? I growled and my mind chased those thoughts away. They were a circle jerk with no happy ending. Whatever he intended, I was on my own.
So thinking, I got back to work. I tapped my finger against the portal’s energy only to find a surprising solidness greeted my fingers. A quick push yielded nothing, my fingers failing to penetrate the glow.
“You know, you’re probably right, Veronica,” I said, turning to face her as an idea popped to mind.
One of her eyebrows lifted. “I’m right?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I gave her a reassuring smile, which probably only made her nervous. “I’ll help Rala shut this down, but I need you to do something for me; a couple things, actually.”
“I don’t think—”
“Nah, don’t worry about it.” I gestured to the gaping hole. “Something needs to be done about this. We need a new place off the grid that has…well, walls and a roof and less slime. I did some damage to our unnamed nemesis’ troops so we’ve got some time, but I don’t imagine he’ll let it go, whoever he is. We need a new hideout.”
Veronica tried to cut in but I stopped her.
“And that’s the other thing. I need you to hunt around and find out either who the guy is or how to get a message to him. I’m not sure mine got through,” I said, chuckling at the carnage I’d created before the big slug showed up.
“What about—”
I loosed a trace of my power, just enough to get Veronica’s attention and let her know I was serious. Her lips paled as she pursed them tight and nodded, letting whatever she’d intended to say wither and die on her tongue.
“Good,” I said and shooed her out. “Track me down when you have a new place. I need to get Rala and CB someplace safe.”
Chatterbox wiggled his tongue at her, and that was all it took. Veronica raised a hand and spun on her heel. “I’m out.”
I watched her until she was gone, and then gave it a few minutes after that before I looked back to Rala. She stood there staring at me, her eyes a little puffy, cheeks gaunt. She looked as tired as I felt.
“You lied to her, right?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Yuuuuuuuuppp,” CB parroted, shaking his head.
Rala sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
I looked behind me and let my senses loose to make sure Veronica hadn’t snuck back around. Once I was sure she hadn’t, I went on. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” I said, motioning to the portal.
“If you’re looking to commit suicide, there are easier ways to do it, you know that, right?”
“It’s got nothing to do with me killing myself.” I hoped.
“Then what’s it about?” Rala jutted her chin out at me, her furry little nose twitching.
“I…” my answer kind of trailed off. I wasn’t quite sure why I felt so strongly about translating the book, but there was no doubting I did. The thought was a steel ball bouncing around inside my skull. “Don’t worry about it,” I told her, glancing at the hole in the wall once more. “Just do what I ask, please.”
She grunted, and I heard Chatterbox snigger.
“Stop making faces at me and do it,” I said, whirling on her.
I spotted the tip of Rala’s tongue as it slithered into her mouth. Her eyes went wide, gaze darting one way while Chatterbox’s went the other.
“Seriously?”
“Fine.” She muttered something under her breath and opened the book, dropping to the floor to sit with her legs crossed, the tome splayed out in her lap. CB bounced around in the basket alongside her.
“I’ll be here to make sure nothing happens,” I said.
She grunted a noncommittal, “Uh, huh,” in response, getting right back to translating. The strange, singsong phrasing of the alien language started up right after, the sound beautiful despite its oddness. CB hummed along somewhat in tune while I stared at the shifting portal, its energies reacting to her voice.
“You’re an asshole, Frank.” I looked over to see Marcus peeling himself off the couch, which had been, quite luckily for him, only two feet from the slug’s trail. It had barely missed him, which I wasn’t entirely sure was a good thing. I’d forgotten he was there. He still looked like he’d been hit by a bus, cheeks sunken, but there was a glimmer of clarity in his squinty eyes.
“Where are you going?”
“To get another drink, not that it’s any of your business.” He shambled through the wreckage, beer bottles, cans, and pizza boxes pushed out before him like he was Moses parting the trash sea.
“Don’t let the door hit ya where your prison roommate split ya.” I told him.
He flipped me the bird and stumbled out onto the street. A moment later, the sound of his shuffling footsteps faded and it was just me, the alien, and a disembodied zombie head.
“Duuuunnnn, dduuuuunnnn, dduunnnnnn.”
I ignored CB’s commentary and focused on the portal. It shimmered as though it were a pool beneath a steady rain as Rala worked the book. She skipped around from page to page, the sound of paper flipping only adding to the ambiance of her voice. The swell of mystical energy pinged against my senses so I moved closer, running my hands along the doorway. It was still solid, but I could feel the slightest of gives as my fingers ran across its surface.
Instinctively, I used my magic to push against the leak of energy coming out of the portal. I felt kind of stupid, like that fairy tale with the kid sticking his thumb in the dike to keep it from leaking, but the shit was actually working. The drift of power stopped at my hands, but I could still sense it just beyond. I still wasn’t sure why I wanted to stand there plugging the hole, so to speak, but with all the critters slipping out to wreak havoc, it seemed like the smart thing to do. Rala’s soft, lilting tones were the soundtrack to my efforts.
I’m not sure how long I had stood there, pressing my power against the portal, but Chatterbox’s voice startled me into awareness.
“Spppaaaaaarrrrrklllleeeeessssss!”
A deep, rumbling thunder rolled through my skull as I peeled my eyes from the doorway to see what CB was going on about. Scarlett stood in the arch of the shattered wall.
I sighed. “Did he say you sparkled?”
“You sent us to Canada, Frank. Canada!”
Oops. Hadn’t meant to do all that, but I had to admit it was nice to know I’d figured out how to teleport. I swallowed back my grin.
Scarlett glared. “You don’t have any idea as to the shit storm you’re brewing, do you?”
“Ooooh, I’m telling Jesus.” I chuckled. “Look, I’m not—”
“Uh, Frank…”
“Not now, Rala.” I wiggled a finger. The last thi
ng I wanted to do was turn my back on Scarlett when she was that pissed. The best I could hope for a pointed boot up my backside. “Tell the choir I’m not my father’s son. His bullshit beef with Heaven isn’t—”
“Frank!” Rala called out.
“God damn it, girl. What?”
Scarlett hissed, and I realized I had used her Lord’s name in vain. I almost apologized—force of habit—when I caught the strange expression on her face. It wasn’t anger, it was...awe? Concern, maybe? Her eyes were locked on something behind me. I craned my head around to look and saw two of the most brilliant purple eyeballs I’d ever seen staring back at me through the portal.
“Holy…” I willed my power back to life, noticing I’d let it slip when Scarlett arrived, and pushed against the seeping portal. The eyes hovered a moment, and then slid out of sight.
A collective sigh filled the room when I turned to look at Rala. “Why didn’t you tell me some critter was eyeballing me?”
“Really?” she huffed, dropping the book to the floor.
“It’s a good thing I’m paying attention or we might—”
“What is that?” Scarlett asked, her head bent to the side like a dog listening to something only she could hear.
The room went silent. Just above the quiet hum of the portal, there was a whistling sound growing louder and louder.
“Innncccooommmmmmiiinnngggg!” Chatterbox shouted and flopped onto his side in the basket, using his tongue to pull him to the far corner.
I glanced through the ruin of the wall and spied a silver blur streaking our direction.
“Ah crap.”
Then the world exploded.
Six
Dust clung to my lungs as I hunkered over Rala, her furry little butt tucked up underneath me while the last of the roof rained down in annoying thumps across my back. There’d only been time to grab the alien before the RPG hit, my shield fluttering up too late to do much more than blunt the impact of the explosion and disperse some of the flying debris.