Archelon Ranch

by Garrett Cook

  But he had not accounted for the synthetic ratel mutation. Just as beestings were to the scrappy, vicious honey badger, so were bullets to the Standardizers; they didn’t even break the skin. They sidled into formation, blinking news at one another. Hateful, arrogant smiles dominated their grey, furry faces. Fast as Bernard moved, he couldn’t outrun the lure of the Objectivity. He was doomed now for his transgressions against society, defying Professor Sagramour who had been the one to invent Standardizers. He would have been doomed, that is, had Chuck not decided to do something admirable, beautiful and stupid. Chuck ran to the first control panel he saw and began buffeting it with his fists. One of the Standardizers blinked a pink warning at his comrades, but it wasn’t quick enough. Chuck had damaged the control panel, and in doing so, he had demagnetized the Suburbanites.

  Three of the green, slobbering aberrations showed their appreciation to Chuck by gnawing on his arms. All the rest seemed to understand that it was the Standardizers who had sealed them in, to keep them away from eating, fucking and spewing mud as they wished. The Standardizers dove into the fray, seeing the native species they had deceived contesting territory and forgot all about Bernard. Bernard turned to fire at the Suburbanites who were targeting Chuck, but it was too late. Bernard may have had a lot of ammo on him, but there was no sense wasting it. Chuck was dead.

  As he rushed out the door into the suburbs, Bernard wished he’d had a moment to thank his first real friend for his sacrifice, but he did not, for he now had a vast, scary world to comprehend, a place that he hoped was not far from Archelon Ranch.

  VIII

  Sooner or later I knew that I would have to deal with it; I would have to trust the Reverend enough to untie him without assuming he would simply wander off and disappear into the mall crowd. Although a lot of people are escorted into the Mall bound, I would not be able to do so with the Reverend for he was enough of a public figure that it would look inappropriate or perhaps even suspicious. I undid the ropes, pocketed the gun and led him to the extremely long line knowing all I could do was hope for the best. Maybe the Reverend would decide that it was in his best interest for me to have faith in him. He was perverse like that. Sneaky too, which is why I didn’t bother injecting a liquifilm.

  “You know,” he said, “I could just run away.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So why are you untying me?”

  “Cause sooner or later I’m going to have to, so it might as well be now.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  I yawned. After making the concession of untying the Reverend, it was a bit too big of a chink in my tough guy kidnapper defenses, so I motioned to a nearby Supra-Adderall tea vendor.

  “I’ll take one of the big ones,” I told him, “one of the real big ones.”

  He held up a 90 ounce cup. That was too big.

  “No, not that big. Smaller than that.”

  We argued through five more sizes before I ended up having to admit that it was the small I had wanted all along. I felt like a seven year old, but 90 ounces of hot Supra-Adderall tea could possibly kill me. Supra-Adderall was in most beverages, but I knew that this stuff was not particularly refined. The bits of pill floating in it were a dead giveaway. When you’re in line at the Mall, you have to avoid purchasing the sort of things you can only purchase in line at the Mall.

  “You want any?” I asked the Reverend. He nodded emphatically.

  “I’ll take the large.”

  I felt a bit sick. Was he attempting suicide?

  “That stuff can kill you, you know.”

  “So could the gun you had to my head not five minutes ago. Sometimes, you need to take risks. Besides, my secretary brews me a pot of this stuff every morning. I’ve been waiting eagerly for them to finally upgrade to Supra-Adderall 8. I’ve got videogames to beat, so I need to clot fast.”

  I sipped my sensibly-sized tea as he eagerly gulped down his tower of pharmaceutical voodoo. He looked like an orang with a heroin needle. The only difference was I tended not to stand next to the orangs shooting up an emasculatingly small amount while they went through needle after needle. The growl of semi-human satisfaction he emitted was no different than theirs. If I had reason to be annoyed with myself for accepting this man’s religious precepts before, I had reason to be deeply embarrassed now. He licked particles of Supra-Adderall 7 off his lid as I took my third sip. “Pussy”, he said with his eyes. “Junky” mine replied.

  “You’d better not run,” I blurted out. Three sips and I was already a tiny bit twitchy.

  “I won’t.”

  “You swear? You swear cause if you run, I’ll…”

  “I swear, I fuckin’ swear man. Honest? What do you want?”

  “You’d better not be lying, cause if you’re lying…”

  He shook his head and began doing jumping-jacks in place.

  “I swear to you Clyde, on the holy name of Garrett Cook that I am not under any circumstances going to run away, no matter how tempting it seems. Most importantly, Clyde, I swear on the name of Garrett Cook that I will not give you a reason to shoot me, no matter how tempting it would be. And I swear to you on the name of Garrett Cook that I’m in fact a little bit excited about this venture.”

  “You’ve always wanted to go to the Sad House, haven’t you?”

  “Uh huh.”

  I had an epiphany. Well not an epiphany. One of those things that’s just like it in the way that a pygmy hippo is like a regular hippo. I don’t think there’s a word for them.

  “And you don’t think you could survive the Mall and the suburbs alone, do you? You’re not going to run away because you need me here. You don’t need me to kill you, there’s a whole deadly world outside the city to do it for you…”

  “Plot preserve, just put in your fucking liquifilm.”

  I did just that, putting in my favorite bootleg George Meliés porno. A tall blackhaired young woman, with the kind of figure that would make a girl nowadays think she was too fat to live, wandered through a cardboard forest under a jolly, bearded, laughing sun. She looked nervous at first, but then got calm, looking up and sharing a smile with the benevolent old man in the sky. Suddenly, huge cardboard phalluses rose up from the ground. She leapt over one after another, then knelt down and stroked each cardboard cock as though it were a loveable capricious little animal of some kind. She laughed, then kissed them and wrapped her arms around them. Then things changed. The sun abruptly stopped laughing. The coming change was sort of scary. The sun let out a silent scream as it was yanked away by a rope from above it. The girl put her hand over her mouth as it cut to a title card.

  “Oh my! Whatever has happened?”

  Another title card comes up. It is simple, blunt and ominous.

  “Night has fallen.”

  Cut back to the forest. The sun has been replaced by a moon with a lean, wicked bitter face. A pair of tiny spectacles dangles off the edge of old, bitter, awful mister moon’s sharp nose. A curtain on which is projected a closeup of a hot, wet vagina falls behind the trees. A woman in a wolf costume creeps up on the girl, making sure to take time to slink between each cardboard tree as she does so. If Meliés’ porn had been available in the twentieth century you would think the wolf lady was an inspiration for the costume in Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. The girl holds onto one of her phallus friends for dear life and protection, trembling.

  Cut to title card.

  “These woods are savage and awful at night!”

  Cut back to the forest and the “wolf” whose arms are raised threateningly.

  Title card. “Grr, I’m going to get you!”

  Title card. “No, please! Don’t!” The wolf doesn’t listen and the girl can’t get away. The wolf throws her down, kisses her greedily and tongues her nipples. She puts a wolfy hand between the girl’s legs as she begins to gently bite her breasts. The girl does not look excited by this. She is still frightened, horrified in fact, but does nothing to resist. She can’t. The w
olfwoman and the angry moon are powerful, too evil for innocence to conquer. The girl begins to cry. There is a very modern closeup on her face as a tear runs down her cheek. After this momentary breach of style that sometimes makes me doubt the authenticity of the bootleg, the elegant rape resumes and the wolfwoman kisses gently down the girl’s belly.

  Title card. “You’re mine now! Mine forever!”

  “No!”

  “You are my princess and you belong to me!”

  In the forest, the wolfwoman inserts her tongue. Another breach of style follows; a closeup on the girl as more tears stream down her cheek and she gives out a silent scream of pure desperation. Her thick lipstick and her running eye makeup render the experience ecstatic. It makes up for the anachronistic shot.

  The moon shares her scream. The old man face is filled with despair and then fuming with anger.

  Title card. “No! NO! NOOOOO!!!!!”

  The wire hoists up the moon into nothingness, then brings down the sun. As if by magic, the wolfwoman’s suit is gone and she holds hands with the girl. They laugh silent laughs, frolicking in the phallic forest without the threat of the pussy curtain behind them. They embrace, and then play leapfrog, bouncing merrily over the phalluses, hugging, kissing and soothing the precious flowers. They kiss once more and share an embrace as a dick sprouts up between them.

  Title card. “Life in the enchanted forest is sweet. But watch out for wolves!”

  Title card. “The End”.

  Since this is good, laboratory grade liquifilm this plays forty times before it’s done. I emerge from the enchanted forest to find myself almost at the front of the line, just as I suspected I would be. The Reverend is standing beside me. His recent revelation wasn’t an attempt to trick me into distracting myself so he could run away. He is practicing Jeet Kun Do moves. The Supra-Adderall 7 he’s ingested seems to show no signs of wearing off. We move through the line and the contraband Iguanodon stops at the guy in front of me. It emits a loud squawk and gives a spiky thumbs-down. The guard looks the guy over and finds a banana stashed in his speedo. It might be to impress the ladies, but that doesn’t stop it from being contraband.

  “No outside food!” the guard shouted, shooting the guy in the neck. I was grateful that I only brought firearms, chloroform and a gas mask and neither outside food or controversial reading material as either of those two things would be flat out suicidal in the Mall. The security guard tipped his helmet to the Reverend and the Reverend in turn waved hello. He finally stood still for a second.

  “Plot preserve, Reverend!” said the security guard.

  “Plot preserve, Julio.”

  “I heard, Reverend,” Julio whispered, “I heard.”

  He couldn’t keep his volume down for long.

  “I’m just amazed! I feel so much hope and purpose and I am so privileged to be with you in these fantastic times. Welcome to the mall, Reverend!” he hugged the Reverend almost to the point of constriction, then let go.

  “Is this the guy? Oh my god, is he? Plot fucking preserve! It’s the protagonist!”

  “No, my son,” the Reverend replied, getting a bit green. The mere notion must have been enough to start to send the Supra-Adderall tea back up. I was offended, but I could see where he was coming from. I was, however, frustrated that Bernard’s clumsy ascension into the role hadn’t gotten the same response out of him. He had just been incredulous when I first presented the theory, not sickened like he was with the implication that I could have been the protagonist. If I were a violent man and the guard were not a Narrativist with a gun, I’d have given the Reverend a good solid smack. Okay, I am a violent man, but the guard was a Narrativist with a gun, so I couldn’t give the Reverend a good solid smack.

  “I’m sorry, Reverend,” the security guard said, looking deeply contrite and red with embarrassment, “I just figured you would be guiding the you-know to you-know-where. I didn’t know you were simply going shopping with your friend.”

  “No, the you-know is not with me nor, lamentably, shall he ever be.”

  The security guard went from apologetic to quite scared.

  “We’re doing something, aren’t we? I can’t imagine not helping him out. If we don’t, then what purpose do we have? There are Standardizers out there, you know.”

  The Reverend dismissed the security guard’s concerns immediately.

  “Of course we’re doing something for him, my son. You should have more faith in me. We’ve set him up with a fairly substantial sum of money and Chuck Callaway’s with him. He’ll be okay. Not that he needs the help, mind you. He is the you-know.”

  “Yes, certainly. He doesn’t need it.”

  “Are we done here, Julio?”

  “Yes, Reverend of course. Plot preserve.”

  The Reverend stopped himself. In his hopped up state, he’d almost forgotten something important.

  “Sub-basement C, right?”

  “No, it’s D here. We had to tunnel underneath the lair of the noble gilawalrus.”

  “Lovely creature, the gilawalrus.”

  “Plot preserve the gilawalrus.”

  “Plot preserve the gilawalrus.”

  Narrativists have a bizarre attachment to the gilawalrus, believing it to be one of the author’s wisest and most capable creations. I was pretty certain even during my time as a devout Narrativist that they were nothing more than poisonous child-eating vermin with no sensible ecological niche. But, whatever. I didn’t feel like arguing about this particularly silly piece of Narrativist dogma as debating it would make it look like I hadn’t flat out dismissed all of Narrativism, which I had.

  As the Reverend and I walked into the Mall, I was full of questions. There might very well have been a lot of information exchanged in that conversation and none of it was for me. As the kidnapper and the mind behind this pilgrimage, this bothered me plenty. I deserved to know something. I deserved in particular to know about Bernard and his prospects. Maybe in a roundabout way I could get something out of him. I had heard the name Chuck Callaway before. Maybe he had been at the church or maybe he had a reputation at the Mall.

  “Who’s Chuck Callaway?” I asked, making sure it sounded like nothing but idle curiosity.

  “Chuck Callaway is one of my best men, one of my first converts. He’s a former English Professor turned private detective. He’s playing a benevolent truck driver who has his ear to the street. It’s a cliché, but Chuck doesn’t mind, he’ll do anything for the cause. If there’s anybody who will get through this alive, it’ll be Chuck, he’s brave, tough as nails and surprisingly quick; really puts the odds in our favor.”

  “But you don’t know how he’s doing.”

  “Of course not. I have no communication with him.”

  “Are you sure that’s really the way to go, Reverend? It sounds awfully risky to me. “

  He shook his head.

  “Not going to risk it. Chuck’s the guy. Chuck will make it. I can’t compromise the narrative like that. Besides, my plan stopped you, didn’t it?”

  I really wanted to beat the arrogant smirk off his face, but he was being really useful. Maybe I preferred him useless, though; I could torture him and abuse him with no ramifications that way.

  “So what exactly is Sub-basement D?”

  “Narrativist holy sites are usually unknown locations beyond the suburbs, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, it goes without saying that someday Narrativists might need access to the suburbs. So, we’ve hacked into the security panels at the Mall in order to assure us future suburb access through any entrance.”

  “Ah.”

  As we entered the vast glassy lobby of the Mall, the Reverend approached a security console and inputted the location and the floor and the elevator came when it was called as elevators tend to. We got in and I injected my liquifilm again, preferring my movie to the watered down shit they have in elevator liquifilm trays. I smiled my way through the perverse enchanted forest until the elev
ator stopped. The Reverend had to shake me out at the fortieth viewing, which made me feel like kind of a hypocrite for berating his Supra-Adderall habit. At least you can move and think on Supra-Adderall.

  At first, the Sub-basement with its odd array of captured Suburbanites chained to the walls made me want to stop and gawk, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that I’d be better off running like Hell for the door and pulling down my gasmask, before the Standardizers came down on me and ripped me to shreds. I had no interest at all in a run-in with Standardizers. The first phosphorescent glimmer of their presence I saw would make me shit my shorts. I handed the Reverend the pistol from my backpack as I took out the shotgun and caulked it.

  As we stepped out of the mall and into the suburbs, the Reverend looked quite concerned.

  “Thanks for the gun and all, Clyde, but I think there’s a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” I snarled. I really didn’t need his bullshit as I began my exploration of one of the most dangerous places on earth.

  “I don’t have a gasmask.”

  It was an excellent point. In my zeal to rush out and kidnap the Reverend, I had neglected to pack a second gas mask. If it hadn’t rained recently and we were careful about not making prolonged physical contact with any freshly bred mud, there would be no problems. Hopefully. Maybe. Okay, I fucked up completely. This wasn’t good at all. I think my mistake was mostly in expecting that this man would be dead and therefore out of my hair completely by now. Who’d have known he would prove himself so useful to me? Damn. I almost felt like apologizing. Almost and not very much.

  “Just don’t breathe any of the gases the mud emits when water hits it and don’t step in wet mud and you’ll be fine. Especially if it hasn’t and doesn’t rain.”

  “Well, if it’s so safe traipsing through the suburbs, maybe you’d like to relinquish that gas mask.”

  “Hey! I gave you a gun in case the Suburbanites show up. It’s much more than I, as a kidnapper and heretic, am really obligated to do.”

  “You’re an idiot. Give me the fucking gasmask.”