by Joshua Price
To celebrate that outbreak of yore, Captain Rescue decided to host this camping trip for everyone involved. He only received one no, and miraculously it was not from Dr. Malevolent. The hero was disappointed that Stubbs (who did not say no so much as he said—nothing) would not be making the camping trip. The zombie had issues integrating into society due primarily to that new corpse smell. The last thing Captain Rescue remembered hearing about their old friend was that he wandered across state borders to lead a reclusive life away from the better-smelling living.
Apparently, Freight quit the police force, or more precisely—the police force kicked him out. They suspected that he could no longer tell good, from bad, from zombie. Therefore, shunned from the only home he had ever known, Freight wandered the deserted town and grew eccentric and rich from looting. Other than this madman, the only person more ostracized by society was Stubbs, but he was a zombie. So that kind of made sense, and even he, whose kin tried eating everyone, did not have a shotgun for a wife, and boy did Freight love that shotgun. Courtney was a vegetarian, or Freight would have shoveled some of this tasty deer right down her throat.
With the first campfire commandeered by both Freight and a dead deer, Captain Rescue went about setting up a second. The hero tossed a bundle of logs into a makeshift pile that barely resembled that of a normal campfire. He dug into his backpack, pulled out a bottle of lighter fluid, and gingerly squirted every last ounce onto the wood. Captain Rescue lit a match, tossed it onto the campfire, and, as the flames shot skyward, nodded approvingly. After the painstaking journey in which he learned how not to set himself on fire, he went back to making his revered s’mores.
Boris came and plopped down next to the fire. Over his shoulder, Freight had curled up next to the deer carcass and was cradling it, and his shotgun, rather awkwardly. As Boris kept his duffle bag shielded from the flames, he watched Captain Rescue create a marshmallow-rotating rotisserie. Without taking notice of the work the hero was putting into this, Boris grabbed a loose branch, jabbed a marshmallow with it, and then shoved it into the flames. He released a depressing sigh just before pulling the charred snack from the fire and sinking his teeth into it. Captain Rescue raised a single eyebrow for a moment, but chose to ignore the sigh and any feelings that might have accompanied it. Feelings were, after all, icky.
As Boris sighed once more, Captain Rescue slouched in dismay and asked, “What is it?”
“Oh nothing,” he replied distantly as he hugged the duffel bag tightly.
“Good,” Captain Rescue said, closing the subject.
He pulled his marshmallows from the fire and crammed four of them between two graham crackers with pieces of chocolate between each one. He opened his mouth and, in horror, realized that there was no way for him to get the s’more sandwich between his lips. Unperturbed, Captain Rescue shrugged and shoved his face into it anyway. Suddenly, loudly, and quite painfully, the hero remembered that campfires were hot and screamed bloody murder. Across the campsite, Freight, who was lost in thought, leapt to his feet still holding the clattering bones close to him. At realizing there had not been a crisis of any sort, he just collapsed back to the dirt and curled up once more with the deer. Captain Rescue rubbed his lips, blew onto the sandwich, and then gave it another go. This time around, everything happened more smoothly. No pain or screaming.
With s’more time concluded, which he had been looking forward to the entire trip, Captain Rescue entered the next phase of his camping trip: songs around the fire. The hero dug into his backpack once more and unzipped a pouch in the back. He began tossing countless cotton swabs over his shoulder, removing the padding put in place to keep the beautiful miniature acoustic guitar, procured especially for this camping trip, from harm.
Captain Rescue came up with this plan without considering one thing—he did not actually know any campfire songs, nor did he have any clue how to play the guitar. Nevertheless, the pseudo musician cleared his throat in an attempt to garner the interest of his fellow campers, who ignored him entirely. The hero, oblivious to their disinterest, got to work. He might have had no idea how to play a guitar, but he had seen it done a few hundred times across a few hundred venues. Just as he had seen countless rock stars do, he placed his thumb behind the neck and two fingers across the strings. Then, he began to strum the guitar as if it had somehow wronged him and now deserved decisive punishment. Suffice it to say, the sound was quite dissonant. The strumming continued for fifteen seconds as everyone around cupped their ears in defense, and then the singing began.
“Dolphins! Oh Dolphins! They’re coming for us! They’re gonna get us!
Oh dolphins!
They might have killed my parents! They might have orphanated me!”
But I’ll get my revenge.
Yes, I’ll get my Revenge!”
Captain Rescue went into a killer miniature acoustic guitar solo, which sounded suspiciously similar to the slaughter of an innocent little kitten. When finished, he started the next verse:
“Death! Death! Death! Death! To the Dolphins! Dolphins! Dolphins! Dolphins!
They won’t kill me!
I will stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!
Them all! All! All! All! All!”
Under the assumption that the hero somehow malfunctioned and had now begun to skip, Dr. Malevolent jumped into action. Captain Rescue watched out of the corner of his eye as she snaked around and positioned herself behind him. She pulled her hand back and then unleashed a slap, but just before whacking the back of his head, Captain Rescue ducked, jumped to his feet, and was ready to begin the next verse.
“We have to stand up!
We have to fight! We have to fight!
We have to kill them all!
Kill all of the dolphins. Kill them dead!
Captain Rescue went into a psychotic breakdown as he stood over the fire, picked the strings with his teeth, and screamed into the tiny sound hole. Amidst the cacophony of awesome unleashed by the hero, a clatter of bones hit the forest floor. Then in an instant, Freight tore the guitar from Captain Rescue and crushed it like a soda can between his two mammoth hands. The cracking of wood and popping of strings practically killed the hero, and he retreated to his tent with tears streaming from his eyes. Dr. Malevolent congratulated Freight on a job well done, and Boris just sat by the fire cuddling his duffel bag.
“You know what?” Dr. Malevolent said to Freight as she crossed her arms and nodded with a faint smile.
With his plaid shirt and overalls still covered in blood, Freight shrugged and wiped the remaining deer gore from his mouth and chin
“We’d make a pretty good team, with the killing and the zombies and the general love of destruction we both share.”
“I’m a good guy,” Freight replied shortly.
She pointed at the deer bones. “PETA would disagree.”
“Animals aren’t people. I would never hurt another person.”
She pointed at Captain Rescue’s tent. “You sure seemed to hurt him.”
“He does not count.”
‘Well, would you at least think it over?”
“I have.”
She frowned. “Why must morals get in the way of what could be a beautiful working relationship. Can’t you just pretend you’re Robin Hood? Robbing from the rich and giving to the… me.”
Freight turned his back to her and swaggered towards his tent. “I don’t think so.”
Dr. Malevolent gazed into the campfire flames and contemplated other ways in which to recruit the mysterious man into her criminal organization. Maybe this camping trip would give her the chance to bond with him; she could really use someone like Freight. She gazed down at Boris, who was still sitting at the fire cradling the duffel bag—and not someone like that weirdo with his identity crisis. As the super villain opened her mouth to unleash a snarky remark, Boris looked up to her with puppy dog eyes—the epitome of sadness. She clamped her mouth shut, snarled at the man, and then plopped down on the dirt across from hi
m. The two stared at each other for some minutes without speaking a word. They said all they needed to say through a series of squints, snarls, and hand gestures. The gist of the conversation, though, was something like this:
“Let me put on this costume.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“You suck.”
Boris might have been tempted to adorn the suit anyway, thus becoming Charlie, but Dr. Malevolent had threatened to fire both him and the suit many times before (him figuratively—from employment, and the suit literally—with fire). Since unemployment and suitlessness were two things he was not fond of, Boris abided by his boss’s wishes. Before the two could settle their silent dispute, Captain Rescue reemerged from his tent carrying a snack-filled baggie. With his hand obscuring the contents, he strolled to the campfire and stood over the other two. Dr. Malevolent watched him toss one of the grey objects into his mouth and she rose to her feet.
“What have you got there?” She inquired while Boris sulked between the two.
“Oh, just something to snack on,” he answered.
Dr. Malevolent saw a blurry mushroom fly between Captain Rescue’s teeth and said, “I think that, between the deer carcasses and miniature guitar performances, this camping trip has been exciting enough without the use of hallucinogens.”
“Is that what these things do? They’re going to make me light up like one of those halucigin lights?”
Dr. Malevolent ground her teeth in frustration, causing a sound loud enough for Boris to hear as he sat between the two, suddenly distracted from his costume by the sudden onset of hilarity.
“No!” she said, “You will not light up like a halogen light, you’ll hallucinate like a crazy person.”
“Wow,” he replied while gazing into the bag, “the grocery store should really put warning labels on these. I had no idea.”
“Wait… you bought those from the grocery store?”
“Uh yeah, from the produce section! Where else would I get mushrooms? They’re dangerous to just pick from the ground. My mommy told me so!”
“So, you just brought a bag of ordinary mushrooms?”
“I love mushrooms!”
“Well, that’s anticlimactic.”
He handed a mushroom to Dr. Malevolent. “Want one?”
She shrugged, snatched it from him, and popped it into her mouth. After swallowing it down, she smacked her lips and said, “Well, gracious host, what do you have in store for us now?”
Captain Rescue smiled. “I thought maybe we’d go skinny dipping. All of us together; there’s a lake nearby.”
Dr. Malevolent and Boris’s faces went white.
“Uh, actually. Maybe we’ll save the skinny dipping for another night. It is getting awfully late isn’t it? Don’t you want to wake up nice and early so we can do something camping trippy?” the super villain said.
Captain Rescue stared up at the moon and tried judge the time. “Wow,” he stammered, “I didn’t realize it’d gotten so late.” In actuality, it had not gotten late at all; he just had no clue how to use the night sky like a clock.
“Oh yes,” Dr. Malevolent egged him on, “let’s go straight to our tents before it gets any later!”
The hero yawned. “Wow yeah, I’m exhausted.”
Dr. Malevolent practically sprinted to her tent, hoping to get inside and zip it before Captain Rescue realized how early it still was. The hero climbed into his and almost immediately, the tent collapsed around him, but he made no attempt to pitch it again, and just went to sleep within his sleeping bag.
***
Dr. Malevolent groaned; was it really morning already? She knew what that meant: another day with that buffoon. Oh well, she would just lay here in this sleeping bag until someone forced her out of bed, but that, it seemed, would happen sooner than she imagined.
“Get out here, C—” Boris called out, almost using the villain’s first name.
“What have I told you about that?! I regret ever telling you! What is it!?”
“It’s Captain Rescue, he’s been kidnapped.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” Dr. Malevolent said while still lying in bed. “Maybe he just wandered off.”
“No. Whoever took him left a note.”
Interested piqued, Dr. Malevolent slipped out of her sleeping bag as the cool air tickled her bare skin. She climbed into her khaki pants from the night before, put on her shirt, and then draped the lab coat over it all. She wove her leather belt through its loops, and then slid her inanimate carbon rod into its holster.
“Let’s see this note,” she said as she came out of the tent.
Near the smoldering remains of last night’s fire, Freight and Boris stood next to each other still in their underwear, and the super villain shook her head at the sight. Boris held a large scraping of bark onto which the kidnappers had scrawled a note. Dr. Malevolent took it from him and tried her best to read it.
“We have the hero,” she read, translating the terrible English, “and we’re going to kill him. Just letting you know.”
Boris scratched his side. “Yeah.”
“That’s no good. Who kidnaps someone and leaves a note like this behind. They couldn’t even put it on paper.”
“So.” Freight scratched his shoulder as the bugs got to both him and Charlie. “Are we gonna go after him?”
“Of course we are, I’m not gonna let just anyone murder that fool before I get my chance.”
Boris heard all he needed to hear. There was no way he could mount a rescue operation like this, as Dr. Malevolent’s lowly right hand man. He crawled into his tent and pulled out the duffel bag. The transformation would happen right here out in the open where everyone could see. He unzipped the bag and a blue hue emanated from within. Rather than taking the costume out of the duffel bag, Boris stepped into it. Dr. Malevolent and Freight looked on as the squirming bunny in the making slipped his feet into the padded shoes. He reached down, grabbed the legs of the suit, and pulled them over his own. Then, Boris grabbed the arms and did the same. In a natural, smooth, and quite dexterous motion, he reached around his back and zipped the costume as if he had been doing it since birth. Transformation nearly complete, he reached into the duffel bag with his plush bunny hands, removed Charlie’s head, and placed it upon his own.
“Let’s save us a Captain Rescue,” Charlie said, and then he glanced at Freight. “Right after you put some clothes on.”
Chapter 2: Naked People Make for the Best Torture
Captain Rescue awoke to darkness, damp soil tickling his toes. “Uh, this can’t be good.”
Above his head, he could feel his hands bound together, and the cool draft in his nether region indicated that someone had stripped him of his costume, but these captors respected the sanctity of superheroness enough to leave his mask on despite the oddness the scene evoked. Captain Rescue struggled to free himself of the binds, but in the seconds it took for that to prove ineffective, the hero turned to his higher power. He was certain that God would help him out of this pickle any second now. In a state of absolute tranquility, he stared into the darkness, positive there would be a sign—any sign, anything. He just hung there waiting. As the seconds ticked by, he became increasingly anxious. After some time he decided the reception down here sucked, and that God would not be coming to his rescue this day.
After he spent a few minutes unsuccessfully trying to free his hands from the taut rope, desperation kicked in. At this rate, the next phase of his escape would be chewing through his wrist, but desperation might not have been the best term to describe his motivations for such a disturbing act. If Captain Rescue suddenly found himself without a hand, there would be but one recourse—a robotic hand. Just one of the many things he wanted that he would probably never get. His body relaxed and he hung there, pondering on the possibilities. He could crush metal with a mere squeeze, or dangle from a tight rope indefinitely. The tips of his robotic fingers could fold away and he
could shoot his enemies with tiny bullets. The thoughts made him giddy. It would be like having a real super power, something he thought he would never have the chance to experience.
In Captain Rescue’s mind, he pictured a man and his robotic hand rip the rope from his wrists like mere string. As this pale, naked cyborg fell to the dirt, captors and their flashlights flooded into the room. Before they knew what hit them, the cyborg swept from person to person and tore intestines clean from their abdomens. Just as he wrapped the intestines around himself as makeshift clothing, Captain Rescue was torn from his fantasy by the footsteps of the real captors. He clenched his non-robotic fist and cursed its organic ways.
“Hello?” the hero called through the darkness.
The footsteps neared without a reply.
“I don’t really mind that you kidnapped me or tied me up. I’m actually quite used to being tired up, but why did you take off my clothes?”
A crack of pain shot through his bottom.
Captain Rescue yelped in agony. “Okay! It all makes sense now!”
He could not see a thing, and as another streak of pain shot up from his butt, it surprised him that his captors could.
“You know,” he gasped for breath, “If I had a robotic hand, things would be a lot different right now!”
A deep growl accompanied the next whip crack.
“I don’t know anything!”
“You tell why you in our forest. Or we no stop beatings,” one of his captors said in very poor English.
“It was a camping trip! For fun! I brought mushrooms! Mushrooms!”
“You no here to steal our secrets? To spy on us in our forest?”
“I don’t even know who you are! Or that this was your forest! Why can’t we just get along?! Why must you continue to whip me?!”
“The beatings continue until we sure you no threat to us.”
“Threat?! How could I be a threat to you?! I’m naked! Naked! Naked without a robotic hand!”
Another whipped cracked across Captain Rescue’s bottom and he cried out, but as he did so, another even more high-pitched sound joined in on the symphony. The apparent leader of his captors yelled something and a flurry of footsteps left the room. More high-pitched wails resonated from somewhere nearby. Captain Rescue was certain he had heard these sounds somewhere else, but he could not quite put his finger on it. He strained hard to figure it out, diverting blood from the welts across and back. As his brain took advantage of the most blood it had used in years, it hit the hero.