Past, Future, & Present Danger (Book Two of The Absurd Misadventures of Captain Rescue)

by Joshua Price

  They were lasers. Lasers just like the ones he had seen that freaky dolphin and those darned turrets using a few months back. His brain continued to take advantage of the oxygen rich blood as he pondered on the possibilities. Had the dolphins come to save him? Had the turrets come to save him? No, no, that seemed improbable, and he giggled at the thought of turrets waddling to his rescue. He squinted hard and tried to make out his whipping captors, but his oxygen rich brain soon reminded him of how dark it was inside the torture chamber and to stop being ridiculous.

  While Captain Rescue argued with his brain about who had the superior intellect, a loud crash filled the torture chamber as something burst its way in. The hero could not tell left from right as a barrage of lasers cut through his would-be captors, raining singed flesh all over. Through the light show, Captain Rescue could make out distinctive figures, distinctive hairy bipedal figures, distinctive apes—apes with laser rifles. The legendary race of bigfoot appeared to be saving and torturing him. The hero had no explanation for this, but it flattered him in the warmest ways possible to know that his favorite primates wanted to both torture and save him.

  “We have come to rescue you,” a familiar elderly voice said through the darkness.

  At around the same time his bigfoot rescuers cut the ropes suspending him, Captain Rescue realized the pains of being whipped. His entire back felt like someone had drenched it in lighter fluid and then lit it on fire, and don’t even get him started on what his butt felt like, but it reminded him of a childhood spent bent over while his father spanked him. Captain Rescue straightened his posture and felt the warm dampness of blood covering his back.

  He took a deep breath and said as heroically as possible, “I need my uniform.”

  After a short time, the hero felt a clump of spandex wrapped in a utility belt press into his stomach.

  “Mind turning your backs while I get into something more suiting?”

  Captain Rescue could hear the shuffle of big feet as he got back into his spandex costume. Luckily, the skin-tight outfit stopped much of the blood loss and would, with any luck, keep him from passing out. He wrapped his ornate and trustworthy utility belt around his waist and buckled it tight. Just as the hero attached his heavy leather cape to the costume, his ape allies thrust a bulky, cold, and metallic object into his hands. As he felt it, finally discerning that it was a laser rifle, he wished someone would flip on a damned light. One of the bigfoot must have been reading his mind, because no sooner than thinking those thoughts did a flashlight flip on. Captain Rescue could see a small group of bigfoot standing before him, led by none other than the aged shaman he had already met when he and his friends were chasing down the source of the zombie outbreak. The shaman had duct taped a laser rifle to his staff—probably not the most practical culmination of tools, but it sure did look cool.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” the shaman said to Captain Rescue.

  “Where are we?” the hero replied as he wiggled around some. The wounds of the brutal beating he had suffered were getting to him, but, as a true hero, he hid his discomfort from the scantily clad bigfoot.

  “Underground, surrounded by my brainwashed brethren.”

  “Brainwashed? How?”

  “Gigantic fish.”

  “Fish? Oh! Dolphins! They’re actually mammals.”

  “They look like fish.”

  “Yes, but in reality, they are mammals. They need to come up for air.”

  Captain Rescue grinned. For once in his life, he had the chance to spread knowledge. When he decided to undertake this lifelong grudge against dolphins, the hero spent the better part of a weekend nose deep in encyclopedias (the internet did not exist yet). At the time, he considered himself an expert on the mammals. Since then, he had forgotten much of what he learned.

  “Let’s blow this joint!” Captain Rescue exclaimed as he tried to figure out a way to cock his laser rifle, or to discover if it cocked at all. The hero paused for a moment, and then inquired, “How far are we from the surface?”

  “Rather far, human, and the path ahead is quite dangerous.”

  “Then let’s get started!” the hero cheered as he headed straight for the torture chamber’s exit. Somewhere along the way, he got lost and instead found the damp embrace of a dirt wall.

  “Anyone have a spare flashlight?” the hero asked as he spat clumps of dirt from his mouth. Maybe one day he will learn to keep it shut at inappropriate times.

  One of the bigfoot handed him an old flashlight. Captain Rescue flipped what he assumed to be the switch and nothing happened. He snapped it back and forth a few times before smacking the end of it with his palm until it decided to cooperate. Eventually it did, and the hero scanned the walls for the exit. The small tunnel dug through the dirt was not nearly as hard to locate as he thought it would be. Around the entrance, the destroyed remains of a wooden door and its frame lay scattered around, left when the bigfoot burst their way into the room.

  Without worrying about what could be waiting on the other side, Captain Rescue waltzed right up to the doorway and pointed his flashlight into the tunnel. Down the hall, all he could see was an illuminated mass of hairy brownness; word had spread of the prison break. The hero squealed like a little girl as that brown mass unloaded their laser rifles all at once. He dove away from the tunnel’s entrance just as a red mist whizzed past. He watched the glowing cluster scatter his bigfoot friends, certainly soiling their trousers, but leaving them otherwise unscathed. The dirt wall behind them, however, would never recover.

  Captain Rescue, switching off his cowardice temporarily, leapt in front of the tunnel and pressed what he hoped was the laser rifle’s trigger. An array of red lines shot out from the rifle’s barrel and Captain Rescue watched their journey until he realized that other red lines were on their way to him. He rolled to the side just before any sizzling occurred. With a slew of hearty roars, the bigfoot fell in line and collapsed against the dirt walls with their laser rifles ready to go. Then, like a choreographed dance, Captain Rescue’s bigfoot allies leaned into the tunnel, fired off a short burst, and then ducked for cover as their allies did the same. After a few exchanges, the hero caught on to the general theme of the battle and joined in, giggling as he leaned in and out of view. This went on for roughly forty-seven minutes.

  After eventually getting bored (he had actually fallen asleep for some time), Captain Rescue yelled over the laser fire, “How are we going to get out of here?”

  The shaman pointed his laser-staff down the hallway.

  “I figured you’d say that.”

  One bigfoot shouted something in their own language and the others nodded. This lead ape waved its hand down the hallway, and his brethren fell in and prepared to advance. As Captain Rescue watched the hairy, dirty beasts prepare to enter the tunnel system, he had the sudden realization that he had been thrown headfirst into a war between the rivaling bigfoot. The hero glanced down the tunnel and briefly took in his surroundings. It was just uneven and winding enough to accommodate some sort of escape.

  As Harold and his followers pushed forward, Captain Rescue decided that this was the perfect time for something rash. He would turn the tide of battle using one thing and one thing only: his heroic presence, and nothing represented that presence more than his cape. If Captain Rescue sprinted at just the right angle, it would unfurl into a blinding emblem of truth and justice. He glanced into the firefight one last time, gave a brief exhale, and then sprinted forward letting his cape unfurl in the wind. The hero weaved through the apes, and, unremarkably, found himself too distracted by his attempts at spreading truth and justice to notice he could only run at an angle for so long before something stopped him. In this case, another dirt wall, but like a true hero, he slammed into the tunnel and nonchalantly rolled into the nearest niche as lasers whizzed past.

  Captain Rescue caught his breath for a moment and then peaked into the tunnel, taking a moment to count the apes on both sides of the conflict; ten versus�
��a lot more than ten. He smiled, just the perfect odds for a hero such as him. He could not wait to get back to the surface and tell his friends that he and a rag-tag group of rebels were able to defeat a small army—no thousands—of brainwashed bigfoot. Captain Rescue cooed like a baby at the thought, the thought of acceptance, the thought of love, the thought of heroic deeds. Before the hero finished daydreaming, a wounded soldier collapsed just next to him, bringing a weight to the situation. (Bigfoot were quite heavy.) Captain Rescue knelt down and pulled the wounded ape-man into the safety of the crevice and then leaned out and fired into the mess of brown. As one of those brown beasts fell to the ground, the hero let out a boisterous cry.

  Possibly a little too excited, Captain Rescue cried “Charge!” and then jumped out of the crevice and ran down the tunnel firing wildly as his cape billowed once more. His rescuers took notice of his sudden decision to throw caution into the wind and joined in on the fun. The brainwashed bigfoot, possibly too brainwashed to realize what was going on, just stood there while the hero plowed headfirst into them. Captain Rescue led the slaughter as he and his allies tore through the enemy apes using their relatively blunt rifle barrels like bayonets. Within a few bloody moments, the tunnel’s brainwashed occupants lay in a pile. Most of them were still alive—to some extent.

  With the immediate threat quelled, Captain Rescue entered the large chamber his enemy was guarding. All the hoopla he and his allies created would soon bring every ape in a fifteen-mile radius to their doorstep, but they still had a few minutes before that happened. In the meantime, Captain Rescue explored the room. Rather than focusing on the two exits and deciding which to take to mount a much-needed escape, the hero turned his attention to the many computer terminals dug into the walls. The apes must have spent their time playing futuristic dolphin video games, and this was something Captain Rescue needed to investigate.

  He strolled up to one of the terminals and calmly laid his fingers upon the keyboard. The hero took a deep breath and then started typing like an ace hacker, or more precisely, a crazy person. After a few seconds of aimless button mashing, a window popped up and a spinning mesh depicting an average human male and all his two-thousand parts greeted Captain Rescue. An array of labels and descriptions sprouted out from this model as it spun. The hero squinted hard, but that did not help in deciphering the undecipherable. He pressed a slew of random keys and the model transformed into some kind of grotesque monster. As Captain Rescue stood there in absolute terror, the model grew from six feet to ten feet and its oversized arms fell low to the ground. The hero began panting heavily while he mashed random buttons on the keyboard, trying to make the scary monster go away.

  “We need to press forth, friend,” the elderly shaman said to Captain Rescue before he could send this beast back to where it came.

  “Good!” Captain Rescue yelped, “Let’s get out of here!” He backed away from the computer and started to meander across the cavernous room. “What’s your name anyway?”

  “Harold.”

  “Is that a normal name for your kind?” Captain Rescue asked with a short laugh as he tried to expunge the scary monster from his mind.

  “No, but I liked the sound of it.”

  The hero finally began to overcome his fears just as a flurry of footsteps made their way down one of the two tunnels.

  The shaman motioned for the opposite tunnel. “We have to move.”

  Their enemy entered the room just seconds after Harold led Captain Rescue and his brethren into one the tunnels. These apes briefly inspected the area and then headed after the posse with their laser rifles at the ready. As the brainwashed bigfoot entered the tunnel, they saw a hairy backside and did their best to singe it, but hit a dirt wall instead as the rebels turned a corner. This game of cat and mouse went on for a few minutes until Harold and his followers came to a hub with three diverging paths.

  “Which way?” Captain Rescue asked the shaman.

  He massaged his whiskers. “It’s been so long… I don’t remember.”

  “Well, which one smells better?”

  The shaman sniffed the air and then sniffed each individual tunnel as the approaching rumble of brainwashed apes drew closer. Harold’s nose narrowed it down to two tunnels: the middle one and the one to the right. His nose bounced back and forth between the two trying to figure out which one it preferred.

  “This way.” The shaman headed down the right one.

  After letting another winding tunnel lead them for some time, the group noticed a light signaling their destination. Soon, they entered a small grain-filled room that happened to be a dead end. Captain Rescue and his posse scoured the room in a state of panic, not sure what to do now that they had crammed themselves into a death trap. At least while stuck here, he and the others would have plenty of sustenance to keep them going while their enemies tracked them down and butchered them all.

  “I suppose that lovely smell was the food,” Harold said as he dropped down to his knee and breathed in the vapors from one of the nearby sacks.

  A panicking Captain Rescue kicked the floor. “We’re stuck in here! What if they find us?!”

  “I’m rather certain we have lost our pursuers,” Harold replied as he slipped his hand into one of the sacks and removed a handful of grain.

  A red laser cut into one of the sacks, spilling food all over the dirt ground.

  “I would appear to have been mistaken.”

  “Quick!” Captain Rescue ordered, “Empty these sacks! We can hide in them!”

  “That plan is ridiculous.”

  “Do you have a better one, Harold?”

  “Men, empty the sacks.”

  Harold’s followers gave him a suspicious look and then scratched their heads.

  “Do it!” he urged, “And quick!”

  The apes did as ordered and grabbed the heavy sacks, dumped their contents onto the dirt, and then climbed inside. Captain Rescue realized how ridiculous this plan was as the last ape climbed into its sack. He slapped the side of his head for dispensing such thoughts and climbed into his sack just as the search party entered. As Captain Rescue listened to the enemy bigfoot speak in their native language, he took it upon himself to translate their words in his mind.

  “I could have sworn they came this way.”

  “Yeah, we were sure following something down this tunnel.”

  “Maybe those ghost stories are true.”

  “Bob, what have I told you about that? Stop being ridiculous!”

  “But we saw people come down this way! You can’t explain that!”

  “Maybe we missed a door or something. Let’s get out of here and find out.”

  Captain Rescue could hear footsteps approaching his sack and held his breath.

  “Before we leave, we might as well get a snack.”

  “Always thinking with your stomach aren’t you?”

  The hero could feel hands opening the lip of his sack, so he swiftly grabbed a handful of leftover grain and held it above his head. A hairy hand reached into the sack, found his palm, gathered some grain, and then pulled it out without showing any signs of suspicion.

  “Our grain reserves seem to be low; I wonder where it all went. Oh, the floor.”

  “Whatever, let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah, there’s nowhere in here to hide.”

  Captain Rescue could hear the footsteps fading and exhaled as he lowered his hand. The hero rose from the sack and said softly, “I’m surprised that worked.”

  His bigfoot allies rose shortly thereafter and nodded in agreement.

  “I guess the act of brainwashing has some adverse effects,” Harold said to Captain Rescue before adding, “Let’s press forth.”

  “All right, which way?”

  As the shaman pointed to the only exit out of the small room, Captain Rescue stepped forth. “I’ll take it from here.”

  Captain Rescue then implored his patented way of wingin’ it. He stuck his head into the tunnel, glanced ar
ound, and after assuring himself that the brainwashed bigfoot had not lingered, he and the rebels ventured into the tunnel. Soon, they made their way back to the large room with the plethora of computer terminals. Wasting no time, the hero led the bigfoot down another tunnel, and soon wound up in the exact same storage room as before with grain still littering the floor.

  “Oh.” Captain Rescue knocked the grain around with his feet. “I meant to bring us here.”

  Harold the Shaman decided that Captain Rescue’s patent way of wingin’ it was not quite adequate. He pushed the spandex-suited man aside and did the one thing he could think of: he let his nose lead the way, followed shortly by his rifle-staff, which he used like a dousing rod as he held it loosely in his hands. The staff led the gang up and down winding tunnels, eventually making it to a large antechamber and proving it had a keener sense of direction than Captain Rescue. Directly across from Harold and his apes was a ramp to the sunlight-drenched surface, which spilled rays down it and into the large room. The only thing standing between them and the surface were a few dozen brainwashed bigfoot.

  “Let’s blast our way through!” Captain Rescue exclaimed as he hid behind Harold and tried to appear inconspicuous.

  Harold snorted. “There are a lot of them.”

  “Good point.”

  Before anyone could discuss just how good of a point, the spandex clad superhero and his companions drew the attention of a laser rifle wielding bigfoot. The ape’s finger shot up and called them out as he marched towards them. Under his breath, Harold instructed Captain Rescue to keep quiet. The shaman spoke with the aggressor in their language, and the hero just looked on with a smile.