Munmun

by Jesse Andrews

  Puppyneck climbed in next to him, and I heard him mumble something to Shoulderheads, I could tell it was something like, maybe let’s not kill Warner justyet.

  But Shoulderheads said, “Nope, way too late for that crap.”

  Puppyneck murmured something else, Shoulderheads cut him off.

  “Come on, Neck, don’t be an idiot, I already sold him,” snapped Shoulderheads, cranking Famous Randy as we drove out of Lossy Indica and into the desert.

  Couple hours later we pulled through the gates of a random desertburb, terrible smells in the dry air, rots, gases, chemfires.

  Shoulderheads and Puppyneck pulled me and the littles out of the trunk, dumped us into a sandy barbwire pen.

  A boneblue todd welcomed us.

  Other littles groaned and cowered.

  I looked up at this fiend with his one ragged nosehole and his sunshrunk pinprick eyeblacks and my angry crazy thought was, good.

  “Munmuns, please,” said Shoulderheads, calm but quiet, he’s secretly terrified of these maniacs, maybe not so secret.

  The todd gave Shoulderheads a thin ziplock of bills, seems like it should have been more for ten humans. Meanwhile other skeevy todds trickled out of their identical houses, gathered around the pen, and held out some phones at us.

  Good, I thought again, take your stupid pictures, stupid vids, you sad middlefreaks.

  “Don’t you want to stay and watch,” asked the todd, strangly raspy voice.

  “Nothanks,” Shoulderheads said. “See you on the gladvids,” he told me, getting back in the car.

  Boneblue todd said nothing, just took a jar, unscrewed it, and flicked a desertspider in the pen.

  Shouts, screams, we all scrambled from certaindeath.

  Desertspider was just a little littler than us, fiveinches backtofront, fourinches sidetoside.

  Jittery hard white twoknuckle legs like fingerbones, oily toxy fangs as long as half a littlearm, twenty bubbly eyes like oilfoam.

  Littles cowered all in one corner, everyone was trying to get behind each other, spider skittered to the other corner, tensing.

  “Spread out,” I screamed, nobody spread out though.

  Spider gargled, whispered.

  One little shoved a second at the spider, here, eat this guy.

  Shoved guy scrambled back, tried to yank the first guy out into the middle of the pen.

  The todds shrieked with laughter, leaned in, shoved phonecams at us.

  Oh was I mad, mad at every living human, especially these other stupid littles, if we don’t team up we’re all getting eaten, idiots.

  “Freaking spread out,” I yelled again, but the spider decided now’s the time, darted at the scrum like a twitchy tenleg bull.

  Not a ton of time to think about it, I looped around to one side and then charged in after the desertspider, chased it from behind, as the beast pinned a screaming little and gored him I grabbed one of its tickly backlegs and yanked back, hard, the spider twisted around to fang me but I flung this scrabbling monster up, out, out of the pen, spider landed in some todd’s collarshirt, biting and shuddering, more screams of laughter from the todds except for the bitten one who was just doing some medium screaming, no more screams from the spiderbitten littlepoor though.

  Turnsout gladvids are a thing, spiderfights, todds tape them, sell them, trying to go legit with a teevee channel, brainy newspeople stroke their chins and wonder, Is the Yewess really ready for a nonstop channel of humans fighting spiders to the death.

  “How come police don’t stop it,” moaned some foreign little that night.

  “Desertlaw is different from citylaw,” muttered another.

  “What does that even mean,” complained foreign little. “Let me tell you, where I’m from, law is just law everywhere, the end.”

  “Then go back, idiot,” yelled another poor.

  DREAMWORLD

  The plan still lived in my furious head.

  “Let me sleep deep tonight, daves,” I told them. “Keep watch and let me get to Dreamworld, I’ve got a plan.”

  But I didn’t get there, too small, too tense.

  Littleheart pumping too fast like a rat’s, instead I just dozed lightly, woke up in the baking sun, another ugly day.

  Roundtwo was a big clanky scorpion, eightinches atleast, way too big to fling this freaking toxy lobster out of the pen. The boss of the todds had some fun this time holding the jar right over our heads, oops am I going to drop this stinging maniac right on top of you, haha lol look at you idiots running over to the other end of the pen, you know I can just fling it there too right.

  Finally he tossed it up in the air, definitely he wanted it to land on me, kill the guy who ejected the spider lasttime, I scrambled insanely as the beast thudded down behind me.

  Spiky deathtail whipped the ground between us a couple times, hello meaty little human.

  “Spread out spread out,” I yelled, backpedaling.

  Again most littles were useless, crowding and scrumming like before, idiot thoughtbubbles over their heads of, maybe if I cower behind everyone else I’ll die last.

  Again rage turned me into a machine, no thoughts just movement, I skirted to the back of the scorpion, leapt onto the stupid tail, locked my arms under its poison barb so it couldn’t sting.

  Lucky for me a couple other littles were also brave lunatics, they dove in from either side and yanked legs off while the tail thrashed me, deathlobster screamed like a bird.

  Here’s how you disarm a hellbeast, trap the pinchers, twist, wrench, unscrew. The scorpion moaned deep choky birdmoans, battered me with its spazzing unlegged body, I hung on tight and waited for its death.

  Another night came, I dozed but couldn’t dream, they don’t tell you that when you scale down, your body can’t dream for a while.

  A few more days, a few more battles with toxy tenlegs. We tied our clothes into whips and flails, bashed the killer from every side.

  We got good at windmilling sand into a spider’s twenty bubbling eyes, wrapping a scorpion tail in shirts.

  Ofcourse to kill these beasts you need some fighty psychos to take risks, jump in first, do the hardpart. Unfortunately that was only three of us, two rangy dans from upnorth and me.

  The other six were cowards, useless until the beast was pinned, then you can ask them to run in and rip off some legs, even then they’re freaking out.

  • • •

  A few more nights of dozing, napping, impossible to dream.

  “Hey, are we setting any records of how long can a team stay alive,” one of the cowards asked the todd king.

  “Ask me in a month,” rasped the todd.

  “You guys are feeling cocky, huh,” smiled another.

  Ohno, I thought.

  Nextday, the todds dropped in a snake, babyrattler thrashing like a maniac.

  Both dans got fanged and killed that day, infact the only reason we could even kill the snake was because it was trying to lunch. I snuck up on the fangy worm while its mouth was around a corpse, headlocked the snake and spiked his brains on the penwall barbwire, screamed rage at the giggling todds.

  That night I knew we were probably doomed, it’s just me and six useless peens. The cowards knew it too, squabbled and squawked all night about, dave you need to step it up tomorrow no matter what, well bro maybe I’d step it up if I saw you get off your butt and do literally anything, oh heckno what are you saying dave do you want to fight me, heckyeah I’ll fight you let’s go.

  “Heygreat, I didn’t know you were so fighty, maybe that’ll come in handy tomorrow for once,” I yelled at them, everybody shut up for a while.

  Doomed, I knew, freaking doomed.

  In the morning the todds came with a cage, dropped the cage in the middle of the pen, everyone screamed and scattered.

  Looked like the cage was empty but whoknows, maybe this snake is invisible or something.

  The todd king pointed at me.

  “Get in,” he said.

  I gazed aroun
d, tried to guess from the todd faces what’s coming next.

  Tough to tell from these druggy tweaky moronfaces but the creepy grins and soft low hoots told me, here comes a super gristly deathfight.

  Bynow the todds know who’s a fighter and who’s not, I’m the only good one left, maybe they’re taking me to fight some creature oneonone.

  Some crazy hellbeast, some nightmare monster. Look at their idiot faces, gummy sharktooth grins, redrimmed sniffy heartshape noseholes.

  “Get in, big guy,” said the king of the todds to me again, everyone giggled, what was I going to do, I got in.

  They lifted me out of the pen, set me on the ground nearby.

  And dropped two spiders in the pen, two black bristly pitgoliaths versus six cowards, Warner you’re in the audience now.

  “Oh what the heck,” I screamed, rattled the cage.

  “Don’t worry, big guy, we retired you, enjoytheshow,” the todd king told me.

  Oh I felt rage, ugly rage.

  I felt hatemyself rage for my dumb relief.

  What a relief not to be in there, what a crappy jerk I am to be so relieved, I was sick with rage at myself.

  “Let me fight,” I shrieked, hammering the cagewalls, “let me freaking fight,”

  hoping they wouldn’t listen to me, oh don’t worry coward Warner, they didn’t, just watched and laughed like lunatics.

  I bellowed orders to the cowards, tried to organize them, give them courage, tactics, anything, forced myself to keep watching and hoping.

  I watched the whole thing but I won’t make you watch, I won’t describe it to you,

  it wasn’t over fast though.

  They left me in the cage alone, explained nothing.

  I sat for hours, first weeping with anger, then dried out, baking in the sun.

  Late in the day, a familiar halfcar pulled up.

  Puppyneck stepped out and greeted the todd king.

  “Here’s tenthousand,” said Puppyneck.

  “Twenthousand,” said the todd king.

  Puppyneck gazed at him.

  “Price went up, super sorry about that,” murmured the boneblue lunatic, creepy and innocent.

  Puppyneck counted out another five, didn’t wait for yes or no, put my cage in the trunk, we pulled away.

  “Dave, you okay,” asked Puppyneck.

  I said nothing, what is there even to say.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  Back we drove to Lossy Indica, me and Puppyneck, also some new hipster goons.

  Puppyneck sat next to me, pampered me through the cagebars, gave me sterile middlewater to drink, fruits and nuts to eat.

  “I watched your gladvids,” said Puppyneck. “All I can say is, dang.”

  I just spat on the carfloor.

  “I didn’t enjoy watching, dave, believe me,” he said. “I’ve been working twentyfourseven to get you back. Had to persuade a lot of bosses, make some salespitches. Trustme, I was sweating everymorning in front of my screen, praying you didn’t get fanged.”

  I spat again and said nothing.

  “Anyway it’s all set up, dave, just breathe easy today, you’re safe,” he said, through the window the desert turned to scrubby hills as we crested toward the beachy capital.

  What was set up was Dream Division of Faceboy Industries, the corpo child of my bloodred plan.

  Is it time to tell you the diabolical plan, okay fine I guess, in the Dockseye bankbranch here was what I told Puppyneck:

  Do you see the televisionnews about carcrashes from baddreams, do you know how I found Usher, do you remember how berserk Dreamworld has been for the last few months,

  well all of that was me dreaming.

  My dreamstuff is superstrong and can be huge and terrible.

  My sis meanwhile runs Solodream Sleepmeds, she’s the president.

  Ofcourse this last part was not true, bear with me though.

  If you partner with Solodream, get some percents of solodream revanew, I can drive sales up to ridiculous levels by raining hells in Dreamworld everynight.

  Solodream will make the faceboys rich.

  That was it, simple plan, crystalclear way to turn dreaming into munmuns afterall.

  That night Puppyneck called my sis and said, “Hey, it’s the faceboys, Warner tells us you’re the president of Solodream,” and my savvy quickwit hero sis realized Warner is alive, Warner has a plan, the plan needs her to be president of Solodream.

  Each one lied to the other, Prayer lied that yup she’s the president allright, Puppyneck lied that the faceboys still own me and have not sold me to todds.

  My sis listened to Puppyneck’s offer, then immediately called Markfive, begged him to come find her for an Emergency Pitch Meeting,

  used all of her Busy Track learnings and powers and graphs to make the case of, Accept The Solodream Sleepmeds Company From Your Dad And Hire Me To Run It,

  I’m A Busy Genius Who Will Literally Never Stop Working And Striving,

  It Will Drive Your Dad Bonkers Probably That You Put Me In Charge So That’s A Plus,

  I Already Have A Detailed Plan To Increase Sales Many Thousand Percents,

  Best Of All, The Plan Is To Partner With A Bloodthirsty Squad,

  Basically You’re A Cool Squadtype Drugslinger Now.

  Pee Ess The Clock Is Running On The Squad Offer So We Need To Move Fast.

  Markfive listened, loved it, decided heckyeah, hired her out of Eat Votech, and made her a young president.

  Prayer called Puppyneck, said you’ve got a deal, Puppyneck called the todds to buy me back, the todds retired Warner’s ugly gladcareer.

  “Anyway do you want to meet your teammates,” suggested Puppyneck.

  The Dream Division goons weren’t typical faceboy meatheads, reminded me more of Frank, the tolstoy writer wooing Grace, probably that’s why I hated them.

  Soft hair and softer beards, corduroys and plaids and denimvests, expensive carefull tats and earhoops, warm cow eyes that have never been punched.

  He told me their names but I didn’t listen, didn’t care, said nothing, kept spitting on the floor.

  “Hired these guys right out of business school,” Puppyneck told me.

  “What kind of idiots leave business school for this,” I said finally.

  But they pretended like it was a hilarious joke, laughing all nickery and snickery, bunch of glossy wellfed horses.

  “Where do I live,” I asked Puppyneck.

  “Undisclosed location,” Puppyneck told me. “Not the Sitadell.”

  “Usher’s going to live with me though,” I said.

  “Nope, we’re not letting you guys live together,” he said.

  “It wasn’t a question,” I said.

  “It was an answer, though,” said the young faceboss.

  They draped a blanket over the cage, drove me the last two hours in darkness to my new home. Stopped the car, lifted me out, carried the cage to my room, pulled the blanket off, opened the cagedoor.

  I stumbled out into a middleroom with simple littlefurniture, dollbed, cuptoilet.

  The windows were high, fivefeet up on the wall maybe, a littlepoor can only see upward to the spiky heads of palmtrees. It could have been Sand Dreamough, could have been Eat Almanac, could have been Sandy Barb or Sacrament or Laura Cannon.

  I looked around at the dumb walls, dumb carpet, told myself, here is where you live for fifty years, here’s where old bearded Warner maybe dies.

  Puppyneck called a number, put the phone on speaker.

  “Solodream Corporate Headquarters,” said a secretary.

  “Puppyneck, calling for Prayer,” said Puppyneck.

  “One moment please,” said the secretary, we waited a moment.

  My sis’s tired voice asked, “So, can I talk to my brother finally, or should I rip up the contracts.”

  Puppyneck’s finger nudged me.

  “Hi sis,” I said.

  “Ohmygod,” yelled my sis. “Warner are you okay? That’s most important, t
ell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay,” my voice said.

  “Bro, are you sure?” she asked. “You don’t sound okay.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I lied.

  “You’re sure,” she said again.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Okay, okay, ohthankgod, Warner, thankgod,” she said, and started babbling, said some stuff about how it’s fine what we’re about to do, she’s been thinking about it and it’s okay to wreck Dreamworld for a while, it will make people more present in the world that matters, no longer dream all the time but take more action and responsibility for their lives, it’s really forthebest.

  I couldn’t really listen, had to interrupt after a while.

  “Sis,” I told her. “Let’s just make some stupid munmun.”

  VII.

  KINGKONG

  DREAMWORLD

  Now I live in the carpety middleroom, am only alive at night.

  My day is, wake up, crack eyes open and squeeze back shut, moan and groan quietly, just lie there for a few hours exhausted like a corpse.

  Finally sit up, fall out of bed, stretch, work out, lift weights, do runs, pushups, pullups, yogas.

  Eat fruits and nuts, sip sterile middlewater, Dream Division brings me trays.

  Smoke weeds, swallow pillslivers, begin preparing to dream insanely, drugs make my dreams berserk, infact the first few nights in my new home I needed drugs to dream at all, fall alltheway asleep.

  Read random parts of the superbible of the Church of the Lord King God, let the chemicals seep wildly into the teachings.

  Sometimes play shootemups but mostly read the superbible.

  Work out again, eat another meal, take more drugs, begin to get woozy.

  Slip into bed and wait for sleep to come.

  • • •

  And at night I lay waste to Dreamworld as a Pissedoff Angel of the Lord King God.

  Everynight now Dreamworld is one huge gutterzone, one big hellscape.

  “The bigs and middles have treated littles toobad for toolong,” I preach from the thundering air, “The Regent Master Emperor Boss God is just freaking out, He’s so disappointed and bummed, He literally replaced the sky with a drippy caveceiling, now you must live underground always, in an evil caveforest.”