Rotten Little Animals

by Kevin Shamel

  Nearly half a year after tumbling through the cargo chute onto the beach and eating that weird green thing that the King of Men and Beasts fed him, a more manly, less frightened thirteen-year-old Cage returned to Hollywood. He was tan, stupid and happy—in perfect condition for stardom. He landed a book deal, a shoe deal and a deal on his minor infractions of drunk driving (without a license) and soliciting a prostitute.

  Cage bought a big house, new clothes, and some friends. He paid for his mother to have extra medication and an extra luxurious room in her mental institution. He went to his father’s grave and gave him a twenty-one gun salute—by himself.

  The boy-star flew back to L.A. in his new private jet and immersed himself in the scene. Paris Hilton got all cougar on him, and he spent a week clubbing with her and her dogs—who dropped acid in his drink as often as they could and peed in his shoes. They didn’t kill him, though they thought about it. They kept an eye on him for the animal police.

  In general, the animals wanted him dead, but they wanted him to answer for his crimes in court. They wanted everything legal. They couldn’t draw attention to themselves, and the boy was surrounded by security. The animal police waited, even while vigilante groups formed.

  After a brief tour of talk shows and a Spring Break fling with MTV, the Big Time Movie Studio execs wrangled Cage into the filming of the sequel to their industry-bending, hugely successful hit. They began pre-production of A Pig Named Cage.

  The Big Time Movie Studio held a meet-and-greet get-together for the cast and crew of A Pig Named Cage. They held it on-set so everyone could get a feel for the upcoming shoot as well as acquaint themselves with the numerous animals with which they’d be working.

  The animal trainers and handlers put on a show with the animal actors after everyone loosened up with drinks and highlights from A Boy Named Cage and some of the music videos from its soundtrack, broadcast on flat-screen TVs hung throughout the set.

  Cage would work with nearly every animal in the film, so the handlers chose him to interact with the animals during the introductory show.

  He rode piggy-back on a bear.

  He lay down and was covered by an army of ants who swept across his body in perfect marching formations from head to feet and side to side.

  Cage was introduced to a nervous skunk, a purple crab, a meth-addicted scorpion, a narcoleptic egret and a troupe of acrobatic bats—all of whom had some cute thing to do with Cage. The boy loved it, having come to adore everything about every animal. Most of the animals loathed it, each of them wishing to do something nasty to the boy and none of them being able to.

  It was the opening party where the animal actors got together and talked about the murderous human.

  After all the humans had gone home, passed-out or were involved in the orgy that was going on in the leading-lady’s triple-wide trailer, the animals got together and had their own pre-production meeting.

  Happy, the perpetually pissed-off brown bear, said, “Accidents happen all the time. Shit, bears kill people in the woods—that’s what we do. I can accidentally kill him.”

  “No you can’t,” said Mark, the egret. “They’ll kill you right back. And he’s gotta answer for his crimes publicly.”

  Adolf, one of the sixty-eight thousand, four hundred and twelve ants named Adolf, piped up through his little ant megaphone, “We can kill him. They’ll never get all of us!”

  “How are you going to kill him?” asked Blind-Ass Bat. “You’re not even poisonous.”

  Adolf’s antennae straightened. He yelled into his megaphone, “We’d crawl down his miserable human throat and choke him to death. Or eat his brains through his ear.”

  “We’re not going to kill him!” yelled Mark.

  “Nope,” said The Fumigator. She hopped her skunk-butt up on a director’s chair. “We’re not going to kill him. We’re going to steal him.”

  “What?” Happy asked.

  “What?” asked eleven bats and sixty-eight thousand, four hundred and twelve ants in unison.

  Whats abounded.

  The Fumigator settled everyone down by clearing her throat. “Happy, you still have those connections in Yellowstone?”

  “The ground squirrels? Sure.”

  “And they can get us into Canada?” The Fumigator asked.

  “They can,” the bear answered.

  The other animals began chattering.

  The skunk cleared her throat again and addressed the animals. “I think we should kidnap Cage and take him to Toronto. We can make our own movie. It’s what we’ve been talking about.”

  From out of the swirling animal talk came the bear’s voice, “Fumy, this isn’t what we’ve been talking about. We’ve been talking about making our own movie about making movies.”

  The skunk smiled wide and spread her paws. “Don’t you see? This is the ultimate expression of that. Stinkin’ Productions’ film was ground-breaking, even before we knew the boy was real. A huge success. After the kid stole the movie, the humans called it their own and pretended that the animals in it were actors. The film is a huge sensation in the human world, too. And it was filmed by animals!

  “We’re the animals hired to star in the human sequel. If we steal the kid during its filming, and make our own film about that abduction, we’ll be one-upping everyone. We’ll be making our own sequel. We’ll ride the wave and be the next giants to rise from the mayhem of this whole strange situation. We’ll be legends!” The Fumigator jumped up and down in the chair.

  The bats said, “She’s right!”

  The ants cheered.

  Happy nodded thoughtfully, his paw on his chin.

  Mark frowned, but didn’t say anything negative.

  Steven the scorpion snapped out of his reverie. “Fuck yeah, let’s kill that human! I’m in! I’ll sting that fucker’s eyeballs!” He went skittering around in circles, flicking his stinger.

  “Calm down, Steven,” said Mark, “we’ve got a new plan.” He fell asleep.

  The Crab Formerly Known as King asked, “Isn’t it illegal to kidnap a human?”

  The skunk smiled. “Not this one. It’s only illegal to let humans know that we can speak and operate machinery and all that. Cage knows already. We’re not breaking any laws. Not any animal laws.”

  “But he’s wanted by the police,” said Burk Bat.

  “Fuck those slugs!” yelled Steven. He flicked his stinger.

  The Fumigator said, “Calm down, Steven. We’ll turn him over to the police when we’re done with him.”

  “Why Canada?” shouted an Adolf.

  Happy answered, “Because it’s cheaper to film there and Toronto looks pretty much like any city in the U.S.”

  “That’s right,” said The Fumigator, “and no one’s gonna look for the kid there.”

  “How would we get to Yellowstone with all our equipment?” asked Barton Bat.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty far,” worried Crab.

  “We’ll drive,” answered awakened Mark.

  “Drive?” The bats asked together.

  Happy raised a big bear paw. “I can drive,” he told the animals. “I’ll get us there.”

  The Fumigator bounced up and down smiling. “So, do we do it?”

  Animal actors looked to one another. There were hushed and heated discussions. It was their dream. Opportunity had arisen. Yellowstone is a great place to visit in early September. They decided to do it.

  Plans were planned.

  The third day of shooting involved a scene where Cage was wrestling Happy. The boy would best the beast, tame him, and ride him around the forest, gathering an animal army to defeat the Legion of Giant Squid—Interlopers from the Sea.

  The Big Time Movie Studio didn’t actually have any living giant squid, so they’d shot some footage off the coast of Baja, Mexico the month before. Baja Squid are exceptionally nasty and hate humans more than most animals, even in the lawless sea. Two cameramen lost hands during the filming of the squid scenes, which provided
excellent footage of squid attacks, but was hell on the insurance.

  Being a closed set, there were relatively few humans inside. It proved simple for the animals to drug the food, water, and toilet paper. After the lunch break, during the third take of the scene, all of the humans began passing out.

  Those that had not wiped, eaten, or drank water on-set were fairly easily incapacitated—being two wardrobe girls and an aged actor. Having a big brown bear on their team stacked the odds in the animals’ favor. They tied the humans together, took their phones and left them in a trailer, much to the old actor’s unexpected pleasure.

  The animals put Cage on a couch from the actor’s lounge and slid him to the center of their staging area.

  The Fumigator, Happy, two bats and The Crab Formerly Known as King headed to makeup. Two bats and Mark manned cameras and filmed the crew at work while the other animals guarded doors, gathered equipment and loaded it into golf carts. The ants hefted their mobile colony—a large Tupperware bin filled with dirt and sticks—and carried it across the bay.

  When The Fumigator and crew came out of makeup, the other animals were shocked to see what a great job they’d done making Happy into a human. A sloppy, fat human—but a human nonetheless.

  Happy couldn’t speak, because that would pull his head out of his shirt and move the mask in front of his eyes. His head was a little longer than most people’s, but not grotesquely so. His paws featured human-hand gloves. He was dressed in a blue button-down shirt and blue slacks. He wore a nametag that said, Bus Driver Bob.

  He wobbled on his hind legs to the wide bay doors. Bryana Bat pushed the button that opened them.

  “Break a leg!” shouted The Fumigator as Happy walked off the set and onto the lot.

  The sun shone in a terrible rectangle on the floor.

  Bryana closed the doors behind the bear.

  The animals waited.

  They lined up the golf carts near the bay doors and made certain Cage was still alive. They triple-checked their equipment lists. They destroyed vending machines for snacks. A couple bats did it in the rafters.

  Soon came the signal—two blasts of a big-ass horn.

  Bryana opened the doors.

  Happy backed-in a tourist bus.

  The bat closed the door behind him, and the animals got to work loading their new vehicle with film-making equipment and their sleeping prisoner.

  After twenty minutes, Happy snarled through clenched teeth, “Hurry, I gotta get outta this mask!”

  Forty-three minutes after Happy the angry bear toddled out into the sunlight, crept into an empty, idling tour bus and pulled it into their pirated set, the animals set out in their ark with Bus Driver Bob at the wheel.

  Once on the freeway, Happy tore off the mask. “Phew!” he exclaimed. “Get. Me. A beer!”

  Cage was on Paris’ vibrating bed again. It reminded him of all the other times he’d come awake there, sharing the pink comforter with her cute little dogs. He wondered why she always left it vibrating—it was pretty jarring, really. Probably to waste electricity.

  He reached for Paris, snaking an arm between her spindly legs. She squawked and flapped her wings at him.

  Cage opened his eyes.

  A big white bird slapped at him. “Let go of my junk!” it screamed.

  The bird jumped across the aisle between seats on a bus. It landed on a snoozing skunk who screamed something in French. Cage looked from the skunk to the seat in front of it where a purple crab poked its eye-stalks and claws around the seatback. Bats fluttered around the roof of the bus, shouting about letting them sleep. Trees sped past through the windows.

  “You can talk!” yelled the boy. And Cage’s life came rushing back upon him.

  He fell to the floor of the bus and curled into a ball while the entire ordeal of the previous year and a half played through his mind. He began sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Shut that kid up!” yelled the bus driving bear.

  Mark recovered enough to start filming.

  The Fumigator hopped down beside the boy and tried to calm him with a song about scent glands and secretions, but he only cried harder.

  Burgermeister Bat landed on Cage’s shoulder. He said, “Come on kid. It’ll be okay.”

  The boy stopped sobbing. He choked out, “That’s what all animals say.”

  “Yeah, fuck it,” said Steven, pacing the back of a seat. “Let’s kill the fucker.”

  Cage cowered and screamed.

  “We’re not going to kill you,” said The Fumigator.

  “We will if you don’t shut up!” yelled Happy.

  That’s when the sirens started blaring behind the bus.

  “Shit!” shouted the bear, stomping on the gas pedal.

  Steven skidded down the aisle yelling, “Fuck man! Do the drugs! Do the drugs!” He ran to his little scorpion backpack and started ripping open baggies with his pincers.

  “How many?” asked The Fumigator, moving beside the bear.

  “A lot,” he answered, growling and pushing the bus to go faster. Cars ahead of him skidded out of the way, most of them just in time. He bumped the back of a minivan and it shot off into the median, skidding to a stop in a swirl of dust. A cop car halted beside it.

  A police cruiser drove up in the other lane fast. The heavily tinted windows kept the identity of the passengers obscured, but the driver’s window was untinted.

  Happy yelled, “Fumy, get the mask!”

  She handed it over, helping him adjust the neck and jumping down just as the cops pulled alongside.

  The cops motioned for Bus Driver Bob to pull the bus over. Bob slowly shook his head no. He smashed into the back of a Mazda Miata. It stuck to the front of the bus, slowing it enough that the cop car shot ahead.

  Happy swerved toward the cruiser, and the Miata shook loose. The tiny car spun into the opposing lane and clipped the back of the cop car. The cruiser spun out of control, off the highway and into a field, where it flipped onto its side and skidded to a halt against a big pine tree. The tumbling Miata slammed into the two lead chase vehicles following the bus. All three cars flipped into the air and broke to bits. Fires leapt to life.

  Two cop cars still pursued, but they had to maneuver through the wreckage before trying to catch up to the bus.

  “Holy fuckin’ shit!” screamed Happy.

  “Woooooo!” shouted the bats, flipping around the speeding bus.

  “Helicopter?” asked the bear.

  The animals searched out the windows. They could see no choppers.

  “Only in the movies!” shouted Batshit-Crazy Bat, cartwheeling above the seats.

  “Not true!” shouted Bean-Chucking Bat, catching Batshit-Crazy and tossing her toward the back of the bus.

  “Shut up, bats!” growled the bear. To The Fumigator, he said quietly, “I’m starting to doubt the wisdom of this plan.”

  The skunk winked at the bear and looked toward the back of the bus. The approaching sirens grew louder. She yelled, “We’re filming, right?”

  Mark yelled back, “Rolling!”

  Boston Cream Bat hollered back, “My camera’s on!”

  “Oh, crap, what’s this?” yelled Bus Driver Bear.

  A semi truck slowed down in front of them and began swerving across both lanes of the highway.

  “Ram it!” yelled Burk Bat.

  “Ram it?!” Happy screamed.

  “Ram it!” affirmed the skunk.

  He rammed it.

  As the truck swerved to the left, Happy accelerated into it. The bus tore through the trailer snapping it from its hitch and tottering the cab onto its side. Cargo exploded as the truck broke apart under the charging bus. Illegal immigrants flew into the air, falling to the ground in a screaming rain.

  People thudded onto the highway. They smacked into the back of the bus and fell onto the cop cars. The cops ran a lot of them over, trying to stop before they came to the wreckage of the eighteen-wheeler. Not even a dozen bodies stopped the cops from smash
ing into the twisted truck, and both of their cars flipped end-over-ends to crunch and skid across the asphalt. The truck exploded—killing its surviving cargo, the driver, and the two living cops in the upturned cruisers.

  The bus, suffering one flat tire, sped on.

  “Where are we, anyway?” The Fumigator pulled the mask from Happy’s head.

  “Idaho.”

  “Idaho?” asked the skunk. “That was a quick trip.”

  “You were all asleep,” Happy answered.

  “Where are you taking me?” yelled Cage from the back of the bus.

  “We’re going to see Old Faithful, or some such natural wonder,” answered Bean-Chucking Bat.

  “Yellowstone?” asked the boy.

  The Fumigator slid down the aisle. “Yes, Yellowstone,” she said. “And from there to Canada.” The skunk turned back to the bear. “How far to Yellowstone?” she asked him.

  “Thirty-five miles.”

  “Canada?” Cage asked.

  “Yes,” said The Fumigator, “to make a movie.”

  “A movie?” Cage looked to the egret and bats with cameras. “Oh, no.”

  “We can make it!” shouted all the ants at once.

  Another tire blew out. The bus wavered but kept going.

  “Where have you Adolfs been?” asked Mark, swinging his camera toward the army marching down the aisle.

  An Adolf with a megaphone shouted, “Someone packed our colony in the luggage compartment under the bus after our one pit-stop in Nevada. The vibration—and lack of food—lulled us to sleep. It wasn’t until all the explosions that we woke up. Then we had to make our way up here, and organize… Is there anything to eat?”

  Mark fell asleep. The camera dangled in his wing.

  Steven fell from the ceiling. The ants caught him and tossed him up onto a seat. He lay there unmoving.

  “Steven’s dead,” said Brellina Bat.

  “Why aren’t there cops on our ass?” Happy yelled.

  “Roadblock?” ventured The Crab Formerly Known as King.

  “Roadblock,” Happy said.

  “Roadblock,” The Fumigator mused.