Chapter Eight: Like Zeus In His Golden Shower--It’s Binaca!

Real MFG's original story by Max Gardner and Travis Taylor

“Suck-suck-suckin’ on my neck like Drakuh-LA!”

            --The Pharcyde

            The newly christened Stun Zeed continued on its way, with a well-oiled efficiency that spoke well of BD’s repairs. Verily, Miles thought, this man was good. He grinned. Despite the fact that the air was growing colder, and winter was indeed on its way, Miles felt a sort of optimism. They would keep going until they found Paul, and stomp him silly. After that...who knew?

            Miles noticed that the Truck kept hitting small mounds in the road, giving them a shaky ride. There was a town rather close by, so it was odd that they didn’t take better care of their roads. Unless no one ever comes here.  The feeling of optimism passed through him faster than a five bean burrito.

            When the town came into view, Miles heard the occasional shriek carried by the wind.

            “Miles, do you hear that?” Nasty asked concernedly. Bumpy sat back in his chair, looking somewhat less than concerned.

            “I’m sure he’s fine, buddies.”

            “I hope the Rammsteiners haven’t used that chemical on this town, too.” Nasty nodded grimly. “We have to be ready for whatever is in this town.”

            Crackhorn slowed down as he entered the town, sniffing the ground concernedly. They continued their slow cruise until they reached what looked to be the town square. Miles got out of the Stun Zeed and looked around.

            “Hey buddy,” Bumpy said as he jogged by. Miles nodded, perplexed.

            “Hey buddies, can I interest you in a flower?” another Bumpy exited a building with a sign proclaiming NW’s flowers.

            Soon they all started flowing out from every building, appearing at every window. Bumpy after Bumpy, offering wares, food, backrubs, hugs, etc. Miles’ eyes widened and he jumped back into the Stun Zeed.

            “Crackhorn! Go! Go! Please!”

            Crackhorn snorted before shooting off, crushing whichever Bumpys got in his way. On their way, Miles saw a bald, goateed and ultimately nerdy man running in a blind panic.

            “Bob! Char them! Kill them!” A being made of flame appeared over this man’s shoulder and charred a squadron of Bumpys.

            “Hop in!” Miles yelled. “Crackhorn! Slow down for a second!” The bald man jumped into the Stun Zeed, wide eyed with fear. He caught sight of Bumpy sitting across from him.

            “Bob!” The flame being appeared again, leaving Bumpy a charred husk. Jimmy Scott and the sub-woofer both stopped their musical interlude briefly before continuing nervously.

            After they were well out of the cursed town, and Bumpy’s corpse had been disposed of, they all made introductions.

            “I’m Fernando.”

            “Miles.”

            “Nasty Bitch,” she said with a shy smile.

            “Jimmy Scott.”

            “Midget Sub-Woofer. Miles! Knock it off! I mean it! That’s sick! AAAAGGGHHH! Right in my fucking eye!”

            Fernando watched this all, somewhat intimidated.

            “So, Fernando. Who’s that being with you?” Nasty said with obvious interest. Miles stopped urinating briefly, and found himself tackled by the midget.

            “I, Fernando de la Speedo, am a master summoner of elementals. Bob is a flame spirit and my obedient servant.” A cloud of flames appeared behind him.

    “What did you say, you little nerd?”

            Fernando’s posterior exploded into flames, and he rolled around on the ground shrieking.

            “AAH! MAH ASS!”

            Miles approached, brushing himself off.

            “Nasty, do we even bother with this one? He looks...like a fucking dork. Look at those glasses.”

            Nasty looked at Fernando for a second.  “I think he’s interesting.”

            “All right, everyone, let’s go.” The midget angrily shuffled past with Jimmy Scott, soon followed by Nasty, Fernando, and lastly, Bumpy.

            “What, why’s everyone staring at me?” Bumpy asked as he took a seat.

            “Don’t worry about it.”

            Crackhorn took off again, with a low bass rumble emanating from Midget Sub-Woofer’s seat.  Fernando, although Jimmy Scott (who apparently possessed some knowledge of medicine) quickly bandaged his singed rump, was unable to sit, and leaned against the wall beside Midget Sub-Woofer, silently thankful to whatever elemental or higher power had taken mercy on him and allowed him to escape the town of Bumpys.  Nasty sat contentedly beside the bald geek, still shaking off the effects of whatever poison the bartender in Pimptown had introduced into her bloodstream, and occasionally cast him an awkward glance.  Licks of flame occasionally darted from his fingers, and Miles, glancing over his shoulder at this new addition to their company, noticed that all trace of fingerprints and palm creases had long since vanished from his hands.

            “Anybody else here smell fish?” he asked, sniffing the air.

            Nasty shot him an angry look and hopped into the seat--refurbished with blue velvet cushions and a switch whose purpose Miles hadn’t yet had the chance to identify--beside Miles, crossing her arms huffily.  Fernando shrugged in confusion.

            “Hey, what the hell’d I say?”

            “She doesn’t like it when people call her a fish,” Bumpy said, leaning forward.  The summoner recoiled, teeth clenched, and inched along the far wall of the Truck, attempting to escape Bumpy’s oppressive smile behind Jimmy Scott, whose low, bass voice boomed throughout the newly upholstered (again in blue velvet) interior, enhanced twofold by Sub-Woofer’s megaphone.  Bumpy leaned back in his seat and said cheerily, “Hey, I ever tell you guys about this mean old chicken we had on our farm?”

            “No,” the rest of them said in unison, making it rather clear that they did not in fact wish to hear about the mean old chicken either.

            “Yeah, it’d always bite me when I went near it,” Bumpy continued, undaunted.  A deranged smile stole across his innocent, boyish features.  “So me and my family and a bunch of other people from the town got this whip, and we ran around and chased the chicken with it.  Then we caught it and strangled it and it went BAWK BAWK BAWK!”

            This last outburst was punctuated by a frenzied waving of the arms which Bumpy found quite amusing, as he collapsed laughing a moment later, lost in thememory.  His look of hurt surprise as the others moved as far into the corners of the Truck as they possibly could begged a good healthy smack from the Bizkicka.  Miles noticed a slight change in the air, a certain pleasant saltiness, as the Stun Zeed came upon a village larger than Raccoon Village and Alcotown but far smaller than Blacklodge.  Birds of a sort he had previously seen only at the seashore he’d often visited during his youth circled above, as if waiting for prey, and Nasty frowned as she noticed, lying in the thick, tall grass which now continued to the horizon on either side of the path, an upturned contraption which might have been a chair, if it hadn’t been for the wheels fixed to either arm.  A lone shoe lay beside the wheeled chair.

            The town itself, Miles noted as the Stun Zeed rolled past the sign (ominous in its simplicity--simply the word “Adirolf” printed in large white letters on dry wood), was striking in its sheer normality: here there were no zombies, no degenerate idiots, and no Bumpys save the one in the back of the Truck.  Houses were neatly painted and raised off the sandy ground on wooden supports, weathered wooden staircases leading to their open porches, and the air had grown stiflingly hot in the instant in which the Stun Zeed had crossed the village limits.  Miles brought Crackhorn to a halt outside the nearest drinking and gaming establishment, over whose door a wooden sign bearing the name “Matlock’s Tavern” swayed in the breeze.  Beneath the raised porch sat a row of the wheeled devices they had seen on the path.

            “Something here isn’t right,” Nasty said nervously as Miles corralled Crackhorn beside the last of the chairs.

            “Yeah, it’s a little warm,” he replied.

            “No, not just that, I mean...you notice anything else?” Nasty glanced over her shoulder.  Bumpy, Fernando, Jimmy Scott, and Midget Sub-Woofer had dismounted the Truck and were gathered in the center of the road, their hands in their pockets.  “The people.  Look around.”

            Miles did so, and frowned as he saw the tanned faces watching from every window, porch, and door, all of them old and senile.  The only sound was that of the circling sea birds, and he shivered in spite of the oppressive heat.  “They’re old.”

            “All of them,” Nasty said quietly.  “I’d say there’s nobody here younger than sixty.  This is wrong.”

            “We’ll keep our eyes open.”

            “Phew.” Nasty stretched, the sunlight glinting off her fine blue scales.  Miles looked at his feet, his earlobes turning red.  From the sun, he told himself.  “Weather like this makes me glad I can’t sweat.  We’re all gonna smell like fish by the time we get out of this town.”

            “That’s just plain weird,” Miles remarked.  He gestured to the rest of the posse to follow him up the stairs to the tavern door, little more than a series of boards with a screen of some sort spread over it, apparently to keep the temperature inside as tolerable as possible.  He glanced back once before he let the door shut behind him, and felt his skin break out in goosebumps as he saw that the watching faces had disappeared.

            The bar’s interior was decidedly dull in comparison to that of Pimptown’s impressive casino, although the quantity of smoke was considerably lesser and the patrons were all far too old and therefore mentally absent to even think of putting the moves on a certain member of Atlantean royalty--but Miles would have been happy to introduce them to Bizkicka’s shiny new nail anyway, simply in consideration of their age.  This, he thought with a sudden spark of contempt for the elderly citizens who surrounded him, must be the Great Wendt’s waiting room.  At the counter sat an individual who stood out, to put things lightly: stout and jolly, sporting a red outfit with furry white trim, his stomach shook like a bowl of jelly when he laughed, and he laughed often.  Atop his head was perched a hat conical in shape, but loose, and he flicked the white ball of fluff at the end out of his eyes every five seconds.  Miles found this man vaguely familiar.

            “Ho ho ho,” the fat man in red guffawed, his voice staggering and drunken.  “Merry Christmas.  Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.  Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.”

            “Don’t think you need any more to drink, Mister,” the bartender said slowly, as though every word needed to be swept free of dust and rot before escaping his wrinkled pink lips.

            “Fuck you,” the man in red retorted.

            “Do I know you?” Miles inquired, tapping the white-bearded man’s shoulder.  “I seem to recall your face.”

            “Name’s Santa Claus,” the jolly man said, his words slurred.  “Fucked if you haven’t heard of me.”

            “Ah, the giver of presents,” Miles nodded.  He recalled a similar legend from his childhood.  Such a man might be useful in certain situations, he mused.  Perhaps he could be persuaded to join the caravan.

            “I’m special,” Santa muttered.

            “Because you give presents to all the boys and girls?”

            “Nah, watch this.” He leaped to his feet with surprising agility for one of his girth, turned to face the bartender, and unbuttoned a flap at the back of his red wool trousers.  “Anger of the land, fury of earth! Ass Furnace!”

            A burst of flame from the red-suited man’s posterior engulfed the shriveled stick of a bartender and incinerated him in a matter of seconds, leaving a burnt, haphazard construction of bones which seemed little more than twigs.  The burst sent the two oldsters on either side of Santa scrambling for the safety of a nearby booth, where one of them immediately collapsed lifeless onto the table before him.

            “That kicked all manner of ass.” Miles nodded his appreciation, extending his hand, which Santa took in his own chubby digits and shook heartily, apparently pleased to make an acquaintance younger than himself.  Miles resolved to persuade this man to join him, whatever his price.  “You ever consider doing any work other than the usual?”

            “Got something in mind?” Santa asked, buttoning the back of his pants.

            “Myself and these other gentlemen,” Miles gestured to his comrades, “are on a mission of some importance, and we were simply wondering if you’d be interested in joining us.  We could certainly put your talents to use.”

            “It’s an intriguing offer,” Santa smiled brightly.  “I’ll tell you in the morning when I’m sober.”

            Miles nodded, pleased to have met this odd, lethally flatulent man in red.

            “No, I mean, for somebody who’s half fish, she’s got pretty big boobs,” Bumpy was saying.

            “Whatever you say,” Jimmy Scott replied.

            Beside him, Midget Sub-Woofer contentedly sipped on a bitter ale.

            “No, I mean it, it’d be kinda cool to get a hug from somebody like that,” Bumpy continued jovially.  “That’d be kind of pleasurable, I’d like that.”

            “You’re a cagey spook, Bumpy,” Sub-Woofer intoned.

            “What, you mean you don’t think boobs are sexy?”

            “Shut up or I’ll kill you before twelve, you sick little bastard,” Nasty Bitch threatened, silencing the impertinent whelp.

            Miles flipped a few coins onto the bar and ascended the stairs which led to the guest rooms above the tavern.  Behind him a fight had ensued at the table, although it appeared essentially one-sided, as Nasty, Fernando, Jimmy Scott, and Sub-Woofer all leaped upon Bumpy like a pack of wild dogs.  Miles shrugged.

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Chapter Nine: Don’t Provoke The Wookiee