A-Frame of Death: Sam, Part 1

In The A-Frame of Death, unpopular characters from my least popular stories get introduced to the confines of a dungeon.  They must survive the challenges and prove themselves worthy of escape. 

This was intended to be a contest entry, but the word length was too short (only 680 words), and the contest expires in only a couple hours.  Plus I don't want to pay $5 to enter the contest.  This story will continue as long as Sam is alive.

 

It began with a stray cat.

He'd been driving home from the office, listening to Weezer on the stereo of his Ford Focus.  He puffed a cigarette, trying to forget all the work bullshit he'd done for eight hours.

The car smelled of cigarettes, old beer, old Doritos.  Trash had piled up in the passenger floor space, but he didn't feel like cleaning.  Mostly he felt like a beer, maybe finishing off that Corona six pack while watching Squid Games or some shit.

Cold.  He had the heater on, but it had something wrong with it.  Took forever to warm up.  The cigarette helped, slightly.  He cinched his parka tighter.

Rain poured down heavily on the road, the car windshield.  He had the wipers up on highest speed, but still next to zero visibility.  Worse, it appeared to be smearing ice.  The street ahead looked like glass.

Out In The Middle Of Nowhere, Kansas.  Farmland - miles from a gas station.  Typical for a collections agency.

A black cat jumped out in front of him unexpectedly.  He slammed on the brakes, but hit an ice patch.

The cat leapt out of the way, but his car didn't stop.  It bumped over the end of the road, rolling over an embankment.

Hard to say what happened after.  A fog rolled in, obscuring visibility further.

The car barreled through a lot of smacking tree branches, to the point where he didn't know which way was up.

Somehow he banged down on a level surface, apparently gravel.

No visibility at all.  The insides of all the windows had fogged up.

"Son of a—"

He shut off the engine, tugging the door opening lever, but it stubbornly resisted until he kicked a few times.

Instead of opening, the door fell off its hinges into a pile of snow.  Icy below zero winds blasted him in the face.

Swearing, he stepped out, assessing the damage.

He'd crashed into a copse of trees at the foot of a hill, headlights bashed in, bumper gone, front grille barely hanging on, no passenger side mirror.

"Well, Sam...You're royally fucked."

He took out his cel phone to call for a tow...or something.

No bars.  He'd crashed into a mobile dead zone.  More swearing.

Up ahead:  A small A-Frame house with smoke rising from the chimney.  It looked warm.

Already his hands felt frostbitten.  Hoping to borrow a phone, he hurriedly rushed through three foot mounds of snow to its inviting front doorstep.

...Semi inviting.  It resembled a hunting lodge.  Still...

The camera doorbell chirped at his approach.  He pushed the doorbell and got a fake door chime.

"There's them bells again."  A little levity to ease the tension.

Shockingly, the door slid open like the elevator on Star Trek.  Unusual, because the interior only looked like a model living room furnished by Cabelas.  

He stepped inside.  "Hello?"

Immediately, the door slid shut, some locking mechanism snapping in place.

"The fuck?"

He ran back and tried the door, but, alas, he'd sooner open a closed bank vault.

Something made a tsk sound.  "Alas, if only I had access to the alchemical potions necessary to undo that fiendish mechanism.  At least we have a fire to keep us warm."

Sam turned to face the massive stone fireplace and let out a girly shriek.

There, beneath the mounted head of a thirteen point buck, sat a man sized sewer rat in raggedy Victorian clothes, pince nez perched upon its muzzle.

Sam shuddered.  "Note to self:  Never go to that dispensary again!"

The yellow toothed rat had companions.  He jumped back with a startled shout when he noticed them rise from the couch and loveseat.

A narrow bodied...frog thing in a breechcloth, feather headdress and bone breastplate.  A fuzzy owl chick, similarly clad, and...a puffy white man thing in a brown trenchcoat...reminded him of the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man, except with huge Yoda ears and a fedora.  

Sam rubbed his eyes.  "That's it!  No more tabby pot pie for me before bedtime!  Time to wake up, Sam!  Please wake up!"

Avatar Fanfic: "Sleepwalker"

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###

I've always had the problem, even as a small child. But now, as I neared my twenty fourth birthday, it kept getting worse.

Last night, I sleepwalked. I pretty much got one hour of actual rest, with a short, relatively normal dream about being late for school and not being able to find the building. My alarm clock interrupted me before I could find a way out of the train yard.

I rolled out of bed feeling dead tired. A shower snapped me out of it a little, but I still felt rough.

I went through my normal morning routine, drove off to work.

I've had some...attendance problems, so I make it a point to leave early, especially since I worked out in the middle of nowhere. You never know what the traffic will be like.

A row of bland gray cubes in the middle of the Kansas countryside. To give you an idea of the remoteness: I had a barn and a cattle pasture within walking distance.

I parked my sedan in the deserted parking lot, folded the seat down, tried to squeeze in a cat nap before my shift. A heavy rain beat a monotonous rhythm on the roof, doing its tapdance on my windows. From time to time, gusts of wind periodically slapped extra rain against the glass, whistling thin notes through the seals and cracks in the door frames. On my rearview, my name badge danced a slight jig to the music of the purring engine.

I closed my eyes a few minutes, sat up and checked the dashboard clock. Only eight minutes had passed, and I felt no more rested than before.

As I rolled back to a reclining position, I swore I saw a figure in a black suit crossing the pavement, but when I turned my head...nothing but a wide empty stretch of pavement leading to a solitary yellow car.

I decided the figure had been a product of my sleep problem, since I had only managed four hours of sleep, actually less with bathroom breaks in the middle. Couldn't remedy the problem too well in that uncomfortable car seat. I shut my eyes anyway.

An engine started up. Thinking it to be someone with a key to the building, I sat back up. Nobody. I guess they'd only driven past the lot.

I closed my eyes a few minutes, sat up and checked the dashboard clock. Only eight minutes had passed. No more rested than before.

A mini-dream about Mom and Dad being blue pig people. We celebrated Thanksgiving in a jungle.

An old blue skinned female creature dressed in skins stabbed me with a shard of bone, cackling as she wiggled it around until blood poured out of it like a small fountain.

I fought her away and tried to run, but she kept coming after me with the bone, laughing hysterically. My parents didn't try to stop her. Instead they just told me to stop being mean to grandma.

When you're sleep deprived, your mind plays tricks on you. That's probably why my dashboard appeared to be made out of leathery multicolored animal skin, and blue figures pointed spears through the openings that used to be car windows.

I blinked, and found myself sprawled in the back seat, staring at the dome.

Noting how everything seemed slanted, I sat up and found my vehicle parked halfway up a grass and concrete island. Thank God my unconscious mind knew how to put it in park!

I pulled the car back into a normal spot, and, against my better judgment, attempted to nap again. Not like I had anything else to do for twenty minutes.

I dreamed I had been imprisoned in a wooden cage. The bars had been thickly lashed together, too narrow for me to squeeze through. Outside, a bunch of blue pig people gathered together in ceremony. A shaman, recognized as such by his skull headdress, robes and bone necklace, danced around a fire, singing and waving a staff in front of me.

A whole hour of nothing but the guy chanting, dancing and a lot of worried tribespeople staring at me. Pretty crappy dream.

I awoke, shivering and damp, on the tar and gravel tiles, ice cold droplets pelting my naked skin.

No shirt. No pants. My white cotton briefs felt like a sodden washcloth.

I leaned over a wall.

I had somehow made it onto the roof of my office. In the distance, through the sheets of pounding water moisture, I spotted the familiar shape of other offices, the empty weed choked field beyond the parking lot, the freeway, and, in the far distance, the rolling hillsides with the dilapidated old barn.

How did I get up here? I thought. And how would I get down?

Not only that, how would I get down without getting fired or arrested?

Then I remembered the ladder.

Inside, near the entrance of our warehouse-like call center, a white metal ladder led into the ceiling. I always heard it went to the roof, but I never had an excuse to go up there.

Problem: The padlock on its lid.

Since jumping would be painful, I decided to try the ladder anyway.

A few feet from an air conditioner unit, I found the ladder rungs, climbing down.

As expected, I encountered a lid, but for some strange reason it came open when I pulled on the handle, and I could enter my office's dry interior.

In my underwear.

I figured I would set off an alarm, maybe end up on some TV show about funny burglaries caught on tape.

Me, sleepwalking again, my unconscious body playing Indians in the buff.

I don't know how I got back out of the building without setting off an alarm, but somehow I blacked out and ended up in my car. I would have chalked it all up to a crazy dream, but I still sat in sopping wet underwear, and I had scratches on my body, with something like brick dust under my fingernails.

No towels, because you don't normally plan for things like this to happen. I had no choice but to make my clothes soggy by putting them back on. My car heater could only do so much.

At least I had my clothes. Sometimes I'd wake up and have a walk before I found where they'd been `misplaced.'

I napped for a moment.

5:42. My shift starts at 6. To my sleep deprived eyes, even the building seemed to be the wrong color.

I sat up, assessing the night's damage in the mirror. Hair plastered to my head, bloodshot eyes surrounded by freckled bags, waterlogged clothes. Yeah, I'm ready for work, I thought.

I slung my ID badge over my toothpaste splattered polo.

The rain wouldn't make me look any worse. I locked up, marching into the storm.

No lightning. The sky above the gray cinder block of an office resembled a Hollywood matte painting, unnaturally bright and colorful in contrast to its shadowy surroundings.

I marched to the entrance, swiping my name badge across the security scanner.

I pulled the door handle, but it didn't open. With my shirt a damp rag and my hair matted down over my eyes, I scanned my badge and tried it again.

It seemed the manager hadn't arrived to unlock the building yet...or had forgotten to do so.

I gave the door another tug, frowned at the downpour blowing through the parking lot.

I got back in my car, waited about ten minutes, tried the door again. The sensor light failed to turn green.

A familiar rusty gray pickup sped past, parking a few spaces down from me.

The lights on the truck went dark. A man with white hair and a button down shirt stepped out, marching up to the door. Harry. Not the manager.

"Won't open?" he yelled.

I shrugged, peering in the nearby windows.

Nobody occupied the visible desks, and venetian blinds and cubicles hid the other areas.

I pressed my face against the glass for a few more minutes, but didn't see anyone. Well, for a moment I thought I did, but no, just me going crackers.

Harry knocked on the glass. "Hello!"

A fat bearded figure in a Star Trek shirt stepped out of the bathroom. Tom the IT guy/call control monitor.

Tom sometimes opens the door for us. Sometimes. I watched him anxiously as he waddled down a row of desks, oblivious to my presence as usual.

We knocked, but he ignored us.

A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the ground in front of me, revealing a bloody rabbit carcass in the grass.

It had been half eaten...and the teeth marks looked disturbingly...human.

I suddenly remembered the bloodstains on my car seats.

I'd just eaten a wild rabbit...raw.

Avatar Fanfic: "Brian"

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####

The glass and steel corporate offices of a major banking institution stood in the center of a jungle on an alien planet. Don't ask me how it got there, I barely knew how the generator worked.

I stood naked in a call center room, one with ceiling to floor glass windows overlooking trees with glowing, candy-like leaves, as my green skinned girlfriend fitted me with a revealing leather harness.

"This once belonged to a Thark who worked in the Fraud Department," said my girlfriend. "He was a little larger than you, but the straps are adjustable."

A storm raged outside, a monsoon of rain blowing against the glass (or rather the forcefield, judging by the shimmering), jungle plants flying back in forth in the wind.

"I know this place is abandoned...for some reason, but I still can't help but feel self conscious."

She cinched the back of the harness around my legs with two hands, secured the upper portion with her other two. "That didn't seem to bother you when we were screwing on that conference table."

I blushed. "That's...different. We were...busy. You distracted me."

She brushed me with her tusks. "Perhaps I can...distract you some more after dinner."

"We're supposed to be guarding the building from those blue pig monsters, Ibira. Make sure the building stays secure. That was the whole point of recapturing this building in the first place. What if the team comes back and catches us?"

"Fine, fine," she groaned. "We'll do a little patrol. We need to locate food anyway."

"So, uh, what happened to the guy who used to own this harness?"

Ibira tightened a strap around my hip. "He quit. He found the company...unmasculine."

"He just left his stuff and marched out?"

"He was very angry. Plus this harness fit a little small."

"Were you two...close?"

She shrugged. "A little. But he didn't like headstrong, independent females."

"His loss."

Chuckling, Ibira cinched up my loin strap. A rather small fit, but since the material seemed be made of a non-terrestrial form of leather, it stretched out to cover everything that needed to be covered with a few tugs on a pair of connecting bands. She even had a way to strap up the parts where two additional arms would have gone. "There. you're decent. Let's go on a hunting expedition."

The harness, being next to nothing in terms of flesh coverage, brought heat to my face and body. I hesitantly followed her through the rows of carpeted particle board cubicles, eyes searching the desks and windows, to see if I'd been observed.

"Why are you so nervous? I have seen you wear much less, and I will find this...very cute."

"Gee, I don't know..."

"How much do you ordinarily wear while playing Indian?"

"Ibira, that's only when I'm sleepwalking. I wouldn't be caught dead doing that while I'm awake."

Ibira rubbed her harness up against mine. "Then...pretend you are sleeping."

Hot and embarrassed, I muttered, "Fine. But you'll have to excuse me if I don't wear it all over the place."

She made a clearing throat sound. "Pah. You must have courage!"

"I don't think I'll ever be that courageous."

"This is something we must work on." She slapped my rump. "Ha! Now people can stare at your ass for a change!"

In my embarrassment, I probably resembled a lobster as I followed her down the staircase.

For a brief moment, I stopped feeling self conscious, and maybe even felt a little sexy, but then I reached the lobby.

My boldness ebbed away, replaced by worries of being seen. After all, I hadn't heard any of my team members leave.

Ibira led me down the cold tile floor, through an adjoining hallway, suddenly noticing how cold it was to be running around half naked in a concrete building in the middle of a rain storm. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought they had the air conditioning on.

The office building had a service called Heuristic Kitchen. Basically like a Quiktrip, except it had a computerized payment kiosk instead of a cash register, and nobody tended the store.

I asked Ibira for an explanation, and she said that the place basically operated on the honor system. A camera watched you, so if you took something without paying, you were out of a job.

A chain of imitation convenience stores, set up in break rooms all across the United States. This particular one had a sizable inventory, but the items had long passed their expiration date.

After wandering around for hours in a darkened, dead silent building, surreal to hear refrigeration fans blowing away as if everything were business as usual.

I stared at a rack of moldy cinnamon muffins, then moved on to the cold case.

All the salads had wilted, the sandwiches hairy blue, the yogurt all abloom with sporozoa, the likes of which I had never seen before. The only thing remotely edible appeared to be the chips, the crackers, and the candy bars.

"As you can see, it has been some time since this office has been occupied. Since the power was off, the sandwiches and other items are all rotten except for the dry goods. We may have some freeze dried foods, but I suggest you go with me on a hunt."

I gulped. "Hunt?"

"Yes."

"In the rain?"

"In the rain."

We marched out into a large corporate cafeteria space, as fancy as a restaurant, with a little passageway off to the side filled with rows of microwaves of various types, sturdy padded industrial chairs, and a sort of bar type arrangement running across the back window, allowing you to gaze out at the yard while you ate.

The storm pounded the glass a little too heavily at this point, even for Ibira. We decided to wait it out for awhile.

As we gazed through the glass together, enjoying the calm jungle scenery. Ibira leaned her head against my chest, putting an arm around my waist.

I returned the gesture with an arm around her shoulder, and I felt a second hand gently curling around my left thigh. "Are you absolutely certain that nothing would change your mind about marrying me?...If we produced children?"

"It wouldn't be right for me not to commit my life to you if you had a baby to take care of. It would be our baby. Whatever species it would end up being, a child needs his father."

"Or hers."

"Yeah..."

"I have made a good choice in partners." She rubbed her tusk against my face. "Are you still hungry?"

"Yeah?"

"Then let us hunt."

"It's raining."

"Saves you a shower."

I frowned at my harness. "You want me to hunt in this?"

"Males in my culture have worn such things for centuries."

"Sounds like your people suffered from a lot of insect bites."

"Admittedly, yes, but your attire pleases me. I can find some salves."

I rubbed my face. "Fine."

I followed her to the set of security doors leading into the outdoor smoker's lounge.

I still worried that someone might drive by and see me. "Must I go outside in this getup?"

"Yes," she purred. "When we joined our bodies together, you joined yourself to my tribe. You will now dress according to custom and hunt with me so that we may further bond."

"I just know I'm going to end up with bug bites all over my legs and private regions."

Without a word, or even asking permission, she opened a bottle from her harness pouch, applying a foul smelling slime to the areas in question. "There. I just applied some repellent. Better?"

"I guess you could call it that." I frowned as I watched her coating her own lower regions. "You could have at least asked me first."

"I thought our relationship had progressed to the point of nonverbal communication." She gestured to the orange hand prints on her rear. "Since we have already laid claim to each other's bodies, I though it only natural to do what I saw fit with yours. Within reason, of course."

I reddened. "I...guess you got me there."

She slapped me on my naked rear and left her hand there. "That's what I thought."

Figuring turnabout was fair play, I poked her between the shoulder blades, and frills popped out of her neck. She gasped, leaning on a table, her legs trembling. "Jason...that's not a tickle spot."

My eyes widened. "Oh!"

"You're going to be very sorry that you did that."

I blushed, wondering how sorry.

With the power on, the door would not open without a swipe from an employee badge.

To my surprise, Ibira had one hidden inside a slim pocket within her crotch strap, a gray card with a computer chip. The door light turned green, allowing us to pass.

I followed her outside into the field, under a shower of rain. It did kinda clean me up a little.

A few yards out, the rain faded into a light drizzle.

Ibira drew a dagger, ducking behind a clump of weeds. "It's a Razorback! Get down and follow my lead!"

I obeyed, but my knees squished in something cold and wet. I frowned when I saw what it was. "I think I just knelt in alien poop."

"Good. It'll mask your scent. Stay down!"

I squinted at the hunched, lumbering blue figure wading through the weeds. "Why is that Razorback wearing a tie?"

"You got me. If he saw me, he'd probably be wondering why I'm wearing this thing."

After huddling there in silence for a moment, Ibira stood back up. "He knows we're here! Quick! Get ready to run!"

The creature didn't advance. Instead, it raised a claw and pointed at me, letting out a braying laugh.

Ibira clenched her fist around her knife, held out a hand to wave me back, but neither of us moved.

The blue thing shuffled closer, pointing to its chest while making...grunts and other unintelligible sounds.

"That tie does look familiar..."

"He probably killed someone and took their clothes as a trophy."

I waved at the beast.

It replied by tipping an imaginary hat.

"He seems nice," I said.

"Perhaps that is how it kills. By disarming its prey with strange behavior."

She raised her spear and screamed at it. "Shoo! Go away! Kekmor! Vupdewa! Go!" She waved it away.

When the creature didn't go, she hurled a rock in its direction, causing it to shuffle off with a piteous whimper.

"That was mean," I said.

"It was for your own protection. You saw the necktie. There's probably a dead body out there that it belongs to."

"I know. We saw a dead body on the recording. But how did he tie the tie?"

"They can learn. His victim may have actually tied it on him before he killed him."

"Yeah...but..."

"Jason, you have a good heart, but creatures just like this one attempted to kill you earlier."

"I...I guess you're right."

A few days ago, one of our team leaders mysteriously vanished, presumed dead. And here we see this alien pig monster wearing one of his favorite ties.

"You...think it killed Brian?"

"I...don't know."

I kept staring in the direction it departed to. "Ibira, this is going to sound weird...but what if that was Brian?"

Avatar Fanfic: "Ambush"

Story in progress.  Like it?  Post a reply and I'll continue the story.

#####

I didn't know the blue pig monsters lurked behind the foliage until they jumped out and chased me with their spears.

When I ran, the ball of alien pheromone sloshed open, giving a swarm of pterodactyl things entirely the wrong idea about my romantic life.

This whole mess began because of those pterodactyl things.

Kurroks.

Don't know why my team drove a Jeep out in the middle of that field of candy striped crab grass, I wasn't there. Also don't know how that swarm of leathery winged creatures got the idea to use it as a nest. The only thing I knew: My team had captured a female, milked a gallon of secretions out of it, and poured it into a breakable ball...and I had ball duty.

A simple enough plan: I'd hurl the object away from the Jeep, then we'd move the `nest' away real quick. Didn't count on an ambush.

All around the Jeep, there stood these huge clumps of green and purple plants, resembling French chocolate curls, peppered with lollipop-like berries (which, if consumed, cause embarrassing sexual side effects).

The moment I neared the Jeep with the `orb,' a crowd of spotty, warthog faced savages in loincloths jumped out at me.

They snorted, nocked arrows and raised spears, their spots glowing as they charged into the open. I turned to flee.

Glimpsing the cover of a nearby tree, I ran toward an opening parallel to it, in the direction of our Hummer.

I'd only gotten a few yards when another blue figure popped out of a sinkhole in front of me, aiming a bow.

Frightened, I hurled the ball in the creature's swine face. It squealed, launching its arrow into a mound of dirt.

A disgusting yellow slop smelling of rotten bagels and jasmine splashed back on me as it coated my assailant. I pushed my way past the creature in haste, breaking into a run as I frantically brushed my shirt and pants in attempts to remove the substance.

A cloud of leathery bodies filled the air. Something big and heavy knocked me into the ground.

A purple fleshy shaft extended from the winged creature as it pounded me with its wings. Sickened by the thought of where it wanted to thrust it, I threw off my shirt. The cloud of leathery wings took off with it, filling the air with confused squealing sounds.

I ran in the opposite direction as fast as I could make my legs go.

A spear whistled past my head. I glanced back and saw I'd been followed by a mob of the blue savages.

Dirt exploded around me with the muted pop of silencer pistols. Light from the weapons flashed from the bushes. I ducked, glancing back with anxious dread.

Not wanting to get hurt, I crawled on my hands and knees across the field, hoping and praying that no loose ammunition came my way.

I made it past the line around the Hummer, within seven yards of my team. Dirt sprayed up in my face.

Mike, a Spanish guy in jeans and a Chivas shirt, gestured for me to stay put. I laid still.

Well...until something latched onto my leg.

One of those winged things, but small, roughly the size of an adult German shepherd.

Kind of adorable, actually. I tried gently pushing it off.

It didn't work.

Frustrated, I tried using my fists, but the creature didn't react to my punches.

"C'mon! Get off of me!" I groaned, pulling its head back.

The creature only whimpered, nuzzling its beak against my pant leg.

The shots and squealing noises stopped. My coworkers now stood over a pile of blue bodies, a bald headed figure with a red shirt spraying something on the Hummer.

Safe.

Relieved, I stood up, shaking my leg in hopes of dislodging the creature. When that didn't work, I took off my pants, which seemed to distract the thing enough for me to get away.

The leader of my team, a squatty little dwarf, wrinkled his face in disgust. "Why is it that every time I see you, you've got your pants off?"

I shrugged, turning pink. "It's not my fault, Victor. That little guy won't leave me alone."

I pointed to the creature gnawing on my pants.

Victor laughed. "Would you like me to shoot it?"

"No!" I protested. "It's cute! I just don't want it stuck on my leg!"

The creature looked up from my pants, squawking at me.

It parked itself by my feet, butting me on the bare leg.

"Hey!" I laughed as it butted again. I petted it, and the creature squawked in response.

Suddenly, it shot into the air, tackling me to the ground as it barked, licking me in the face.

"All right, rump ranger," Victor grumped as he threw me my pants, along with some rags, bottles and a spray can. "Enough fooling around. Help Snakey with clean up."

I got myself decent, got Lysol All Purpose and a bathroom scrubber from a bald African American dude in a tank top. I spent the next two hours clearing caked on slime from the sideways vehicle.

My little friend, in the meantime, filled his stomach with parts of blue corpses, particularly the eyes and other soft areas.

Although starving, the sight and smell of the Kurrok's feast quashed my appetite. My only consolation: It had stopped making annoying whining sounds.

Snakey wiped his hands on his tank top. "Hungry?"

I shrugged.

He scrubbed the frame of a shattered window with foam and a brush. "You know, I think there's a lockbox of food in the trunk, if the Kurroks haven't gotten to it."

After clearing away the broken glass, I crawled into the the trunk, where a battered metal box lay sideways in a pile of dried slime.

The thing had been so badly dented and caved in that nothing short of wire cutters and a wielding torch would open it. Sighing, I went back to scrubbing.

"Hey, Snakey...I, uh, saw a group of pregnant women in my training group. They just randomly showed up. Do you have any idea why?"

He chuckled. "Don't look at me! I'm careful! Must have been something you did."

I rolled my eyes. "I just thought it weird. They just showed up out of the blue...after we arrived here."

"Oh." Snakey shook his head. "Those must be the American Provincial girls. A group of them won some kind of employee excellence award, got an all expenses paid vacation to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet. What happens on Wrigley's stays on Wrigley's, you know what I mean?"

"Um...not really?"

He snickered. "Stay with us long enough and you'll probably get to see it. You'll come back a changed man."

A thump on the floor beside me indicated my new pet had returned.

For a few moments, its cyclops eye peered at me with curiosity, but as I continued my dull task, it pawed around the wall panel (currently `the floor') in a circle and laid down, snoring softly in a corner.

"Lucky those gals came back when they did, and where they did," Snakey continued. "They might have disappeared with the rest of the employees."

"How long were they there? Nine months?"

"Naw, man! They probably came to term when they got back. The lucky thing was being shipped off to Boukzi for OBGYN at the same time. Just narrowly missed the attack. We took `em in last night when the shuttle came down."

"Funny, I didn't see them."

"You were probably asleep or something."

Once I had completed the scouring of a rear passenger seat, the creature's eye popped open wide, its beak pointed at the trunk. It broke into a frantic squawking fit.

A couple minutes later, an engine growled nearby.

Overwhelmed with curiosity, I poked my head through the broken window up top, gawking at the rear end of an idling pickup. "Hey! Where'd that come from!"

"Storage!" Mike called.

"I don't get it. Why couldn't we have used that before?"

"We only got five barrels of gas," Snakey explained. "And this Hummer takes half that just to get to Hell's Gate and back."

"What's Hell's Gate?"

He shrugged. "A military base."

"I see they've brought a barrel with them."

"Yep."

He threw me a heavy chain with a hook attached to the end. "Here. Make yourself useful. Stick this on the underside of that behemoth."

I did. A few moments later, we had the Hummer dragged into an upright position.

At first, my Kurrok fought against the strange machine, but when he failed to destroy the rear bumper, he settled down, letting the humans work.

We made the final touches, cleaning the last bits of slime from unimportant areas.

Victor climbed into the front seat, tossing me a couple sandwiches in baggies. "You probably noticed you're missing dinner. Admittedly, it's not much, but I didn't have time to bring a full course meal."

I opened the bags, tearing into the sandwiches while Snakey and the others in the pickup started on their own.

As I dove into my second sandwich, trying hard not to let my pet snatch it from my hand, Victor squeezed into the back of the vehicle, fumbling around with something.

He yelled and banged something around. Sparks flew up from behind the seat, then the unpleasant sound of rending metal filled the vehicle.

A cluster of mangled rectangular packages got passed over the seat.

I stared at the foil wrapping. "What's that?"

"Protein bars. Granola bars. Beef jerky. It's probably all expired, but if you're hungry, eat up."

Looking bored, Mike manually pumped fuel into the Hummer.

The rear passenger door slid open, and in came a narrow, well muscled green and orange dappled body. I admired the well toned hips and thighs as they sidled in close to me.

"Ibira!" I stammered. "H-hi!"

I chewed on a piece of beef jerky, forcing my eyes upwards. A Nextel phone had been clipped to the upper part of her harness, making occasional chirps and monotone mutterings.

"No shirt today?" the female asked.

"I dunno," I mumbled as I swallowed jerky.

"Did it get too hot, or is this your normal fighting attire?"

I shrugged, looking into one of her eyes. "I, uh..." I lowered my voice out of embarrassment. "I didn't want to get molested by crazy pterodactyls. I was lucky to keep my pants. The pheromone sprayed everywhere!"

She giggled. "I heard what you did. It was very brave."

The phone chirped again, explaining how she acquired the knowledge.

"Hey, why can't I get a phone?"

Ibira smirked. "Perhaps because it would get lost, like your clothing." She glanced in the trunk. "Who's your friend?"

"Dino." I'd been tossing the name around since the first time it knocked me to the ground and licked my face.

She gave me a blank look.

"Flintstones. It's a cartoon."

Ibira looked at me like I were an idiot. "I know. But your pet has wings."

"It's more about the personality."

She smiled. "I see."

"Wait. How do you know about the Flintstones?"

"I have a Hulu account, Jason. I don't actually live in the stone age."

I smirked as I imagined her watching TV.

Ibira glanced at my feet. "Do you always wear shoes of this type? It seems very inefficient."

"Nobody told me I needed to pack anything."

"Hmmm."

"So...what are you doing out here?"

"I wanted some fresh air." She rested her chin in one left hand to gaze into my eyes, the fingers of her other left brushing the side of my ribs. "Plus they wanted me to help reclaim Hell's Gate."

I blinked. "We're doing a raid?"

"That's why they brought me out here."

Still not completely comfortable with her touching my body, I grabbed her roving left.

I thought about brushing it away, but instead I held it, boyfriend-like.

Ibira smiled, lowering her hand. "I hear you've met my friend Sigma."

I blushed. "Um...That furry alien chick?" Then, remembering my manners, "I mean, the...Harfon? A couple times, actually."

Ibira's second left hand drifted toward a knife on her harness. Although I hated to say more, I feared her killing me over a rumor. "Nothing happened."

She grinned. "I heard."

Her second left moved away from the knife.

I stared at her questioningly, afraid to speak. If I said the wrong thing, I could ruin her friendship, or ours, our ruin my chances with...Sigma, if Ibira dumped me. "W-what did you hear?"

"You showered together."

I blushed. Her friend had barged into my shower. She'd said a few...racy things to me. It took me a moment to formulate words. "Wait, that was a test?"

She shrugged. "If it was, you passed."

And you're still friends with her? I thought. Definitely a test. She had to have put Sigma up to that!...Guess she still didn't believe I wanted to be her boyfriend.

I felt an electric thrill as the back of my fingers brushed Ibira's bare thigh.

"A little help?" someone called.

With a nod, Ibira climbed out, and I followed.

"What's this about?" I asked Victor.

Without a word, he and Mike pulled a thick piece of sheet metal out of the truck bed, dragging it over to the Hummer. Mike brought out a wielding torch, and I got instructed to hold the sheet in place while they attached it. I think arc wielding is supposed to be done with face shielding, but nobody seemed to care. I turned my face away and hoped for the best.

For the next half hour, I helped Victor and the others wield metal plates to the Hummer as Ibira and the others bolted down chain mail and soldered metal plates over the window panes.

"Why are we using chain mail?" I asked Mike. "Shouldn't we box it up like an armored car?"

"We have guns, and they have arrows," said Snakey. "It's easier to shoot bullets through chain mail."

"Wouldn't it also be easier for them to shoot us that way?"

"Gun beats arrow, and bullets don't get caught in rings that size."

Once finished with our work, we boarded and we got rolling.

Ibira held my hand again, but worry overtook me. "Do we have a strategy, or are we making it up as we go along?"

Still holding my hand, her other hands opened a pouch on her harness, giving me a photocopy of a scribble on a piece of notebook paper.

"The perimeter is full of landmines and razor wire. Holes have been cut in the fencing , but it's unwise to use it. Our best strategy is through the gate in the front face, or cut across the helicopter pads. The razorbacks don't like technology, so we're hoping they left it deserted."

I stared at the map, releasing her hand as I clenched the paper with shaking fingers. "You'd think that an army of blue pigs with spears wouldn't be able to conquer a base with this much military equipment."

"It was espionage. Well, espionage and biological agents."

I stared at her in bafflement. "They used germ warfare?"

Ibira shrugged.

"Is it safe now?"

"Yes. The structure has been occupied continuously since the initial invasion. We just don't have the numbers or the strategy to retain the territory."

"But we don't have numbers now," I protested. "What good are we going to do taking the place over again?"

"Admittedly, not much, but at least we have strategies to avoid the mistakes of our predecessors."

Snakey had been listening from the front passenger seat. "Not wearing clunky spacesuits is a good start."

"Are we just going to drive through the gates, then?"

"Basically."

A few minutes later, the foliage disappeared, and we stared through our chain mail at a gray cube framed in fences and razor wire.

The blackened remains of guard towers stood at four corners of the complex, framed by demolished cannons, overturned vehicles, and what appeared to be a collection of silver statues of mutilated arthritis sufferers, apparently...dismantled robots.

We passed a weather cracked helicopter pad, watching the fence loom closer.

The mechanical features of the statues became more pronounced, a series of defaced hydraulic limbs, carrion nests and broken glass.

A cluster of blue pigs emerged, peppering our chain mail with arrows. I got handed a gun.