The End of Everything Forever

by Eirik Gumeny

  “oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”

  The roar of the atomic werewolf echoed down the hallway, rattling door handles and plaques denoting floor plans. Dr. Meola wet his pants.

  “oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”

  “All right, OK, all right,” panted Dr. Ramos, his back against the locked doors and his pants still dry, “we’re scientists, damn it, we can figure a way out of this.”

  The wolfman roared again.

  “No, we are going to die. We are absolutely going to die.”

  “oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”

  The bellowing began again, only for the creature to be interrupted by the sound of a shotgun firing.

  The shotgun went off again. And again. This was followed by a short silence and then another, significantly louder roar. The floor itself shook. The shotgun fired one more time, and was then quickly followed by a large number of high-volume obscenities.

  George Saint, the research facility’s janitor and appointed executioner of failed experiments, appeared at the end of the hall opposite the doctors.

  Well, parts of him anyway.

  Dr. Ramos’ pants ceased to be dry.

  “I don’t want to die. Oh, god, I don’t want to die.”

  The escaped werewolf appeared at the far end of the corridor, holding various other pieces of George Saint. The beast reared up on its hind legs, its shoulders brushing against the polished ceiling.

  “oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit”

  The atomic wolfman growled and dropped to all fours, charging at the geneticists.

  “ohgodohgodohgodohfuckohgodfuckshitfuck”

  The scientists closed their eyes and clutched each other in a damp and terrified embrace.

  “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck”

  They could hear the beast racing towards them. There may have been defecating.

  “FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK”

  There was a loud crash, steel buckling and glass shattering, and then silence. As near as the doctors could diagnose, there had been no further dismemberment. They were also pretty certain they were still breathing, albeit rapidly.

  “What in the hell ...?”

  The scientists looked around. The double doors that had been impeding their flight were no longer in existence. In their place was a large hole and some splintering wallboard. Beyond that, there was nothing but the vast, swampy expanse of the New Jersey Meadowlands.

  “You know,” said Dr. Ramos, still clutching Dr. Meola and more than slightly confused as to why he wasn’t in little, itty-bitty chunks, “I really can’t imagine this ending well.”

  INTERLUDE

  Thor, God of Chronological Narratives

  “Been a pretty boring couple of days, hasn’t it?” asked Thor, picking at his gnarled cuticles.

  “Sure has,” replied Catrina, holding out her legs and staring at her Chuck Taylors. The two of them were sitting atop the front counter of the Secaucus Holiday Inn, facing the empty hotel lobby, and waiting for something, anything, to happen.

  “You think everyone’s week has been this uneventful?”

  “You mean, like, ‘everyone everywhere’ everyone?”

  “Yeah. You think maybe the whole planet’s just been sitting around on their asses going, ‘By Odin’s creepy toenails, this has been one boring-ass week.’”

  “Not the entire planet, no way,” replied Catrina, turning toward her co-worker. “There’s bound to be someone doing something somewhere. I refuse to believe there isn’t someone more enterprising and adventurous than us.”

  “I guess that’s true,” said Thor. “I didn’t even leave the hotel for lunch.”

  A grizzly bear wearing a shirt and tie – but no pants – and carrying a skateboard stepped off the elevator into the lobby and walked to the concierge desk.

  “I’d like to check out, please,” said the grizzly bear, putting his keycard on the counter beside Catrina.

  “Sure thing,” said the young woman, swinging her skinny-jeaned legs around, hopping off the desk, taking the keycard, and logging into the computer. “And how was your stay, sir?”

  “Pretty uneventful,” said the grizzly bear, shrugging.

  “Tell me about it, man,” said Thor, still on the counter, to the grizzly bear. “I think it’s an epidemic.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Meanwhile, Back at the Compound ...

  Quetzalcoatl, formerly known as the Aztec God of Stuff, had been staying with the cabal of philosophers for nearly a week. They had been kind enough to give him a pair of acid-washed jeans and an overly large, neon green sweatshirt, as well as his own corner of the basement and a copy of a Sunday newspaper from twenty years earlier, to be used however he saw fit. He still did not have shoes, though.

  The Mexican man spent the majority of his time squatting in a corner and wearing the Business section as a blanket, observing the endless parade of stoners and liberal arts majors and listening to the various theories being thrown about. He also spent a good deal of time trying to identify the free-wheeling odors with which they shared the building.

  “The matter,” continued Phil, “is entirely on our shoulders. It is our ... responsibility to rise up, to take the reins.”

  “But we cannot simply ... impose our goals,” countered Bill, “without at least ... offering the populace the opportunity to dissent.”

  Quetzalcoatl had tried to be a gracious guest, but it had proven to be astoundingly taxing. The philosophers continually asked him questions that had no answer. They answered questions that weren’t asked. There were beards everywhere.

  “Allowing dissent,” said Syl, “is no different than conceding our argument ... preemptively.”

  The former god couldn’t pronounce or identify most of the food he was offered. He had, instead, been subsisting entirely on Spaghetti-Os. The scruffy hippies thought he was doing it ironically.

  “Yet,” replied Will, “we have no choice. To quell an uprising ... that hasn’t even risen ...”

  Between the absinthe, the flavored tobacco, everyone continually pronouncing Proust correctly, and all the god damned tweed, Quetzalcoatl was about ready to clobber someone.

  “Jesus, guys,” he snapped, slumped against the wall, “don’t you stop? Like, ever?”

  A basement full of heavy-lidded eyes turned to Quetzalcoatl.

  “I’m sorry, Quinn,” said Syl. “I ... we ... don’t understand.”

  “You guys honestly believe you can change the world? Just by sitting on your asses and thinking about it. Don’t you?”

  “I understand,” said Phil. “He’s testing us, trying to ... gauge our answer to the ... inevitable questions that will be asked of us.”

  “I ...” began the Aztec. “Buddy, I don’t even remember which one you are.”

  “Quinn,” continued Will, “the matter is not about changing the world ... not about turning views to match our own.”

  “Rather,” said Bill, “we are trying to suss out the extraneous distractions ... to pare down that viewpoint.”

  “We do not need to change the world,” said Phil, “merely discover it.”

  “But all you’re doing is throwing around the same bullshit ideas. Over and over and over and over and over.”

  “Only if you believe that they are ... ‘bullshit,’ as you put it. This is all about ... perception, about how one chooses to view things and his belief in that conviction.”

  “Ideally,” said Will, “if you’ll pardon the pun, we are aiming to discern the hidden meaning behind life, a perspective that cannot be ... disputed, at which point everyone and everything will surely fall in line.”

  “OK, OK,” said Quetzalcoatl, putting up his hands. “I think I get it now.” He stood up slowly, his fifty-something body creaking, carrying the weight of hundreds of years. “You guys are dumb as a pinball wizard.”

  Quetzalcoatl hadn’t stood in a day or so. He was having issues remaining vertical.

  “Are you ... all right, Quinn?”
asked one of the vagrants.

  “Just peachy, thanks,” he replied, swaying slightly. “That ill-advised drop-ceiling on your stairs seems to have cleared a few cobwebs.”

  “Are you sure your brain isn’t just hemorrhaging?” asked another.

  “Not even a little.”

  “Well,” said Bill, “if Quinn’s little charade is over ... I suggest we get back to the matter at hand.”

  “Cartoon crickets,” said Quetzalcoatl, leaning back against the wall, “you guys’ve got all the vision of a toaster with one setting.”

  Phil, Will, Syl, Bill, and all the others in the room paused to reflect on the statement, taking in all the possible connotations. Their brows furrowed, their hands went to their chins.

  “Guys, no. Stop that,” commanded the former Aztec god. “I was insulting you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bag Lady

  Drs. Meola, Ramos, and Lalas stood in a darkened operating room, crowding together between the various trays and beds, around the glow of a single computer monitor.

  “You’re sure we can track it?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Dr. Alexi Lalas vexedly. “In fact, we’re doing that now. We’ve been doing that for the last twenty minutes. That blinking light? On the map? The one we’ve been following around with our finger? That’s 37-E.”

  “Oh,” said Dr. Meola, “right, yeah. I knew that.”

  “Christ,” said Dr. Lalas, “I can’t believe you’re still rattled. You weren’t even mauled!”

  “It was a psychological mauling. There was, y’know, trauma ... and stuff.”

  Dr. Lalas held up his shiny new cybernetic forearm. “You’re a fucking pansy.”

  “Yes, it certainly appears so,” replied the other scientist.

  The surviving interns filled into the room, wearing ill-fitting hand-me-down lab coats and dragging behind them a hand-truck laden with various firearms and the coordinating ammunition. The trio of interns were equal parts shiny robotic implants and blood-soaked bandages, both terrified and terrifying. Judy Lin, the one with half a face, was wearing a burlap sack with eyeholes cut out over her head. There was a crude smiling mouth drawn onto it with marker.

  “Judy,” said Dr. Ramos, “that seems a little –”

  “No,” she said. “It’s not.”

  “OK, maybe, but why a burlap –”

  “It was all I could find.”

  “I’m pretty sure I saw –”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Why would we even have a burlap sack in a state-of-the-art gene research facility in the first place?” asked Dr. Meola.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You look ridiculous,” said Dr. Ramos.

  “I am well aware, thanks. Fucktard.”

  “That’s Dr. Fucktard to you.”

  “Enough!” barked Dr. Lalas. “We started this ... and we’re the only ones who can end it.” He pumped a cartridge into his shotgun, the sound resonating dramatically throughout the operating room. “It’s hunting season.”

  The interns were barely able to stifle their laughter.

  “Seriously?” asked Dr. Ramos, raising an eyebrow. “‘Hunting season?’”

  “Well, yeah, I was, uh, I was just trying to, y’know, fire us up ...”

  “Yeah, don’t.”

  “I got a little caught up ...”

  “Yeah ...”

  “I thought –”

  “Don’t do that again.”

  “OK.”

  “Thanks.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Bad Pun! Bad Pun!

  “You know,” said Queen Victoria XXX, “Munchkins really don’t respect anyone.”

  “Can you blame them?” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Even in death they were pigeonholed by the limited perspectives of the so-called ‘normal’ population.”

  “No kidding,” said William H. Taft XLII. “I had no idea there were that many Ewok fansites out there. The internet’s fucked up.”

  “That’s great, guys,” said the queen, “but none of that is really helpful to the fact that the entirety of the cast of the Wizard of Oz is currently thrashing our apartment.”

  “Well, actually, Vicky, it does,” countered an authoritative, and slightly smug, Chester A. Arthur XVII. “The men and women who played the Munchkins were constantly treated as second-class citizens during their lives. And, as Billy mentioned, even during their afterlives. It’s only natural then that, freed of their previous physical limitations and given a second chance, they’d see themselves as a kind of superman, and either act on this newfound power or simply lash out, losing all regard for their previously held inhibitions and what they had considered right and wrong.”

  “You do realize that it’s Judy Garland inside the corpse that’s humping the couch, right? Not a midget and, in fact, one of the more treasured actresses of her time?”

  “I was not actually aware of that,” replied the cloned president.

  “Don’t have a speech for that one, do you?”

  “I do not.”

  “Didn’t think so,” said Queen Victoria XXX with a small smile. “Now, back to the matter at hand: Does this deeper understanding you have of the midget oppression allow you any kind of, I don’t know, insight into how we un-hostage ourselves from the Lollipop Guild?”

  “I’m working on it.” Chester A. Arthur XVII looked at the trio of undead construction workers surrounding the trio of regenerated politicians.

  “We represent the Lollipop Guild,” growled the bald fellow in overalls holding a knife.

  “The Lollipop Guild,” parroted the one with the crowbar.

  “The Lollipop Guild,” echoed the one wielding a toaster with a fork in it.

  “And in the name of the Lollipop Guild,” continued the first.

  “We wish to welcome you ... TO HELL,” concluded the third undead gentlemen, brandishing the toaster in what could only be assumed to be a hostile manner.

  Chester A. Arthur XVII sighed and tried to hang his head in disgrace, only to remember that it was duct-taped to the wall of his living room.

  “How the hell did we let them capture us anyway?” he asked.

  “You know,” said Queen Victoria XXX, “I have no idea.”

  “Were we drunk?”

  “That might explain why I’m not wearing pants.”

  “Oh, man. Guys, guys,” said William H. Taft XLII, his tremendous girth situated between the two fitter world leaders, “I totally just realized the irony of this whole thing.”

  “Huh?” inquired Queen Victoria XXX.

  “‘cause, look, they’re all blue-collar guys and we’re all politicians and royalty or whatever.”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with anything, Billy,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “They’re rising up! Taking their vengeance against the aristocracy!”

  “I’m pretty sure they’re not thinking of it like that,” replied the queen.

  “We just said the ghosts are in control, not the bodies. What they’re wearing has nothing to do with their motivations. Besides,” added Chester A. Arthur XVII, futilely attempting to point his head, “a couple of them are playing hackysack with a cat.”

  “Where the hell did they get a cat?” asked Queen Victoria XXX.

  “Oh, come on,” continued the overweight clone. “You don’t think accidentally inciting a Communist revolution is funny?”

  “We didn’t, and no,” answered Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “You think they’re related?” asked William H. Taft XLII.

  “What?”

  “You know, like the Marx brothers.”

  A pained expression fell across the sideburned president’s face. “That was awful.”

  “You’re the reason some animals eat their young, Billy,” added Queen Victoria XXX.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Torsos-a-Go-Go

  “Look, I’m telling you,” said Thor Odinson, sitting atop the counter of the Sec
aucus Holiday Inn’s front desk, “Steve McQueen would win in a fight.”

  “And I’m telling you,” countered Catrina Dalisay, resting in a chair behind the counter, her feet on the desktop, “Burt Reynolds’ mustache is more of a man than Steve McQueen ever was.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “McQueen was just a spoiled pretty boy. Burt Reynolds was the embodiment of all that was masculine and bad-ass in the seventies.”

  “That owed as much to the Trans Am as it did to him.”

  “Burt Reynolds’ mustache would kick Steve McQueen’s ass.”

  “How, Catrina? It’s hair!”

  “That’s how awesome it is.”

  “That’s dumb,” argued Thor. “You know what, we’re gonna settle this right now.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Might even be able to make some money off of it, too,” continued the former god. “I read online about some dude somewhere who’s renting out zombies to ghosts. Apparently ghosts’re getting tired of being the internet’s bitches and are actually dumb enough to pay to have human bodies again.”

  “Dumb enough? You saying you’re too cool to drop a couple dollars to live again?”

  “Hell yeah, I am. Ethereal immortality is the way to be. I have had nothing but issues with this meat suit since I got it. The vegetable requirements, the weird smells, the inability to throw cars.” Thor grabbed his flabby midsection. “And what the fuck is this?”

  “Oh, right, yeah. I forgot Mr. Big Bad Norse God is really just a whiny little bitch.” Catrina pouted her lips and proceeded to mock Thor, her approximation of his voice a spot-on mix of him and a pissy, spoiled six-year-old girl: “Oh, I’m a human now, boo hoo. I keep having problems because I’m stupid and dumb and too stubborn to listen to Catrina, wah.”

  “Instead of insulting me,” said Thor slowly, “you should be tracking down the ghosts of Steve McQueen and the Bandit’s mustache and convincing them to fight each other.” He hopped off the desk. “I’m gonna go rustle up some bodies for ‘em.”

  At precisely that moment, a pair of torsos was hurled through the glass doors of the hotel and into the lobby.