by Eirik Gumeny
“Will those do?” asked Catrina, standing up and leaning over the desk.
“It wouldn’t be much of a fight without arms.”
Two more torsos bounced into the lobby, rolling over the broken glass.
“OK,” said Thor. “What the hell.”
***
The god and the girl stood in the broken, busted-up foyer of the Secaucus Holiday Inn and looked out over the brick-paved plaza the hotel was built around. Before the duo was an enormous, bulging werewolf, juggling a variety of human appendages and heads with admirable skill.
“That’s new,” commented Catrina.
Thor scanned the rest of the plaza. To the left of what he was assuming was some kind of escaped circus animal were three scientists in muddy lab coats: one looking on with curiosity, one looking on with a burlap sack over her head, and one sitting on the ground, clutching his knees and weeping. Thor pointed a thumb toward them.
“Think we should go talk to them?” he asked.
“You are aware of the giant wolfman between them and us, correct?”
“Yes.”
“The one playing with body parts?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re aware that we’re made of body parts, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you still think it’s smart to go over there?”
“Verily.”
“OK,” said Catrina, nodding her head, “have fun with that. If you need me, I’ll be grabbing the fire axe from the break room and then locking myself upstairs and hiding under my bed.”
“Like an axe is gonna hurt that thing,” scoffed Thor. “Besides, you know we never clean under the beds. There’s bound to be something at least as terrible living under there.”
“Damn,” muttered the black-haired hotel employee, confused and upset that she was forced to agree with Thor. More importantly, that she was sober when doing so.
“Fine,” she eventually relented. “But if you get me killed, I’m coming back and haunting the shit out of you. And I mean constantly. When you’re asleep, in the shower, when you’re flirting up some señorita, whatever. I’m not gonna be nice about it.”
“We’ll be fine,” replied Thor. “Just stay with me.” He grabbed his friend’s hand and led her around the edge of the plaza toward the scientists. The beast, singing “Frere Jacques” and balancing a severed arm on its nose, didn’t seem to notice.
Thor and Catrina reached the scientists just as it began to rain.
“Yo,” said Thor.
“Yo, indeed,” said Dr. Lalas. “I’m Dr. Alexi Lalas; this is my assistant, Julie.”
“Judy,” said Judy Lin, his assistant.
“Judy,” said Dr. Lalas. “And this,” he patted the still weeping Dr. Meola on the head, “is Dr. Tony Meola.”
“Thor,” said Thor, nodding and extending his hand.
“Catrina,” said Catrina, doing the same.
“Nice to meet you,” said Dr. Lalas, shaking Thor’s hand.
“Pleasure,” said Judy, shaking Catrina’s.
The foursome switched partners and continued the introductory hand-clasping. Once finished, they stood in the plaza silently, looking at one another with complete neutrality. Behind them, the man who worked at Dunkin Donuts peered through his shop window, his hands upon the glass. The rain continued to fall.
Judy pulled her lab coat tighter. Catrina crossed her arms across her chest and huddled closer to Thor. Dr. Lalas smiled weakly and nodded politely at the hotel employees. The rain began falling harder.
“So, uh, what the fuck is that?” asked Thor, pointing a thumb at the super-wolfman that was now standing on its hands and juggling scientist pieces with its feet.
“That,” said Dr. Lalas, “is test subject 37-E, a hybrid of a werewolf and an irradiated, mutated human, engineered to be preternaturally aggressive, intelligent, and athletic.”
Thor nodded in agreement a few times before blurting out: “Why in Freya’s soiled laundry pile would you do that?!”
“Kinda just ... because we could. Basically.”
“Who,” asked Catrina, “is it juggling?”
“My associate, Dr. Ramos,” clarified the scientist.
Judy cleared her throat aggressively.
“And a couple of interns,” he added.
“They had names, damn it,” growled Judy.
“Yes, yes, Jamie,” said Dr. Lalas, even more condescendingly than the words would look in print, “I’m sure they did.”
There was a moment then, quiet and heavy. A moment wherein the good doctor could have apologized for being an insensitive prick. A moment where Judy maybe should have taken a breath, started counting to ten. A moment when any of a million things could have happened to lessen the tension.
Instead, the assistant screamed incoherently, pulled a revolver from inside her lab coat, and shot Dr. Lalas in the leg.
“What ... the fuck?” he whimpered, before folding to the ground like a deck of cards made of meat and bone and possessing a doctorate. “Crazy bitch ...”
Judy Lin, seething beneath her burlap sack, shot the scientist again, twice, this time in the face. Thor and Catrina stared at her, wide-eyed, and took a step back. Slowly.
“You guys, uh ...” said Judy, scratching her head with the barrel of the gun. “You mind if we blame the wolf for that?”
“No, no,” said Thor, shaking his head, “go right ahead.”
“Yeah, totally,” said Catrina, nodding, “absolutely.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Adapt or Die
“And, so,” concluded Judy, “we followed the atomo-wolf here, where it proceeded to grotesquely massacre everyone except for myself and Dr. Meola.” She motioned to Dr. Meola. He was lying in a puddle near a brick planter at the edge of the plaza, curled up in the fetal position and sucking his thumb. “Even though it really probably should have.”
“But why is it singing?” asked Catrina.
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“I ... I think it’s having a tea party with the heads ...”
“Huh, yeah. Looks like,” said Judy matter-of-factly. She shrugged. “Maybe the thing’s retarded. Or maybe it really enjoys dismembering people, who knows?”
“Well, you, right?” said Catrina. “You should.”
“Pfft, please. I should, sure. But I don’t. So, you know ...”
The hotel employee held back on a response, waiting for the scientist to finish her sentence. She did not.
“OK,” said Thor, eventually, “OK. So. You and your scientist friends got bored and created an unstoppable, homicidal monster. Then you let it escape. And then you failed, utterly, in your attempt to stop it, and, in fact, most of you actually managed to die during the attempt.”
Judy nodded in agreement, the burlap sack around her head rustling.
“OK, good, fine,” said Thor. “Where are your weapons now?”
“We gave them away.”
“What?” inquired Catrina.
Thor buried his face in his hands.
“They were so heavy! And, I mean, we ran into these two robot veterans along the way that were collecting scrap metal for a new hospital and Dr. Ramos, that’s his leg, over there, he thought maybe they could use them and ... y’know, I don’t really know what went down, actually, but he ended up handing them most of our weapons. We still had a few, we’re not stupid, but now they’re all scattered with the body parts. And I don’t know where those robots went, so, I mean, for all intents and purposes all of our weapons are lost, I guess. Well, to me anyway ...”
“What about your gun?” asked Catrina, adding, “The one you definitely didn’t shoot that other guy with.”
“Oh, it’s empty.”
“Empty,” echoed Thor.
“Yep,” replied Judy. “Mysteriously.” She winked as she said that last word, but the bag shifted in the process, so Judy had to position the eyehole, hold it steady, and then repeat what she still considered to be a subtle act
ion.
Catrina briefly reflected on the fact that this was the scientist who hadn’t been murdered.
“I do have a hammer, though” said Judy.
“A hammer?” asked Thor.
“A hammer.”
Thor would have buried his face in his hands again, but he hadn’t bothered to remove them after the last time.
“Why are you carrying a hammer?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Judy, “I thought we might need it. You know, to build a shelter or something.”
“You gave away your guns to robots, because they were uncomfortable to carry, but you held onto the hammer, in case you had to build a shelter, even though your research facility is less than five miles away and you were walking toward one of the few remaining un-terrible urban centers left in the world.”
“Yes.”
Thor paused to reflect on the fact that this was the surviving researcher, but Catrina shook her head and mouthed the word, “Don’t.” Thor thought his friend looked like she had been crying for the sake of the future of all humanity. She also looked hungry and slightly cold, like she wanted her dark blue cardigan.
Thor didn’t move at all, but Catrina recognized that he understood her condition and would do what he could to remedy their current situation and get her back inside and out of the rain as soon as possible. Catrina, likewise without flinching, thanked him for his continued consideration of her comfort and then apologized for the accidental alliteration. Both of them.
Thor was not a fan of repeating consonants, intended or otherwise, but, as he conveyed to her with but the slightest of nods, it was OK, given the circumstances. Catrina didn’t smile, but Thor knew she wanted to.
Thor and Catrina were pretty tight.
“Uh, guys?” said Judy, not really sure why they were just looking at one another.
Catrina took the hammer from Judy and handed it to Thor.
“You up for this?” she asked.
“I don’t think I really have a choice,” replied Thor, looking from the girl to the werewolf.
“Well,” said Catrina, likewise turning toward the creature, “you could let this thing live to wander the countryside and kill more incompetent scientists.”
Thor looked at Judy and her sopping wet burlap sack smile and briefly considered this option.
“No,” he said finally. “It might kill a useful one. Or a baby or something. I should probably stop it now ...” Thor looked down at the “weapon” in his hand. “... with a fucking hammer.”
Thor hung his head. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“Looks like,” said Catrina.
“Awesome.”
Thor started walking through the pouring rain toward the atomic wolfman, his dark green polo shirt nearly black and clinging to his broad shoulders and beer gut. Strands of sopping hair flopped forward into his eye. In front of Thor, the beast, curled up into a ball in the center of the brick plaza, appeared to have tuckered itself out playing and dancing and singing and was now taking a nap.
The out-of-shape former god turned around to face Catrina and Judy and said, “You know, I’m rethinking the needing to destroy this thing. I mean, it hasn’t actually done anything wrong, right? It just defended itself from a group of people trying to murder it.”
“We also tortured it,” said Judy. “And we called it’s momma a ho!”
Thor raised an eyebrow. “Why would you –”
“Turn around, Thor,” Catrina said flatly.
Thor lowered his eyebrow and did as instructed. The former thunder god saw nothing but heaving fur.
The super-werewolf was towering over the Norseman and snarling, claws out and sharp, pointy teeth exposed. Thor wasn’t an expert regarding animals by any means, but he assumed this is what a creature looked like when it had decided it was going to eat you.
“Well,” he said, “this certainly makes things easier.” Thor looked at the hammer in his hand again. “Morally, anyway.”
The werewolf swatted at Thor and he jumped back, its jagged claws just inches from his chin. The former god swung the hammer will all his might and connected with the beast’s face. The wolfman tilted its head slightly and looked at him kind of funny. Then it backhanded Thor across the plaza.
The Norseman lifted himself onto his elbows just in time to see the monster lunging toward him. He threw himself out of the way, the beast shattering the bricks it landed upon. The wolfman turned quickly and kicked, connecting with Thor’s chest and sending him back to the other side of the plaza.
Thor collided painfully with the pavement. As he began to pick himself up from the ground, he was immediately tackled by the werewolf.
The atomic monster took a few chunks of flesh from the Norseman’s left arm before Thor kicked the beast in the throat. The furry abomination of science reeled up slightly. Thor, lying on his back, kicked it in the face with the heels of both feet. The wolfman fell backwards, rolling to the middle of the plaza. Its claws skittered against the bricks briefly before it regained its footing and readied itself to pounce.
Thor, dizzy, staggering, and bleeding profusely from a couple of places, sized up the bleary atomo-beast opposite him. The werewolf was bigger than him, stronger than him, and hairier than him. Thor figured he was a little less than three seconds away from violently being turned into either confetti or salsa, depending on what the wolfman did with his remains.
Not really seeing any alternative, Thor shrugged, winced, and then threw the hammer at the atomic wolfman.
In the same instant the hammer hit the creature’s snout, the werewolf was struck by lightning. The furry beast, dead and smoking, collapsed to the ground.
The erstwhile thunder god looked on incredulously.
“You guys saw that, right?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
At Least It’s Not Raining Man-Eating Frogs, Right?
“OK,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, taking in the sight of the burning apartment building from the farthest curb of the parking lot, “let’s not do that again.”
“The renting-out-the-dead part?” asked Queen Victoria XXX, her boots and faded black jeans covered in dried blood. “Or the setting-our-apartment-on-fire-to-escape-the-clutches-of-homicidal-Munchkins part?”
“I had been referring to the latter, but honoring the former seems like a good idea, too.”
“Man, all of my stuff was in there,” said William H. Taft XLII. The olive-skinned man was wearing only socks on his feet, and one of the sleeves of his hooded sweatshirt had been torn off.
“All of our stuff was in there, Billy.”
“Except my iPod,” said Queen Victoria XXX, “that’s in the car.”
The car – parked absurdly close to a raging inferno, all things considered – exploded.
“Damn it,” mumbled the queen.
“We probably should have seen that coming,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“That wasn’t our car, guys,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“Oh,” replied the heavyset president.
“That’s good,” added the wavy-haired queen.
Another car exploded. Queen Victoria XXX and William H. Taft XLII looked at their friend.
“Also not ours. I parked ours on the other side of the building, on the far side of the lot, away from the inferno thankfully,” he explained. “How do you guys not know what our car looks like?”
“You never let us drive it,” said William H. Taft XLII with a shrug.
“And you’re always repainting it and ‘upgrading’ it,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“Honestly, we just take your word for it that it’s even the same car.”
“Oh,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, thinking about it for a moment. “That’s actually understandable.”
The artificial politicians sat in silence, watching their home convert itself to heat and cinder. Queen Victoria XXX wiggled on the curb, rocking uncomfortably from one buttcheek to the other.
“I should’ve
grabbed better pants.”
“It’s a good thing no one else was in the building this weekend,” said William H. Taft XLII.
The flames snapped and danced, smoke streaming upward like the tendrils of stoned octopi, reaching up and into the night sky. There was the occasional pop and isolated burst as an appliance or propane tank exploded, but otherwise the building burned with a remarkable consistency. The reincarnations of world leaders found themselves oddly soothed by the crackling and the warmth, their burning apartment building no different than a cozy campfire.
Right up until the screaming, anyway.
“You guys’re hearing that, too, right?” asked Queen Victoria XXX.
An old lady consumed by flames jumped from the roof of the building. An old man followed her. He was also on fire.
“Oh, shit,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “The Jenkinsons.”
“I thought they moved out!” exclaimed Queen Victoria XXX.
The screaming didn’t stop when the old folks smashed into the ground. In fact, it seemed to get louder and more inconsistent, a random mix of blasphemies, obscenities, and complaining about the pain that accompanies being on fire and breaking multiple bones. Thankfully, the immolation didn’t stop when they hit the ground either, so the screaming didn’t continue much longer.
“Jesus ...”
“Well, uh, at least,” stammered William H. Taft XLII, “at least all the possessed zombies are gone now, right?”
The car Chester A. Arthur XVII had parked on the other side of the apartment building roared past the trio. It looked to be full of reanimated corpses, at least one of whom, judging from the “Yee-haw!” shouted from the passenger seat, was possessed by a cowboy.
“That’s our car, guys,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“You had to fucking say something, didn’t you, Billy?” growled Queen Victoria XXX, shoving the fat man.
“I didn’t – How was I –” stammered William H. Taft XLII.
“It’s like you’ve got a god damned superpower or something,” she continued, before resting her head on her knees and sighing.
