The End of Everything Forever

by Eirik Gumeny

  “Burnt coffee. Unless it’s windy. Then you get the whiskey shits.”

  “And the thick, greasy air?”

  “We have to go, Timmy.”

  The squirrel sighed. “Fine. Let me just set these guys free first.”

  “What did I just tell him?! You can’t –”

  With a thought, Timmy the super-squirrel snapped the enormous metal chains holding the giganotosaurus to the walls. The shackles fell to the ground, sparking with static electricity. The dinosaurs were free. The giant carnivorous reptiles showed their appreciation by roaring thunderously and immediately lumbering towards the squirrel and the cyborg.

  “Oh, right,” thought Timmy. “They’re dinosaurs.”

  “We should probably run.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Tilting at Windmills

  “Typhoid” Mary Mallon and Lizbeth “Lizzie” Borden – both possessing the mummified and appropriately adorned corpses of Spanish conquistadors, stolen from a nearby traveling history circus – knocked over the last of the windmills with tedious sighs.

  “Again I ask, are you sure we must honor our agreement with that grey-haired gentleman?” Lizbeth queried, staring forlornly at the toppled masses of wooden blades and supports strewn across the hillside before her. “Our sexual escapades notwithstanding, this is all becoming rather boring.”

  “I am less and less certain, my dear,” replied Mary, placing her lanky arms on her armored hips. “We agreed to his request out of sadistic fervor, not some pedestrian adoration of wanton destruction. I thought that with the return of the fair weather we might finally see again some opposition and satiate our bloodlust.”

  “Maybe it would be for the best if we retired from this request and waylaid the mutant camp we passed earlier.”

  “Oh, but they looked so distraught. The battle would hardly be fair.”

  “There would at least be blood.”

  “Green blood,” scoffed Mary. “The stuff is foul-smelling at best.”

  “Well then, Mary, I am not sure what to –”

  A large boulder fell from the sky, crushing the diminutive frame of Lizbeth’s host corpse into an armored pile and catching the ghost by surprise. She turned her ethereal head upward.

  “What in the world?”

  “Pteranodons,” grumbled Mary, lowering the crusty eyelids of her gangly conquistador. Another boulder slammed into the ground near her feet.

  “Did we awaken a nest? There are so many that they are blotting out the sky!”

  “The only nest around here is gonna be the one they make outta your bones,” a commanding voice boomed.

  The ghost and the deceased Spaniard lowered their heads and found an armed mob marching on them. They were armed stereotypically, with pitchforks and torches and sages who could commune with pteranodons. A lot of them were also in slippers or behind aluminum walkers with tennis balls on the feet.

  “Sister,” snarled the leathery old man in the fedora at the front of the mob, “you picked the wrong wind-powered retirement community to fuck with.”

  The man pulled a revolver from the elastic waistband of his sweatpants and fired a bullet squarely between Mary’s eyes, collapsing the decomposing skull of the conquistador and leaving Mary’s ethereal old lady face floating above the shoulders of a headless corpse.

  “I do think they mean to fight us,” said Mary, smiling.

  “Well it is about damned time,” replied Lizbeth.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  A Well-Hung Judge, Jury, and Executioner

  Chester A. Arthur XVII and Queen Victoria XXX sat strapped into the stolen spaceplane, the LEDs and assorted –ometers of the control panel blinking and sparking before them. Thick dust billowed around the aircraft, obscuring their view, as tiny chunks of sheetrock and clay tile continuously fell, lightly plinking off the cockpit glass. Hidden behind the dust cloud were bits and pieces, large and small, of the roof and one of the bedrooms of the Earl of New London.

  “What the fuck was that, Charlie?”

  “You said you didn’t want to walk.”

  With a skin-tingling metallic screech, the spaceplane lurched forward awkwardly, digging itself deeper into the mansion of Tyrone Tainthammer. A large piece of unseen furniture toppled loudly to the floor.

  “I said I didn’t want to walk far,” replied Queen Victoria XXX. “I didn’t say I wanted you to crash into a building.”

  “I didn’t crash,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII indignantly. “We made a three point landing. It’s not my fault his roof was so shoddily constructed that it couldn’t handle the weight of a single two-person sub-orbital aircraft.”

  “Are you calling me fat?”

  “What?! No, I –”

  “I’m messing with you, Charlie.” The queen smiled. “I wanted to see if maybe Joselin gave you a sense of humor this time around.”

  “Ha ha,” he stated.

  “No, hahahahaha,” she countered, laughing uncontrollably.

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Well, you, to be perfectly blunt,” said Queen Victoria XXX. She looked at her boyfriend, searching for some glimmer of amusement at the statement. Not finding it, she continued. “Plus I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been a lot of oxygen for the last couple hours.”

  “I think there might have been a problem with the artificial atmosphere controls.”

  It was at that moment that a cane with an obscenely large diamond handle was rapped against the outside of the cockpit. Looking toward the sound, the two clones were just able to see a scrawny, middle-aged white guy in a thick, tremendously gaudy bathrobe – with an unnecessarily high fur collar – standing in the swirling dust beside the spaceplane. Chester A. Arthur XVII pressed a button and the glass of the cockpit jerkily slid backward.

  “You two care t’ explain why there’s a ‘ole in my ceiling and a plane in one of my spare bedrooms?” asked the man in the bathrobe.

  “Are you Tyrone Tainthammer?” inquired the reconstituted president.

  “In the prodigious flesh.”

  “Really?” asked Queen Victoria XXX, leaning around Chester A. Arthur XVII and squinting her eyes. “Not to get all racist or anything, but I was expecting a large, chiseled black man. You are incredibly disappointing.”

  “I’m black where it counts, love.”

  “I don’t know if you can say that.”

  “No, I’ve checked, I’m all right.”

  The dust cleared slightly, enough to reveal the half dozen large, chiseled men of all kinds of races standing behind the Earl of New London. The large, chiseled men also carried large, chiseled cudgels encrusted with large, chiseled jewels.

  “Now, gettin’ back t’ the matter at hand,” continued Tyrone Tainthammer, “why did you crash a plane into my mansion?”

  “We didn’t crash it,” snarled Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  ***

  “... and we need your trivection cooling unit to restore the North American electrical grid,” explained Chester A. Arthur XVII, enjoying a, quite frankly, phenomenal cup of tea, despite the sharpened rubies being pressed against the back of his neck by way of an oversized club.

  The genetically reconstructed president, Queen Victoria XXX, and Tyrone Tainthammer, retired porn star and Earl of New London, were sitting on a pair of floral print settees that cost more than the gross national product of several small countries, in a similarly decored drawing room that could have housed the refugees from several small countries that went bankrupt buying overly ornate furniture. Surrounding the trio on all sides – as well as from the adjoining doorways, the staircase, and the hallways that overlooked the room – were several dozen of the broadest, thickest, most Brobdingnagian men in existence, standing with their arms crossed. With the exception of the one holding a jewel-encrusted club to Chester A. Arthur XVII, the men didn’t appear to be armed, but that didn’t appear to matter much.

  “Well, ain’t that interestin’,” said Tyrone Tainthammer. “P
roblem is, it’s my cooling unit. I went through a lot of trouble t’ get it and I’m rather fond of the thing. I’m not about to ‘and it over simply ‘cause you say please.”

  “Pretty please?” added Queen Victoria XXX.

  “The welfare of the entire North American continent depends on us bringing the trivection cooling unit back,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Thousands upon thousands of lives are hanging on this.”

  “Oh, well, when you put it that way,” said the Earl of New London, “no.”

  “You’re going to let all those people die? All so you don’t have to part with a single piece of your industrial machinery collection?”

  “That’s about the long an’ short of it, yeah,” continued the scrawny man in the bathrobe. “Your people aren’t my problem. I don’t really give a lick what ‘appens to ‘em. I’ve got an entire island full of my own people, trustin’ in me and, more importantly, fearin’ me. I can’t be lookin’ soft in front of ‘em.”

  “You can’t be serious! A third of the world’s population is at risk and you’re worried about appearances?”

  “Oh, come off it. The power’s out. They’ll figger out ‘ow to build windmills sooner or later. Humans ‘ve been doin’ it for ‘undreds of years.”

  “I don’t think you understand how lazy most North Americans are.”

  Queen Victoria XXX groaned. “Cut the bullshit, Charlie. We’re just as lazy as all those other jerks back home. Tyrone’s completely right. We could rejigger the grid to run on literally anything else, but we don’t want to because that might take more than an afternoon. The only reason we’re here is because of your hero complex and because the thought of actual manual labor bores the ever-loving shit out of me.”

  “But all those people –” began Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “Are either dead already or they’re not,” said the cloned queen. “Honestly, if they can’t handle the lights being out without offing themselves, I’m not sure we really want them around.”

  “OK, sure, but the winter put a lot of extra stress on at-risk persons and without electricity there’s no heat which –”

  “Doesn’t mean ass right now. The winter’s over. It’s been eighty degrees and sunny from Las Máquinas to New London and everywhere else we could see from that spaceplane, which was at least half the planet.”

  “Well, yeah, but ...”

  The reconstituted royal sighed. “Will you please just admit you’re an opportunistic narcissist so we can get on with this?”

  “‘Opportunistic narcissist’ is a little harsh,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “If the shoe fits, love,” added Tyrone Tainthammer.

  “OK, fine,” said the president begrudgingly. “Can we please have the trivection cooling unit because we want the trivection cooling unit? There are no ... moral implications at play, it would simply make our lives a lot easier.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your ‘onesty. But the answer’s still no.”

  “Oh come on!” barked Queen Victoria XXX. “Didn’t you hear how lazy we were?”

  “We have money,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Can we just buy the damn thing from you?”

  “Why would I possibly need money?” asked Tyrone Tainthammer, spreading his arms and gesturing toward the extravagant mansion and the dozens of hired goons surrounding them. “You think these blokes are ‘ere out of the goodness of their ‘earts?”

  “I am,” said one of the goons, raising a hand the size of a ham steak.

  “Look,” continued the earl, “easiest thing t’ do would be for you two t’ give up, walk out the front door, and switch over that grid t’ a wind farm like the lady was goin’ on about. Judgin’ from that fire in your eyes, though, retreat i’n’t in your wheelhouse. So you could try punchin’ your way into gettin’ what you want ...” He again indicated the mountainous men surrounding them. “... though I don’t recommen’ that.”

  “They don’t look that big,” said Queen Victoria XXX, stealthily slipping her hand under her dress and onto the grip of her revolver.

  “I wouldn’ do that, love.” The Earl of New London threw back the edge of his bathrobe, revealing the handgun strapped to his own thigh, as well as some other intimidating artillery.

  “Holy shit. You weren’t kidding.”

  “I like you,” said the scrawny man, closing his bathrobe back up and spreading his arms along the top of the settee. “The both of you. So ‘ere’s what I’m proposin’. Be in my new film.”

  “We’re not doing a porno,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “At least not one that anyone else is gonna be aware of,” added the queen quietly.

  “It’s not porn, I’ve moved on from that,” explained Tyrone Tainthammer with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Lost my passion for the genre. Plus adult films just aren’t lucrative anymore. What people want now is ‘eart and soul. Danger. They want to be moved, not just aroused. ‘S why my newest venture is point-of-view action-adventure-romantic-comedy. Two lovers meetin’ and fallin’ in love and riskin’ everythin’ to be together at all costs. All wit’ cameras strapped to their heads. That way the audience can feel every moment of the thing. They can live the movie.”

  Queen Victoria XXX shrugged. “That could be fun. I’m in.”

  “What if we gave you the sub-orbital aircraft?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “You already did.”

  “What’re you, camera shy?” the artificial royal teased.

  “You know I can’t act,” mumbled the patchwork president.

  “Oh, crap, right,” said Queen Victoria XXX, suddenly remembering. She turned towards the earl. “He’s not lying. We tried to role-play a couple times but he’s so awful I actually lost wood. I couldn’t have boned him if I wanted to, which I didn’t because he was so terrible. I almost threw up.”

  “Won’t be a problem, love,” said Tyrone Tainthammer.

  “You’re sure?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Because I almost vomited myself.”

  “Trus’ me. I ‘ave a way of bringin’ out the best in people. But there’s always the leavin’ or the punchin’ if you’d rather.”

  The reconstituted American politician furrowed his brow.

  “This isn’t much of an offer.”

  “More of a formality, really,” said the Earl of New London. “To make myself feel better ‘bout how it all plays out.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  The Great Train Robbery

  The steam train continued its serpentine journey toward Irish Colombia and its requisite isotonium deposits, chugging along the western coastline of North America at a decent clip. Sweaty and half-dressed in the overly warm railcar, Catrina and Ali were nonetheless nestled against one another, leaning against one side of the train and staring absentmindedly out the opposite window at the landscapes that passed. Arid deserts turning into golden farmland turning into the most beautiful shoreline known to man, beast, or cab driver. Catrina’s eyes began to drift shut, the sparkling dance of sunlight off the rippling deep blue ocean boring her into unconsciousness.

  Ali, slightly less opposed to nature being beautiful, held out a little longer, until he too felt his eyes begin to close. The last thing he saw as his eyelids shut were twenty figures on horseback racing alongside the train.

  The twenty figures on horseback were also the first thing he saw when he groggily reopened his eyes a moment later.

  “Hey, look,” he mumbled moonily. “Guys on horses.”

  Ali smiled slightly, fondly remembering weekend afternoons spent with his grandfather watching old Westerns. His eyes began to close once again.

  Then he remembered what guys on horseback generally did to trains.

  His eyes stayed open after that.

  “Shit.”

  Ali craned his neck to look out the windows behind him. A small white circle inside of a larger green circle was there to meet him. Sliding out of his seat and adjusting his view, he realized a man wearing a
ballistics vest and a motocross mask was pointing a rocket propelled grenade at the side of the train.

  “SHIT.”

  Grabbing Catrina, Ali dove into the aisle of the railcar and began squirming forward, away from the bandits, rousing the tiny Filipina woman from her slumber, a fact she was neither fond of nor comfortable with. She shoved his hand away.

  “Ali, what the hell are you –”

  The wall they had just been leaning against exploded, raining crushed velvet seat cushions and flaming curtain remnants across the car.

  “Shit?” she asked.

  “Shit.”

  “Fuck.”

  The masked man with the RPG leapt from his horse – a bulging, veiny, steroid-riddled mustang with black racing stripes dyed into its red coat – and through the hole, landing in the train with a crouch. Two others followed. On the other side, a large wooden mallet was being swung at the window, buckling it inwards and loosing the reinforced glass from its mounting. Beneath the window was a sleeping Boudica IX.

  “Bo!” shouted Catrina. “Bo! Wake up!”

  From the next car up, Catrina and Ali could hear a commotion – voices screaming and glass shattering. From the car behind they saw the conductor and two of his colleagues marching toward them in full body armor and loading shotguns. They seemed to be extremely happy about the recent turn of events.

  “No need to worry, folks,” said the conductor, smiling. “We’ve got this all under control.”

  A half dozen shots rang out from the front car, six bullets simultaneously lodging into the chest plate of the conductor. He raised his shotgun and fired, directly over the heads of the donut merchant and the hotel employee. Behind him, his colleagues were grappling fiercely with the first three marauders, a flurry of elbows, fists, and at least one lead pipe. The window above Boudica IX popped inward, sailing over her prostrate body, followed by the hammer. A large man tried to clamber through the opening.

  “What the hell, guys?” asked Catrina. “I thought you said this train was safe.”