by Alan Spencer
"Our guns won't stop them. We have to get to that boat!" Bruce ran as fast as he could. He was lagging behind the group. He was the oldest and the slowest out of everybody. Blast stayed at the front shooting bullets to ward off any pending attack.
The spiders were coming in closer. They were right behind Bruce now. Any second, he would become arachnid chow.
Run, Bruce thought. Keep running.
If you die, maybe you'll buy them time to find that boat and escape. All that matters is that they live. It's my fault this is happening. All because of my stupid movie.
Bruce tripped and fell. He landed hard on the gas cans. "If the spiders get me, KEEP GOING! ESCAPE OFF OF THIS ISLAND!"
He didn't have time to get back up.
The shadows of his enemies were quickly upon him.
Without Fear
Taxidermy Tim entered the woods without hesitation. He was armed with his instruments of death. His meat cleaver glistened with four different shades of bug guts. He dripped from head to toe with boar viscera, bits of grasshopper shell, neon blue monkey brains, and dead spider goo.
He followed the sounds of war to track his prey. The women, mostly. He wanted their good parts. He would make the sweetest, most voluptuous sculpture, and when that one rotted and ceased to satisfy his needs, he'd kidnap more women from the United States, and make another, and another, and another. He would never run out of flesh. He would never be satisfied. The future was bright with flesh to be cut and rendered into sexy shapes.
Taxidermy Tim crouched down when he heard the wild stampeding of hooves and paws and talons. The animals of the forest were mass retreating. He released himself from his crouch and knew he was in trouble. If the animals were running from something in the woods, how did the group of people fare? They could already be eaten, trampled into a useless mess, or had they had found his boat and escaped?
No. I can't lose them. They were perfect. Their breasts. Their skin. Their faces. Their pretty shiny hair. Everything was so right.
Tim was fleet-of-foot launching through the woods with nothing in his way to slow him up. Once he reached the apex of a hill, he immediately knew what had scared off the other animals.
He could see the towering tiger toad blow itself up. Out both of its sides, the skin bubbled. The thing was triple the size it was the last time he'd seen it. The toad was so huge, it could jump on a cruise liner and smash half the boat.
Tim's stomach sank. He noticed the group of people standing there yelling at each other. One was missing. Tim knew without having seen it happen what actually occurred.
You did this.
You swallowed up one of my women.
T-Rex wouldn't do this to me. I respected his turf, and he respected mine. You, TOAD, respect NOTHING!
He couldn't murder the toad himself. He wouldn't have to because on the horizon help was stomping its way over.
Battle On
Candy forced Bruce back onto his feet.
"I'm not leaving you, old man. We either leave together or not at all. I'm not done living and neither are you."
Her fresh spattering of M-16 gunfire warded away the front of six spiders for mere seconds. Then her gun went dry. Blast cursed. He was also out of ammo. Kate had lost her Rangefinder when a collection of grasshoppers clutched onto and ate it down to its steel components. Kate was about throw two of her last grenades when something gargantuan shifted in the woods.
Bruce caught its enormous size. The amazing bulk was the size of an entire hill. Its orange, black, bumpy, and tiger striped body was overwhelming. He couldn't see what the thing was; he only saw what it could do.
A thick pink tongue much like six bungee cords combined sprang across the forest. The tip of the tongue stuck onto one of the spider's faces and ripped it right off. The tongue was a rapid fire weapon. Flick-flick-flick-flick-flick. The sticky tongue ripped thoraxes into bleeding fractions, pried off legs from sockets, and took down the fleet of giant spiders in seconds.
The other enemies in the forest fled at the sight of the superior beast. That left Bruce, Candy, Kate, and Blast as the only prey.
"We can't fight this thing," Blast said. "I think we made our best stand. I think we're fucked without lube."
Flick.
The tip of the neon pink stuck to Kate's head. The tongue retracted, lifting the horrified girl off of her feet. Her body soared across the forest over the tips of trees and was rolled up into the tiger toad's mouth. Her rising screams were suddenly rendered into silence. Gone forever. Dead just like that, Bruce thought.
Candy screamed, imagining herself in Kate's position.
Bruce wanted to console her. There were no words in the English vocabulary to soothe her fears. This wasn't a place for humans to survive. The monsters and beasts owned this island. That would never change, and this was the clear evidence.
"Okay, okay," Blast said to himself. "Think. We're not dead yet. Look. We don't have enough bullets to save ourselves. I say fuck it. Use those gas cans to light this forest up. Burn it down to the fucking ground. That'll buy us some time to get to that boat. Maybe."
"But we need the gas," Bruce argued. "There's a big stretch of ocean between here and back home."
"The boat's useless if we're being digested in that toad's stomach!" Candy growled. "I'm with Blast. Let's light this bitch up."
The night had set in without them realizing it. The sun was a fading ember on the horizon. Soon, the forest would be pitch black. Before anybody could comment further on their next move, the ground rumbled. Dirt started to sink and collapse around them. Something beneath them was rising up. Bruce grabbed Candy by the arms, and they jumped to the left of the forming sink hole.
Blast wasn't quick enough.
The hole didn't swallow him up.
What sprang out of the hole did.
Bruce watched the giant worm covered in glistening goop make his special effects man vanish. The mouth simply took him in whole. The worm remained in motion. It was mid-air, sailing high up above the tree tops. The immense body could've doubled as a sewer pipe. The worm curved its body about to come back down. The creature didn't have the opportunity to touch the ground.
Flick.
The tongue acted as a harpoon and stuck the worm through the middle. The worm thrashed, fighting the tongue's pull. It was jerked nearly a quarter of a mile and into the toad's hungry slit mouth. The loud SQUISH and SQUIRT of guts being forced out of skin echoed from inside the toad's cheeks.
Bruce hugged Candy close. "I love you. I was going to propose to you when this movie was over."
"What?" Candy's eyes went from overflowing with tears of terror to joy. "Really?"
"I promise you it's the truth."
Candy kissed him hard and hugged him close. "You still will marry me, Bruce Bruce." Through gritted teeth, "We're getting off this island. Let's burn this bitch down. We're getting to the boat. I don't give a damn what's out there. They messed with the wrong porno bitch."
Light This Bitch Up
Bruce and Candy opened both gas cans and began spreading the fuel around. They worked fast spilling the noxious liquid everywhere. Bruce flicked and set Blast's lighter to the ground. Whirling branches of flames spread instantly. Yellow arms crawled up trees and caught dry timber on fire in seconds. The process was alarmingly fast. Treetops were pillars of raging flames. Everywhere was red with burning. Black smoke spread fast, ruining visibility. The toad shrank away from the flames, doing two giant double hops and vanishing into the darkness of the forest.
The plan was to light up the woods and search their way through the dark. Now everywhere looked the same. Which would should they go? he thought. Bruce would guide Candy one way, and fire would throw them in the opposite direction. They were doing circles. Fire was everywhere. They hadn't saved themselves. They had put themselves deeper into harm's way. Instead of being eaten, they would burn.
The prolific director imagined his life and career. He had seen tits by the mega pound. Swea
ty sexual flesh displayed on camera for the fans to savor. Slasher killers chasing big breasted women throughout the woods with chainsaws, and axes, and hatchets, and strange knives. CGI beasts stalking dumb teenagers. He had spilled fake blood by the gallons. Up against the glory of his smut peddling career, he was standing beside his best friend and the woman he loved. He had achieved something, damn it, and it was great and wonderful, and nobody had a right to take it away from him.
"Come on, Candy! We've made it this far. I'm not giving up."
He could see a small break in the fire. They ran between two raging gulfs of flames to the other side. Fresh air hit them, and the two sucked in clean breaths with gratitude. Their eyes widened in surprise at what waited up ahead. The burning backdrop of the forest painted the beach in perfect light. There was a boat on the shore. All they had to do was jump on, start it up, and leave this nightmare behind them.
The happy moment ended.
Taxidermy Tim had snuck up behind Candy, wrapped one arm around her waist, and trained his thick cleaver up against her throat.
Creepy Tormentor
"She's my flesh to mold and reshape. Mine! All mine! She's all nasty, and tasty, and sweet, and I like that. I'm going to enhance her body to accommodate my pleasures. I'm going to slide my carving tool deep inside that luscious body. I'm going to taste every inch of her, and I can't wait."
"You're done you sick fuck! Not another word from your sick mouth!"
Like a whip, Bruce lashed out at the crazy castaway. He twisted the man's wrist clutching the cleaver. The man didn't expect Bruce to fight back. Candy wriggled free and was behind Bruce. The director swung a wild and a successful punch to Tim's jaw. Decked, spewing a mix of blood and heavy saliva, the man struck the sandy beach. When the killer got back up to his feet and regained his senses, he was seething with animosity.
"The bitch is going to get it now. I'm going to do things to her alive, and then I'm REALLY going to do things to her when she's dead. Oh, her tits, and that sweet ass, and that sweet, sweet body. I'm going to play out every fantasy. I've built them up over decades. I'm going to show her a good time. She'll forget about you. There will only be me and my steel instruments. She'll be begging for death by the time I'm done with her.
"Ohhhhhhh fuck!"
The great tearing noise and the spraying of blood followed the pained shrill cry. The pink tongue landed on Taxidermy Tim's crotch. The tongue dug in three inches deep, and when it reared back with such force, it not only ripped his genitals from his body, it tore him in half from the stomach up to his head. The tongue flicked twice to pick up every piece of the killer.
One threat was gone.
The toad remained.
The enemy was on the beach, its body huddled close together as if it could either hunker down into the sand or use those back legs to spring at them. Those callous amphibious eyes bore into them considering when the exact right moment was to eat them. The toad was twice the size of the boat they sailed in on. They were nothing up against the enormity of the beast. They were unarmed and helpless.
"Maybe this really is the end," Candy sobbed. "We were so close to making it too."
Bruce agreed. He spilled his heart to her in those moments. There was nothing else for a man to say to his favorite woman when faced against impossible odds.
This really was the end.
He hugged the love of his life close and waited for unmerciful death to come.
King of the Island
"Bruce, look!"
"No fucking way!"
T-Rex sprang out of the burning forest. There was no stand-off moment or warning cry from the dinosaur. T-Rex was after his nemesis and was charging in full throttle. Bruce and Candy had to jump the other way to avoid being stamped into the ground.
The tiger toad was at the ready to fight for dominion. There would only be one king of the island. Before T-Rex could reach the toad, the pink tongue sprang forward. Instead of trying to snatch the dinosaur, the sticky part clutched onto T-Rex's cheek and ripped the green flesh from one side of his mouth. Half of T-Rex's teeth were visible and bleeding. The beast was enraged and undaunted by the ugly wound.
The toad shot its tongue again. T-Rex snatched the tongue like a rope, tensed its short but powerful arms, and swung the toad off the beach and into the air and spiked it onto the sand. Piss spat out its hind quarters in gushing fire hydrant spray. The toad lay there for a moment, blinked once, then rolled back onto its side, gathered back its stretched tongue, and poised itself for more fighting.
Bruce and Candy ran for the boat.
"Let's get to the boat. This is our last chance to get out of here."
Dinosaur and toad charged at each other. They kept butting heads again, and again, and again. Each of their faces were getting bloodier, angrier, nastier, and more determined. Who would let up first? The sickening thud of skull to skull wouldn't end. The beasts refused to relent.
Bruce and Candy climbed onto the boat. Bruce headed right for the steering wheel. He was about to turn on the motor and gun it the hell out of there.
One problem.
There was no key.
"Don't just stand there. Start this thing!"
"I can't. There's no key. Help me look for the damn key."
"What if it was on Taxidermy Tim's body?"
"Then we're screwed."
Together, they scavenged the boat for the prized key.
Tiger toad had used its back legs to thrust itself forward. It head butted the dinosaur in the chest. T-Rex gripped the toad when the blow struck, and they both splashed into the ocean. The wave created by their landing slammed into the side of the boat. Candy and Bruce had to hold onto something not to be pitched overboard.
The gladiators were trying to drown each other in the water. Web hands and clawed fingers pushed, dunked, shoved, and grappled for dominance. Both were causing enormous waves in the ocean non-stop.
"Why won't they hurry up and kill each other?" Candy griped. "Wouldn't that be great?"
"With our luck, they'll become fast friends and get us both instead."
"Shut up! Don't say that."
T-Rex had the toad by the back foot. He launched the toad back onto the sand. The toad lay belly up, temporarily stunned. That gave T-Rex plenty of time to stomp his way back onto land. T-Rex's snarl was that much more intense with half the skin of his face missing.
Tiger toad wasn't done fighting. The toad got back onto its haunches, took three hops, and stopped at a pile of broken up boulders. He sucked one boulder into its mouth. The toad blew up its body, creating giant air sacs at its sides. It used that air as force to shoot the boulder at his enemy.
The charging dinosaur dodged the first boulder with a tumble and a roll. The toad sucked in more boulders one after the other and shot three more its way. The dinosaur dodged one, punched the second into pieces, and was struck on the side by the final one. T-Rex skidded, throwing up sand in all directions. He was bent over, bleeding from a large gash across his chest. The dinosaur was breathing hard trying to regain his strength.
The boat was hit by several smaller pieces of boulder shrapnel. Bruce covered Candy's body to protect her. He watched the toad creep slowly towards the dinosaur. The toad was cautious and careful.
Bruce couldn't decide who he wanted to win. It would be fantastic if they both died, but the way they were carrying on, one would die before the other. So whose survival would benefit them the most? Maybe it wouldn't have to come down to that, he reasoned. All they had to do was find that key.
He kept looking.
The monsters kept fighting.
T-Rex was slumped on his side unmoving. The toad was inches away from his enemy. The toad nudged the dinosaur with its head.
"Is that thing checking if it's dead?" Candy asked. "This whole thing is insane."
When she said the word insane, the toad puts its front two hands on the dinosaur's back and lifted its head up in the air as if to claim its king status.
&nb
sp; The toad made a big mistake.
T-Rex wrapped its tail around the toad's neck and grabbed the other end of his own tail to create a sort of rope and choked the toad. The toad's face shrank, and its eyes bulged. The toad's mouth was forced permanently open as it made strange gaaak noises. The dinosaur watched his enemy writhe with a sick primordial pleasure.
T-Rex was grunting and growling as it hurt its own body to do more damage to its nemesis. The toad's head kept vibrating harder and harder. Its mouth opened wider, gasping as the life was being squeezed right out of him. Squeezing back more and more, the toad's left eye popped out of its socket like a kid's pop gun. The orb dangled on a long cherry strand of orbital tissue. T-Rex bent forward and chewed and swallowed the eye.
In the beast's insane lust for bloodshed, it had made a mistake. Shifting forward to eat the eye allowed the toad to slip free from under the tail, make its body smaller, and escape.
The fight raged anew.
The toad sprang with its powerful back legs and punched the green tower in the sides ten times. T-Rex spat out blood and covered the beach in giant splashes of red. Winded, weakening, and desperate, the dinosaur sidestepped to the forest and ripped a flaming tree from its deep roots and swung it like a baseball bat. The tree smacked the toad in the mouth, forcing tracks of skin off of its face. Part of its sinus cavity could be seen through spurting processes.
The toad shot out its tongue, grabbed the burning tree, and launched it into the ocean. The tree shot over the boat. Bruce and Candy had officially stopped looking for the key to watch out for their safety and to be spectators to the amazing battle.
That show was nearing its finale.
The toad had regained a new shot of adrenaline. The tongue flicked twice. Each flick removed an arm. T-Rex stood there with bleeding arm stumps. The toad swallowed each arm whole. T-Rex was stunned, gushing out blood, and unable to move.
