Beast Machine

by Brad McKinniss

  “Are you okay?” the two worrisome companions said in unison to their downed friend.

  Hitbear stopped writhing and grinned.

  “Haha!” said Hitbear. “You guys fell for it!” Hitbear fell on his back loudly and started to roll around, again making a loud thumping noise. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP echoed down the hall.

  “Unbelievable,” said Gora as she rolled her eyes and then kicked Hitbear in his side. (“Ow!” said Hitbear.) “Stop fucking around. Tubman, open the damn door.”

  “Fine,” said Tubman meekly. “Here it goes.”

  Tubman opened the door gently. The trio prepared themselves for anything to be behind the door, but, instead of security or lizardmen, the group was greeted by metal stairs leading down into a darkness that didn’t seem to lead anywhere but down.

  “Jesus Christ, a dark basement?” sighed Gora. “Why this? I’d rather have Hitbear fight some gigantic lizard-being that spits venom.”

  Tubman turned a nearby switch on and the stairs to the basement lit up – somewhat. The lights didn’t burn very bright. Even with the dim lights, the stairs didn’t look like they led anywhere kosher.

  “Oh,” gasped Gora. “Thanks!”

  The trio made their way down the stairs slowly, again, preparing for anything to jump out at them. No one in the group thought to bring a flashlight for a night mission, so they were forced to continue down the mostly dark stairway.

  Since Hitbear had already announced their arrival with his gag, the three walked down the stairs without a care of noise. THUNK, THUNK, THUNK went Hitbear’s feet down the stairs; PIT-PAT, PIT-PAT, PIT-PAT went Tubman’s feet; TINK, TINK, TINK went Gora’s feet. The sounds echoed up, down and around the extraordinarily long and exhausting stairwell.

  The stairs began to twist and lead the group in strange directions. The group traveled further and further below the building. It was a workout merely getting to the bottom floor! THUNK, THUNK, THUNK went Hitbear’s feet down the stairs; PIT-PAT, PIT-PAT, PIT-PAT went Tubman’s feet; TINK, TINK, TINK went Gora’s feet.

  “Are we walking all the way to Seattle or what?” asked Gora. Neither Hitbear nor Tubman replied as they were growing irritated by the long journey down the metal stairs.

  Tubman’s eyes were losing their concentration traipsing down the shadowy passage and Hitbear began to moan about his bottom paws chaffing against the metal stairs. Gora, though growing lethargic too, was mostly fine plodding down the stairs.

  “I’m beginning to think this leads us nowhere,” said Hitbear. “It would be a perfect distraction for any leering eyes. Think about it…”

  “Shut up, bear,” said Tubman, rubbing her eyes with her small rabbit paws. “Complaining will only make this take longer.”

  “Ugh,” said Hitbear. He knew she was right, but hated admitting as much.

  Finally, the group neared the end of the stairs and could see a poorly-lit hallway, albeit it had better lighting than the stairway.

  “Stay quiet,” urged Gora.

  Once the group stepped foot on the basement floor, their eyes were drawn to a closed door to the left. A light shot brightly out of a circular window built into a door that had green, yellow and black scales etched into it. The group slowly stepped towards the door, avoiding the bright light being emitted from the other side of the door. They settled against a wall right next to the door.

  A sudden pat, pat, pat could be heard. Then a strange animalistic cry of terror mixed with pleasure. Pat, pat, pat. URKKKK. The sound kept occurring and the cry of terror-pleasure grew louder and louder. Pat, pat, pat. URKKKK. “What the hell is going on in that room?” thought Gora.

  “Stick your head up there, Gora,” whispered Tubman. “He must be doing some illegal testing causing a reptile to scream out in pain.”

  Pat, pat, pat. URKKK.

  Gora slowly stepped towards the door and raised her head to the window, her eyes peering delicately into the room. She looked into the room for a handful of seconds, but then she quickly ducked away from the window. Her face went horribly gaunt and her eyes started to twitch uncontrollably.

  Pat, pat, pat. URKKK.

  “Don’t look in there,” she said slowly. “Jesus Christ, don’t look in there.” She put her hands on her cheeks and let her mouth open slightly. Her eyes crossed and kept twitching.

  Hitbear and Tubman looked at one another. Each furrowed their brow in puzzlement.

  “Did you see a ghost?” asked Hitbear. “It can’t be that bad. I faintly remember seeing and doing truly horrible things from my past life. Disgusting, inhumane things to innocent beings. Nothing that man is doing in there can be worse – I hope not, at least.”

  Pat, pat, pat. URKKK.

  “Don’t do it,” Gora said grimly. “I think I may throwout.”

  “Throwout?” asked Hitbear.

  “I mean throw-up. What I just saw has made my mind a mess. How could someone do such a thing?”

  “I’ll look. You’re exaggerating,” stated Hitbear.

  T The confident bear lumbered over to the door slowly, passing a paralyzed Gora. He rose his head up and peered through the circular window. Pat, pat, pat. URKKK. Hitbear began to chuckle quietly but couldn’t hold in the laughter. His sense of humor found the scene to be worthy of laughter.

  “Haha! That is not bad at all,” exclaimed Hitbear. “It’s hilarious!” He commenced laughing himself to tears. “How do you not find this humorous, Gora?”

  “I have to see now,” Tubman hopped over to Hitbear. “Lift me up, I’m curious.”

  “As you wish,” said the still laugh-crying Hitbear as he gingerly lifted the hare. “What do you think?”

  “My word,” gasped Tubman. “What a vile person!”

  Pat, pat, pat. URKKK.

  On the other side of the door, the group saw a portly, elderly man with an unidentifiable lizard the size of a cereal box. The man was dressed in a school girl’s outfit – white shirt tied up and only covering his breasts, and a plaid skirt – and was inserting himself inside the lizard. The moans of pleasure were being made by the man, while the screams of terror were being made by the lizard. A mixture that made the horrible sound of URKKKK.

  “I think he’s got a snake on one of his nipples too,” said Hitbear calmly, finally coming down from his laughing fit.

  “Nah, I think that’s just a tassel on there,” said Tubman.

  “How do you know what a tassel is?”

  “Oh, I’ve got stories.”

  Tubman and Hitbear kept watching the man assault the poor lizard, letting Gora get herself together. The man squeezed his eyes tightly in bliss and started to move his fingers in a circular motion on his tasseled nipples. Then the man turned the lizard over, removed himself from the lizard and licked the anus of the lizard.

  Hitbear and Tubman grimaced after the man went ass-to-mouth on the lizard. It finally got to be too much, even for them.

  “Okay, Gora, so is this sick fuck Dr. Spotila?” asked Tubman, quite disgusted with the man.

  “Yes,” replied Gora. “Just kill this fuck – I just can’t understand what he’s doing.”

  “He’s fuckin’ that lizard is what he’s doing, Gora!” said Tubman adamantly.

  “Deplorable.” Gora threw up and began breathing heavily. Splat went her vomit on the basement’s floor. “What he’s doing to those living creatures is abhorrent and it deserves a bloody death.”

  “I think I can do that,” smiled Hitbear. He smirked at his sharp set of claws, one artificial and the other natural.

  Pat, pat, pat. URKKK. It was the last time the trio and the good Dr. Spotila would ever hear those noises together.

  Hitbear opened the door forcefully and charged at the man performing fellatio on the unidentifiable lizard’s anus. Hitbear took three steps and a single leap to reach Dr. Spotila. In one quick motion, Hitbear swung his new-metallic paw with sharpened claws at Dr. Spotila, slicing his chest cavity wide open. Dr. Spotila’s innards spewed out everywhere as Tubman ran
into the room.

  She began to rip the remaining pieces of his intestines out. The intestines were flying all about the room, Dr. Spotila’s gall bladder was eaten by the fellatioed lizard, and his kidneys were thrown into the reptile cages next to Tubman.

  Tubman began to break his rib bones with her feet by hopping directly on top of his chest. Cr-ACK, cr-ACK. Tubman had a look of glee on her face. Cr-ACK, cr-ACK. Was she enjoying killing the man or was she glad she was one step closer to her freedom?

  She fed the rest of the intestines and organs to other caged reptiles in the room. Each reptile appeared more joyous, as much as reptiles could, that Dr. Spotila was near his end. But mostly because they were being fed.

  “Don’t do this!” gasped Spotila. “I’ll give you anything you want.” He was struggling to breathe yet somehow still alive after being massacred.

  Gora finally entered the room. “You deserve to die for ruining my life and ruining the lives of these reptiles!”

  “Gora? What the…” Spotila began to say. Hitbear slammed his foot powerfully down on Spotila’s old head, causing quite the splatter effect. Splat! Sploosh! The room stank of terror, pleasure and blood.

  “He had a soft head,” grinned Hitbear. Gora felt uneasy but relieved part one of her revenge tour was over. The panic left her mind for the time being.

  “Release the reptiles and let’s get out of here,” ordered Gora. Hitbear and Tubman released the reptiles and left the room. “There’s an elevator right next to the stairs…” Gora smacked her forehead in frustration. “Fucking figures.”

  The group entered the elevator as quickly as they could. Each were covered in blood from massacring Spotila’s body and sweat from travelling down those metal stairs.

  Gora slipped a brown cloth out of her back pocket. She wiped her face and hands of blood that had splattered over her after Hitbear stomped Spotila’s head. Gora had the least amount of blood and intestines covering her person, but was nonetheless still grotesque looking after that ordeal.

  Hitbear had blood soaked into his fur, on his feet, on his paws and smeared over his chest. He was coming down from a bloodlust high and began panicking over the large amount of blood starting to matt in his fur. He turned from deranged warrior to whiny brat in mere seconds.

  “Toss me a towel! Please get me a towel!” growled Hitbear loudly. “This is disgusting! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Gora pulled another cloth out of her pocket and handed it to Hitbear. He knew it was too small to do much about the mess in his fur but he hesitated to speak after noticing Gora’s uneasiness. He was still exceptionally pissed about all the blood and made a mental note to try to make the next revenge killings less bloody. He even tapped his head to seal the note in his mind.

  Tubman stood in the elevator quietly. She was drenched in blood and various organs from Doctor Spotila that she had forcibly removed. She calmly removed her bandana and wiped her face clean. Only her face and where her bandana once laid were not blood-red.

  “What a night,” whispered Hitbear with trepidation as he stared at Gora. The elevator opened to the ground floor and the group trudged out through the front door.

  “Let’s take another vehicle home,” said Gora making her way to one of the moon rock colored sedans. “Rip off the license plate on the van.”

  Hovering above the parking lot was Owlbert, feasting on the swarms of fireflies that were delighting the night sky. Orange-green, green and orange light emitting from the fireflies was still a grand sight. In the distant, a handful of vultures were seen eating away at the security guard’s body. They had carried his body several feet from where Hitbear threw it; leaving body parts and organs along the way.

  Chapter 19

  The Carda Implant

  “Mr. Mandrake, if you would please follow me to room #2,” instructed a broad shouldered nurse to a sparse waiting room crowd. A large breasted woman sighed and a bald man returned to his crossword after the nurse’s announcement.

  Mr. Mandrake, a scrawny man, limped up from his chair and made his way to room #2. Mandrake was a coal miner before the mine was shut down. Workers were told the mine shut down for a lack of profit, but the mine actually shut down because the previous owner, a runny scab of a man, could not get the county or state to agree on more excessively low tax breaks.

  Tax breaks that would have helped the owner build another luxurious mansion with seven restrooms, twelve bedrooms, a ten car garage, a pool house stocked with the finest liquors and spirits, but this time – this time! – he’d make sure to include an indoor pool with two waterfalls – one a large towering falls, and the other a gentle being of a falls. This mansion wouldn’t have even been located in Arkansas.

  Mandrake battled alcoholism and drug problems before he worked at the mine, when the mine was open, and continued to battle his addictions once the mine closed. He wanted to find a way for his family of two to prosper, yet couldn’t dig himself out of the gigantic hole of circumstance. Circumstance that came from being born into a family with an alcoholic father that never beat him, but a father that let Mandrake trifle with the booze-demons at an early age and never had a desire to help Mandrake succeed in the world. His father gave his son some of the creature when Mandrake was pestering him about help on his homework. Gulp, gulp, gulp every day since Mandrake was 10. Or 9. Or maybe 8; Mandrake couldn’t remember much about the exacts of his childhood, just the absolutes.

  But today was a new day; he, and his coal mining brothers and sisters were being rehired to work in the mine by the mystifying Chairman Obelis. He pulled himself out of addiction and into lucidity by just enough to make it to this appointment made by his superiors – drunks, addicts and dope-fiends themselves.

  The miners didn’t know what Chairman Obelis even looked like but they were supremely happy and felt blessed that he wanted to reopen a mine that couldn’t, as they were told by their old boss, pull out a profit. They weren’t skilled at much and the majority of them were too old or had too many priors to enter the military to become grunts, so the re-opening of the mine saved many of them from suicide or a full-fledged life of crime for survival. Not to mention, several of the workers suffered from physical and mental disabilities from growing up without proper healthcare or education.

  The broad shouldered nurse opened the door for room #2 after walking down a hallway. She let Mandrake enter first and directed him to sit on a cushioned chair.

  “So, what’s the deal with this’n mandatory doctor meetin’?” asked Mandrake in a cracked, raspy voice.

  The broad shouldered nurse told him, “Need to check your vitals before you re-enter the mine.”

  “Why does that a’matter? I’ve worked in that mine for fifteen damn years! That damn mine, The Goo-lug we call it, caused more health problems than anything I’ve ever done to myself.” Mandrake coughed viciously. His eyes were bloodshot from staying so lucid for so long. “I’m still strong as’n ox!” He continued to cough into his hands then flexed his muscles weakly. “Pretty good, eh?”

  Ignoring Mandrake’s last comment, the broad shouldered nurse said, “That’s the point, sir. We need to see how damaged your body is from the mine, and then we will implement a new medical device – by way of a surgical procedure – into your nasal cavity.”

  “What for!” he squealed. He scratched at his armpits.

  “If you would let me finish,” snapped the broad shouldered nurse. “The device is an air filter that will be put into your nasal cavity that should lower the toxic amounts of gaseous products that enter into your lungs.”

  “Come a’gain?”

  The broad shouldered nurse sighed and put her hand on her face. “Your chance of getting the Black Lung will be nearly zero with the nasal filter. Other maladies will be less likely to afflict you as well.”

  “So this’uh nasal object will get rid of th’Black Lung?” asked Mandrake. He began to listen closely to what the nurse had been telling him. “My buddy, Bo Fister, lost his battle to Black Lung after flying throug
h a windshield trying to flee the poe-leese. Open casket funeral and everythin’, gruesome stuff.” He placed his hand on his heart.

  “If an individual already has Black Lung, this filter will not cure it. Rather, it will lessen the damage to your already damaged lungs. It’s preventative.”

  “Preven-tuh-uh-teev?” said Mandrake.

  “It’s like using a condom so you don’t get a woman pregnant.” The broad shouldered nurse had that answer ready, almost as if she had used the example in previous cases.

  “Ooo doggy!” laughed Mandrake with glee. “I wish I’d’uh learned about condoms earlier in life! Got poo-bick lice and syphilis years ago.”

  The nurse checked Mandrake’s blood pressure – strangely calm – and asked him what his diet had consisted of lately.

  “I eat a wide uh-ray of things: Beans from a can, chicken from a can, Coca-Cola, buttered noodles, corn from a can, peaches from a can, chicken wings, and some of them queso-dee-uhs from that Mex-ee-kan place. Lots of hot dogs. I try to mix it up y’see.”

  The nurse scribbled down what Mandrake had told her. “What about alcohol, tobacco or illegal drug use?”

  “I don’t fucking do drugs, ma’am!” shouted Mandrake. He crossed his arms in feigned anger.

  The nurse sighed again, “Sir, I don’t give a shit if you do or don’t do drugs; I just need to know so I can assess your vitals correctly, otherwise this procedure could go over poorly. Please tell me what drugs you have used in the past three months.”

  “How do I know you won’t rat me out to my bosses? Erm, uh, future bosses?” Mandrake twisted and bit his lips nervously. He started to twitch slightly. “Or the poe-leese?! I don’t got any priors, but I don’t want any trouble!”

  “I swear to God Almighty that I will not ‘rat you out’ in any way.” The broad shouldered nurse placed her hand over her heart. “I won’t email your boss, I won’t tweet it to my friends, I won’t tell the local media, and I won’t even tell my momma! It’s only going to go in our records – which we seal up tight, I promise – and will be used to properly diagnosis you. Now tell me what drugs you’ve done.” The nurse was an angel of patience.