Monster World

by Michael James Ploof

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking glum. “I don’t know where we are.”

  “The land back there is completely dead. It looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie.”

  “Tim who?”

  “Never mind. I got this map from the goddess. Do you recognize anything on it?”

  “I recognize everything on it,” she said and pointed at a country on the west landmass. “That is my kingdom.”

  “Now we have to determine where we are.”

  She studied the map and bit her lip, which was about the hottest thing in the world. “The Goblin King controls this place—Gorgash. See all this land to the east? The goblins took that long ago from the Parushians. It was once green and lively, but now it’s a dead land, just like everywhere the goblins go.”

  “That sounds like where I arrived,” I said. “It looks like it was once a beautiful land, but now all the trees are dead. The goblins must have only recently taken it.”

  “If that is true,” she said, “we are definitely somewhere down here.”

  “Damn, that’s quite a distance from where we are. Is this a map of the known world?”

  “It is.”

  “Has the planet been circumnavigated yet?”

  “You can’t circumnavigate the world,” she said with amusement. “It’s flat.”

  “Oh great.” I paced. “We’re just going to have to assume we’re on the other side of the world from your kingdom, which means we’ve got a hell of a long journey ahead of us. How many miles wide is your kingdom?”

  “Nearly a thousand.”

  I laid a finger across the widest part of the princess’s kingdom and used that to measure the distance we had to travel. “At least two thousand miles,” I mumbled. “Fuck me.”

  The princess scowled.

  “Sorry. We might have a long way to go, but we’ve got no choice in the matter, so there’s no point getting overwhelmed.”

  “I am not overwhelmed,” she said. “Are you?”

  “What? No, of course not.” I waved her off. The last thing I wanted to do was show her I was nervous. That might send her over the deep end. I was her rescuer after all.

  “Can we leave now? The Goblin King is surely on his way.”

  “Yeah, but first we need to fix your outfit. I found a jerkin I think will fit, and you can—”

  “I’m not wearing a smelly dead goblin’s clothes,” she said, turning up her nose.

  “It’s clean. You won’t get cooties.”

  “What are those?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “Lose the dress and try on the jerkin.”

  “I’m not—”

  “What did we agree on earlier?” I asked. “Shark-infested waters, sweetheart. I’m tossing you a lifeline, so take it.”

  “Fine,” she said through a clenched jaw. “But if you think I’m taking my clothes off in front of you, you’re out of your mind.”

  I grabbed a fur the size of a throw blanket and raised it like a curtain. “Hurry up. We’re burning daylight.”

  She hid behind the blanket, and I kept my head turned. She threw her clothes at me, then took the blanket out of my hands and wrapped it around herself.

  I cut the dress in half and tossed the top. The princess gasped but didn’t protest. I cut out five layers of poufy fabric, leaving only the thick outer layer. I removed two feet off the bottom of that, then handed it back to her, along with the jerkin.

  “Put this on.”

  “What have you done to my dress?” she asked, horrified.

  “I’ve made it practical. Put it on.” I turned to show her I wasn’t looking.

  She didn’t like it, but she did it.

  “Are you descent?” I asked.

  “Yes, but this damn jerkin won’t snap.”

  I turned and inspected the outfit. The dress went to just below her knees, and the corset still lifted her abundant cleavage. Her boobs were too big to properly close the jerkin, and that was fine by me.

  “That’s a lot better,” I said.

  “I look like a street urchin.” She pouted like a girl half her age.

  “Good. The Goblin King is looking for a princess, not a street urchin. We’re leaving the luggage behind.”

  “Are you crazy? I can’t travel for weeks without my things.”

  “You know what? I’m done arguing with you. You want to carry that shit around? Be my guest.”

  I grabbed the two suitcases and tossed them in the boat. Once Doughboy and Evangeline were onboard, I untied it and kicked off a rock to push the boat out to sea. I hopped in and settled on the center bench. The princess sat at the bow, and Doughboy took the stern bench.

  The water was dark and cold, and I tried not to splash any on us as I rowed. The gray clouds had thinned, and I could easily see the sun had crawled westward. I steered in that direction and inclined my head at the ringed planet in the northern sky.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Why do you always jest?”

  “I told you I’m not from here,” I reminded her. “Did you think I was lying?”

  “Of course I did,” she said with a small laugh. “You sounded like a crazy panhandler.”

  “The goddess brought me here,” I said earnestly. “Apparently she thinks you’re just swell, because she said it took a lot of magic to do so.”

  “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?” she said and looked at me differently.

  “Yes, I am. Now tell me about the planet.”

  “The ringed planet has many names, but only my people know what it truly is.”

  “What is that?”

  “The eye of the one true god, Zodin.”

  “Your people think that planet is literally a god’s eye?” I said, deadpan.

  “Yes,” she said defensively.

  “Does it ever blink?”

  “What?”

  “If it’s an eye, it must blink.”

  “It doesn’t blink. Zodin is always watching.”

  “Creepy.” I continued to row. “Which direction does the eye move?”

  “North to south.”

  “And how long does it take for one full rotation?”

  “It comes and goes in twenty-seven-day cycles. In about a week, it will drop below the horizon late at night, but Zodin will still be watching.”

  “Sure he will.” I looked for a moon, but if there was one, I couldn’t see it.

  “Does Zodin watch over your world?” she asked.

  “We’ve only got a sun and a moon you can see very well. There are other planets, but they look like stars. They’re too far away, unlike Zodin, which must be huge as hell or really close. I wonder if Tarth is really a moon?”

  “This planet is the center of the universe.”

  “Sorry to burst your bubble, but the sun is the center of this solar system, and there are countless solar systems in the universe.”

  “You have strange beliefs,” she said dismissively.

  “Said the woman who thinks a planet is a god’s eyeball,” I quipped.

  We were silent for a few minutes. The princess kept fidgeting, like she was uncomfortable on the wooden bench.

  “Do you want me to show you how to row?” I asked.

  “Princesses do not row.”

  “What exactly do princesses do?”

  “We do what all royalty does. We rule.”

  “I thought your father ruled. What’s your job?”

  “Job?” she said, like she had never heard the word. “My day is fuller than you know. I spend all my time going to functions. Balls, ceremonies, woodland hunts, banquets… oh, the list goes on and on.”

  “So you basically party and dine all the time? Sounds sweet.”

  “I do not party. Being a princess is hard work. I spend two hours every morning sitting in nearly unbearable stillness while my handmaidens fuss over my hair and makeup. I stand for seamstresses for hours on end and have to endure suffocating and heavy dresses. I have to speak with lords
and ladies who bore me to tears. Then there are the hours of study in etiquette.”

  “Sounds rough.”

  She sensed my sarcasm. “Oh? And what is it you do all day on your planet?”

  “When I’m not in college learning about business, I’m slinging pizza pies. That’s why I ended up here with D. My parents aren’t rich, and I’ve had to work hard since I was old enough to get a job. College alone is going to put me in the hole for decades, most likely. That is, if I ever get back to Earth.”

  She laughed to herself. “I can’t believe the goddess sent a baker to be my champion.”

  “I can’t believe the goddess exists, to tell you the truth.”

  “That’s blasphemy,” she said sternly.

  I shrugged, “Sorry not sorry.”

  The sun set an hour after we left the tower, and Doughboy joined the princess at the helm, presumably to watch the spectacle, though I have no idea how he saw things without any eyes. The princess scooted away from him, but she didn’t protest him being close to her. Deep down she knew if anything tried to mess with her, he would eat its face off.

  “You should try to get some sleep,” I told her and rubbed my grainy eyes. I’d worked an entire shift on Earth, then spent the day on Tarath, killing goblins. The adrenaline had gotten me through the long day, but I was crashing hard. I was pretty hungry too, but I didn’t want to experiment with food from another world while stuck in a boat with a princess. If I got the shits from it, that would be a real mood killer.

  “Hey, D, do you think you can row the boat?” I asked.

  He made a fart noise and rolled over, his little foot twitching while he slept.

  “Welp, looks like we’re dropping anchor,” I said and pulled in the oars.

  “You have to keep going,” she said. “The Goblin King knows I have escaped. He’ll be after us.”

  “I’m frigging beat. It’s been a long day. I’ll get us farther after some rest.”

  I dropped the small stone anchor over the side of the boat, then I spread one of the furs out on the bottom, between the middle bench and the stern. I had just taken off my boots and gotten comfortable when I noticed her staring at me.

  “And where am I supposed to sleep?” she asked.

  “In the boat, where else?” I said and tossed her the other fur.

  “I can’t sleep on the floor of a boat. I’m a—”

  “If you say you can’t do one more thing because you’re a princess, I’m going to lose my mind. How old are you anyway, twenty? You’re not a girl, you’re a woman, and you might want to start acting like one.”

  “How dare you ask a lady her age?”

  “Pete’s sake,” I said and folded the corner of the blanket over my face. “I’m going to sleep. All I need is a few hours. We’ll head out again before the sun comes up. Don’t wake me up unless you’re on fire. That way I can push you in the water to put you out.”

  I dreamed about Michelle, and oddly enough Roman. It was a strange dream, one in which I saw the aftermath of my disappearance. But Michelle acted way more upset than she would have in real life, and Roman kept saying he should have never left me alone in the kitchen. It got weirder when two guys in matching uniforms walked through the front door. They were weightlifter-looking dudes, one black and the other a white hillbilly who had to be named Bubba. Somehow I knew that they were there to take the oven away.

  “You can’t do this,” Roman pleaded. “The oven didn’t mean it. Please, it’s always been such a good oven.”

  “We can’t take the risk,” said the black dude.

  “They portal one person to another world, they’re bound to do it again,” said the hillbilly, who spit on the floor. “They get a taste for human, ya see?”

  The oven wasn’t about to go easy, and before they reached the kitchen, it had already busted out the back wall. The oven catchers sprinted through the wall, with Roman and Michelle balefully screaming after them.

  I woke up. “What the fuck was that?”

  I groaned as the pain and stiffness from sleeping on the bottom of a rowboat set in. I looked up, and the breath caught in my throat. The ringed planet shone aquamarine, and its ring shimmered like diamond dust. It hung in the north, twice the size of Earth’s full moon, its reflection dancing on the placid water. Stars twinkled brightly despite the ringed planet’s soft glow, and I saw new and beautiful constellations and spiraling clusters of galaxies. In the south were two moons. One was small and red, perhaps half the size of Earth’s moon, and the other was a rusty gold and dusty white. It resembled a bowling ball, and the thought made me chuckle.

  “What was that?” Evangeline yelled and sprang upright.

  “It was just me. Go back to sleep.” I yawned.

  I tossed her my blanket, which landed on her head, and pulled up anchor. Oars in the water, we headed west. Doughboy was still asleep on the small bench in the rear, and the princess snored under the pile of furs.

  The night was warm, and I wondered what season we were in or if the world even had seasons. Did it get really hot here, biting cold? I would have to ask the princess when she woke up. There was so much I didn’t know about this world, but one thing was certain: humans lived here, which didn’t make any sense. Despite the strangeness and improbability that what I was experiencing was real, it sure felt real. The smell of the saltwater, the wind in my hair, the gentle pull of the current—hell, even Doughboy seemed real. And the princess, well, she was larger than life.

  I had been struck by her beauty when I met her, but I’d been good at hiding that. The last thing a guy needs is for a hot chick who is way too into herself to think he worships her, and this princess was literally worshipped.

  She was as spoiled as they came. She was bitchy, rude, entitled, and inflammatory, but I liked her. I didn’t know if it was her stormy eyes, fierce attitude, or contradictory vulnerability and naiveté, but she was growing on me, and I had only known her a few hours.

  “These furs smell like dung, and I can’t sleep,” she blurted and threw off the furs like someone suffocating.

  “There’s my darling,” I said with a laugh. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Between your flatulating Doughboy, this infernal rocking boat, and your snoring, I didn’t get a wink.” She pouted.

  “You’re in luck,” I said, rowing and grinning. “I just spoke with a narwhal that told me about a great mermaid hotel just a few miles ahead. Supposed to be a five-star place, a real high-end oceanic destination.”

  “Simpleton,” she said and kicked my bench. “Mermaids don’t have hotels. The narwhal was fibbing.”

  I wondered if she was being serious, and to my amusement, her face cracked under my scrutiny. “Hah! That was a joke.”

  She offered me a snide grin. “What, you didn’t think a beautiful princess could be funny?”

  “You shouldn’t call yourself beautiful. Only people who aren’t actually beautiful can say they are. It makes them feel better.”

  “That’s pretty shallow,” she said with a frown.

  “So is calling yourself beautiful,” I retorted.

  “Oh my gods, the point was I made a joke that you thought was funny. Way to ruin the moment.”

  The sun rose a few hours later, and I took a break to give my arms a rest. The muscles in my back were on fire, and my arms were pretty sore, too, not to mention my ass on that hard bench.

  “Oh no,” said the princess and pointed over my shoulder.

  I turned around and brought my hand up to block the rising sun. Ravens appeared in the sky a few miles off, and there were a lot of them.

  “We’ve got to hide,” said the princess.

  “Where?” I spread my arms toward the endless ocean. “Besides, if we can see them, they saw us a long time ago.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “They’re just birds,” I said, noticing something on the horizon that I hadn’t seen due to the glare of the sun. “I think we’ve got bigger problems. A ship
is approaching.”

  She squinted in the direction I was pointing, and her eyes widened.

  “Any chance the Goblin King has a navy?” I asked.

  “No.” She looked scared. “But he deals with a lot of pirates.”

  “Great,” I said and exchanged the oars for my pizza shovel. “This should be fun.”

  The ship drew closer, and we waited like sitting ducks.

  The ship continued straight toward us, but the ravens veered off and circled. They stayed at a distance, and I knew the Goblin King was watching. I didn’t know if he had sent the ship or not, but it made sense that he might have.

  “Do you recognize the flag?” I asked the princess when the ship was just a few hundred yards away.

  “I can’t see it clearly enough to know.”

  “It’s not black.” I wondered if pirate ships on this planet flew the Jolly Roger.

  “What color is it? I can’t tell.”

  “It’s green, with a white circle in the center.”

  “Is there a black serpent in the middle?” she asked in a shaking voice.

  “I think so.” I glanced at her, and she looked as frightened as she had sounded. “Who is it?”

  “Turrakian,” she said with disdain. “They’re a nation of sailors and cutthroats. Damn rascals they are, and we just so happen to currently be at war with them. Have been for five years.”

  “Great.” I looked more closely at the ship. Men were moving to the aft rail to see who was floating in a little rowboat so far out to sea. “All right, this is our story. I’m Jake, you’re Sarah. We were on a ship bound from… Turrak, is it?”

  She nodded.

  “Cool. We’re from Turrak. We were attacked by pirates, but we got away in this rowboat.”

  “That’s your story?”

  “Just go with it,” I said.

  “Fine.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “What?

  “What’s your new name?”

  “Sarah, but I hate it,” she snapped.

  “Too bad. Now listen, I’ll do the talking. Knowing you, someone will do something to offend you, and you’ll start hurtling around the P-word.”