by Joshua Price
“Take us to your hideout; we could use all the help we can get,” the bunny commanded.
She nodded. “Follow me.”
“Okay!” Captain Rescue clapped his hands together. “Let’s get moving!”
He faced the lingerie boutique’s exit and pressed forth, ready to save these poor people from the clutches of their powerful adversary, the super intelligent dolphins from the future. Before Captain Rescue made it out of the shop, a brassiere wrapped itself around his ankle and tripped the hero. He slammed against the dirty ground and cursed, sure that this was a trap set by his enemy to make him look a fool. Not that he needed any outside influence for that; Captain Rescue did it quite well on his own.
Dr. Malevolent left the store and shielded her eyes from the bright pink sky that had come alive with electric energy pulsating through it. Lightning arched downward from the field as solar flares arch from the sun’s surface. She thought about the dolphins and their ongoing struggles to conquer humanity. The zombies might have been a step too far, what with all the death and destruction, but enslaving all of humanity? That was Dr. Malevolent’s kind of evil, and she hoped to one day emulate it.
Without saying a word, the young girl darted off to the right, in the same direction the patrol and their prisoners went. At the end of the block, she took a left, and led them through an especially ruined section of the city. Entire buildings had ejected their contents onto the street, and navigating through the dangerous maze would be tricky. As the gang snaked their way through the debris, Captain Rescue, certain that tetanus was just a pinprick away, avoided everything on the ground. One misstep and he would be on his back writhing like a madman. He shuddered at the thought.
Their escort led them to the end of this block then stopped and turned towards a giant pile of debris right on the corner; the remains of an ice cream parlor. The survivors had found a place to hide inside an old fallout shelter from the fifties, but getting in and out of it was rather precarious. Over time, the scavengers had fortified the rubble into the perfect entrance to their hideout. Someone only occasionally died from having a slab of concrete fall on their head, and that had not happened for months.
Captain Rescue practically wet himself. Not only did rusted rebar protrude from the rubble, the entire pile appeared as though it could collapse at any moment. The girl stopped some ways in and looked back at him with excitement in her eyes. Captain Rescue stared at her and cursed himself silently for being so susceptible to an innocent in need. He bottled up his trepidation and buried it deep inside where it would not bother him as he risked life and limb climbing through this death trap.
The hero exhaled, ducked down, and entered the small tunnel through the debris. Against his better judgment, he looked upwards at the spike trap inches above his head. A loose network of wooden planks strengthened the rubble pile and kept it from dropping down and crushing them. Captain Rescue looked behind him as Freight did his best to squeeze in. The giant man kicked something with his knee and the entire structure shook. Captain Rescue let out a startled shriek and then peed his pants. He knew that he should have relieved himself before departing on this adventure. The hero sighed as he and the others left the death trap rubble pile and entered the broken down ice cream parlor.
Captain Rescue stood tall, turned to their young escort, and then spoke, “Where’s the bathroom?”
She laughed and then pointed to her left, where Captain Rescue could plainly see a small plaque next to the doorway of a man and woman standing side by side. He nodded and headed towards it before disappearing around the wall to clean himself off. Their escort led the others behind the counter to an employee only section of the parlor. A doorway, which had no door to accompany it, led to an office area. The desks, chairs, and office supplies all had a few years of dust and grime coating them.
From the bathroom, Captain Rescue began singing a verse of the song he made during their camping trip, “Dolphins! Oh Dolphins! They’re coming for us! They’re gonna get us!
Oh dolphins!”
Dr. Malevolent yelled back to him, “Would you shut up and get in here.”
He ceased his serenade and looked down at his soiled spandex. After using brown water to wash them dirty, Captain Rescue stuck his hand into the paper towel dispenser, unsurprisingly found it empty, and cursed under his breath. He reached around and grabbed hold of his cape. This certainly wasn’t the first time he used it like a washcloth to dry himself off. His cape was Captain Rescue’s most versatile crime-fighting tool, and he had lost count of the many unique ways in which it had helped him in the past. The hero let go of his cape and it fell back to its natural position, and then he looked at it in the mirror, shaking to get the creases just right, and to hide the small scorch marks.
Captain Rescue exited the bathroom and looked over the counter and through the door to the others. He placed his hand upon the metal roof and tried to decide if he wanted to jump over it like a badass or go around like a chump. He laughed; Captain Rescue would never be a chump. The hero leapt into the air and the thin metal canopy instantly collapsed like tin foil. He fell into the array of ice cream buckets below, and, as he tried to climb to his feet, those buckets did everything but cooperate. Captain Rescue flailed about like a fish out of water as he tried to get up.
Freight grumbled and went to his aid. The giant man took hold of Captain Rescue’s cape and hoisted him into the air while he refused to knock off his kicking and flailing. Freight pivoted in place, moving him away from the ice cream counter and back over stable ground. He initially planned to set Captain Rescue down gently; unlike Dr. Malevolent, Freight harbored no ill feelings for the crime fighter. He just found him a little annoying, but as Captain Rescue refused to cease his incorrigible commotion, Freight just shrugged and dropped him to the ground. His knees buckled and the hero fell forward, just narrowly missing the counter and the subsequent spilling of brain matter that would have followed.
Captain Rescue got to his feet as if nothing happened. He strolled into the office area, where their young girl escort hovered over a large filing cabinet. She waited until the hero stood next to her before pushing it over and letting it rest upon the nearby wall, revealing the staircase leading into the fallout shelter. As Captain Rescue stared down at it, all his fears of tetanus flowed to the surface. He looked at dirty staircase and then to the young reverent-eyed girl. Captain Rescue knew what he had to do. The hero reached down and grabbed his thick, black leather gloves, which were still tucked underneath his utility belt.
“You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?” the super villain said as she watched him thrust the thick leather gloves onto his wrists.
“You may say that, but I can’t fight crime if I contract an infectious disease.”
Dr. Malevolent laughed and then spoke softly, “The only infectious disease you have or will ever contract is sheer stupidity.”
Captain Rescue stuck his tongue out at her as a child would to their arch nemesis on the playground. Before he could further state the threats of germs in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the young escort started shimmying down the ladder. She glanced up to them at about the halfway mark and waved. As the others scurried down the ladder, Captain Rescue just stood there staring at the rungs below. Each one was a venomous snake that would strike out and sink their fangs into the hero when he made his descent, but luckily, those fangs could not puncture leather. Losing himself a bit, Captain Rescue leapt into the narrow shaft and tried to latch onto the rungs, but his downward momentum had another idea. He tried to grip the rung, but the leather slipped right off. Captain Rescue rammed into the others, and away the snowball went.
The cluster tumbled down the shaft, bumping and nudging against the wall and each other. To avoid being on the bottom when they smacked the ground, the small escort maneuvered to the top in the blink of an eye. Seconds later, and with a resounding crash, Freight and Charlie broke all of their falls, leaving the two of them and everyone else unscathed. Luckily, Fr
eight was man enough to survive a fall from practically any height, and since plush covered Charlie from head to toe, he rather enjoyed the fall. Resting on top of the two fall breakers, Dr. Malevolent could feel Captain Rescue and the slight dampness in his pelvic region against her arm; the faint remnants of urine mixed with water that he had tried ever so hard to clean up. She looked at him, he looked back at her, and they froze there.
She cleared her throat. “What is that?”
He grimaced. “I uh… I spilled some… water on myself in the bathroom.”
Dr. Malevolent glared at Captain Rescue and then shoved him from the pile. He rolled across the dirty concrete, unwittingly wrapping himself in his cape. The hero arrived at the young girl’s feet and then stumbled to his. He thrashed about and tried to devise a means of escaping the prison his cape had created for him. As he struggled, his leather-covered fingers protruded from the wrapping and wriggled about. Captain Rescue spun around, trying to find the bottom of his cape so he could grab it with his teeth and yank himself free, but in doing so, the twirling unraveled the prison in a matter of seconds. The dizzying momentum caused Captain Rescue to tumble back to the ground and then glance upwards. Through the young girl’s ankles, he could see the giant vault entrance to the fallout shelter.
Chapter 10: People in the Future Sure Are Crazy
Captain Rescue waltzed into a large grey room just beyond the fallout shelter’s entrance. He took one look at the tiny hole in the back and clenched his fists in anger—another ladder. The hero threw both of those fists into the air and shook them in a ridiculous and uneven pattern like a sociopath trying to convey the message of anger, but failing miserably. The others just left him here in this fallout shelter lobby and descended the ladder. Captain Rescue eventually gave up trying to convey emotions he had no comprehension of and dropped his arms to his sides, looked around, and wondered where everyone else had gone.
Captain Rescue approached the ladder and gazed down at the heads of his friends descending into darkness. His eyes traveled to the clean metal rungs and he breathed a sigh of relief. He would not have to worry about infectious diseases this time around. In fact, the rungs looked clean enough to eat off of, and he had to fight the urge to kneel down and lick one of them. Captain Rescue suppressed his impulses, got to his hands and knees, and, carefully grabbed hold of the rungs before climbing into the shaft and beginning his descent.
As he traveled down, the hero could see a faint pink blob emerging underneath his nose. His tongue had disobeyed a direct order and acted on its own. He yanked his head back and the mutineer retreated into its hideout. From there, the trip downward was a constant struggle to keep his tongue in his mouth and away from the shiny metal. Before they knew it, Captain Rescue’s feet found the concrete floor at the base of the ladder, and the hero, caught off guard by the constant struggling, yelped subtly.
He relinquished his grasp of the shiny metal rungs and planted his feet firmly against the concrete. Captain Rescue turned around to find the entire population of the fallout shelter waiting for him. His eyes grew wide and he looked at the young escort, who just smirked at him.
The hero looked back to the crowd and then spoke, “Uh… hello?”
“You have returned!” one of them cheered.
“I know! It’s been three whole years, and I felt each and every one of them!” Captain Rescue exclaimed as the crowd just rushed in and embraced him from every angle.
“You will bring us freedom!” another shouted.
“We will no longer be oppressed!”
Something deep inside Captain Rescue clicked and he raised his arms into the air. “Yes, my people. I will save you all! I will make you free! Follow me!”
Off to the corner, Dr. Malevolent cringed. All of this time, all she had ever wanted was to conquer and rule, to have hordes of people at her fingertips, but somehow this oaf had already done it. Sure, it took a catastrophe and an influx of genetically modified bigfoot with lasers; led by genetically modified dolphins from the distant future, but he did it. Captain Rescue was the messiah these people needed. But at the same time, they did seem awfully clingy, and Dr. Malevolent still preferred to lead with an iron fist rather than—whatever you would call this.
Captain Rescue picked a child up off the ground and held him into the air. The boy twitched with glee and shivered from head to toe as the hero embraced his tiny body. He did not know exactly how to react to this magnificent gift given to him, and, once released, the boy just ran off twitching with excitement. More children erupted from the crowd and swarmed Captain Rescue. He had to fight his years of crime fighting inexperience to keep from instinctively diving into his utility belt for something to stave off the attack, but luckily, he learned the children just wanted to play.
Four of the little tykes ran up to the hero and latched themselves to his arms and legs. Captain Rescue laughed loudly and then romped around like Godzilla, letting the energy of the crowd engulf him as he roared playfully. While Charlie and Freight wandered off, Dr. Malevolent just stood there with her arms crossed as she oddly enjoyed the charade.
“Oh, we have visitors!” an elderly and quite weathered refugee said as she approached. The young scavenger girl that led them here handed the bag of supplies to the older woman and received an appreciative nod and hug in return.
“I always knew you would return,” she began, “but where did you go?”
Captain Rescue assumed his stock heroic stance and answered warmly, “Where we went matters not. What matters is that we’re here to save you fine folks.” He placed his hand upon her shoulder and smiled warmly.
The elderly woman looked towards him suspiciously. “And how do you expect to do that?”
Captain Rescue placed his hands upon his waist and spoke valiantly, “We will take this fight straight to the enemy and put a stop to them for once and for all, so that you fine people can live in peace for the first time in… three years.”
Dr. Malevolent laughed to herself at the statement. She knew something Captain Rescue apparently did not: that their only viable course of action was to go back in time and prevent this course of history from ever happening, thus nullifying the last three years and causing these people, in this state, to cease to exist. Their past selves would just continue on living their happy little lives without knowing anything of the oppression that would have been forced upon them if Dr. Malevolent had not intervened and saved the timeline. If only they knew how pivotal a roll she would soon play in their indirect salvation, these people might have dropped to their knees and worshipped her right next to Captain Oaf.
As the oppressed future-humans began graveling before their messiah, Dr. Malevolent fluffed the entire thing off and wandered away to give the hero and his worshipers some alone time. Unsure what to do with herself now, Dr. Malevolent wandered over to where Freight and Charlie mingled. The time had come for taking another stab at recruiting Freight into her sinister order—she had gotten so close the last time.
“So,” she began as Freight and Charlie turned towards her, “I see you and my bunny of a right hand man are getting along nicely. You should work for him and me. I promise that when the time comes for us to rise up over the people, we will still treat them well. It’s the least I could do to keep them from graveling before that guy.”
She could see the interest welling in his eyes. “I’ll give you his job.” Dr. Malevolent motioned for the bunny. “You can be my right hand man.”
Absolute shock overtook Charlie and his wide bunny smile. “But what about me? I’m your right hand man.”
“Well,” she thought it over, “how about this, you can continue to work for me as… my left hand man and you can continue to wear the costume.”
‘That’s uh…” Charlie said as he scratched his whiskers, “an awfully enticing deal. What’s the catch?”
Dr. Malevolent laughed. “The catch? The catch is you have to wear that awful costume. You can be our mascot.”
“That
’s a little demeaning.”
“You’re the one who waltzes around in a bright blue costume. I don’t think you’ve really got anything to worry about.”
A child’s “Woo hoo!” echoed through the fallout shelter, and Dr. Malevolent glanced over her shoulder to see Captain Rescue tossing a youngster into the air and catching him as the crowd applauded. She rolled her eyes and turned back to her new employee, and the demoted mascot.
Freight cleared his throat. “So I can boss him around.” He motioned for Charlie with his head. “The right hand outranks the left hand.”
“Well, you can, but I don’t know if I’d recommend it. He can be awfully feisty.”
The crowd gasped in horror, and Dr. Malevolent looked their way just as Captain Rescue comforted his onlookers. “It’s okay! He’s alright, he’s alright. He bumped his noggin but everything seems okay!” He helped the little boy get up from the ground, and then turned him around to face the crowd so they could see that no damage had been done save the stars orbiting around his head. The boy waved weakly to the crowd and then shook his wee little noggin and smiled brightly.
“We should get out of here. There’s work to be done,” Freight grumbled.
Dr. Malevolent turned her attention away from the crowd and looked at him with serious eyes. “And rob the crowd of seeing their hero at his finest—dropping children on their heads?”
Yet again, the crowd gasped in horror. “Oh, geez. I am so sorry. I need to get these gloves of mine regripped. Stuff just slips right out of them!”
“Okay yes,” Dr. Malevolent changed her mind, “we need to get out of here before they realize Captain Rescue is not all he’s cracked up to be… and kill us all.”
The young girl that led them here emerged from the crowd, and Dr. Malevolent waved her over. She jogged towards them with a wide smirk across her face. “Isn’t it so lovely to see the hero so candid?”
