Space Team: A Lot of Weird Space Shizz: Collected Short Stories

by Barry J. Hutchison

  The baby fell, bounced once on the bed, then was snatched up by his mother and swaddled in against her chest. He cooed once, wriggled into a more comfortable position, then promptly fell asleep.

  Cal’s fingers twitched. He focused, and with some effort managed to turn his head to look over at Harlosh, who was still pressed against the door, looking… surprised, Cal guessed, although the whole teeth and eyes situation meant that was pretty much just a guess.

  All of Harlosh’s eyes went to King Anderle’s weapon. It had fallen, and was now in the process of being covered by the flakes of white ash floating to the floor.

  Before he could make a move, the door was thrown open, and Harlosh was sent tumbling across the room, where he smashed, teeth-first, into what Cal hoped had been a priceless antique lamp.

  Mech, Miz and Loren stepped into the room. They looked at Cal and Splurt on the floor, then over at Morana kneeling on the bed with her baby in her arms.

  Finally, they looked at the white flakes drifting through the air. “Uh… did we miss something?” Loren asked.

  “Yy cld say tht,” Cal slurred. His face was tingling and his arms felt like lead, but he managed to prop himself up against the wall. He raised his eyes to the drifting flakes of white and felt a sudden flurry of excitement. “Hey, ’slike snow,” he said. He stuck out his tongue to catch a piece, then remembered what the flakes actually were, and quickly spat it back out again.

  With help from Loren and Miz, he slid himself up the wall. His legs gave way immediately, and Loren quickly ducked under his arm to support him. “Thanks,” Cal said. “But in the interests of full disclosure, I’ve wet myself.”

  Splurt pulsed on the wicker chair, drawing himself upwards into his traditional blob-like shape. His eyes swam around for a few moments, before coming together and settling on Cal. “Good to have you back, buddy,” Cal said. “Let’s agree never to get shot by one of those things again.”

  “So what is this stuff?” asked Miz, sniffing the air. “Smells like dandruff.”

  “That’s King Anderle,” said Cal. “The baby blew him to bits.”

  “The baby?” said Loren.

  “Yep.”

  “Blew him to bits?”

  “Yep. He’s one tough kid,” Cal said. “Takes after his mom.”

  Morana smiled. She looked down at the sleeping infant in her arms. “I guess we can’t keep calling him ‘the baby,’ can we?” she said. “He needs a name. Any suggestions?”

  “Hmm, let me think for a moment,” said Cal, tapping a finger against his chin. “A child, born to a mysteriously powerful absent father, hunted by an evil king on Space Christmas Day?” He smiled. It made his face feel weirdly rubbery. “I think I have the perfect name…”

  * * *

  Cal sat slouched in his seat as Loren fired up the Shatner’s thrusters. “I can’t believe she didn’t like the name!” he complained. “I mean, seriously, what kid wouldn’t want to be called Santa?”

  “She didn’t like it, man, get over it,” said Mech. “She called the kid Cal, what more do you want?”

  Cal shifted in his chair and gave a begrudging shrug. “Yeah, that was pretty cool, I suppose. But still. Santa.”

  “Think she’s going to be OK?” asked Loren, leaning back on the stick and tilting the ship’s nose off the deck. “Staying here, I mean?”

  “Well, no-one’s looking for her now, are they?” said Miz. “And, like, she’s got a baby that can blow stuff up.”

  “Yeah,” said Cal. “Yeah, I think she’ll be fine.”

  The ship edged towards the wide doors that led out into the vastness of outer space. Mech’s metal feet clanked across the deck, and Cal turned in time for a pair of leather boots to be thrust towards him.

  “Merry Kroyshuk,” Mech grunted.

  “Aw, Mech, you shouldn’t have!” Cal said, taking the boots. “I didn’t get you anything.”

  He tilted the boots, studying them. “A matching pair, about the right size, nice leatherwork. These are perfect, Mech, thank you.”

  Mech nodded. “Hey, no problem. My pleasure,” he said, returning to his spot.

  Cal crossed his legs. He was about to pull one of the boots on, when something inside it caught his attention. He peered inside and his stomach did a little loop-the-loop.

  “Uh, you do know there are still feet inside these, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Mech, his metal mouth curving into a smirk. “Yeah, I know.”

  And then the stars all stretched out, and the Shatner shot off into space, leaving the North Star, Morana, and the newborn boy child far, far behind.

  THE END

  DEATH COMES TO CARVERVILLE

  A Tobey Maguire Mystery

  Author’s Note

  The story that follows is in no way endorsed by the actor, Tobey Maguire. The Tobey Maguire who appears in this story is not the real Tobey Maguire, but a fictionalized version of Tobey Maguire who just happens to share the same name, face and career history.

  Tobey Maguire’s behaviour in this story is not intended to be representative how the real Tobey Maguire might react in the unlikely event that he was to find himself in similar circumstances. Maybe the real Tobey Maguire would behave in a similar fashion, maybe he wouldn’t. I make no claim either way.

  I do not know Tobey Maguire, and have never met him. My insight into the mind of Tobey Maguire is no greater than anyone else’s, but I’m sure he’s a very nice man, even if some people who have worked with him say he isn’t.

  I hope you enjoy the story and that, if you’re Tobey Maguire, you don’t instigate legal action.

  Thank you.

  Barry J. Hutchison

  1.

  To his great surprise, Tobey Maguire had finally finished the jigsaw puzzle.

  It had taken him… well, he didn’t want to think about how long it had taken him, but it had taken him a while. Probably longer than it reasonably should have taken, but all those blue pieces had been confusing, and an early mistake had made for a frustrating few hours in the middle. But now, at last, it was done. Complete. Finito. All one-hundred-and-fifty pieces slotted into place.

  Technically, one-hundred-and-forty-eight, since he’d somehow managed to lose two pieces in the completely featureless white room he currently resided in.

  Although ‘room’ wasn’t the right word. You couldn’t walk endlessly in any direction in a room, never reaching a wall or other item of interest. You could in this place.

  He’d set off exploring a few days earlier, and had left a trail of jigsaw pieces so he could find his way back to the start. That was probably how he’d lost the missing two parts, now that he thought about it.

  Quite why he’d wanted to come back to the start, he wasn’t really sure. The start was identical to every other spot in the white void (apart from the two areas which he was now convinced contained jigsaw puzzle pieces) and he may as well have just bunked down anywhere.

  If he were honest, he found the whole place a bit unsettling. Although, what was possibly most disturbing was that he had absolutely no idea where he’d got the jigsaw puzzle.

  He also didn’t know, for that matter, where the chair he was sitting on had come from. Likewise, the little folding table where the (mostly) finished jigsaw now sat. The appearance of that stuff was even more of a puzzle than the one he’d just completed, and so he decided it best not to tax his brain too much and just accept it for what it was.

  Tobey Maguire had just leaned back in said chair to admire his handiwork when a man in a tan leather jacket fell from above and smashed, face-first, through said table.

  “Ow! Fonk!” the guy groaned as he began the process of extracting himself from the tangle of broken wood and jigsaw pieces.

  Tobey Maguire gazed sadly at the disassembled ocean scene, but said nothing. Technically, this man was the landlord, and it probably wouldn’t do to get on his bad side. He might start asking for rent.

  Cal Carver stumbled into a standing position, du
sted himself down, then exhaled slowly through his nose and smiled.

  “Tobey Maguire. Long time no see,” he said.

  “Hey, Cal,” said Tobey Maguire.

  Cal nodded appreciatively as he looked around them. “I like what you’ve done with the place. It’s very… white.”

  Tobey Maguire looked around, too, as if seeing the place for the first time. “Yeah. I mean, it wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s better than the last place, right?”

  Cal’s brow furrowed. “Was that the cave? With the monsters pacing around? You were doing some annoying fonking jigsaw.”

  “Haha. Yeah,” said Tobey Maguire, subtly sweeping puzzle pieces under the broken table with his foot. He put an arm around Cal’s shoulder and led him off into the endless white. “So, what happened this time?”

  “Hmm?” said Cal. “Oh! You mean why am I unconscious? Long story. I got punched by a monster.”

  Tobey Maguire waited, but no more was forthcoming. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah,” said Cal. “You know, when I say it out loud, it isn’t actually that long a story at all. I thought it was more complicated than it is.”

  He stopped walking and slipped free of Tobey Maguire’s arm. “Sorry for the flying visit, but I should probably be waking up. The guys need me. This thing we’re fighting, it’s called a Mindraper. Can you believe that?”

  Tobey Maguire blinked. “It’s called a what?”

  “I know, right?” said Cal. “It feels wrong. Grammatically, or whatever. That’s what I said to Mech. It should be Mindrapist, right?”

  “Right,” said Tobey Maguire, although the grammar issues weren’t his most pressing concern.

  “Anyway, it’s probably nothing to worry about, but there’s a possibility we might get mindraped in the next, oooh, eight to ten minutes,” said Cal. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  Tobey Maguire very much did not want to know. This was painfully apparent from his facial expression.

  “Might be safer if you go find a crowd to hang out in. You know, safety in numbers?”

  “A crowd?” said Tobey Maguire, his voice taking on a slightly hysterical high-pitched edge. “What do you mean, ‘a crowd’? I’m in a featureless white void. How am I supposed to find a crowd?”

  He sat down heavily on his chair. Which, come to think of it, he was pretty sure wasn’t supposed to be there.

  “Oh God. Oh God, I’m going to get mindraped,” he sobbed.

  “Look, relax. I’m sure it isn’t as terrible as it sounds,” Cal said.

  Tobey Maguire looked up. “How sure?”

  “Like… sixty per cent sure,” said Cal. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Although, Kevin did suggest we all kill ourselves rather than face the thing, so… Let’s say fifty per cent, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Oh God!”

  Cal looked up, listening to something only he could hear. “Gotta go,” he said. “Go find a crowd, dude. This… whatever this is with all the empty voidyness, it isn’t healthy.”

  “There’s no-one else here! I keep telling you,” said Tobey Maguire. He buried his head in his hands and his shoulders heaved as he sobbed.

  “Hey now, you listen to me, Tobey Maguire,” Cal said, soothingly. “My head is packed with stuff. Splurt pulls shizz out of here all the time. You remember The Golden Girls? Hmm? You remember Dorothy? Well, she’s in here somewhere. And if she’s here, I’m pretty sure Blanche and the others won’t be far behind.”

  “Great! So not only am I going to get mindraped, but I have to watch helplessly on as the fonking Golden Girls get mindraped, too!” yelped Tobey Maguire. “How is that a better…?”

  He stopped talking when he realized Cal was gone. Tobey Maguire was alone. He’d never felt quite so alone, in fact.

  Well, maybe after the reviews of Spider-Man 3 had come in, but this was a close second.

  “Find a crowd,” he muttered. And just how was he supposed to do that, exactly?

  Picking a direction, he walked for a while.

  He stopped walking. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Or, if he was, it was nowhere interesting.

  “Hello?”

  Tobey Maguire’s voice rolled off into the void. He listened for a reply, but none came.

  His chair was there behind him again, along with the broken table and the ruined jigsaw puzzle. He sat down and made a concerted effort not to think about being mindraped.

  He failed.

  He wasn’t sure what being mindraped actually involved, but he felt confident it wouldn’t be anything to write home about.

  Placing his elbows on his knees, Tobey Maguire bent forwards, adopting the crash position. He doubted it would help with the whole mindraping situation, but it made him feel a bit better, all the same.

  It was while he was bent forwards and gazing down that he spotted the button. It was round and white, and set into the floor. Had he not been sitting in that exact spot, looking in that precise direction, he’d never have noticed it.

  “Should I press this?” he asked out loud. Quite who he was asking he wasn’t sure, but he waited for an answer, just in case.

  When he didn’t get one, he shrugged and gave the button a poke. It sunk beneath the level of the floor, but nothing appeared to happen. Tobey Maguire held the button there for several seconds, looking around him for any sign that anything had changed.

  It hadn’t.

  “So much for that,” he sighed, releasing the button.

  He slapped his hands on his thighs. He stood up.

  “Right, then,” he said.

  And then the floor beneath him vanished, and Tobey Maguire plunged screaming through the bottom of the void.

  2.

  Tobey Maguire had no idea if he could die.

  Technically, he was pretty sure he was dead. The real him, at least.

  The version of him that was currently tumbling through a cloudless blue sky towards a rapidly approaching ground was merely an imaginary construct living inside the head of one of the last human beings in existence. He wasn’t real. None of this was real.

  Still, real or not, this version was the one he was currently most concerned about.

  There was a small town below him. Possibly a large village. He didn’t know where the distinction lay. Population size, maybe? Number of municipal buildings? He was sure there had to be some sort of criteria that defined—

  Tobey Maguire hit the ground. It sagged beneath him like some rubbery membrane, then snapped back into painful solidity. He lay there for a while, getting his breath back and enjoying the feeling of not being falling from a great height.

  When he finally decided to move, it took some effort to raised himself onto his hands and knees. He was barely up on all fours when he spotted the squirrel. It was larger than any squirrel he’d ever seen before, although he’d be the first to admit he hadn’t seen very many. It stood on its two back legs, its tail raised up behind it.

  Its reddish-brown fur was dirty and bedraggled, the chest matted with sploshes of the same gloopy black spitting tobacco it now gobbed onto the ground by Tobey Maguire’s right hand.

  “Well now. Looks like we got ourselves a nimmigrant,” the squirrel drawled, drawing back its lips to reveal its huge, tobacco-stained front teeth. “That right, boy? You a nimmigrant?”

  “Uh… I’m Tobey Maguire,” said Tobey Maguire. He wasn’t sure what else to say, so this seemed as good a place as any to start. “Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

  The squirrel slapped Tobey Maguire hard across the face. “You heard of that, nimmigrant? You heard of that back in Ongo-Bongo land, or wherever it is you come from?”

  Tobey Maguire frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  The squirrel slapped him again, harder this time.

  “Fonking cut that out!” Tobey Maguire warned.

  “Don’t you backsass me, ting-tong,” the squirrel retorted. He lunged in for another slap, but Tobey Maguire cracked an open palm across
the side of the thing’s face, spinning him around.

  “I warned you. Now we’re even, OK?” said Tobey Maguire. “Now maybe we can talk like adults.”

  He stood up and dusted himself down. He was wearing a black polo neck and charcoal pants, and they had both really picked up the dirt.

  He’d only looked away for a moment, but when he looked back, the squirrel was nowhere to be seen.

  “That was weird,” Tobey Maguire mumbled, then he turned and took in his surroundings.

  The town he’d landed in looked like something out of the Old West. The ground was nothing more than loosely packed dirt and sand, with his imprint still clearly visible in it. The street he was on was wide and lined on both sides by mismatched wooden buildings.

  Stencilled black text on the walls identified a saloon, a barber shop, and a general store. Most of the other buildings remained a mystery, although a star above one of the doors suggested either a theater dressing room (unlikely) or a Sheriff’s office (more likely), and a stack of coffins outside another was pretty self-explanatory.

  Sombre piano music drifted out through the swing doors of the saloon. He recognized the tune, but couldn’t quite place it. It didn’t matter. Music meant people.

  “Find a crowd,” Tobey Maguire whispered, then he took a deep breath, gave himself a little pep talk, and headed for the saloon.

  A horse hit him three paces later. It was quite a big horse, and he probably should’ve seen it coming, or at least heard the thunder of its hooves.

  Tobey Maguire met the ground hard, rolled clumsily for several feet, then sprang upright again wearing an expression designed to suggest the whole thing had been totally deliberate.

  The horse hadn’t stopped. Tobey Maguire turned in the direction it had gone and saw a large squirrel standing on a saddle on the horse’s back. It was giving him the finger.

  Once the horse had galloped out of view, Tobey Maguire looked both ways and crossed more carefully to the saloon. The piano music still drifted out from inside (what was that tune?) and now had been joined by the murmur of voices and the chinking of glasses.