by M. D. Cooper
Captain Spectacular stroked his chin thoughtfully. “All well and good, Generals, but getting people to cover doesn’t solve our problem, does it? The Zom-Bees will still be out there, and people’s lives will still be in danger. What we need to do is kill the Zom-Bees. Get them all in one area, and then...” Captain Spectacular quickly slammed his fist down onto the tabletop. “Splat!” he shouted triumphantly.
“Splat, sir?” the general asked.
“Splat,” Captain Spectacular confirmed.
“First we have to care about saving as many citizens of Earth as possible. We don’t have time to stand around and come up with one of your zany plans, Spectacular. Your last plan hardly worked; if it hadn’t been for Captain Jimmy Smith—”
“Jones,” Macy corrected. “But Captain Spectacular is right. We need to drive the bees somewhere.”
“Where?” The general asked. “If you have a plan, I’m listening.”
Macy thought about it, her mouth falling open. She glanced at Captain Spectacular, then at the general, then at Captain Spectacular again. “The greenhouse; the one with the giant flowers that were supposed to be cut tonight to welcome the bees. We drive them there.”
Captain Spectacular grinned and pointed a finger at her. “The bees won’t be able to help themselves! They’ll go pollen nuts!”
“Right,” Macy took a deep breath. “It’ll work. I know it.”
“I knew I liked you, Jenny!” Captain Spectacular said with a snap of his fingers and a wink of his eye.
Macy scowled. “It’s Macy.”
“Of course it is,” Captain Spectacular flashed her a bright smile, “Mercy.”
“When we get them to the flowers, what do we do? How do we get the upper hand on hundred of thousands of zom-bees?”
“Didn’t you guys ever watch PBS?” Macy asked. “The cold will slow down the bees’ heart rates. If we get them cold enough, they’ll not be able to fly. They’ll want to return to the hive and protect the queen to go into a winter cluster.”
A hush fell over the assembled group, and Macy thought sooner or later someone was going to speak up and tell her the truth—her plan was stupid, beyond stupid. It was a Jim Jones plan, and it made her miss him more than anything. I really wish he were here to give me a hard time about my fuzzy socks, and my crush on Captain Spectacular.
Jim Jones might tease her, but he always had her back—which was something she was woefully missing right then.
Finally, Captain Spectacular sucked in his breath and his lip twitched. “Ohhh,” he breathed, sounding aroused. “I’m going to get to use my freeze ray.” He turned around and ran from the command center, his legs pumping. His arm thrusted into the air. “Freeze ray!”
“Get this plan in motion,” the general ordered. “We must drive those bees toward those flowers!”
Macy chased after Captain Spectacular. “Wait, Captain! Wait!”
****
It took time to sneak around the city while it was under attack by giant Space Bees, but finally Macy and Captain Spectacular arrived in the underground bunker of his mad scientist friend, Val Wendel.
The stairs were steep, and the descent was treacherous. The further down they got, the colder the air was. Macy shivered, and Captain Spectacular put his hand on her arm. “If we had time to warm each other up…”
Her face flashed a reluctant smile. “Thanks, Captain, but I’m dating someone.”
“Pity it isn’t me. Whoever he is, he’s a lucky guy. Not everyone could pull off fuzzy socks with an outfit like that.”
“It’s Captain Jim Jones. Don’t you remember?”
Captain Spectacular’s joyful laughter filled the stairwell. “Of course I remember. I was there, wasn’t I?”
Macy wasn’t sure how to answer his question and counted her lucky stars that it was rhetorical.
As they entered the lab, she was taken aback by the frost on the tables of equipment. She shivered and slipped on a patch of ice, but Captain Spectacular caught her arm and helped her along.
“I can’t believe how well balanced you are on all this ice,” Macy commented as she tripped again.
“I was built to handle just this sort of thing. I am,” his eyebrow twitched, “Captain Spectacular.”
So he keeps telling me. But ‘built’? What does he mean by that?
They came to the middle of a room, and a woman dressed as an Eskimo sat shivering at a computer system that was thoroughly frozen. The woman’s hood was drawn tight across her face, and the fur covered up her eyes. Shivering, she spoke in what sounded like Japanese—or maybe it was just her teeth chattering.
Captain Spectacular splayed his hand to her. “No need to get up, Mary.”
“I can’t anyway. I’m frozen to this seat,” the woman told him.
“Oh, right,” Captain Spectacular said with little interest. “There are big problems out there, Mary. Big problems.” He flipped back his wavy brown hair. “Problems that only I, Captain Spectacular, can solve.”
Mary sighed happily. “There isn’t a problem you can’t solve, Spectacular. What can I do to help? I’m frozen to this seat!”
“So, you mentioned. What I need is the keys to activate the freeze ray that protects the city. If I remember correctly, the ray is around here somewhere and frozen inside an ice cube.”
She pointed toward the rear hallway. “The breakroom is back that way and that’s where we keep the keys. Hey, while you’re there, can you heat me up a frozen dinner? I’m starving. No one has been by in ages.”
Captain Spectacular chuckled. “Me, using a microwave. Like I have time for that.” He shook his head as he walked toward the kitchen; he was moving as if his limbs had gone stiff on him.
Macy hoped he’d be all right.
“Poor guy,” Mary whispered to Macy out of the side of her mouth. “He doesn’t even realize…”
“Realize what?” Macy scowled.
The hood gasped. “Oh, you don’t realize it either, do you? Well, that’s rich!”
‘What are you talking—”
Macy was cut off as Spectacular returned with an ice cube in one hand and a frozen dinner, still frozen, in thef other.
Captain Spectacular threw the frozen dinner down in front of Mary and grabbed Macy, ushering her out of the frozen mad science lab.
“Wait,” Macy protested. “I think she was going to tell me something important.”
“Not now, Macy. There’s no time for questions; we have to save this city!”
Chapter Ten
Jim Jones couldn’t believe his eyes, and he was stone-cold sober. He really wished he were drunk. Stone-cold drunk.
A line of Zom-Bees appeared, stretching out as far as the eye could see, up and down the street. Wings flapping, mouths open, trails of blood covering their little stingers—which didn’t look that little when you saw them up close.
Jones and Steven froze in their tracks, neither daring to take a step as Queen-B stared down the opposing Zom-Bees with her penetrating glare from behind her mirrored sunglasses.
Funny, was she wearing those sunglasses before? Oh, God, I hope this isn’t more of that ‘the story dictates it’ BS that gets me good from time to time…
“What do we do?” Steven asked quietly out of the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” Jones replied out of the corner of his mouth, equally quiet.
Moving seemed out of the question, but, by golly, his nose was starting to itch something fierce.
The Zom-Bees made a move to dart past Queen-B, but she sidestepped to block them. When they tried to go left, there she was; then they went right, and there she was again. They backed up, and she advanced, putting a little spin in her move, thrusting her hips out to the side—a sparkle of wing dust trailing her every move like she was some damn fairy.
The Zom-Bees mirrored her moves on the other side, wearing rhinestone hats and sparkling gloves.
“Oh, my God,” Steven whispered. “It’s a…”
&n
bsp; Jones’s mouth went dry and white spittle collected in the corner of his mouth. He was frozen in place, too afraid to move, so Steven wiped it clear for him.
“Dance-off,” Steven finished.
As the bad 1980s rap started to emit a rhythmic pulse through the speakers of Queen-B’s boombox, the bees began to gyrate in time. Queen-B gracefully slid the boombox down to the ground, and the dance competition was off to the races. More bees on Queen-B’s side exited the hive and performed as her backup dancers, six on one side, and six on the other.
She was in the center, their queen and leader, and she’d never looked so good; her wings had never sparkled so thoroughly.
“Should we do something” Steven asked.
“I’m too horrified to move, I’m afraid. If you’d like to start running away, you can try, and we’ll see if any of them kill you.”
“I think I’ll stay here.”
Jones thought it was a good choice for someone who chronically dressed in red shirts. The dance-off was heating up, but it was harder to see. The air grew cloudy, foggy, dense. Jones took a deep breath and nearly coughed.
Smoke. Glancing up, Jones spotted several low-flying ships, dispensing smoke over the bees. Must be part of someone’s plan.
Jones wasn’t sure it was a good plan. However, a moment later, the crowd of Zom-Bees began to break up and fly away, coughing in fits and backing away from the smoke. The Queen-B and her posse retreated to the hive complex.
This was their chance—Jones tugged on the collar of Steven’s shirt and dragged him away.
“Quick, while they’re busy bees; to the docks, so we can find out who is changing those sunglasses. If we can find out who wants to make killer bees, maybe we can end this whole thing,” Jones told him.
“And save the bees? You starting to go soft on us, Jim Jones?” Steven teased. He laughed when he saw the look on Jones’s face. “Man, Macy really has been good for you.”
“Listen, if someone is making the bees go zombie, we need to know who it is, and we need to stop them. If they’re after something, it might be putting all of Earth in danger, and that’s not happening. Not on my watch!”
As the dock appeared on the horizon, a swam of Zom-Bees flew by in a zigzag pattern, avoiding the smoke.
Jones came to a screeching halt, and Steven bumped into him.
“Ow!” Steven scowled.
“We’ll have to find a way around.”
“I’ll cover ya!” a short little guy shouted from their left. He was standing on a shipping container covered in boxes. He banged his hammer into a tiny turret and, within seconds, it morphed into something bigger, meatier, and automatically began lobbing globs of molten honey at the Zom-Bees.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Steven whispered.
Jones didn’t know, but he’d take any help he could get. With a salute, he sprinted across the dock toward shipping area thirty-three, and Steven followed after him—a trail of bees on his tail.
The little guy screamed, his turret spewing more honey at the bees, and he leapt into the air with his laser gun. “Molten honey! You will rue the day! You will rue!”
“Man,” Steven huffed. He had gotten clear of the bees, and now stood under the overhang as molten honey rained down. “We really need to get that guy on our team.”
“Team’s full,” Jones grumbled, and pushed on the door to bay thirty-three—but it was welded shut. “On the other hand…the more the merrier.”
Chapter Eleven
Captain Spectacular and Macy climbed the ladder to the tallest domed building that overlooked San Francisco. Down below, the swarm of Zom-Bees gathering at the greenhouse grew. The roof was open, and the giant flowers glistened in the sunlight, causing the bees to jig with excitement.
Zom-Bees or not, they couldn’t deny their god-given instincts and the draw of beautiful colors.
The duo had time to do what was necessary, but just barely. Captain Spectacular opened the plastic case that held the freeze ray and inserted the key into the lock.
“Once I turn this key, the freeze ray will be revealed. Then we just have to push the buttons on the control pad. One shot should be enough, but the last thing we want to do is…”
“Yes?” Macy asked, leaning forward eagerly.
Captain Spectacular’s eyes widened as a Zom-Bee, flying out of control, came straight toward him. The bee hit him in the stomach and knocked him down. The captain’s arm clipped the ladder, and it swayed side to side before crashing hundreds of feet to the ground, sending him falling to the ground.
“Captain!” Macy screamed, and jumped to be at his side.
His uniform was cut open, and Macy saw exposed electrical wires. Well, that doesn’t make any sense! She kneeled down and touched his neck. No pulse? Oh God, no!
Macy ripped his shirt open to find his stomach was encased in metal. She knocked on it with her knuckles, horrified at the metal clang it made.
Captain Spectacular wasn’t human at all—he was a robot. A stinking robot! And now the Zom-Bees were coming; there was no one to save Earth from the infestation. Macy Gray needed to step up. She had to become a big damn hero, but she was scared.
Macy rose and turned the key.
I can do this, I can do this. Oh, God…No, I can do this.
The freeze ray rose out of the dome like a giant penis, and the keypad lowered itself into her hand. There were so many buttons Macy didn’t know which one to push.
What is the one thing I’m not supposed to do? Macy glanced down at Captain Spectacular lying lifeless on the ground. It was all on her now; if she did the wrong thing, the Earth was going down forever.
“Let’s do this,” Macy whispered.
Chapter Twelve
The ‘short little guy’—who didn’t like being called a ‘dwarf’, it seemed—huffed as he waddled over to the door. There was a hammer and a pail of molten honey hanging from his belt, and he wore a shirt that said, ‘you couldn’t handle me full-size’—whatever that meant. One eye bulged from his socket as he put his meaty palm on the door.
“Can you open it or not?” Jones demanded.
The little guy laughed. “I can open it.” He slid a welder’s mask over his eyes and brought up his pail of molten honey, as well as a flamethrower, that he also removed from his belt. “You’re going to want to stand back.”
Jones wasn’t going to second guess a flame-wielding dwarf, even on the best of days. He and Steven stood back as the dwarf got to work. He applied molten honey to the edges of the door. As it glowed and started to burn, he applied additional heat, speeding up the process. It wasn’t long before the door was curling around the edges.
“Like a tin can,” the dwarf observed, puffing up his chest with a deep breath. “Give it a good push, and she’ll let you in now.”
“We owe you, uh…What’s your name, anyway?” Jones asked.
The dwarf shook his head. “Sorry, copyright rules state I can’t divulge that information. But you be having a nice day!” The dwarf sprang up in the air and disappeared over a balcony, leaving Jones and Steven to stare after him.
“His lips looked real supple…” Steven said.
Jones smacked him in the stomach and backed away, horrified. “I didn’t know you were into dwarves.”
“They prefer the phrase ‘little person’.”
Jones shook his head to clear it of unclean images. “You ready to do this, then? Let’s head inside and end this thing before we all end up bee food.”
They walked inside the spacious warehouse, and stopped dead in their tracks.
Jones widened his stance and crossed his arms in front of his body. “Mort? What the hell are you doing here?”
Mort, his beloved ship, didn’t say a word. The scariest thing was that she was wearing a giant pair of sunglasses, just like the ones the bees wore.
How the hell had she gotten her struts on a pair? Jones took a deep breath. “Take those off, Mort! When did you get those things?”
&nbs
p; Steven snapped his fingers. “She was wearing them when you were in line getting a space dog.”
Dammit, that’s right. He had just thought she was trying to aggravate him, but she really might’ve been mind-controlled, just like the Zom-Bees.
“Well, luckily she can’t bite,” Steven pointed out.
At that exact instant, Mort’s weapons came online; her gunners lit up and spun toward Jones and Steven.
Oh, hell no.
“Spoke too soon!” Steven screamed, and both he and Jones jumped out of the way as Mort’s guns tore through the warehouse. Jones kept low behind some metal crates, ducking his head down as Steven lay beside him.
Smoke billowed everywhere, and Jones peered through it, looking for a way out. To their left, a set of stairs led up to a catwalk. There appeared to be a switch and a control panel, but what it’d activate, Jones couldn’t say. Still, if they wanted to get away, they’d have to go up there.
But, man, my girl Mort—how can I leave her here like this if she has been corrupted or taken over by some madman? I have to try to reason with her, even if it gets me killed.
“Head to the stairs and see if you can find whatever is controlling those glasses. Something has to be sending a signal; we just have to find it.”
Steven nodded, and as soon as the gunfire ceased, he ran off, keeping covered as he went from box to box. Jones was thinking about his next move when he heard maniacal laughter.
I know that laughter…Why is it so familiar? Who does it belong to?
“Come on out.” Footfalls echoed as the man beckoned, and Jones resisted the urge to peek at the speaker. “You can’t hide forever, James.”
Jones shivered at the sound of his real name—hardly anyone addressed him like that. There was his mother, and his—brother?
It couldn’t be, but somehow, it was.
Jones took a deep breath and rose up. “My brother wouldn’t hurt me, would he? Would you, Albert?” He narrowed his eyes at his shorter, angrier brother.
It was indeed him—from his bushy eyebrows to his handlebar mustache, there was no way Albert Jones could be mistaken for anyone else.
