Not Everything Brainless is Dead

by Not Everything Brainless is Dead (mobi)

“I think what our feeble minded friend is trying to say is that the forest is a scary place and he might just wet himself at the first signs of any wildlife,” Dr. Malevolent said, translating Captain Rescue.

  He nodded frantically, his lip and knees quivering in harmony, “And on top of that, we’re going to get lost, I just know it! It’ll be years before they find our corpses!”

  Dr. Malevolent scoffed at him, “My sense of direction is far too keen for us to ever get lost.”

  “AND IF WE DO,” Freight interjected, his words cutting through the night like a fully automatic rifle, “I’VE GOT JUST THE THING FOR THAT.”

  “And what would that be?” Dr. Malevolent asked, not expecting anything too useful.

  Freight held up a compass, “LAB’S TO THE WEST. WITH THIS WE GO WEST.”

  “Didn’t we break you of that yelling thing a while ago?” Charlie said to him.

  “MOMENTARILY, BUT WITH MY WONDERFUL COURNTEY BACK AT MY SIDE, I’M BACK TO MY OLD SELF AGAIN,”

  “Well, okay then,” Charlie said as he took the compass and nodded, “Wow nice, I didn’t think they still made these things. Let me see it.” Freight squinted at him suspiciously, but handed it over anyway.

  Charlie took the compass, dropped it to the ground, and then crushed it underneath his foot. Freight appeared just as crushed as Charlie unveiled the GPS he had in his pocket the whole time. Captain Rescue patted him on the back, and Freight returned the hero’s compassion with an elbow to the face. The group then spent the next few minutes huddled around the tiny GPS, pushing and shoving in a war for the best view. Eventually, after a fair amount of zooming in, out, left, right, up, and down, Charlie pinpointed the likely location of the secret laboratory of doom. Locating the structure shouldn’t have been that difficult, since the only signs of civilization within the forest just so happened to be the size of a few football fields.

  Thus, with a destination logged into the GPS, the heroes made their way into the forest. In preparation of his trip, Captain Rescue pulled his purple super socks out from under his spandex and yanked them as far up his leg as they’d go, creating a most fashionable look. If he feared one thing more than an epileptic seizure and tripods, it would be Lyme disease, easily his most reasonable fear. After allowing everyone else to precede him, Captain Rescue entered the woods. Instantly the tall trees seemed to surround him from every direction, and he had to concentrate extremely hard not to wet himself—or worse. His eyes darted between the trees he thought were trying to eat him and the ground he convinced himself held monsters that would crawl up his leg and sink their fangs into places very dear to him. In case anything tried to leap from the underbrush, he kept a can of pepper spray at the ready. In all likelihood, pepper spray would only annoy the creatures that lurked with these woods.

  Even scarier than the critters hiding underneath rocks were the natural sounds of the forest. While many would find these noises wondrous, Captain Rescue heard only the horrible sounds of death. Every rustle, every chirp, every howl would send his heart running for cover. In actuality, many of the sounds originated from Charlie, who enjoyed tormenting the man almost as much as his stroll through nature. Where Captain Rescue saw ghastly trees trying to wrap their thin branches around him, Charlie saw ancient and majestic beauties. The truth somewhere in the middle.

  A shriek shattered Charlie’s serene enjoyment of nature—everyone just assumed Captain Rescue had seen a caterpillar or almost stepped on a toad. But no, he caught a glimpse of something much more fantastic weaving in and out of tree cover, something large, bipedal, and hairy. Unable to muster the words to describe his sighting to the others, he simply mumbled incoherently. The group stopped dead in its tracks and turned to him, irritated. Behind them, Captain Rescue could see more movement in the trees. The tears welled in his eyes. The spit sprinkled from his mouth. He babbled incoherently, spurting words like “keyboard”, “wallet”, and “hurricane”. Captain Rescue’s sighting crossed the wires in his head, leaving him temporarily even more broken. He closed his eyes and prayed as more of the hairy beasts closed in.

  As the babbling idiot fell to his knees, Charlie caught a glimpse of one of the hairy beasts. He shoved Captain Rescue aside and, like a blue blur, sprinted off towards the source. Everyone but Stubbs followed in hot pursuit. The zombie stayed behind, unable to sprint. He would certainly fall apart at the seams if he tried. Instead, he just plopped down on a log and twiddled his thumbs. Luckily, being alone in The Haunted Forest was anything but harrowing for the zombie known as Stubbs. Nothing in this forest could come close to harming him, and even if it tried—it would certainly regret the decision shortly thereafter.

  Tree after tree flew past Charlie as he and the others chased down the source of the encounter. Deeper and deeper they went, just when one of the hairy beasts came within their grasp, it would disappear and reappear nearby. Finally, their chase ended as the ground beneath their feet vanished. Head over heels they tumbled down a hill, until finally piling on top of each other at the bottom. At first, they assumed the hairy beasts had gotten away. The dozen or so wooden spears pointed at their faces soon proved otherwise.

  Ever since Captain Rescue’s was a kid, he held a firm belief that these enigmatic creatures existed, but he never imagined he would have a chance to prove it. His tears and incoherent babbling stemmed from joy more than fear. The beasts now stood before him, seven feet tall, and covered with brown hair. They flicked their spears upwards, and with childlike amazement, he jumped to his feet and stared at the beasts. Then he proceeded to do something rather foolish when faced with potentially hostile animals and poked one their chests with his finger. Captain Rescue giggled with the excitement that they existed—even if they didn’t seem too pleased to make his acquaintance. He whipped a cell phone from his utility belt and snapped a series of blurry pictures. Once developed, they’d of course be indistinguishable from a man in an ape suit or a bear on its hind legs. Finally, Captain Rescue’s senses returned to him and he blurted out a single word: “Bigfoot!”

  A group of six of the bipedal apes had intercepted the heroes, led by a gigantic alpha male that towered over the already tall creatures. The leader looked down at the humans, both literally and figuratively, the ape wore its distrust of humanity plainly upon its face. If these people hadn’t been so hilariously dressed, it might have killed them anyway, but he had other orders. Their shaman had instructed the bigfoot to bring any humans found in these woods to him so he could speak to each and every one of them.

  Their spears motioned for the adventurers to follow. Captain Rescue, who had suddenly overcome his fear of the forest, stood first in line. He walked behind the bigfoot with boyish excitement, giggling at their muscular buttocks moving up and down. The hairy creatures led the heroes deeper into the forest, but since all the trees looked the same, they could have been going in circles for the bigfoot’s enjoyment.

  Captain Rescue finally worked up the courage to speak. “So,” he tried to think of what to say, all he could muster was, “How’s the weather in these parts?”

  The alpha male turned its head towards him and only grunted a few words in an unintelligible language. Captain Rescue could tell from the ape’s face that he wasn’t exactly in the mood for conversation. “I see…” he replied

  They walked in silence, and the hero kept any additional questions to himself. Not that he really cared, he was happy enough just being here amongst the apes. It was a childhood fantasy of his to meet these creatures and to play board games with them, although as he grew in age, his interest in board games diminished. The bigfoot, however, remained cemented in his psyche as a lifelong dream that he hoped to find one day fulfilled. That day had finally come.

  The bigfoot stopped and encircled a nondescript pile of leaves. Captain Rescue’s childlike glee persisted as the bigfoot knelt down and moved the camouflaged hatch aside, revealing a tunnel leading into the ground. The pitch black hole could have easily stretched for miles, but this didn’t s
top Captain Rescue from diving right in, unperturbed by anything that could be waiting at the bottom, be it spike-traps, a pit of snakes, or the Loch Ness Monster.

  After a short trek through the darkened tunnel, a faint light appeared ahead. Captain Rescue clapped excitedly and sprinted ahead of the others, who just let him run off. Kid’s got to learn, they thought—even if it meant angry spear toting primates impaled him. They watched as the lunatic exited the tunnel at nearly the speed of light. Then, as if he were somehow able to attain the speed of light and his mass had become infinite, he stopped suddenly and fell flat on his face. At first his friends assumed the bigfoot had stopped him, probably with a spear. However, they would soon realize he had simply overloaded with enthusiasm and short-circuited.

  They stepped through the tunnel’s threshold in awe. It opened into a large cavern that seemed natural, but had been expanded. This is what caused Captain Rescue’s overload: a sprawling underground city the hairy race of bigfoot called home. Tunnels dug into the cavern’s walls led out in every direction. Throughout the main hall were various makeshift buildings, some of which had a distinct familiarity to them, one was clearly a market, and another a church. Several of the other buildings had less obvious roles, such as homes or storage. They were all composed of materials gathered from the nearby forest. Hundreds of the hairy beasts went about their business, and only gave the newcomers occasional glances—some suspicious, some not. Their escorts left them at the entrance as they went off without saying—or doing—anything more.

  “Would you look at that,” Charlie said as he pointed towards a very familiar zombie who had found his way here before any of them.

  Off in a corner, Stubbs chatted away with one of the giant hairy beasts in their native tongue. The bigfoot’s sex was difficult to ascertain, but judging by the flirtation and its chest, which simple cloth covered—female was a safe bet, but since nobody really had a clue about the anatomy of bigfoot, they erred on the side of caution. As adorable as the sight was, it made them all a little sick to their stomachs, she did after all look like a bearded woman. Captain Rescue, on the other hand, thought the two were cutest couple since beauty and the beast, although none of them had a clue which was which. Stubbs playfully nudged her shoulder after chuckling at something she said, and then wiped away little bits of himself that had rubbed off. It took a while for Stubbs and his partner to notice their smirking onlookers.

  Charlie finally broke the silence. “So, you speak…Bigfootish?”

  “Yeah,” the zombie said, “who’d have thought.”

  “Interesting, that’s for sure.”

  “I wonder what possible reason there could it,” Stubbs said with much emphasis, as if the answer was somehow of great importance to them, like whoever had created the zombies had a plan in store for the bigfoot as well.

  “Hah, you’re weird,” Captain Rescue said as he tickled Stubbs’ stomach. The zombie mimicked a laugh for his sake.

  Everyone, including Stubbs and his mistress, roamed through the main hall on a self-guided tour. Someone had erected a central column in the very center of the city and painstakingly carved it into a statue. They stood before an impressive depiction of a muscular male holding a large staff above his head. They followed the statue downwards from there, taking in its beauty piece by piece. When they reached the halfway point, they were mildly appalled to see the statue’s groin staring back at them. Charlie had half a mind to cover it up with some kind of makeshift loincloth. However, he decided it best not to incite a cross species conflict.

  “Greetings humans… and rabbit,” an aged voice said softly.

  They spun around to see an elderly bigfoot with greying hair, holding a wooden staff in its hands. They looked back up to the statue, and then back down to the bigfoot. The group repeated this motion a few times, finally deciding that the two were indeed the same. Their eyes then traveled to the elderly bigfoot’s waste, which a loincloth conveniently graced.

  “Yes, that effigy is of me in my glory days.”

  “You can speak our language?” Dr. Malevolent asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, I can do more than speak your language,’ the shamanistic bigfoot replied as he played the air guitar on his staff like a rock god, inciting applause from Captain Rescue.

  “Yeah… uh, okay,” Charlie said, “and how may we help you?”

  “I bring age old wisdom and knowledge.” He continued playing more air guitar on his staff.

  “Why on Earth are you doing that?”

  “I must play to the spirits to appease them so that they may help you and all life.”

  “…and they respond well to air guitar?”

  “That… or the disco dancing,” said the shaman as he placed the end of his staff firmly on the ground and pounded rhythmically. “The knowledge I bring you is of a horror approaching of undead proportions.”

  “If you are referring to all the zombies… the ones like Stubbs over there,” Charlie said as he motioned to the zombie who had his hand around his newfound bigfoot girlfriend, “then you’re about six hours late.”

  “Yes—well, we yeti live on the outskirts of the human world and news travels slowly amongst us. Take for instance, we had no knowledge that rabbits as large as you existed.”

  Charlie lifted off his head to reveal the human sweating underneath. The shaman stumbled backwards in disbelief, “what strange magic is this?”

  “No magic, just a suit,” he said, handing the head to the shaman, who inspected it closely, feeling its fur and poking its eyeballs. He then slipped it over his head—a tight fit, but his chuckles hinted at his satisfaction.

  Inspection complete, the shaman gave it back to Charlie and said, “The undead are just the beginning.”

  “What are you getting at?” the bunny replied, shoving its head back onto its shoulders.

  “A foul wind has overtaken my people, and there is much unrest.”

  “Why do you have to speak in riddles?”

  The shaman glanced over its shoulder, making sure no one was listening in, “I’m unsure of the full extent of this plight, but something is influencing my brethren, turning them against you and your kind.”

  “’Our kind’ don’t even know you exist.”

  “I’m afraid that is soon to change.”

  The bunny shrugged, “What do you want from us?”

  “Nothing at the moment, I’m just warning you. Soon, you may be called on once more.”

  “Well jeez,” Charlie said, admittedly bored, “drop me an email if you have figure any of this out.”

  “Email?”

  “Yeah, never mind.”

  The shaman scratched its head, “Well, I must go pray to the spirits so that they may watch over us.”

  Charlie tried to keep from laughing underneath the bunny head, “Okay, you do that.”

  The shaman headed off, but soon stopped and looked over his shoulder, “I had our cooks prepare you some food, feel free to feast and then rest here for the night if you wish. We set you up some cots in the building nearest the feast.”

  The heroes meandered through the underground city for a few minutes, soon discovering the feast that had been laid out for them.

  Captain Rescue clapped and sprinted over to the tables, “I’m starved!”

  The others followed behind him, curious what kind of food the apes ate and expected them to eat.

  “Oh God,” Dr. Malevolent said, almost vomiting. Many of the dishes seemed to include insects and other small critters as their primary ingredient. A large bowl sat in the center of the table filled with slithering maggots, which interested Stubbs immensely.

  “Maggots!” his coarse voice said excitedly as he dug his hand into the bowl and pulled out a handful, shoving them into his mouth.

  Captain Rescue watched him closely as the maggots slid down his throat, falling out the many holes along what was left of his esophagus. Finally the hero said, “You don’t actually have to eat do you?”

  Mou
th stuffed, the zombie shook his head, “I sure don’t, but it’s still fun!”

  Dr. Malevolent could not stand to look at the creature any longer and turned her attention back to the table. Her second investigation unearthed treats more appealing to her pallet. The bigfoot had laid out a few dishes composed primarily of plant life. Dr. Malevolent had never before considered vegetarianism, but after watching a zombie shovel maggots into its face, she might convert.

  As she took a plate of leaves from the table, she glanced at Captain Rescue, who refused to stop staring at the zombie as he ate his maggots. She just rolled her eyes and shoved a handful of leaves into her mouth, somehow pleased with both their taste and texture. She looked next to Freight, and laughed. Within seconds, she had figured out his eating habits. Freight didn’t care what he ate or where it came from as evidenced by the creepy crawlies that he had already chewed to bits.

  She noticed Captain Rescue begin to slink away and watched him out of one eye. He hid in a corner and dug into his utility belt, soon pulling out a candy bar and opening its wrapper. As if under the impression that if caught, someone would take it away, Captain Rescue hid it in his hand while discreetly taking bites from it. Dr. Malevolent laughed to herself as an idea popped into her head.

  “What are you doing?!” She said with a stern voice, pointing at Captain Rescue.

  He slid the candy bar back into his utility belt, “Uh… nothing?”

  “No!” Dr. Malevolent continued, trying to keep from laughing, “You had something. What is it?”

  Captain Rescue hunkered down, “It was nothing… just a little snack.”

  “And you were trying to keep it from the rest of us? With all we’ve been through together?”

  Everyone had noticed the ordeal transpiring, and had surrounded the two.

  Captain Rescue glanced around in panic, “I’m sorry, I just don’t have enough for the rest of you! I hate plants and bugs!”

  “So you thought you’d hide over here in a corner while you gorged yourself?”

  “Yes,” he said, frowning.