The Search for Ball Zero

by Tony Dormanesh

  King had to duck to enter the office.

  Click, Click. Click.

  “Fuck!” The Captain yelled! He scrambled to open his desk and yelled into the speaker, “They’re here! The fucking monkeys are here! HELP!”

  King hovered over him and growled. The Captain pulled a pistol out of his

  desk, swinging it at King. King caught his hand and squeezed, snapping it in multiple places.

  The Captain screamed in pain and yelled into the speaker, “The fucking monkeys are here. Hurry!”

  King grabbed the Captain’s face, kind of like how a grandma would grab a baby’s face, thumb on one side, fingers on the other. He growled,“Not Monkey!” King squeezed, stretching the Captain’s face skin and squishing his lips out. The Captain pounded on King’s massive arms fruitlessly. He tried to say something through his squished lips. King squeezed slowly like a vice, not in a hurry. The skin on the Captain’s face stretched to its maximum and began to tear around his jaw. The Captain’s eyes closed in agony and his mouth made some unintelligible noise. King could feel teeth popping out in the Captain’s mouth. Blood poured from under the Captain’s jaw. King kept closing the vice, he felt lips separating from face. The ripping was loud enough he could hear it. The Captain gurgled. King stopped squeezing and pulled slowly. With a terrible tearing sound, the Captain’s face slowly separated from his head. Tendons stretched and snapped. King used his leg to hold the Captain’s body in his seat while his face separated. Blood poured from the other side of the Captain’s face. With a final pull King ripped off the Captain’s face. His jaw was partially broken and loose teeth danced on his bloody tongue as his skinless face screamed and twisted. His eyes were still in his head, but without any eye lids. Blood poured over his eyes, painting his vision red. He saw his own face and tried to scream, but what came out was a loud gurgle.

  He wasn’t dead. Blood was pouring from his forehead over the white skinless

  skull of his brow. His nose was a bloody, bubbly black hole. King took his foot off the Captain’s chest, stood back and held up the Captain’s face. The Captain kept screaming and gurgling, he reached up and touched his bloody mess that used to be a face and tried to stand up. Teeth fell out of his head as he stood up and wavered like a crazed movie monster.

  “Grg, My.. Blrg Faaayce!” The Captain yelled, hands up at his face as he stumbled around like a bloody Home Alone poster. King politely stepped out of his way as the Captain stumbled by. He saw his reflection in a monitor and screamed even more maniacally. He tried leaving the cockpit, he had to walk down the hallway where all his crew was gathered. He walked like a zombie through the hallway, holding onto the walls to not fall over, stopping to scream every few steps. It was awkward for the crew members, their asshole boss with his face ripped off falling around in front of them. None of them wanted to help though, they all knew he was an Evil Dick. A female member turned around, disgusted by the faceless monster. As he walked by, one of the crew members couldn’t help it and started laughing. The Captain stopped in front of the laughing crewman and looked at him. The crew member held in his laugh, barely. Then the Captain let out the a miserable and desperate scream. He stumbled towards the door again. He stopped screaming for a second, opened the outer door, stepped out and started screaming again.

  As he stumbled out someone cheered,”Fuck that guy!” It was the last words the Captain heard.

  He was standing on the outer walkway at the top of the warstore. Slash stepped through the doorway. The Captain turned towards Slash, and let out a new sounding scream. Slash had the M16 and let the Captain stand there screaming for a few long moments, then fired a burst and the Captain’s faceless head exploded mid scream. Brain flew out the back of his head like a confetti cannon into the dark night behind them. The scream quickly descended back to a gurgle, and the body started to lose balance. A piece of brain slid out from his shattered skull like it was on a blood waterslide and slapped the walkway. His body flopped down next to it.

  King and Slash stood near the outer door at the top of the warstore. Looking out

  into the night, almost their entire tribe was dead, Mosh Tree was gone, but on the other hand, now they had a warstore.

  31

  THE REAL THING

  Throughout the night the tribe counted their losses. A pair of Tall and Short had gotten loose in the tribe hallways and wreaked havoc. They did almost as much damage as the warstore. Tall ripped the hollow trees with it’s spikey feet and short zipped through the hallways. This short was equipped with a flame thrower. Together they destroyed all the tribe’s trees and most of their underground hallways. The rest of the tribe decided to gather in the garage.

  Tony, L and Perry approached the guest room and saw smoke coming from

  where the door used to be. They all ran up to the room. There was no signs of life. Perry’s clone and girlfriend were dead, burned in the bed. They looked like they were sleeping. Perry’s girlfriend’s perfectly cloned ass was sticking out of her robe, course.

  “Fozzie!?” L yelled! They looked around, there was no sign of her. “Foz!” L called out again and Fozzie trotted out from underneath a bed. “Ohh my God!” She said and hugged the dog.

  Perry ran past his burned clone and ex-girlfriend, ducked behind his bed and grabbed at something. “Thank God!” He said, holding up his drug suitcase.

  Their stuff was mostly there. It seemed like the robots just burned the two

  clones. The Humans got their stuff, and got ready to leave. Tony loaded his guns, he looked up with his serious face on at L and Perry. They did the same. They used to keep their guns in their pack, not anymore. They were packed and locked and loaded. Leaving their new room possibly for the last time. Perry was the last to leave and said, “I’ll miss you.” as he patted his exes exposed ass on the way out. They made their way to the garage.

  As they approached the garage location, they passed many of the hollowed out

  trees that used to be the tribe hallways and homes, destroyed, knocked over and burnt. The massive warstore was parked next to the garage, sitting awkwardly out in the open.

  There were less than 30 of the tribe that survived. King stood in front of the

  survivors in the garage, next to a destroyed Tall and Short. Slash was there. L ran up and hugged Janis, who was running to meet her. Bob Marley made it. Perry looked everywhere, Candy wasn’t there. Moon sat sadly in a corner, next to one of his drums. Many of the tribe were injured, with makeshift walking canes and splints made of branches.

  “They attack us!” King said loudly. “We kill robots!” He pointed to the smashed robots next to him, and continued louder,”We take big machine!”, King announced and pounded his chest, building up to a yell,“We kill Company!”

  The small group cheered, it was enthusiastic, they were upset, injured and angry, but it was a meager cheer compared to the 1000 members the tribe had before.

  King invited Tony up with him. “You tell.” King said.

  “Well, they’ve been releasing a new warstore every week. Tonight is the 7th

  day, a new war machine will roll out tonight.” Tony explained. “We have this one, it’s not very damaged and is in working order.” Tony looked down at Bob Marley,”Bob and I both know how to pilot the machine. Bob is very good. We’ll be on equal ground with

  The Company. I think we can defeat any warstore one on one.”

  The tribe looked around at each other, one chimp patted Bob on the shoulder and said something.

  Tony continued, motioning towards King,”Plus, King and a few others took the giant machine all by themselves! I think we have the advantage.”

  King took over,”Rest today. Leave tonight. Ready battle tonight!”

  The group relaxed and started talking amongst themselves. Tony hopped down and walked up to Bob, and they both walked towards the warstore.

  Tony and Bob went up the warstore cockpit. There was a lot of blood in the hallways. Bob leaned over and picked up something l
ike a tooth, then figured out it was a tooth, and threw it down.

  Bob sat down in the pilot seat. He had been playing that warstore simulator ever since Tony discovered it a few days ago, things seemed familiar to him. Tony looked over his shoulder and they talked, pointing at the screen every once in a while.

  “I can drive dis ting mon.” Bob was confident.

  “Yea, but what about the guns? You can’t shoot them from here.” Tony questioned.

  They looked around the cockpit at the different stations and monitors. “Here mon.” Bob said,”We need anoder rasta over here.” All the guns, canons and even the Scorpion missile were controlled at another station. It wasn’t too far away. Bob sat at the pilot’s station and reached his feet and tail over towards the weapons station. He laughed knowing his feet wouldn’t reach,“Damn mon.”

  “Is that it?” Tony asked out loud. There were around 20 different stations scattered throughout the cockpit. Tony and Bob scouted each station.

  “Dis radar.”

  “Yea, most of this is BS. Communications. Shopping monitor. Inventory control.” Tony listed off the monitors as he walked by them. Many of the cockpit stations had to do with the selling part, the “Store” part of the warstore.

  “Don need dose to kick ass mon.” Bob said.

  “Haha, yep.” Tony laughed.

  Tony stopped at a station,”This one looks like fuel or something.” He looked down, reading and opening menus. “Nuke?” He said questioning.

  “Wat dat?” Bob asked.

  “Wow. Okay.” He said as he read. He kept reading and touching the screen, “This thing is powered by a nuclear engine.” “Wat dat?” Bob asked again.

  “If it blows up.” Tony answered, then used exaggerated arm movements to

  illustrate his next point,”Big Booooom! Everyone around it will die.”

  “Also,” He kept reading,”it will never run out of power. For ten years.”

  Bob stared at him and didn’t say anything for a while, then,”Damn mon.” Then

  continued to explore the stations.

  A beep came from a station. They both ran over and looked. It was some sort of messaging. It was from Elohssa HQ. The screen said one word,”Report?”

  Bob went over and started typing,”F. U. C. K. Y. O.”

  Tony interrupted,”Wait!”

  Bob looked over at him, “Wat mon?” and typed “U”, then hit send.

  After a short silence another beeping started. This time from down the hall in

  the Captain’s office. They ran over, almost slipping on the bloody floor and through the bullet riddled door hanging off the hinges. Tony hit answer and the speaker phone turned on with some static.

  “Hello?” A weasle-y speaker asked.

  Tony answered in a deep strange voice, in some weak attempt to disguise his voice,“Hello?”

  “Who is this?” The speaker asked again.

  Tony attempted his best Rambo impression,”I’m your worst nightmare.”

  “What? Who?” The speaker said. “What?” Tony turned off the mic, Bob and him both laughing.

  “Hilarious mon.” Bob slapped him some skin, even though he had never seen Rambo.

  Tony sat in the Captain’s office chair. There was a pistol laying on the ground. Tony grabbed it and threw it to Bob. He opened the Captain’s top desk drawer. A pencil rolled from the back to the front of the drawer. It was mostly empty, like it hadn’t been used much or was brand new. In the next drawer was a phat stack of cash and a bunch of old pictures held together with rubber bands. Tony grabbed the pics, grimaced in disgust and quickly dropped it back in the drawer.

  They figured out how two people could pilot the warstore. It wouldn’t have all

  of its functionality, but they didn’t need most of it. They needed to move and shoot. One combat feature they needed another person for was to launch the drones and give them commands. They were pretty much ready to go. The simulator had taught them a lot.

  As they were leaving they noticed a giant pile of what could only be described

  as stuff behind the warstore. The tribe was going through the “Store” part of the warstore. There was clothing of all types, games, toys, knick knacks, tons of food. It was like Christmas back there.

  32

  W00T

  One chimp held up a blue women’s top, it was mostly lace and had two tassels to cover nipples. “Human wear?” the chimp asked.

  Tony shook his head in agreement,”Yep.” The chimps laughed. One held up the top like he was wearing it and did a bad imitation of a human walking.

  L and Janis were at the pile of stuff, eagerly going through the clothes. Janis

  was finding a lot of stuff she liked. L waved Tony over. She had a big pile of boxes next to her that looked like remote control cars. Tony looked closer, they were toy drones, dozens of them.

  “Starting a collection?” Tony asked.

  “I just thought maybe they could help.” L said.

  “With what?”

  “The fight.” She replied. She didn’t sound confident,”I don’t know, maybe a distraction or something. Remember when the two warstores fought, that one used a lot of drones.”

  She was right Tony thought, “Yea, and those drones that were flying around

  burning things.” He said to her. “It could probably distract those things. That’s a damn good idea.”

  L continued,”They even come with batteries.” She reached down and picked up a controller and a drone took off from the ground. “Now we just need a 1000 people to fly each of em.”

  Perry had walked up,”They must have cameras in this fucking Walmart tank. Attach a camera to one of those drones and boom, you can fly into any girl’s locker room!” He laughed,”Or it could be a scout.” “Come on, I’ll show you.” L said and they started walking towards the warstore.

  The back customer exit door was open, they went in. There was a conveyor

  belt, like a flat escalator, that went around 100 feet and then turned. A few feet from the conveyor belt on both sides were walls covered in ads. Each set of ads along the wall had a robot arm folded in front of it. L walked over and pushed on the wall, it turned, “Look. Microwaves!” She laughed.

  It was kind of like Willy Wonkas chocolate factory, but instead of candy it was

  all just random products. It was also like being in a Amusement Park after it was closed with all the rides turned off, since nothing was moving, all the screens were off. They could only imagine what it would be like in its full glory.

  Perry ran over to a wall and pushed it open, it was the rainbow dildos, he ripped open a box and started throwing them over his head like someone celebrating in a pile of cash. “Yaay!” He yelled, “My favorite!” Then he looked around and seemed to get sad. He looked down at a handful of rainbow dildos,”These remind me of her.” “Who? The pregnant clone chick?” Tony asked.

  “You promise not to get mad?” Perry was looking at L.

  “Who am I, your mom?” She replied.

  Tony looked at Perry and knew that face,”You fucked Candy didn’t you?” Perry smiled and said nothing.

  “What?!” L and Tony yelled.

  L continued,””Ohh! My God you’re disgusting!”

  Tony made a face and asked, “Yea man, isn’t that how AIDS started?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Perry denied. Then he grabbed an armful of rainbow

  dildos and hugged them, looking up dreamily. “I think she got killed in the attack.”

  “Almost everyone did.”

  “I loved her.” Perry said and fell back into the pile of dildos.

  Tony and L looked at each other amazed. Perry had never said that in his life.

  He was anti love.

  “Dis good!” A chimp rummaging in front of them said.

  The Humans went over to where he was. It was like a medieval armory, swords,

  battle axes, morning stars, suits of armor.

  “We could probably u
se some of that.” Tony thought.

  “Medieval melee weapons versus machine guns and robots?” Perry questioned. “Hahaaaa!” L yelled, she had found an oversized Viking helmet and swung a

  way too heavy, two sided battle axe. The axe head fell to the ground in her one arm, with her other arm she made devil horns “METAL!” They laughed at her display.

  The Humans and the chimp gathered the weapons and armor and started taking them outside the warstore.

  Some of the tribe had found a stash of tasers and pepper spray in the warstore and had 2 piles of them outside.

  Tony looked at their war chest,”Remote control drones, medieval weapons and armor, tasers, and pepper spray. Elohssa better watch out!”

  L looked up from under her huge helmet, like a kid wearing a costume way too big,”Aww yeah!”

  Perry added,”And rainbow dildos!” He shook it near his face and then pretended to stab someone with it. That devolved into a strange seductive charade that ended with Perry having sex with the invisible person he stabbed.

  33

  KICK ASS

  That afternoon they had a meeting to discuss strategy and prepared to leave. Before the meeting officially started, Perry stood up. “Ok, so what the fuck are we trying to do?”

  King answered,”Kill Company.”

  “You can’t kill a company.” Perry answered back in a high voice.

  “Kill building. Kill company.” King answered confidently.

  Tony jumped in,”You’ve seen the Elohssa building?”

  King said,”Me not see.”

  “I saw it.” Bob cut in. “I was dere mon. We did a Jeep recon up dere.”

  “Where is it?” Tony asked.

  Bob pointed North. “It be bein huge mon.” “Was it like a Death Star?” Perry asked. “It was a building mon.” Bob answered.

  “Yea, but did it have guns all over it and spaceships flying around and shit?” Perry asked again.

  “Na mon.”

  Tony liked that answer and thought out loud,”Hhmm. Maybe we can just drive

  up there and blow the shit out of that place with their own warstore?” “It can’t be defenseless.” Perry said.