Cuddly Holocaust

by Carlton Mellick III

  When they opened fire on her, Julie rolled sideways into the doctor’s cabin, over her tender arm, then slammed and bolted the door. She only had enough time to move a single cabinet in front of the door before they were outside, clamoring to get in.

  “Here,” the doctor yelled at Julie, tossing her a shotgun.

  The second she caught it, she pumped the shotgun and aimed it at the door. The stuffed animals outside roared, banging ferociously at the metal.

  “It’s reinforced steel,” the doctor said, trying to talk over the banging noises. “They won’t get in so easily.”

  The doctor was loading a heavy machine gun as he spoke.

  “Where the hell did you get all this stuff?” Julie asked, crouching behind a row of cabinets.

  The old creep had an entire arsenal beneath his operating table. Grenades, handguns, machetes, automatic rifles, he had it all.

  “A lot of dead bodies come my way,” said the doctor, positioning the weapon on top of the operating table, aiming for the doorway. “Whatever they got on them, I get to keep.”

  “The defense team could use that stuff,” Julie said.

  The old doctor spit across the grubby floor. “The defense team is probably dead by now.”

  Once he was ready, he nodded to Julie.

  “Open the door,” he said.

  Julie looked at the banging door, then back at the doctor. “Are you crazy?”

  “We need to take them out before reinforcements arrive,” he said. “It’ll catch them off guard.”

  Julie shook her fluffy head, but found herself complying. She moved the cabinet out of the way and prepared to unlatch the door.

  “Open it when I say,” said the doctor.

  They listened to the banging noises outside of the door, following the rhythm of the bangs as the stuffed animals tried to ram the door down.

  A second before the next bang, the doctor yelled, “Now!”

  Julie opened the door and the giant stuffed tiger tumbled forward into the room. It tripped face-first into the barrel of the doctor’s heavy machine gun.

  The fluffy tiger’s head was torn in half by an explosion of bullets. Electronic shrieks filled the room as the bullets ripped through two stuffed giraffes in the doorway.

  “Get down,” the doctor yelled.

  Julie jumped behind the cabinets as she saw the grenades in the old creep’s hands. He pulled the pins and tossed them into the hallway, then ducked behind the operating table. The remaining stuffed animals tried to run, but there was no cover in the hall.

  The second after the grenades went off, the doctor grabbed a .45 magnum revolver. “Come on.”

  Julie followed him out into the hallway. There were six stuffed animal soldiers writhing on the ground out there, full of shrapnel, in shock from the blast. The doctor didn’t hesitate for a second. He went from one animal to the next, putting massive bullet holes in their oversized fluffy heads.

  “Get that one,” the doctor yelled, pointing at a kitty cat that was crawling on its belly in the other direction.

  Julie ran after the wounded stuffed animal and aimed her shotgun at the back of its head. The thing whimpered, sparks popping from its electronic voice box.

  Before Julie pulled the trigger, the orange kitty cat looked up at her with wet blue eyes. Julie stepped back. There was something incredibly wrong with this one. Its eyes, they weren’t plastic. They were the eyes of a human.

  “Momma?” said the kitty cat.

  As Julie pulled the trigger, the stuffed animal’s face exploded, splattering brains across the floor and metal wall behind it. Julie nearly fell over when she saw the gore. It should have been filled with cotton and wires. Why did it have brains?

  She looked at the other corpses in the hallway. Their bodies were covered in blood. Most of them also had human eyes within their plushy heads.

  “Why are they bleeding?” Julie asked the doctor.

  The old man examined one of them: a sheep with red fluid caked in its white fur. He dipped his finger through a bullet hole and pulled it out bloody.

  “Interesting,” the doctor said, ignoring the sound of screams and gunfire fading into the distance. “Help me move it out of the hallway.”

  They dragged the sheep’s body into the doctor’s cabin.

  “How can it be bleeding?” Julie asked. “It’s just a smart-toy.”

  The doctor took a scalpel from his boiling coffee can and stabbed it into the sheep’s chest. He carved down its torso and then ripped open its belly, pulling out intestines like the guts of a Halloween pumpkin.

  “What the hell?” Julie said.

  The doctor found not only intestines, but a heart, lungs, a stomach, a circulatory system, even a brain.

  “They’re trying to become living beings,” the doctor said, leaning over the pile of toy guts.

  “What do you mean I’m just a toy?” Poro said to young Julie, standing on top of the coffee table and pointing a squishy paw at her. “I’m as alive as you is.”

  “Mommy says you’re not really alive,” Julie said. “You’re just a really smart toy.”

  “Just because I’m all stuffing and wires instead of meat and blood don’t mean I’m any less a living being,” Poro said.

  “But living beings have organs and stuff. You can’t be alive unless you have organs.”

  “Who cares about organs? They get diseased. They rot. You have to take good care of them or else you get sick. They’re just a pain in the ass if you ask me.”

  “It’s just what mommy keeps saying.”

  “Well, forget her. That broad ain’t know what she’s talking about.”

  The panda bear sat on the edge of the table, crossing its arms and pouting. Julie looked down at her hands. She didn’t want her friend to be too sad because of what she said.

  “I think you’re alive, Poro,” Julie said, leaning forward to pet his shoulder.

  The little panda smiled back at her and rubbed the top of her head.

  “Thanks, squirt,” he said. “I think you’re alive, too.”

  When Julie’s mother entered the room, she groaned loudly so that both of them could hear. “Julie, get that thing off the table.”

  “Who you calling a thing, lady?” Poro said.

  The mother ignored the toy.

  “Dinner’s ready,” she said. “Put that thing in your room and come eat.”

  “But Poro doesn’t like being alone.”

  “Poro will be fine,” said the mother, trying not to make eye contact with it. “Come eat.”

  Then she went back into the kitchen.

  “Don’t worry, squirt,” Poro said to Julie. “While the rest of the family has dinner, I’ll use the opportunity to sneak into your father’s porn collection. That should keep me busy for a while.”

  Julie didn’t know what he was talking about. She just smiled back, happy he didn’t mind that he wasn’t allowed at the dinner table.

  The doctor continued examining the plushy corpse even though he knew he didn’t have the time to linger.

  “Grab as many weapons as you can carry,” said the doctor. “We need to get out of here.”

  Julie went to the arsenal beneath the operating table and strapped ammunition belts around her waist and over her shoulders. The doctor filled a plastic container with the sheep’s guts.

  “What are you doing?” Julie yelled at him.

  “Taking samples,” said the doctor. “I need more time to study this.”

  “Let’s just go.”

  “One second…” the doctor said, shoving his arm deep inside of the sheep’s corpse. “I just need one more—”

  The doctor’s body exploded like a water balloon and pieces of him sprayed across the room. Julie fell back against the wall as sheep intestines rained down on her.

  “What the hell was that?” Julie said to the splatter of gore in the room.

  By the time she got back to her feet, she couldn’t tell which corpse was human and which was
the stuffed animal. Then there were three more explosions out in the hall. Then two more, blood spraying through the doorway in a red mist. It wasn’t until the corpse of the stuffed tiger exploded in the middle of the room that Julie understood what was going on—the plushies were booby trapped. They must have had explosives implanted inside of their bodies, designed to go off ten minutes after death.

  She couldn’t understand the logic in filling soldiers full of explosives. What if they went off while they were still alive? What if one of them died while in close quarters with their own troops? It didn’t make sense. But nobody really understood why the plushies did any of the things they did. Julie didn’t have time to worry about it. She had to get out of there.

  She looked down at the doctor’s splattered corpse and allowed herself three seconds to mourn the old man. Although she wasn’t very fond of him, he was the closest thing she had to a friend in that bunker. Nobody else would go anywhere near her once she started covering herself in panda fur.

  “Thanks for everything, you old creep,” she said.

  As she turned away from the red mess of meat, the sound of footsteps echoed through the hallway. It was an entire army of plushy feet marching in her direction, coming to investigate the slaughter of their fallen comrades.

  Julie looked over at the heavy machine gun, wondering if she should try to fight them off. But defeating them all by herself wouldn’t be possible.

  She went to the cabinet by the stove and retrieved the panda mask the doctor made for her. The second she placed it over her face, she was sure it wouldn’t work, even with the black makeup she applied to her eyes, lips, and nostrils.

  But then she examined herself in the mirror. The mask actually looked far more believable than she thought it would. It wasn’t nearly good enough to work for long. Even the dumbest of smart-toys would recognize she wasn’t one of them if they got within two feet of her face. But she had no other choice. The smart-toy army was just outside the room.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I want to get rid of that thing,” young Julie heard her mother saying to her father outside the kitchen.

  “Why?” said the father. “Julie loves that toy.”

  “The thing creeps the hell out of me,” said the mother. “And he’s got the personality of a perverted truck driver. This morning he was hiding in the bathroom while I was taking a shower, and do you know what he said to me when I caught him?”

  The father shrugged. “What?”

  “He said ‘Nice rack, toots,’” said the mother, trying to imitate Poro’s accent. “Is that really the kind of toy we want around our daughter?”

  “He’s harmless,” the father said. “It’s just the personality he was programmed with. It’s meant to be cute.”

  “He’s not cute. He’s vulgar. I want him out of this house.”

  “It would break Julie’s heart.”

  “I don’t care. She’s just a kid. We’ll buy her another stupid toy.”

  When Julie heard her say that, she ran into the dining room and yelled at them, “You’re not taking Poro away! You can’t!”

  “Goddammit,” the mother said, groaning. “You heard all of that?”

  “He’s my Poro,” Julie cried. “I love him!”

  “We’ll get you a new toy,” said her mother. “Anything you want.”

  “I don’t want anything else,” Julie said. “I love Poro. When I grow up, we’re going to get married and be together forever.”

  “Married?” said the mother, laughing. “He’s just a stuffed animal.”

  “No, he’s alive,” Julie said. “He’s alive! He’s alive!”

  Then she barricaded herself in her room with Poro.

  “What has gotten into her?” said the mother.

  “I told you,” said the father. “She loves that toy. Imagine how you’d feel if your parents tried to take away your puppy when you were a kid.”

  “That’s different,” said the mother. “Puppies are cute.”

  “That panda’s her best friend. Take him away and she’ll hold it against you for the rest of her life.”

  The mother just fumed.

  “This is all your fault,” she said. “You never should have gotten her that stupid thing.”

  “You’re the only one who hates him,” said the father.

  “It’s his behavior that I hate,” she said.

  “Well, maybe you should try talking to him,” said the father.

  “I’m not talking to a stupid toy,” she said.

  “Who knows, you might be able to reason with it.”

  Then the father went back to the kitchen and stuffed a toaster strudel in his mouth.

  When the plushy soldiers arrived in the doorway, Julie just ignored them, piling guns on the operating table as if she were just doing what she was supposed to be doing. She knew her best chance would be to remain calm and keep busy. Reacting to them in any way was the worst thing she could do.

  The leader of the group was a massive teddy bear, too large to even fit through the doorway. His eyes scanned the room and then locked on Julie. He just stared at her for a while, as if she didn’t belong.

  “What happened here?” asked the teddy bear.

  Julie placed a few more weapons on the table before responding. She made sure not to make eye contact, even for a second.

  “I found them this way,” Julie said. “All dead.”

  Her electronic voice was perfect. If all they heard was her voice they would never suspect her of being human. But still, the bear seemed suspicious. He kept staring, as if waiting for her to break character.

  “We don’t collect supplies until after the floor has been cleared,” said the bear.

  “The floor is clear,” Julie said.

  “I’ll decide when the floor is clear,” said the teddy bear.

  He glared at her a little longer. Julie realized that he wasn’t at all suspicious of her being human, but was suspicious of her being an insubordinate that wasn’t following orders.

  “Just get all of that topside,” said the bear. “Now.”

  Then he told his troops, “Move out.”

  Julie never looked at the bear’s face. She only saw his massive brown form within her peripheral vision. She hoped she wouldn’t have another run in with him again. Getting singled out by an officer would be the quickest way to end the deception.

  When she was finally alone, she backed up and took a deep breath. She didn’t leave the room until after the sound of marching footsteps faded to silence.

  “What’s up your ass now, lady?” Poro asked Julie’s mother.

  They were in her office. Julie’s mother wanted to have a word with the stuffed animal, talk to him about his behavior. Just as the father suggested, she was going to try to reason with him. But she just felt silly trying to have a serious conversation with a toy.

  “I just want to have a talk with you,” said the mother.

  “You sure you don’t want to fool around?” said the panda, gently rubbing the mother’s calf. “Your husband won’t be home for hours and I’m aching for some action over here.”

  The mother gasped and pulled away from him.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” she cried.

  “I’m just pulling your leg, lady,” said the panda. “Don’t get so bent out of shape. I don’t even have the proper equipment down here.” He pointed at his fluffy crotch. “They give me the sex drive of a horned up frat boy but no tools to do the job with. What’s up with that?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” said the mother, sitting down at the desk. “Your behavior. I find it completely inappropriate.”

  The panda hopped up into a chair facing her. “But I’m just being me.”

  “But I don’t want your lewd behavior around my daughter,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

  “You need to lighten up, lady,” said the panda. “Julie’s a smart kid. She gets it. She doesn’t need you censoring everything around her.
”

  “I’m not interested in hearing parenting advice from a damned stuffed animal,” she said.

  “Now you’re just being prejudiced,” Poro said.

  “Listen, if you don’t change your attitude I’m going to get rid of you,” said the mother. “That’s final. You’re the toy of a ten-year-old girl. You need to start acting like it.”

  The panda stared into space. He appeared to be angry. Frustrated. His tiny fists clenched. This reaction confused the mother.

  Then Poro finally said, “Do you really think I want to be the toy of a ten-year-old girl?”

  The mother didn’t know how to respond to that question.

  “How would you like it if you were just a toy?” said the panda. “Just a thing for a child’s amusement. No rights. No respect. Just a piece of property that will eventually get tossed out once the kid grows up and gets bored with you.”

  Julie’s mother was quiet for a moment.

  Then she shrugged at him. “I don’t know what to say. You should have been programmed differently. You should have been programmed not to care.”

  “Well, I guess they must have messed up when they programmed me…” he said.

  Poro jumped down from his chair and went toward the door.

  “Don’t worry about your kid,” he said. “I’ll try to be more careful with my language around her.”

  “Thank you,” said the mother. “That’s all I want.”

  Before he exited the room, he said, “Who am I to argue anyway? I’m just a toy, right? Just a toy.”

  Then he put his tiny black paw beneath the door and pulled it shut.

  Despite what Poro had said to Julie’s mother, he did not correct his behavior. He was still the foul-mouthed creep he had been the moment he arrived in the house.

  “Hello?” the mother said into the phone. “I want to make a complaint about the smart-toy I purchased for my daughter. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  After about twenty minutes of listening to classical guitar music, the mother hung up.