Cuddly Holocaust

by Carlton Mellick III

  “Six prisoners, six horses,” said Choppy the Bulldog. “Perfect.”

  “Not quite,” said the Captain. He pointed at the sixth sphere. It had a red cross on the side. “The medical horse will carry Griz.”

  The medical horse did not contain a prison cell on its back end. Instead, the hatch was designed to transport the wounded. The flower and turtle loaded the enormous teddy bear—now a mummy of bandages and gauze—on a stretcher into the back of the horse, trying to squeeze his massive belly inside without opening his wounds.

  “Be careful with him,” the kangaroo yelled at the turtle medic. “Idiots.”

  “So we only have room for five prisoners?” Velvet asked. “What do we do with the sixth?”

  Captain Caw pointed at one of them. “Kill the old woman.”

  The old lady’s eyes darted at Julie with a desperate look on her face, then she looked back at the kangaroo.

  “Yes, sir,” Velvet said.

  The old woman opened her mouth, as if to tell the kangaroo that she had important information for him.

  But the only word she was able to get out was: “Wait—”

  The purple bunny slid a razor-sharp wire out of a bracelet on her wrist, wrapped it around the woman’s neck and pulled it through her throat, cutting through flesh and bone as if it were clay. The old woman’s head fell off and rolled across the grass, landing below Julie’s feet.

  Julie looked down at the woman’s head, watching the last glint of life fade from her eyes. If the bunny didn’t kill her fast enough she would have blown Julie’s cover.

  The prisoners tried not to make eye contact with Julie, but she glared at them anyway. She warned them with her eyes that they had better not become a problem for her.

  A boy no older than twelve was loaded into the cell on Julie’s horse. He was to be her responsibility until they got to the smart-toy base.

  “You fuck up my plans and you’re dead,” Julie told him as she climbed up the ladder into the cockpit of her vehicle.

  The boy was quiet, too frightened to even speak.

  Inside the cockpit, she had four minutes to learn the controls. Since the war with the toys broke out, she hadn’t really had the opportunity to learn how to drive anything, not even a car. But the controls seemed simple enough. There were pedals at her feet for stopping and moving. The steering controls were like that of a motorcycle, which she completely understood. But there were all sorts of buttons that made little sense to her.

  To her right, she watched as Velvet powered up her vehicle. The black sphere zoomed into life and raised up into the air. Were they flying machines? When Julie hit a button at random, the large green button that seemed the most obvious on-switch, her horse also raised high up into the air. But the vehicle wasn’t hovering, it was bouncing.

  “What is this thing?” asked the boy in the back of Julie’s horse. She could hear him through the floor. “It’s like a big spider.”

  When he described it as a spider, Julie realized what she was driving.

  “It’s a smart-toy known as a slinky-spider,” she told him.

  Eight metal slinky legs emerged from the sides of the sphere, lifting Julie and her prisoner into the air. They bounced and bobbed on their slinky legs, waiting for the other plushy riders to fall in line.

  “I’ve never seen one in person before,” Julie said. “But I remember seeing commercials for slinky-spiders when I was a kid. The ones back then were much smaller though, designed for little kids to drive around the backyard like tricycles.”

  “It’s a smart-toy?” the boy cried. “It’s as intelligent as a person?”

  “The slinky-spiders I remember had artificial-intelligence. But they were only as smart as horses, not as smart as humans. They were only intelligent enough to give tiny children horsey rides while evading dangerous obstacles such as tree branches and pools.”

  When Captain Caw led the group out of the field, Julie took up the rear. She only had to move the toy in the direction she wanted it to go. The slinky-spider was able to walk on its own.

  “But these slinky-spiders are huge,” Julie told the boy. “The plushies must have built these larger models and turned them into war machines.”

  The horse’s eight slinky legs were the length and width of telephone poles, raising her higher than the trees. When she walked, the legs coiled up and down, like slinkies rolling down stairs.

  “Your name’s Julie, right?” the boy asked her.

  “Not anymore,” she said. “Now I’m Poro. That’s my panda name. If you call me Julie again I will kill you.”

  He was silent for a moment after that.

  Then he said, “My name is Riley.”

  “I would say it’s nice to meet you, Riley,” she said. “But I’m not interested in making friends.”

  “Why are you doing this anyway?” he asked. “Why did you kill that woman? Why did you want to become one of them?”

  “Enough with the questions, kid,” Julie said. “I can’t have you fucking up my mission.”

  “Is it an important mission?” asked the boy. “Are you going to assassinate their leaders or something?”

  “Nothing like that,” she said. “It’s personal.”

  She tried to shut the kid up, but the more she answered his questions the more he felt comfortable around her. And the more comfortable he felt around her the more he wanted to ask her questions. It wasn’t long before he got her to tell him her entire story.

  “My parents are being held captive in the prison camp nearby,” Julie said. “I’ve vowed to get them out of there. No matter what.”

  The six slinky-spiders entered the badlands, bouncing up and down through the skeletal buildings. Julie didn’t understand why this area was called the badlands. It looked the same as everywhere else: miles and miles of destroyed buildings and wreckage, black vines growing over concrete, human bones littering the streets. But the smart-toys were terrified of it. She didn’t understand it at all. These were smart-toys. What was more dangerous than smart-toys?

  About an hour into the badlands, Riley said to Julie, “It’s too bad you won’t be able to save your parents.”

  “What are you talking about?” Julie asked.

  “None of you are going to get through the badlands alive.”

  “What do you know about the badlands?”

  “I know enough about the area not to take this route,” said the boy. “You’re headed directly through the center of Whiner territory. Once you go in, there’s no getting out alive.”

  “What is Whiner territory?”

  “My father knew more about the Whiners than anyone,” Riley said. “He was a scout. He said they obliterated anything that entered their kill zone.”

  “Are they toy or human?” Julie asked.

  “Well…” Riley thought about it. “I guess you could say a little of both. They’re called Whiners because of the sound they make when they attack.”

  Julie looked at her control panel. She knew the slinky-spider was armed but couldn’t tell how to use the weaponry. There were red buttons on the handles of her controls, but she wasn’t sure what they did.

  “How far away are we?” Julie asked.

  “They’ll attack at any second.”

  Julie wondered if there was a way to communicate with the other plushies, warn them about what was ahead. But she didn’t know what button did what. She also didn’t like the idea of drawing attention to herself.

  As their slinky legs bounced over the rubble, through areas that normal vehicles could never travel, Julie watched for signs of an ambush. But nothing happened. Minutes passed, then nearly an hour, but there was no attack.

  “Are you fucking with me, kid?” Julie said. “There’s nothing out here.”

  “I’m telling you this is exactly where my dad said they were,” Riley said. “He told me never to venture this way. It was a death trap.”

  “Maybe he was telling you a lie,” Julie said. “Or maybe the Whiners die
d out a long time ago. When did he tell you these Whiners were in this area?”

  “Just last week,” Riley said.

  “What?”

  “The Whiners wiped out my father’s scouting team just last week.”

  An explosion rumbled the earth. Then the sound of thundering metal and concrete echoed through Julie’s vehicle as a row of buildings collapsed before them.

  “They’re here,” Riley shouted.

  The collapsing buildings caused a landslide. A wave of debris crashed through their row of slinky-spiders, wiping out two of them in the center and separating Julie from the rest.

  “What the fuck?” Julie cried.

  It was Captain Caw and Choppy the Bulldog who got caught in the landslide. The slinky legs of their vehicles twisted and knotted into the debris, trapping them, rendering them useless. The rubble continued piling forward, sweeping them away.

  “Where are they?” Julie cried, searching for the enemy. “I don’t see them.”

  But she heard them. Squealing, whining noises echoed through the streets around her.

  “Back here,” Riley yelled. “They’re coming up behind you.”

  Then Julie found herself trapped between the landslide of rubble and the army of Whiners coming from behind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Young Julie was walking with Poro in the park one day when she came across two boys her age playing war. She saw them from the swings, watching them as they set up rows of small green army men on the slide and jungle gym. They each had twelve men.

  Once they were all in position, the two boys stood clear and watched as their figures came to life. They fought each other, shooting tiny machine guns and tossing grenades.

  “Wow!” Julie said to Poro.

  “Them toys have got real weapons!” Poro said, equally impressed by the army men.

  Julie went over to the two boys and kneeled behind them. She watched over their soldiers as the two teams of men killed each other. They even bled or lost limbs in combat. It was brutal.

  “What kind of smart-toys are those?” Julie asked the boys.

  One of them looked over at her and sneered. “Shut up, we’re trying to watch.”

  “My team’s going to win,” said one boy.

  The other boy pushed him. “No way, your team sucks.”

  When all the soldiers on one side were killed, the boys cheered and hollered. One of them raised his fist in triumph, the other lowered his head in shame.

  “I told you your team sucks!” said a boy.

  Julie watched as the two surviving soldiers wandered the battlefield, tending to their fallen comrades.

  “Are they dead?” Julie said. “The ones who were shot, are they really dead?”

  “No, stupid,” said a boy. “They can fix themselves.”

  Julie watched as the toys repaired their wounded bodies.

  “Are their guns real?” Julie asked.

  “Yes.” It was clear by the sound of their voice that they were annoyed by Julie’s company, but she didn’t catch on.

  “What if they shoot you?” she asked. “Would you get killed?”

  “No, dummy,” said a boy as he retrieved his army men from the sand. “They’re programmed not to shoot humans. Don’t you know anything?”

  Julie noticed the boys were both wearing camouflage canvas vests with dozens of pockets on the front like fishing jackets.

  “Up,” one of the boys said to his toys.

  Using miniature grappling hooks, the soldiers climbed up the boy’s legs and torso. Each one crawled into its own pocket on his vest, then peeked out at Julie with their weapons at the ready.

  “Those are neat,” Julie told the boy.

  “I know,” he said. “And they’re expensive.”

  “I have a smart-toy, too,” Julie said, holding out Poro.

  “Those are for babies,” said the boy, rolling his eyes at the panda.

  Julie frowned and hugged the panda to her chest.

  “Oh, I’m for babies, am I?” Poro yelled at the kid.

  “Those things are for poor retards,” the boy said.

  “Why don’t you come closer and say that to my face, punk?” Poro yelled, reaching out with his paws as if trying to strangle the boy. “I’ll rip your dick off and shove it up your ass!”

  The boy’s mouth dropped open in shock. He had never seen such an angry foul-mouthed toy before. He stepped quickly away from Poro.

  “That’s right, run you shithead,” Poro yelled at the boy as he left the playground with his friend. “You fuck with me and you get ass-raped by your own dick!”

  Julie ignored Poro’s rage. Instead, she was lost in thought.

  “I didn’t know there were other kinds of smart-toys out there besides stuffed animals,” she said to Poro.

  “Oh yeah,” Poro said. “There’s lots of kinds of smart-toys. There’s smart-soldiers, smart Barbie dolls, robots, clowns. You don’t need any of those, though. You’ve already got me.”

  “Yeah, I don’t need any stupid army men,” Julie said. “You’re way better.”

  But even though she said that, deep down she thought the little green soldiers were really neat toys.

  Julie was left all alone to fight the swarm of Whiners as they crawled out of the city ruins after her.

  “What the hell are they?” she said. “They’re not human, right? They can’t be.”

  The Whiners were shadowy forms staggering into the daylight. Smoke rising from holes in their faces, their arms outstretched, their mouths wide open.

  “They’re not human anymore,” Riley said. “They’ve been dead for a long time.”

  The Whiners were walking, shrieking dead bodies. Like a horde of zombies, they lurched forward through the ruins. But when they got close enough for Julie to see them, she understood what they really were.

  “Get down,” Julie yelled at the kid in her trunk.

  Dozens of miniature green smart-soldiers popped up from holes inside of the zombies’ chests and fired at Julie’s vehicle. They were using the dead bodies for transportation. Based on the smoke issuing from their heads, Julie believed the corpses were now steam-powered machines. The whining shrieks coming from their throats were like steam-whistles.

  Like foxholes, the soldiers hid within the zombies’ pockets of flesh to reload or take cover, then they popped back up to fire again.

  “Sneaky little fucks,” Julie said.

  Unlike the stuffed animals who built themselves larger human-sized bodies to better fight their enemies, the smart-soldiers preferred their miniature size. They felt it gave them an advantage over those with bigger forms.

  “Get us out of here,” Riley yelled.

  Julie turned her slinky-spider around and faced the Whiners. There weren’t just a few. There were hundreds of them. And each Whiner carried dozens of soldiers.

  “What are you doing?” Riley said. “You have to run. You can’t fight them.”

  Julie put her fingers on the red buttons on the sides of her control handles.

  “These things are way too slow for running,” she said. “I want to see what kind of firepower they have.”

  Julie squeezed the triggers, but her weapons did not fire.

  “What the hell?”

  Over twenty of the mini-solders pulled out new weapons from their flesh foxholes. These were much larger than machine guns. Julie didn’t realize they were rocket-launchers until after the soldiers fired their missiles all at the same time.

  As the tiny rockets flew toward her, she hit the red triggers again. Then she discovered they were not for firing the vehicle’s weapons. The buttons caused her vehicle to do something else.

  The slinky-spider was lowering, shrinking toward the ground. At first, she thought she had turned the vehicle off. She hit other buttons on the dashboard, but nothing would stop its descent nor fire any weapons. Julie just watched as the Whiner missiles closed in on her.

  When her slinky-spider hit the ground, there was an expl
osion of air. Then the vehicle’s slinky legs sprang into the sky.

  “What?” Julie cried.

  She found herself high above the battlefield, practically flying.

  “What!”

  The spider had leapt the height of four skyscrapers, dodging the smart-soldier missiles. She saw the explosion take out half the block. All that was left was a cloud of flame. Those missiles might have been tiny, but each one was like a miniature nuke.

  Then Julie’s slinky-spider fell back to Earth.

  “Hold on,” she yelled to Riley.

  She had no idea what to do next. At that drop, they would surely be killed. The vehicle didn’t even have seat belts.

  While bracing herself, Julie accidentally hit a pedal on the ground she had not noticed before. It caused a burst of gunfire to pour from the front of the horse.

  “The gun?” she said, realizing she had just found the firing mechanism for her horse’s weaponry.

  As she fell back to Earth, she slammed her foot down on the firing pedal and rained bullets on top of the Whiners. She had no idea if she would live or die, but at that moment all she cared about was taking those bastards with her.

  Julie’s slinky-spider bounced when it hit the ground, leapt over the battlefield, and landed on top of a sturdy nearby building. From up there, Julie was able to fire upon the Whiners from safety. Her weapons had better range than theirs.

  “How the hell did you do that?” Riley asked.

  “I have weird luck like that,” Julie said.

  Upon closer inspection, Julie realized that her bullets were having no effect on the Whiners. Although she was landing crucial shots on the walking dead vessels, she was unable to hit any of the miniature soldiers contained within. She wasn’t even able to kill their human hosts. Because they were already dead, the best she could do was slow them down by aiming for the legs. She stopped firing at the Whiners when she realized it was useless.

  “Why are they doing this?” Julie asked her prisoner.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The soldiers,” she said. “Why are they fighting with other smart-toys? I thought they were all on the same side.”