by Ian Watson
Sean said, “What’s going on?”
“Of course, it’ll take a while for me to scoot back and forth, and you’ll be stood out here the whole time. Middle of the road, middle of the night, you don’t want that. You want, you can hop in the back of the truck and come along.”
“We’ll manage,” Kelly said. “Thanks anyway.”
“I’m not staying out here,” Sean said.
She met his gaze. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
He thought a while. Seconds later, his features brightened with recognition.
“We can bring it along,” he said.
Kelly shot him a you gotta be kidding look, but he ignored it and opened the shotgun door. Bringing out a canvas sack, he looked at the old man and said, “Let’s go.”
They climbed into the back of the truck. When they were set, Sean slapped the sides and they drove away.
Kelly waited until the truck hit fourth gear, then grabbed Sean’s ear and pulled his face level with hers. “Are you out of your damn mind?”
He shrugged.
“Dumb question,” she said. “You don’t think there’s a possibility he’s heard about the robbery? That two strangers carrying a sack might just arouse his suspicion?”
He shrugged again.
“You shoulda said something,” he said.
She wanted to hit him, and almost did. What stopped her was the knowledge that she’d be observed in the rear-view mirror.
“You don’t say a goddamn word from now on,” she said. “You don’t speak, look up or move unless I tell you. Clear?”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Nobody is. That’s the trouble.”
They arrived at a two-acre farmstead and pulled into a door less garage that didn’t house any other vehicles. Looking around, Kelly saw milking sheds, hay barns and grain silos, but what stood out was the squat, square stone building with stained-glass windows. A brass plaque named it Halter Devil Chapel.
“You’re shitting me,” Sean said. “A chapel?”
“Built in 1723,” the old man said. “The farmer here then was a lush, and one night during a storm he tried to put the halter on what he thought was his horse, until a flash of lightning revealed the animal had horns. He naturally assumed it was the Devil, sobered up and built this place.”
“Fascinating,” Kelly said.
“One day my boy’s gonna get married here.”
“How old is he?” Sean said.
The old man’s face dropped and he didn’t respond.
Kelly looked at her watch. “Well, it’s been great….”
The old man said, “Uh huh”, took the hint and led them into the farmhouse.
It wasn’t much: a smallish kitchen and a front room, but it was tidy and looked comfortable. Sean dropped the canvas sack and wiped his brow.
“Heavy?” the old man said.
“You’ve no idea.”
“What you got in there, stolen jewels?”
Sean grinned.
“Now how did you know that?” he said.
“Because I heard about it on the radio.”
Shit, Kelly thought.
The old man smiled. “Still want that rope?”
She nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was going to do it as a freebie, but in light of current events, I’ve had a change of heart.”
“Thought you might.”
“I’ll pull you out, send you on your merry way and keep my mouth shut. I figure that’s gotta be worth ten percent.”
“You do, huh?” Sean said.
The old man spread his hands.
A pistol appeared in Sean’s fist. “Funny. I see things different.”
“Put it away,” Kelly said.
“Uh huh. He’s seen us.”
“You put a flashing red light on your head,” she said, “and folks tend to notice.”
The old man chuckled.
“Anybody else here?” Sean said.
The man nodded.
“Mind telling us who?”
“Santa Claus is upstairs,” the old man said. “I don’t see the Easter Bunny anywhere, so maybe she’s out in the fields.”
“This isn’t the time for jokes, old man.”
“I wasn’t fooling. Santa must’ve gone to bed already. It’s getting late, you know.”
Sean stared at him.
“Sorry I can’t be more helpful,” the man said.
“Makes two of us,” Sean said, raising the .38.
Which was when Santa entered the room.
Like his old man, the kid was big and fat, maybe six foot and two hundred pounds, but the costume hid everything else, which Kelly figured was the idea.
“Little early for the holidays,” she said.
The old man smiled. “He likes it. Wears it all the time.”
Sean laughed. “All year round?”
The man nodded
“He go to school like that?”
“He doesn’t go to school. He’s nearly middle aged.”
“And he dresses like that? What is he, a mongoloid?”
“No,” the man said. “He’s just a little slow sometimes. The Easter Bunny, too.”
“That’s your daughter, right?”
The man exhaled but didn’t say anything.
“I’m just guessing here, but does she wear a big bunny costume? Jesus Christ, man, you got a messed up family. What’s your wife like?”
“Dead,” he said.
“She kill herself? Out of shame, something like that?”
The man stared at him.
“You come into my home, point guns at me,” he said, “and then you insult my family? Why? Because I tried to do you a favour?”
“What was the favour? Taking ten percent?”
“Pulling you out of a jam and keeping my mouth shut. That’s got to be worth something.”
“All you got that we need is a truck and a bit of rope. I could just kill you and take it.”
The man let out a long, pensive sigh.
“Better get it over with, then.”
“That’s what I like about you. No small talk.”
“Ever kill anyone before?”
“Lots of times.”
“Uh huh, you’re green. Never killed anyone in your whole life. It’s written all over your face.”
Sean cocked the .38.
“Attaboy,” the man said. “Now point it in my face. Put the barrel right between the eyes.”
He did.
“Now pull the trigger, you limp wristed waste of space.”
Sean hesitated.
“That’s what I thought,” the old man said. “Santa?”
In one fluid movement, the kid disarmed Sean and pointed the pistol at him.
“Ho Ho Ho,” Santa said.
I did not just see that, Kelly thought.
The front door opened and slammed shut. A woman in a bunny costume entered the room.
She paused, surveyed the scene, then gave a surprisingly good impersonation of Bugs Bunny. “What’s up, Doc?”
“Hi, Honey Bunny,” the old man said. “You missed the fireworks.”
She began hopping around the room, shouting, “Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit.”
“That all she does?” Sean said
The old man laughed and shook his head.
“You have no idea,” he said. “Honey Bunny? Why don’t you go fetch momma’s dress.”
“Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit.”
“You must be very proud,” Sean said.
The old man pulled up a chair. “You think you’re in a position to cheek me, you son of a bitch? You’re here for one reason, and it isn’t to give me lip. When Easter returns, we’ll get right to it.”
“Second thoughts,” Kelly said, “you may as well kill us both right now.”
“Kill you?” He shook his head, as though offended by the idea. “I’m not going to kill you.”
/> Honey Bunny returned, carrying a wedding gown.
“Thanks, Hon,” he said, and laid the dress out on the table. As he smoothed out the fabric, he looked up and said, “We’re going to the Chapel of Love.”
“Say what now?” Sean said.
“You heard. We’re going to the Chapel. And we’re gonna get married.”
“If you think I’m wearing that thing….” Kelly said.
“You’re not. Who’d want you for a bride? You’re violent, ugly and potty mouthed. Brides are supposed to be beautiful.”
The old man clapped a hand on Sean’s shoulder.
“Like this one.”
“The hell you say?” Sean said.
“Today is the day of your fruitful union with a member of my family.”
Sean looked up at Honey Bunny.
“Rabbit,” she said.
“Uh huh,” he said. “I ain’t doing it. I ain’t getting hitched to no mongoloid.”
“Not her, you idiot.”
Sean stared at Santa, who stared back.
“Ho Ho Ho,” he said.
“Yeah, real funny,” Sean said. “Why don’t you just kill me and make an armchair from my bones?”
The old man shook his head.
“This isn’t Texas,” he said. “We’re progressive.”
“Seriously,” Sean said. “I’d make a real good armchair.”
“You’ll make a better wife. Plus, you get to go on a nice honeymoon.”
The blood drained from Sean’s face.
“Could be worse,” Kelly said.
He looked at her. “How?”
“Maybe he likes threesomes.”
Sean gagged.
“Enough monkey business,” the old man said. “Get yourself suited up. Ceremony’s in ten minutes.”
“What about me?” Kelly said.
“Now there’s a question. What’s this fella to you?”
“Less than a cockroach.”
“Hey,” Sean said.
“Then you know of no reason why they should not be joined together in matrimony?”
“Not one.”
The man nodded.
“And of course it stands to reason,” he said, “that once you leave here, you won’t be going to the cops.”
“You know it.” Kelly retrieved the canvas sack. “I’ll still need your help, though. Ten percent, wasn’t it?”
“Just went up.”
“Figured it might. Hell, I was on a fifty-fifty split with that nimrod, so the way I see it, you’ve earned yourself at least a third.”
“I like the way you do business,” he said. “We’ll attend to your problem after the ceremony. I have to give my son away first. There’s cake and ice cream for afterwards, if you want to stick around.”
She looked at Sean.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the World.”
“Ho Ho Ho,” Santa said.
Part 4
TWO GUYS IN A TITTY BAR
Nobody mentioned heavy artillery, Warbeck thought.
He shot the guard in the face and the weapon, a Beretta ARX-160, skittered across the hardwood floor.
It landed by the feet of one of the strippers. When she reached for it, the sight of a naked chick wielding a rifle with an underslung grenade launcher threw Warbeck’s concentration off a tad.
He hesitated long enough for her to squeeze the trigger, but she thought she could hold it one-handed, like Arnold goddamn Schwarzenegger, and the shot went wild. Bullets smacked into the throng around her, pulverizing bodies and spraying her with blood. One of the bodies spun and flew into Warbeck, knocking him off his feet.
He landed on his back, hard, and when he looked up, the stripper had the grenade launcher levelled at him.
Morgan shot her in the head.
She flew backwards, arms flailing, and the launcher discharged, the shot going into the wall-length TV screen. Warbeck groaned and curled himself into a ball a second before the HEDP round detonated.
The screen exploded, glass and electric sparks flying in all directions. Moments earlier, two strippers had been performing in front of a pornographic movie and the blast lifted them off the stage, hurtling them across the room like rag dolls.
Bells rang in Warbeck’s ears. He shook his head a few times and said, “They’re gonna have .38s, huh?”
Morgan shrugged. “Guess they upgraded.”
Two more guards, also not armed with .38s, entered the room. Warbeck threw himself into the throng but the men opened fire regardless, customers and strippers alike disappearing in a red mist all around him. The mist covered him, the bodies fell like bowling pins and soon enough he was on flat on his ass, staring up at the fat, bald killer standing over him.
He had a back-up .22 in his left fist, but when he brought it up, the guard laughed and kicked it away. “What was that?” he said.
Warbeck shrugged.
“Did you think you could just walk in and rob us? Just like that?”
“Maybe not that easily,” Warbeck said.
His right hand brought up the Walther.
He shot the man in the kneecap, bringing him crashing down to the floor, then as the guard reached his level, Warbeck pressed the gun to his head.
“I thought it’d require some effort.”
He pulled the trigger.
Throwing bodies off him, Warbeck got to his feet and looked around to where Morgan was fighting the second guard. They’d abandoned guns and were going at it with knives, or at least, the guard had a knife and Morgan was trying to pretend like he did, using his empty Walther to fend off the man’s advances.
Warbeck shot the guard in the back.
The man spun and flopped.
Warbeck got to his feet. The guard got up, too.
Kevlar, Warbeck thought.
And shot him in the head.
“Lot of hardware for a titty bar,” Warbeck said.
“I told you,” Morgan said, “it’s a Gentleman’s club. Anyway, it’s just a front. What we want’s downstairs.”
“How many guards?”
“Just one.”
“We’re sure about that, are we?”
They descended a spiral staircase and emerged in an anteroom patrolled by a sentry in a Nazi uniform. Warbeck thought he could take him, no problem, until the man turned and he saw him in profile. Then he realized the sucker had eight legs.
“Aw, crap,” Morgan said. “It’s an ArachNazi.”
Warbeck began to say something when a spinneret emerged from the thing’s abdomen, shooting a silken web towards them. Morgan pushed him clear, and the web filled the space he’d just vacated.
“Seriously?” Warbeck said.
Morgan brought up the Beretta, firing off a grenade. The creature caught it in its fist, crushed it, and threw the useless shell back at them.
As the spinneret moved towards him, Morgan dove right, squeezing the trigger. Two of the creature’s legs disappeared and, with a howl, the thing tipped over, striking its head against the wall.
He fired off another grenade.
The creature tried to catch it, missed.
The explosion tore the thing in half, blood, silk and bone fragments geysering across the walls. Incredibly, the man half was still alive, its one remaining hand slapping against the walls, trying to find purchase.
Morgan pressed the Beretta to its head.
“I was only doing my job,” the thing said.
“Me too,” Morgan said.
He fired.
They found the key card in the creature’s pocket and opened the door. In the centre of the room, a man was tied to a chair.
Warbeck said, “Mr President?”
The President coughed, spat and looked up.
“Are you all right, Sir?”
The President broke down in tears.
“Thank God you’re here,” he said. “The things they did to
me…”
“You’re safe now, Sir.”
“They forced me to watch all the things that amused them. Homeless people being drowned in pools of excrement. Sex with animals. Sex with fruit, for Christ’s sake. Who were they?”
“A group of vicious extremists.”
“Terrorists?”
“No sir,” Warbeck said. “Republicans.”
They helped the President to his feet and walked out.
Part 5
POP GOES THE PLANET
Had the events of Sunday, January 7, begun in one of the Great Cities – Los Angeles, say, or Miami, Florida – folks would’ve noticed the transformation from trendy urban area to garbage-strewn wasteland.
Unfortunately, it all started in Newark, New Jersey.
When The Popcorn Man, at the controls of the Orville Redenbacher, arrived in the Garden State, he immediately launched several dozen Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs that disfigured the landscape, killed wildlife and left the air filled with the stink of death, decay and desperation. Nobody noticed much difference, so he moved on to another city.
Thankfully, New Yorkers knew how to react to a good old alien invasion and flocked into the streets to point at his ship, allowing him to blow the hell out of them with a Screaming Yellow Zonker. As bodies flew every which way and survivors stood around in open-mouthed terror, The Popcorn Man felt a tinge of sadness that nobody appeared to remember Earth Vs The Flying Saucers. Hell, these beanbags probably didn’t know who Ray Harryhausen was.
If that was true, they deserved everything they got.
The Popcorn Man continued his rampage, laughing as he went.
***
Marilyn Corday was driving north on I-390 when the phone rang and a voice said, “No time to explain. Meet me at the Rochester house immediately.”
She began to say something, but the line went dead.
Marilyn sighed. In four months as an agent of Bureau 51, the FBI’s unofficial extra-terrestrial research agency, she’d investigated cases involving giant spiders, oversized scorpions and – why not? – a seventeen million year old intergalactic space buzzard, but something told her their greatest challenge was yet to come. Now, it appeared to have arrived.
The Rochester House was a sprawling Estate home spread over two acres that, according to rumour, housed Bureau 51’s most famous “guests”, including Reptilicus, the Ymir and Nancy Archer, aka the 50ft woman. Marilyn’s low-level clearance restricted her to desk jobs with the occasional excursion into the field, so being summoned here without fanfare meant that something was very, very wrong.
She found Professor Agar in a wide, harshly lit room full of people in crisp white uniforms. He stood next to a bank of monitors that replayed the same scene: a giant popcorn monster demolishing the Chrysler Building.
