Archive | October, 2016

Ice Flue Chapter 6

11 Oct


Ice Flue Chapter 6

Chapter 6

   The policeman thunderously, his shoulders in his shadow so massive they could crack a head like a walnut. He swung a spiked ball, rocking his thick neck back and forth.   

   “Gee whiz. How are you?” The policeman bubbled. Every few seconds or so, the policeman’s body would swing 180 degrees, revealing a policewoman on the back side of him. Each wore tall police officer hats like in The Great Wall of Britainia. Their skin was overly shiny like they were made of the same materials as antique toys. 

   “You must be our latest recruit,” the female half said, extending a hand. Before Stan could shake it, the police officer spun, slapping Stan with its cold hard metal. 
   Stan ran his fingers along his throbbing jaw. Was it crooked now?
   “We’re so sorry about that.” The male half sobbed hysterically. 
   The female half became pensive, her lip flaring up as the sky turned from tranquil blue to throbbing red. 
   Stan lifted the broken vial containing the Ice Flue. The mercury-like liquid pooled in Stan’s now steel hand. He could not move his fingers; it was like his hand had altered to an iron glove. The cobalt blue liquid of the Ice Flue crawled on Stan and the police officer. 
   The police officer guided Stan behind the billboard. “Come with me, new recruit. I hear we will be bunkmates!” She put Stan in a bear hug, grabbed his groin as if about to heave him, and jumped into a black hole surrounded by swirling shards of powder blue, sparkling ice.  

Tags: , ,

Ice Flue Chapter 5

7 Oct


Ice Flue Chapter 5

   Stan’s hover car passes hundreds of Ice Enterprise employees for his departure coincided exactly with their arrival. 
   The Ice Flue, warm like the embers of a campfire, hummed in his lab coat.
   A blue film glazed the early morning sky. Treasure birds, wrapped tightly with their dead in bundles, hung from billboard scenes from the Holy Book of Dracula and Dayglo like cryptic warnings, but nobody could be watching Stan. Nobody else knew about the Ice Flue, right?
   Woozy, distracted, yet curious about this break in Stan’s daily driving routine, Stan’s hover car sniffed around a billboard depicting a scene from the Frost Holly Book of Derevelations: a thousand or so children sank with the burning ship while praying to a ghostly giant emanation of Elizabeth Dracula, immune to both flames and drowning in her ghostly state. The children had undergone the purest act of martyrdom for the cause, according to the book. The cause was Elizabeth Dracula’s continued animation by crickets. 
   The next billboard illustrated a scene from the Holy Book of Defamation Regulations in which versions of Elizabeth Dracula hatched from eggs, her heads wobbling grotesquely on the bodies of spiders.
   Arnie Dayglo approached with his brigade of the Child Crusade–curiously, all of the same children from the previous depiction were present–bearing flamethrowers. 
   The children set the spiders with Elizabeth Dracula heads aflame in the manger. The scene bubbled and popped like a burning oil painting.
   A Police Sandwich Cruiser pulled up alongside Stan’s now nervous hover car. 
   Stan gulped. A strip search would undoubtedly uncover the Ice Flue. 

Tags: , , ,

Ice Flue Chapter 4

5 Oct


Ice Flue Chapter 4

   When Stan resurfaced, after having retrieved over 20 ecto ghosts, his chamber at Ice Enterprises was silent and dark, A smashed vial of his breakthrough concoction, the Ice Flue, lay on the floor beneath his lab desk station.
   Most alarming was that Stan had revealed this invention of synthetic disease warfare, the Ice Flue, to no one. It caused one’s opponents bones to shift to a cheap brittle metal, yet also enacted other curious side effects which Stan Lunch did not yet fully understand.
   Stan’s first successful administration of the Ice Flue had occurred yesterday upon the unfortunate Trouser—a recently-deceased faithful servant of the company (Ice Enterprises), Trouser’s human-sized spider bones had shattered from a tooth-pick prick following a miniscule dose of the Ice Flue.     
   What was ironic was that Ice Enterprises was known for its Body Heat mists, a sprayable substance five times warmer than down feathers. Stan had originally been tasked with biological warfare shield work, but had inadvertently discovered a powerful weapon (The Ice Flue) instead.  
   A hologram plant across Stan’s chamber and unfolded: Ice Enterprises took pride in the fact that it forced all its employees to become informed citizens.
   Elizabeth Dracula’s doughy, pockmarked visage reigned supreme over the insect antennae airwaves with the usual aura of terror. The green juices of a mashed sequeira caterpillar dribbled down her chin as she belched blue fire and clacked her purple crystal skull scepter as if upon the forehead of a distracted pupil.
   “Citizens!” She blew a swirling rainbow of fire which roamed around her powdery face. “We have work to do! Don’t eat, sleep, love, or allow yourselves even the slightest pleasures!”
   Stan Lunch saluted Elizabeth Dracula and began marching in place. It was required that citizens march to the tune of the cricket anthem, which, when slowed down, sounded like a million violins pleading in a rhapsody.
   Midway though the march, Elizabeth Dracula’s face was replaced by Dayglo Arnie. Although it was hard to take Dayglo Arnie seriously with his orange clown wig and vampire fangs, it was also a requirement that citizens rebel whenever he incited a rebellion. “It might not be any of my business, but Elizabeth Dracula is just a doll animated by crickets. Now let’s skip work and play hooky as the world crumbles! Are you ready to boogie?” Arnie break danced, his gold chain of scorpions whapping and smearing his clown make-up as video surveillance footage revealing the back of Elizabeth Dracula’s head with thousands of cricket legs twitching along her neckline as if in competition to animate her.
   Arnie Dayglo, as he turned to reveal the back of his orange afro, was also being animated by insects—but in his case it was by a swarm of praying mantises.
   “Citizens. It is now your duty to rebel. NOW!”
   Stan pocketed the last remaining unbroken vial of Ice Flue in his lab coat.    

Tags: , , , , ,

Ice Flue Chapter 3

4 Oct


Chapter 3

   The skeleton of a Dracun Lizard greeted Stan at work that morning. Splayed out on his desk like marionette, the skeleton gave off an aura of having recently been handled.

   Stan glanced up from his work desk laboratory. Not a single other soul stirred in Potion Control Chamber, his department at Ice Enterprises. Was today a holiday?

   Magenta and fuchsia bubbles surrounded the flu feelers of his two neighbors’ gage monsters, but there was no trace of a blue ectoplasm ghost harvest—a daily ritual of both his neighbors to stimulate the company’s senses—Ice Enterprises was, after all, a living breathing entity—and increase productivity.
   Something skittered past in the blacklight hull bulb above Stan’s row of laboratory cubicles. Sweat pooled on his forehead as it breathed hotly down upon him. So this was how it felt to be finally found out: the burglar police had infested his work dream space with hunting worms because of the incident with Heiferwaith.
   “Stan? Stan?” The furry hunting worm coiled around Stan’s shoulders.
   Stan blinked. It was not a furry hunting worm after all but his octopus-headed boss, Dennis.
   “Stan?”  
   It was like coming out of a dream. No, it was more like taking a deep breath of air after being forcibly held down in a plasma chamber.
   Dennis’ shaking intensified the longer Stan neglected to perform the recognition ritual.     
   Finally, rather dimly, Stan said “Good morning sir and welcome to Ice Enterprises. How can I be of assistance? I am your personal scientist forever.”
   Dennis slapped Stan on the back jovially. The gesture was overly familiar. Dennis, the pendulums in his grandfather clock earrings trying to lull Stan back to sleep, appeared blurry.
   “Whoa there, buddy. I just wanted to know if you’d seen Hoagy or Heiferwaith. You know, your neighbors? We’re running low on ecto ghosts in Chamber 23 and my data is showing no harvesting on this quadrant level. I know it’s not your job, but would you mind reigning in a few ecties for the health of the company?”
   Although Stan nodded with enough vigor to satiate the cloying Dennis, some time passed before he began to do Hoagy and Heiferwaith’s job for them. He’d kept remembering the sound of his sculpta brick smashing the cartilage in Heiferwaith’s kneecap. He’d managed to free the Dracun Lizard, that was certain, but his memory after that had gone patchy. The world had gone completely black once he’d left Heiferwaith’s apartment tube dwelling. A stew bubbled in an enormous cauldron on the stairs to his tube dwelling, the severed head of Heiferwaith floating beside some Dracun Lizard skulls and peeled vegetables in the broth.
   “Why’d you do it, Stan?” The floating head of Heiferwaith gurgled from inside the boiling stew. “Did you think you could get away with it?”   

Tags: , , , ,

Ice Flue Chapter 2

3 Oct


Ice Flue

Chapter 2
   Stan returned to his apartment tube, opening his coat closet while drooling. Inside wriggling around was a tied-up Dracun Lizard.

   No. That wasn’t right. It had been Heiferwaith who’d taken a Dracun Lizard prisoner; he’d had him tied up in a high hair as he continually stabbed pricked him with a sword from his “guild.”

   Blood dropped onto Stan’s carpet. In his trembling hands he held the bloodied Sculpta brick, sparkling slightly from stray glass shards. Had Heiferwaith been screaming? Or had it been the Dracun Lizard? That part of the memory was a bit like one of those spinning splatter paintings that the homeless ghouls hawked downtown in the Living Reptile Clothing district. 

   Stan closed the closet door, the eyes of the Dracun Lizard widening in terror. Sometimes you just had to close the door on things and pretend they weren’t there. 

Tags:

Newer Entries →