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DOOM MAGNETIC! - CHAPTER ELEVEN:
SCISSORLIPS
William Pauley III
When Maundin awakens, he finds both he and Vonna are still in the same room they were in when they lost consciousness. However, now a stationary white bulb has replaced the revolving blue light, and the smoke has cleared. All but the stench, anyway.
Kaft, Brouler, and Rine are lying on the floor, surrounded by a sea of spent cigar blunts. Little white eyeless creatures called cancer feast on two of them. One of Rine’s hands has been gnawed off completely. It’s safe to assume these men are dead.
Maundin elbows Vonna to wake her up, and realizes they’re no longer cuffed to their chairs. He stands and shakes her awake.
“What the fuck?!” she shouts, swinging her fists.
“Hey, we gotta get outta here…now. It may be our only chance.”
Vonna looks around the room, trying to put together pieces of the puzzle. All at once, she remembers everything and leaps to her feet. Maundin goes over to the exit, slowly cracks open the door, and peeks outside. The coast is clear. He signals to Vonna and they leave the room.
Walking down the hall, they discover a large yellow sign taped to a window, displaying a red arrow pointing left, down another hallway. They follow the direction of the sign until they come to another and then another, until finally reaching a sign posted inside an elevator that reads, “Your destiny awaits you…” with a red arrow pointing down.
Maundin leans over and removes a small knife from a holster hidden in his boots.
They step into the elevator. Vonna pushes the button marked ‘ground’ and takes a deep breath. The doors close. The elevator shakes and screeches as it lowers to the ground level, but it doesn’t seem to be running on electricity. Instead, it feels as if it is being lowered hand-over-hand by rope and pulley. Without warning, the ropes loosen and the elevator freefalls for about two stories. Maundin and Vonna are thrown about like rag dolls. The sound of the elevator crashing to the ground echoes throughout the outer room. Thunderous cheers and applause vibrate the thick metal walls of the elevator. Maundin tries to stand, but quickly discovers his knife found its way inside his ankle during the fall.
“Ah, shit…” he yells.
“What? What is it?! Are you okay?” Vonna asks.
“Ah…my ankle! Shit! I think it may be broken.”
Vonna looks around in panic, not really knowing what she’s looking for.
“Here…” she says, digging her arm beneath his, “lean on me.”
She helps him to his feet. Just then the flat ends of two crowbars are thrust between the elevator doors, from the outside. The doors squeal and shift as they’re pried apart.
Two large men are standing on the outside of the elevator. They resemble the men who took them to the Smoke Unit earlier, but they’re now wearing executioner-style masks and black leather S&M get-ups. The men throw their crowbars on the ground and pluck the two prisoners out from their metal cage.
A crowd of about ten thousand Japanese men, women, and children shout and cheer from the bleachers. It’s an arena of some sort. The crowd surrounds a flat playing field, about 100 yards long and about 40 yards wide, completely covered with dirt. Several large metal tables have been randomly spread throughout the field. Atop each of these tables are assorted weaponry—knives, swords, maces, spears—all of them far too large for any human to carry. To the left of them sit two large boulders, roughly the size of god’s testicles, with a bundle of chains resting on the dusty ground. All of this makes Maundin nervous. Vonna would have been nervous herself, if it weren’t for her killer hangover. She’s more concerned about not puking in front of the crowd than anything else at the moment.
As the two executioners walk the prisoners to the boulders, the crowd erupts in jeers. People howl, scream and curse at them from the stands. They throw things at them—beer cups, rocks, and even a few half-eaten hotdogs.
The executioners wrap the chains around the rocks and fasten Maundin’s arms and back to it, Atlas-style, and they do the same Vonna, against her own boulder. She’s screaming, but her voice is going hoarse.
The arena goes dark. A heavy bass and drum beat booms from the loudspeakers and resonates throughout the showground. Lights flicker and beam down from the rafters, bathing the audience in colors of red, blue, green, and yellow. The crowd goes wild, clapping their hands and stomping their feet along with the music.
Click.
Maundin hears a microphone being turned on, and a drum-splitting shriek of feedback rips through the amplifiers and electrocutes the brain of every living body within an ear-throw. A familiar voice speaks.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…tonight’s main event!” A spotlight weaves its way through the skid-marked faces of the crowd and up to a platform, illuminating the shaggy arachnid body of Qoser. He holds a microphone and looks down at the two prisoners.
“In this corner,” he points three of his legs to the left, “we have two illegal aliens from the state of Nevada, accused and convicted of stealing a precious artifact from the Japanese government. The purple television!”
Qoser lifts the television high above his head, and the crowd cheers, spitting and throwing things again.
“Let this be a reminder to all of you, especially you young ones, that crime does not pay!”
The spotlight leaves Qoser and traces down along the dirt floor of the arena. The other spotlights follow.
The music stops.
The sound of machine exhaust and pumping pistons rattle from somewhere beneath the dirt. The crowd gasps as the floor separates and lifts. A gigantic shadowy figure emerges from the opening. Spotlights shine from behind the figure, creating an ominous silhouette. The figure stands twenty-feet tall and ten-feet wide. It has short stubby legs and long, lanky arms that drag against the floor like an ape.
“And in this corner,” Qoser points to his right, “we have the ‘Angel of Apocalypse,’ ‘Bone Stripper,’ the ‘Guru of Gore.’ Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for SCISSORLIPS!”
The spotlights move over Scissorlips, revealing a genetically engineered Japanese man with bulging gray veins and impossibly-jacked muscles, dressed in black leather pants and a large metal Viking helmet. His face is missing from the nose down. Nothing but hanging strips of flesh cover his mandible and teeth. He’s chained to the platform he’s standing on. Ten Japanese men appear from out of the shadows and they run toward him, all carrying shop vacs with large syringes attached to the ends of their hoses. The men stick the needles into Scissorlips’ legs, throw their shop vacs into reverse, and push neon purple liquid directly into his bloodstream. He howls and jerks at his chains. The men withdraw their needles and run back into the darkness.
The chains are released. The music returns.
Maundin glances at Vonna. She’s passed out and hanging lifelessly from the boulder.
Scissorlips thrashes his arms and legs, shaking the chains clear from his limbs. He spots the prisoners.
“Vonna! Hey! You best be gettin’ yer ass up! Look what’s comin’ our way!” Maundin shouts.
She mumbles something, lifts her head, and peeks through the slit of her eyelids. She sees a large black figure in the distance. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust.
“What the f—Oh, hell naw!” She looks at the chains and at the crowd as if this is the first time she’s seen it all. She attempts to move her body, but only manages to kick her feet a bit. “I can’t move!”
Scissorlips grabs a large wooden club and grips it so tight sawdust spits onto the dirt. His fleshless mandible lowers and his black tongue lashes about. He howls, making a sound like a mucus storm cloud forming in the sky. Throwing his arms behind him, he charges at them at full speed.
“Vonna!”
“Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit!” she screams, rocking her body side-to-side, unsuccessfully attempting to budge the boulder.
Scissorlips grips Vonna’s boulder in his fist, then tosses it in the air. Her stomach feels as if it’s been sucked into her esophagus, ballooning now inside her mouth. Her voice finally gives out completely. Gravity takes hold and she comes hurdling back down.
CRACK!
Scissorlips swings his club and connects, sending Vonna and her boulder soaring through the air at at least 100 mph. Small chunks of rock and wood debris shower the audience. People are stuffing the rocks in their pockets for souvenirs, some are even fighting over them.
Vonna’s boulder collides with the side wall of the arena and shatters into a thousand pieces. She falls to the ground and lies there, motionless. Maundin’s relieved to see she’s still breathing.
Scissorlips grabs a mace and points forebodingly at Maundin.
“Come an’ get me you yeller-bellied son of a bitch!” Maundin yells.
Scissorlips raises the mace over his head and comes down with all his might. The arena shakes. A cloud of dust billows up, covering them completely. For the first time tonight, the crowd is silent.
The cloud slowly fades. The mace came down with so much force that it’s now largely buried in the ground. Maundin, still attached to his boulder, remains mostly unharmed.
Scissorlips cracks his knuckles and grips Maundin’s boulder in his fist. He holds it up at eye level and roars into Maundin’s face, the skin flaps whipping him violently. His breath reeks of the ocean.
“Thank you all so much for coming today!” Qoser says over the loudspeakers. “Please remember to place all trash in the proper receptacles…oh, and all of you in the upper levels, please remember to tip your waitresses.”
Scissorlips applies pressure to the boulder and his knuckles turn pale. Sweat beads up on his forehead as he struggles to crush the rock with his bare hands.
The rock finally cracks, but not in the way that anyone was expecting. A blinding white light leaks out from the cracks. The stone becomes impossibly hot, to the point it burns Scissorlips’ hand and even melts the chains away. The boulder, and Maundin along with it, falls toward the floor, however it never quite makes it there. The boulder floats majestically in the air. The music stops and the lights go out—all is quiet.
Music from a lone piano pierces the silence and lulls the crowd into a state of tranquility. The boulder splits open and the rock falls away, revealing a painfully thin man dressed in a pink leather halter-top, silver thong, fishnet stockings, and a large feather boa. His face is masculine, however it’s buried beneath a layer of heavy makeup. A red lightning bolt stretches across his forehead and extends down to the right corner of his mouth. His name is Z Starman. He continues playing his piano for the crowd. He begins to sing an original tune entitled, “Oh, You Silly Things!”
The audience watch his performance in awe, completely slack-jawed. Everyone in the arena knew just who this man was, but not even one of them had ever seen him in person, only ever on television. He is, without a doubt, the biggest star in the entire galaxy.
The chorus kicks in.
The pale faces of the crowd seem to be struggling, unable to take in this strange vision. They’re all turning pink, red, purple. They hold their heads in their hands. Their screams echo throughout the arena. Red veins swell and burst from their eyeballs. Blood leaks out of their temples and nostrils. They dig their fingernails into their scalps, desperately trying to relieve their brains of the pressure.
Finally, a head explodes, sending pink chunks of brain twenty feet into the air. Then a second explodes, then a third, a fourth, until nearly every head under the roof is reduced to warm stew. A sea of blood rushes down from the bleachers in a sudden gush.
Scissorlips is also affected by the singing. He puts his hands over his ears and howls, trying to overpower Z’s voice. His brain bubbles and oozes out his ears, leaking out from between his fingers. He falls to his knees and buries his head in the ground like an ostrich. His skull finally erupts and blood rushes out of him like a mighty tsunami. The blood soaks into the dirt, creating a goopy sea of sludge, about waist deep.
Scissorlips is dead.
Maundin rushes over to Vonna and helps her to her feet. The two of them watch quietly as Z finishes his song.
Something falls from above and splashes into the sludge beside them. Maundin submerges his hand, trying to retrieve the object. It’s solid, round. He pulls it to the surface. It’s a cracked cue-ball.
Paid subscribers! The next chapter of this story will be posted on January 17th! Stay tuned for Arachnids From the Red Planet!
Scissorlips
© William Pauley III, 2009
All rights reserved.
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