"...[Static]..."
- W.D.E.R., Cassville's own
news radio station
(whatever is left of it).
"Hey!" an annoyed onlooker yelled as he shook the little
pocket radio he was listening to. "What's going on? My
favorite station just went dead; nothing but static!" He
looked to his girlfriend but she didn't seem to care much.
She was too busy listening to the ten fireball explosions
that sounded through the park. Then they both fell down,
along with everyone else. Either it was from the shock of
the explosions themselves that sent crowds of people down to
the ground, or it is the way people tend to whirl around and
try to comprehend everything all at once when something
exciting happens. Either way, almost everyone fell down.
"Whoops," Kaye-Boom apologized, though he really didn't
mean it. Still standing, he watched the fires for a moment
then glanced at The Dead Eye, who was sitting on the ground
laughing Corbin's ass off. After another momentary peek at
some other fires, he then glared down at the man who fouled
up his aim by rudely grabbing his shoulders. He also took a
glance at the young wench who was sitting on a game counter,
smirking at the fallen crowd and picking fuzz from her hair.
The man stood up, brushed his gray business suit off, and
looked about him. What he saw, he did not like: crowds of
people scuttled all over the ground, currently standing
themselves up--the result of ten separate but simultaneous
explosions, and several towers of flame and smoke, emerging
from several buildings and a now defunct radio station--also
the result of the misguided fire bombs.
The man's name was Way Rilliams, general manager of this
fastly deteriorating amusement park. He pointed a harsh
finger at Kaye-Boom, his hand shaking with anger. "What?!"
he screamed, his face contorting with rage. "Who?!" At a
loss for words, he shook his fists together, his face the
color of most fire engines (not the green ones).
"Problem?" Kaye-Boom asked nonchalantly.
"You're destroying my park!" Way blurted, looking as if
he was going to reach out and throttle Kaye-Boom.
"You ain't seen nothing yet, dude!" The Dead Eye yelled.
He pulled a quart bottle of industrial strength eye drops
from his slime covered pants pocket and squirted more than a
half dozen drops into his rapidly growing dead eye.
Kaye-Boom was about to make some sort of smart rebuke,
but was interrupted when Shae-doe and Lou ran into his midst.
"Ah, Shae-doe," he said instead. "Glad to see ye survived
thus far unharmed." He looked at Lou; "Who's this young
man?"
"Lou Morris," Lou commented, a big smile emerging on his
face. "The person who created you."
"I find that very hard to believe..." Kaye-Boom said,
unbelieving.
"Ye are going to find everything hard to believe, unless
ye promise not to burn anything else," Shae-doe pipped in.
"But what of the evil Dead Eye?!" Kaye-Boom retorted,
getting slightly annoyed as he pointed to the figure of
Corbin Wick, rolling about the concrete, laughing
hysterically.
"Evil Dead Eye?" Lou asked sarcastically. "That's a nerd
from my high school--Corbin Wick, I think." Lou wondered why
he was rolling about the floor like that, then he remembered
the conversation he and Corbin had earlier that day in the
hospital. Maybe he was an evil Dead Eye? Whatever.
"He doesn't look like thy evil Dead Eye," Shae-doe said.
"It looks more like he had too much of thy mead."
Kaye-Boom blinked a few times rapidly. "But look at his
eye!" he yelled.
"He's right, folks," The Dead Eye remarked as he stood
up. "I'm the numero uno dude, The Dead Eye." He looked as
if he wanted applause from the audience. He didn't get it.
"Joke's over, Corbin," Lou said, losing just a bit of
patience. He took another look at Corbin, then added,
"Although your eye seems to be in really bad shape..."
His eye, in fact, was now the size of a large inflated
truck tire tube. It didn't look healthy at all.
"What about me?!" Way Rilliams screamed, tired of
listening to everyone chat about Corbin and his dead eye.
"What about you?" Mary yelled to her boss from her seat
on the counter of the Milk Can game. She was definitely
going to enjoy this fight, once it got started, even if it
meant losing her job. Who cares, she thought. I could
always get a job down at We-We or 11-7.
Amidst all of the confusion, Mongo slipped into the outer
edge of the Games circle and took a seat at the opposite end
of the counter on which Mary sat. He took an apple from his
near empty bookbag and started peeling it.
Upon hearing Mary's addition to the argument, Lou tensed
and, fearing the worst, turned in the direction of that
voice. Their eyes met, somewhat similar in temperature of
the metal racks that hold frozen ice cream when, during our
childhood years, we would accidentally affix our tongue to
them, causing great pain and discomfort to say the least.
"Eew..." both escaped their lips as they stared at each
other, unaware of the conflict going around them.
"Well, is anyone going to listen to me?" Way yelled; he
stamped his feet in an immature manner.
Nobody paid any attention to him, whatsoever. Not even
Mongo, as he was to busy paying attention to his apple.
Kaye-Boom and The Dead Eye just made stupid faces at one
another.
Lou shook his head in a manner as if to imply that even
the sight of Mary was enough to turn stomachs. In actuality,
however, he was only stalling for time in order to figure out
whether to say something nice or something not-so-nice to
Mary.
"What do you want?" Mary sneered, over emphasizing the
word "you."
"Nothing to do with you," Lou replied in a not-so-nice
way, also over emphasizing the "you."
"Fine!" Mary turned her back on Lou and stared moodily
towards the other end of the park, watching the burning
wreckage that was once an ice cream shop, Dum-Dum Palace.
"Fine!" Lou screamed. He also muttered something under
his breath--something about an itch? He then looked over at
The Dead Eye/Corbin who was smiling broadly.
"Get out of my park!" Way screamed at the top of his
lungs, which wasn't very loud. "All of you, get out!"
Mongo slid over to Mary and asked her if she wanted a
bite of his apple. She told him that he could shove it where
the sun don't shine, to which he replied that the sun wasn't
shinning at all--it was all together too dark for that.
"Righty-ho everyone! I have an important announcement to
make here, dudes!" The Dead Eye yelled to everyone, and to
Kaye-Boom in particular.
Kaye-Boom was not paying any particular attention to him,
though. He was far too busy shaking his robes free from Way
Rilliams's grip; Way was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to
drag him out of the park.
Lou walked over to Corbin and asked him what the hell was
going on.
"Oh, not much," The Dead Eye replied. "As soon as my
water breaks, I'll be able to kill all of you." He laughed
fiendishly.
Lou shook his head, trying to reshuffle what little he
had of his deck of cards. "Your water?"
"The outer skin of my dead eye. Once the thin layer is
broken, my new form will emerge from this decrepit wimp of a
body, and I'll gain all my powers!" The Dead Eye smiled;
"Neat, huh?"
"Neat," Lou replied in a not-so-neat way.
"Too bad I can't break the outer covering myself. I'm
afraid of poking myself, dude."
"Sure you don't wanna bite?" Mongo asked the pretty girl.
"Get away from me!" the pretty girl, Mary, yelled.
"I've got an idea!" The Dead Eye said enthusiastically to
Lou. "I'll turn my head and you sneak up behind me and punch
me in the eye. That way I won't have to worry about the pain
until it's too late."
"No thanks." Lou was altogether grossed out with the
idea of touching that huge and disgusting eyeball. But then
again, he didn't say which eye he wanted punched...
"Hey, thanks dude," The Dead Eye sneered. He turned back
to Kaye-Boom, who was threatening to set fire to Way Rilliams
if he didn't leave him alone.
Lou shrugged, then tapped Corbin on the shoulder. The
Dead Eye slowly turned around, almost dreading the pain about
to occur, but thankful still that Lou had changed his mind.
"Lou! Don't--" Shae-doe screamed, but it was too late.
Lou punched Corbin straight in the eye.
"Aaaa!" The Dead Eye screamed. "You idiot!"
Lou had punched him in the wrong eye--the normal one.
"I meant my dead eye!" The Dead Eye fumed, jerked about,
and held a hand over his normal eye.
"Hey, sorry dude," Lou replied sarcastically, giggling to
himself.
Shae-doe breathed a sigh as he walked over to stand next
to Lou. "Thank Argo ye didn't punch him in thy dead eye. He
would have been able to transform into his final form and
destroy us all."
"But I thought Kaye-Boom was going to destroy the
planet?" Lou asked, not really knowing what the hell was
going on.
"I got thy feeling that thy Dead Eye is going to blow it
up first," Shae-doe explained as The Dead Eye pranced around,
whining with pain from his newly recieved black eye.
"Oh. That makes sense," Lou said. It made as much sense
as a flying peanut butter sandwich.
"We just have to make sure that his water doesn't break,"
Shae-doe explained, both to Lou and to Kaye-Boom, who just
joined them, dragging Way behind.
"Last chance," Mongo asked as he held up his apple--with
only one bite left on it.
"No!" Mary shrieked, pulling some of her dirty blonde
hair out from its brownish roots.
"That does it!" Way ranted and also raved. He took a
small walkie-talkie from the back pocket of his generic Death
Adventure issue trousers. "All available security to the
Games circle... Now!" Way yelled into the pocket radio. "I
repeat, all available security come to immediately to the
Games circle!"
A second of silence on the radio then, "Psst... Slight
problem, Mr. Rilliams, sir," the pocket walkie-talkie blared.
"What is it?" Way yelled, getting even more angry.
"Psst... It seems that with all the fire trucks and
ambulances all over the park, we're gonna be busy for a while
getting all the burn victims to safety."
"Burn victims?"
"Psst... And the trample victims. Not to mention the
break-in at the Games office and the wreckage..."
"Wreckage?"
"Psst... Well, sir. Well, how do I put it? Well, you
remember Dum-Dum Palace?"
"Yes," Way answered uncertainly.
"Psst... It's now a very nice pile of ashes, sir."
"Ashes!!" Way threw his pocket radio to the floor and
stomped on it a few times.
Kaye-Boom and The Dead Eye both let out a slight giggle
then glared at each other in contempt.
"Are ya sure?" Mongo asked once again.
"Aaaa!" Mary grabbed the apple core from Mongo and threw
it at the only person more annoying than this little
creep--Lou Morris.
"Now it's time for you to die," Kaye-Boom said. "You're
completely help--"
The apple missed Lou completely and nailed The Dead Eye
instead--right smack in his dead eye.
"--less," Kaye-Boom finished, then frowned.
Splooch!
The Dead Eye's dead eye popped outward from Corbin's eye
socket, covering everyone within a ten foot radius with eye
slime.
"Yuck!" everyone within the ten foot radius exclaimed in
unison. Everyone except Way Rilliams, that is; he fainted.
The Dead Eye, now free from Corbin's body, shook the
slime from his body, now in its final form.
That's when everyone started to laugh hysterically. Even
Kaye-Boom let out a slight giggle or two from the mere sight
of The Dead Eye's final form, even though he had seen it in a
few magical movies before, the best of which he had shown to
the adventurers in that mead hall; The Dead Eye was pretty
stupid looking.
The reason for all the laughter was because The Dead
Eye's final form was not that of a horrible monster but that
of a three foot tall walking eye.
The Dead Eye waddled towards Kaye-Boom--two arms, two
legs, one eye, and no body.
"Righty-ho!" The Dead Eye exclaimed, waddling about on
his stubby legs. "And a Goonie Goo-goo!" He winked his
long, thick eye lashes at Mary then waved at the rest of the
awed crowd. "Say bye-bye to your stupid little plane--"
"Corn," Corbin cut in, speaking purely in monotone.
Although he was missing his left eye, he looked none the
worse.
"Oh, shut-up, you geek!" The Dead Eye yelled, stomping up
and down, losing his patience rather quickly.
"Peas. Carrots," Corbin said, completely lacking
personality.
"My god, he's mindless," Shae-doe interjected.
"Asparagus."
"Worse than that--he's a vegetable!" Lou exclaimed.
"Watermelon."
"That's not a vegetable," Lou contradicted.
"Oh, sorry. String beans," Corbin corrected himself.
"Much better."
"I'll bet..." The Dead Eye smirked, "I'll bet his new
favorite move will be--" He snickered a few times then
continued with a definite gleam in his eye, "His new favorite
move will be--" he giggled, "will be "Attack of the Killer
Tomatoes!"" He burst out laughing, rolling about the Games
circle, tears pouring from his eye.
For a moment the audience was silent, then Mary summed up
everyone's reaction. "Der," she said.
"That's it!" The Dead Eye pronounced as he got up from
the ground. "That's it, you're all going to die!"
Corbin stumbled over to where Mongo was sitting on the
Milk Can game counter, called him an artichoke, then just
stood there, staring at, or rather through, him.
"Oh, no," Kaye-Boom exclaimed. "After you." He held
open an imaginary door.
The Dead Eye screamed with fury, then held out both hands
in front of him and shot a bolt of blue energy at Kaye-Boom,
like some sort of super-villain in a bad comic strip.
Flames sprung from Kaye-Boom's robe like a match thrown
onto a gasoline soaked cat. "Fire-Ball!" he screamed and
unleashed a ball of, well, fire. It screamed towards The
Dead Eye as the bolt of bluish energy leaped towards
Kaye-Boom.
Fire collided with energy--both canceling each other out
in a huge, but harmless explosion--the opposite result of
what The Dead Eye and Kaye-Boom desired.
The crowd moved back a good hundred feet while Shae-doe
and Lou stuck close to the perimeter near a game called
Whack-a-Molecule. Mary hid behind a box of crayon bears
while Mongo just sat there on the counter top, chin on hands,
with a slight twinkle in his eyes. Corbin removed a garage
door opener--the reality machine--from his pocket, called it
a tomato, and placed it on the counter next to Mongo, which
Mongo then picked up out of pure curiosity.
"Die, dude!" screamed The Dead Eye. He threw up his
hands, conjured a small black cloud above his eye, and
murmured a few syllables. The cloud disappeared in a puff of
purple smoke and a lump of charcoal fell to the ground beside
him. He picked it up and threw it at Kaye-Boom.
It landed next to Kaye-Boom's right red shoe.
Kaye-Boom looked down upon the small blackened stone with
a smile. "Very impressive."
The lump of charcoal then exploded into a spray of
fire--a fire storm of sorts. Smoke erupted from the scene as
the flames died back down into the glowing remains of the
rock.
Everyone in the crowd gasped, along with Mongo and Mary,
fearing the worst. No one could survive a blast like that,
they thought; he must be dead. The members of his
adventuring party and Lou knew better, however. When it
comes to Kaye-Boom, you just can't fight fire with fire.
The smoke dispersed leaving a smiling Kaye-Boom standing
there, snickering a bit. "Thank you. 'Twas getting a bit
chilly out here," he grinned.
"Show off!" Mary yelled back.
"Well, it was worth a shot," The Dead Eye confided. He
backed away from Kaye-Boom a few feet, looking slightly
helpless and vulnerable.
"Fire-Ball!" Kaye-Boom screamed again. A pea shaped ball
of fire leapt from his pinkie--headed straight towards The
Dead Eye. It grew in the course of its flight into a sphere
about the size of a wrecking ball. It hit The Dead Eye
square in the center of his dripping eye--
--and bounced off into the air and collided with a ride
called Joust-About-What?--it exploded into a fiery mess,
scattering the entire waiting line of people and sending both
airborne jousting cars--filled with riders--down into the
wreckage.
"Oops."
The Dead Eye chuckled softly, very much amused with all
of this nonsense. He gave Kaye-Boom a look that screamed,
"Nyah, nyah, dude!"
Kaye-Boom stepped over the fainted body of Way Rilliams,
confronting The Dead Eye--eyes to eye. A burning hatred
roared within as well as out of his body. "You--"
"Aaaa! Hide me!" Roy Bluehaul screamed as he tore into
the middle of the Games circle, crossing in-between Kaye-Boom
and The Dead Eye, not noticing what was going on.
One look at Roy, wearing his Doug the Clown suit, was
enough to put The Dead Eye into another round of spastic
laughter.
"What's going on, Roy?" Lou asked, still trying to
comprehend most of what was going on.
"Lou!" he yelped, "Hide me!" He pointed back towards the
crowd of onlookers near north side of the park--about ten
security guards were pushing their way through.
Lou gave Roy one of his better stupid looks, then told
him to hide in the Milk Can game, behind the crayon bears.
Roy obliged quickly.
"Where is he?" all ten of the security guards screamed
as one; apparently they freed themselves from the crowd. One
of the more burly of them walked up to Kaye-Boom.
"Where is he, old man?" he yelled into Kaye-Boom's face.
Kaye-Boom's face turned a nice shade of crimson.
"Yeah, where is the clown, freak?" another one yelled,
this time directed at The Dead Eye.
The Dead Eye blinked. He glanced at Kaye-Boom who nodded
his head in return. They both turned their attention back
upon the guards.
Ten piles of ashes remained where once stood ten stupid
rent-a-security guards. Half were incinerated with a gesture
from Kaye-Boom, while the rest crumbled into dust from a mere
glance from The Dead Eye.
"Hey!" Your Name Here yelled as he wove his way to the
center of the Games circle, avoiding the rapidly retreating
crowds. "What happened to my security guards?" He glared
down at the ten small piles of soot. He shrugged; "At least
I don't have to pay them anymore."
"Tim?" Lou asked. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Hey, Louie! What's up?" Your Name Here replied. "I
haven't seen you since I quit high school and joined the Air
Force." He glanced around, expecting to be introduced to
some of Lou's friends, which included a fire clown, a wizard,
and an eye. He turned back to Lou, "What's going on--" He
stopped himself short and glared at the boxes of crayon bears
in the Milk Can game. He ran as quietly as he could over to
them and leapt at the person hiding behind.
It was Mary. She let out a yelp of surprise and
annoyance as Your Name Here tried to roll off her reclining
body. Roy ran over behind Lou.
"Get off me!" Mary screamed as she tried to literally get
him off her back.
Your Name Here glanced distastefully down at Mary after
he stood up and shook himself free of multi-colored crayon
bear fuzz. Calm and quiet, he walked over to Roy, cowering
behind Lou. He smiled, then took a lunge at Roy's neck.
"Gimmie my checkbook!"
"What's going on?" Lou attempted to separate them, but
only succeeded in getting one hand free from Roy's neck.
Your Name Here paused in his strangle hold. "He stole my
checkbook!" he whined, pointing his free hand at the blue
faced Roy.
Lou frowned at Roy. "Give it back."
Roy gasped, his face the color of a blueberry Italian
ice. "...[gasp]...I don't have it!" he exhaled.
Your Name Here resumed the strangulation.
"Okay! Okay!" Roy yelped as Your Name Here relived slack
on his neck. He handed the black simulated leather checkbook
over to Your Name Here.
"Hey, dudes!" The Dead Eye yelled impatiently. "Come on!
You're holding the whole thing up!"
"Yes," Kaye-Boom agreed, "We have a fight to fight,
although that does sound a bit redundant."
"Everyone on my side, come stand behind me!" The Dead Eye
ordered.
No one did.
"That did it!" he screamed, "You're all going to die!"
He snapped his fingers--once, twice, and a third time. The
sky blackened from a pretty, well-lit night to an almost
eerie, dark sky. He was now holding something rather long
and large in his stubby, cartoon-like hands.
"I think we're in trouble..." Lou thought aloud to
everyone around him.
"Why?" Your Name Here asked, looking up from his visual
inspection of his checkbook for marks and scratches.
"He's holding a heat seeking missile launcher!" Lou
answered hysterically.
Shae-doe asked the obligatory, "What's a heat seeking
missile launcher?" at the same time as Your Name Here posed
the question, "How do you know it's a heat seeking missile?"
but both were interrupted by the noise of a heat seeking
missile being launched.
It rocketed in the direction The Dead Eye aimed
it--towards Kaye-Boom. But, unfortunately for The Dead Eye,
being a heat seeking missile, it made an illegal U-turn in
mid air, sped to the other end of the Games circle, and
exploded into the flaming wreckage of the Joust-About-What?
ride, killing a few survivors.
"What?!" The Dead Eye screeched. "It's not supposed to
do that!!" He stamped his stubby feat on the ground and
started to pout.
Lou was about to explain to The Dead Eye that heat
seeking missiles usually go after the greatest source of
heat, hence the prefix 'heat seeking,' but was rudely
interrupted by a strange sound seemingly coming from
everywhere at once.
Phaarrt!
A million honey bees flew over the amusement park,
ignoring the fake flowers carefully planted by Death
Adventure employees.
Mongo pushed the large red button on the garage door
opener once more.
Phaarrt!
This time, instead of bringing a lot of bees into
existence, a ten foot tall demon-like person, wearing a light
blue tuxedo with a ruffled collar, appeared beside Kaye-Boom.
The demon looked around, slightly surprised at his
appearance in this world. "Greetings from down under," the
horned demon called, in an unmistakable Puerto-Rican accent,
to everyone that stayed thus far in the battle. "My name is
Jose, the love demon." He held a limp mace that definitely
resembled something very x-rated from the male anatomy,
although in a much larger and longer size.
Mary stepped from behind the boxes in the Milk Can game
to take a peek at the newcomer with the seductive voice.
Hmn, she thought. He is hot.
"Thank you for bringing me here," the love demon spoke,
"Now I will kill you--" He spotted Mary, then resumed,
holding his not-so-limp mace, "Come to me, darling. I want
to make love to you--"
Phaarrt!
The love demon disappeared only to be replaced by a small
pile of green beans. Corbin walked over and greeted them.
"But..." Mary sighed then dejectedly took a seat back
onto the game counter.
Mongo pocketed the reality machine, then mumbled
something into his bookbag.
The Dead Eye shook his eye in disbelief. "Yeah, right,"
he mumbled. "Who's the jerk that farted? Thrice!"
Everyone but Mongo and Corbin refused the blame; Mongo
smiled while Corbin said, "Beans." Mary shuffled a few feet
down the counter top, away from both Mongo and Corbin.
"Who was that jerk?" Roy asked no one in particular.
"Who cares!" The Dead Eye retorted bluntly. "Let's just
get on with this!"
"Shae-doe!" Kaye-Boom yelled, "My fire has little effect
on him. Ye must destroy him yeself."
"Ye," Shae-doe concluded. "I must."
"Oh, I gotta see this..." The Dead Eye laughed.
Shae-doe thought for a minute--ignoring The Dead Eye's
whistling and feet tapping, then spoke his idea, "I will
summon us help." He wove a glowing pattern in the
air--almost like a lopsided star within a crescent moon. He
spoke a few magical words like, "Home, enter, shift and alt."
Finally, he snapped his fingers.
Two figures appeared on top of the spot marked by a pile
of green beans. They collapsed.
"Oh." Shae-doe frowned, obviously disappointed.
The two figures, collapsed in a heap, were Kill-M-All and
Emmerick. For some strange reason, their clothes were in
tatters and shreds.
Upon the realization that his new vegetable friends have
become a pile of mush underneath both Kill-M-All and
Emmerick, Corbin walked away to a spot a few game stands
down.
"Didn't my ice dragon eat them?" The Dead Eye asked.
Kaye-Boom shrugged. "Doesn't look that way."
Both Roy and Your Name Here nudged Lou and asked what was
going on. Lou, not exactly knowing much himself, briefly
explained to the both of them, to the best of his knowledge,
the strange situation.
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard today. It
sounds like an unbelievable plot from a bad paperback novel,"
Your Name Here replied when Lou was finished.
Lou shook his head almost as if to agree. "Just go with
the flow, Tim. Just go with the flow."
"My name isn't Tim anymore. It's Your Name Here."
Lou blinked; he looked to the sky then back at Your Name
Here. "Sure, Tim."
"Wha?" Emmerick drooled, slowly regaining consciousness.
"Lions!" he screamed, jolting into reality. He jumped up,
eyed his surroundings, then kicked Kill-M-All in the stomach
and told him to get up.
"Why?" Kill-M-All asked drowsily, eyes still shut tight.
"Because we just appeared in thy midst of a fight between
Kaye-Boom and The Dead Eye."
Kill-M-All's eyes snapped open, confirming what Emmerick
had just told him. "Oh," he muttered as he stood up,
glancing around the Games circle.
"Could we please get on with this!" The Dead Eye whined.
Emmerick edged over to Shae-doe and handed him both the
books that he'd found when he landed in that shopping cart
thingy. "Here, take these. 'Tis two strange books of
spells, methinks." He eyed the magic-user teasingly and
added, "You might even be able to use them."
Shae-doe gave Emmerick a final sneer, then flipped open
the first strange spell book. His eyes widened considerably
as he scanned a particularly tasty page. "How would you
like thyself done?" he asked The Dead Eye, "Whipped, chopped
or liquefied?" He chuckled to himself, trying to decide
which spell to use--the Lasagna spell or the Tuna casserole
spell.
"Ha, ha. Very funny." The Dead Eye wasn't laughing.
"Now would you be a good little dude and attack me so I can
kill you."
"What kind of spell book is that?" Roy asked, getting
genuinely interested in this adventure. Kaye-Boom was also
wondering the same thing as well.
"Strange and powerful--Ah! The perfect spell!" It must
be powerful with such rare and uncommon spell components,
Shae-doe thought, reading the column of weird ingredients.
Shae-doe danced around, pulling items forth from his robes,
arranging them on the ground beneath him. "Would anyone just
happen to have a tall sundae glass on thy person?"
Mongo asked his bookbag if it had one--and sure enough,
it did. He handed the glass to Shae-doe.
"Thank you." He scanned the next couple lines in the
book then set the glass upon the nearest counter top.
The Dead Eye sat down in the middle of the Games circle,
a bored look emerging in his eye. He began twiddling his
thumbs, toes, and eye lashes.
"Just a few more minutes..." Shae-doe mumbled to his
bored audience. He consulted the book again then began
scratching his head quizzically. "Anyone have a quarter cup
of thy pasteurized milk on thy person? I need it for my
spell..."
"Shae-doe," Kaye-Boom asked tiredly, "would you read the
remainder of the spell for us, please."
"A quarter cup pasteurized milk, a third cup of chocolate
syrup, one cup seltzer water--"
"That's not a spell!" Lou screeched with minor annoyance,
"That's the recipe for an egg creme!"
"No! I'm sorry!" The Dead Eye screamed, his eye pouring
forth liquids of all sorts. "This is going too far!" He
waddled around furiously. "Now I will kill y--What the hell
is that?!" He pointed at a descending blotch, high above
them in the moonlit sky.
"Look! Up in the sky!" Roy blurted.
"It's a turd!" Kill-M-All added truthfully.
"No, it's a blimp!" Mary exclaimed.
"You're all wrong," Your Name Here corrected, "It's some
fat guy bouncing this way."
"It's Mighty Mooch!" a booming fat voice proclaimed. The
very large owner of the voice bounced past and crashed to a
halt a few game stands down.
"And I thought my world was strange..." The Dead Eye,
wide eyed, murmured incredulously.
Mongo pulled a remote controlled detonator from his
bookbag and began fiddling with it.
Mary giggled girlishly. She loved watching people go
nuts--arguing, fighting, and the like. She didn't understand
and she didn't care.
An extremely overweight man blundered back into the
middle of the Games circle. He wore a super-hero style
costume of yellow and red pastels with two interconnected
felt M's on the front of his yellow shirt. His red cape
fluttered behind him as he wobbled towards the group. "Hi!"
the large person rumbled. "You are all under arrest for
destruction of private property," he explained breathlessly,
pausing after every second word. He took a deep fat breath
then resumed, "Please give yourselves up or I will be forced
to eat you."
"Eat us?" The Dead Eye asked rather unbelievably.
Mighty Mooch took a good look at the three foot tall eye
that had just spoken to him. Incredulously, he asked, "Are
you for real?"
"No, I'm for fake!" The Dead Eye retorted. "What are
you, anyway? Some fat idiot?!"
Mighty Mooch ignored the fat joke--he had heard far too
many in his lifetime to be affected anymore. "Speaking of
food," he continued, "does anyone have any?" His stomach
growled, the sound of two large bulldozers razing a small
apartment building. "I haven't eaten for five minutes
now..."
Mongo reached into his bookbag, took out a glob of gray
clay wired to a small grey plastic box and walked over and
handed it to him. Mongo sat back down.
"Yum!" Mighty Mooch devoured it in one gulp. "Tasty.
What was that?" he asked between belches.
"Plastic explosives," Mongo replied, completely serious.
"Mm... I'll have to buy some--"
Lou walked over, reached up, and barely tapped him on the
shoulders. "Hello," he said when Mighty Mooch turned round.
"Remember me?" he asked, holding himself back.
Mighty Mooch frowned--a billion wrinkles covered his
forehead. "Oh, you were in that convenience store when I
thwarted that robbery."
Lou nodded. "You also borrowed my car..."
"That was your car? Oh, sorry. I needed it to catch
that crook. Didn't though... ran out of gas. Piece of junk
car."
"What?!" Lou shrieked. "Dead Eye, zap him! Kaye-Boom,
fry him! Everyone, kill him!" He collapsed to the ground,
quivering with anger.
KA-BOOM!!! (Or, if you prefer: MANY LARGE EXPLOSIONS!)
It was at that moment that almost every single ride and
attraction in Death Adventure that Mongo had visited earlier
exploded in a cloud of flames, smoke, and twisted metal. The
Merry-go-round wasn't so merry anymore. The big Ferris wheel
now resembled a crescent. Near a gray Malibu, the parking
lot tram exploded into a pothole the size of an old Buick,
though the Malibu remained unharmed. The Games circle,
though, escaped any major explosions and was a nice place to
sit and watch the destruction if you were into that sort of
thing.
Kaye-Boom, awed with all the fire and the explosions and
the fire, just stood, mesmerized, swaying with the dancing
fires all around the park. The Dead Eye, on the other eye,
rolled about the ground, giggling with childish glee.
Mighty Mooch belched a small stream of fire, singeing the
Milk Can sign slightly. "I must rescue the people!" He
bounced off awkwardly, clearing game stands at a time and
yelled, "Don't you criminals move. I'll be back to arrest
you!"
Mongo tossed the now useless detonator away and sat and
smiled, hugging his bookbag and twirling his black hair.
Lou, awakened by the detonation of many, many plastic
explosive bombs, looked nonchalantly about the amusement
park, as if the explosions didn't phase him much. "Oh well,"
he mumbled with a sigh. "I didn't like the place much
anyway." A nice thought hit him; he smiled broadly and
yelled, "That's what you get for firing Lou Morris!"
Way Rilliams awoke, looked around, screamed, then fainted
once again.
"This has gone far enough, fiend eye!" Emmerick
pronounced. "Look what you have done to this world!"
The Dead Eye chuckled. "I didn't do this... But I
would've!"
"Take this, fiend eye!" Emmerick held a silver mirror to
The Dead Eye's chuckling eye.
The Dead Eye adjusted an eye brow or two then thanked
Emmerick for the use of his mirror.
"Oh," the elf frowned. "Well, then take this!" He
produced a wooden stake from his backpack. "Scared, huh?"
"Not really," The Dead Eye replied. "Unlike most
vampires, I don't have a chest." He pointed to his
non-existent mid-section, completely lacking in a chest.
"Oh, well. I guess the holy water and garlic are out,
too?"
"Yup, dude."
Mary, now noticing Emmerick's slender but pointy elven
ears, pointed at him and commented, "Oh, wow! He's a
vulcan!"
Kill-M-All laughed. He didn't know what a vulcan was,
but it certainly didn't have anything to do with elves.
"No, stupid," The Dead Eye remarked, using some of
Corbin's stolen memories, "He's a Smurf!"
Emmerick was about rebut but was interrupted by a number
of munches and slurps.
"Put your hands in the air and don't move!" yelled a
megaphone wielding and doughnut eating police officer. The
perimeter of the Games circle was surrounded by about fifty
Cassville cops, each one aiming a handgun towards Kaye-Boom,
The Dead Eye, and the rest.
"Shit!" Roy concluded. He jumbled through his Doug suit,
looking for a really good place to hide a certain key that
opened a certain trunk which contained a certain sum of
stolen money.
"Glad you finally got here, officers," Your Name Here
said, walking proudly towards the police captain. "These
people tried to kidnap me!" He looked at the frowning Roy
and pointed, "And here's the one who stole my checkbook!
Arrest him!"
"Mr. Your Name Here," the police chief pronounced, "or
Tim Restle as your real name, you are under arrest for the
theft of ten million dollars!"
"Oh, well... oops." Your Name Here quickly began to back
away from the cops. "He did it!" he yelled, pointing at Roy.
"All the rest of you are under arrest for disorderly
conduct in a public amusement park. You have the right to
remain silent, so shut the hell up."
Phaarrt!
"Anything you say can and will be used to eat
you--[drool...]" the cop salivated to a halt. He pointed to
a previously empty spot where a stand-up and fall-down roller
coaster was to be erected. A fifty by one hundred foot box
of Dunking Donuts now resided there, overflowing with huge
pastries.
"Donuts!!" The policemen dropped their guns and rifles
and took off running down the park street towards the big
carton, saying things like, "I call all the frosted ones!"
and "Eclairs! I want my eclairs!"
Your Name Here frowned at the retreating cops then at his
now useless checkbook. He brushed some imaginary dust of the
fake leather cover then, with a shrug, tossed it over his
left shoulder. "Well, that takes care of that, huh, Lou?" he
said, slightly relived, but yet slightly annoyed.
"Sure, Tim," Lou answered.
"Now can I kill you people?" The Dead Eye asked, whining.
"I'd really like to get started with the destruction of this
planet, dudes."
That was it. Threatening to destroy an entire planet was
one thing, but constant whining was altogether another.
"I'll kill you, ye pain in thy ass!" Kill-M-All charged The
Dead Eye, his magical sword leading the way.
"What are you doing?" The Dead Eye asked as Kill-M-All
charged. "I didn't say you could do this."
"Shut-up, Eye! I said I could hit you, Eye!" He
stopped, confused in mid-charge. "What the hell did I say?"
The Dead Eye smiled. "Eye-yi-yi said the eye."
"Die scum!" Kill-M-All resumed his charge. He swung--
The sword hit The Dead Eye in the leg; it immediately
melted into slag, doing little damage to Kill-M-All and none
to The Dead Eye.
"Normal weapons don't hurt me," The Dead Eye added.
"Normal?!" Kill-M-All whined. "That was a plus
twenty-one sword of instant death!" he cried, staring at the
melted remainder of his sword--just blobs on the cobblestone
ground.
"Oh well, man," The Dead Eye replied insincerely.
"Oh well!!" Kill-M-All screamed, "Oh well! I'll give you
oh well!" His eyes lit up, a burning desire for bodily harm
seeping outward. "I'm going to strangle ye!" He leapt for
The Dead Eye's neck.
"I don't have a neck," The Dead Eye pointed out.
Kill-M-All fell to the floor in mid-leap, just giving up
for now.
"Now we can get on with this?" The Dead Eye asked.
"Aaaa!" Mongo yelled as he ran behind Kaye-Boom,
desperately trying to avoid the ghostly image of a floating
fish that was chasing him. "Help me!" He grabbed a hold of
Kaye-Boom's fiery robes, ignoring the harmless flames, and
began to suck his thumb.
"Fish killer!" the dead fish burbled loudly as he swam
after Mongo.
"I can't believe this!" The Dead Eye complained. "First
an overweight super-nitwit, next some inept guards..." He
stared at the fish, now floating stationary in front of
Kaye-Boom, "Now chicken-o-sea?"
The fish turned and mouthed a few breaths. "I beg your
pardon?" he burbled, ignoring Mongo for the moment.
"You should. Now shut up, filet-o-fish!" The Dead Eye
yelled. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of killing these
people?"
The fish turned to Mongo, currently hiding behind the
unwilling Kaye-Boom. "I'll get you later, fish killer." He
swam back around to face The Dead Eye. "I vow to haunt you
till you die, Eye."
"My eye. You're a little late for that, dude. Now go
away, shark bait, you bother me." He gave the fish a passing
glance then looked toward the rest of the group, "I've got
other fish to fry."
"Go away." Kaye-Boom shoed Mongo's grip off his robes.
"Besides, little fish," The Dead Eye added, "I'm already
dead. How can you haunt me, dude?"
"I'll find a way," the fish burbled, vowing to find a
way. He swam over to Roy, smiled a fish smile then swam over
to Emmerick.
"Hello, fish," Emmerick said.
"About that wacky fire wizard you wanted to find..." the
fish burbled within earshot of Kaye-Boom.
"Yes?"
"He's right there."
"I know that," Emmerick replied, shaking his elven head.
"Well, see ya." The fish swam off.
"Wasn't that a fish?" Your Name Here asked slowly.
Roy smiled, "Yeah, I met him earlier yesterday; we had a
chat in my car."
"Sure, Roy," both Lou and Your Name Here replied.
Emmerick remembered something he planned on asking
Shae-doe. "When was the last time ye bathed?" he asked.
Shae-doe shrugged, then answered, "Under these
circumstances, I dare say 'twill never get the chance again."
"What about when we were in the tavern?"
"Oh, once or twice a day, I guess. Why?"
Emmerick blinked then said, "No reason..."
"Go away," Kaye-Boom commanded again. He waved the
gangling fellow off.
"Okay," Mongo sniffed, wiping away a tear. He turned to
walk dejectedly back to the counter but instead tripped over
a box turtle who was in the midst of escaping.
The small colorful turtle retreated into its shell as
Mongo carefully picked it up. "Hello, Mr. Turtle," Mongo
said brightly, completely forgetting about Kaye-Boom and the
ghostly fish. He began to pet the frightened tortoise's
orange and black shell. "Will you be my friend?"
The turtle poked its head out, looking almost as if it
were smiling.
A Chinese woman in her early twenties walked briskly into
the Games circle, heading towards Mongo and his turtle, her
dull auburn hair completely failing to blend into the night
sky. Her face and body looked as if she had just stepped
from a pantyhose commercial, although she was inappropriately
dressed in a half shirt and tight colorful spandex shorts.
She was munching on the last bit of a barbecue beef sandwich
and was carrying a medium-sized rock.
Everyone paused in the midst of their arguing and
discussions to gawk at the well equipped newcomer. Mary
cackled and turned her back abruptly. The turtle quickly
went back into its shell.
"May I see your turtle?" she asked Mongo with a soul
eating smile, curiously balancing the heavy rock with her
left hand.
"Sure." Mongo happily handed her the frightened turtle.
She carefully placed the turtle down in front of her and
smiled at it.
The turtle quickly began to scurry away as fast as a
turtle could scurry, which was sluggish and slow.
She smiled once again at the shuffling tortoise.
Then she dropped the rock on it.
Splat!
Smiling to herself, she wiped bits of turtle from her
white sneakers.
Mongo gasped sharply, then began to cry; the exact
opposite result emerged from The Dead Eye.
"Donna? Where are you?" called a pleasant female voice
from the other side of the Games area.
Donna frowned as she looked in the direction of the
voice. The smile returned to her face, though, as she
gleefully peeked underneath the rock. Then she removed a
small turtle shaped pocket counter from her back pocket; she
clicked it--its numbers now reading 561,237. Her smile
faltered as she once again heard her sisters voice, much
closer than before.
"Oh, Donna! There you are!" Donna's conservative looking
twin sister exclaimed, coming to a halt next to her, frowning
slightly. "Daddy's looking all over for you." She wore a
pink sweater and a light gray business skirt which almost
covered her long slender legs.
"What are you, my mother?" Donna sneered at her sister;
"Wing Chong, you are such a drag."
"If mother were alive to see you, Donna..." Wing Chong
sighed, "She'd have a heart attack." She glanced down at her
sister's feet, wincing at the sight of turtle entrails on her
shoes. "Another turtle?"
Mongo began to cry even louder.
"Do you people mind?" The Dead Eye whined, "I'm trying to
kill people here." He winked at Donna, "You can stay and
watch," then glared at Wing, "but Miss goody-two-shoes must
leave. Now!"
"I'm not leaving without my sister--"
"Anything," The Dead Eye cut in, "As long as you leave."
He then waddled over to where Kaye-Boom was sitting, setting
fire to a bunch of stuffed frogs, totally entranced by the
flames. "Ahem."
Kaye-Boom looked up at The Dead Eye sharply, almost
embarrassed. "Oh, sorry." He dejectedly extinguished the
burning frogs then stood up. "Let us be done with it, then."
"Err, excuse me?" Donna Chong asked The Dead Eye. "Are
you a turtle?"
"What?" The Dead Eye replied impatiently. "Do I look
like a turtle?" he asked sarcastically.
"Well, yeah." She bit her lip then smiled. "Do you mind
if I squish you? I'll need a bigger rock, though."
"What?!" The Dead Eye screamed. This time Kaye-Boom was
laughing. "You may be a cute maniac, but I'm still gonna
kill ya."
"Hey! You can't kill her," Roy objected, giving Donna a
flirty wink. She laughed a reply not all that nicely.
"Who said?" The Dead Eye asked tartly.
"I did," Roy answered, proudly defending Donna's honor.
He gave her another wink. She laughed even louder this time.
"Then I'll kill you instead, dude."
"Uh, no thanks," he whimpered. "Kill her," he added a
moment later then slithered off to where Lou and Shae-doe
were standing.
"Wimp," The Dead Eye and Donna observed simultaneously.
Everyone else agreed.
"You do look like a turtle," Donna restated, giving The
Dead Eye the twice over.
"I'm not a turtle!" The Dead Eye ranted, waving his small
hands around his eye. "Turtles don't talk!"
"I cannot allow you to kill this defenseless talking
turtle, Donna," Wing pronounced, stepping between the two of
them.
"Read my lips!" The Dead Eye screamed. "I'm not a..."
He stopped mid-sentence, a quizzical look in his eye. "Wait
a second; I don't have any lips!" He stamped his feet
annoyingly, pouting.
"Neither do turtles," Donna added.
"Aaaa! I'm gonna kill you both!" he screamed.
"No one is killing anyone!" a heavily accented Chinese
voice pronounced badly but firmly. A middle aged man dressed
in pure white robes and a lone checkered belt stepped out of
the shadows near the flickering flames from the recently
destroyed Joust-About-What? ride. The light from the Death
Adventure street lamps reflected well off his completely bald
head. Carrying no weapons, he looked as if he stepped from a
channel five karate flick.
The Dead Eye stamped his sneaker-clad foot to the ground;
"This is getting ridiculous, dudes!"
"Oh, daddy!" Donna exclaimed, "This mean turtle won't let
me kill it!"
"Hiiiiii--Yaaa!" screamed Donna and Wing's father as he
placed his body in karate attack position number 56, which
resembled a pair of kiddie safety scissors.
Wing Chong stepped from in between Donna and that rather
strange looking talking turtle and looked for a better place
to reside. She disliked most of Donna's habits, especially
when they got her father involved. She walked over to that
strange intellectual looking young man chanting about
vegetables and began to speak in earnest with him about
butter sauce and if it really hurt the vegetables or not.
"Die, stupid turtle!" Donna taunted. "My daddy's got a
checkered belt in karate!"
"Oh, no! Now I'm really scared." The Dead Eye falsely
trembled with sarcasm.
"Eggg--Foooo--Yoouunng!" Mr. Chong screamed, stretching
the words in the normal cliche karate fashion. He snapped,
his tight body now resembling that cheap gold chain you could
never get the kink out of.
"What's this guy doing? Ordering takeout?" The Dead Eye
yelled. "Go home or I'll kill you, too."
Kaye-Boom shrugged then went back to his stuffed frog
execution.
"Chiikeeen--Chooow--Meiiiin!" Mr. Chong screamed as he
rapidly advanced on The Dead Eye. "Eeegg--Roooll!" He
landed a karate chop square in his disquieting eye which sent
The Dead Eye reeling backwards, grasping at the air for
support.
Kaye-Boom clapped heartily then turned back to his frog
witch trials as the entire group cheered joyfully--all hoping
for The Dead Eye's quick defeat. Even Corbin joined in the
festivities and began reciting positive vegetables such as
corn and potatoes (everyone likes corn and potatoes).
"Poooo--Poooo--Pllaaateeer!" Another quick blow sent The
Dead Eye down to the pavement, crying.
"Daddy!" Wing cried; "Stop, he's hurt!" She ran over to
where The Dead Eye was lying in a pool of tears. "Are you
all right?" she asked. The Dead Eye didn't answer--he seemed
to be giggling much too hard to speak. She frowned. He
wasn't crying--he was laughing himself into tears. "Stupid
turtle."
The Dead Eye got up and wiped his eye free of tears. "Am
I all right?" he giggled sarcastically.
Mr. Chong was furious. "Wooon--Tooon--Soouup!" He
punched but the blow was deflected by a wave of energy that
exploded outward from The Dead Eye. Mr. Chong flew about
twenty feet backwards, landing safely in a pile of stuffed
alligators and pandas.
"That's it, dudes!" The Dead Eye pronounced. "The fun
and games are over!" He snapped his fingers then looked
towards the sky expectantly.
The earth rumbled. The wind began to howl. The sky
blackened. Some guy just got a bad dose of indigestion. The
world was about to end.
"What do we do now, bookbag?" Mongo asked, getting
slightly frightened by the cold wind.
Kill-M-All answered in a falsetto, mimicking what the
bookbag would sound like if anyone could hear it, "I say we
get the hell out of here!"
"Wave bye-bye to your planet, dudes!" He waved
sarcastically as well.
"No!" both Lou and Shae-doe yelled as one. Then they
frowned at each other. "No, you go first," they both added.
"Wizard! Go for it!" Kaye-Boom yelled. "It had better
be good..." he added under the wind.
Lou backed down and let the wizard step forward to oppose
The Dead Eye. "You can do it, Shae-doe!"
"Yeah, go kick his eye!" Your Name Here added, followed
by a "Do it for Beach-Ball!" from Kill-M-All.
Shae-doe stepped up then removed another book from his
robes--it was the other one that Emmerick had given him. He
already had the page marked, so he got right into the complex
somatic spell components--a series of body and leg movements.
Shae-doe put his left foot in.
He put his left foot out.
He put his left foot in and he shook it all about.
He mumbled, "Okey-dokey," clapped then turned himself
around.
Shae-doe said, "That's what it's all about."
He put his right foot in.
He put his right foot--
"What are you doing?" Lou asked, confused.
"The Hokey-Pokey spell," Shae-doe replied.
"Hold me back, I'm gonna strangle him!" Lou yelled.
No one did.
"Whatever..." Lou said.
"No!" Lou screamed a second later, finally imbued with a
sense of purpose and determination. "Let's see if you can
handle a spell-sunger, Mister Dead Eye!" He pulled his
plastic Mickey Moose guitar from round his back.
"That's Mister The Dead Eye to you--"
"Take this, fiend!" Lou then launched himself into a
horrible rendition of a Phil Collins classic, "I Don't Care
Anymore," complete with crackling voices, completely wrong
notes, forgotten phrases, and no drum accompaniment.
Everyone held their ears through the entirety of the song;
even The Dead Eye, who was lacking in any visible ear
orifices, held his eye shut tight. It was so badly sung, in
fact, that if Phil Collins was present to witness this awful
version of his song and was asked what he thought of it, he
would have quite a hard time answering the question because
he would be too busy choking Lou to death.
"There!" Lou said when he had finished. Everyone
breathed a sigh of ear relief.
Nothing happened. The earth still rumbled. The wind
still howled. The sky still blackened. That guy still had a
bad case of indigestion and was currently rushing to the
bathroom. The world was still ending.
The Dead Eye laughed, "Ha, ha. Stupid pathetic attempt!
Just don't do it anymore, okay?"
"Just what we need," Kill-M-All remarked, "a tone-deaf
spell-sunger."
"Hey, Lou?" Lou yelled to the sky, "Why didn't it work?"
That's because spell-sunging comes from the heart not
from other people's lyrics.
"Who the hell is that?!" The Dead Eye screamed.
"It's the Dungeon Master!" Emmerick shrieked. "Oh mighty
DM!" He bowed to the ground. Twice.
"But it worked in that book I read!" Lou explained,
ignoring everything else.
But that book isn't real, it's a bunch of lies. A real
spell-sunger must sing his own lyrics for the magic to work.
Anyway, this is my book and I say what works and what
doesn't.
"I'm sorry, whoever you are," The Dead Eye whined, "But
if you don't tell me who you are, I'm gonna kill ya, dude!"
You can't kill me.
"Why not?" The Dead Eye responded.
Because I'm the author of this book, that's why.
"So? You think I care? I'll kill you anyway..."
"Wait a second!" Mary got up from her seat on the
counter and walked over to the middle of the group and looked
upwards. "You're responsible for all this crap? This is all
just a stupid book?!" She glanced back at everyone then
yelled back to the sky, "I don't know about them, but I think
he should kill you."
Lou, for the first time since he and Mary met, actually
thought she had a good idea. He shrugged his shoulders to
the sky. I lost my job, my girlfriend and my car, he
thought. For his little story! "Let's kill him."
Emmerick was about to say, "But you can't kill the
Dungeon Master!" when Kill-M-All whispered, "So he's the guy
that hasn't given us any treasure in this adventure yet..."
"Let's kill him," Emmerick said instead.
If you could kill me, which you can't, who would end this
book?
"So?!" The Dead Eye yelled, happy that he finally gained
some support.
Do you know what would happen then?
"No, nor do I care."
"Kill him," Kill-M-All added, still mourning the loss of
his sword.
This book would go on and on and on and on and on and
would never stop.
"Don't kill him!!" Lou shrieked.
Almost everyone else agreed. A bad ending is better than
no ending.
"I don't care, dude. I'll kill you anyway! Take this!"
The Dead Eye pointed his hands straight upwards. A bolt of
pure bluish energy leapt towards the night sky.
"Wait!" Shae-doe commanded.
The Dead Eye paused in his energy attack and, along with
everyone else, tiresomely turned towards Shae-doe.
Kaye-Boom eyed Shae-doe. "This had better be good," he
said. "What's the name of thy spell? 'Twasn't a spell from
those new books, pray tell?"
Shae-doe nodded. "'Tis thy One Little Piggy, Two Little
Piggy, We-We All the Way Home spell."
Kill-M-All smiled at Shae-doe then lunged at him,
knocking the two volumes from his grasp. With a gasp of
horror from Shae-doe, Kill-M-All handed both the books to
Kaye-Boom. Kaye-Boom, delighted, gave Shae-doe a grin then
torched them. Kill-M-All gathered up most of the ashes and
stuffed them into a small pouch. He handed it to Shae-doe.
Shae-doe dejectedly took the pouch of ashes then said, "I
have no use for it now."
"You never did," Kill-M-All said.
With that over with, The Dead Eye shook his eye and
resumed his energy attack towards the dark sky.
The earth rumbled loudly. The wind howled coldly. The
sky blackened darkly. That guy with the bad case of
indigestion looked sickly. The world was ending quickly.
What to do? Lou thought, what to do? Can't let this
idiot kill the author or this nightmare will never end. On
the same token, I gotta do something to speed up the ending a
bit. Maybe I should try that spell-sunging stuff once more?
Lou did say it might work...
Lou began to strum the plastic guitar. Musical notes
emerged--not broken but whole and fresh. An amplified tune
poured from every speaker in the park, broken or not. Drums
from nowhere began to beat out the lows while horns and
cymbals rang out the highs. Lou played as if he were lead
guitarist for an unseen ghostly band. It was magic making
music. He sang the first verse, "It's been like this all my
life." His voice still left much to be desired, though.
Everyone stopped to listen, almost compelled by the
strange music. The Dead Eye stopped shooting energy to the
sky; instead he stood motionless with an annoyed look in his
eye.
"What kind of word is fife?" Lou sang, amplified from an
unknown microphone. He continued:
"Gotta make this song rhyme,
Say, do you have the time?
It seems like I'm always this nuts."
"Ten minutes late for reality!" everyone forcefully
chorused including The very unwilling Dead Eye. Kaye-Boom,
Roy and Your Name Here began to dance, not completely
themselves anymore. The Chong family, meanwhile, formed a
group of backup vocals behind Lou.
"I don't know what else to write," Lou sang.
"Ten minutes late for reality!" came the chorus. Mary
frowned--Why was she singing this stupid song?
"Say, are you alright?" Lou sang, oblivious to
everything.
"Ten minutes late for reality!" The Dead Eye stomped his
foot--Why was this happening?
"No if's, and's or but's." Lou continued to sing,
completely withstanding the cries and pleas from everyone,
mainly The Dead Eye, to stop that awful droning. He sang the
second stanza, not much better than the first. But what do
you expect from someone that was making it up as he went
along:
"Put my cat out in the snow cause he was sick,
Now I've found him; he's frozen thick!
Broke up with a girl named Mary; she said it wasn't my fault,
Some people called her scary; she ate a lot of salt.
But don't ask me, my brain's out to lunch!"
"Aaaa! I can't take this--" The Dead Eye yelled then
added, along with everyone else, "Ten minutes late for
reality!"
"The lights are on, but nobody is home."
"Ten minutes late for reality!"
"What's the difference between watt and ohm?"
"Ten minutes late for reality!"
"End this book or you'll get a punch!"
As the trumpet solo emerged from the strings of Lou's
cheap plastic guitar, The Dead Eye began, rather unwillingly,
to break-dance in the middle of the Games circle next to
Kaye-Boom, who was busy playing drums in the air. "I'm gonna
kill you, dude!" The Dead Eye yelled before moon-walking into
Mongo, who was square dancing with his bookbag.
The solo ended and Lou launched into the third and final
stanza:
"My Rice Krispies won't even say hi,
Now I wanna know why?
I wasn't always this weird,
Maybe should I grow a beard?
See all those Darts; I say die!"
The Dead Eye lunged for Lou's neck but stopped mid-leap
to involuntarily chorus, "Ten minutes late for reality!"
"Drove into a pole while eating some pie," Lou sang.
"Ten minutes late for reality!"
"What kind of name is The Dead Eye?"
"Ten minutes late for reality!"
"Now I've gotta go; say bye-bye!" Lou concluded, waving
at The Dead Eye.
The song ended abruptly. Something seemed like it was
about to happen.
"What the hell is going on?! This is a fight, not a
fucking musical!!!" The Dead Eye raised his arms, calling
for the end of the world--
Something did happen. A lone paperback book fell from
the sky, only to land rather hard on The Dead Eye's eye.
Splooch!
With a splat, a huge contact lens popped from his eye and
fell to the ground, along with the book.
"Oh, hell!" The Dead Eye complained as he knelt to the
ground, squinting and feeling for his lost contact lens.
The earth stopped rumbling. The wind stopped howling.
The sky stopped blackening. Some guy found out how to spell
relief. The world stopped ending.
"Loose something?" Kaye-Boom inquired, snatching the
upper limb in the battle. He smiled.
"My contact," The Dead Eye answered, feeling the ground
beneath and around himself.
"Turtles don't wear contact lenses," Donna said.
"Right. Now shut up."
"How much do you need it?" Kaye-Boom asked.
"I'm far sighted, dude." He squinted at Kaye-Boom, "I
can see you fine, but I can't see my hand in front of my
eye!"
"Oh."
"Besides," The Dead Eye added, "I'm virtually powerless
without it."
"Oh!" Kaye-Boom looked down at his foot, raised high
above The Dead Eye's contact lens. He smiled.
The Dead Eye squinted in Kaye-Boom's direction. "There
it is!" he exclaimed. "Do ya mind passing it over here,
dude?"
Crunch! Kaye-Boom accidentally stepped on it.
The Dead Eye blinked.
Crackle! Crumble! Crunch! Kaye-Boom accidentally
stomped up and down on it a few times.
The Dead Eye blinked again.
Crumble! Sift! Kaye-Boom accidentally shuffled his feet
in the dusty remains of the contact.
The Dead Eye blinked once more. "Der, dude," he sneered.
"Cheap shot!"
"Now can I kill him?" Donna asked brightly.
"Anybody got a pair of eye glasses on them?" The Dead Eye
asked, rubbing his hands together. "I'll give 'em right
back." He squinted at Donna, then at Kaye-Boom, "I just
wanna kill two, three--twenty people, that's all."
"What should we do with him?" Your Name Here asked, not
paying attention to The Dead Eye.
"We could kill him!" Roy helpfully blurted.
"You still can't kill me; I'm already dead--"
Emmerick cut in, "We could send him to Limbo."
"Already been there," The Dead Eye commented. "I can't
do the limbo dance very well and all those damn low sticks
drive me nuts."
"We could feed him to that fat Mighty Mooch guy!" Mary
suggested with a broad smile. The Dead Eye squinted back.
"Or we could feed him to his bookbag," Kill-M-All
sarcastically suggested, jerking a thumb at Mongo. Mongo
waved back.
"Okay, okay! I give up!" The Dead Eye sighed, crossing
every limb and eyelash on his body. "I promise not to blow
up this planet or do any other evil stuff."
"Forever?" Kaye-Boom asked.
"Forever," he answered, adding, "Or at least for a little
while..." to himself.
"What about you?" Lou asked Kaye-Boom.
"Me? Why do I have to--"
"Promise," Lou directed, "or I'll sing again."
A sharp intake of breath came from everyone.
"I promise! I promise!" Kaye-Boom quickly promised.
"No more fires," Shae-doe added.
"What?!" Kaye-Boom shrieked.
"Okay, okay. Only little fires," Lou compromised.
"What?!" Kaye-Boom shrieked again.
"Mid-sized ones?" Shae-doe asked.
"What?!" Kaye-Boom shrieked once more.
"Forget it," Lou finalized with a sigh.
A moment passed where no one said anything, except
Corbin, who said, "Artichoke." Lou smiled. The smile
multiplied between persons; soon everyone was grinning and
smiling. All except The Dead Eye, of course.
"We did it!" Lou exclaimed, "We saved the world!"
Everyone congratulated themselves for helping to save the
world. The Dead Eye even sarcastically patted himself on the
back of his eye.
As everyone watched, the morning sun emerged slowly from
the horizon, glimmering behind the gutted steel frame of the
Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel collapsed a second later, as
if from the weight of the sun alone. It was a beautiful dawn
to behold.
"Aaaa! My park!" Way Rilliams shrieked himself awake.
"You destroyed my amusement park!" His eyes darted from a
ruined ride to Kaye-Boom and back again.
"We did save the world," Mary said, trying to comfort her
boss.
"What?!" he shrieked. He pointed a shaky finger at Mary,
"You're fired!" He then pointed at everyone else, "You're
all fired!!" Then he fainted again.
Lou clapped but was quickly silenced by a sharp glance
from Mary. "You were already fired!" she retorted.
Roy seemed sorry that it was all over, while Your Name
Here commented, "I wrote a movie script a lot like this a
while back..."
"Sure, Tim," Roy said.
Lou sighed. "Looks like we're about to come to the end
of this little story, huh, Lou?" he asked happily.
Almost...
"Thank you," Emmerick blubbered, "Thank you, oh mighty
DM!" "Now can we have some treasure?" he added under his
breath.
Wing and her father thanked everyone for the nice time
and then dragged Donna away, heading back home to their
Chinatown apartment.
The Dead Eye picked up the paperback book that had
knocked him in the eye. "Defeated by a book..." he
commented.
"And a song," Lou added happily.
"Lou!" called the ghostly vision of Laurie Miller. She
waved an ethereal hand and smiled a transparent smile. She
was invisibly beautiful.
Lou turned, his mouth falling open awkwardly. "Laurie!"
He smiled up to the sky and murmured, "What a wonderful
ending! First we save the world, then my love turns out to
be a reality!"
He turned to run to her open arms and remarked joyfully,
"Oh, what could go wrong now?"
Phaarrt!