After the Nuclear Option

Separate Worlds
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[Introduction]
In the country of Khasachasistan there is was a little village called Lufchatel...

After the Nuclear Option destroyed their town, the residents of Lufchatel went their separate ways. These are the chronicles of where they went and what happened to them when they got there...

CHARACTERS

Harry ............ the richest werewolf in Lufchatel
Anita ............ Harry's wife

Chobee .......... an ogre
Cherie .......... his girlfriend

Marcus ......... a vampire who hunts zombies for the bounty reward
Atina ............. his girlfriend (she is Anita's twin sister)
Amanda .......... no, wait! Maybe Amanda is his girlfriend?

REAPER ........ a big bad zombie

Toby .............. a mild-mannered zombie
Aristocrates ... a zombie squirrel

Rodham ........ a human Spectral Mutterer with a cybernetic gun arm
Clinton ......... ..once a nobleman, now the ghost assistant of Rodham
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A year after the devastating explosion that leveled Lufchatel, Toby was still living at Harry's estate, the only structure to survive the blast. Harry wanted to rebuild Lufchatel. Now that the population was practically zero he felt sure he could win an election to become mayor.

Toby was glad to help because he wanted everything back to the way it used to be. In fact, he was writing a letter to Chobee who now lived in Australia...

Dear Chobee,

Things are bleak here. How is it with you? I hope your girlfriend is still hot. I don't mean radioactive. I'm sure the decontamination showers eliminated that. Aristocrates is still here. Most of the nuts he finds are hot (I mean radioactive) and it gives him weird dreams about green ghost squirrels who pilot spaceships and call each other Bro,

Harry has bought five buckets of nails that we are going to use to rebuild Lufchatel. We're going to call it New Lufchatel and Harry will be the mayor.

Maybe you would like to come back and live here?

Your zombie friend,
Toby

Chobee handed the letter to Cherie with a wide grin rarely seen outside the fine little Australian town of Bullabulling. When she gave him 'that look', he merely shook his head. Nothing - not even five buckets of nails - could ever draw him away from Western Australia. The past year had seen a miniature population explosion. Cherie was nursing not one, but three youngsters: two girls and one boy. They took turns at her breasts, which only made Chobee jealous.

But at night, when Gergalina, Haley and Chobee junior were asleep, Chobee got his wife back. And front. And upside-down, just like everyone always pictured the folk who lived down-under. As it turned out, Cherie von Dervumman had gladly accepted the new surname of Ornotchobee, so there was never any question as to where she wanted to reside for the rest of her life. But she flicked on the OuterWeb and found Harry's Estate in New Lufchatel; actually, she found his new website. It was a little sticky, but after she moved one nearly-depleted bucket of nails aside, she found the "contact us" button and pressed it with her mouse-pointer.

Dear Harry and Anita (and Toby),

First let me say thanks to Toby for the wonderful letter. Second, congratulations Mayor Harry. I heard your election went off without a hitch. Third, Chobee and I are having a wonderful time in Bullabulling. Chobee junior looks a lot like Aristocrates right now, since he's all furry and tiny. But his papa says that'll change soon enough. Gergalina and Haley, the rest of our triplets, closely resemble Anita and Atina. Well, that's not entirely true. They look like two beautiful little girls, which is how we'll always remember you Anita.

If you can get your town running well enough to allow the mayor to leave it for a week or two, we'd love to put you up in the four-story adobe dwelling we call home. Granted, only one of the floors is above-ground, but we love it anyway. Chobee's brother Gerg is going to school now. Not that he learns anything there, but he goes. Once a week, he comes back and says something new. Over the past fifty-two weeks, he's progressed from "GOO" to "GOOD", which we feel is a marked improvement.

We'll leave it at a simple invitation to any and all (except that dreadful REAPER) to come visit us any time. Just give us fair warning.

Always,

Cherie and Chobee Ornotchobee

Cherie clicked "Send" and looked up to see Chobee grinning down at her. She felt his hands slip under her bottom and lift her to his face. Yes, tonight would be another wonderful night under the stars.

(Note, Marcus turned Anita into a vampire, remember.)

Meanwhile, Toby was locked in a cell in the basement.

"Oh come on!" he shouted. "I promise that I won't peak!"

"That's what you said the last time!" Harry shouted from above. "And yet you did anyways."

"I thought that that room was the bathroom, Honest," Toby shouted.

"You're lucky that I didn't send you to the Chop-Shop!" came Anita's voice. "You know very well that me and Harry are busy at night."

Toby sighed and plopped down in the corner of his cell. Aristocrates chattered and curled up next to his leg. Toby stroked his mangled fur, instantly relaxing.

“It’s no fair,” he complained to the tacit zombie rodent, “I was only trying to figure out how members of the opposite sex go at it. I mean, Harriet showed great interest in me, though she treated me Freudian at times. I figured if I learned enough…” his voice trailed off, and he wiped a tear from his eye. Aristocrates nuzzled into his hand.

“I haven’t seen her since the blast, Toby. If she survived, we’ll go look for her. And you don’t have to peek anymore, I can provide you with the knowledge you seek.”

Toby looked worriedly at Aristocrates.

“Oh, no Toby, not like THAT, I just meant I have read a lot of books since my zombification, and I can give you a few pointers. However, I think you are still Cleopatra-ing.”

Toby grinned and petted the stinky squirrel‘s head. “Shut up, Stoccy.”

“Sure thing, Cleo.”

Meanwhile, on a remote Island inhabited only by Neanderthals and seagulls, a small, though well-appointed yacht ran ashore. Down below, Marcus Zinnia, ZBH applied his SPF 350+ sunscreen and donned his Ray-Bans. He sat his new bride, Atina, on a tank-like apparatus, that would roll easily over the sand. The ramp lowered and the happy couple strolled onto the gleaming white beach of their new home.

A coconut fell on Atina’s head, knocking her unconscious. Marcus looked up into the feathery fronds of the ancient palm.

“Oooh ooh ahh AHH AHH UGG!” screeched the primitive-faced humanoid as it leapt from tree to tree, gradually disappearing into the lush Island jungle.

“Cawwww cawwww!” screamed an enormous gull overhead, as it dropped a large doo-doo on Marcus’s pate.

TSC- MIA

"The sun dawns on new day, a new journey!"

Rodham McFletchersen, the Spectral Mutterer, paraded down an abandoned dirt road, onward to the next adventure. His Spectral Familiar, Theodore Stratford Clinton, a Nobleman now ghost, followed him with a slightly less gleeful mantra.

"Every day brings us closer to death. Or, you anyway, since I'm already dead."

Rodham snorted. "You're such a worrywort man! Loosen up!"

"How am I supposed to? These past weeks of wandering have been simply horrifying!"

"So we don't have a place to crash or a bed to sleep in, the great outdoors beats all that anyway." Rodham insisted, holding his arms out. "Nature will take care of all our needs!"

"Whatever Rodham. Whatever. I really wish we haden't blown up Lufchatel. We could be enjoying the theater with Marcus, or hanging with Harry at his place, or anything!"

Toby poked around in the ruins of Lufchatel and sighed. So much lost. So much waste. He heard a noise nearby. It was a manhole cover opening up. One of the gator boys poked his head out.

"Whoa, dude!" he said. "What happened up here? Where'd everybody go?"

"You survived the bomb!" Toby said.

"What bomb, dude?"

"Didn't you hear a big boom about a year ago?"

"Dude, I don't remember back that far. Is that when the rainwater coming into the sewer started glowing yellow-green?"

"Probably. That stuff was radioactive you know. You didn't drink it, did you?"

"Dude! Drank it, washed in it, swam in it. What's going to happen to me, man?"

"I don't know, " Toby said. "I guess if anything was going to happen it would have happened by now."

"Whoa, dude! Do you think that's why some of the sewer rats are big as horses now?"

"Might be."

"And the three-headed cockroach I saw? Radiation, dude?"

"I think so," Toby said. "Are you SURE there's nothing wrong with you?"

"I don't think so, dude, except I never wanted to come out of this hole before. But there don't seem to be much garbage coming into the sewer. So Lufchatel is gone, eh? That explains it then."

He yelled down into the manhole. "Hey, Jerry! They blew up the town! That's why no garbage! Yeah, just some ruins up her now. Tragic, man."

Jerry emerged from the manhole a little disoriented. His head no longer resembled that of a gator. It had mutated to a hairy-headed anthropod of some sort. His left hand had five fingers and an opposable thumb. His right arm ended in a crab-like pincer. He walked upright on two humanoid legs. Dangling from what was left of his mouth was a half-chewed cigar that had once belonged to Harry.

Toby did a double-take but said nothing. He was simply glad to have the gator crew still alive. Jerry's friend, the one who'd called down into the hole, had also changed. He was now a zombie named Terry. As the two former gator crew members shuffled off down the barren streets of what had been Lufchatel, they waved goodbye to Toby and leaped into the river.

Meanwhile, in Bullabulling, Cherie and Chobee were reenacting the moment of conception that had brought them their three lovely children. No need to go into details here, but suffice it to say that they were successful in their reenactment.

Back in Lufchatel, Harry was standing up on a hill, looking like the hero from the Mad Max series, or Steel Dawn, or Red Dawn, or some other Post-Apoctoliptic movie or tv series. The only main differeance was that, instead of carrying a weapon and wearing animal fur, Harry was carrying a hammer and bucket of nails, and wearing working clothes.

"I should of been a farmer like father wanted me to be," he muttered, walking down the hill. "At least I'd know how these things worked. He then took a look at the houses he'd remade, which were baddly constructed, to the point that even a homeless person would of prefered to sleep outside of them. "Well, at least I'll get plenty of practice."

Marcus wiped the gull poop from his head. “What the fuc*?” he swore softly to himself.

The aforementioned flying rat unloaded on Atina’s lolling head as well.

The warm deluge awakened her.

“What the fuc*?” she swore, not so softly.

“Galatea, we aren’t in paradise, I’m afraid.”

From the distant jungle, Marcus could hear drums, and grayish-green smoke wafted from somewhere deep in the lush flora.

“Lahtrednean… Hmm…” mused Marcus. He extracted his notebook from his Bermuda Shorts and wrote the word. He studied it for a bit, then smirked.

He shouted out to the vast expanse of ocean. “Thanks a lot, BRO!” he angrily hurled the notebook, where it landed just inches from the pounding surf. A small orange crab sidled up to it, opening and closing its pinchers.

“What’s the matter, Marcus?”

“This is the legendary Neanderthal Island chain of the South Seas. This is the largest island of the four, and allegedly the only inhabited one… Lucky us.” Marcus sighed and retrieved his journal, flinging the crab back into the ocean. “Well, my darling, Lets start building our future.”

“Can’t we just stay on the Yacht?”

“The yacht? Oh crap!” Marcus turned around to see his precious yacht floating away, two rather stocky and hairy men aboard, hooting in victory.

"The Hooters got my damn yacht!" Marcus yelled.

Atina looked up swiftly. The two hairy men had been giving her secret lessons in love while Marcus was preoccupied with other things. She never suspected they were yacht thieves. "Those sonofabitches!" Atina screamed. "I'll see them in Hell!"

"Wow, Atina," Marcus said. "I think you're even angrier than I am."

"We're all losers here," Atina said. "What will we do now, Marcus?"

In New Lufchatel, Harry stood on the roof of one of his shoddy houses and assumed a conqueror's pose. "How's that?" he asked.

"Great!" Anita replied and snapped the picture. "Now one with your hammer in one hand like you're about to nail a nail in. Harry, these will look great in the New Lufchatel newspaper when there eventually is one."

"I know," Harry said. "And we'll also want to publish a book about The History of New Lufchatel and the more pictures in it the better, right?"

"You're a marketing genius, Harry. I don't know why you didn't become mayor a long time ago."

Meanwhile, onboard the yacht named "Zombies 'R Us", two hairy men were refraining from their hooting long enough to drink up all the beer in the yacht's fridge. Their names were Hunk and Hobart.

Hunk raised his beer and said, "Hoot! That was a splendid act of thievery, wasn't it?"

Hobart clinked cans with him. "Indeed! Hoot! Hoot!"

"Hoot!" Hunk replied and the two Hooters watched the big orange sun settle into the wide turquoise sea while they tossed back silver cans filled with amber brew.

"Hoot! Life is good!" Hunk said.

"Hoot! Hoot!" replied Hobart.

"I feel a strange tugging in the force," Cherie said to Chobee.

"The force? Like Jedi?" Chobee replied.

"No, like the force of your hands on my butt, silly!" Cherie giggled and looked over her shoulder at her hunka-hunka-burnin'-love half-ogre man. "But now that you mention it, there does seem to be something odd going on over at that Neanderthal island we can see if we sit on Gerg's shoulders. He is rather tall and good for sight-seeing. "Hey Gerg! See anything weird?"

"HOOT," he replied, which was fairly spectacular, even for Gerg.

"Now, lift up my butt and put me on your brother's shoulders, okay, Cho'?" Cherie asked.

Once she was up there, she could see the yacht formerly belonging to Marcus.

But from Marcus's vantage point, he didn't even realize he was that close to Australia...or that someone was watching his yacht.

Meanwhile, back in New Lufchatel, Harry decided to try his hand at salespitching.

"Come to New Lufchatel! Here you'll find the nicest neighbors, who greet each other with a neighborly 'Hey', an adorable petshop, plenty of mutated rats and cocroaches, fresh clean water, a lovely playground, and more. So come on over. You'll have a wonderful time. In fact, you may never want to leave, or be able to."

Atina tumbled off her tank roller into the sand, weeping loudly. Marcus wondered, of all things, where he was going to find sunscreen for him and his half-wife.

Well, we could build a shelter in the forest and stay there days, just come out at night, like the bloodsuckers that we are.

Atina thought, throug her sadness, “Well the friggin yacht is gone, along with all my jewelry and the wooden stake I planned on using on Marcus when he least expected it… See, Atina loved Marcus, but not for himself, she loved his money, and now that he had no material posessions, well she was angrier than a chopped-in-half zombie.

Meanwhile, aboard Zombies R Us, deep in the sewage storage, a zombie body shuddered to life. Hobart and Hunk were hooting away, jumping up and down on the master bed. Hobart hit his head on the ceiling.

“HOOT! That hurt!”

Hunk replied, “Well stop jumping, you idiot, and you won’t bump your head anymore. I swear, you are so juvenile for a Neanderthal.”

Hobart rubbed the top of his head, “Well history paints us as savages, with no capacity for modern language, music making, or even elaborate tool construction.”

“You know what,?” Hunk answered, “fu** history, WE know the truth! HOOT!”

At that moment, the door to the bedroom slammed open. The two hooters looked at the doorway in horror. An emaciated zombie, reeking of feces and toilet chemicals stared back at them.

“ME WANT BRAAAIIINNNNSSSSS!” REAPER roared, as he headed toward Hobart with clawed, rotting hands.

"Hooooooot!" Hobart hooted. "What the hoot is THAT?!"

"It's a zombie," Hunk said. "Quick! Cock a shotgun!"

"I don't have a shotgun!"

"Well, do SOMETHING! The damn thing wants to eat our brains!"

"Can it swim? Jump in the water!"

REAPER watched the Neanderthals jump overboard and swim toward the island. He raised his fist and shook it at them. "Brrrraiiiiins!"

Without a steady hand on the rudder, the prevailing winds blew Marcus's yacht in the direction of the island. Atina was on a rock outcropping, gathering cockleshells, wondering how to cook them, when she noticed the yacht drifting toward shore. "Marcus! The yacht's come back!"

Marcus ran over to where she was perched so he could see too. "I knew those dumb hooters couldn't sail a boat properly!"

"I don't think they're on the boat. Look!" She pointed to where the two Neanderthals were dragging themselves ashore through the pounding surf.

"I've got to go save my ship!" Marcus said, and ran toward the point on the beach where the yacht seemed likely to run aground.

But Marcus stopped short when he spotted his old nemesis REAPER leaning over the side of the yacht. The Grim creature was busy painting over the "Zombies" sign, making it say REAPER is MEEEEEE and was just finishing the last "E" when he fell overboard. As the REAPER sank to the bottom of the ocean, his body came into contact with several sea creatures including a squid, a starfish and a square yellow sponge-like creature. The REAPER settled on the ocean floor next to a pineapple.

Marcus, seeing Mr. Death fall from his yacht, quickly swam to it and climbed aboard.

Meanwhile, in New Lufchatel, Harry wondered if that cute little munchkin named Cherie was still having babies in Australia. He picked up a pen and wrote a quick letter to Chobee.

Dear Chobee,

You may have heard by now that I'm rebuilding Lufchatel. You and your family are invited back here any time.

Give my regards to your lovely wife.

Howlingly yours,

Harry

Harry then turned to look at his wife and said, "Well, besides you me, that adorable squirrle, and that messed up zombie, this place is quite empty. I mean, the city used to be a thriving place. There were children running in the streets, Angry drivers yelling at each other, strip clubs, everything."

TSC- MIA

Rodham had a shiver run up his leg, through his back, and up into his left eyeball. Something was wrong with the Force. Or if not the Force, than some strange interconnecting web of around six or so degrees of seperation. And if not that, then that seven layer mixed bean burito was coming back to haunt him. A movement in his guts told him it was probobley that last one. Nevertheless, Rodham turned triumphantly to his pal Clinton.

"Clinton..." he said solemly, staring into his ghostly eyes.

"...What?" replied the ghost.

"...It's Time. We must make our return."

Never had a specter ever been so happy to hear that he would be returning to Lufchatel, mostly because most ghosts wouldn't EVER return to that old dump.

(Going to be away for a week, so if my turn comes around, skip me up.)

The yacht ran ashore, with a sickening crunch of splintering wood and twisting metal. The resulting sudden lack of momentum threw REAPER overboard where he landed face-down in the sand. Marcus winced at the apparent damage to his yacht, and since REAPER was incapacitated at the time, he rushed aboard and took measures to secure the yacht to the shoreline.

From behind a tree, a surprisingly handsome ancient human being peered at the female half-vampire with lustful eyes. Atina could sense someone staring at her and turned to the source of her feeling. Her eyes met those of Albert E. Hooter, the most intelligent hooter on Lahtrednaen.

“Hoot,” he hooted to himself as he adjusted a growing lump under his leopard-skin loincloth. (Where he got the loincloth on an island with no alpha predators is beyond the scope of this author’s reasoning.)

“Hoot, indeed,” echoed Atina, and she started wheeling herself to the copse of trees.

Meanwhile, on the beach, REAPER raised up on his elbows and spit out a mouthful of sand.

“Me hate sand…” he complained, and quickly rose to shuffle off into the jungle. He could smell strange, exotic brains, and it made his zombie mouth water… Or ooze putrid slime, whichever the case.

From somewhere above, a wooden crate with the word “Caution” emblazoned on the side floated to the beach. The brightly parachute attached billowed over the crate, protecting it from the harsh sun’s rays.

The aforementioned orange crab skittered under the parachute and tapped the side of the crate with one of its oversized claws.

While this writer was roaming far outside of his scope, searching for the reference to the aforementioned orange crab, he discovered something that might clear up at least one of the 37 mysteries so far set forth in this story. This particular mystery concerns the source of the leopard skin for Albert E. Hooter's loincloth.

It seems that in 1897, the circus company of Peabody, McFadden, and Dawg were commissioned to perform a circus for his majesty, Pompus Gass, the emperor of the island nation of Coralatolia. Three ships full of circus gear set out for Coralatolia, but only two arrived. The third ship broke up on the rocks near Lahtrednaen in a storm, setting free a number of animals, including two leopards, that took refuge on the island of Lahtrednaen.

Undoubtedly, those leopards were the source of the leopard skin used in manufacturing loincloths for the hooters.

Of course, it's all hearsay, but since I heard it, I thought I better say it.

REAPER, having somehow extricated himself from the pineapple house under the sea, discovered that coconuts were a natural laxative. He spent the next few days wiping his rotting butt with leaves and grasses indigenous to the island. Alfred E. Hooter discovered that he could only walk so far into the middle of the island before he began walking out the other side. So he decided to walk around the island. It was during this walk that he bumped into Atina.

Marcus, meanwhile, was aboard his yatcht, trying to salvage what the REAPER hadn't touched.

"Lucky I still have my telescope," he muttered. Just thinking of muttering got him thinking about the Spectral Mutterer. But after that, he went back to thinking about Atina. Did they have a future together?

That night, he heard drums. And a didgeridoo. And bagpipes and rock-n-roll. Little did he realize the Australian band Brother was practicing in Western Australia, for a gig at Bullabulling. If he'd done any research about bagpipes, he'd have realized that they can reach an average of 85 decibels and sometimes swell to as many as 122 decibels, which carries over ocean waves, especially at night.

Chobee and Cherie were happy to host their favorite band. Marcus soon learned to love the sound himself.

Meanwhile, Harry was checking out the Unemployed Firms, searching for out-of-work strippers and escorts, as his and Anita's sex-life was getting a little dull. He was also searching for surplus fireworks so that he could hold a celebration, for the hundreth or so family that moved into town, whenever that happened.

The lilting, soothing drone of the bagpipes was making Marcus a little sleepy. That, and the fact it was broad daylight, and he hadn’t taken a coffin nap in a while.

The reality that two dear and near friends were only a small span of ocean away was lost on him. He didn’t have the best of vision, contrary to popular vampire lore. As a matter of fact, Marcus Zinnia, ZBH was quite nearsighted, and wore contacts so no one would know his embarrassing secret. However, his latest pair had dissolved on his corneas, due to the natural venom that inhabited all his bodily fluids… Including tears. The other supply of contacts had gone missing. (Into the ocean via Atina the beyotch.)

As the bagpipes lulled him to sleep, Atina was being lured into the jungle by Albert E. Hooter. Sure, the guy was hairy… Sure he wore nothing but a smelly leopard skin loincloth, Sure, he seemed to have a wang that was inhumanly large… But hey, anything beat being married to a man who was unable to have sex.

What Atina failed to realize is she couldn’t have sex either, because her lower half had been truncated at the waist, along with her “Vital” organs. The only reason she was alive today was because she was a vampire. Albert had other plans for the pretty bloodsucker. The gears were rotating in his Neanderthal mind as he ran with agile grace through the thick jungle, holding his legless prize.

Would she be tasty cooked over an open fire? Would her skin make a nice loin cloth? Her auburn hair could be used as a wig, or woven into a decorative rug… Ahhh, the possibilities were endless!

Albert looked at Atina as she smiled up at him with abject adoration. “HOOT!” he said.

Unknown to Albert, a small orange crab was watching the unfolding scene. This crab had a knack for being in the right place at the right time, as the reader is well aware if he has been keeping up with what is aforementioned and what is not.

And so it happened that at the very moment that Atina finally realized Albert's intentions might not be honorable (he had begun to cut off her hair) the aforementioned orange crab nipped Albert in the butt, whereupon he leaped up, dropping Atina in the process.

While Albert was involved with examining his injured but and hooting pathetically about it (Neanderthals can be real babies sometimes), Atina scuttled home to Marcus. Perhaps that's why the crab liked her - they both scuttled.

Atina crawled in the coffin with Marcus and slammed the lid shut. Truly there is no place like home.

As everyone knows, crabs walk sideways and lobsters walk straight. The crab called herself Gutan, after her mother, who was also Orange. She scuttled over to the coffin where she'd seen Atina crawl. She kept a careful watch on that coffin. It was her intention to make Albert pay for his terrible near-crime. If she had to claw his butt 'til Kingdom Come, she would do it. Or at least until sunrise tomorrow. For it was widely known in the crab enclave that those crustaceans couldn't recall anything from the previous day.

In another part of the world, Harry and Anita were wondering what had become of Anita's half-sister.

Just north of that uncharted little island where Marcus and Atina were sleeping, Cherie and Chobee were having a shindig. They were at the beach, digging for shins. It was an old zombie tradition they'd learned to enjoy when they'd both lived together in Khasachasistan.

"Good thing REAPER isn't here," Chobee muttered. Just muttering, made him recall the Spectral Mutterer, old what's-his-name.

"What's that honey? You need some more BRAIIIINNNNNNNSSSSS???" Cherie teased her husband.

"BRAIIINNNNNNNSSSSS," echoed Gerg, Chobee's taller sibling. He was having the best time he'd ever had. Gergalina, Haley and Chobee junior had been trying all day to bury their large uncle in the sand. But so far, they'd only gotten one foot buried.

"Toelabor is hard work," sputtered Chobee; which wasn't bad at all for a 13-month old boy. But he was, after all, the son of the most intelligent half-ogre the world had ever seen.

The Ornotchobee family all had a good guffaw over that one. It would take Gerg several days to get all the sand out from between his toes.

Meanwhile, Harry was busy trying to find out who would come to live at New Lufchatel. There was only so many homeless people who would want to come, and only so many spin-off companies that would set up shop.

REAPER was busy wiping his butt for the umpteenth time. He had been wiping so much, his pelvic bones and coccyx were protruding through what was left of his ass flesh. Not that they hadn't before, they were just more prominent. He was busy wiping with an abrasive palm frond when he heard a seductive "HooOOOooOOot!" Not far from where he was squatting. Reaper looked up from his task and saw a beautiful woman... Hirsute, hunched and unwashed, but beautiful none the less. REAPER grinned his partially-toothed smile.

"ME REAPER!" he grunted loudly, splattering another pile of waste from his wasted body. The hairy woman sniffed the air and smiled. "HOOT!" she said.

Different cultures like different things, and it seemed that Zombie byproducts were an appealing aroma to Neanderthal women.

"Hoot Yourself!" he smiled again. He grunted one final time, wiped himself and stood to his full height.

"ME PATI," the hairy woman shouted, thumping her chest with her fist.

PATI picked up a large branch and whopped REAPER upside the head. REAPER flew a few feet to the left, and landed in a thick growth of vines.

REAPER peered up at her with one clouded, rotten eye and smiled again. Her brains would be tasty.

Gutan grew tired waiting for her vampire hosts to awaken, so she skuttled off to the beach to find something to eat. Up high in a tree, a large gull eyed her with hunger. Gutan sensed the gull and crawled on top of a large boulder, waiting for the eminent assault. The gargantuan flying sea rat swooped down, screeching and flapping its wings. Two seconds before the gull reached Gutan, she jumped off the rock, and the sea bird splatted into the large boulder, instantly killing itself. Gutan climbed back on the rock and began tearing small bits of flesh from the gull's body. If I can get enough flesh off this monster before the goannas get to it, I'll have a decent meal, she thought to herself as she dined.

Not three seconds after that thought crossed the pathetically small neuronal net of the orange crab's brain, a huge goanna lept from the ocean and grabbed the remains of the seagull. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" it mocked as it fell back into the sea.

Gutan wiped her lips with the back of her claw and muttered, "Those damn goannas! They think they own the beach."

Far away from there the Spectral Mutterer's ears perked up and he said to Clinton, "Someone mutters..."

"Yes, yes," Clinton said. "Always somewhere there is someone muttering. Your brain has gone soft. I'm sure it's the effects of the radiation."

Rodham cringed. "Don't talk about the bomb!"

Clinton rolled his eyes and lifted his hands palms up to the sky. Life with Rodham had become a real chore, but Clinton remained loyal.

The eminent assault was nothing ever experienced before the bomb. The goanna knew nothing of this, however. As the undercurrent sucked it back into the ocean, a crocodile ate the goanna and the seagull remains, swallowing them whole. Not that crocs were indigenous to this spit of an island. George Crocker would have loved to meet the Gator Crew in Khasachasistan. But since he'd been only a hatchling when the pirates had shipwrecked nearby this somewhat deserted island and he had grown up here, he was as happy as a crocodile in a pepper patch. Those pirates had mistreated him. They'd also named him. So he was stuck with the stupid thing.

George waddled ashore, his belly full of goanna and seagull. It was unseasoned of course, but he'd had his fill of overcooked or overly-seasoned meat anyway. Gutan scuttled around the sand away from George. Not that the two of them didn't get along, but since she realized she'd better get back to the coffin.

Just about an hour after all this happened, Marcus, the ZBH, was having an awful daymare.

In his dream, he was being chased by hundreds of women. "Why are they always like this after a new Twilight movie comes out?" he asked himself, running as fast as he could.

Marcus twitched and flailed around in his coffin with the horror that was enfolding inside his mind. True, he resembled Vampire Bill (except way more handsome and with longer hair) more than Robert Pattinson, so why the heck were all the fangirls chasing him? Oh. He could see now, they all had long wooden stakes in their hands, and sneers of pure hatred on their faces. And they all resembled... no... it couldn't be... Carol Channing? AIEEEEEEEEE! No wait, not Carol Channing, their faces were melting like wax, mutating... Rosie O'Donnell? Oh the horror! No... melting again, they're getting closer... the faces are... Atina?

With this last revelation, Marcus sat up in his coffin, bashing his head on the top of the lid. "Holy crap!" he swore, as he quickly exited his resting place. Atina was just beginning to stir.

Breathing heavily, he sat down on one of the upholstered benches that lined the yacht's bar area.

Was the woman he married out to get him? Did the bitch realize that he loved her more than life itself? She was quite literally, his creation. He made her... Sure, she was a legless stump of a woman, but there are more things in life than sex, right? Is that all Atina cared about? He ran long delicate fingers through his long, sexy, wavy dark hair and closed his eyes in concentration. Something had to be done. Nail the coffin shut? Ignore her and hope she lost her murderous thoughts?

Just then he felt a sharp pain on the big toe of his right foot. He looked down and saw a small orange crab, waving its pincers and bubbling gently from its mouth. He prepared to kick the offending creature across the room, but something in its eyes... those tiny, black beady eyes, made him stop.

Meanwhile, in Bullabulling, the Ornotchobee family prepared for a two-day journey to Lahtrednean. Chobee was getting concerned That his old friend Marcus's yacht hadn't moved in a couple days. Cherie, Gerg, Gergalina, Haley and Chobee Jr. were excited about the trip, although Chobee was a bit concerned on fining a vessel big enough to hold his big brother. He couldn't leave him behind after getting to know him like this.

Chobee looked over at his Wife. "She's getting a little thick, I wonder what's up?" he thought to himself.

Cherie ran into the house to throw up. Morning sickness was a horrible thing, indeed.

When Cherie came back outside she faced Chobie with a wistful face. "I think I have a baby growing inside my belly, honey."

"What?" Chobee said.

"You know, darling, a little tiny ogre. A baby."

"A baby!" Chobee's eyes grew wide. "How the hell did THAT get in your stomach?"

Gerg was standing nearby. "You guys are playing with me, right?"

"How so?" Chobee said.

"Zheesh, Chobee! Don't you know where babies come from? YOU put that baby in her belly."

"I did not! I swear to hell I did not!"

Gerg sighed. "It's too bad you couldn't go to school like me, Chobee."

"Yeah, it IS too bad I didn't go to school like you. One day a month? And putting the baby in her belly? That's what we tell our six-year-olds." Chobee didn't like being mean to his brother. But Gerg had gone too far.

Harry and Anita were just putting the finishing touches on an elaborate window-dressing at their new digs.

(Sorry. Don't feel to good at the moment.)

Chobee was surprised at Gerg's sudden eloquence, and grabbed a brick, to smack him upside the head. Gerg looked at his brother, grinned stupidly, and fell to the ground, as a river of drool escaped his mouth. Gergalina, Chobee Jr. and Haley looked at him in horror.

"What?" Chobee complained, "That'll teach him to get smart with me!" The children just shook their heads dejectedly and walked away from their father. Meanwhile, Cherie was in the bathroom, having morning sickness. She felt the babies kicking, and smiled through her sickness. A trip would be just what they needed. Chobee was going a little stir crazy anyway and needed some "time away."

When she left the bathroom, she found Gerg on the ground, unconscious. Chobee was nearby, staring off in the distance. Lahtrednean would be a few days journey, but he couldn't wait to see his old friends. He wondered if they even knew how close they really were.

Gerg woke up after about ten minutes. Chobee jumped with happiness and gave him a huge hug around the neck. "BUUUNNNNSSSSS..." Gerg said.

Little Chobee Jr was smarter than all of them put together. "Daddy?" he said. "Maybe Gerg acts so stupid sometimes because you keep hitting him in the head with a brick?"

"Don't sass me!" Chobee said and hit his son upside the head with a brick. After that, Chobee Jr seldom uttered a smart comment, although occasionally he was heard to mutter, "One day... one day..."

Chobee awakened from a horrible dream. He was in a trailer park with a hole in the floor of a trailer that was for sale. He had a brick in his right hand and his son lay on the ground with a brick-shaped welt on his head. Behind him, Gerg also had a welt, albeit a smaller one, given his ultra-large size.

Cherie was right there beside him, soothing his brow.

“There, there, honey. It was just a dream,” she said. Then she turned to the other side of the bed and vomited. Luckily, there was a bucket there to catch the spew.

“When is the baby due, dear?” Chobee asked.

“Baby? You mean the twins, right? First triplets, now twins. I’d say three more months.”

Three more months of her throwing up? Chobee wasn’t sure he liked that notion. He formulated a plan to take the family away for a month. Cherie could throw up in someone else’s town for a change. He loved her dearly, but was just looking for a change of pace, as he was sure she was too. With Gerg’s help, he found an island not far off the coast of Australia. It looked both plush with flora and devoid of fauna.

The biggest problem, of course, was finding a boat large enough to accommodate Gerg. It took some doing, but Chobee booked passage on a freighter that passed by the island. Well, “passed by” wasn’t entirely true. It got to within a mile of the place. Either Gerg would have to swim, or he’d be tall enough to stride along the ocean floor at that point. Chobee hoped it would be the latter.

Meanwhile, Harry was busy putting up a "Welcome" sign, hoping that it would attract people to the area.

But the ocean was too deep, and Gerg was afraid of water above his head, so he (Chobee) chose to browse the internet and find a vessel big enough for everyone. He finally found a large houseboat, with a tugboat motor, that would haul a large garbage scowl behind it. The garbage scowl would be converted to a small floating apartment for Gerg, so he could have some privacy away from the kids and Cherie and himself.

That night at dinner, the blended family of six, and two on the way, tossed around suggestions for names for their new houseboat.

"How about Garbage Scow Puller?" Gerg said.

"Oh, please," Cherie said. "That's about the stupidest name you could think of."

"Why? It IS a garbage scow puller, isn't it?"

"Yes, but that's like naming your kid, My Son, or naming your horse Four-legged Animal That Runs."

"What's wrong with those names?"

"You're impossible," Cherie said.

"I have an idea," Chobee said. "Daisy Mae."

"Daisy Mae?" Cherie said. "Why?"

Chobee Jr piped up. "Mom, you're just shooting down all the names everybody else thinks of. Why don't you come up with a name?"

Meanwhile, In New Lufchatel, Harry was admiring his 'Welcome' sign. "Honey, do you think it's too big?"

"No, dear," Anita said. "It's just the right size. You're like Goldilocks. You always choose the right size."

"Thank you, darling. You know, even though the Nuclear Option destroyed a lot, I think it made our marriage stronger."

"Well, it helps that we're about the only people left in town. That does draw us closer together."

"Yes, that's a logical way to look at it, but... oh nevermind, just so it's stronger, whatever the reason."

The WELCOME sign stood just outside of New Lufchatel, where the highway threatened to pass it by. Each letter was sixteen feet tall and the sign itself was one hundred feet wide. It had taken everyone’s help, but the thing wouldn’t fall down, unless a second Nuclear Option were to occur.

In the bottom right corner of the sign was an arrow and instructions on how to find the new burg. Harry and Anita had waited until their helpers left. Then they made sweet love behind the sign, christening it in their own special way.

On the island of Lahtrednaen, Marcus and Atina emerged from their double-wide coffin to a night sky full of stars. The orange crab was nearby, but neither of the humans realized they were being watched. The ZBH placed Atina on her wheeled torso and they walked hand-in-hand along the shoreline, talking of nothing, mostly.

“Eebohctonro” had been painted on the front and back of the Tug Boat. After much consideration and a lot of negativity by Cherie, they’d opted for that name. Gerg had been the most pleased. Especially after Cherie had suggested Toy Boat. THAT conversation had ended when the entire family had tried, unsuccessfully, to repeat the shorter name several times; that had ended in gales of laughter.

“Toy boyt?” Gerg had giggled himself. “How about Eebohctonro?”

Meanwhile, Rodham and Clinton were walking along the road, sticking their thumbs out.

"Are you sure this works?" Clinton asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure of it," Rodham said. "It always works in the movies."

A rusted-out orange Ford pick-up pulled slowly to the shoulder of the road in front of Clinton and Rodham. The tires popped and crunched on the gravel as it rolled to a stop. The truck stayed there, idling noisily. The back window darkly tinted, so Rodham couldn't tell anything about the driver. From the open window of the hideous vehicle, they could see a burly, tanned hairy elbow resting on the ledge. The Kinks "You Really Got Me" was blaring from the tinny speakers. Rodham looked at Clinton with apprehension. The engine revved twice, as if to say "Get your asses in here, I ain't got all day!"

Rodham picked up the suitcase he'd been lugging and walked cautiously to the trashmobile.

Meanwhile, aboard the Eebohctonro, there was laughter and screams of delight as the three Ornotchobee siblings bounced on the beds of the houseboat. Chobee and Cherie were very pleased with it, it was really nice on the inside and looked as if the former owner had spent many a paycheck at IKEA furnishing the place. The kid's bedroom had two bunk beds and a built-in storage closet, plus a ladder that led up to a nifty little observation loft. From there, there was a slide that the kids could slide down to the family room, which was appointed with all sorts of stuffed animals, beanbag chairs and playthings. Chobee Jr admired the well-stocked library, full of wonderful books on physics and human anatomy.

The galley kitchen was narrow, but every bit of space was devoted to storage. Cherie liked the brushed aluminum faucet in the kitchen sink. The children loved bouncing on their parent's bed, which seemed to have been custom-built to accomodate Chobee's massive frame. A journey in this vessel would be enjoyable, indeed, and even Cherie seemed to have calmed her morning sickness. Chobee hoped the kids would go to bed soon, because the lack of hurling was making him aroused again.

Gerg's apartment was... cozy. The garbage scow was JUST big enough for a Gerg-sized bed, refrigerator, stove, sink, and potty. He could stand up to his full height in only one place, where a bubble skylight had been built up and onto the roof. Gerg was excited about being on the open ocean, but wary of meeting his brother's friends. Would they thing he was stupid, even though he was talking fairly normal? Gerg switched on his IKEA book
light and opened his dog-eared copy of Wuthering Heights. "Damn that Heathcliff!" he swore, as he wiped a tear from his eye.

"Casting off!" Chobie yelled. The Eebohctonro pulled away from the pier and headed out on the three mile journey to Lahtrednaen. Minutes later Chobie yelled "Land ahoy!" and then a few minutes after that the engines were idling down and Chobie was yelling, "All ashore that's going ashore!"

Gerg slammed his book shut. "Three more pages read," he muttered.

On Lahtrednaen an orange crab stared at the monstrous tugboat/garbage scow combination and waved its claws apprehensively. Marcus walked down to greet the vessel. "Holy cow! It's Chobee!" he said.

But Marcus and Chobee, the two former residents of Lufchatel, did not embrace and slap each other's back. For one thing, Marcus would need a stepladder to reach Chobee's back. So he contented himself with slapping Chobee's knee and saying, "How you been, big fellow? Is this your family?"

“So far,” Chobee grinned.

“I see Cherie has a bun in the oven,” Marcus grinned.

“Two croissants, actually. Where’s Atina?” Chobee replied.

“Up the beach, studying to be a midwife. We found a crate full of physician’s books and she’s quite the voracious...ummm...reader.” Marcus kept the secret of Atina’s other new affinity to himself. Suffice it to say, to keep the reader interested, Atina’s upper half anatomy was discovering new ways to keep her man satisfied.

Gerg climbed out of his new home, immediately raising the boat out of the water, due to the lack of weight holding it down. The triplets cheered as their uncle carried them onto the sandy beach. They cheered again when the giant knocked coconuts out of one of the myriad trees lining the beach.

“I saw this in a movie once,” Gerg grinned. He began throwing a coconut against a large rock, in an effort to break it open. When it smashed into a dozen pieces, the milk inside splashed out, causing everyone to groan at the loss of a valuable laxative.

Back at the beachhead, Marcus had just asked Chobee if they intended to stay long. He’d asked, mainly to be able to prepare a daily feast for the extended family. But Chobee let him off the hook.

“Cherie is due in a few months. I doubt we’ll stay that long. But if we’re in the neighborhood when the time comes, we’ll stop by and let Atina do her stuff. Let me go ask my brother to catch us some fish and you and I will start a fire,” Chobee suggested.

Meanwhile, in Old Lufchatel, the Gator Crew were having a yard sale. Well, it was more of a gutter sale. Everything that hadn’t been nuked and wasn’t still glowing was on sale. There was a still-intact Stratego game; a completely undamaged Sudoku book, complete with fifty puzzles and their solutions; two coloring books and four unopened boxes of Crayola crayons; a Smith & Wesson thirty-two caliber pistol, but no bullets; and a sleeve of Titleist golf balls, signed by Ernie Els.

So far, nobody had come by to browse. That was either because the crew were all ferocious-looking gators, or because the flyers they’d posted weren’t being viewed by anyone living.

"I think we need a dummy to help sell this stuff," said one of them.

"I do it," said another one. "I flunked school."

"Wrong type of dummy, dummy," said the first. "We need a decoy of some sort, like you'd use when hunting something."

Gerg caught all kinds of interesting fish, more than the crew could eat in a lifetime. When he hauled an enormous blue Marlin out of the water, Chobee yelled, "Stop, Gerg, we have enough!" "Awww, fiddlesticks," Gerg lamented and threw the pointed fish, paper airplane style, back into the ocean.

For dinner they had stingray, Blue fin tuna, crab legs, (but not Gutan's, she was too small,) and oysters. Gerg even batted one of the enormous seagulls out of the sky, and the turkey-sized bird was roasting on a spit, over an open fire. The triplets took turns rotating the handle. He knew Chobee didn't like seafood, and felt the huge seagull would be a welcome addition to their feast.

Meanwhile, Rodham approached the window of the pickup.

A large, thickly-built woman with a unibrow and hairy arms stared back at them. She was growing an extra ear on her left cheek, possibly due to radiation poisoning. "I'm Georgette," she announced with confidence, "But you can call me George."

"Are you going to New Lufchatel?" Rodham asked.

"Sure am!" Georgette replied. "Well, actually Old Lufchatel. Some gators is having a yard sale and I want to get me some crayons for Junior and a gun for myself."

"Why do you want a gun?" Rodham asked.

"Radioactive ghost zombies!" Georgette said. "Ain't you heard of them?"

"No. Are they dangerous?"

"Dangerous, hon? Is a rattle snake dangerous? Is a black widow spider dangerous? Is a Glenn Beck fan dangerous? Well, you put all those together and what you got is STILL not as dangerous as a radioactive ghost zombie."

"I guess that's a yes, then. Can we just call them RGZ's?"

"That's cute, hon. Kind of like RV, or ATV, or TV, or NBC, or-"

"They're called acronyms," Rodham said.

"I thought you wanted to call them RGZ's?"

"No, I meant... nevermind."

"Look, hon, I believe that's the sale. But where is the gator boys?"

She pulled the truck up next to a motley assortment of cardboard boxes and rickety folding card tables.

The crew were lying under the rickety card tables. It was nap time, after all. They’d just found a dummy to advertise their sale. But he’d been run over by a pickup truck driven by a unibrow beyotch named George. Little did they know that their dummy had found them a customer.

“Ahem,’ George cleared her throat. The phlegm that flew out landed right next to the gun she had her eye on. She picked up her eye and put it back in her head, next to the extra ear.

One of the gators awoke and hit his head on the underside of the card table.

“Owwww,” he moaned. Then he peered over the edge of the table and nearly fainted. Standing behind George was the one person he never expected to see.

REAPER.

It was another acronym, of course.

Rodent Eating Apparition Preparing Edible Roaches.

"Okay," the gator said. "What are you interested in?"

"I had my eye on that shootin' pistol over there, Mr. Gator" Georgette grunted, pointing a meaty finger toward the Smith and Wesson. Larry, the lead gator smiled slyly and said, "I heard there was an outbreak of RGZ's, so quality pistols like this are in hot demand!"

"Not without ammo, they aint!" Georgette shot back.

"Still," Larry purred, "A beautiful lady such as yourself would look mighty fine, wielding a top-of-the-line weapon such as this." he gestured a clawed foot toward the pistol, which was obviously in need of major repair.

"Oh shut your garbage hole, gator man, I know I'm no Cindy Crawford. So cut the crap and let me buy the gun!"

"For eleven hundred dollars, my lady, it's yours."

Georgette blinked her partial eyelashes in disbelief.

"You... Gotta... Be... Shittin' me." she enunciated, punctuating each word with a small amount of flying saliva.

REAPER, who had somehow transported himself away from Lahtrednean, stepped forward.

"I... I thought... thought you were... er..." Larry stammered.

REAPER did not look happy. He'd bee through an awful lot, after the messed-up incident with Pati, the Neanderthal, (which culminated in REAPER consuming her brains) he was not in the best of moods. Nor was he about to stand back while a grinning alligator tried to bamboozle such an attractive lady.

"DEAD?" he shouted, "ME CAN'T DIE, ME REAPER, ME REGEN... REGENER... ERR.."

"Regenerate?" Georgette finished his sentence. "So do I, buddy, I grow new body parts all the time! " She pointed to the set of interesting lips that had just formed on her forehead. REAPER felt a strange stirring in his loins.

"GIVE THE LADY GUN, NOW...andaboxofcrayons."

"Dude," said the other gator, Fearless Fred, "We can't just GIVE her the pistol, she's gotta PAY for it!"

"OKAYYYYYY!" roared REAPER, and he fished in his pockets, coming up with nothing but a large, gleaming pearl. "FOUND THIS STRANGE ROCK ON BEACH, HURT MY FOOT, WAS GOING TO EAT IT BUT FORGOT. THIS PAY FOR GUN?"

Larry stared at the pearl, drooling. "Ka CHING!" Fearless Fred whispered as REAPER placed the pearl in Larry's outstretched paw.

Georgette snatched the gun and crayons from the table and walked back to the pick-up, followed by REAPER.

Rodham nearly swallowed his tongue when he saw the familiar zombie.

"Bugger..." whispered Clinton.

"I think I'll stay here with the Gator Boys," Rodham said. "Thanks for the ride, Georgette."

"You're welcome, hon. Don't let none of them Radioactive Ghost Zombies get a hold of you."

"I won't. Clinton and I feel safe with Larry and Fred."

"We ain't got no spare bed," Larry said, "but you can sleep in the tub."

They watched Georgette drive away with the REAPER sitting in the back of the pickup.

"We're not staying with you," Rodham said. "We're going up to visit Harry in New Lufchatel. I just didn't want that crazy chick and her zombie friend to know where we were going."

"Oh. Well I reckon Harry has room. Room? He's got ROOMS! Har har har!"

Rodham then turned to Clinton and whispered, "These guys don't have the sence of humor that a rock has."

"No duh," Clinton said. "Rocks arn't sentient, unless the radiation did something to them."

Gerg finished rolling the rocks into a circle to make a fire pit so they could have a barbecue. Cherie and the kids got to prepare the bird and fish for cooking. Chobee and Marcus still had their heads together, but nobody knew why...

Just then, as if thought to life, a large boulder rumbled at the edge of an overgrown field and opened its eyes. "Sentient indeed," thought Rocky, "I'll show THEM... Mwahahahahahahaaaa!"

Chobee sat back against a palm tree and stripped the last of the meat off the seagull's leg. "BUUUUURRRRRP" rang his belch through the starry night. "Oh YEAH?" Cherie challenged, tossing an oyster shell into the bushes, "BUUURRRRRRRrrRRRrrrrRRRRrrrrRRRPPPP!"

"Haha! Good one dear!" Chobee laughed, patting the top of her head. Her ability to outbelch him was one of the myriad of reasons he loved her.

Gerg had been listening to the belching contest, and thought he'd contribute one of his own. He lumbered up to his fellow campers and thumped himself down in the sand beside the campfire. "Oh, you think YOU can burp, listen to this!" He sucked in a large breath. The triplets covered their ears, they'd heard their uncle burp before, and it wasn't pretty.

"BBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUuUUuUUuUuUuUuUuUUURRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPERUUUUUPOPPPPPPPAAAPPPPPAP PAPPPUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPP!"

Marcus's long dark hair blew back from his face, and his cheeks flapped as if he was in a wind tunnel. Cherie was blown over and knocked unconscious. Atina was pushed off her mannequin legs by the force of Gerg's belch and skipped along the open ocean like a smooth, flat stone. The triplets had been hiding behind their father, who was the only one unaffected by the shock wave, so they remained untouched. Gutan dug herself out of her burrow after all the commotion. She ran up to Gerg and began clicking her claws.

"Whats that girl?" Gerg inquired, "Atina's in the water? She can't swim?" Gutan continued clicking her claws. She knew half-giants understood Crabbish. In likkety-split time, Gerg was on his feet and sloshing into the open ocean. He soon found Atina, right before she went under for the last time. He carried her heroically back to the beach, and as she looked up into his oddly-colored eyes, just before she lost consciousness, she knew she was in love.

When she woke up again, Atina looked around for Gerg, but he was nowhere to be seen. She could ask Marcus, but it would probably sound odd if her first words after the incident were, "Where's Gerg?" Then again, maybe not, since Gerg saved her life. But Gerg was out in the surf fishing. He was an excellent fisherman because he could wade out into the deep water.

Harry was glad to see Rodham and Clinton. "Come on on! Stay awhile. I hope you boys will build a house in New Lufchatel."

"Give us a sales pitch," Rodham said. "Why should we risk another zombie infestation?"

"How about the fact that living in a house is better than letting acid rain fall on you at night?"

"Good point. My cybernetic parts keep on getting more and more pitted with each heavy storm."

Marcus and Chobee had actually been discussing the possibility of the ZBH returning to the mainland with the Ornotchobee family. With the onset of Gerg and Atina’s budding romance, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring it up, seeing that Atina was clinging to Gerg’s left bicep in a more-than-casual sort of way.

“How’d you kids like a real zombie-hunter living next door?” Chobee asked. The kids all cackled and laughed at the idea. But after they’d settled down, it became obvious to Chobee Jr. that the best way to keep the nightmares out of his life was to have a ZBH as a neighbor. So Chobee and Gerg separated the two boats and the brothers hugged their goodbyes.

Meanwhile, in old Lufchatel, the Gator Crew had closed down their sale. All they had left was something that hadn’t been mentioned before: a box full of cybernetic parts and a DIY manual for rebuilding a cyberntic organism from scratch.

Toby and Aristocrates sat alone in a burned-out condo, shivering from the cold and nearly starved to death, Aristocrates, because the nuclear blast had disintegrated all available supplies of small, amphibious creatures that were his major source of brain food. Toby, because there were no humans upon which he could feast. There was this scary woman named Georgette, and her grown son Huey, who was scarier than she, but none of them appealed to his gay zombie senses. He also missed his formaldehyde showers and wished he had a way to keep himself as neatly groomed as he had in the past.

"I heard a rumor Rodham and Clinton are back in town," Aristocrates whispered to Toby, his little squrrel teeth chattering.

"SHHHH!" scolded Toby, "You don't want to rouse the RGZ's do you?"

"Oh... yeah... I forgot." The RGZ's were nasty creatures, dangerous even to a zombie.

Toby sighed. "The only zombie I know that could stand up to an RGZ is REAPER, and we haven't seen him since the blast."

"Good thing too," replied Aristocrates, "that dude gave me the creeps!"

"Creepier than Georgette?"

"Not quite, my zompadre, not quite!"

Meanwhile, Georgette and Huey were sitting in their cabin watching the flames flicker in the fireplace as they licked the last of the grease off their fingers from that box of fried chicken they had bought on the way home.

"Maw?" Huey said.

"What is it my sweet little ball of sugar?"

"Maw? When are you going to let me date girls?"

"Pshaw! All them girls out there are whores and losers. You don't want nothing to do with them, my little biscuit."

"Sometimes at night I think I do, Maw."

Just then, a knock came from the door.

Now who could that be?Georgette wondered as she walked to the door.

"But, Maw," Huey continued. "How'm I gonna learn about the good girls if you don't let me date a whore or a loser first?"

Georgette thought her son had a point and was about to agree, when she opened the door. She nearly lost her lunch.

It was Larry. He was holding a box of shells. It said SHELLS on the top. Georgette was about to remark smartly that she wasn't into things commonly found on the beach, but held her tongue.

"I found another box of bullets for you ma'am," he said, offering them in one gnarled paw.

"Thanks -- wait - how much?" she stopped herself in mid-grab.

"Nothing extra, ma'am. They certainly won't do me any good without that gun you now possess. I mean, it's not guns that kill people, it's the bullets. True, the guns make 'em go really FAST..."

Larry turned and sauntered away, which wasn't easy for a gator. But he made it look good, nonetheless. As he walked away, who should walk up the path but Rodham.

"If those bullets won't fit your gun, ma'am, I'd like to see if they'll fit MINE," he suggested.

"Rodham, gosh darnit, put that thing back in your pants, you done went and paid for your ride already, so zip it up and tell me why you're REALLY here!"

Rodham cleared his throat, zipped his pants, and blushed a little from his boldness.

"Well, Georgette,"

"GEORGE!" she curtly interrupted.

"Alright, alright, GEORGE, we've been looking for a few strong men to help us with some reconstruction, and we heard your Huey here has quite a hammer arm!"

Huey looked up at Rodham, and covered his hammer-shaped mutated left hand with his napkin.

"What's wrong with me? I'm strong!" Georgette whined defensively.

"No offense, GEORGE, but you are a woman... Hideous, man-like and regenerative, but a woman none the less. We think your presence would be very distracting to the largely male crew of the rebuilding committee, especially with those... um... lips growing on your forehead."

"Well," she conceded, looking down at the ground and smiling, "Having Huey out of the house for a while would give me more time to spend with my new man!"

Rodham looked at her in disbelief. "New man?"

"WHO AT DOOR, HONEY?" REAPER growled, emerging from the bathroom in a plaid robe and bunny slippers.

"Close your robe, dearest," Georgette said. "Your orangutang is hanging out."

"HUH?" REAPER said.

"Just close your robe."

"Come on, Huey," Rodham said. "Let's see what that hammer arm can do."

Clinton was checking over the house plans when Rodaham and Huey got there. "Look at this," Clinton said. "We forgot to put in a stairway to the second story."

Rodham pulled out a pencil and scribbled on the plan. "There! Stairway. This is Huey. He's got a hammer arm."

"How convenient," Clinton said. "Now if we can just find a man with a saw nose..."

*TWANG!!!*

"Why don't you use an actual saw," shouted Harry. "You to must be the laziest people I've ever dealt with. Seriously, using mutants with tool-like apendages. I have no idea what's worse: You using that poor kid to use his hand to pound in nails, or the fact that your cybernetic arm has a rocket launcher in it."

"Hey, this bad boy has its uses," Rodham shouted.

Luckily for Rodham, Rodaham had a saw nose. He also had forklift feet, capable of lifting up to five hundred pounds on each foot.

Meanwhile, on the island of Lahtrednaen, Gerg and Atina were waving goodbye to the rest of the extended family. They were sailing back to the mainland.

Gerg lay on the beach, in the soft moonlight. He could hear the sounds of the island natives hooting maniacally in the distance. The drums didn't bug him that much, he knew the Neanderthals were afraid of him and wouldn't come near him nor his truncated, vampire sweetie. Atina lay on his chest, running her fingers through the coarse growth of hair on his expansive chest. Imagine a large man lying down... now put one of those small, square pot holders just under his breast bone. That's what they resembled, as they lay contentedly together. Atina hadn't fed for a while, not since the last nip from her vampire husband.... Gosh that seemed so long ago... So without thinking, she sought a soft patch of flesh just under his right man-breast and sank her teeth into it.

"Oeeeeeeoooohhhhhhh!" Gerg screamed, startled, and a little turned-on. Atina immediately backed away, wiping her mouth and pouting.

"I wasn't thinking, honey, I'm sorry, I was just soooo hungry!"

"It's alright," Gerg assured her, though the stinging sensation spreading from the wound was beginning to worry him.

Worry was an emotion Harry seldom felt. If the title existed, he would be voted The World's Most Confident Man. "Con Man for short," joked his wife, but that didn't worry Harry.

With his new gang of mutant workers, the building of New Lufchatel was proceeding rapidly. It already had a school, a church, a town hall, and a fire station. If it only had a WalMart it would be a real town.

The Tape Measure Man unzipped his pants and measured off 8 feet of two-by-four.

"That's quite a stud," Rodham said. "I meant the piece of lumber."

"Rodham, I remember saying something to you last year," Harry said, as he walked up to the Specteral Mutterer. "I think it was that you were the King of Denial."

"I have No Idea what you are talking about."

"Well watch it with the Double Entradas. There might be children nearby, and some of them are clever enough to understand Double meanings."

“Besides,” Clinton opined, “Double entendres were always Chobee’s specialty. Wow, I can’t believe I miss him so much. The big lunk.”

Somewhere, in between a small island and a large continent, Chobee was thinking of double entradas. Maybe he and Marcus could find a nice little honey who wouldn’t mind simultaneous entry from two studs such as he and the ZBH. He was up on deck, guiding the spacious yacht by the stars.

“Entradas dobles, mmmm,” he muttered aloud.

“You gotta be careful what you wish for, big man,” Marcus said beside him. “You might just get it. As long as Cherie doesn’t find out, that is.”

And because Chobee had muttered, due to the special link the original members of old Lufchatel shared, Rodham spectrally muttered, “Damn Clinton. We never got to measure HIS tool, did we? There’s not a ghost of a chance of doing that now.”

On the island of Lahtrednaen, Gerg was feeling stronger every minute, if such a thing were possible for a man of his size. Any little aches or pains he’d been feeling were washed away like the water lapping against the shore. Atina was lapping against his measuring stick now. It was far too large for her to fit in her mouth, so she was skinning it with her pointy little tongue.

The drums stopped drumming quite suddenly. At the edge of the forest stood two Neanderthal men holding a club each. One’s was on fire, the other was merely throbbing. Neither had met Atina before and all they could see of her now, was her upper half. Little did they realize, that was all she was: an upper half.

“You subdue giant,” one said to the other, who had no idea what “subdue” meant, but nodded in agreement. “I grab girl for bonfire.”

As the two stepped onto the sand, a little orange crab reached out and pinched their toes. Their subsequent hootings alerted the entwined couple to their presence. Not that it mattered to either Gerg or Atina. They kept on enjoying themselves.

“Hoot! HOOT!”

"Ow, crab bit my toe!" Dak, the smarter of the two shouted. "That what they called?" Dork, the lesser minded, replied. Gutan clicked her claws in a vain effort to warn the Neanderthals of their impending doom. Neither of them understood crabbish, so they just pushed her aside and proceeded toward Gerg and Atina. Gutan shrugged her tiny crab shoulders and clicked out "Oh well!"

Dak, the one holding the flaming club, whopped Gerg's right shoulder. To Gerg, it felt like a small insect bite, and he slapped at the offending sensation, flattening Dak against his mass of rounded flesh. Dork looked on in horror as the flaming club splintered into shards. His own club had stopped throbbing. He wasn't the brightest hooter in the clan, but he did learn quickly. He walked slowly around the massive giant and stood at his left elbow where he could be seen.

"Scuse Dork," he grunted.

Gerg looked at the tiny brown man with heavy-lidded eyes. "Pardon?" he rumbled, closing his eyes briefly from the sensations his girlfriend was creating.

"Me Dork.." the Neanderthal replied.

"I can see that, what do you want?"

"Dork subdue big man." he brandished his club at Gerg.

"Little hairy creature, do you even know what subdue means?"

"Um..." stammered Dork. "No?"

"Well then, how can you possibly subdue me when you don't know what it means?" Gerg smiled what he thought was a friendly smile at the powerless neanderthal, but the gleaming white fangs that had sprouted from his gums sort of ruined the effect. Dork backed away.

"Dork... Uh... Go now." Dork dropped his club and ran into the jungle, screaming like a sissy girl. Gerg was perplexed.

Atina looked up from her "job" and smiled. "Oops, I think I turned you!"

Gerg, not missing a beat, sang, "I think I turned you, so what am I so afraid of, I'm afraid I'm not so sure of, a love there is no cure for!"

Gutan put her claws over her ears and clicked out, "Please make it stop!"

Dork kept running until he got back to Neanderthal Camp. The afternoon swim was already underway. "Where's your buddy?" the Councelor asked.

"He squashed," Dork replied.

"No swimming without a buddy. You know the rules."

A dejected Dork went to the Crafts Cabin instead and tried to finish painting his totem pole.

Meanwhile, Harry was trying to watch television. However, the only station that was coming in was some Evengelical Church channle.

"We need to get the TV stations to start broadcasting good stuff," Harry muttered. "These guys can't even tell me if the Buffalo Bills and New York Giants are playing tonight or tomorrow. I have money invested on those games."

Meanwhile, down at the New Lufchatel television studio, Toby and Aristocrates were watching American Football on their DirecTV satellite dish.

“Yay, the Ravens lost!” the squirrel shouted. “I hate birds. They chase squirrels, you know?”

“But then you’re going to hate to hear this. The Lions just lost to the Eagles. Wow, what strange names these teams have,” Toby answered. “I mean, what the hell is a BILL? Apart from the thing at the end of a bird’s mouth, what could they be doing in Buffalo? Do buffalos have bills?”

“I don’t know, my friend. The Giants of New York seem to be just as tall as their opponents. Weird Americans! I wonder if Harry would like to see these games...”

Georgette and REAPER sat at the Formica-topped kitchen table having a cup of coffee. REAPER was pretending to read the paper, but it was upside-down and he really had no idea what he was doing.

"DOW JONES DOWN THREE POINTS," he stated, in an attempt to impress her with his massive brain power.

Georgette cleared her throat... well her main throat, the other, regenerated one merely phlegmed a little. "Puddin' Pop?"

"WHAAAAATTTT?"

"Your readin' the funny pages."

"OH."

REAPER slammed down his coffee cup, splashing Georgette's face and spotting up the funny pages. "REAPER NO LIKE COFFEE, TASTES LIKE ASS!"

Georgette looked upset. "But Sugar Lumps, I got us some of that fancy lemur crap coffee, so's we could feel like we's a fancy couple." Her third chin trembled as her eyes welled up with tears.

"I GOING TO THE BAR," REAPER growled, as he turned to leave. There were no bars yet in New Lufchatel, but she figured she'd let him discover that for himself.

Meanwhile, on the mainland, Cherie sat upright in bed. Her water broke.

"What the hell am I going to do now?" she muttered, then yelled, "Is anybody home? Pregnant lady here!"

Harry beat on the door of the television station. "Open up! I can hear you watching football in there!"

REAPER stood in the middle of New Lufchatel and raised his fists to the sky. "WHERE IS BAR? NO FIND BARRRRR!"

Harry heard the REAPER and walked over and tugged at his sleeve and pointed at the door to the television station. "In there..."

Harry walked away whistling. Behind him he could here the door of the TV station shattering into splinters as REAPER pushed through it. From inside came screams of surprise and anger.

"WHERE IS BAR?" the REAPER asked.

"No bar, but there is fresh cold Bud Lite in the back," Toby said, nervously.

"THAT DO," REAPER said walking towards the back room.

"I'm glad that's over," Aristocrates said whiping some sweat off of his forehead.

Just then, Harry came in. "How's the game?"

“What game?” Toby asked, trying to sound nonchalant. He then pointed to a smashed-up television sitting on a stool in one corner. “That hasn’t worked in ages.” He smirked to his squirrel friend, who did his best not to chitter in amusement.

“Dammit. I heard you watching football in here!” Harry howled. In the back of the building, they could all hear REAPER making a mess of things.

Aristocrates was sitting on top of a large object covered with a wool blanket. Around his neck, he wore a silver choker, made from silver bullets. Harry had already been wary of the rodent.

“No you didn’t,” Toby replied. “Aristocrates and I were merely recalling the days of Knute Rockne, Bart Starr and Brett Favvvv-ruh.”

Cherie awoke in the Bullabulling hospital, surrounded by her loved ones. In her arms, she cradled her new twins. One wore a pink bracelet on her wrist, the other wore blue on his. She already had names picked out, but would run them by her husband first. She was fairly certain Chobee would agree to Olivia. But Marcus? Of that, she wasn’t sure.

REAPER smashed his way out the back of the building and found himself staring at a relatively-new neon sign proclaiming:

Purple Haze’s Aperitifs

“FINALLY! BEYOTCH,” he declared. George didn’t know everything after all.

REAPER sat on a stool next to the bar. In the far corner of the room, two fifty-ish men were staring at open laptops, typing and laughing occasionally. One man had an open bottle of V8 Fusion by his hand and the other had a 2-liter bottle of Sierra Mist. Another younger man was in the opposite corner. He looked a little hairy for a man so young, and wore a badge that said, B.B.Wolf. He too was typing away furiously at a light blue laptop. REAPER looked back at the bar and was startled to see a tall man staring back at him.

"Welcome to Purple Haze's Aperitifs!" the man announced in a booming baritone. He threw the baritone aside and faced his patron again.

"A PAIR OF TEEFS?" the rotten customer questioned.

The tall, bearded man shook his head. "No, not 'a pair of teefs' my dear friend, Aperitifs... You know, coctails."

"COCK TALES?" REAPER asked, looking thoroughly confused.

"Oh dear," the bartender complained, rubbing his temples.

From the back room, a short, though cute, middle-aged woman appeared, wiping her hands on a white kitchen towel. "Everything okay here, Purp?"

"Yeah, Raven, got everything under control."

"You sure 'bout that?" Raven inquired, with a half-smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure, dorkette, finish the dishes!"

"Yes SIR!" Raven shouted, clicking her heels and mock-saluting him.

Purple turned back to REAPER.

"WOMEN," he grunted.

"Tell me about it..." Purple agreed.

"OK!" REAPER said. "ME TELL! ONCE UPON A TIME..."

"Wait!" Purple said. "What the hell are you doing?"

"ME TELL STORY OF WOMEN!"

"The whole thing from Eve to Jezebel to Delilah to Paris Hilton to Lindsay Lohan?"

"ME MAKE LONG STORY SHORT!"

"I think I need another drink."

"Would someone get me some Pork Ribs and Chicken Wings?" shouted B.B. Wolf.

"We're still waiting on them," Purple said. "It takes a while for the processing company to ship those things here. Then I have to cook them, and that can take a while."

"Just get them or I'll chew on your wings and ribs!"

"Starving writers," Purple said with a groan.

"WELL ME STILL HAVE STORY."

Purple Haze's Aperitifs closed at 6 a.m. All in all, it was a successful Grand Opening for the first new bar in New Lufchatel. The sign painter was waiting for Purp as he locked up for the next five hours.

"So you want it me to add "and Inebriants" right? Underneath is okay? I'll get to work on it now. What about "grille"? Or should we wait until your cook arrives?" the overall-clad gargoyle asked.

"Mr. Goyle, you'd better wait for the cook AND the grill itself. No use getting ahead of ourselves here," Purp replied. As the proprietor walked to his little twelve-by-twelve bungalow he recalled the end of REAPER's shaggy dog story and shook his head in awe. To think that WYMYN were once so revered in society...

Meanwhile, Cherie and the new twins - Livvy and Marcus - were released from the hospital to cheers and a huge party thrown by the whole Ornotchobee family, along with the godfather Marcus Zinnia, ZBH. The vampire grinned a toothy smile at the prospect of being someone's godfather. Now all he had to do was find someone who was willing to live with a vampire and not demand sex all the time.

Toby and Aristocrates sat down to watch another weekend of NCAA and NFL football. Little did they realize there was a small button camera in the far corner, monitoring their activities.

"Well," toby yawned, "Time to take a shower." Toby pressed a button on the back wall and a fake panel swiveled to reveal an elaborate bathroom, and a marble shower stall that smelled suspiciously like formaldehyde. "Ahhh, it's good to be clean" he moaned as jets of the stinky liquid pelted his body.

"Alone again, NUTS!" Aristocrates complained, and escaped the TV studio through a small trapdoor in the east wall.

A red light blinked in the observation van parked across the street. "Shit, almost out of tape!" Alice Wormbiter cursed, and she shoved another videocasette into the machine. a large flap of skin peeled off her left cheek. She opened a tube of superglue and glued it back to her face. "Bonds skin instantly, yessss!"

Alice closed her eyes and thought of better days, when the only thing she had to worry about was undead removal and containing zombies. Her last attempt hadn't gone well. She ended up using a nuclear bomb and was blown out of the building where the core group of Lufchatel were observing her doings. She landed in a ditch that was soon running with radioactive sludge. She was knocked unconscious and floated to a large sewer pipe, where she lived for almost a year. She had horrible skin problems from the blast, but the most horrible thing of all was the sewer pipe. No matter how much potpourri she used, the drain still smelled like poo.

Cherie was wheeled from the Bullabulling hospital. She held Olivia, and Marcus held his namesake. It was hard not to notice the blank look on Chobee's face. He was a wee bit jealous of the whole godfather thing, since Cherie started out as Marcus' girlfriend in the first place. As they were leaving through the automatic doors, Cherie looked at her half-ogre husband.

"Don't worry," she whispered to him.

"Huh? Who's worried?" Chobee retorted defensively.

"You are, beloved, it's written all over your face. I chose the name Marcus, because Marcus is an honorable man and financially fit to be a Godfather. I have no romantic feelings toward him... Besides, why would I want a cold vampire that can't have sex, when I have a sexy, hairy, wonderful, smart man as yourself?"

Chobee had to admit, she had a point. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She squeezed back and smiled.

Georgette sat at her kitchen table drinking coffee and fuming about REAPER. If that sorry ass zombie thinks he can just waltz back in here as if nothing happened then he's got a big surprise coming. She glanced at her shotgun leaning up against the wall, cocked and loaded.

She heard his footsteps on the walk, his grunt as he stumbled, his clumsy attempt to operate the door knob with his big hands. The smell of alcohol drifted in before him, then he half fell through the door and sat down hard on the floor. "HI BABY! ME BACK!"

"You're sleeping outside tonight, unless you want me to blow your head off!" Georgette shouted.

"What?"

"Your breath smells worse than that skunk who lives in your intestines."

Marcus was worried about his new godfather-ship. So he sought out the only advice he could think of - he went back to the Bullabulling hospital. As he walked in through the emergency room doors, he heard the PA announce:

Amanda Biteme. Amanda Biteme. I need Amanda Biteme to E.R. STAT!

Marcus hovered over to the E.R. hallway and waited. There she was! Time seemed to slow, like it does in those instant-replay videos on the football games that Toby and Aristocrates liked to watch. Amanda was a cute little nurse, dressed in a tight black uniform. Her excitement was obvious as she strode past the ZBH.

Ohhh, what I wouldn’t sacrifice to bite those nipples, he thought. It was well after midnight when Amanda emerged from the Emergency Room. She purposefully walked towards the refreshment room. But as Marcus watched, she punched an unlabeled button and out popped a bag of blood. Sure she wasn’t being watched, Nurse Biteme extended her fangs and punctured the bag, drinking deeply.

Oh, I simply LOVE AB-Negative!, she growled to herself. Despite her excellent vampire hearing, she wasn’t aware of Marcus standing directly behind her until she burped.

“That looks lovely my dear,” he grinned, revealing his own set of fangs. “My name is Marcus. I came here looking for godfatherly advice. But perhaps you and I can share something a little more...intimate?”

Marcus and Amanda adjourned to a dark corner of the hospital; a place only the night nurse knew about. It was the third basement down, morgue room, inside Slab number nine. There, Marcus bit into Amanda’s nipples and sucked her blood, as she oohed and ahhed and clutched the back of his head.

Meanwhile, REAPER slept outside for the day, wondering what had gotten into George. He didn’t understand that she could smell alcohol on him, having grown extra nostrils overnight. All he wanted was for Purple Haze’s bar to open up again so he could be with people who listened to his stories.

It was daylight, and Gerg lay on the massive bed of his garbage scow home. The skylight had been layered with palm leaves, so no light could penetrate the thick walls of the shelter. Atina lay curled up on his chest, since there was no room for her on the bed after he retired for the night. They had settled into this cozy routine for several weeks now, since Gerg had become a vampire.

Atina, after biting Gerg accidentally hadn't quite felt "herself," Though Gerg had no problem "feeling" her, she often felt light-headed and tingly in certain places, namely her lower half... Which obviously, she didn't have. She'd had no such sensations ever since her zombie half had walked away, leaving her a truncated mat of a woman. But now, after discovering the delicious giant's blood... Things were definitely different.

Atina rolled off Gerg and walked on her hands to the enormous bathroom of the scow. She boosted herself up on a bar stool that they'd borrowed from Marcus's yacht, and looked in the mirror. Her face was radiant, and nearly glowed with happiness. She had finally, completely, fallen in love. She stretched her arms and admired her voluptuous figure in the mirror. Her breasts seemed firmer and more rounded than before, her torso was flat and subtly muscled. Down further, the indent of her belly button led to a patch of sparse brown hair...

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she screamed.

Gerg awoke so fast he bumped his head on the ceiling. Rubbing his head and looking a little grumpy from being woken up from his daysleep, he stumbled into the bathroom.

"Why all the caterwauling, sweetie?" he asked her.

"LOOK!" she shouted in her excitement. She pointed to the previously mentioned patch of hair. "I have PUBES!"

It took Gerg a moment to realize the significance of the situation. He still struggled with his giant slowness at times.

Gerg admired his beloved's backside. "It seems you have a nice set of buns as well!" he smiled as he scooped her up and carried her back to the bed.

The little orange crab Gutan was peeping through a crack in the wall of the scow and witnessed Gerg and Atina's excited conversation. "People!" the little crab muttered. "They are disgusting! I don't know why I spend so much time spying on them."

A huge red lobster tapped her on the shoulder. "Maybe you'd like to spend the time doing something more useful, eh baby?"

Gutan smacked the lobster in the jaw. "Get away from me, you pervert!"

The lobster slithered back a foot and debated taking her by force. "Nawww, there's plenty of other fish in the sea..."

Gutan snapped a claw at him. "Go away before I neuter you!"

"Yeah... you probably have crabs anyway."

"No crab jokes!" Gutan snapped.

"My, aren't we crabby today? So long, orange monstrosity. I must have been blind to lust after you."

"Go screw yourself!" Gutan yelled. She was trembling with rage.

"Can't do that," the lobster said. "But I did do your sister the other day."

Later that morning, the only thing missing from Atina's newly-formed lower half were her toenails. They would take a little longer to grow in. But neither she nor Gerg would notice. They were too busy.

Meanwhile, in New Lufchatel, Harry used the images he'd garnered from the button camera and information he'd heard through the fourth wall to prove that Toby and Aristocrates were indeed watching football from a satellite feed. While the two co-conspirators were out, Harry paid the Gator Crew to install a few extras including a barcalounger complete with zombie repellant and a nicely hidden chute through which Harry would slide to land in the lounger. He'd be there, in person, the next time they watched any football.

Marcus and Amanda were just bedding down for the day, satisfied after their first night of blood-letting. It was clear to both of them that they'd found a permanent partner. Despite the disputed phrase that vampires mate for life, Amanda hoped Marcus would never let her go. She simply loved spooning up against his body. And the worldly-way about him only intrigued her more. She was babbling in her sleep.

REAPER awoke on the front stoop and ambled back to Purple Haze's Aperitifs.

Why a Zombie and a squirrel watching satellite TV was so important to Harry was well beyond the scope of Alice Wormbiter's thought process. She didn't mind though, he payed her to spy on the duo, although money was of little use in an economy so new. She sighed and took a sip of coffee from a black porcelain cup she had salvaged after the blast. It was her one link to the person she used to be. "Suck!" she swore, because her lips had come off on the rim of the cup, and as you know, it is very hard to form a "F" sound without lips.

She was distracted by a ruckus outside. She peeled aside the polyester curtain of the observation van and saw a lanky, very ugly zombie running, screaming, wildly flailing his arms, and a stout (woman?) holding a Swiffer broom chasing after him.

Meanwhile, on the Isle of Lahtrednean, Gerg was hatching plans to build a new house for himself and his sweetie. The Neanderthals, however were busy making plans to take over the garbage scow.

And Gutan? What was Gutan doing? She was thinking about how she had been so quick to reject the lobster's advances, even though she hadn't had any sex in months. "What's wrong with me?" Gutan wondered. "Am I becoming frigid? Why didn't I just shack up with that lobster? He had the biggest claw I've ever seen. Now I'll spend the rest of the week regretting my hasty rejection. I swear... the next time anybody hits on me I'm going to go for it."

A fine-looking starfish lay half-concealed in the sand nearby listening to Gutan's mumbling rant. This is my chance to shag a crab, he thought.

The starfish waved two arms at Gutan. "Hello? I have a fifth arm you might be interested in."

"Get away from me, you pervert!" Gutan screamed and snapped a claw at him. The starfish scooted away.

"Damn!" Gutan said.

"Why is it that men are so crazy?"

************

Meanwhile, Harry and Anita were taking a look at some books, to try and spice up their night life.

"Let's see. Lotus position, Bent-Crane position, Sea Dragon position. So many different ways."

"Well how about the 'Shut-Up-and-Fuck-Her' position? That will do the job just fine Harry."

"Good point Anita," Harry said tossing the book. "Of course, I wouldn't mind trying some new things."

Gutan sat in the shade of a large coconut tree. Randy the scorpion came up behind her and slipped his stinger inside her. Gravity chose that moment to drop a coconut on Gutan’s head.

“Ouch!” she cried in pain.

“Sorry. Am I hurting you?” asked Randy.

Gerg and Atina found the Neanderthals making the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine. Despite his size, he was able to conceal himself from the hairy men as they explained how the device would work.

“HOOT! First, the coconut falls on the seesaw. HOOT HOOT. It lifts the log, pulling this string that sends the bucket full of crabs flying through the air,” Hoot Wilhelm began.

“As the crabs land on the far side of the island,” Hoot Eastwood continued, “Our heads explode. HOOT?”

“No, you Dirty Harry impersonator. HOOT. Our enemies crane their necks to see the flying crabs. That’s when the spears launch into their bellies, killing them!” Hooter Simpson said.

“Shut up, Hooters!” the Neanderthal from Saskatchewan said. “We have to light the crabs on fire first.”

“Get on your hands and knees, Anita. I just remembered the Neanderthal position!” Harry howled.

Gerg smelled the tasty blood running through the Neanderthal's veins and licked his lips. He started toward the hooting hairballs. Atina put a hand on his shoulder to stop them. "Shhh!"

Gerg looked crestfallen. "Why?" he whispered to her, "Sweetie, I haven't fed since I became a vampire, and I'm a pretty big guy."

Atina stole a glance at his nether regions. "You can say that again," she licked her lips and stared at him lustfully.

They soon forgot the Neanderthals and their silly Rube Goldberg contraption...

Gutan, on the other hand, was experiencing some pain. "Damn you, Randy, how many times do I have to tell you, PLEASE warn me before you do that." she clicked in Crabbish

"Awww Gussy, sorry, you just looked so cute spying on those larger creatures, I couldn't help myself!" Randy snapped back. He was fluent in both Crabbish, Scorpish, Lobsterish and Neanderthal.

"You do know that the full moon is my fertile period, didn't you?" she clacked.

Randy looked surprised. "No... I did not know that."

"Well what if I get pregnant, you KNOW Scorpio and Cancer hatchlings are absolutely uncontrollable!"

"Well," Randy tried to soothe her, "Doc Lobster said I didn't have any little swimmers anyway."

"You don't?" she stared at him with a hopeful expression.

"Nope, no motility here, babycakes!"

They joined again, and this time, Randy warned her.

Meanwhile, back in New Lufchatel, REAPER was pounding desperately on the door to Purple Haze's Aperitifs, as George was pounding him relentlessly with her Swiffer broom.

Purple Haze opened the door and stared at the pounding pair. "I hope you brought me some pound cake."

"ME WANT DRINK!" REAPER said.

"Don't give him anything!" Georgette said. "He's a lazy no-good drunk. Why don't you get a job, you big good-for-nothing!"

"MY JOB DRINK AND SEX," REAPER said.

Purple Haze nodded agreement. "That's nice work if you can get it... ♪and you can get it if you try♪..."

"Why Don't You Shut Up And Serve Me Some Wings And Ribs?" shouted BBWolf. "I've been waiting for........ a Long Time for you to serve them."

"And I told you," said Purple Haze. "They have to cook first."

And cook they did...on the big island known as Australia. Where Marcus, Amanda and the whole Ornotchobee family (except for Gerg and Atina) were dining on Wings and Ribs, delivered direct by the Buffalo Wild Wings of Buffalo, New York.

As Marcus bit into a particularly hot wing, he remarked to his new girlfriend, “This is bloody good!” Amanda then bit into the neck of her new boyfriend Marcus and nodded in agreement. She squeezed a bag of blood onto her ribs and sank her fangs into it.

“I just LOVE this new barbecue sauce, mein liebchen. Coo coo cachoo!” Amanda remarked. She’d already marked her territory by biting into Marcus’s right bicep. Now she was remarking it.

Chobee and Cherie were off to one side of the large barbecue pit, cuddling like the happy lovebirds they were. The triplets were taking care of the newborn twins, introducing them to the family tradition of camel-spotting.

Meanwhile, in New Lufchatel, Toby and Aristocrates were just sitting down to watch the Spartans take on the Fighting Illini. Without any warning at all, Harry flew through the flue and flung himseld down in the comfy chair to watch with them. In his right hand was a twelve-pack of Bud Light and in his left hand was a univeral remote control device.

Atina and Gerg were walking along the beach. Actually, Gerg was walking. Atina was straddling his...um....shoulder.

A rotted, glowing hand emerged from a sewer grate across the street from the TV shop where Harry had invaded the ball game. The hand went unnoticed by everyone but Alice Wormbiter, URS. She grabbed her binoculars and focused in on the sewer covering. "My stars, a radioactive ghost zombie..."

On the island of Lahtrednaen, several wooly Neanderthal heads popped up in unison as if listening to an unheard message. Dork was the first to speak.

"Uh-Oh," he grunted, "Trouble in Lufchatel... HOOT!"

"HOOT!" Rehab answered, "How can you tell, HOOOOT!"

"Dork know many things... many things..." his voice trailed off. He instinctively knew he had to find a way to Lufchatel, and quickly. Cooperate with the vampire giant? Perhaps. But he knew in his limited mind, something had to be done.

The rotting glowing hand that had emerged from the sewer grate across the street from the TV shop in New Lufchatel where Harry was watching the Spartans vs Fighting Illini game while drinking a Bud Light... that hand was retracted and a voice muttered, "Now how the bloody hell am I supposed to get through this grate?"

Alice Wormbiter sat down her binoculars. Her faced was twisted into a grimace of hate, ambition, and determination. "I shall kill that stinking radioactive zombie and raise my status in the National Association of Zombie Hunters and I shall do it now in a bold, convincing way."

Good thing the radiation had burned most of the intelligence out of the RGZs, they were mindless blobs of brainstem activity, hell bent on survival... If that's what you called it. Good thing too, they were too stupid to figure out you had to push UP on the grate to get it to pop out, or that they were ghosts and all they had to do was float up through the grate... or something like that.

If they ever find a way to get out of the sewers, we're screwed, she thought.

Alice Wormbiter put a shawl over her head to protect what remained of her hair and walked with blistered bare feet to the manhole grate. She could see the glazed, whitish eyes of the RGZ peeking up at her.

"WANT OUT!" the hideous apparition hissed.

"No can do, Charlie Brown, your kind are more dangerous than dangerous!"

"HOW YOU KNOW MY NAME?"

Alice flinched. Was that the zombies name, or was he just trying to trick her into opening the manhole cover? If that were the case, perhaps the RGZs weren't as dumb as previously thought. Just to be safe, she took out a pneumatic drill and bolted the grate onto the cover with carriage bolt-sized metal screws.

"I'll be back for you later, bub!" she promised the glowing undead creature.

"TOLD YOU MY NAME CHARLIE BROWN!" he whined. Alice almost felt sorry for him, then shook her head to get the thought from her mind.

Back at Purple Haze’s Aperitifs, Grille, Bail-bondsman, Palm-reading & Pawn Shop, REAPER was enjoying a plate of buffalo wings.

“HOW BUFFALO FLY?” he asked in his inimitable way. The other patrons merely shrugged their shoulders. They’d had quite enough of Mr. Death’s inquiries. Along the back wall, Purp was busy negotiating a price on a gray-and-puce, seven-shooter, with the initials ZBH carved on the handle.

“Twelve. My final offer,” he proposed.

The being on the other side of the counter merely shook what might have been its head. It shambled away muttering something sounding like Mandarin Chinese, but could have been Blarkian or Ferengi, for all anyone could understand it. The being lurched against REAPER and immediately fell ill. But GRIMMY, as he preferred his friends to call him (then he recalled that he had no friends, waved a juicy wing at the stranger and it was instantly cured.

“WHAT YER NAME?” he asked the being.

In an accent that could only be mistaken for Warsawian Polish, it replied, “GLURK. YEW?”

“REAPERRRRRR!” he replied, a little upset. Wasn’t it obvious? he thought. But when GRIMMY looked under the being’s hood, he realized it might not be obvious. The thing had one eye, one horn, seven noses and three mouths. “PURP NOT BUY? WHY?”

GLURK, glad to have someone who could speak its language, whatever it was, sat several of its buttocks down beside REAPER and began to relate its story. To the other patrons, nobody understood a word they spoke, and all were glad Mr. Death had found a new friend.

Over in Bullabulling, Amanda and Marcus were getting along famously.

“You actually lived in Khasachasistan?” she gushed. Then she wiped up the gush and continued. “I’d really like to visit there. It’s on my bucket list. Right after - drink a bucket of AB-negative blood. Do you think we could get a vacation package there? Are there any Bed-and-Breakfast joints there?”

Marcus could see his new lover was interested in his past. So he made some secret inquiries about chartering a plane. Somehow, Dork found out and made mental contact with Marcus in a dream sequence that isn’t fit for this narrative; but suffice it to say that several of the inhabitants of Lahtrednaen found their way onto that charter.

As the pilot announced the passengers were free to move about the cabin, Dork, Rehab and Enanny began HOOOOOOTING.

Meanwhile, Harry discovered the grate where the RGZs were sticking their hands out of.

"This is just great," he muttered. "Looks like I'll have to fix this mess before they block up the septic system."

Harry dragged three cases of Draino over to the grate. "Look out down below!"

He began pouring cans of Draino down the sewer, expecting to hear screams of anguish as the caustic chemical contacted the zombies' skins, but instead he heard ooh's and ahh's of pleasure. "What the F!?" Harry said.

"Don't stop now," came a voice from below. "I haven't felt so clean since I fell into my Uncle Sid's battery acid pit."

"Rats!" Harry said. "These radiocative weirdos thrive on that which is poison for us normal folks. Is someone filming this in 1950's B&W Sci-Fi?"

Harry looked around for the cameras but saw nothing except one mutant rabbit kangaroo munching on a carrot while it toyed with something in its pouch. "Hey you?" Harry said. "Are you from the media?"

"No, mate. I'm from Australia."

Harry turned away from the kangaroo and focused his attention back on the sewer grate.

"Thanks for the pleasure shower, man, now how bout letting us out?"

Harry was perplexed as to how such a stupid creature could be so articulate, and smart enough to beg for release.

"Don't think so, pal. Hey, have you seen a facially challenged woman recently?"

"The chick from the van? Sure, she's the one that bolted us in here."

Harry was reluctant to tell the RGZ that there was a fully opened manhole a mere twenty feet from where he stood.

Alice took that very moment to return, and she had a bundle of chicken wire under her arm.

"Hey Al, what's shaking, and why are you out of your van, I thought you were too hideous to see the light of day!" Harry helpfully reminded her.

"Gee thanks for the vote of confidence, Harry... See that open manhole over there? I gotta get that thing covered before these creatures decide to grow some ganglion."

She set to work stretching the wire and fastened it to the opening with industrial steel staples.

"There, that should hold em off for a while. Hey Harry, I saw an odd-looking woman chasing that REAPER guy into the bar down the street. She had some extra parts growing. Do you think I can have her number?"

"I'd give it to you, but Georgette is a little... um... shall we say, different."

"Different is good, bub, if it gets me a new jaw and nose... and other parts."

On the plane, Dork, Rehab and Enanny were hooting it up so loudly, Marcus was rubbing his temples in distress. Even the usually cheerful Amanda was getting a little concerned. And hungry... So many Neanderthals... so much tasty blood... She grabbed Enanny by the arm and sank her fangs into her Jugular vein, sucking deep droughts of her blood. Marcus looked at her with disgust.

"What? I was hungry and she was hooting, what was I supposed to do?" she whined, as she dropped the lifeless body of Enanny to the floor. Dork and Rehab stared in horror.

The other Neanderthals stopped hooting and sat placidly in their seats. What would be their role in this RGZ crisis? Why were they mentally connected to Marcus? And how the hell did a Dork and a Rehab become their fearless leader?

Harry was sitting comfortably in the barcalounger waiting for College Football Gameday to start. He was into his fourth beer, so he was fairly well sloshed by the time it started. Toby and Aristocrates sat in a beanbag chair, sipping mulled wine; the squirrel was using a straw. Lying on the floor, his head in his hands, was the poorest werewolf in New Lufchatel - Hirsute. Shunned by most of the residents of Old Lufchatel, he was a homeless werewolf. He’d lost his moonlighting job, as the only cab driver in town, a few minutes after the Nuclear Option was used. He was just as hairy as Harry, but would never be as rich.

The room’s inhabitants were divided in their interests. Hirsute and Harry were rooting for the Wildcats of Northwestern University. Toby and Aristocrates wanted the Spartans to win. All hoped it would be an entertaining afternoon. But just before kickoff, the satellite picture wavered slightly as a large object passed between the dish and the satellite. If they’d been outside, the footballers would’ve seen a Fokker coming in for a landing on the New Lufchatel landing strip. The airport was one of Harry’s greatest and latest accomplishments.

Georgette was in the air traffic control tower, guiding the charter in to runway 1-B. She could hear hooting through the pilot’s headset and wondered what it meant. As the passengers de-planed, she watched the hairy bipeds slink across the tarmac to the Customs Office. BB Wolf had graciously accepted the role of Customs Officer, when Harry had offered it, for several reasons. One, he’d be paid in weasels. Two, he was allowed to strip-search any of the incoming passengers. And three, he was glad Harry had figured out how to break the fourth wall whenever he wanted. It would make for a more interesting plot line later in the story.

As Georgette emerged from the tower, she was surprised to see Alice waiting for her.

“How much you want for that bulbous nose? And could I interest you in growing an extra jaw for me?” the URS inquired. To Georgette, she was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead. But she nodded and yanked the nose in question off her own forehead.

“Take it. It’s free to a good home. As for the jaw, give me a week and I’ll see what I can do. Where are you living these days?”

“With the REAPER. If you can’t find the place, find him. Most people can find him any time they don’t want to...or he’ll find you eventually,” Georgette explained.

Meanwhile, BBWolf was wondering when would Harry clean the sewers, as he was getting sick of the Radeoactive Zombies moaning all the time. Also he was wondering why poloticians were more into lining their pockets with money, instead of paving the roads with proper asphalt.

Harry wondered about things more than Alice in Wonderland, a girl not to be confused with Alice Wormbiter, URS. Harry wondered what URS meant...

Alice Wormbiter was fumbling around trying to fit Georgette's nose to her face. It was a poor fit. No matter how Alice struggled with placing it, her upper lip kept getting covered up by the bottom of the new nose. Maybe if I mount the nose upside down? Alice thought. But no, then when it rains I will drown.

Alice was smarter than a turkey, smarter than most barnyard fowl, in fact. The little guinea hen was smarter than Alice, but possibly guinea hens were too smart for their own good. That can happen. Alice seemed to be dumb enough to insure her own survival and prosperity.

There was an arrival party in progress at the airport. Mostly it was a crowd of protesters yelling "Neanderthals Go Home!" but not all of New Lufchatel's Cro-Magnons felt that way. There was one old fellow with a "We can all get along!" sign. He had once lived in a Neanderthal village and realized that the stupidity of Neanderthal husbands was a big advantage for anybody who wanted to be secretly bopping their wives. That entire village now had blue-eyed children with high foreheads and no body hair. Yes, the old fellow had a hidden agenda, but he didn't mind showing it to a hot Neanderthal babe.

Then Harry remembered from the last In and Out... URS stood for Undead Removal Specialist. My how soon the werewolf mind forgets!

The old man with the sign was Everard VonSchnickelbottom, an archaeologist who spent many happy years on the island of Lahtrednaen. He taught the indigenous how to sew loin cloths but never taught them how to make bras. Those Hooters had some nice hooters... He saw a gurney roll off the ramp. It had a greyish-black body bag strapped to it. As it bumped along the uneven tarmac, he could swear he saw the body in the bag move.

Everard put down his sign so he could take a long drag off a fat brown cigar. "Ayup, new blood in New Lufchatel!" he chortled.

Marcus and Amanda waited till the plane was empty, then applied sunscreen and sunglasses. Hand in hand they left the Fokker, to the bright, blinding flashes of a dozen or so paparazzi. Marcus flashed his brilliant, fanged, movie star smile, but Amanda whimpered and tried to hide behind him.

Meanwhile, on the Island of Lahtrednaen, Gurg and Atina were noticing a suspicious lack of hooting. They arrived at the Neanderthal encampment to find only a smoldering fire pit and a few geriatric hooters, pitifully poking at the glowing embers.

"HOOT" rumbled Gerg.

"Hooth?" said a grizzled older Neanderthal woman, whistling her words through missing teeth.

"Yes, hoot. Where are all the others?"

"Hooth, Dork hear voithesh. Follow call of the voithesh."

"Voithesh?" asked Atina.

"She means voices, 'Tina. Dork was hearing voices apparently and followed them?" He turned his attention back to the very old, very hairy woman.

"But where did they go?" Gerg reiterated.

"Dork thed Loof tha tell"

"Lufchatel? Why the hell would anyone want to go TO Lufchatel?"

"Beath me. Dork thed thompthin bout gothst zombieth too."

Gerg's eyes widened. " 'Tina, I think we need to contact Chobee, and STAT."

"Who's STAT?" Atina blinked up at him.

"Nevermind," he huffed and turned to prepare his garbage scow for sailing.

“STAT here,” the male nurse at the Bullabulling hospital answered the white courtesy phone. After listening to the deep male voice on the other end, he replied, “Amanda and Marcus left on a charter plane some time ago. You want what----?”

STAT hung up the phone and immediately turned in his resignation. He called Cherie and Chobee and said six simple words, then hung up. Within the hour, a new Fokker was on its way to New Lufchatel after an island-pickup..

Meanwhile, Harry was busy looking at the registration forms.

Well, it's going to be interesting come voting time, he thought. I wonder if I'll have any competition from the Neanderthal crowd.

But the Neanderthals were busy constructing a new Hooter Hall for themselves and were not thinking of politics, other than who would be the Head Hooter, a position determined in a full camp hoot off, which was a party held in Hooter Hall, so first they had to build the hall, then they would worry about the hoot off.

Harry watched the hairy men go about their construction work. They seemed clumsy but strong and persistent. Harry tapped his chin and imagined new construction projects for New Lufchatel with lots of hairy construction workers getting things done. Ah yes, soon New Lufchatel would be a real city and Harry would be a real mayor. Life was still good.

Somewhere a lonely orange crab surveyed a horizon devoid of human lifeforms. "Hey! Where did all the people go? What am I supposed to do for entertainment?"

Gutan was weeping little bubbles, and Randy Scorpion was trying to soothe her wounded spirit. "Why do the people to whom I become attatched always leave?" she clacked.

"Gussie, I'm sure it's not anything you did, I think I overheard an old lady say something about thombieth or something, perhaps that's why everyone high tailed it outta here!" Randy petted her carapace with his stinger knob.

She instantly brightened. "Why didn't you tell me there were humans remaining on the island?"

"An old toothless Neanderthal lady is still here, I wouldn't necessarily call her human..."

"Stop, just stop," she clicked angrily, "How dare you wax prejudiced in a moment like this? You may be content in your solitude, but I need human companionship!"

Randy looked saddened and backed away. "Well, we have each other... I cling to that fact. It's the only thing that keeps me sane sometimes."

Gutan snuggled up to him. "I'm sorry Randy, can we just forget this conversation ever took place?"

"Sure, Gussy, but... I think we need to find you a human first."

Gutan smiled and gently nipped his stinger knob.

Just over the Alps, a little ways from the Big Donut Shoppe, hidden behind a huge rock that has often been mistaken for a huge rock, in a little cave, resides a hidden enclave of Neanderthal men and women. Through mental telepathy unheard of in recent times, the cavemen and cavewomen "heard" of a new grouping in a place called Khasachasistan. So they loaded up their yaks and headed west, or was it east? Their expert sense of direction soon found them in a little-known place called Lufchatel Heights. Peering down the mountain, they spotted what could only be a Hooter Hall. They knew they'd found a new home; someplace they could settle; somewhere that would probably have cable. Or better still, satellite dishes.

Bullabulling seemed emptier now, without the huge Ornotchobee family. Even the hospital seemed emptier, with both Amanda and STAT gone. Eleven people walked out of the charter Fokker onto the tarmac at New Lufchatel's airstrip. Gerg arrived a few days later: he'd decided to walk, after the plane had crossed to India. It wasn't that he didn't fit in the cargo hold, he hated airline food.

Meanwhile, the Neanderthals heard about Harry's plan to use them for manual laber and had somehow organized a Union.

Harry didn't mind the union as long as the job got done. After all, he was paying the Neanderthals with leftover bones from the butcher shop -- they loved to gnaw on them -- and sacks of potatoes.

Chobee and Cherie were impressed with all the new construction at New Lufchatel.. "Golly! You can hardly tell an atomic bomb leveled this place."

"Well, that was actually Old Lufchatel that got leveled. That's the area to the east of town that glows at night."

"Right," Cherie said. "That's where I lost my virginity."

"I'm not going into that radioactive crater to look for it," Chobee said.

"Oh, I don't want it back, honey!"

Albert E. Hooter sat at a carved wooden table near the east side of the enormous Hooter Hall. He was sulking. How did that DORK get to be leader when It is clear that I am the smartest one of our kind? He reminisced about the lovely PATI, who fell victim to a nasty zombie, and the luscious Atina who had recently grown a lower half and appealed to him in a whole new way. Curse the body hair, Curse the prominent brow ridge... He wanted to look like the other Lufchatelians, dangit! He took out a note book and began to scribble plans for his personal "reconstruction." However, he hadn't yet developed the capacity for written language, so the scribbles looked more like chicken scratch than anything. That didn't matter to Albert though. It made him feel smart.

Gutan and Randy were attempting to communicate with the older woman by the campfire. Just like people get hard of hearing as they age, she was hard at deciphering crabbish. The elderly lady, known as Grandma Hooter, understood enough to "get the message" and prepare for a journey herself. It was on her bucket list to leave the gull-infested island, anyway.

With Gutan and Randy, Grandma Hooter made her way to a darkened cave, Sheltered by a large outcropping of jagged rock. A cyclone was brewing and foaming waves angrily crashed against the cliff side, soaking the woman and her two arachnid partners. Inside the cave, illuminated by a shaft of harsh moonlight from a tiny opening from above, sat a white marble obelisk. The lady lay her gnarled hand on the white veined surface and uttered a few words...

Rah rah ah-ah-ah!
Ro mah ro-mah-mah
Gaga ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance

With these obviously ancient words, the floor of the cave shuddered, the obelisk disappeared and an enormous wooden sailing vessel rose from the depths of the cavern.

It just so happened that, about the time Albert E. Hooter was walking out of the new Hooter Hall, he bumped into George, or rather, Georgette. He spied a couple of facial features he'd been wishing for, on her very face! Georgette, in her own way, found Albert to be very attractive. More attractive than that no-good REAPER, at least. And for her, that significant step-up was what she needed. So she found herself amenable to Albert's queries about a reconstruction. As the two of them whispered quietly enough that the fourth wall wasn't even affected, the new group of Neanderthals were just wandering into town.

At that precise moment, Gerg arrived. He scooped up Atina and gave her a big sloppy kiss. They bit each other in affection, drawing blood. Marcus looked at the odd couple in awe, then drew Amanda closer.

"She's the one?" Amanda asked, knowingly. Her honey-bunny grunted in the affirmative and she added, "Well, you've got ME now."

Cherie and Chobee had their hands full (of course) trying to keep their first set of children from running in 3 directions at once. The new twins were sleeping happily in their double stroller. Toby and Aristocrates emerged from the TV station and were amazed at how the population had quadrupled in a matter of days.

"What happened?" Toby asked. "Did we fall asleep for a couple of decades and everyone turned into another spieces or something?"

"No, we only watched a number of games that managed to take up a couple of days," Aristocrates said. "However, I never anticipated anything like this. Now where are those trees going to grow now?"

"You're always thinking about your nuts," Toby said. "I'm sure Harry will want to have a nice park with lots of trees in it."

"I hope so," Aristocrates replied, rubbing his crotch area.

Grandma Hooter tied her two arachnid companions to the mast of her sailing ship. "It's for your own good. So you won't be washed overboard."

"But I live in the sea," Gutan said. "I wouldn't be hurt by falling into it."

"Don't be a little wise ass. Grandma knows best. Care for another cookie?"

"Thank you, Grandma."

So, with Gutan and Randy lashed to the mast, the enormous vessel creaked and swayed in the dank underground. The cyclone outside grew more violent, and soon, the shaft of moonlight disappeared, and buckets of water came jetting through the opening from above. Relentlessly, the water poured into the cave, until the cave floor was covered and the sea craft began to wobble and float. Grandma hooter smiled serenely and walked up the gangplank to the secure cabin below deck. Lahtrednean, it's been a good life, but time to move on

Since no one had even thought of it, and there was an obvious need for it, Toby and Aristocrates decided to spearhead the "Parks and Recreation Bureau of New Lufchatel" or PARBONL for short. "I figured in changing times as these," Aristocrates mused to his effeminate zombie friend, "Something like this could be useful."

They drew up plans and walked over to Harry's house. They would have been able to get in, if it weren't for REAPER sitting on the front stoop looking dejected.

Toby couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He may be an annoying, stinky, obnoxious piece of offal, but he was like family... And quite possibly the only creature capable of withstanding a RGZ attack; so it was important to keep him on their "team."

"What's the matter, big fella?" asked Toby, patting REAPER's exposed backbone.

"GORGETTE LEAVE ME FOR HAIRY BROWN MAN... REAPER SAD..."

Aristocrates opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, and Toby shot him a warning glance.

"Well you can help us make plans for a city park, would that make you less sad?"

"YOU WANT REAPER'S HELP?" the hideous creature asked, incredulous.

Toby thought a bit before replying. He swallowed his pride.

"Sure, big guy, come talk to Harry with us, we'll get the ball rolling!"

"MY BALLS ALREADY ROLLING," REAPER said dejectedly, as one of his testicles fell off his body and rolled down the driveway.

It was election day at Hooter Hall. Dork found himself running against a gorgeous (for a Neanderthal) cavewoman named Yokie. She was singing in front of the hall, while her 'followers' hooted and played the drums as her back-up band. Dork knew he'd have to think of something fast, which was almost an oxymoron for a caveman. If only Grandma Hooter were here, he thought to himself. She'd know what to do.

Another Friday was upon the Gator Crew. They'd still not figured how to get out of the sewers, but had discovered Harry's secret cave entrance that led to the chute into the TV station. There, they'd been 'discovered' by Harry, who had been trying to tweak the satellite dish so that it would pickup his favorite show: Harry and the Hendersons.

Gergalina, Haley and Chobee Jr. were busy watching Marcus and Livvy - the twins - as their parents strolled around New Lufchatel. Cherie and Chobee bumped into Toby, Aristocrates and REAPER as they were stepping out acreage for a new park.

"TREE HERE. HERE. HERE," REAPER pointed. His companions nodded in agreement. Things were certainly coming together.

However, there was some serious problems, namely funding.

"We don't have enough funding." Harry said.

"ME HAVE A BIG FUN DING," REAPER chortled, waving his big ding around.

Harry did a tsk-tsk. "You never miss an opportunity, do you? I'm talking about money, cash, moola, bread, the green stuff."

"We can use the barter system," Toby said.

Aristocrates looked puzzled. "But there is nobody named Bart living in New Lufchatel."

Toby sighed. "For somebody with such a big name you sure have a tiny brain."

"Zheesh! I'm only a squirrel. If I had a big brain then it would make my head heavy and I would fall out of trees headfirst and squash my noggin and then I would be no better off than if I had a tiny brain to start with."

Meanwhile, Grandma Hooter's magnificent sailing craft splashed up and down the waves of the Great Lahtrednean Ocean while she sang out "Yo ho ho!" and the mermaids frolicking in the water yelled back to her, "Godammit, you old bitch, we are not ho's!"

"THERE BUNCH OF TREES BY CEMETARY IN OLD LUFCHATEL," REAPER offered.

"Hmm." thought Harry. "If we can find someone with a shovel appendage, we might be able to save a lot of money"

"Yea," offered Aristocrates, "and they are already mutated, so the radiation won't affect them much."

Toby looked at his zombie rodent companion. "I just lost all respect for you, Stoccy."

The room erupted in angry debate. Harry stood up and banged a spoon on the side of his coffee cup. Everyone turned to face him.

"Now see here, you want trees, don't you?" Aristocrates nodded. Harry continued, "And free, radioactive trees are better than no trees at all, no matter how we obtain them, right?"

Toby rolled his eyes and left the room in a huff. REAPER followed him.

"BEGGARS NOT CHOOSERS!" he shouted at the retreating figure.

REAPER rolled his eyes, to follow his rolling balls and Toby’s rolling eyes. They followed the rollers up the path to Lufchatel Heights where they happened upon an orchard loaded with possibilitrees. They spotted ash, maple, cypress, larch and spruce; there was a whole section of birch and sandy beech; even some eucalyptus. Using his influence, REAPER scared the trees out of the ground. They immediately began popping up all around the PARBONL grounds.

And just like that, political posters appeared, nailed to some of the trees, hawking Yokie and her Neanderthal group. Not to be outdone, Dork sat moping about what to do to battle the upstart hirsute cavewoman. Aristocrates was busy burying nuts and chittering to everyone about how happy he was to finally have some trees. Of course, with Toby and REAPER still up in Lufchatel Heights, nobody understood his chittering at all.

Grandma Hooter raised her arms, and in doing so, raised the ship out of the waters of the Yemen straits. Like a metaphor never coined, it rose up so high it nearly touched the sky. Forty-two hours later, it landed with an audible plop in the pond known locally as Golden Pond.

"Well, we're alive, I think," Gutan said. "Now, where are we?"

"We're on Golden Pond," Grandma Hooter said, as she unfastened her halter top.

"Grandma! What big breasts you have!"

"I like to think of them as flotation devices," and Grandma dove into Golden Pond making a hearty splash.

Harry stood on a hill high above New Lufchatel surveying his handiwork... well, not HIS handiwork, but the handiwork of all the hands that had been set into motion by Harry's grasp of the basic principles of pharoahism. And soon we shall begin work on my pyramid...

As everyone knows, the basic principle of pharoahism is the pyramid scheme, one man at the top, many men at the bottom, one man to call the shots, many men to tote the rocks.

REAPER pounded his mug on the bar. "SOMEBODY GIVE ME DECENT SUBPLOT! ALL TIME DRINK AND RANT! WHAT KIND OF LIFE THIS?"

The bartender looked up from his eternal twisting of a dirty rag in a clean glass. "I'm not your ghostwriter, bub. I don't do words."

"NOT MEAN YOU! YOU JUST POP-UP CHARACTER APEAR WHEN NEEDED. NOT LIKE ME. ME ALWAYS IN STORY. I NEED MORE THAN GLASS AND DIRTY RAG. I NEED SUBSTANCE, CONTENT, ENGAGING NARRATIVE, ONE MORE LESSON FROM FAMOUS WRITERS SCHOOL! SHIT! POUR ME ANOTHER BEER. ME SPILL THIS ONE."

The aforementioned body bag (you know, the one that was hauled off the first FOKKER when the Neanderthals reached New Lufchatel?)Twitched and writhed as Everard VonSchnickelbottom,(mentioned in the same paragraph as the body bag) retired archaeologist and town mortician studied it with some apprehension.

"HisssssHOOOOOTsssssss" came a gravelly voice from inside the bag. Everard could hear the gnashing of teeth as a small rip was chewed in the front of the grey covering. Thinking quickly, Everard ran over to a coffin, the only one with an observation window, and locked himself in.

"HoooOOOOootHissssssHoooot!" the sepulchral voice continued. The opening became larger, and Enanny, the very first neanderthal vampire, emerged. She loped over to the coffin where Everard was hiding. She clawed at the observation window. For once, he was relieved he was not on the firing lines, discovering new species. She soon grew tired of her efforts and staggered out the front door of the mortuary, hooting and hissing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bartender looked at REAPER. "I find you very engaging, I think you are an unsung hero, a man among zombies, a..." "OH CUT CRAP, ALL YOU WANT IS BIG TIP!" REAPER interrupted. He plunked down a twenty on the stained bar and stormed out.

"Works every time!" snickered Purple, as he stashed the twenty in his "secret pocket."

Harry let the RGZ's out of the sewer and made them all sign contracts. Basically, the contract said they'd do whatever Mayor-Elect Harry wanted done, as long as they were paid in the New Lufchatel currency - radiation-infested cows. Until Harry could come up with a printing press, everything was done in the barter system. And - since the Nuclear Option was opted for, the only things he had left to barter were radiation-infested cows, chickens, sheep and cans of spam.

Their first task was to make Harry for Mayor posters and replace the Yokie posters around town, with his own.

They want an election, they're going to GET an election, he thought maliciously.

Meanwhile, Chobee Jr. was busy explaining all the uses of Eucalyptus trees to his siblings.

"The Kawawa Beers-"

"No, it's Koala Bears."

"Actually, they arn't bears."

"Hey, I'm trying to tell you guys something."

"We're listening."

"Just like Seattle," Chobee said and grinned. Then his face fell. "What's the matter? None of you guys watched Frazier?"

"No, and it was Frasier with an S not Frazier with a Z. What's wrong with you? Kawawa Beers? Where were you educated? A brewery?"

Chobee stood up straight so the top of his head brushed the ceiling. "I'm still the biggest!"

Someone murmured "...biggest asshole..." and Chobee said, "Who said that? By gum, I'll tear this place apart if I don't get some respect!"

A neanderthal vampire staggered by and everyone turned to watch her. "That's one ugly bloodsucker," someone muttered, but Enanny continued on her way to PurpleHaze's Saloon without paying any attention. The only thing that smelled better to her than blood was cheap rotgut gin and Mexican beer."

Which, of course, was in abundant supply these days, since it was hard to get any quality delivery trucks to make the journey to New Lufchatel. Perhaps they were afraid of the radiation, perhaps they didn't have a competent logistics specialist booking their deliveries. Whatever the case, the liquor supply in Purple Hazes Aperitifs was not the greatest.

Enanny bumped into REAPER on her way to the saloon. "WATCH WHERE GOING, BIT..." he stopped his rant mid-stream and gave the vampire/neanderthal a once-over. She bared her fangs and hissed at him, strings of viscous saliva seeming to connect her elongated canines.

"FORGET IT, YOU TOO UGLY, EVEN FOR REAPER!" he dissed.

Enanny bowed her head and shouldered her way through the front entrance, splintering the wood and sending shards of thick, ornamental glass flying everywhere. Where Purple got the magnificent antique door was a mystery. The fact it was destroyed by the shoulder of a very ugly, hairy, dangerous female made him angry. He stopped his eternal wiping of glasses and stared at her.

Meanwhile, Everard unlocked the coffin and emerged. His pants felt a little squishy.

Chobee knew it was Frasier with an S. Whoever had heard him speak must've assumed he'd used a Z, but it was merely his speech pattern, which was ingrained in him since his days at Juilliard. As for the "Kawawa Beers" remark, it was obvious to Chobee that his children would need some better education than that provided to him in his new home of Bullabulling. Sure, he could tell Chobee Jr. had the 'art of speech', but that his remaining offspring would have to learn the old-fashioned way.

PurpleHaze went into a back office, turned on the computer monitor and opened up http://www.jdglass.com. He realized all-wood had been a bad idea. Now that he had a little money tucked away, it was time to go with the Coffman All Iron door. Computing the time-difference, Chobee realized that JD's wasn't open. But he called their number anyway and left a message. He wondered if there was an air freight company who had the ability to ship something to Khasachasistan.

Meanwhile, Grandma Hooter and Dork had put their heads together, trying to come up with a strategy to get the voters to the polls to vote for Dork, not Yokie or Harry.

The RGZs had just about completed the PARBONL area and were wondering how to get a little red-light district installed in town.

Meanwhile, Harry was still working on an important project: Trying to locate some good-looking female strippers for his and Anita's personal pleasures.

"What about these?" Harry asked her.

She looked over his shoulder at the monitor. "Those are Russian mail order brides." She punched his shoulder. "Are you looking for a new wife?"

Harry rubbed his arm. "No, I wasn't reading the captions, just looking at the pictures. Sorry."

Everhard VonSchnicklebottom cleaned up the mess Enanny had left in his mortuary. Fortunately, there were no bodies being embalmed at the time. In fact, business had been very slow. Maybe it was a mistake to open a mortuary in a town with such a small population. But Everhard was optimistic. Sooner or later someone would die.

"Yes," he mumbled to himself "I, Everard Von Schniklebottom, will be the greatest mortician ever!" He raised his fists to the ceiling and laughed maniacally. His encounter with Enanny had knocked a few screws loose in his cranium.

Meanwhile, Purp came from the back room after ordering his new door and stared at the creature moping at the bar. She was one of the ugliest things he had ever seen.. and he'd seen some doozies. "That's what you get for opening a bar in a post-nuclear town," he mused.

"I NEED BLOOOOD... HOOOOTHHIISSSSSSSSS!" Enanny hooted and hissed at him. Purple recoiled from her unbearable stench, then held his breath and approached her. From a distant table, Steve and BBwolf stared at the unfolding scene.

"HOOOOOTTTT HISSSSSSSS!" she screeched, emphasizing her distress by gouging troughs into the wooden bar with her unkempt nails. Purp cringed.

"What can I do you for, pretty lady?" he forced a smile.

"BLOOOOOOODDDDD!" she wailed.

"Well," he began, unruffled, "we don't have any yet, but we do have some raw steak and ribs that just came in..." BBwolf's ears perked.

"You have my ribs now?" he demanded.

"I TOLD you, they still need to cook!" Purple turned his attention back to the hairy woman at the bar.

"RAW STEAK DO, GIMME RAW STEAK"

"But they're all frozen," he admitted.

Down the block from Purple’s bar was a new store that had just been built. It was called

Sterner Stuff

. The store owners were none other than Grandma Hooter and Toby. Displayed in the windows were cans of Sterno, piles of Velcro, tins of Band-Aids, boxes of Kleenex and other items that most people thought of as the actual item, rather than realizing it was the brand name itself. They even had two Xerox machines in the back. One was not for sale.

Enanny stumbled out of Purp’s place and bumbled into

Sterner Stuff

. “STERNO HOOOTTHIIISSSSSSS!” she said.

“Sure thing baby,” cooed Grandma Hooter. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any collateral now, have you? Got a cow you can trade for it?”

Enanny understood only too well what Grandma meant. So she rumbled out of the shop and up into the hills outside New Lufchatel. It took a lot of effort, but she managed to heft a bovine onto her shoulders and take it back to town. By the time she got back to

Purple Haze’s Aperitifs And Inebriants

, BBWolf had already sunk his teeth into one of the frozen steaks. So he was more than happy to step aside for the Vampire Neanderthal as she fired up the can of Sterno.

Twenty minutes later, BBWolf was enjoying his first steak in nearly fouteen paragraphs and Enanny had enough blood to last her for at least two more chapters. Not only did she drink the stuff that had leaked from the frozen steaks, but Grandma Hooter had been all too glad to let her drink what had oozed from the cow. To top it off, Grandma and Toby had bartered with Purple to get some Jim Beam and Absolut in trade for the beef steaks.

All in all, it was a successful afternoon for this little section of New Lufchatel.

“Isn’t it about time someone updated the list of characters?” asked Marcus, whose girlfriend was no longer Atina, but was now Amanda. Indeed, Atina and Gerg had become quite the “item” and deserved their own listing. “But maybe we’ve broken the fourth wall too much as it is,” the ZBH lamented. “I need a nice zombie to hunt...”

"In that case, I have a video game for you to try out," BBWolf suggested.

"What's it called?" Marcus asked.

"Dead Rising 2", BBWolf replied. "It's about this ex-motocross champion who has to battle zombies while looking for medicine for his sick daughter."

"How come I've never heard of it?" Marcus asked.

"I had to buy it from a store in a parallel universe."

"But how did you get to the store?" Marcus asked.

"I took a parallel taxi."

"But how did you call the parallel taxi?"

"On my parallel phone."

"But listen, dude... if all this parallel stuff is here in OUR universe, then how parallel can that parallel universe be? Are you sure it hasn't merged with ours?"

Steve stepped in to set things straight. "No! Parallel universes can never merge. Euclid established that."

Marcus, who had studied geometry extensively during his one year stint at Khasachasistan Community College, immediately protested. "Established? It's not a fact, it's an axiom. It's just assumed. There are other geometries where parallel lines DO meet."

Steve snorted derisively. "We're talking about universes, not lines."

"That doesn't change my point!"

Steve aimed a finger at Marcus' nose. "Aha! But isn't it true that a point has no volume or mass or energy?"

"Of course. It's a mathematical idealization."

"But something with no mass or volume or energy has no physical existence. It doesn't exist! Therefore you have no point!"

"Bullcrap! Thought has no mass or volume. Are you claiming you have no thoughts? Or shall I claim it for you? Idiot."

Purp smiled to himself, he understood what Steve and Marcus were talking about. Raven, on the other hand, was mathematically illiterate, so she quickly retreated to the back to finish her dishes.

She was soon startled by the presence of a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to face Toby, the nicest looking zombie in New Lufchatel.

"Oh hi!" Raven greeted him, a warm smile spreading across her face, "I've wanted to meet you, ever since the story started. What can I do for you, and why are you back in the kitchen?"

Toby looked concerned. He lowered his head and spoke. "The steaks Enanny helped us obtain were from a cow with Mad Cow Disease. You might want to pull them from your freezer and destroy them."

"Um... but some of them have already been consumed. Enanny ate some, and so did BB Wolf. Thank goodness I haven't fixed lunch yet. Purp and I were going to split a two pound Porterhouse!"

"Well," Toby assured her, "Werewolves are immune to Mad Cow, and Enanny... well, since she is a new species, I have no idea how it will affect her."

"That's a relief... I think."

She handed over the frozen steaks, reluctantly, and Toby handed her the bartered liquor. Purp had lost some valuable revenue, and she'd have to find a way to help him recover the loss.

In the far corner, Enanny was starting to twitch and foam at the mouth.

Meanwhile, in the boondocks of New Lufchatel, Georgette was missing REAPER. All her new boyfriend ever wanted to do was hoot and have sex. And since she had regenerated several new openings, Albert E. Hooter had been very busy. She was exhausted and longed for her half-rotten, lemur-crap-coffee-hating, bunny-slipper-wearing, ranting and raving idiot of an ex boyfriend.

Aristocrates was busy. Since the trees had arrived, he'd gone to the stacks in the Khasachasistan Community College Library. "Aha! I thought so," he chittered. Then he selected the text he wanted to print and clicked the mouse button. As the paper spit out across the room, he re-read the important lines: The material fed into the digester must be small enough to allow the pulping liquor to penetrate the pieces completely. In the case of wood, the logs are chipped and the chips screened so that what is fed to the digester is a uniform size. The oversize chips are rechipped or used as fuel, sawdust is burned. The screened chips or cut plant material (bamboo, kenaf, etc) goes to the digester where it is mixed an aqueous solution of the pulping chemicals, then heated with steam. In the kraft process the pulping chemicals are sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide and the solution is known as white liquor. In the sulfite process the pulping chemical is a mixture of metal (sodium, magnesium, potassium or calcium) or ammonium sulfite or bisulfite. "Now, I just have to talk Toby into selling me a digester machine. Wonder if he'd take sheep instead of cows. Then, I'll open up my own place and take some of Purple's business! Hahahahahahachitterchitterchitterrrrr..."

REAPER and Chobee were sitting at Purple's computer console. They'd just successfully ordered an X-Box 360 and Dead Rising 2. "WHAT IT MEAN TWO WEEK TO ARRIVE??" Chobee, used to dealing with his brother's seeming incompetence replied, "It's just you and me dude. You can talk in regular words and not in ALL CAPS, okay?"

The Grim Reaper smiled sheepishly and said, "I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Resolving to seek no knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks, gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to derive some profit from it." When Chobee nodded knowingly, they both realized they shared a love of Rene Descartes.

"Let your conscience be your guide. You know I've never done you wrong, I've always stuck right by your side. You only had to call my name and --" Chobee was interrupted by REAPER's harmony - "Oh baby, if you could feel, ohh, feel the same, Ohhh darlin', let your conscience be your guide!"

Chobee and REAPER looked at each other with a little more understanding now. "I had no idea you dug Marvin Gaye, Chobee," Mr. Death said.

Meanwhile, BBWolf was playing Dead Rising 2, from the begining. He smiled as he watched the hero, Chuck Greene, talk to his daughter, Katey, and the one insurance guy. He then growled as he heard the one contestant reminded Chuck about his wife's death, in a rather insulting manner. Then, he heard the Announcer's speach.

"Zombies took our Willamet. They took our Las Vagas. But tonight, America's going to get a little Payback on Terror Is Reality!"

However, just as BBWolf was about to push the "Skip" button, a white light shot out from his TV and enveloped him. The next thing he knew, BBWolf was on a "Slicecycle", a motercycle with chainsaws attached to the handles, and looking at a horde of zombies in pens.

Oh Shit! he thought.I'm stuck in the game! I hope whoever is on the other end is an expert! I'm too handsome to die in a video game!

The zombies instantly sensed BB Wolf's weakness. "GO FOR HIS PRETTY FACE!" yelled their leader.

BB Wolf gulped. Visions of himself looking into a mirror at a mass of scar tissue filled his head. Must not crumble now! Stay strong, my aching heart!

He revved the throttle, popped the clutch, and wheelied into battle.

Ravenwand noticed that BB Wolf was sitting entranced in front of the TV screen with his Xbox, but she just assumed he was one of those people who can become deeply involved in a task. She didn't notice the beads of sweat on his forehead. Anyway, she had a bigger problem: Enanny's twitching and foaming had turned into spasming and spewing.

Enanny twitched, foamed, spasmed and spewed, and as she flopped about the room, she bumped into BB Wolf. The handsome young man snapped out of his trance. BB's doppleganger merged out of his computer screen, riding a green motorcycle with chainsaws attatched to the handles. Like a canvas stretching and snapping objects kept on forming out of the screen and inhabiting the bar. BB's videogame double looked at him and tossed his head to the side. Somehow knowing what he meant, BB hopped on the back of the slicecycle and they sped out the door, leaving the bar. Unfortunately, several of the zombies that were chasing him emerged too, to the horror of Purp and Raven who hid behind the bar's two-way mirror, watching the scene unfold. One of the zombies from the video game grabbed the spasming Enanny, and bit into her forearm, tearing out a sizeable chunk of flesh. Both she and the zombie fell to the floor, spasming even worse than before.

Once the zombies had left the bar, Steve emerged from the bathroom to the sound of a flushing toilet.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked, dramatically zipping up his pants. Purp and Raven glared at him.

The zombie on the floor was still now, but his gaping head wound was filling in with wonderful, new flesh. In fact, his entire body was changing, becoming complete again. He looked almost... Human.

Enanny, on the other hand had developed a greenish cast to her skin, and was now thinking mostly in terms of brains. She had become the first Neanderthal-vampire-virtual zombie. It was a wonderful day in New Lufchatel!

Grandma Hooter and Dork were putting their heads together, trying to figure out how to get more people to vote for them. "HOOOOT - what platform?" Dork asked. Grandma was trying to find Aristocrates so she could hire the squirrel to spy on Yokie and her crowd. But while she couldn't find him, she asked Dork what he wanted more than anything in the world.

"HOOTERS!"

"You can find a woman for those, Dork."

"No. I want more people like me, who HOOT a lot," Dork retorted.

"Let's find Everard. If he can write a dissertation on Enanny, maybe more people would move here," Grandma suggested.

"Don't want more people. Want more HOOTERS, like us."

Professor Schnickelbottom was poring over his notes. He'd already written An archaeologist looking for evidence of zombies should look for corpses that have been either decapitated or brained. And What about zombieism among our hominid ancestors? Is it possible that Homo erectus, or even Australopithicenes, were also confronted by the spectre of the undead? If so, could zombies be responsible for the extinction of some hominid species? He began writing anew: Louis Leakey even mentioned it in his ground-breaking paper "Lucy Fights a Ghoul." However, in order to test this theory, one would have to clone our pre-human ancestors, then infect them with the zombie virus. The only problem the professor could see with testing his theory, was that it would bring the media down on this little village quickly; too quickly for his theory to be properly tested. He got up from his study and went in search of Enanny.

"I don't like zombies," BBWolf said, as he and his computer counterpart drove through a large crowd of the computer-made undead. "They just don't know when to die."

"You're telling me!" shouted his computer counterpart. "And I was having problems before. Now what will we do?"

"We could ask another group of zombies to fight them," BBWolf said, pointing at the sewers, which still had the Radioactive Ghost Zombies. "They might kill each other."

"That might work," said Computer BBWolf. "By the way, is there any Zombrex around here? I need to get some for Katey, or she'll die."

"Who the heck is Katey?" BB WOLF asked, but the answer from his counterpart was drowned out by the roar of the motorcycle.

Meanwhile, back at the bar, a decision had to be made between cleaning up the mess or getting even drunker, so drinks were being served.

"It's on the house," PurpleHaze said. "Because it's been a tough day for everyone."

"Wow! Free drinks!" someone muttered. "You can tell he's not writing this addition. Purp can squeeze a penny so tight the date gets smushed on it."

"I hear he's still got the first coins he ever made."

"That's true. They're Scotch-taped to his thighs."

"Why did he use Scotch tape?"

"What is this? The riddle hour? Pass me another beer, please."

BB and his computer counterpart sped to an abandoned building and shut the steel door behind them. They climbed several flights of rusty, damp stairs to get to the top floor of the structure. There they had a little penthouse, equipped with sattelite observation decks and bullet/zombie/nuclear proof glass windows.

"How did you know about where I live, I never told you where I lived?" BB asked his doppleganger.

"Oh, when you registered for the game on your PC, the information got directly encoded into the game, and thus, I know where you live. Pretty neat, huh?"

"Uhhhh. I guess?"

Just then they heard an ear-splitting scream and felt a small vibration as a brain-lusting zombie splatted himself against the window outside. BB cringed.

"Don't worry, bro. This glass can withstand ANYTHING." his double assured him.

BB felt a cold hand on his shoulder and crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

"But..." Marcus replied, from directly behind them, "You simply MUST remember to bolt all doors behind you." Marcus had a semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, and Rodham was with him, scouting the room for potential zombies to eradicate.

Purple had more than coins scotch taped to his thighs. He wore very loose pants, so he could tape a lot of things there. Movie tickets, bags of chips, eraser tips, and pads of pilfered hotel notepads were among the plethora of things he enjoyed keeping near. That explained his loping gait.

Raven, unaccustomed to drinking, was getting quite tipsy and obnoxious. "One more Long Island, Please!" she snorted.

Enanny sat struggling against her bonds, trying to free herself from the bar to which she had been tied. Purp, Steve and Ravenwand had held her down and kept her there, due to a call from Everard, who claimed he was coming over to collect her.

Amanda and Atina sat together talking about Marcus and his quirks. Harry was writing his acceptance speech for Mayor. The election was still several months away, but he was nothing, if not prepared. Dork and Rehab were also writing a speech. Unfortunately, most of the words were HOOT, HOOOOT and HOOOOOOOT, as they didn't know how to write what they wanted to say. Grandma Hooter was opening a new box of stuff she'd sent away for: Scotch tape, boxes of Jell-o, Frisbees, Walkman stereos and Hoover vacuum cleaners. She also had Zig-Zags, Trojans, a few Whizzinators and Coke bottles in another pile, off to one side.

"I don't squeeze pennies tightly, do I Raven?" Purple asked his hired help.

"No, but I could squeeze you tightly, if you wanted to come in the back room with me," she replied. So they did, knowing that Everard would arrive soon and take Enanny with him.

Suddenlly, Harry's speach was interupted by shouting one word: "ZOMBIES!!!!!"

Harry had two words in his head: Not Again!

The attack was concerted, premeditated, unprovoked, and vicious. Zombies came from every direction. They were unconcerned about their personal safety and totally dedicated to their task. In short, they were a formidable foe.

Harry wrote that phrase in his notebook, formidable foe, because it would fit right into his accepatance speech after the election. The words were alreay falling into place: ...so there we were my friends, surrounded by zombies, a formidable foe, but...

His thoughts were interrupted by Marcus shoving a bazzooka into his arms. "For God's sake, Harry! Stop daydreaming and start fighting!"

A loud screech came from outside the door, and REAPER came bursting through the bar doors. All zombies turned to face the undead menace. "BRAAAAIIINNNSSS" he shouted and pointed to a blank space on the wall. All the zombies stopped their attacks and stared at the place where the brains were, supposedly.

"THAT HOLD THEM A WHILE," REAPER assured the startled guests. "QUICK, HOP IN TRUCK AND GEORGE TAKE YOU TO SAFETY!"

Everyone in the bar rushed out the door to the pickup truck and piled in the bed. It took the zombies all of two minutes to realize the brains were not on the wall as promised, and they angrily shuffled out the door in pursuit of the vanishing truck.

Purp and Raven emerged from the back room, looking a little ruffled, and a bit confused. Enanny still sat lashed to the stool, and seemed more angry than before.

Meanwhile, at BB's fortress, he had prepared for the onslaught of visitors. He checked his food and sanitary supplies, and decided they were sufficient to hold an entire town for an entire month... Hopefully the zombie infestation would be taken care of by then. All the weapons and ammo were ready for use, and his stock of pg13 and R movies were ready to go.

Now if his Doppleganger would just stop eating all the chips.

"Sullivan!" Marcus yelled. "I gotta get a bigger gun." Then he ran screaming from the room.

"No! It can't be Sullivan," BB hollered back. "We haven't gotten that far into the game yet!" But it was him. The big boss. He controlled the zombies and was the one who was hoarding the Zombrex. The only way to save Katey was to defeat Sullivan and find the Zombrex. But first things first.

Cherie and Chobee were looking at the available houses. They were considering buying a piece of real estate here in New Lufchatel. For them, there was no doubt they'd vote for Harry. They'd had enough of Neanderthals already. They didn't mind another species, but they just didn't give a hoot about the hairy creatures horning in on Harry's wolfdom.

Aristocrates had found the machine he'd been looking for: A Digester Machine. And he'd only had to purchase a defiler and a sledgehammer as part of the package deal. He figured he could use the sledgehammer to pulverize the trees into pulp. But he had no idea what a defiler was. The brochure had said something about the women loving him for having a defiler. But since he was merely a squirrel, and a zombie squirrel at that, he couldn't care less about women. But Toby; HE might care. Anyway, the Digester cost ten thousand cows. But if he bought all three things, it would only cost him five thousand. The brochure said it didn't mind if they were radioactive cows. Toby had helped his squirrel friend in the shipping of the cows. There was an air freight company who specialized in bovine transportation. As they unwrapped the bubblewrap over the two machines and tried to lift the sledgehammer, Marcus came running up.

"How much for the defiler?" he asked.

The squirrel, surprised Marcus even knew what it was, managed to blurt out, "As long as you return it in good condition, it's free!" And thanks to the fourth-wall having been broken long ago, the ZBH could understand squirrel chitterish.

BB was surprised, yet happy, when Marcus returned. "Do you know what to do?" he asked the ZBH.

"Yeah, you kick him with your right leg and I'll shoot him twice. We keep that up, it should kill him!"

"The big question if how to get rid of all of those zombies, without destroying the town again."

Harry overheard the big question. "I'll tell you one thing... No more nuclear options!"

There was general agreement and even one hearty "Amen, brother!" from the other people in the room.

Someone said, "Maybe we should call Frank West?" and someone else said, "Who the hell is Frank West?"

But that's life. There is stuff that most people know, there is stuff only a few people know, and there is stuff that nobody knows.

Clinton spoke up, "Frank West was that guy that guy from the first game. I heard he escaped the game, much like our dear BB has, and went into hiding. He changes clothes so much, no one ever sees him or notices him."

"Kinda like you?" Rodham teased him, attempting to elbow him in the side. The elbow just went through Clinton, who sat bemused as a shudder passed through his cybernetic friend. That always happened whenever a solid tried to touch him. It was of no concern to Clinton. His knowledge of Frank West could help them bring this zombie horde under control.

Just then, someone knocked on the steel zombie-proof door of the hideout. Simultaneously, a half-chewed zombie attacked the glass windows surrounding the 360 view fortress. Harry shuddered, REAPER cowered. Atina and Amanda screamed and embraced each other in a more than friendly manner. Marcus shook his head.

"Aww Hell you lily-livered reprobates, I'll answer the dang door!" Georgette yelled as she got up from the table where she had been removing an extra jawbone to give to her friend, Alice Wormbiter.

She loped to the door and lifted the metal flap to the viewing hole.

"Who is it?" she curtly demanded.

"It's Purp and Raven!" a scared woman's voice said from the other end. "And Enanny, unfortunately." Enanny had been tied to a moving dolly, ala Hannibal Lechter. There was an enormous lump behind her, covered with a sheet, also strapped to it. Enanny was hissing and foaming around the white cotton towel that had been used to gag her. "I'm afraid Purp's been injured, he might have been infected, I don't know. A zombie jumped us on the way here and he was scratched, but not bitten.

"Ain't he movin'?"

"No Georgette, he "ain't", he passed out shortly after the attack, I had to load him on the dolly with Enanny. Can we come in? There were some nasty looking zombies heading this way!"

"SPLATTTT!" another zombie smashed into the glass observation windows. Even Georgette jumped.

"Sure hon, come on in, but make it snappy!"

A groan and crashing metallic sounds were heard two floors down. Raven bolted through the door, and it was locked just in time for a rogue undead to bash against it.

“Wha-? Where am I?” PurpleHaze asked. He was strapped to a dolly and propped against a wall. “Wait. Don’t answer that. Listen to me, everybody. When that zombie scratched me, it infused me with knowledge. I know how to stop the horde, finish the game and get us back to normalcy - without a nuclear option!”

Marcus and BB Wolf untied the bartender / writer and sat down to listen to his plan. It took him nearly twenty minutes of detailed instruction-giving to get his point across. By then, the zombies were smashing into all sides of the fortress. What followed was a bit of controlled chaos as the non-zombies scoured the fortress on a makeshift scavenger hunt.

Atina and Amanda paired up and were searching for something called a printer cartridge. Neither knew what such a thing was, but with Purp’s detailed description, they knew where to look. Marcus and Harry were searching for a SIM card. Clinton and Rodham were put in charge of finding some PETN - an explosive used in certain types of bombs.

“Clinton, what’s PETN stand for again?” Rodham asked.

“Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, my dear friend. I have a photographic memory. I SEE words. Really, you should have been paying more attention,” the ghost admonished his associate.

“And that looks like - what - again?”

“Colorless crystals. About one hundred grams could destroy an automobile. It might be disguised as sugar, or salt. But some people use it to cure their angina.”

“Vagina?” Rodham giggled. If Clinton had been solid matter, he’d have slapped his friend across the face. As it was, he could only look at him in disgust and disbelief.

Meanwhile, Purp was explaining to the rest of the group that, once they’d assembled the ingredients, all they needed to detonate the bomb was a shockwave or extreme heat.

“Indeed,” he concluded, “these are the very same components that had been discovered in the United Kingdom recently. They’d been combined as a bomb and were set to be detonated on trans-Atlantic flights to the United States.”

Raven looked at Purp in awe. He really knew his stuff, when it came to logistics and freight move

However, BBWolf was worried about his computer-counterpart, as the guy was trying to find a way out so that he could look for "Zombrex".

"I need to find it for Katey," said the computer BBWolf. "Otherwise she'll die."

"First off, where would you find the stuff?" asked BBWolf. "And second, don't you know there's thousands of zombies out there?"

At this, the computer BBWolf started humming and looking around.

"

Bada-dum! Bada-dum! Bada-dum!

"

He then picked up a Box of Nails.

"

Bada-dum! Bada-dum! Bada-dum!

Then he picked up a wooden Baseball Bat.

"

Bada-dum! Bada-dum! Bada-dum!

"

He then set the nails and the bat on a bench and got out some duct tape.

"

Bada-dum! Bada-dum! Bada-dum!

"

Then he started taping the nails to the bat.

"

Bada-dum! Bada-dum! Bada-dum!

"

Then, he stopped humming and lifted from the bench a Spiked Bat.

"Just like Mom used to make," he said.

"I don't care what your mother used to make," BBWolf said. "I just wanted you to stop that blasted humming."

"Whatever," said the computer BBWolf. "Now I'm going to use this WZD and kill some zombies."

"WZD?"

"Weapon of Zombie Destruction."

"Fine," BB Wolf said. "It's your life. I'll close the door behind you."

They performed the move as quickly as possible -- open door, counterpart out, close door -- but one aggressive zombie still managed to get a foot in the door which Georgette chopped off with an ax. "Gratuitous violence," she said. "I love it!"

Marcus clapped BB Wolf on the shoulder. "You should have equipped your counterpart with a radio, maybe a vidcam, so that we could observe his adventures."

"I'll do it!" Clinton said. "You don't need to open the door for me. I can go through walls. ... Because I'm a ghost."

"Everybody knows you're a ghost," Rodham said. "Just go."

"HEY," suggested REAPER, "WE SHOULD GIVE HIM NICKNAME!"

"Who, sugar puddin'?" Georgette batted her eyelash at him.

"COMPUTER COUNTERPART. HE NEED NICKNAME. HOW BOUT 'CCBB' ?"

"Naaa," the real BB replied, "Too cutesy-wootsy. How about... Seamus?"

Without getting the consent of the other members in the room, and since it was HIS double and no one else's, he decided that would be the name. So he sent Clinton out with the button cam and wireless communicator device and gave him instructions.

"My name is Seamus?" The computer counterpart asked, arching one eyebrow. "How do you spell it?"

"Well," Clinton began, cursing BB for putting him through this, "It looks like it should be pronounced SEE-MUSS, but instead we pronounce it SHAY-MUSS."

"Personally, I think it's a pretty neat name, Seamus it is!"

Just then a nasty female zombie came at the pair, and lunged for Seamus' throat. He took his spiked bat and bashed it into the side of her face, and she instantly dissolved into pixillated blood and zombie gore. Then she vanished, entirely.

"That... Was... Interesting."

"Yup, my ghostly pal, these things are virtual zombies. They can infect and kill like regular zombies, but when you strike em with a weapon, they dissolve into nothing. They're relatively easy to kill. Now if you don't mind, I have to find the Zombrex and get to Katy before she dies."

Seamus hopped on the Slicecycle and sped off into the cold, dank night.

PurpleHaze was standing behind the bar, reminiscing about his solution to killing the zombies. He giggled to himself. Solutions! In each bottle was a solution of sorts. The clear ones were Vodka, Rum, Gin and Water, of course. Nothing like a clear solution to help solve one’s problems. He looked towards the new door that had recently been delivered and wondered when his first patron would walk in. Something started shaking the room violently. Then it started shaking his shoulders.

“Wha?” he yelled as he awoke from his dream.

“We have the ingredients, PH!” a crowd of characters stood around him saying. “Now how does this bomb work?” they asked.

“How should I know? As far as anyone’s concerned, the bombs were defused. All I know is how to assemble the ingredients!!” he blubbered.

But Raven, who’d been reading the news, knew what to do. “We’ve got to get these parts to Seamus!”

“What? My son? Where is HE?” Purple asked.

“No, no, not your son. The alternate computer BB Wolf is outside, fighting the zombies. We decided to name him Seamus,” Marcus explained.

Once again, Clinton was sent outside to take the as-yet-unassembled bomb to Seamus. They all hoped he knew how to do jigsaw puzzles.

"Of course I could put this together," Seamus said. "The question is what will happen when I do put it together?"

"Ka-BOOM!" Clinton said.

"That's what I'm afraid of. Frankly, I would rather use weapons made from junk held together by duct tape. Check out my chainsaw paddle."

"But it's no Ka-BOOM," Clinton said.

"It was a Ka-BOOM that destroyed the original Lufchatel," Seamus said. "I would think by now we had learned our lesson. Don't play with powerful explosives."

"But I want to see a Ka-BOOM!" Clinton protested.

"So put it together yourself."

"And listen," Seamus continued. "These are virtual zombies. Lethal, but easy to kill. I think if we're gonna Ka-BOOM we need to have them quarantined in a corral or something, so the explosion will be contained and not destroy the whole freaking town. Who's gonna build that?"

"The RGZ's?" Clinton suggested.

Seamus sighed. A tall, thin Male zombie with a computer keyboard jutting from his shoulderblade rushed at Seamus, and he eliminated the creature with one swoop of his chainsaw paddle. The zombie dissolved into pixels, and Seamus holstered his weapon in a large belt-like apparatus secured to the back of the slicecycle.

Seamus thrust the defiler into Clinton's hands. A huge crowd of disgruntled undead was heading toward them. "You're gonna need this buddy, we can't have them going back to New Lufchatel."

Clinton tapped his communicator button. "Rodham, old chap, it's hammer time!"

"Huh?" crackled the voice on the other end of the communicator.

Meanwhile in New Lufchatel, The RGZ's, with the help of several Hooters, were busy building a retaining wall around the perimeter of the city.

“Every time you see me, the Hammer’s just so hype. I’m dope on the floor and I’m magic on the mic. Now why would I ever stop doing this? With others makin’ records that just don’t hit. I’ve toured around the world, from London to the Bay, it’s “Hammer, go Hammer, MC Hammer, yo, Hammer” and the rest can go and play.”

Rodham was getting down with the RGZ crew. The Hooters were dancing and bumping their hips. Even Aristocrates was shaking his booty. Clinton put the defiler down and picked up the bomb components. Getting a cue from his friend Rodham, he said, “Now put your hands in the air - and shake ‘em like you just don’t care.”

The virtual zombies were shaking their hands and other parts in the air. The music was making them move towards the enclosure being built behind the retaining wall. Harry looked on in amazement.

“This might just work,” he mused. “Thanks to Seamus and the RGZ’s. Too bad we’re going to have to put Seamus into a Cryogenic Freezer after we blow up the virtual zombies.”

“Why’s that?” Marcus asked.

“It’s written in his virtual will. See?” the werewolf showed everyone the document.

"That's after he dies," BBWolf said. "Unless you're scared that my computer counterpart will take away what popularity you have around here and get elected to mayor."

"Why would I be scared of a pixle generated being?"

"Because he's out there fighting the zombies and you're safe in here."

"I know what I need," Harry said. "My own computer counterpart."

BBWolf snorted. "You can't just make them out of thin air."

"How do you make them?"

"Uh... I don't know. I bought mine. Ask Steve. Steve knows lots of stuff. He's like a walking box of stuff."

"OK," Harry said. "If I can find him."

For an hour Harry looked for Steve, always with the feeling that Steve was nearby. Sometimes Harry would feel that Steve was looking over his shoulder andf Harry would whirl around to catch Steve in the act.. but no Steve. After an hour Harry lost interest and gave up the search for Steve.

Steve, who had jumped into the back of Georgette's pickup truck along with the rest of the bar patrons, was off in a corner, counting the decorative pebbles in a large potted Ficus tree. He had that rare gift of being able to blend into the scenery.

"Hey everyone," Raven announced. "Did you notice there hasn't been a zombie windowsplat for a while?"

"Yeah Rave, we noticed, haven't you been paying attention to the plot?" Rodham asked her.

"Um... I've been paying attention to a lot of things lately... There was a plot?"

Rodham sighed heavily. "Yes, the zombies are contained in a retaining wall just outside of new Lufchatel. Seamus is busy trying to figure out how to build the pixelzombie specific bomb, so he can destroy them without destroying the town again."

"But can't we all just get along? I mean, look at the RGZs. The authors set them up to be a major antagonist in the story, and they are tame wall builders. Anything is possible in New Lufchatel."

Georgette walked up to Ravenwand, and put the arm she had just grown around her shoulder. Raven shuddered at the disembodied arm.

"Them pixel zombies ain't no small threat hon, hey even scare my Boyfriend, and he's indestructible!"

"YOU USE BIG WORDS, GIVE REAPER A STIFFY!"

"Aww, sugar lumps, I wub my wittle dubby nubby!" simpered Georgette as she Eskimo kissed her zombie BF.

Steve barfed into the Ficus tree.

Strangely enough, by barfing into the Ficus tree, Steve had hit on the perfect plan. Recruiting BB Wolf, Ravenwand and PurpleHaze, the four writers put their heads together and made one huge, four-headed monster capable of destroying the Dead Rising 2 zombies and reuniting the town into one cohesive fighting unit. How did they do that (the reader asks)? Read on.

“The RGZ’s are crucial to the survival of this town. Without them and the Gator Crew, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” Steve said.

“Holed up, cringing, waiting to die?” BB Wolf queried.

“No, Steve’s right,” Ravenwand countered. “This whole thing has been elaborately written by us and it’s up to us to put a stop to it.”

“Imagine you’re in a boat in the middle of the ocean. The boat has a small leak and the waters are infested with man-eating sharks. How do you survive?” PurpleHaze asked.

BBWolf sat stunned. Steve contemplated the puke-covered pebbles.

“Stop imagining!” Ravenwand explained. “All we have to do is write ourselves out of this mess. Come on gang. A four-headed monster such as we can do this!”

“Rodham has a huge gun-thing on one arm. Marcus is a zombie bounty hunter. When the town was being put together, we had a man with a hammer arm and another with a saw-nose. We’ve got the defiler. Thanks to the RGZ’s, the Dead Rising 2 zombies are all corralled. I say, we send Rodham, Marcus and Toby - yes, Toby,” Purple paused as his co-writers looked at him as if he were crazy. “We’ll hold the REAPER in reserve, just in case my plan doesn’t work. But Toby is a gay zombie. I think he can keep the DR2 zombies interested in him, while Marcus and Rodham do what they do best. Come on!”

Raven found Marcus. BBWolf found Rodham. Steve found Toby. Together, they linked arms and headed for the walled-in zombies.

"Now, just how is this whole thing supposed to work out?" Rodham asked.

"From what I can figure out, you Marcus and Toby are to do what you do best," BBWolf said. "As for me, Raven and Steve, we're supposed to make a four-headed creature."

"And just how will that work?"

"Well... we each have a head and there are four of us so..."

"Yes," Rodham said. "Your logic is impeccable. I just don't see the mechanics. Does it have eight legs? Who controls the legs? Does each head control one pair of legs? Won't that be confusing?"

"OK," Steve said. "I see what you're saying. Without organization and discipline we will create a four-headed stumblebum."

"Yes... well you may have already done that when you created this campfire... but all casual insults aside... and I only mean to do that temporarily, because I enjoy insulting people and I would lose my will to live if I stopped... but just to speak in a kind way... your stupid plan will never work."

"What was so kind about that?" Steve said.

"You IDOTS!" screamed Ravenwand in ironic splendor,"HERE'S the solution. Steve, Purp, stand back to back... good. Now BB, you go on the left, I go on the right. Georgette, have you grown anything that might help us?"

REAPER interrupted. "HERE, TAKE REAPER'S BELT."

REAPER proceeded to remove his belt, and his tattered pants fell off, snagging on a nasty skin flap just below his right kneecap. A line formed at the restroom. Steve ran to the potted plant and tossed his cookies again.

Raven was unruffled. "Thanks, kiddo, now give us that belt!"

After Steve returned from his puke sojourn, he rejoined the cluster of humans. The belt was very stretchy so it fit around the three men, leaving a small gap that Raven slipped through.

"Hey, midget woman, now that we're bound together, how in the hell do you propose we move?" BB asked, in a most sarcastic tone.

"SHUSH!" hissed Ravenwand, suddenly unsure of herself. "I'm working on that."

Meanwhile, Seamus sat tapping his foot impatiently. He could hear the virtual zombies moaning and clawing for release. If only....

...Chobee would come to the rescue. He and his full-giant brother Gerg used their large appendages to grab the zombies into two groupings. They held the pixelated zombies together so that Marcus, Toby and Rodham could blast them to smithereens. Within the amount of time it would take to hum the Jeopardy theme twice, all the zombies from Dead Rising 2 were eliminated. As Alex Trebek revealed the Final Jeopardy answer and began to read it to the studio audience, Aristocrates had just emerged from his hole and announced, "I've done it. Alcohol made from tree pulp. First round's on me!"

Unfortunately, Seamus thought he meant something else and turned his gun on the zombie squirrel. Fortunately, he was small enough to escape the badly-aimed barrage of virtual bullets from Seamus's gun.

Chobee and Gerg found themselves standing with empty hands. But not for long. Atina and Cherie came running up and hugged them around their ankles. The kids came pouring out of the holes they'd been hiding in and everyone decided to have a barbecue. Toby, Marcus and Rodham were hailed as heroes. Steve, Purp, Rav and BBWolf went back to their keyboards and tried to figure out how to make this a normal campfire again.

But everyone realized that TSC was still missing. Without him, this GROUP couldn't perform the Puke Sojourn that Steve had been writing as a Rock Opera. New Lufchatel went about its business trying to setup for a mayoral election. The Hooters reorganized. Even Anita seemed happy.

Meanwhile, BBWolf was trying to figure out what happened in the last few additions.

"So Greg held onto the virtual zombies while others blew them up? I thought that the radioactive zombies would fight the virtual ones and we'd get rid of both groups."

"We considered that plan in a closed committee meeting and rejected it," Purp said.

BB looked perplexed. "But I don't remember any committee meeting."

"Uh... I think you were napping or taking a shower or out for a walk or something."

"Was I deliberately shut out of the meeting?"

"Of course not!" Purp protested. "Try some of this tree pulp alcohol. It has a fresh rooty flavor."

Steve walked up. "We could call it root beer," he said.

Purp shrugged. "Blazingly obvious and already a legitimate beverage."

BB grabbed Steve's arm. "Did you know I was shut out of the secret meeting?"

"What meeting?" Steve said.

"The meeting to decide what's going to happen next."

"We have meetings for that? That's news to me."

Both BB and Steve confronted Purp. "What's going on here?" Steve said. "Are the seemingly random events in Khasachasistan actually being directed by a secret group of planners? Are you one of those planners, Purp?"

Purp yelled over his shoulder. "Ravenwand! I need backup!"

Ravenwand walked up to Purple, Steve and BB. She was a bit aggravated. "Sit DOWN, the THREE of you!" she demanded in such a tone that all three men sat down at once.

"What in the hell is going on here?" she questioned

"Well," began BB, There was a secret plot meeting, and I wasn't invited.

"Yeah," continued Steve, "We weren't invited."

Purple shrugged his shoulders and looked confused, "I don't remember any meeting."

Raven dramatically pulled at her hair. "Arrrrgh! You guys are acting as if you're still in school! First off, it's a campfire, built to be random, with several plot twists. Second of all, some additions are very brief and act as mere placeholders for the other writers. Third off, its GERG, rhyming with Durg, not Greg, who is Chobees brother."

"But what about the RGZ's?" BB simpered.

Ravenwand took a deep breath to center herself and continued.

"The RGZ's can still be useful. We killed all the virtual zombies that were running around New Lufchatel, but we failed to eliminate the ones that are trapped in the building next door via some odd magnetic force. I was hoping we could use the RGZ's for something other than wall builders."

Georgette looked up from her crossword puzzle. "You mean there's more?"

"Yes, Georgette, a whole abandoned building full. Right next door. If you listen closely, you can hear their moans."

Everyone paused to listen, and sure enough, there were moans of BRAIINNNSSS and other zombie colloquialisms emanating from the building next door.

"OH SHIT," REAPER cursed.

Raven rounded on him. "Yeah, oh shit, dude, we have our work cut out for us, and poor Enanny needs blood, or brains, or something, she's looking a little rough over there."

Hirsute, the poorest werewolf in New Lufchatel, walked into the bar with Aristocrates and the Professor. Purple Haze, as the bartender, asked, “What is this? Some kind of joke?”

“No. Don’t you remember me?” Hirsute asked. “You wrote me in several pages ago. Anyway, the Prof and I have been up at Khasachasistan Community College, poring over the books. Our squirrel friend here has given us a terrific idea.”

“Yes he has,” continued Professor Everard Von Schniklebottom. “Our rodent friend here is of the Tribe Sciurinae, or Tree Squirrel family. The College’s library has numerous books on the subject of zombies and how the common squirrel, no offense Aris, has been able to defeat the undead in previous centuries.”

Aristocrates, glad to have found two friends who could not only understand his chittering without a translator, and who knew that he preferred a shortened version of his name, smiled broadly at his homeboys. The smile was quite disconcerting to BB Wolf and Steve. Both looked like they were about to throw up into the Ficus again.

He chittered something that, thankfully, Hirsute quickly translated for the rest of the reading and writing audience.

“We sneak in through the pipes. We fart. The gases from our intestines seep into what’s left of the zombie brain. It gets into what remains of their bloodstream. In effect, ladies and gentlemen, only squirrel farts can get rid of the remaining zombies. I would suggest that the residents and friends of New Lufchatel who are zombies remain outside the fart-zone, as it’s technically called, so they are not affected.”

There, in a nutshell, was the plan. After further discussion, committee meetings and a vote unlike the upcoming mayoral candidacy, the writers decided to sleep on it. Fortunately, for the town of New Lufchatel, the characters acted upon the idea and sent the squirrel into the “building next door”.

Upon awakening, Purple turned to BB and Steve and said, “Did we have a meeting or was that a dream I had?”

"I remember something about squirrel farts being able to kill zombies," BB Wolf said. "Sounds silly to me."

"It wouldn't seem so silly to you if you were a zombie walking into a cloud of squirrel farts." said an educated-sounding voice.

"Ben Franklin!" Steve said. The new face chuckled. "A common mistake. I'm the Quaker Oats logo man."

"Oh," Steve said. "Then I guess you aren't as smart as I thought you were."

"Probably not," said the Quaker, "but I gave you a moment of respite from the zombie problem. Sort of took your mind off of things as the country folk say."

"Did you bring us any Oatmeal?"

"Sadly, no. The company has frowned on my previous lavish disbursements of free grain gifts. I'm on a quota now."

"So what are you doing here?"

"Here? My dear friend, Khasachasistan is smack in the middle of one of the world's premier grain-growing regions. Oats, wheat, and barley. Not to mention the easy availability of beverages made from same. *hic*"

"Suddenly you are drunk?"

"Itsha gift. Now if you will excuse me, I think I better go lie down."

Ravenwand was standing with her hands on her hips glaring at Steve. "Your campfire additions are becoming more and more irrelevant."

Steve shrugged. "As Carlos Castaneda said, to the man of wisdom nothing is random."

Quakey, as the Quaker Oats Guy was soon named, joined the family of misfits in the fortress. As he lay on the couch in a drunken stupor, Purple sat on the far end of the couch, still dazed from his dream.

"I told you not to eat that potato salad," chided Ravenwand. "BB is a bachelor and God only knows what kind of hallucinogens are embedded in his .refrigerator food."

"But I was hungry," he sheepishly said, bowing his head.

Raven put her arm around him. "There there, big fella, I'll fix you some beets. Will that make you happy? Now, if only I could find some beets."

"REAPER KNOW WHERE TO FIND BEETS, REAPER SAW SOME..." Raven cut him off. "REAP? I know you're trying to help and fit in, and I appreciate that, no doubt. But dude, you smell like shit. please go to the other side of the room!"

Reaper dejectedly lumbered over to the round table where Georgette sat with Alice Wormbiter. Georgette glared at Raven and scraped the chair noisily on the floor in her haste to get up.

"Speaking of shit," Purp smiled at Raven, "I think you're in deep." He stood up in front of her just in time to stop Georgette's trajectory. Georgette slammed into his six-foot somethingorother frame and stopped.

"Going somewhere?"

Georgette looked startled. She tried to punch her way around him, to no avail. "Let me at her, NO one insults my sugar-puddin'!"

Purple placed a hand on her forehead. "Back off, shit slinger, you should know by now I am Raven's protector. If you'd been reading the story, or paying attention at all, you would have known this...." Purple scolded her, breaking the forty-fifth wall, as the fourth wall had been broken so much it lay in shards on the floor.

Just as things were escalating, Aristocrates ran in, with a cigarette lighter in a harness straped to his back. He explained he was going into the air ducts now to light his farts. Everyone who could understand his chittering said, "Good Luck!" the rest all sat there thinking their compadres were nuts. Then again, the squirrel thought everyone who couldn't understand Squirrelish were nuts and he tended to look at them as best if buried under a dwarf maple. The last thing he saw was the writers putting up yet another fourth-wall. He shook his head in disgust. Would they never learn?

Purple grabbed Quakey by the elbow and said, "You look like you could use a drink. Anyone wants a free drink on the house, follow me!"

Most everyone realized what he meant and did a conga-line to his bar. Those who didn't understand, included REAPER and a Gator Crew dude or two. If the reader listened carefully, they could hear the characters mutter, "ON the house?"

Over at the Hooter house, the election committees were in full swing, gearing up for the election.

Harry and Anita were having a grand old time in bed. The Ornotchobee family were having a picnic. Most of the characters who had been following the narrative knew that Aristocrates would be successful. Even Marcus and Amanda were looking to party. The professor had just drawn a pint of blood from Enanny.

"Aha!" he exclaimed. "I thought so."

"Say, anyone know where that one crab and scorpian went?" BB Wolf asked. "I want some crab legs and fried scorpian for lunch."

Several nearby picnickers gasped at BB Wolf's crude statement. "Good heavens, young fellow! We don't eat crustaceans!"

"What?" BB Wolf said. "Not even shrimp?"

"Especially not shrimp!"

"This is a weird bunch," BB muttered and went back to his video game feeling very antisocial and misunderstood.

"There'll be trouble from that one," one of the picnickers whispered, nodding his head in the direction of BB Wolf.

Quakey was walking around smiling with a big pot between his hands. "More oatmeal, anyone? Eat up! It's best while it's warm."

From the Hooter House came the muffled sounds of hooting.

"Sounds like the election is off to a good start," someone commented.

"No, that's just the pre-election orgy. Get's 'em in the mood to vote, ya know."

Randy the scorpion turned to Gutan the orange crab... "The authors have forgotten us, BB had a point."

Gutan clicked back, "I don't even remember where we're supposed to be. Are we with Grandma Hooter?"

"I assume we're living with her aboard her magnificent sailing vessel."

"No, Randy, they tore that down to build the new Orgy Wing on Hooter Hall."

"Yeah, Gussy, I remember that. Sad day. Grandma Hooter was NOT happy."

"No she wasn't. Hey. How are our eggs doing, have you checked them lately?"

"They're all yours, baby, remember? NO little swimmers for me?"

"Oh yeah... I forgot. But seriously, how are they doing?"

"Two more days and they should hatch. Granny Hooter has them in her bathtub."

"But how does she take baths, if our eggs... erm... MY eggs are in there?"

"She takes possible baths... Wash up as far as possible, down as far as possible, then wash old possible."

"That is sick, Randy. You've been hanging out with Ravenwand too much."

"She created YOU, not me. Purple is responsible for MY prurient thought process."

"I'm impressed with your vocabulary, Randy... C'mere!"

Soon the sounds of clicking claws drown out the sound of the Hooting in Hooter Hall.

Meanwhile, Aristocrates readied his rectum for the deadly derriere delivery.

The communicating device squawked.

Several hundred virtual zombies looked up at the rafters at once.

"Oh shit..." he exclaimed.

Professor Everard Von Schniklebottom looked up from his Petri dish with astonishment. “I knew it!” he exclaimed. “We don’t have to use squirrel farts after all. Thank you Enanny!” Pushing his chair back from his lab workstation, he knocked over a dozen experiments he’d had running since the last chapter. In his haste, he didn’t notice the chartreuse thread that had fallen to the floor. Fortunately, it was too small to be of any significance...yet.

He burst into the fortress yelling, “Wait, Aris, wait!” His head spun in every direction, freaking out more than half of the living inhabitants sitting there, as he looked for his squirrely friend.

“You’re too late, Professor,” hooted Hoot, who, for some strange reason even the writers didn’t know, was not at the orgy. His hairy finger pointed in the direction of the air duct.

“Toby - what does Hoot mean? I’ve solved the zombie problem. We don’t need squirrel farts. Enanny’s DNA has all the ingredients we need to turn the zombies into xombies.”

At the blank stare from his homeboy and the half-dozen other intelligent faces, he continued. “Xombies are the new-millennium version of zombies. The X-generation, if you will. Anyway, the DNA strand I have - if properly applied - will get all the zombies on our side of the death wall. Not to be confused with the fourth wall, but I digress...”

Just then, the sound of a squirrel chittering echoed throughout the fortress. That was followed by a loud bang. Then, everyone could smell it.

"Is there any nose plugs?" BBWolf asked, his voice muffled from his hands covering his nose and mouth. "My nostrals are burning."

Steve quickly passed out nose plugs to everyone.

"Couldn't you have done this BEFORE the squirrel farted?" complained Professor Schniklebottom.

Steve looked puzzled. "But we didn't need them before the squirrel farted. We only needed them after."

The Professor waved him away. "Go! Live your stupid life. I do not want to be near you. Some of your stupidity might rub off on me."

"Zheesh!" Steve said. "What an intellectual snob. I hope you never find that little chartreuse thread you misplaced."

Professor von Schniklebottom grabbed Steve's shoulders. "What? What are you talking about? Dat is der DNA! Vut haff you done vit it?"

Steve untangled the Professor's big sausage fingers from his shirt sleeves. "Your accent gets pretty gross when you are excited, Herr Professor."

"Never mind dat! I vant dat DNA!"

"I didn't say I have it. I just said I noticed the casual way it was slipped into the plot. I'm sure it's still in your lab somewhere."

The Professor glared at Steve, but could think of nothing further to say. Besides, he was anxious to get back to his lab and check on the DNA. How could that goofy meatball Steve already know about it? The guy was practically psychic.

Granny Hooter was sitting by the fireplace in her new manufactured home, petting an enormous gray and black cat.

"Mrowl," the cat informed her.

"Yes, I know, Kadorm, Professor Schnickelbottom is up to no good. My Neanderthal senses are tingling."

"Aaanng?" the ball of fuzz replied, his golden eyes wide and inquisitive.

"Oh don't give me that. You KNOW my mind works in mysterious ways."

Kadorm tilted his head to the side and extended his paw to lay across her arm. He bonked his head against the edge of the book she was reading. Grandma Hooter put down her book and picked up the cat. "Eruf" he sighed, and snuggled close.

Back in the lab...

The chartreuse strand of DNA shuddered by the table leg behind which it had fallen. It divided... It divided again... It continued dividing until it was a small gelatinous blob, roughly two cm in diameter; pulsing with evil, sentient life.

Aristocrates was knocked out by the force of his own fart, but he was proven a hero, as he woke up the next day in a hospital surrounded by New Lufchatellians, flowers and medals. Toby was the first face he met.

"Hey, Stoccy, you saved the town!"

"Ug, don't call me Stoccy, call me Aris. I like that nickname sooo much better." The squirrel turned away, and Toby's chin began to quiver.

"You don't love me anymore?" Toby whimpered.

Aristocrates sighed. "Yes, Toby, I still love you... Like a brother, like a friend, but never in the way you wanted me to love you."

The rest of the Lufchatellians looked on in disbelief as the gay zombie was totally dumped.

“Wait, wait,” pleaded the professor. “I have something for you too, Toby.” Everard reached into a lab coat pocket and pulled out a 4cm length of puce-colored string.

“String? Doc, what are you trying to pull?” Toby asked.

“Well, it’s not this string,” he chuckled. But since nobody got his inside joke, he continued. “The chartreuse string was merely string theory. It was never intended to multiply, divide or even add-and-subtract. It was meant to mend my beloved Khasachasistan Community College letterman’s sweater, which is of course, a combination of chartreuse and puce - the school’s colors.”

“So this puce string is also part of your mending?” Toby asked in disbelief. He handed it back, saying, “I don’t want it.”

But the professor would have none of it. He put both his hands in the pockets of his lab coat and turned to the others standing around Aris’s bedside. “The puce string is a time-machine. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe. But it is. All you have to do is sew it into a piece of your favorite clothing and then rub it seventy times in a downward stroke.” Once again the professor giggled at an inside joke. This time though, Toby caught on.

“I’ve done that before,” he said, experiencing a bit of deja’ vu. “Okay doc, you got a deal. But why would I want to time-travel?”

“Did you want to remain a zombie forever? Do you want to go back to before this accident occurred? Or do you want to go to your future...see what’s in store for xombies like yourself?”

This time, both Toby and the Prof knew he was referring to Toby’s sexual orientation. The gay zombie walked off fingering the string and muttering, “I can do it...”

“Did I miss the elections?” the squirrel asked, when his former friend had disappeared.

“No, they’re still on...” Grandma Hooter replied. Nobody had seen her enter, but she must have. “And we’ve instituted a special rule allowing squirrels to vote...well, hero squirrels, that is.”

Meanwhile, BBWolf was checking out a bootlegged copy of Jeff Bridges's version of True Grit, and comparing it to John Wayne's version.

""Okay, interesting. Compare Scene to John Wayne version."

BBWolf studied the scene for a while. "Hmmm... I think Jeff Bridges might be just a little bit grittier." It was a problem that would occupy BBWolf for the rest of the evening. When he was focused like that, only a snack call could break his concentration.

Meanwhile, back in the lab, the chartreuse blob had grown to a meter in diameter, making a mockery Professor Schnicklebottom's claim that it was "merely a mending string". Obviously it was an amending string, not a mending string. Once again the near-sighted Professor had misinterpreted the results of his own experiments. At least this time his error didn't cause an explosion.

Nevertheless, a rapidly growing blob is no picnic either. Just ask Steve McQueen. Except you can't because he is dead.

Steve realized he was only 3 paragraphs in and had already mentioned two different movie actors and also broken the fourth wall. It was a real comedy of errors yet no one seemed to be laughing. That was the problem with squirrel farts. After they were over, nothing else really seemed all that funny.

Instinctively knowing it would be too lame to have Aristocrates fart again, Steve headed for the the PurpleHaze Saloon, hoping they might have redecorated with a Western theme and be serving sarsparilla. Steve had never tasted sarsparilla and was really curious about it.

However, as luck would have it, he was waylaid in the street bt Grandma Hooter who was rounding up everyone she could to come watch the Hooters vote.

"Why would I want to see that?" Steve asked.

"Well, little buddy," Grandma said while tapping her corncob pipe against her bony knee. "Sometimes some of them Hooters freak out and do crazy stuff. It can really be quite amusing."

"Amusing..." Steve mused. "Hmmm... well... it might not be a squirrel fart, but what the heck. Show me the way!"

Steve and Grandma Hooter walked hand in hand to Hooter Hall. The moonlight shone down on the odd couple, and the night air was still and slightly squirrel fart-scented. Steve began to reassess the situation.

I know she's an old lady, and really hairy, and the prominent brow ridge makes me shudder, and not in a good way, but darn... It's been so long,

Steve's italicized thoughts burst like a bubble, and he turned to Grandma Hooter. He coudln't bring himself to kiss her, so he settled for an embrace.

Don't look at her face, don't look at her face...

As his hands roamed up and down her back, they migrated slightly to the front. Reaching for the lower half of her body, Steve felt a sharp pinch on his right index finger. He jumped away from the old woman, and looked at the small orange creature that had attached itself to him.

"Oh Stevie," Grama said wryly, "I forgot to tell you I had crabs. Or crab, as it were. Steve, meet Gutan!"

Steve flung the crab off his hand and Gutan scuttled back to Grandma Hooter, climbed up her support hose and nestled herself in the front pocket of The old Neanderthal's house dress.

"What the..." he began, in astonishment.

Grandma Hooter laughed. "Well just be glad it wasn't Randy you found. Speaking of randy... Get them stars out of your eyes, little buddy, and hurry up. We have an election to attend!"

At Hooter Hall, there were election tables set up for the New Lufchatel residents. Plastered on three of the walls were campaign posters.

The Radioactive Ghost Zombies had volunteered to run the tables. That is, they were sitting behind the tables, handing out ballots. Along the fourth wall (not the one that had been broken so many times that it had to have been repaired by the actual writers), were a series of voting booths.

GET HOOTERIZED. VOTE 4 YOKIE

SQUIRRELS ARE PEOPLE TOO. ARISTOCRATES IS OUR MAN!!

HARRY ISN’T AS HAIRY AS HIS OPPONENTS. I’M VOTING FOR THE WEREWOLF. HAROOOOOOOO

Gerg had to have his own section, just outside Hooter Hall, as he was too big to fit inside the building. Chobee and Marcus had been surprised to see the HOOTERADE stand being run by Enanny and Dork. But they’d purchased some of the bright orange liquid and were doubly surprised that it tasted so darn good.

Rodham and Clinton stood just outside the hall’s exit door, handing out little stickers that said, unfortunately I FOTED!. Seems they’d gotten hold of a thousand stickers and, despite a lot of arguing back and forth, had misspelled the important word. But it didn’t matter. By the time Ravenwand and PurpleHaze arrived to vote, there were at least a dozen creatures walking around (or shambling, in the case of the REAPER), with these stickers adorning their bodies or clothing.

Despite what the reader was thinking, there would be no hanging chads this time. Because, even Chad had been allowed to vote, even though he’d never been a character before now. Plus, he had no neck, so that roadblock had been removed already.

Meanwhile, BBWolf, who was getting sick of hearing about politics, decided to check out a site called Deviant Art. There he found what he was looking for, pictures of female werewolves and wolf anthros, some of which were half-nude. However, there were those that had a certain blocking box on them. "Members over 18 only!"

"Okay," he said. "I guess I'll join up. Maybe I can post my stories, about me and my girlfriend Zena."

With that, he typed in a few things, and bada-bing, bada-boom, he had his own site.

http://alockwood1.deviantart.com/

"Just perfect."

"Are you sure you want to post that here?" Steve asked.

"Well, if you don't want it up, you can get rid of the link," BBWolf muttered. "I just thought that maybe you guys might want to check out my stuff, especially my zombie poem. Besides, you might want to become members, and add me to your Watch List, so that we can keep in touch when I go on my vacation."

"Vacation? Where?"

"Going to California one of these days. Mother came here on vacation when she was two years old. Her folks never got around to ending it, so someday, we'll be heading there to 'End' it."

"And when will you be leaving?"

"Who knows, today, tomorrow, in five, ten years. I don't know."

"That's a rather lackadaisical attitude you have toward your travel plans," Steve said.

"I would have said nonchalant," BBWolf countered.

Steve pondered. "Hmmm... you may have hit on the better word."

REAPER sneered at them. "ENOUGH WORDS! WORDS NOT GET YOU LAID."

"They might," Steve said. "At least with the sophisticated ladies that I prefer to lay. I'll admit that any woman who would hump with a zombie probably isn't impressed by smooth talk."

"YOU INSULT ME?"

"Not at all. Have a drink."

And so, as it has throughout history, alcohol temporarily reduced the animosity between antagonistic creatures. At least, until the big brawl could begin.

During this brief lull in the perpetual war of creature against creature, BBWolf offered a link to Steve and Steve clicked on it, always grateful for something to do with his mouse which had a red laser shooting out its bottom so Steve always kept it moving as much as possible in fear that it might burn a hole in his desk if it remained idle too long.

Steve thought DeviantArt's statistics collecting efforts were VERY impressive! He even punched No Neck Chad in the arm and said, "You oughta check out that site!" but Chad gave him the cold shoulder instead of the hot one and Steve kicked him in the butt and yelled "You ungrateful walk-on! See if you ever appear in this campfire again!"

"That was harsh, Steve," Purp said. "You know he was my creation, right?"

"That had nothing to do with it. I'm not blaming you for his behavior. It's not like he has your DNA in him. You should have known there would be problems when you made him a No Neck."

Chobee had his hand on the front door of Hooter Hall. He planned on voting for his brother anyway, but he was curious to see how hooters ran a campaign.

Marcus broke out in a sweat, which is unusual, because vampires, as a general rule, don't sweat. He turned to Chobee, who was rubbing his stomach and grimacing. "I don't feel too well, Chobes, I think I'll sit down a bit."

Marcus flopped into a wooden carved bench and started breathing heavily. Chobee groaned and hurried to a nearby tree to empty the contents of his stomach.

Chobee loped over to Marcus.

"What the hell is going on bro, I haven't felt this sick since I accidentally ate one of Anita's famous hair pies!"

"Must have been the Hooterade, Chobe, what did they put in that stuff?"

It just so happened that Professor Schniklebottom chose that moment to pass by. "Everard!" Marcus screamed with the last of his flagging energy. He shoved the half-empty Dixie cup of orange liquid into the Professor's hand. "Find out what's in this..." Marcus' voice trailed off as he fainted on the wooden bench. His head wilted in Chobee's lap. Chobee turned and emptied his stomach a little more.

While the professor toddled off to his lab with the remains of the Hooterade in the Dixie cup, Harry was stepping up to the podium.

He used the knuckles on his right hand to rap against the wooden dais, as there was no microphone to speak into.

“Election day is over. Return to your homes. The results will be posted tomorrow,” he said. Or the next day, depending on how many people in this town know how to add he mused to himself. “Thank you all for a wonderful turnout.” He spotted Marcus and Chobee in the back of Hooter Hall looking green in the face and clutching their stomachs.

The Radioactive Ghost Zombies folded up the tables and chairs and placed them against the fourth wall. Then they quietly slipped out a side door. They had decided several hours ago to visit the Invisible Bait Shop so they could get some fishing done.

“Yeah, it’s me time,” one of them had said. The others had all nodded their heads in agreement. As they walked three abreast down Main Street, they kept their own private joke to themselves. But they were sure the election had gone the way they’d tailored it. By the time they returned from their fish-catching, New Lufchatel should be a happier place to live: the mayor will have been announced; the zombie hunter will have decided to leave town; or the giant and his ogre brother would have disappeared into the hills.

Turning on to Invisible Street, they walked into a gray sandstone building.

“Ugh! My nose!!” one of the laughed. Being ghosts, they couldn’t really walk into the stone edifice. They walked through the walls. Once inside the shop, their bodies became solid. It was the main feature of Invisible Street’s shops. The RGZ’s picked up tackle, fishing vests, hooks and bait. They strolled to the counter with their booty.

The proprietor - a heavyset being that resembled a weretuna - smiled a toothless smile and took the bartered item: a trio of radioactive Dixie cups containing Hooterade. The zombies had to physically open the door to exit. But once outside, they were glowing ghosts again.

“Time for some fission,” Ray laughed.

Meanwhile, BBWolf came home, after finally eating a good lunch of Chicken Wings and Pork Ribs, to find Steve on the computer, shouting at it.

"Oh Come On!" he shouted. "I'm over 18! I ought to be able to read stuff that has nudity and violence!"

"What's wrong?" BBWolf asked.

"This stupid site won't let me check out your Red Riding Hood story!" Steve shouted, almost deafening BBWolf. "All I get is this big gray circle that says 'Violence' and 'Nudity'. I want to know if the wolf eats the girl."

"Well, due to the content of it, I had to put it on a Mature rating, so that young kids wouldn't read it."

"But I'm not a kid, so how do I read it?"

"You have to become a member," BBWolf said with a sigh. "Then you have to set your personal settings, on the site, to allow you to check out things marked 'Mature'. Do that, and you'll be able to read it."

"Well thanks," Steve said, as he looked for the "Sign-up" place. "Perhaps I'll check out some of these other guys to."

"You're welcome," BBWolf said as he got out his computer and started to log on. "Oh, and if you go outside, don't try the Hooterade. People have been getting sick."

"Did you try it?" Steve asked.

"No, I saw someone throw up after they drank theirs and I dropped mine in some flowers; killed the whole patch."

Professor Schnicklebottom looked up from his microscope. Fear was etched on his face. The fiends and their Hooterade! For surely fiends must have created a substance so diabolically evil!

The Professor's boy assistant, Toby, walked in. "What happened to your face, Doc? It looks etched."

"My boy, I've discovered something so melodramatically diabolical that Satan himself would be shocked."

"Really, Doc? This isn't another one of your hyperinflated scare stories, is it?"

"Damn it, boy! You did have gender-transforming lice in your hair! One more day and you would have become a girl!"

"Yeah, well it was fun being bald for a month. So what is it this time, Doc?"

"HOOTERADE!"

"Holy Smokin' Demons, Doc! Bad Hooterade? But almost everybody in Hooterville, I mean New Lufchatel, has tasted the Hooterade. What are we going to do?"

"It may be too late, kid."

"I like it better when you call me Boy. Kid sounds so... I don't know... wussy."

"Do you remember when you were a zombie?"

"Huh? Zombie?"

"Surely you remember when you were a zombie?"

"And don't call me Shirley either."

"Who is Shirley Ether?"

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

And so the generational gap betweeen Toby and Professor Schnicklebottom continued to generate an endless chain of conversational nonsense. Meanwhile, New Lufchatel was burning down around them. Not literally, it's a metaphor for the confusion and sickness caused by the bad Hooterade. Although... there was always the possibilty that some confused sick person would knock over a kerosene lantern in a straw-filled stable and set off a re-enactment of Mrs O'Malley's Great Chicago Fire.

Toby walked through the Professor's door.

"Ahem.."

"What, um.... Toby? I thought you were..."

"This little pathetic excuse for a human? Nay, not I. I am ZOMBIE, smell my REEK!"

Toby lifted his armpits and offered it to the Professor and his fantasy Toby Boyclone. (It's amazing what things develop from strings of chartreuse thread) Both Everard and BoyToby fell to the ground, unconscious.

"I hate using my zombie odor as a weapon, but THIS is for your own GOOD!"

Toby arranged the unconscious pair in a comfy bean bag chair in the corner and covered them with a quilt. He quickly took a syringe of the orange liquid, injected himself with it and set the Betty Crocker timer for ten minutes.

After the Hooterade had incubated in his coaguated blood system, he took a large purple bucket, slit his wrists, and let the dark red liquid flow into it. He stopped when he was a bit lightheaded and sewed his wrist together.

He frantically searched Prof. Shnikelbottom's cabinets and found a large box of insulin syringes.

Toby sneered. "The idiot can't even find a cure for diabetes, yet the cure for Hooterade contamination was right under his nose!"

He carefully filled the entire box of syringes with his own blood mixture and headed out to town, where most of the citizens, save for a few smirking RGZ's,lay in various stages of distress. Toby began injecting every citizen he could find. Soon most of the citizens, Hooters included, were up and walking about, dazed, but still alive. Toby glared at Ray as he sauntered by.

"Ruh-Ro!" Ray the RGZ shouted and ran the opposite direction, disappearing as if running into an invisible wall.

Toby stared in amazement. "So THAT's how they're able to be so deceptive..." he whispered to himself.

"ME KNEW THEY WERE TROUBLE, BUT YOU LISTEN TO REAPER? NOOOOO." REAPER, the invincible, refused his shot because he hadn't been affected by the Hooterade.

Harry looked down on his mixed up domain. He turned to his wife, Anita. "Tomorrow, when all this dust is settled, and I'm finally mayor, we'll just sweep this little controversy under the rug."

"That's why I love you Harry, you are so diabolical!"

In the Invisible Bait Shop, Monsignor Weretuna placed the orange liquid into a centrifuge and set the speed to high.

"In a few hours.... ssshhhhhhhppppp (sound of moist breath through rubbery lips) the RGZ's shall.... sssshhhhhhpppp.... RULE THE WORLLLLDDDDD!... ssshhhhhppppp."

Somehow, the Ornotchobee triplets, Chobee Jr., Haley and Gergalina, wandered into the Invisible Bait Shop. Incredibly, they had what the Weretuna most desired in the whole world: String Cheese, Silly String and String Theory by Isaac Newton, in original hardback. Despite his dastardly, diabolical plans to set the RGZ’s up as world rulers, he quickly traded the swirling centrifuge full of Hooterized Hooterade for the three stringy thingies.

At the professor’s laboratory, he was just learning why the purple string hadn’t grown, while the chartreuse string had. It was because of the waffleorgans and fatbackpudding. These items were rarities, even outside of New Lufchatel. But in the Invisible Bait Shop, they were commonplace. In fact, they were the most-ordered item on the Invisible Bar and Grille menu, just two string-lengths away from the Bait Shop.

Even PurpleHaze would have a hard time getting his hands on the fatbackpudding. So he sold simple aperitifs to his clientele. So the IBG was constantly buying the ingredients from the IBS.

Unfortunately, the Ornotchobee triplets had no idea what to do with the centrifuge, so they simply traded it to Grandma Hooter for a Rubik’s Cube, two dozen glazed donuts and a crate of starving weasels. Aristocrates saw them backing out of the Sterner Stuff store and immediately offered them one Nerf Berzerker gun, twenty Nerf darts and a box of one hundred I Foted! stickers for the crate of weasels.

Chobee knew a bargain when he saw one. He didn’t realize that Aristocrates’ chittering was really laughter, as the squirrel dragged his booty down Invisible Street. By the time the triplets got home, Harry and his minions had finished tallying the votes. He was tacking leaflets on every stump, tree, housefront and storefront, announcing his victory.
Little did he realize what would happen next...

Meanwhile, BBWolf was writing a letter to his girlfriend Zena. However, he was having problems writing it. After all, Zena lived several billion light-years away, and over seven thousand years in the future.

"I kind of wish you were closer," he muttered. "It would make mailing letters easier."

At that moment Zena was bent over her very futuristic desk (made entirely of superglass with integrated electronic intelligence) and having a small headache which her desk recognized as a psychic event, so it gently tickled her elbow with a mild electric shock.

"Goddammit!" Zena yelled as she jumped a foot in the air. "I told you not to do that anymore!"

But the desk flashed an irridiscent message in neon green across it's smooth clear surface: "A lad long ago and far away is thinking love thoughts about you."

"So freakin WHAT?!" Zena said.

The desk shrugged. "It's not like you're getting any action here, is it?"

"So you expect me to hook up with some BARBARIAN from the distant past? Please! Anyway, I know who you're talking about. He saw my Facebook page and I've been leading him on with interdimensional letters. Trust me, a billion light years is as close as he'll ever get."

In New Lufchatel, Aristocrates sat on the pile of junk he had accumulated during the fall months. "Zheesh!" he muttered. "I've never had the Autumn Nutgathering Frenzy this bad before. I must be getting old. What the hell am I going to do with all this crap? I sure don't feel like burying it. I guess I'll put it in Harry's garage."

Harry was sitting on his patio eating a bowl of Fatback Pudding. "Anita, darling, maybe we should convert the garage to a game room. Since all the automobiles were detroyed during the nuclear option, that garage is just sitting there. Wait a minute! What's this?"

For Harry had just spied a bedraggled-looking squirrel dragging a crate of weasels into his garage...

At that moment, REAPER's hideous face appeared over the railing. Harry was startled, and dropped his bowl of fatbackpudding, It lay flattened on the floor in a glistening, brownish-grey puddle.

"WHERE YOU GET FATBACKPUDDING, REAPER LOVE FATBACKPUDDING. GEORGETTE NEVER MAKE IT."

Harry stammered... "Um... look, REAPER, brains!" Harry pointed to a spot on the horizon.

"HUH?"

REAPER let go of the railing and plummeted three stories to the ground. He broke into several pieces. The pieces jittered and crawled toward one another to reassemble.

"Works every time, don't it dear?" Harry turned to his wife and planted a big sloppy kiss on her lips.

"Want me to clean this up while you go deal with Stoccy?"

"Sure, babe, but save the meat chunks, they are my favorite."

Harry took the elevator down to the ground floor and saw Aristocrates struggling to push the crate of weasels into the garage.

"Need help with that?"

"AAAAAAAHHHH!" screamed Aristocrates and he turned his back on the crate of weasels, his arms spread protectively. "Go away! they're mine... MINE!"

"All right geesh, calm down little buddy! Having trouble controlling your hoarding urges?"

Aristocrates sat down in front of the crate, he began crying. "Yes... I think I need help..." he chittered.

“Let’s see what you’ve collected here, Aris,” Harry said, poring through the squirrel’s latest hoard. After a few “uh-huh”s and “mm-hmm”s, he said, “Tell you what, my finely furried friend. You can have this corner over here. Fill it to your heart’s content. But I’ve got plans for the rest of this formerly-filthy garage.”

The new mayor walked away rubbing his hands together. He checked his calendar. In two nights, it would be a full moon. If he had everything he needed by then, he’d open his new arcade in full werewolf regalia.

REAPER reached the spot on the horizon and smiled. “HARRY ALWAYS HELP REAP. ME HELP HARRY NOW.” But instead of following through on his idea, the REAPER settled down for a feast. Although Harry had merely said “BRAINS” to get rid of him, he’d actually been pointing to a mortuary where the recently deceased lay. Since it was after hours, the brains were there for the taking.

Marcus and Amanda were just settling down on a hilltop to have a late-night picnic.

“B-positive or O-negative, my dear?” Marcus asked the former nurse.

“I’m always partial to B-positive, sweetheart,” Amanda practically gushed. As she drank, some of the color returned to her face. But it was only temporary. The blood rushed to her stomach, sating her.

Far away, Rodham said, “Someone mutters...”

“Someone’s always muttering, you goof. Besides, you said that several chapters ago. Did you ever find that someone?” Clinton retorted.

Dork, Rehab, Enanny and Yokie were sitting around Grandma Hooter’s roaring fire. “Tell us the story of Gutan and Randy again?” Enanny asked. Ever since she’d come back from the professor’s laboratory, she’d been her normal self. Nobody would ever suspect what Everard VonSchnickelbottom had done for/to her.

“Once upon a time, there was an orange crab named Gutan...”

Back at Purple Haze’s Aperitifs, Grille, Bail-bondsman, Palm-reading & Pawn Shop, Glurk the alien sat muttering. If anyone could have understood his language, they’d have heard: “Where is that REAPER fellow?”

Meanwhile, Steve found himself being strangled by a thirty foot tall gray wolf.

"How dare you misrepresent me," the wolf said."I do not just brush people off like they were fleas."

"Who are you?" Steve coughed/gasped out.

"I'm ZENA!" the wolf bellowed.

"Oh, okay."

"I'm a lesbian, and I have plenty of lovers to take care of my needs!" Zena shouted. "BBWolf is a big fan of mine. The guy has stories about me posted on his Writing.com and DeviantArt accounts!"

"Sounds like a stalker to me," Steve gasped out, his face turning blue.

"Oh, I probably should get going now, and let you go."

Steve nodded. Zena opened her hands and let Steve drop, causing him to sprain his wrists and ankles.

"You got off lucky," Zena said as she got out a pen like device. "Next time you misrepresent me, I'll come back and eat you alive."

She then pressed a button, causing a portal to open up.

"Oh, and one more thing," she said. "I DON'T work behind a desk!"

"Um, do you have FaceBook?" Steve asked as he tried to massage his throat.

"No, but I have Dead Book," Zena said as she pulled out a black book. "It contains the names of everyone I've ever killed, more than two thousand outlaws. Would you like to be added to it?"

Steve shook his head.

"Good."

Zena then stepped through the portal, which started to shrink.

"Gesh," Steve muttered. "She's touchy."

"What was That!?" came Zena's voice from the portal. "I have very good ears."

"Um, nothing."

"Good!"

The portal then vanished.

Steve sat staring at the empty space where the portal had formed. "Gee... she didn't look like a lesbian."

At Grandma Hooter's roaring fire, Enanny had reached the point in The Legend of Gutan and Randy where Randy finds The White Sword of Vengeance not long after Gutan has been captured by the Mongol Crabcatchers. Many people skip over the three chapters where Randy works out his new philosophy of life and makes the transition from tolerant vegetarian pacifist to avenging, sword-wielding bigot. Those three chapters are essentially a monologue, usually done in the nude in the stage version to maintain audience interest, but Grandma Hooter in the nude was no sight for sore eyes. She was a sight that made your eyes sore. And I'm talking puss-weeping pimples of visual pain - very unpleasant.

Where was I? Oh yes, staring at the empty space where the portal had been. But forget that. We're at grandma Hooter's now.

So Enanny came to the part of the Legend where Randy confronts the chief of the Mongol Crabcatchers, Ming the Moocher. "Ming!" Randy says. "I know you have my girlfriend Gutan hidden away in your cave and have been doing unspeakable things with her in there."

"I don't want to speak about it," Ming says.

"Don't worry," Randy says. "After I cut out your tongue with my White Sword of Vengeance you will not speak of anything at all ever again."

"Bring it on!" Ming says.

Dork turned to Yokie. "This is getting exciting. I hope Enanny doesn't stop now."

"OH YESSS, STUFF MY BALLOT BOX, SWAY THOSE VOTES, GIMME A LANDSLIIIIIIIIIDE!" Anita screamed passionately. Harry entered from the kitchen, shook his head and walked away.

I wish I had never bought her that video game for Christmas, he whispered despondently.

Dork was developing feelings for Yokie. He looked at her dark brown eyes as they glistened with fascination at Enanny's retelling of the Gutan / Randy adventure.

Dork couldn't help himself. "Hoot! You have pretty eyes, Yokie!"

Yokie turned to him. "Hoot, you like my eyes, Hoot?"

"HOOOT they are a beautiful HOOOOOOT shade of HOOOOOOO...uh oh." Dork rose from his sitting place. His hands were in front of him, hiding the rapidly spreading wet spot his leopard skin loin cloth. He ran into Hooter Hall.

Yokie shook her head and focused her attention once more on the story.

Rehab, on the other hand had always had a thing for Enanny. Even when she was a twitching, foaming, spasming, writing, hissing brain-loving Neanderthal-vampire-zomibe, he thought she was beautiful. He was unsure what the Professor had done to her, but he was grateful to have her back to her old hairy self.

Enanny continued. "By "white sword of vengeance", Randy meant his stinger. He had the poison power of four adult male scorpions combined. He was a powerful warrior and very brave. He raised his tail, took aim, and when Ming was within stinging range he plunged the white-tipped stinger deep into his fleshy ankle. Once Randy delivered his supervenom, it was only a matter of time..."

“Everard,” Aristocrates asked, “were you alive when Michael Jackson was black?”

The professor, startled out of his reverie, simply nodded. When he realized that the poor squirrel needed a little more than that, he added, “Harry was a werepuppy, Elvis was thin and John Lennon tried to imagine himself without money. Ahhhh, the memories.”

Aris shook his rodent head and skittered away.

Ask a stupid question...

Once the squirrel had left, Everard returned to his beakers. Using the Braille method, he scanned the centerfold of the latest issue of Playboy and moaned. They sure don’t make them like that no more.

He grabbed his six-inch beaker and stroked it up and down, warming the glass. Within minutes, it was spewing a thick viscous liquid all over his fingers and thumb. A few more strokes and the genie appeared.

“Yeth, Mathter?” it lithped.

“Bring me a towel,” he said. “No. Wait. Make that five moist towelettes...”

Anita removed the 3-D goggles and turned to goggle at her husband. She shrugged her shoulders and returned to the game. The professor was just about to explain metaphysics to a bronze trapezoid he was growing in a hairy potter’s plant.

But Harry crept up behind her and grabbed her chest, hauling her to her feet. Her goggles fell off and she turned to embrace her husband.

“Ohhh, I love it when we play Mayor and Majorette!”

Meanwhile, BBWolf was playing a game he had created, using some modified versions of several WarCraft games, and StarCraft games, including the newest one "Wings of Liberty". He called it StarWarCraft. In it, people had to gather resources, and fight enemies. There was a varity of races and ways to fight each one with each of the other races.

"You're going to get into trouble with Blizzard," Steve said.

"Well, they won't be able to claim that I stole the idea from them," BBWolf said with a chuckle. "Besides, with the right modifications, I can claim the game as mine leagelly."

"But Blizzard has a team of high-paid lawyers to deal with problems like you," Steve said.

"I don't care," BBWolf said. "I'll go underground with it. I'll join the hacking community. I'll send a copy to Julian Assange. StarWarCraft will be the best game of 2011!"

"Do you ever worry that you are going insane?"

"What's to worry? I live in New Lufchatel. Haven't you been reading what's going on here? Insanity rules."

That reminded Steve that he had another edition of the New Lufchatel Daily News and Lies to publish so he hurried back to his basement where a bank of government surplus computers churned out thousands of random news items. None of them were true, but that was the beauty of his subscribers, they couldn't handle the truth.

In fact that was the motto underneath the paper's title: The New Lufchatel Daily News and Lies, because You Can't Handle the Truth.

[CUT - transition to Grandma Hooters where Enanny is reciting]

After Randy defeated the dreadlocked Mongol chieftain with his Stinger of Doom, Randy rushed into the caves to search for Gutan, his crabby orange love interest. "Gutan! Gutan! Where art thou, Gutan?" he called.

[Actually, Randy used colloquial language, but to make the Legend sound more significant we've juiced up the language a bit.

Who is "we" you ask? Let's just say the staff of the New Lufchatel Daily News and Lies. Yes, we have a hand in legend-making. Also myths. But we prefer legends. Myths are too easily busted.

Like the myth that Toby and Aristocrates are having a secret gay love affair. Busted!

See how easy that was? But The Legend of Toby and Aristocrates... that's carved in stone.

I ramble, I know, because I can hear you cursing my inability to maintain a storyline. Fine! Try it yourself, sucker! Yeah! Not so easy, is it? Unh hunh... unh hunh...]

Ravenwand opened the ddor of the New Lufchatel Daily News and Lies and saw Steve at his computer, wide eyed and staring.

"Steve, you okay?.... Steve?"

She shook his shoulders and his head fell limply to the side. He was drooling... asleep.

"Poor thing," she cooed, and she fluffed up the large red bean bag chair in the corner (the furniture of choice you know) dragged Steve's bulky unconscious frame to it, and covered him with a quilt.

She walked over to the computer and saw something intriguing. There was a pulsing ring of light on the computer screen... Oddly hypnotizing in its glowing spendor. Ravenwand sat down at the console and drifted away.

Meanwhile at Purple Haze's Aperitifs, Purple was busy wiping a glass. He glanced at the Felix clock on the wall. "Damn, Rave should have been here over half an hour ago."

He decided to lock up for a while, since there weren't any customers this time of day anyway, and go look for her. She told him she was going to take Steve some Sierra Mist, since he had "worked so diligently" to maintain what's left of the plotline of this story... And that she'd be back in fifteen minutes.

When Purple opened the door to the NLDNL building, he had to stifle a scream of manly proportions. "Holy Shit..." he whispered.

In Georgette's basement, where she kept her pet rats, REAPER was busy typing away at a computer keyboard. I sincerely hate having to act like an idiot all the time, but my evil plot to overtake New Lufchatel and all the paltry plebs within.... Is finally being realized! he thought.

"Puddin' Pecker?" Georgette called from the top of the basement stairs. The rats had multiplied horribly and she was afraid to enter the lower level.

REAPER rolled his eyes and grimaced. "BE RIGHT UP GEORGE, NOT DONE FEEDING RATS YET!" he growled. "at least she won't come down here, so my secret is safe," he confided to the large brown and white rat that was perched on his shoulder. What Georgette didn't know, is most of the rats had gone, save for a few of REAPER's favorites. He had sold the rats to the RGZ's to get money to build a super computer, which he snuck int to the house piece by piece while his girlfriend was sleeping.

"Tomorrow, Winston, it will be a New Lufchatel indeed." Winston accepted the cheezit from REAPER's rotting fingers.

Georgette turned away from the basement door, closing it behind her. As she turned, she walked right into the hairy arms of Hirsute, the poorest werewolf in New Lufchatel.

“C’mere, baby,” he growled, taking her upstairs to her bedroom. “He could be a while.”

Georgette agreed and let the sexy werewolf lead her up to her soft four-post bed. Once there, they began to finalize their plot to overthrow Harry.

“You look a lot more like our illustrious mayor, Suty,” she cooed. He loved it when she used the diminutive nickname.

“I’ve been growing my beard, it’s true. It’s the only way to cover up the facial scar on my chin. Otherwise, we’re practically twin brothers from different mothers,” Hirsute replied.

PurpleHaze was shaking Ravenwand awake. He dared not look at the computer screen. Even though he wasn’t much on plot development, he knew when the story was about to take a nasty turn for the worst.

Cherie and Chobee and the kids were just settling down for their afternoon nap, when the whole town seemed to shudder.

“Was that an earthquake?” Cherie asked.

"No I think that was the flushing of a few hundred toliets," Chobee said. "That Hooterade just goes right through you."

"And everyone had to go at the same time?"

"No, just a few hundred. There's over a thousand people living here, though I think a Census or something should be taken."

The rumbling shudder woke Steve up. "Whassat?"

"Nasty plot development," PurpleHaze said.

Ravenwand was wide awake now. "Steve! Did you see what was on your computer monitor?"

"Which one? I have a dozen of them. I'm plugged in, connected, online, in the net--"

"Shut up, Steve! Something terrible has happened!"

"Oh my God! What? What?"

"We don't know."

Steve stared at Purp and Rave, knowing that it would be up to him now to put flesh on the bones of disaster. "Uh, let's call BBWolf. He might know."

Steve dialed and held his phone to his ear. "Uh huh... I see... OK... thanks!"

He snapped the phone shut. "He says it was a mass flushing event."

"Whaaaat!?" PurpleHaze sputtered. "That's preposterous!"

"Well, at least it takes us off the hook for thinking up anything."

Ravenwand shook Steve's shoulder. "But, Steve! What can I do with a mass flushing event? That's no way to keep a story moving."

"Alright!" Steve shouted. "Let me think then. I'll come up with something." He paced around the room with his hand on his chin.

"Come up with anything yet?" Ravenwand asked.

"No! Don't rush me. Good plot developments take time to mature."

"But, Steve, it's almost my turn and I've got nothing to work with here!"

So about five days passed, Ravenwand fried her baby blue laptop (with all subsequent chapters stored within) while taking a Jacuzzi bath, and tried to think of a way to further the plotline. PurpleHaze came in and offered her a towel.

“What the hell are you doing here Purp?” she yelled, snatching the offered towel. “You know I like to fry my computer’s motherboard in private!”

“Sorree, thought you’d like to see me.”

“Well, I always like to see you but… Oh Purp!” she began sobbing and ran into his arms. He tried comforting her in the way only a confused man with a sobbing woman in his arms can, then held her at arms length. The towel loosened and threatened to fall off.

“Get yourself dressed, before this story reaches a higher rating, and meet me at the pub. I have something interesting to show you.”

Ravenwand smirked.

“Not that dorkette, see you in about ten?”

“It will take me at least that long to get dressed.”

“Just don’t dry your hair, you’ll be fine.”

Purple walked out the door without a backward glance and left her there, half-dried, fried computer, Jacuzzi bath still running, confused look on her face.

But she did make it to the pub.

“See?” he told her pointing at the glowing ring on the screen. “No, don’t stare at it for too long, that’s how you became entranced.” He clicked away at the keyboard at blinding speed and a new screen popped up. It showed REAPER, with a large rat on his shoulder, grinning and typing.

Ravey cringed. “Goddamn, he’s ugly.”

“You ain’t kidding. Good thing Harry told me to install all these hidden cameras in every new house built.” He laughed. “But Harry hasn’t the brain power to figure out how to access them… I, on the other hand, do.”

“Why do you think REAPER is trying to hypnotize us all?”

“That ain’t the half of it, Raven, watch this.” The camera switched to Georgette’s bedroom where she and Hirsute were having a good old time, plotting and plowing. Raven vomited in a nearby wastebasket. “See, everone is trying to overthrow Harry. Everyone, except us…”

“But what the living Hell does this mean?” she asked, thoroughly confused.

“I’ll tell you what it means…” he began.

“When BBWolf started that video game and it somehow opened a portal to our world, it also affected a large number of the characters in this story,” PurpleHaze explained. Raven moved closer to him to examine the screen better. He inhaled her intoxicating scent and found it difficult to continue his monologue. His fingers on the keyboard hesitated briefly.

“But how ...?” Ravenwand asked. Her right hand strayed to the back of his neck and her fingernails were lightly scratching there.

Purp arched his back and shuddered.

“That feels nice, Rave,” he moaned. Then, as if that triggered an idea in him, his eyes shot open and he said. “That’s IT!” His fingers flew over the keyboard in that way that Raven always envied.

On-screen, camera after camera was called up until he found the one he’d been searching for: the television station. There was a strange greenish glow emanating from behind the satellite dish. He hit a button and the camera zoomed in. But it couldn’t zoom around the dish. All they could see was what looked like vertical bars of green light reaching from the ceiling, presumably to the floor.

“We’ve got to get over there!” Purple groaned. He didn’t want to leave Raven’s soothing fingers, but he realized that the plot might never continue if they didn’t investigate right then. He carefully reduced the camera program and replaced it with a screen-saver of five-legged bunnies scampering in a nuclear holocaust field. It was one of his favorites, ever since the Nuclear Option had all but destroyed Lufchatel.

Within a few centimeters of online screen-page, Ravenwand and Purple were unlocking the doors to the television station. It took them only two more sentences to reach the other side of the satellite dish. It would’ve taken more, but Purp was careful to avoid Raven’s suggestion that they make out on the big recliner chair in the corner.

The greenish vertical bars were actually a makeshift cage of some kind. It looked like something out of the 1950's, when Hollywood had discovered how to film in color and they used it to make some weird science fiction movies, like Forbidden Planet. Behind the glowing green bars stood REAPER, Georgette, Hirsute, and several other characters whose names would take too long to list in this explanation narrative. Suffice it to say, there was a plethora of important people trapped in that cage.

The Dead Rising 2 game had somehow found a way to clone most of the important people of the town of New Lufchatel and was using these clones to try to take over this little town hidden in the deepest valley in Khasachasistan. PurpleHaze hit his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“Now I know why we had what felt like an earthquake...”

Meanwhile, BBWolf took a look at his email, and found himself looking at 20+ lawsuits from Blizard.

"Okay!" he shouted. "Who Told Blizard I Was Ripping Them Off? There must be a rat around here!"

At this, a two-headed rat showed up.

"Hey!" shouted one head. "We resemble that remark!"

"And we resent it," said the second head. "We're calling our lawyer."

"Not if I rip your heads off first!" BBWolf screamed and lunged for the rat.

But there is nothing with quicker reflexes than a two-headed rat. He can see it coming from both ways. The rat vanished leaving behind only a vague impression of himself and a tiny puff of smoke.

"Where did you go?" BBWolf muttered. He heard a scurrying in his laundry room and ran in there. The door slammed shut and the key clicked in the lock from the other side. "Dammit!" he yelled. "Why in hell did I install a lock on the door to the laundry room?" He could hear stereo rat chuckling on the other side of the door.

meanwhile, Purple and Ravenwand stared at the green cage and tried to figure out how to open it.

Where was Steve, you might ask, but then you would have to listen to a long story about what Steve was up to... so don't ask. Suffice to say that he was getting his rocks off. Harry had complained that Steve's rock and mineral collection was junking up the shelves of City Hall, so Steve was getting it off the shelves.

Purple and Ravey stared at the green cage some more. This is always a writer's dream when the major characters are too befuddled to know what to do next. Finally Purp turned to Rave. "Notice how our names get shorter and shorter? Soon we'll be known as P&R."

Ravenwand laughed at PurpleHaze's little joke. Probably a little too much laughter, but the sex was good and she didn't want to ruin it by seeming like a frowny face. "You're so funny!" she giggled.

"Yeah," Purp said, "but good humor is not going to open that cage."

"Why don't we hit it with a stick?"

"Ordinarily I would ridicule that as a primitive idea, but compared to no idea at all it's not too bad. Let's go find a big stick."

"I know where one is," Ravey said, smiling and reaching.

"Later!" Purp said. "First we've got some plot work to do."

Ravenwand shook her head to dispel the giddy girly image that had previously invaded her brain via Steve Rocksoffer. Er… Friction.

“No, seriously, Purp, I know where one is…”

She pointed to a fake light saber that lay on a nearby table.

“See, someone is a huge Star Wars fan!”

“Beam me up, Scotty!” yelled Georgette from the green glowing cage. She was trying to impress the mismatched couple with her geekdom. REAPER looked at her. “I DUMB AS BOX OF ROCKS, BUT EVEN I KNOW BEAM ME UP FROM STAR TREK, NOT STAR WARS!”

“WILL YOU SHUT THE FARK UP?” Rave yelled at him. “It’s bad enough I borrowed you from reality, but now you’re an integral part of the story and you are stuck here, with the rest of us misfits. So GROW SOME BALLS AND DEAL WITH IT!”

REAPER stared down at his crotch, as if testes would soon manifest there. That will keep him occupied a while,” she thought.

Purple grabbed the plastic extendable sword in his hand and flicked it forward. It extended to nearly thirty-six inches, and glowed. “Cool, it’s a red one.” he swished it through the air and it made synthesized light saber sounds. He danced around the room like a JedI knight, imitating Darth Vader.

Raven let him prance for a while then cleared her throat. Purp turned to her.

“Oh… The task at hand, right…” Purp shuddered slightly and approached the cage, light saber extended, determined look on his face. “LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER!” REAPER teased him, temporarily forgetting to stare at his possibly manifesting testicles.

From the half open doorway, Winston T. Ratt was staring at the whole debauchery. She turned and ran away from the door with amazing speed, only to be stopped in her tracks by none other than Aristocrates, who was going to the station to sneak some football. They stared at each other. (insert the theme from Romeo and Juliet)

“Winnie,” she introduced herself, offering a pink, eerily human-like paw.

“Aris,” he offered back, extending his reddish-orange, half-rotted hand to her.

But as PurpleHaze touched the light saber to the green bars, they turned red.

“Oh shit!” cried Ravenwand. “I thought for sure that would do the trick.”

“Stop thinking of doing tricks and help me think!” muttered Purple.

“Mebbe there’s another light saber around here whose color is more aligned with your name,” suggested Rave.

“Well we’d better find something before our names shrink even farther,” Purp kvetched.

“Did you ever see that show McGyver? We need some Silly String^C, a can of Sterno^C, some bailing wire, an elephant’s right tusk - preferably four point five feet in length, a jar of - no, wait - four jars of Vaseline^C, a bottle of Wild Turkey^C, a dead car battery and seventeen assorted jars of pickles,” R adumbrated.

“Wow R, that’s really - ummm - interesting that you should mention pickles,” P marveled. “But we’ll need one more thing. Whoever isn’t inside that cage.”

“Not now!” she barked back. “Stop with the pickle references already!”

“Right,” he purred.

And so, like the greatest scavenger hunt there ever was, the two writers took off, like bats out of Hell, in opposite directions...and hit the walls.

“Okay. Let’s go outside first,” P&R agreed.

Once there, the teamed up with BBWolf and Steve, like they always do in those Scooby-Doo movies. Only this time, they didn’t look for clues. They split up the list and began searching.

When they once again gathered inside the television station, behind the satellite dish, and stood next to the red glowing bars, the four writers had a leash on Rehab. It wasn’t that the Hooter was a dog; oh-no! The leash was the last element they realized they needed to break the horrible spell that had befallen the ordinary (if you could call them that) citizens of New Lufchatel.

“I hope this works,” Steve elucidated. “Mayor Harry was just about to make this town a better place for everyone.”

“And Toby was going to use his Gaydar to repel the evil forces at Blizard,” BBWolf obfuscated.

“These verbs are obnubilating me,” Ravenwand tried to assuage. But she’d lost the meaning of that word.

PurpleHaze shoved the strange device into Rehab’s hands and uttered the incomprehensible incantation, “Antidisestablishmentarianism!”

Several things happened simultaneously. One, the bars disappeared, freeing the good citizens of New Lufchatel. Two, all of the cloned citizens vanished into thick air, their entire beings dispersing into the stratosphere. Three, everyone became extremely thirsty. And it was all because BBWolf had discovered that Rehab had been the missing link.

“That did it. Only... Suddenly I need a drink,” the four writers agreed.

"So, does anyone want to play my game before any other crazy things happen?" BBWolf asked.

"Well, concidering that we've dealt with virtual zombies, clones, and other crazy things," Steve said. "I guess some fun is in order."

"Yeah, I mean what's next?" Purble asked. "A singing and dancing mouse with its own amusrment park?"

"I think we're a little late for that," Ravenwind said as he pointed towards a rodant singing and dancing in an amusement park.

"No, that's a rat," BBWolf said. "And I think I know that two-headed fella."

[...slow pan to the amusement park where CHUB-CHUB the two-headed rat is operating a TILT-A-WHIRL ride...]

CHUB-CHUB: "Step right up! Lose your lunch! Last a minute without vomiting and you get a second ride for free!"

BBWolf frowned. "That's the sonafabitch who locked me in my own laundry room. If you guys hadn't come along when you did, I might have gotten so bored that I washed a load of dirty underwear."

"That was certainly a big basket full of dirty underwear," Ravenwand said.

"It was every pair I own. I'm going commando now."

"Eww," Steve said, and gave BBWolf plenty of room.

PurpleHaze rubbed his hands together briskly and prepared to pontificate.

"You're not going to pontificate, are you?" Ravenwand asked.

"No! Don't read things into my actions. Wait for the action to happen. Then read about it."

"Uh... right," Ravey said.

Purp raised his hand for silence. "Listen up, people. As you all know, we easily solved the previous plot problem and saved New Lufchatel from whatever doom was facing it--"

"It was cloning and virtual zombification," Rave interrupted.

"Yes, that was the doom." Purp glared at Rave (but she could see the twinkle in his eyes that said I'm only pretending to be angry with you so you will let me spank you later) and continued: "But the point is, at least for a while there we had a reason for existing, a goal in life so to speak. But what do we have now? We are cast adrift on a sea of prose, admittedly well-crafted, often witty prose, but nevertheless, mere prose, a literary shadow of that rich and vibrant thing we call Reality!"

Ravenwand tugged his sleeve. "I think you might be pontificating."

But Steve had tears in his eyes. "Let him speak! I know beauty and elegance when it appears before me."

PurpleHaze bowed deeply from the waist. "You, sir, are a gentleman." In a whispered aside to Rave: "Your butt will be red tonight."

BBWolf hadn't heard a word. He was still staring at Chub-Chub and the Tilt-A-Whirl ride with eyes full of hate and a breath that smelled like revenge.