I'm sorry.
At The End There is a Motorcycle – Part 2
It was dark, and cold. That was one thing Daniel Danciu was sure of. He was not sure of much else. 'Hello?' he said. There was no answer.
He got to his feet, and shoved the teleporter in his pocket. The whole room was pitch black, but he stumbled across it in any case. There had to be a door somewhere. The floor underneath was gritty, almost but not quite like dirt.
Perhaps he should have had more foresight.
He bumped against a wall, which felt almost but not quite like slime. Fantastic. He pulled out his special knife which he kept in case he ever needed to fight an angry bear, and stabbed at the air vaguely.
Then, he heard it. 'OP is fail bitch post tits.' He froze in panic. Surely not. Of all the places on the Internet . . .
'fuck you butthurt fag'
No, no, no. This couldn't be happening. But it had to be. No capitals, no full stop, a complete disregard for the English language . . .
'gaiafag fgt bitch' he heard from somewhere in front of him. Danciu groaned. Only one word in that sentence had made any kind of sense. Suddenly, he knew, with a dreadful kind of certainty. He was here. It was too late. The lights switched on, and the sudden illumination blinded him for a moment. His vision was a blurry mass of light. He closed his eyes, and breathed slowly.
Daniel Danciu opened his eyes.
He was surrounded by six-foot-tall Guy Fawkes masks. Anonymous. It was all around him.
I am become Death. Destroyer of worlds . . .
He sunk to his knees. 'No,' he cried. 'No, no. It can't be.'
'Newfag,' said the tallest of Anonymous, and violently slapped him. 'Jew newfag is new.'
* * *
'Because I am a silly racial stereotype,' said Exobyte, scrounging around in the back of the sled, 'I have these.' He held up four hockey-sticks, and chucked one each to Howie, ClouD and Delphinus. Delphinus and Howie caught them, but ClouD just stared absently at the box in his hands.
'Daniel,' he whispered. 'I am totally not gay, because labels are not cool, but if there was anyone I could go gay for . . .' He trailed off. Exobyte pushed the hockey stick into ClouD's hands. 'We need these to fight off the vampires.'
'But they're vampires,' pointed out Delphinus. 'Don't they only die from stakes through the heart and radishes and moody men in black coats?'
'Well, no. Not for these vampires. They're artistic vampires, remember. They feed off ideas. The only way to kill an artistic vampire is come up with an idea so retarded, it actually physically causes the vampires heart to reverse itself. But hockey sticks are powerful. They can stun a vampire. Not kill it, but stun it for the time needed to come up with an idea about, I dunno, shark robot fighting monkeys.'
'Finally,' said ClouD. 'Finally.'
'Sorry?'
'Finally, a use for me. I can come up with a bunch of retarded story ideas. Just give me a notebook.' He spoke calmly, flatly, like a dead man. Exobyte handed him a notebook and a pen. ClouD got to writing.
'Now,' said Exobyte, 'it's only a few minutes away from the mill. Get writing, ClouD. Everyone prepare their hockey sticks. Get ready. If there's any luck, the catgirls won't have got there yet.'
The sled sped across the plains, towards the Old Mill in the distance. The dogs kicked up a great cloud of dust, which twisted their path out behind them. Howie could see the Old Mill approaching fast. It was quickly becoming clear why it was called the Old Mill. It was old, and it was a mill.
'Can these things shoot?' asked Howie. 'It's just that shooting would be nice, thank you.'
'No,' said Exobyte. 'These are hockey-sticks. That's a wacky idea. This is not the kind of place for wacky ideas.'
'Fine, fine,' said Howie haughtily. 'I will make do with hitting.' He brandished the hockey stick; Delphinus did the same. ClouD slipped Daniel's box into his pocket and brandished his less enthusiastically. He looked like a sad little duck.
'Cheer up,' said Delphinus. 'I'm sure he's in a nice place. A nice place with a bunch of virgins and alcohol and horse-queens. I'm sure he's having a great time.'
'Yes,' said ClouD coldly. 'I'm sure.'
'We're here!' screamed Exobyte. 'The huskies reared, their hoofs flying about enthusiastically, like a small child jumping on the face of a kitten. The sled slid to a halt. Exobyte jumped off, and Delphinus, Howie and ClouD followed.
'Okay,' said Exobyte. 'It's four former members of an Internet forum against one of the greatest presidents of the United States, who is also a vampire. Let's get rolling.' Exobyte led his way across the field of corn that surrounded the barn, and knocked on the door.
'Um, hallo,' he said. 'We're here to sell you doorknobs. Doorknobs for your barn.' He turned around and winked at Howie.
'We're a bit busy,' called a voice from inside. 'Got a bit of a thing going on.'
'I assure you, sir, they are very good doorknobs.'
'We've already got doorknobs!'
'These are better doorknobs. They have coathangers. And puppies.'
There was a sigh from inside. 'I've never been one to pass up a good coathangered puppy.' Hannibal Hamlin opened the door.
Exobyte swung his hockey stick at Hannibal's fat, fat face. He fell to the ground, holding his streaming nose.
Hannibal Hamlin said, like a man revealing a great secret, 'Dammit, dammit, dammit! You aren't selling doorknobs at all, are you?'
Howie rushed in, and kneed Hamlin in the face. Then he spied the scene inside. There were hundreds of vampires ranged around the barn. Some of them had nice coats on, and were reading books. Some others were simply staring at the Canadians tied up in the middle of the floor, who had a notebook each in front of them, and a pen. They looked weak, and the pens wobbled in their hands, like the control of the world wobbled between the Russians and the USA, before Russia went all pussy. And Abraham Lincoln stood in the middle of it all, overseeing the whole thing. He smiled, and pulled at his beard. And turned to the arrivals.
'So nice to see you,' he said pleasantly. 'You are three minutes late. Do try to keep a better schedule. He gestured to the Canadians in the middle of the floor. 'It's all going rather well, don't you think? And you come here to ruin it for us all. Tut-tut-tut. Take them, minions.'
The vampires leapt, and took the four Dreamviewers with grips of iron. Abraham Lincoln laughed pleasantly. 'You didn't think you'd get us, would you? With hockey sticks? What do you think we are? Fools? I can only assume you do.'
Lincoln leaned back suddenly, and wings unfolded from his back. He flew over to the Dreamviewers. 'Think of some ideas,' he hissed. 'We can always do with more. Yum-yum-yum.' First, he turned to Howie. 'Go,' he said curtly.
'Umm,' said Howie, unable to resist Lincoln's gray stare. 'A punventure of some kind. Like, like, like, there's this bit where this guy beats up another guy in a University and he's all like, “You got schooled” and it would be super cool and maybe some robots too-'
Lincoln burst out laughing. 'Beautiful! Positively beautiful. I could feed off that for weeks. You, Dolphin boy, next.'
Delphinus panicked. 'Uhh,' he said. 'What about there is a dog. Yes, there is a dog. And the dog wants to get a puppy, but mother dog won't let him, and then there is a unicorn, that would be nice, and maybe some happy things happen. Also there should be a racecar.' He stopped, and nodded. 'And that's my story.'
Abraham Lincoln nodded slowly. 'Borderline retarded. That was dangerous. Remind me never to talk to you again.' He turned to Exobyte.
'FUCKIN' RABBITS,' burst out Exobyte, before Lincoln could say anything. 'Just fuckin' rabbits attacking each other and having wars and shit. There can be this scene where this one rabbit, he's like, “Fuck you,” and he attacks this other rabbit and bites his eye out. And he'll be like “AHHHH” because his fucking eye is gone, and he'll be running around in a circle, and then BAM. This boot comes down. Crushes them all. That's the twist. There were giants all along.'
Abraham Lincoln doubled over coughing. 'Very good,' he croaked. 'I think you just gave me indigestion. Christ, that was bad. But nourishing. Nearly an overdose there.'
Finally, he turned to ClouD, and smiled. 'Why, you seem like a nice fellow,' he said, patting ClouD on the back.
'I've got a whole story,' said ClouD innocently. 'Would you like to hear my story, sir?' Abraham Lincoln laughed, and nodded. ClouD smiled again, and opened his notebook.
'The Cat Who Was a Bear, by one esteemed backflipper, ClouD.' He cleared his throat. 'Once, there was a cat. He had spots and claws and he meowed like a cat, too. But he had a terrible secret. He was a drug-lord. Also, he was a bear too.'
Abraham Lincoln choked. ClouD carried on.
'One day, while in a walk in the Ghettos, the cat spied a robber. He promptly set about bathing him in acid, and sold the remains to a young Cuban man for a chicken. He used the chicken to make dinner for a homeless man and also he became a dentist. The homeless man, not the cat. Or maybe both. Anyway, the point was, he really hated Communism. He hated that shit. So one day the cat who was a bear and a dentist set about considering an efficient way of governing a country. He found an oil-rig somewhere, and kidnapped a young Japanese couple. Then he formed FuckCommunism, which officially became a country just tomorrow. Anyway, he decided to try communism anyway, just to see how it worked. But soon, for some reason he was a pig too, and the Japanese couple was a horse who was an allegory for something or other, and anyway, he bought a boat in case he needed to fish for sharks. So he fished all day and all night, and finally he caught that shark, which probably represented something or other which I can't remember now, but I'm sure it was meaningful. But this Communism thing wasn't going too well. He was breaking rules all over the place and some guy who was a well or something had made a book criticising him but in a sneaky way.'
Artistic vampires all around were falling to the ground, coughing blood. Hannibal Hamlin had already fell to the ground, and was screaming, screaming, screaming. Abraham Lincoln simply stood in the middle of it all, eyes glazed over, staring into somewhere entirely different.
ClouD raised his voice over the commotion. 'So, the cat who was a bear who was a dentist who was a communist went out to bomb Russia. Bomb all of it. He constructed a bomb, and strapped it to a donkey. But the donkey could not detonate it himself, because he was a donkey. The donkey ran away, with nothing but a napsack full of nourishing cheese. For his whole life, he laboured with the bomb strapped to him, laboured, laboured, laboured. His love-making was interrupted by the bomb, and he could never have children.'
Hannibal Hamlin's eyes exploded, spraying blood across the barn. His body crumpled, and fell. The other artistic vampires were doubled over, spewing blood. Abraham Lincoln had sunk to his knees, closed his eyes, and was crying silent tears. Some of the blood on to ClouD, but he remained silent, and steely; he read on.
'And on his deathbed, the donkey turned to his wife, and hugged her, and cried a single tear. Unknowingly, though, that set off the bomb, and killed all of Russia. And the catbeardentistcommunist celebrated, but they were out of champagne. But that didn't even matter, because they had an oven, and cooking materials. And they all had muffins.'
Abraham Lincoln screamed, raised his head to the sky, and screamed and screamed, as if he was screaming tempest to the Gods themselves. His coat whirled off, his undershirt, and there was his chest, opening. His heart revealed itself, beating, pulsating in anger. And there it was, flowing backwards. It swelled and swelled, and his other organs shrinked and squeezed away from the expanding beast. It shook once, twice, three times.
Abraham Lincoln's heart exploded. Blood and flesh exploded from his chest, and as he fell, as did the other vampires, falling to the ground, clutching at their heads. Everyone was screaming, and Exobyte, Delphinus and Howie ran, ran, ran out of the doorway. ClouD remained there, his expression steel, staring silently at the dying vampires. He waited for every last one to die, and then he stood back.
'Good,' he said, and departed, his footprints burning a macabre trail across the blood spattered floor, like the path of a god.
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