About Us
----
Issue #6, March 2005:
Death's Folly,
by K.B. Liomas
----
A Bite of the Apple,
by Larry Centor
----
Bubblegum Girl,
by James Monticone
----
Witch Kingdom,
by Vera Searles
----
Herman,
by Brian C.Petroziello
----
The Kid Catcher,
by David Choate
----
Bubblegum Girl
by James Monticone
The Wrigley mansion had become heavily fortified (with 9 essential vitamins and minerals) ever
since thugs hired by the evil Bubba Vicious broke in, intent on taking Wrigley himself, the
illustrious Bubble Boy, hostage. There was only one problem: The owner of the largest bubble
gum franchise in Trident district was, indeed, a bubble boy. If he were to be removed from his
protective bubblewrap-covered room, he would die. Thus the thugs did the only thing they could
—they took the whole damn mansion hostage. Wrigley’s right-hand men, his mascots, the
infamous Bubblegum Rappers, escaped through the secret exit and did the only thing they could.
They placed a call to one Bubbles Blowhard, renowned underworld war hero and femme fatale extraordinaire.
“Maaan, sheeeeit! You gots ta help us! Dey took da man hostage, yo! Dis is sugaless, yo!”
“I’ll be right there,” she stated with grim determination, and went to brush her teeth.
Now Bubbles stood gazing at the huge pink mansion with bubble-shaped windows, also tinted pink,
and checked her rifle quickly before taking her first tentative strides toward the large oak in the center
of the spacious front lawn. She made sure to have a fresh stick of gum in her mouth before proceeding,
as was her custom. Her lithe and slightly glowing blue form was primed for battle, and this was going to
be quite the bloodbath indeed.
There was a lone gunman on the grassy knoll just to the side of the gigantic double doors, but he wouldn’t
take her by surprise. She could just see the tips of his somewhat unkempt hairs above the bush he
hid behind, aimed a few inches lower, and fired. He dropped immediately. She then made her way to the door,
moving in a semi-crouch and casting furtive glances all around. When she reached the landing, she shot the
lock and proceded to kick the doors in, not bothering with pleasantries. At once, something like thirty men
with heavy artillery crawled, jumped, and in some cases fell from the balcony, behind statues, and behind
each other. She shot five or six where they lay, then ducked inside behind the door, now pulled open in front
of her. Knocking out the doorknob, she was able to take out a few more with the pistol from the holster on
her thigh. When she pulled out to peer around the doorframe, someone replaced her pistol with his own, but
before he could fire, she slammed the door soundly into his face. Next she punched out another man as he
attempted to round the corner, peered out and popped a few more, and finally strafed along the wall and took
out the rest of the attackers.
“No wonder that was so easy,” she observed. “They’re all just a bunch of Extras!”
She made sure to stay behind cover as she moved across the room, stopping along the right wall beside the liquor
cabinet when she heard footsteps approaching from beyond the far wall.
Hmm, bubbly, she noted absently, then pulled herself back to the matter at hand.
The footsteps stopped when a familiar orange puffball entered the room. It was the burly Scottish mobster known
only by the nickname Big Red, along with a couple of scantily clad, admiring, and bubbleheaded women.
“Ah knoo you’l in heel!” He called out. “Coom oot an’ meebe ah’ll speel ya!”
“Oh, Big Red,” said the buxom blonde on his left, “You’re so fresh!”
“Aye,” he winked. “Big Red freshness lasts all naight loong!”
“Hey, Big Red,” Bubbles said suddenly, with more than just a tone of menace, “chew on this.”
And with that, she leapt from her hiding place, pistol blazing, popping the breasts of both ditzes. Big Red
however, despite his claim to the contrary, was faster than he appeared, now hidden behind the arch
sectioning off the hallway he’d come down.
Bubbles sighed and pulled a grenade off her belt, effortlessly rolling it down the hallway while counting down
in her head. Her timing was perfect, but Big Red kicked it away; he still suffered a few shrapnel wounds, she
was quite certain, judging by the way he screamed “Aagh! Bloody shrapnel!” But he was still apparently fit
for combat, as the next words out of his mouth were “I’m goin’ ta clush you like a wolum!”
He came out firing, two pistols in his hands, sending bits of stone flying off some statues and putting holes in
some of the books on the bookcase as he advanced into the room. Thankfully he did not see where she’d
chosen to hide until it was too late.
“Coom oot, poppet,” he cooed, slinking around warily.
She was on top of the bookcase, and while he was looking around and attempting to scratch his head
through his thick red locks, she knocked the ladder over.
Now, with his head caught between two of the rungs and the weight of the ladder pulling him backward
and threatening to break his neck, he mumbled some oath about haggis and accidentally shot his own foot.
In the commotion a few birds were scared out of his hair, and they fled the room without looking back.
Bubbles selected a book at random, aptly titled “Zen and the Art of Beaning People Between the Eyes
with the Spine of this Book”, and beaned Big Red between the eyes with the spine of said book.
Climbing down the shelves carefully, she stepped over the ladder and departed down the hallway, angrier
than ever. There was a back staircase, and she raised one leg to ascend, then stopped abruptly to pull gum
off the bottom of her boot. As she did this she gasped in shock, noticing that had she put her foot down,
she would have stepped on a mine.
They mined the stairs? She thought in disbelief. This writer sucks!
“Hey, shut the fuck up!” boomed the voice of her creator. “Badmouth me again and I’ll
kill you off!”
God, what a do—dapper young man! She amended abruptly. Now, how to climb these
stairs…
As she studied them in detail, she noticed that all the stairs contained at least two mines apiece…then, as her
vision adjusted to the absolute and total darkness which the writer edited in out of spite, she noted the axes
swinging back and forth like pendulums, the poison-tipped spikes jutting from the walls, and the bucket on
top of the door at the end.
Okay, sheesh, I get the point! What the Hell am I supposed to do?
Absently, she produced a package of Mentos™ from her pocket, popping the peppermint confection into
her mouth. Suddenly it came to her! She jumped onto the bannister and walked up it, able to reach the
mechanisms that operated the axes and gum up the works as she passed. She ducked and jumped and
weaved to avoid laser beams, flying metal disks, and sudden gouts of flame. After all of this, she made a
flying leap for the open door—
--and knocked it open, the water-filled bucket landing squarely on her head.
Well, things can’t always be perfect, she thought as she smiled a false smile and brandished the
Mentos™ package at the camera. Then she heard assorted Snickers™ and Chuckles™ from down the hall
and prepared to eliminate them. It turned out to be none other than the Doublemint Twins, Winter and Pepper.
As they approached, trying to look intimidating, their moves were obviously choreographed. They snapped their
fingers, apparently not yet over their bit roles in West Side Bubble. She sighed and shook her head, ready to blow
them away. They flattened themselves against opposite walls to dodge her fire, and started to sing while they drew
their weapons.
“I blow bubbles, oh those bubbles…oh won’t Bubbles, won’t Bubbles blow meeee…”
“Hey,” one of them observed, “while we’re at it, maybe we can get her to blow pops!”
“Why don’t you two quit flappin’ your gums,” Bubbles raged, firing off shot after shot after shot and putting holes in
the walls as the twins maneuvered closer and closer.
Hmm…she was getting an idea even through her worry. They drew their knives faster than she could process,
their blinding speed still blinding her with the sheer speed of its blinding expediency. But their one fatal error as they
weaved this hypnotic dance of death was that she wasn’t going to be fooled.
They made their move.
So did she.
Flattening herself on the floor, she was completely safe as they barreled past her, becoming blown up, sliced, diced,
pureed, and served up in a dog bowl at the bottom of the stairs. And, just their luck, Fido had diarrhea that day.
Well, I should be almost there. Bubbles was faced with a plush, carpeted corridor with portraits of the
Bubble Boy as seen through his protective bubblewrap. At the end of the corridor stood a pink door with a brass
plate on it which read:
Bubble Boy
CEO and Big Bubble
With a deep preparatory breath, she stood to the side as she reached across the door for the handle. When it
opened, a rocket went hurtling down the hallway and took out half the ceiling above the stairs.
“Who’s out there?” called Bubba Vicious, his redneck accent thick and dripping with inbreeding. Bubbles refused
to answer, eliciting the response, “You ain’t gon’ stop me! Ah dun rigged up this here room with all kinds’a fancy
whatchamacallits n’ caramellos n’ traps n’ thangs! You ain’t touchin’ a hair on mah purty little palms!”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, Bubba,” burst Bubbles, “but buddy, you’re about to get your butt beat.”
Her finely executed roll took her to the left, safely into the doorway and beneath the shots Bubba Vicious began
to fire. He would adjust his aim, she knew, so she continued to roll, rolling forward into the room and then left
again, because let’s face it, she was on a roll. This brought her to a position no longer blocked by a bear trap,
and she bore down on Bubba, who had swapped his rocket launcher for a shotgun.
His visage was as ugly as ugly could be. He wore a wife-beater over his hairy, potbellied torso, and he was
missing all but his two front buckteeth. His hair was thinning and his pants weren’t pulled up far enough.
As Bubbles charged he smiled a snagglegummed grin and fired at her feet. Bubbles jumped, then, higher than
he thought possible, and kicked his jaw with a hard, booted foot. An ocean spray of blood escaped his mouth,
but he wasn’t out for the count by a long shot. He snagged Bubbles’ foot with more strength than she expected,
and flung her into the Bubble Boy’s bubblewrap.
Now she caught her first glimpse of the Bubble Boy as he shrieked and scurried to the other side of his bubble,
nearly toppling his computer in the process. He was a wiry little guy with Coke-bottle glasses and the palest
complexion she’d ever seen.
Tearing herself away from him she realized she’d become rolled up in his bubblewrap wall. It was an ordeal
attempting to extricate herself as she rolled back and forth on the floor, and quite noisy to boot.
POPOPOPOPOPOP!!!
She fired a few random shots to keep Vicious at bay, most of them narrowly missing the Bubble Boy as they
punched his outline in the wall behind him.
Upon getting up, she noticed Vicious standing completely still, an expression of smug victory on his vile and
vindictive visage. He snapped his fingers. At once, an army of runts, nerds, and gobstoppers emerged from
various hiding places inside the room, including under carpets and between cushions.
Facing overwhelming odds, with very little ammo left and nothing but her admirable strength and courage to
protect her, she mumbled “Fuck this,” and ran like Hell.
The chase led down the main corridor to the stairs, which Bubbles was lucky to descend without hurting
herself. Some of her pursuers, however, were not so lucky, finding themselves chopped to kibbles n’
bits at the bottom. The rest pursued her further, into the main room on the first floor, with the ladder and
Big Red still down where she’d left them. Gunshots whizzed over and past her as she entered the room
and dove immediately left. Big Red heard the shots and started to panic as the assorted fruits came
charging into the room, and he wrestled to pull himself free, kicking frantically in the process. Bubbles
determined that this would be a good time to depart, locking the door and listening for breaking bones
as Big Red ran in circles on the floor, spinning the ladder with him and shattering many legs.
With that out of the way, Bubbles found herself face-to-face with Vicious again, right there in the hallway.
“Ah hope you didn’t dun did whut ah thank you jus’ dun did,” he stated solemnly.
Bubbles scratched her head.
“Ah said you’re dead, ya stankin’ varmint!”
“Seems to me that I’m alive and poppin’,” she snapped as she crackled off a few shots from her rifle.
“Whar d’you keep all them fancy weapons, anyway?” Vicious asked, sidestepping. Then he realized
he’d been shot right through his gruesome black heart. He placed two fingers on the wound and
stared at the blood.
“Well ain’t that a bit o’ anticlimax?” he mumbled, hitting the floor with a thud.
Bubbles didn’t move. She watched him and waited. And waited. Finally, reluctantly, she approached
the body, resisting the urge to cry out in victory. It can’t be over, she thought, poking his body gently
with her rifle. When that elicited no response, she stepped over him, stood with her back turned, and
waited. Then she turned around and kicked him, and when that did nothing she jumped up on his back
and stomped with all her might.
Um…okay…I mean, I know that if this story is supposed to have any entertainment value
whatsoever then he’ll get back up eventually. That was just too easy!
She returned to the Bubble Boy’s room to find him lying face-down on the floor. How’s that for
entertainment?
She put her hands on her hips. “Fine, I take it back.”
I don’t believe you.
“Well you’re an unreliable narrator,” she clucked upon turning into a chicken.
“I’m sorry! I really am!! It’s your story, you can do what you want!” She insisted in chicken. So
I figured, what the Hell, and she became a person again and Bubble Boy started breathing, and they
all lived happily ever after except for all the people who died and Fido who eventually burned away
his rectum, and of course eventually Bubbles grew old and got cancer and died too. Then no one
was left to bitch about my writing or this atrocious rushed ending.
The End
Published by Fools Motley Magazine, 2005. All rights are property
of the author.
Copying and distribution of this work is prohibited. Webpage designed by Fools
Motley Magazine based
on templates from www.angelfire.com .
Image
provided by Grsites .