The Happy Snerd Chap. 3 (Patreon)

No need to creep- those bug things were huge and dangerous, but they were deaf and blind. Given the way they poked their tubelike maw around, he wondered if it also worked as a nose. Maybe that was why it was so slow to find him- he didn’t smell like food. And it took time for smells to carry, of course. 

Mortimer made a beeline for the bug. The critter was shifting right along, its eight legs moving with liquid grace over the rubble. Like tank treads. Just rises up over rubble and keeps going. It looked like it was on the trail of something. Tracing something through the empty concrete. 

The tunnel was narrowing here. He wondered why, until he passed a gap in the wall and saw that the tunnel was actually a corridor crossing a void the size of some of the small towns he drove through to get here. He froze, looking out over the emptiness. 

Mortimer could see structures criss-crossing through the empty space. More corridors. Office towers and melted cathedrals or some eastern temples to gods he couldn’t describe, let alone name. Staircases built without relation to, or regard for, the human scale. All built over, around and through this vast well of nothing. 

Why… No. He couldn’t wonder about the whys or how's for now. He had been abducted by aliens and shoved into this damned alien place and the only thing he knew that made him feel good was that green jelly ball. Come to think of it, it was the only thing in a very long time that made him really feel anything other than anger or frustration or depression. Or numb. 

All the positive self talk was aspirin to manage the cancer of despair. And somehow, something in this inhuman, oppressive place, made him feel alive. Made him feel okay with himself and the world. Just a little bit, but it did.

He looked back over at the bug. It had snuffled on a bit further, but he could catch up easily enough.

I never minded killing bugs. Just not that kind of squeamish. Even the really big ones that crunch when you whack them. He smiled a happy, almost innocent smile. He sped up to a jog. 

He wasn’t really prepared for a fight. His fake-leather loafers weren’t the right shoes for this. He wasn’t even wearing cargo pants, let alone anything tactical. His shirt was as thin as his wallet. Mortimer couldn’t have cared less. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, Mortimer was having fun.

This bug seemed a little sharper than the first- it turned towards him as he approached, rising up, spreading its claws wide. 

“Is this really all you have? Too weak!” He giggled, trying to remember the tough talk from the days of Xbox Live. He whipped out with his iron hook, feeling it smack harmlessly into the flabby folds of flesh coating the bug. 

He wanted to keep up the trash talk, but that clawed hand came crashing down fast. Mortimer scampered left, keeping the hook in place. It snagged a little, but wound up sliding off the leathery skin.

Not that easy, huh? It’s also not glowing as brightly as the first one. Maybe I need to beat it up a bit first, before I can do the ripping trick?

He whipped the iron bar around, this time leading with the blunt corner. The beast wasn’t slow. It quickly shifted around, trying to keep its tormentor in front of it. It was, Mortimer thought, the best sort of enemy. It could only make frontal attacks, and even then it only had a few ways of attacking. He just had to keep circling, and keep whacking at it. 

The only suspense came when he lost track of where he was, and ‘circled’ himself into a wall. It was a bit dangerous to suddenly reverse direction and run the other way, but only a bit. This bug seemed more alert than the other, but it was still slow to track his movements. The iron rod whipped it again and again, drawing out the green light. Once it seemed bright enough, Mortimer reversed the rod and went back to hooking attacks. 

The hook kept skittering off the flabby skin. There just wasn’t an easy way to get a grip on it. He kept aiming for the folds in the flesh, the places where those stuffed cushions of bile met, but the hook just wasn’t getting a purchase on it. 

Did I just get lucky last time?

He took a few more hacks at its side. The creature wasn’t getting any faster or smarter, but Mortimer was slowing down. That burst of energy from eating the orb from before was starting to wear out. Whacking it more was having limited results. He wasn’t sure it was getting any greener, for one thing, and beating it wasn’t breaking any bones. 

Mortimer shifted his grip a little, widening his hands on the bar. He took careful aim, and slammed the hook into the underside of an arm joint when the bug raised up again for its slam attack. Keeping out of the way of the falling feet, he braced himself carefully and leaned against the falling weight. 

It almost ripped the rebar out of his hands. Instead, it ripped the flesh open. A jet of green bile came shooting out like a fountain of acid. Rather than retreat from the bug, this time Mortimer chose to leave the hook in place. He ran towards the back of the bug, trying to keep ahead of its turn and widening the hole as much as he could.

After all, if I can eat it, then it won’t hurt if it gets on my skin. Maybe it smells bad before it clumps, but so what? And if that’s the case, then I would be crazy not to rip this thing open like a boiled crab. 

His hook tore a foot long hole. It was more than long enough. He scooted back and waited for the inevitable, feeling a little smug about having dodged the spray even after deciding to fight up close. He didn’t notice the bile trickling down the rebar hook until a drop of it landed on the webbing between the thumb and index finger of his left hand.

Mortimer knew exactly where the drop landed. That’s where the pain was.

The droplet struck like lightning in winter and set fire to the nerves in his hand. His hand seized on the rebar, then spasmed, convulsively throwing the iron towards the thrashing, dying insect. Mortimer stumbled backwards, his right hand wrapping his left wrist in a death grip, as though he could choke off the pain racing up his nerves. It didn’t work.

The green droplet melted through his flesh, leaving a worm hole behind it. Like a forge-hot iron ball dropped on butter or on a child’s softest blanket. It hurt. It hurt beyond words. He couldn’t help falling to his knees even though he knew the bug wasn’t dead yet. Couldn’t stop the pain from making him white-out, weakly retching, trying to piss, his body doing everything it could to empty him out. To help him run away from the pain paralyzing him. 

He briefly came to when the acid started crawling up out of him. It seemed that a change in pain was enough to snap him out of his protective mind break. That was because the little ball of acid was now crawling through the meat and tendons of his left hand. Something that his body understandably desperately wished his mind could stop. Tendons snapped like piano wires, playing a final screaming note to record their death. Then he was lost again, pain driving all thought from his mind. 

He woke up just in time to see the last of the acidic bile pull together and form the glowing green orb. He instinctively jerked back from it. His desire was colored with fear, now. His left hand was a mangled, ruined mockery. Mortimer felt his fingers flop weakly and worthlessly at his side. Each shift in movement, each brush of air, was a new stab of pain. He was crippled. Was this kind of damage reparable? Or would his hand need amputation? A bolt on prosthetic- a puppet hand.

He dry heaved. Shuddering. Feeling tears trickling down his cheeks. The old horror came back, more real now as he stared down at the ruined hand. He was too worn out and broken down to stand. The little spark in him had guttered and gone out. 

More than anything Mortimer had ever wanted before, he wanted to eat the glowing green orb. He had to eat it. He didn’t want to live without his little spark of warmth anymore. Living like that hurt worse than the hole in his hand. 

Crawling one agonizing inch at a time, he made his way to the ruined husk of the bug. His good right hand shook but still reached out and grabbed the glowing green jelly. In one convulsive bite, he ate it.

The rush hit him like no drug ever had or ever could. The energy poured in and filled the cracks in him. Plugged holes he didn’t know existed. He thought the first orb tasted like love and acceptance, but this was true peace. True confidence in the path your life has taken, and excitement about the roads to come. All too soon, the feeling left him. He shuddered with the passing ecstasy. He didn’t feel quite so full this time, but the growing hunger had left, leaving a trace of warmth behind. Smaller, now, but still there

Unlike the pain in his left hand. He looked down in wonder. The hand looked normal. No holes burned through it. He flexed his fingers. No trouble. He squeezed his fist. It was as strong as ever. Which wasn’t all that strong, but it was infinitely better than the ruined horror of a moment before. 

The orb healed him. He didn’t know how much it could heal, but it definitely healed him. He didn’t feel like his hand was stronger than before, but it certainly wasn’t weaker. Actually… he hopped up and down a little bit, then a bit higher. Then shook his head. No, he hadn’t gotten stronger. He just felt completely refreshed. Felt better than he had since he was a kid. Felt truly alive. But he wasn’t any stronger. 

He wanted to laugh, but the memory of the pain was too fresh. It was the whiplash, the back and forth between the purest agony and the most supreme ecstasy. Back and forth, back and forth. 

He couldn’t wait to kill another bug. Only this time, he would be a little more careful about it. He more or less understood the pattern now. You had to beat them till they were glowing nicely, then aim for a spot where you could really take advantage of leverage and the bug’s own mass to rip the skin open. After that, all you had to do was mind the spray, and wait for your tasty reward. 

There was only a trace of warmth now. He had to make it grow.

He slung his hook over his shoulder, and listened for the metallic clank. To the right. He turned and started walking towards it, whistling merrily as he went. 

Mortimer knew the tune he was whistling was the “whistle song” from Kill Bill. The one Darryl Hanna bends her lips to as she prepares to murder the comatose Bride. It felt like the anthem of a cold blooded killer, of to do some nasty business.

Mortimer didn’t know the song was called Twisted Nerve, or where Tarentino lifted it from. He didn’t know that Kill Bill was Tarantino’s successful attempt to string together every single shot and scene he ever loved in a schlocky Shaw Brothers piece or Japanese gangster movie. 

It never occurred to Mortimer to marvel at the way culture and technology washed around the Pacific rim, producing things utterly unique to their place and time of origin that were also an integration of alien influences. It had never, and likely would never, occur to Mortimer the connection between Mickey Mouse and Big Hero 6 wasn’t a straight line, but a circle.

Mortimer was better-than-average educated, but he always thought the humanities were for losers who enjoyed being broke. Which he still believed, despite his own negative net worth. For now, he was still on the “Murdering bugs equals happy, maybe clanky noise is way out,” mindset. He had barely started the third round of whistling when he found his next prey.

He exited the corridor into an open plaza a hundred yards or more long. There was a skyscraper covered in pyramidal extrusions, a rock candy monument to a dead era. It  stretched across the plaza barely twenty feet above his head, but he tried very hard not to worry about that. The important thing was that there was a bug right in front of him. And, blessings on blessings, he could just about spot another at the far end of the plaza. 

“Olly, olly, oxen free, won’t you come and play with me?” He hollered, charging in. If the ugly things were deaf, he might as well use the chance to say all the cringey things he imagined yelling at people in the past. 

His “The bugs are deaf and blind” theory hit an upsetting snag when the bug spun to face him considerably faster than either of the previous two managed. It was the same attack pattern- clawing straight up and down with its front claws, jabbing out with the circular eating tube, or rising up on its hind legs for a big four-paws slam. What was different was this critter’s aim was a lot better.

Mortimer had always relied on flanking the bugs and whacking them while they struggled to line up on him. Doesn’t matter how strong the slam attacks are if they are always aiming at where you were two seconds ago. But those chubby legs were coordinated very well. The front pair could move left while the back two moved to the right, spinning it in place. 

Claws twice the size of his face lashed out, sometimes going for his gut, sometimes for his head or chest. Mortimer felt his feet slipping around inside his loafers, his ankles starting to roll as he tried to dodge and juke around the heavy strikes. 

The good news was that he could turn every attack by the beast into a counter. Whipping the paws still counted. It seemed that it brought out the green glow every bit as much as shots to the head. It’s just that each blow was now delivered at a higher risk to his own life. Still. He was hungry. He was desperately hungry for that green orb. 

The rebar whistled through the air before it landed on the leathery flesh with a sharp crack! The beast was silent as ever, and the snarky one liners had been forgotten by Mortimer. All his attention was on dodging, striking, and planning where to plant the hook.

This was his third alien bug. It might be a sharper bug, but it was still the same kind of bug. It even looked the same as the others. The fact that it was quicker to lock on to where he was forced him to realize a flaw in his previous tactics- he moved around too much. He didn’t need to be in the exact middle of the bug when he thwacked it- he just needed to be out of the reach of the claws. It was a lot more dangerous fighting this bug than the second one, but it died even faster.  He had them cracked now.

He watched the bile puddle out on the plaza. He stepped well back, to make sure none of the acid splashed on him. He didn’t even want it on the treads of loafers. Mortimer looked around the plaza, idly keeping an eye out for the second bug. He got a lot less idle when he saw the flabby, monstrous thing charging straight at him. 

Could there be an opportunity here? Can I dodge at the last minute and hook it for massive damage? Mortimer imagined trying that, and then imagined the hook ripping out of his hands, the skin shredding off like he was trying to hang on to a Microplane. Pass.

As the thing galloped closer, Mortimer stepped back, putting the puddle of bile between the incoming beast and him. The bile quite literally pulled itself into a jelly ball, so he wasn’t worried about some of it getting on bug number four. He hoped it would. 

Interesting thing about stomach acid- it can dissolve human flesh and organs as easily as anything else you swallow. The only thing keeping the contents of your stomach from dissolving you is the stomach lining. Once the bile is out of you… 

Mortimer’s grin was distinctly bloodthirsty. He lowered his grip on the rebar. Time to go for maximum reach and leverage, rather than control. It was… more than a little scary, to stand behind a pool of acid and wait. The heavy beast charging forward, silent but for the clack clack clack of its long claws on the concrete. Even those noises were quieter than he felt they ought to be. No walls to bounce the sound off of, for one thing. And the eight limbs landed softly on the ground for another. It didn’t seem fair.

His hands squeezed on the rebar. His legs were tense. Shaking. Waiting for last instant to jump aside and smash this dangerous prey. It was galloping straight towards him. Eight limbs moving with caterpillar grace and a leopard’s speed. He tried to estimate as carefully as he could. Reminded himself over and over to wait for it, wait for that last instant, as the terrible mass got closer and closer and closer. 

His nerves snapped. He rocketed to his left, the rebar whipping out so fast it pulled him around in a complete circle. He whiffed. The bug had stopped short. Mortimer scrambled to fix himself, to get the rebar out and get his feet planted, to reset mentally for the death struggle. The bug gave him plenty of time. It had stopped right at the edge of the bile pool. It extended its tooth studded maw into the bile, and was slurping it up. 

The bile was pulled smoothly inside the new bug. A bug that was now throbbing with vivid green light, twisting lights inside of it like a lava lamp or the aurora borealis trapped in the guts of a nightmare beast. A beast that swung its heavy head around, “looking” directly at Mortimer.