Matt Payne
Copyright 2011 by Matt Payne
Smashwords Edition
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Rake tumbled down the mountain. He hit the back of someone’s house and smashed through their window, landing comfortably in a recliner as a man, a woman and a child watched TV.
“Who the hell are you?” said the man.
“I’ve just been to the top of the mountain,” Rake said, “and I’ve seen the Grogolmonster’s horrible Keepers!”
“And did you see the Grogolmonster?” asked the little boy with fear.
“He’s huge, and hideous!” said Rake, still reclining comfortably.
“Would you all be quiet?” snapped the woman. “I’m watching the news!”
Rake was wearing an anti-gravity suit and he floated out of the room. His mission hadn’t been a total bust; he’d tasered the hell out of some of the Keepers and he stole a copy of the Grogoltexle, but he had been hoping to subdue the Grogolmonster.
He walked along the road to his home, which was a huge floating ball of energy. He stepped into it and it absorbed and disintegrated his body. It also recorded his brain and transferred his mind to its virtual-reality energy-computer storage. He was in a virtual- reality apartment building with a pool, a bordello, an open bar, unlimited room-service and a huge library in the basement with millions and millions of books. Heat and lights were extra.
At his virtual-reality table, virtual-reality Rake read some of the Grogoltexle. It was a bloody account of the Grogolmonster’s endless victories. But it also spoke of his weaknesses. It said that if you cut off the Grogolmonster’s tail then the monster will explode. But then the tail will turn into an immortal snake and grow to the size of a whale and eat you and terrorize the planet forever. But if you take the tail and tie it in a bunch of knots right after you cut it off then it will grow into an irreversibly-tied-up giant snake that is both useless and immortal.
This is what Rake decided to do.
The energy apartment building reconstituted Rake’s body, rested, well-fed, disease-free and ready to take down the Grogolmonster.
Rake couldn’t do this alone, of course. The Grogolmonster’s Keepers would have to be dealt with. So he went to the forest and sought the help of a friend, a talking unicorn whose name was Talkicorn.
Talkicorn said, “my shimmering spike shall impale many a misguided Keeper and distract them whilst you undo the Grogolmonster, but they will inevitably overcome me. We need one more warrior!”
“But whom?” Rake wondered, stroking his luxurious beard.
“I know!” said Talkicorn. “My friend the Anomaly! The Anomaly is a physical anomaly which appears to suck in any rays of light that pass near it and it spits the light back out at wrong angles and different frequencies so that the colours are changed.”
“How the fuck will that help us, Talkicorn?” Rake was angry at Talkicorn’s silly suggestion.
“Well the Anomaly has more powers than that,” said Talkicorn. “I only mentioned its tendency to distort light because, since you and I are visually-oriented beings, that would appear to be its defining quality. In truth, all we can see is the distorted light, while the Anomaly’s true nature is hidden.”
“But isn’t that true of all things?” said Rake, stroking his luxurious beard. “For instance, you and I can see and hear each other, but only light and sound enter our brains. Your true nature is hidden from me while I create a 3D model of your physical being inside my brain.”
“Yes,” said Talkicorn, “but the light and sound have been changed or created by our physical bodies, and your brain enjoys a direct connection to my physical body through those waves of sound and light. So you are at least getting a transmutation of the effects of my true nature, which can allow you to make educated guesses about my true nature.”
“Then that must also be true of the Anomaly,” reasoned Rake, whose luxurious beard flowed like a rich red river from his face. “You’ve contradicted yourself!”
“Bah!” cried Talkicorn. “These are questions we can ask the Grogolmonster after we destroy him!”
“Shouldn’t we ask him these questions before we destroy him?” Rake said.
“No! He’ll be trying to kill us and won’t answer our questions!”
“Agreed!” said Rake, and they went to find the Anomaly.
The Anomaly was playing a cheap, dirty, single-octave electric keyboard for change outside the market. But Rake couldn’t see the Anomaly. In fact, he couldn’t even properly see the entrance to the market. The gate had a weird shape and there were crazy colours everywhere. Then Rake realized that this optical illusion must be the light-distorting effects of the Anomaly itself.
Talkicorn asked the Anomaly if it would join them and the Anomaly bent the light in such a way that they understood that it would dearly love to join them.
The three warriors started climbing the road up the mountain. Halfway up Rake said, “I’m getting tired. We should smoke a joint.”
So they all sat down on the couch and lit a huge joint. The Anomaly busted out some coke and they all did a couple lines. Then girls started showing up with beer and peppermint schnapps, and the party really got started.
One particularly buxom brunette sat down beside Rake and started talking to him. She said, “so, you’re going to fight the Grogolmonster?”
Rake nervously swirled the ice cubes in his glass of schnapps. “Yeah,” he said.
“That’s so brave.”
Rake blushed. “You seem really nice,” he told her, putting his hand lightly on her knee.
Then a black Ford 15-seater van pulled up to the side of the road and tipped over, spilling a big wooden box out the back door. Fifteen guys dressed in black spiky armour climbed out of the van’s windows, and the biggest one said, “we thought we heard a party, so we came to check it out.”
“It’s the Grogolmonster’s Keepers!” cried Talkicorn, forgetting about the booze and the women. “Kill them!”
“Hang on man,” said the lead Keeper, “we just wanna chill.”
Rake was tempted to just chill with the Keepers, because he really wanted to get to know the girl he just met. Also, every month the Keepers sacrifice one of their own to the Grogolmonster, and they always vote to see which one they want to sacrifice. That means that the least-popular (and thus least-cool) Keeper always got sacrificed, so when you meet a Keeper who’s alive then they’re statistically cooler than average.
“I know you guys are extra-cool,” Rake said, “and it would be fun to hang out, but you’re murderous and sadistic, and you nurture the evil Grogolmonster. We have no choice but to destroy you.”
Rake drew his energy-sword and cut off the lead-Keeper’s arms and legs in one fell swoop. Talkicorn impaled two Keepers on his spike with one thrust, then used his massive hind-legs to kick another one in the head. The Anomaly distorted light in such a way that two Keepers died. Then it distorted light in another way so that a different Keeper decided he no longer wanted to be a Keeper, and he went and started flirting with the brunette who had been talking to Rake.
Talkicorn said, “Rake! We’ll take care of the Keepers, you kill the Grogolmonster!”
Rake slew his way over to the big wooden box that had fallen out of the Ford van and tore off the lid. A person-sized rabbit hopped out with big ears, a fluffy tail and dozens of gnashing mouths all over its body. Its mouths all roared deafeningly and it ate the van.
“Talkicorn!” Rake cried. “The Grogolmonster has a fluffy tail! How can we tie it in knots?”
Talkicorn was too busy to talk, so the Anomaly distorted light in such a way that Rake understood that he should cut off the Grogolmonster’s tail first and then worry about how to tie it into knots.
Rake kicked the Grogolmonster in one of its mouths and then cut off its tail with his energy-sword. The Grogolmonster’s body exploded, but the tail was still intact. The Keepers saw this and one of them said, “well, we’ve lost. Let’s all get out of here and find some other monster to nurture.”
So Rake, Talkicorn and the Anomaly all stood around the disembodied tail wondering how to tie it into knots before it could turn into a giant immortal snake. It was already starting to slowly grow.
“Maybe if we stretch it then it will be long enough to tie into knots,” Rake said. “Here, Talkicorn bite the tail and I’ll pull on it to stretch it out.”
Talkicorn bit the tail and held it between his teeth while Rake pulled it into a long string.
“Alright Anomaly,” Rake said, “while Talkicorn and I stretch it you should distort light in such a way that the tail gets tied in a knot, okay?”
The Anomaly distorted light in such a way that Rake understood that it couldn’t tie the tail while they were both holding onto it. Then it distorted light in such a way that Rake understood that it confrontationally wanted to know whether he’d be able to tie a string if someone was holding onto each end. Then it distorted light yet again in such a way that they understood that since they had already stretched the tail they could just let go of it and then one of them could easily tie it into knots.
They let go of the tail and Rake said, “Talkicorn, you tie it into knots.”
Talkicorn picked up the tail in his mouth and tried to tie it into a knot, but it wouldn’t work. “You have two hands, Rake. You’re the only one who can tie it in a knot.”
Rake proudly tied the tail into several knots then dropped it on the ground. Then the little mass of knots grew and grew to the size of a whale, and they could all see that it was a giant green snake tied into permanent knots. The snake started crying because it couldn’t move.
“Well we’ve defeated the Grogolmonster,” said Rake. “But Talkicorn, I thought you said that the Anomaly had powers other than distorting light.”
“It can also produce drugs seemingly out of nowhere,” Talkicorn said. Then the Anomaly took out a film case full of green PCP paste and they all started eating it.