The Fathom Flies Again Read online

  Marty was again lost in his own thoughts. They hadn’t been pirate voices. Had they? Wishful thinking, or some kind of delayed insanity, a reaction to Marty’s recent sojourn into his own dreamspace? Whatever it was, it was gone now. Probably something easily explainable, like a meteor crashing into Stellar Island. Something boring like that. Whatever it had been, the cable car seemed unaffected, and unlikely to plummet horrendously into the depths below at least. It continued on its squeaky course, reaching the terminus as Cabbie continued his stories of averting several potentially world exploding incidents. The car shuddered to a halt, and Marty sidled out through the silently opening doors. Cabbie was, in all likelihood, a crayon chewing lunatic, but Marty almost turned as he left, suppressing the urge to thank the old man for repeatedly saving the world. And a herd of innocent llamas, apparently.

  The bottom of the cable car station was steeped in darkness, and Marty wasted no time in locating the bicycle that he had left moored in the parking zone that morning. Just a normal, everyday bicycle that didn’t fly, didn’t talk, and served only to transport Marty from his dull home to his dull place of work. Odd then, that a koala should be sat upon its saddle, a faint blue light emanating from it.

  The koala started, clearly surprised at Marty’s approach, before impossibly clearing its throat and speaking. “Pardon me, sir. Could I trouble you for a ride? I appear to be lost.”

  Marty froze. Not only did koalas not speak, but to the best of his knowledge, they didn’t stray far from their native Australia. Also, the ones he had seen on nature programs weren’t prone to glowing. The little marsupial held out its hands and hopped down from the bicycle seat. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” it said. “I’m a little startled myself. Is there any chance of a ride?”

  In the weeks that had passed after Marty’s dreamtime encounter, life had seemed annoyingly real, and yet now, it seemed alarmingly unusual. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not here anyway. Throwing caution and his lunchbox to the wind, Marty leapt towards his bicycle and stamped on the pedals with all his might. The bike launched from its station and careened at speed off into the night.

  The luminous koala looked on forlornly, rummaging in his pouch and producing a sprig of eucalyptus.

  “Not cool, sir.” it mumbled, munching on the leafy stem. He was glowing bluer than ever.

  Chapter Three

  “If you’re not in costume, you can’t come in.” A rather bed-sheeted Julius Caesar stood, hands on hips in the doorway, chastising a bunch of party latecomers who had apparently not realized there was a dress code. “That’s kinda the point of fancy dress costume parties.”

  One of the revelers raised a hand in protest. “But we brought a keg.”

  Mighty Caesar sighed, plunging a hand through his laureled hair. “Is it part of your costume?”

  The wannabee gatecrashers blinked at one another, no doubt trying to think of a character who would wield a barrel of alcohol that they could pass themselves off as. “Well, no.”

  The blanket-covered Emperor of Rome solemnly raised a hand, flipping out his thumb, and plunged it dramatically downwards. Just as emphatically, he stepped back inside the house, and slammed the door.

  Party etiquette must be observed, Caesar mused as he returned to the very un-Roman disco in full swing in the living room. Especially costume party etiquette. He smiled as he viewed the various heroes, villains, and randoms from history, who were mingling and getting along quite nicely. This was particularly noteworthy since Hitler appeared to be leading a conga line, Frankenstein’s monster crooned out a soulful karaoke number, and a gang of zombies picked gingerly through the buffet table. Julius squinted through the low hanging streamers and bobbling balloons at the group of surly flesh eaters. He didn’t recognize a single one of them, which could of, course, be down to the meticulous nature of their costumes. They were certainly very believable as a small legion of undead, right down to the torn clothing, blood splattered faces, and gray, ashen skin. One even carried a severed arm, which trailed messily behind him. They were a little too realistic, and not unlike the horde which had consistently haunted his recurring dreams as a child. Another sported a red baseball cap, with a peak that hung raggedly unstitched at one end. They turned as one to regard Caesar, as though they had realized that their cover was blown, and shambled away from the smartly cut sandwiches and helpfully labelled dips. Caesar’s eyes widened as they moved closer. He had seen these shuffling ghouls before, many times. He had awoken to the sound of his own screams on several occasions as these moaning nasties had cornered him in his dreams, wailing and sizing up his particularly chewable parts. How was this possible? One thought rushed into Caesar’s head as the lead zombie dropped his spare arm and reached for the white linen hem of the Emperor’s robe, an insane thought, an impossible thought, but one which took hold and refused to budge.

  Those aren’t costumes.

  Flapping sheets signaled Caesar’s rapid departure into the kitchen, and as he turned mid-flee, he caught sight of various partygoers queueing up to provide munchable proof to his hypothesis.

  Six of the seven dwarves, George Washington and a purple dinosaur became the new buffet table for the insatiable people snackers as they made their way towards the retreating Roman.

  As he attempted to somehow fit into a cupboard that was not built for hiding cowering dignitaries, many thoughts should have crossed Caesar’s mind. As the zombie horde filed clumsily into the kitchen, he should have been wondering how this had happened, how a bunch of flesh-eating dream corpses had somehow turned up at his costume bash, and were eating their way through his guests. He should have been pondering what force had made his nightmares into flakey, unpleasant flesh, and why on earth this was happening.

  As the undead closed on his wholly impractical hiding place, only one thought, comprising three helpless words prevailed. Julius Caesar turned to face his uninvited guests and mumbled them, almost automatically.

  “Et tu, zombie.”

  As last words went, they were plagiarized, but not half bad.

  #

  The little college on the outskirts of town was not known for being a party hub. And yet several gallons of something approaching alcoholic had been consumed in what had been imaginatively named ‘Dorm A.’

  No-one had known where the giant white rabbits that had stampeded through the campus had come from, but they had left in their wake a single shivering student, clutching an empty beer bottle and peeking out from beneath his bed.

  Without fully realizing the truth of his thoughts, his mind raced at what he could only rationalize as the stuff of nightmares, which had hopped bewilderingly through the college grounds only moments earlier. They had trampled everything in their path: goths, preppies, and jocks. There had been no discrimination. And now only he was left, perhaps in the whole town, hell, maybe in the whole world. Who knew that the apocalypse would come on the vaulting heels of gargantuan carrot nibblers?

  Above him, the lights flickered and winked black, no doubt snuffed out by the cute, fluffy onslaught which had gone before. In the darkness, he wished that better grades had taken him to a better school, one with less reality defying fauna, and certainly one with better nightlife. He shifted, allowing the empty bottle to roll out from under the bed and clatter noisily against something unseen in the darkness.

  Behind the hapless student, something stirred, delivering a throaty chuckle.

  “School’s out, forever.” A voice slithered out from somewhere beside him.

  In an evening where commendable last words were being handed out like candy, the sadly nameless student lamented the fact that right here, right now, it was the bad guy that had stolen his, as something formless dragged him away.

  #

  Across town, past the leafy suburbs, heroism was flexing its considerable muscles in the dark recesses of a forgotten cave. A band of impressively armored do-gooders stood in a circle, pondering their next move, yet unaware of the rampant naughtiness sp
awning hither and thither in their neighborhood. Their leader, a tall, reedy knight decked out in leather and sporting a gleaming steel helm, leaned forward. Long had he wished his name to be uttered in hushed, reverent tones by the townsfolk, and even longer had he gathered here with his allies to prove his worth. Someday, people would sing songs of his deeds. They would talk of his exploits in taverns far and wide, and he would be known as a vanquisher of evil, and a paragon of light. For now, he was simply Geoff the Avenger, and he rolled two shiny silver dice to see if he could get out of paying for the pizza.

  The group had been gathering on a weekly basis in Geoff’s garage to play Basements and Broadswords, and whilst costumes were mandatory, any knowledge of how to actually play the game was apparently not.

  “That’s a five.” A wizardly looking figure next to him chanted. “A five’s not enough, you have to pay.”

  Geoff tapped his hip smugly. “You forget, I’m wearing my Plus Seven Belt of Excuses, so my check hasn’t cleared yet, from when I slayed the ravenous beast of Angenthorstenfeld…mere…shire.” He scanned his head shaking brethren. “Sorry guys, someone else is going to have to pay the piper tonight.”

  Almost on cue, the doorbell rang upstairs, and a jaunty member of the group, resplendent in brightly colored finery and matching lute, sang out. “Hark! Tis the conveyor of cheese and pepperoni. He doth wait at our gates, demanding entrance!” He spread his arms wide, bowing theatrically, provoking much sighing and eye rolling. Frank the Bard was an English major, and didn’t really get involved in much fighting. He was a dab hand with a sonnet, though, and pitched in with something florid at any given opportunity.

  “All right, Frank. You just volunteered to usher in the mighty pizza dude. Go forth and fetch the sacred munchies.”

  Frank sagged. “You guys do this every time. I’m not made of money. This lute was expensive, you know.” His protests fell on deaf ears, and he trapesed up the stairs to the hallway, where his solo quest to answer the door and bring pizza awaited.

  The hallway was dimly lit, giving the mission a suitable air of danger, as Frank fumbled with the latch, eventually swinging the door open to herald the arrival of dinner.

  “Hold on a sec,” Frank mumbled, sadly forgetting to add a ‘Prithee’ as he wrestled with his Purse of Thriftiness (Plus Four!)

  A shadow fell across the distracted bard, and he glanced up to regard its owner. Standing before Frank on the porch was a hefty, drooling cave troll, not here to deliver pizza, it seemed, but to dispense whoop ass. Several cans thereof.

  Hunkered in the garage, Frank’s hungry companions’ only hint at his crashing arrival came with a high pitched, preceding squeal, as the unfortunate poet took the stairs roughly none at a time and landed in a heap in front of them.

  “Dude, where’s the pizza?” A young elf archer who in real life may or may not have been Geoff’s younger brother, cried. Several disapproving glances forced him to restate his query. “I mean, well met, stout bard. Where art the glorious feast of cheese, and buffalo wings…and such.” He flushed and shrugged at his fellow dungeon dwellers, who had apparently decided to focus their attention on the monster in the doorway.

  “It’s a monster. A real one!” Brian the Berserker shrieked, dutifully going berserk, to ill effect as the troll swatted him aside, mid charge. Flanking Geoff, a duo of wizards stepped up to deliver magical defense to their fallen comrade. “Fireball!” They chimed as one, casting their arcane enchantments at the advancing creature. The fiery balls of fury flew through the air and bounced harmlessly off the troll’s chest, like the painted tennis balls that they actually were. Their unstoppable foe continued to advance upon them, just like the creatures they had all fought, talked of, and dreamed about so many times. With party members falling left and right, Geoff turned to the gaming table, the only rational thing to do in a totally irrational situation.

  Skillfully, and with all the knowledge, experience, and bravery that he had amassed over dozens of dangerous skirmishes in times past, Geoff the Avenger summoned all of his might and rolled a double six.

  He didn’t need to check the rule book. Tonight, double six meant run away.

  Chapter Four

  Marty pedaled as though all the hounds of hell were behind him, and not in fact a small, glowing koala. In fairness, a small glowing anything would probably have prompted a certain amount of eyebrow raising from the average bystander, even before it had started talking.

  The old clock in the center of town clanged out a midnight declaration as Marty sped on. The streets were empty and quiet, making the hollow bongs seem even louder, but it was the same old, dull, uninspiring town that he had seen a million times before.

  A few wholly unremarkable cars trundled past him as he sped on. None of them hopped on pogo sticks, and there was no evidence of sinister painted faces behind their windscreens. In fact, nothing at all seemed any more unusual than one was likely to see on a typical Friday night. There were people here and there, but they were acting, rather perplexingly like people. Walking, chatting, peeing up against lampposts, pretty much how people normally acted on a Friday night. Things that really had no business talking, or flying, or doing anything vaguely untoward were behaving just as they should. Sure, there was a man dressed as a chicken, carrying a traffic cone, but in all honesty, who hasn’t spent a normal, hum-drum Friday night involved in such an activity?

  Marty scanned the street before him, searching for something downright odd, almost craving it. Was he still dreaming? It seemed highly unlikely. Anyone who can dream up flying pirate galleons, whirling bouncy castles of death, and roller coaster trains would surely not have cooked up the two hour staff meeting he’d suffered that very morning. And yet, something odd had happened. Granted, Marty had never been an enthusiast of biology, preferring instead to spend his half-remembered science lessons working out what was flammable, edible, or throwable. Nonetheless, he was fairly certain that the cute little teddy bear things from Australia that he’d once seen at the zoo weren’t prone to glowing, and were even less likely to ask for a lift home.

  Lost in his thoughts, Marty barely noticed as he passed his favorite night spot, The Pickled Judge. A band called Kinky Ninja had advertised their musical stylings on several shoddily made posters out front, and by the sounds of it, weren’t going down too well inside. It was a raucous den of untold shenanigans at the best of times, but tonight’s injection of dubious culture had seemingly angered the natives. Having long since ditched the age-old boo in favor of simply throwing things, the patrons of The Judge appeared to have shown their opinion of the band’s musical prowess by relocating much of the pub to the street, amid much swearing and smashing of whatever wasn’t indestructible.

  Marty smiled, for a moment removed from his existential debate about whether any of this was real. He swerved to avoid a clutch of chairs which had formed a huddle of their own in the center of the road, possibly debating themselves how the hell they had come to be there in the first place. Stray bottles whizzed through the air, and his swerve became a slalom. This town was quaint, it was dull. These days it was infuriatingly realistic, but by God, if you were a dodgy band who didn’t play Stairway to Heaven, it could be savage.

  Had Marty taken a moment to properly survey the carnage, the extent of the savagery might have caused him to topple, however. In the alleyway beside The Judge, a host of figures huddled in the shadows. They chuckled quietly as a slumped, drunken form in their midst was dragged into the darkness of the alley. Two of the figures looked up as Marty rocketed past, already impossibly huge eyes widening still. Their painted red grins drew back even further, displaying yellow, broken, and jagged teeth. The two onlookers skulked away from their brethren, and peered out into the bedlam of the street, and the departing Marty. His rate of knots had carried him into the thankfully unviolated street beyond, and he had turned the corner out of sight in an instant. The huge pairs of eyes remained fixed however, and a look of gleeful excitement spread across the
demented faces. There was something else in those eyes, too. As they stared out into the night, they twinkled with demonic intent. A shrill whooping sound filled the air.

  Those dark eyes clearly liked what they’d seen as it sped silently past and into the distance. They recognized the departing cyclist.

  Marty recognized nothing, pedaling on into the night with his head full of thoughts. He was far more preoccupied with the fact that none of the buses seemed to be floating, and that all the birds seemed to be doing was tweeting, and occasionally aiming feces in his direction. As he rumbled onwards, passing another three silent streets and dodging sticky avian artillery, he realized that he actually hoped for something out of the ordinary. Whether it was to rationalize the bizarre marsupial encounter he’d had, or to stave off the spectacular non-event his waking life now presented, he wasn’t sure. One thing was clear, though. When you’ve chowed down on a deep fried unicorn sandwich, switching to a plain old bacon double boredom burger just didn’t quite cut the mustard anymore. Even if you added mustard.

  More streets came and went, and before he could snap out of the sudden desire for some kind of unicorn based deli snack, Marty arrowed past familiar houses, and turned into the street that contained his humble abode.

  Food would have to wait. It was late, and another shift sat ominously on the horizon, waiting to ride the sunrise and bully Marty awake in the morning. He pulled into the small driveway and fished around in the semi-darkness for his door key. Taking one last look out into the street behind him, Marty sighed as precisely nothing bounded out of the serene twilight to tickle his sanity.