Chapter 1

Listen carefully and no one gets hurt.

Well, someone may still get hurt. It all depends on whether or not you comply with my requests, which, assuming you listen carefully, are simple and easy to follow.

And just so we’re crystal fucking clear, when I say, “And no one gets hurt,” I’m not threatening the pain thresholds of the infinite number of entities inhabiting the universe. Do me a favor and let them know that they’ve got nothing to worry about.

I apologize if there’s been any confusion, but I’ve always thought an oft-repeated phrase contains more power than an ordinary “or I will hurt you.”

Now that we’ve got everything straightened out, there is a gun aimed at your head, a gun that I purchased for the singular purpose of making you do exactly as I tell you. And I suggest you do so; I wouldn’t want you to spend the final moments of your life contemplating the location of the nasty firearm that has just cut you to ribbons.

Ok, now that we understand each other: Imagine that your primary source of income comes from participating in dramatic heists of gunplay and threats shouted in a forceful, yet soothing, tone of voice.

Now imagine that you’ve neglected to pay your credit card bill’s minimum monthly payment, you’ve just spent every last cent on a laptop computer for your business, the bill’s due date is tomorrow, and you would rather cut off your right testicle than suffer the shame of having to pay a late fee.

Are you with me so far?

Good.

Now imagine that you’re not the type of scofflaw who has held an unhealthy obsession with the calendar since early adolescence.

Imagine that you’ve chosen the morning of Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, to pull off your robbery.

Imagine that you’re waiting to get inside Super Saver Electronics, standing in a line so outrageously long that the employees are serving boiled hams to alleviate the waiting time, and would rather cut off your left testicle than suffer the shame of having to wait, but feel too self-conscience to go through with it with all the shoppers watching.

Imagine that the young woman in front of you is here for the same reason as you.

Imagine that this is her first time.

What advice would you give her?

***

Sally Hamstring stood in line, suffering from a terrible case of indigestion. She had only eaten a few biscuits the night before, but now it felt more like two thousand Thanksgiving turkeys. Since birth, she had been highly empathetic to the feeding habits of the human race. She was pissed off, in pain, and could not be held responsible for her actions.

A portly man turned towards her, “What are you here for?”

“I’ve always wanted a flat screen monitor for my computer but haven’t been able to afford one until now,” Sally lied.

“I’m getting a portable delusion recorder.”

“What does that do?” she asked.

“It records events as you want to remember them rather than how they actually occurred.”

There must be some malevolent magic associated with passing the time while waiting around with people you’d rather be smiting with a pitchfork. Sally had only been standing her for twenty minutes, but it already felt like days. Time seemed to have a similar effect upon the other customers; they were obviously starving, both from lack of sex and food, and had degenerated into an orgy. Sally and the man of portly stature found themselves surrounded by a cavalcade of perversion of blood drinking, flesh eating, and hardcore fun.

“Well, at least it’s something to watch in the meantime,” thought Sally.

Dark clouds hovered over the sun - an obvious sign from our Druglord who art in Heaven that he was displeased with the festivities. The outmoded deity really had no business complaining. When was the last time he offered his worshipers this much savings? But at least he was never responsible for such long lines. Had it even moved in the last hour? Sally decided that she’d picked a really bad day for unlawfulness. It was all about timing, and she had none. Had she known last week that an empty wallet would result in her killing in two days time, her robbery would have been finished quicker than the time it took her boyfriend to ejaculate.

“I’m Jack, by the way,” said the conversationalist formerly known as portly man.
“Hi, I’m Rapture.” Sally thought that it would be prudent to use a false name. Better to throw the fuzz off her tracks by making them think a stripper did it.

“What are you doing after this, Rapture?” Jack gave her little time to respond, being the sort of guy that confused a question with a command. “I need a woman. You’ll do. I can deal with the fact that you’re fairly ordinary looking if you can. It’s not as if you’ve got other prospects. All I need is a warm body to bring meaning to my life.”

Before Sally had an opportunity to not dignify Jack’s proposition with a response, a large abundance of rain began to pour from the sky.

Panic on the streets of Super Saver Electronics!

Sally took advantage of the chaos of ill-prepared consumers drowning in the juices of Mother Nature and entered the Promised Land of electronic consumerism. The official store welcomer seemed genuinely pleased to see her. Rumor has it, all hello guys are genetically engineered to believe that saying hello to disinterested customers is the most significant aspect of human existence, and, if they ever failed to perform their duty, the universe would cease to exist.

The store was a frightful monstrosity, designed by an evil architect to confuse shoppers so they would revert to a primitive state after being lost for days. Sally tried to scan the aisles to gain a sense of perspective, but a hoard of human detritus blocked her view of the shelves.

She looked around for a salesperson to direct her towards the checkout desk.

Were Sally’s eyes deceiving her or were hungry customers devouring the salespeople along with ketchup and mayo for added flavor? She wouldn’t be surprised.

Sally smelled smoke. A quick inspection revealed that her ponytail had caught fire. A battle was raging between a toaster oven and a Panasonic microwave, with Sally caught in the middle.

No sooner than Sally’s ponytail could stop, drop, and roll, the toaster and microwave settled their differences, proclaimed peace and brotherly love, and began their campaign to completely annihilate the human race. The little toaster catapulted burnt toast at the crowd, causing little damage to the enemy. It looked over at the microwave with a whimper: the Panasonic had transformed the surrounding aisles into a ghoulish tribute to Hiroshima. A variety of bubbling flesh of mixed ethnicity configured itself into a dance troupe, swaying to the sounds of the store’s Muzak. Fertile women popped out mutant children, trading them like action figures. Sally would have joined in, but she had to keep her priorities in mind.

She left her mutant babies behind, unloved and reeking of filth.

A salesperson was lying on the ground, vomiting out vital organs. A big arrow pointing towards the help desk adorned a sign stapled to his quivering spleen.

Sally followed the arrow and found herself beneath a stone entranceway with the inscription Abandon Soap All Ye Who Enter Here carved into the top. Beyond the entranceway, a flaming staircase led downwards towards a patch of darkness. Sally took one step onto the stairs, and it metamorphosed into a slide, plummeting her into a pool of muddy water.

She was not alone. Surrounded by hungry eyes, Sally frantically looked for an escape route. Finding a row of vines, she grabbed the one nearest to her and managed to get out unscathed.

Her missing Nike pump would be the only gator food that day.

The help desk was so close to the swamp that Sally could still feel the warm breath of an alligator on the back of her neck, stinking of valued customers.

A nude customer service representative sat at the desk, behind a window of impenetrable bulletproof glass. As not to offend the customers, a large name tag (‘Marv’) covered his genitalia. It was pinned to his scrotum, resulting in a continuous spritz of blood. The rep didn’t seem to mind. Upon closer examination, it looked like he might have been enjoying it.

Sally pushed a button and spoke through an intercom, “Can you direct me to the checkout desk?”

The rep looked down at her bare foot and sneered. He pointed to a sign above his head.

NO SHOES, NO SHIRT, NO SERVICE!

“But you’re not wearing any clothes!”

The rep responded in sign language, “Employees are above store policy!”

Having no idea as to what he had just said, Sally continued to argue, “Your store mascot bit my sneaker off. Shouldn’t the store be held responsible since you’ve obviously neglected to feed your pet?”

The rep checked the surveillance feed, nodded, and passed a voucher for ‘one used sneaker’ through a slot. He then pressed a lever, and a door opened to reveal a small room with an extraordinarily high ceiling and thousands of shoppers waiting on line make their purchases at one lone cash register.

It would have taken a think tank of logicians and escaped zoo apes to find any rhyme or reason to the line’s structure. The mass of customers was ten stories high, one piled on top of another.

Sally grabbed the voucher and breezed past the line, followed by irate shouting. She paid it no mind and continued walking through a human avalanche of her own creation.

Eventually, she got to the front of the register and handed the voucher to the withered clone of a crone cashier.

“You’ll have to wait on line like the other customers,” snarled the cashier. “I can’t help you now.”

“The nuclear bomb in my pocket says that you can. Now get me my sneaker!”

The cashier looked astonished. “You’re willing to destroy civilization, set us back two hundred years—“ She pointed towards a pile of bodies, “—and deny these good people such incredible savings…for a sneaker?”

“Don’t tempt me. I’m a bipolar suicide enthusiast on hair-trigger. If I die, the world goes hara-kiri along with me. Just so I know I’m not missing out.”

The cashier slipped on the prefabricated smile that management supplied to the staff for occasions such as this. “C’mon! Suicide isn’t the answer. It’s the question.”

“What question?”

“What you’ll come back as. I don’t expect mass murdering suicides rate too high on the wheel of karma these days.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll probably get reincarnated as a titmouse. Too bad there won’t be a world to come back to.”

The cashier tried to roll her eyes but ended up turning her nostrils inside out. “Oh, there’ll be a world. Your bomb won’t affect anything beyond the East coast.”

“You’re probably right.” Sally took the bomb out of her pocket and waved it in front of the cashier’s face. “I bet our government will need someone to blame. Malaysia seems like the number one contender. We’ll bomb them regardless of whether or not they’re the genuine culprit. Malaysia will bomb us back and, just to be on the safe side, destroy the first group of countries to giggle at their misfortune. Total Nuclear Armageddon!” She held the bomb near her mouth and pressed her tongue against the big red button marked BOOM. “Now, how about that sneaker?”

The cashier grabbed a used sneaker from out of a pile beside her.

Looking at the pile, Sally FINALLY understood the nature of reality.
These sneakers would be used as replacements for those that had not yet been bitten off by the alligators. Everything was predetermined.

Sally snatched her new sneaker. “While you’re at it, can you empty the contents of your register and assist me in liberating the prisoners confined within your store’s safe?”

ATTENTION SUPER SAVER ELECTRONICS SHOPPERS!!! WE WILL BE GIVING OUT FREE ELECTRONIC SPORKS AT THE CHECKOUT DESK FREE WITH PURCHASE! SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED SO HURRY NOW!

An Aborigine in a battle suit that still had its price tag attached lunged towards the register, knocking Sally to the ground. His garb made it clear that he belonged to The Church of Getting The Most Out Of Your Money. For him, always wearing a soon-to-be purchased while on the checkout line was essential to leading a spiritual life.

As the Aborigine waited for his credit card to be approved, a mob of coked-up Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade performers trampled Sally. Nobody had bothered to tell them the holiday was over.

Then, an old man in a wheelchair ran her over, breaking her leg with one wheel and separating her head from her body with the other.

Sally’s family would inherit her debt, but, because of the death and decapitation insurance policy that they had recently taken out on her in secret, they would have no trouble paying it off. Considering the unusual circumstances of Sally’s accident, her claim paid double.

I was greatly saddened by Sally’s death. I’ve been following her around for weeks, wearing funny disguises so she wouldn’t recognize me. My name is Grover Goldstein and I am not a stalker!

Sorry, it’s a touchy subject for me. Sally was my only connection to this world and I would have been lost without her, I’m not exactly from around here, and hopefully, neither are you.

I’d like to take this moment to give you my heartfelt apologies for my behavior earlier. I know it’s impolite to threaten people with death, but nobody ever seems to listen to me unless their life is hanging by a thread tied around my imaginary trigger finger.

Still listening?

So grok this: I’m trapped in the future. Since this place is absolutely mad, I needed someone to use as a point of reference. Sally was the first female to tell me to “fuck off,” making her the obvious choice.

But with her gone, I’m screwed.

I don’t usually open up like this to people, but I’ve been experiencing an uncontrollable urge to go back to my own time. It makes no sense to me. The early twenty-first century was staggeringly dull, and I like it much better here. Maybe it’s some sort of biological imperative that makes time travelers lust after their own time period? Or perhaps I’ve been a victim of Hollywood’s conditioning by being beaten over the head with stories of people lost in time and trying to find their way back?

I don’t know, it just seemed like the sort of thing to do.

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