Cuddly Holocaust Read online

  “Well, good luck with that, Pandy,” Velvet said. “Love you.”

  “Love you too, Bunny,” Pora said.

  When she hung up the phone, Pora realized she had smooshed her belly into the cake when she wasn’t paying attention, coating her stomach in chocolate frosting and the cake in a layer of white fuzz.

  Pora took her daughter and two sons to the toy shop to celebrate her new pregnancy.

  “We can have any toy we want?” asked Pete, her youngest child. His black fuzzy eyes lit up with excitement.

  “Anything you want,” Pora said.

  The three fluffy children ran wild through the store, grabbing at everything they came across. Pora just sat by the front counter, smiling at their liveliness. Seeing them happy meant everything in the world to her, even if she had to spoil them every now and then. Although her husband was in a shady line of work that had gotten him into trouble with the law more than a few times, he brought home a lot of money. And Pora liked spending his money on her children.

  “Are those smart-toys?” Pora asked the clerk, as she saw what kind of toys her children were looking through.

  The toy shop clerk was a big gray stuffed animal with long scraggly hair. He was supposed to be a wolf but looked more like a Scottish deerhound.

  “Ah yes,” said the clerk. “Those toys are top of the line. They can walk and talk and play with your child. It’s like they’re really alive.”

  “Oh, wow,” Pora said. “That sounds amazing.”

  The clerk pulled out a display model. It was a little koala bear that marched along the counter and held out its arms to be hugged.

  “Momma?” said the toy koala.

  “Oh, how cute,” Pora said.

  “And they’re a hundred percent safe,” said the clerk. “As long as you show them love, they’ll love you back.”

  Pora saw a toy dog on a dusty shelf behind the counter.

  “What’s that one?” she asked the clerk. “I don’t think I’ve seen that kind of toy before.”

  “Oh, that,” said the clerk. “That’s an old model of toy. They don’t make anything like these anymore.”

  “Why’s that?”

  The clerk took the large plastic dog off the shelf and placed it on the counter. It was designed to look like a poodle, but its casing was silver and gold. It was like a robot dog.

  “It’s one of those payback-toys from the early days,” said the clerk. “That’s when they used to turn human children into toys for our young ones. It was supposed to be like payback for what they did to us.”

  Pora pointed at the dog.

  “So there’s a real human inside of there?” she asked.

  “Yep,” said the clerk. “It’s been ten years, but the thing’s still alive in there.”

  “Oh, how fun,” Pora said with a smile. Then she looked back at her children. “Hey kids, do you want a payback-toy?” But they were too interested in their smart-toys to listen to her.

  “How does it work?” Pora said. “How did they fit a whole human inside of this?”

  The clerk lifted the dog upside down and pointed at its belly.

  “They chopped it up and dehydrated most of its flesh so that it would shrink up tight,” said the clerk. “It’s not exactly a living thing anymore, so it doesn’t need food and water. It can live on batteries.”

  “Really?” Pora said.

  “The thing could probably live forever if you made sure to change its batteries every few years,” said the clerk.

  “I can hardly believe it,” Pora said. She touched its plastic casing. The thing wasn’t moving. It didn’t look very alive. “How come it’s not doing anything?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said the clerk. “It’s just turned off. When the button is off, it seizes up all of the human’s muscles and joints so that it can’t move. The on button will release them.”

  The clerk clicked the button and the toy stretched its legs and shook its head. It looked up at Pora with shining electronic eyes. Then the clerk turned it back off and its muscles were frozen in place.

  “Neat,” Pora said. “How much is it?”

  “I’ll give it to you half price,” said the clerk.

  “So cheap?”

  “They’ve been on clearance for a long time. Nobody seems to care about payback anymore. I guess they just want to forget about what happened all those years ago.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Pora said.

  “So you’ll take it?” he asked.

  “Sure, why not,” she said. “Wrap it up with whatever toys my children pick out.”

  “Excellent,” said the clerk. “I’ve had this little guy on my shelves for so long I’d thought he’d never sell.”

  “You caught me at a good time,” she said. “I’m in a spending mood today.”

  The clerk nodded his head excitedly as he packaged up the payback-toy for the panda family. He was happy to finally be rid of the toy. The thing creeped him out. It felt as if it was always staring at him, conspiring to kill him while his back was turned. If Pora hadn’t purchased it the clerk probably would have tossed the toy in the garbage by the end of the season.

  Back at home, the children ripped open the boxes on their toys and ran upstairs, laughing and screaming.

  “Hey, doesn’t anyone want to play with the payback-toy?” Pora yelled at them. But they were already up in their rooms.

  Pora sighed and sat down on the couch. She placed the toy on the coffee table and stared at its little silver face.

  “Don’t those kids know anything,” she said. “You have to respect your toys. After all our people fought for…”

  She clicked the toy’s on button and waited to see what it could do. The silver dog paused there for a moment. Then it stretched its legs and walked across the table toward her.

  “There you go,” Pora said, smiling at the walking toy. Then she yelled upstairs, “See kids, this is fun too!”

  The toy looked up at the panda with its robot eyes. It opened its mouth as if trying to speak.

  “You can speak, too?” Pora asked the toy. “So cute! Say something.”

  The toy tried to speak but its words couldn’t come out.

  “Jah,” its electronic voice spurted out. “Jah… jah…”

  “Huh…” Pora said. “You must be defective.”

  It continued trying to speak in its high-pitched voice. “Juh… Juuw…”

  “What are you trying to say little guy?”

  Then it finally got out the word.

  “Juuuwleee…” it said.

  Pora’s fuzzy eyelids narrowed.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Julie,” it said again. “Julie…”

  Pora leaned back. There was something about that name that struck a chord in her.

  “Who’s Julie?” she asked. “Is that your name?”

  “Nuh…” it said. “No.”

  It wagged its whiney tail.

  “Yooou are Juuulee,” it said. “I ammm Riley.”

  “Riley?” she asked.

  Something was coming to her. Something that she had long forgotten.

  “Riley…” she said.

  Then, suddenly, she remembered it all. She was Julie. She was once human. She remembered her life in the wasteland. She remembered the human prisoner boy named Riley.

  She looked down at her hands. The fur was not real. It was grafted onto her human skin.

  “You promised,” said the toy, its electronic voice crackling. “You promised to get me out.”

  “Promised?” she asked. She thought about it for a moment. “But Riley died back there. I saw the machines take him apart.”

  “It’s a prison,” said the toy. “This body… A prison.”

  Pora shook her head at the toy.

  “I waited for you,” it said. “You left me. In prison.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “In prison.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Tears erupted from her eyes. “I don’
t remember. I don’t remember anything.”

  “Julie…” said the toy. “Kill me.”

  She put her hand on her mouth.

  “Kill me,” said the toy. “Free me… From prison.”

  She reached out her hands and picked the toy off of the table.

  “Riley…” she said.

  She held it in her lap, looking down on his little face.

  “I’m so sorry…” she said.

  “Free me…” said the toy.

  She wrapped her hands around its neck. Her tears made splatting sounds against its plastic shell.

  “Thank you…” said the toy.

  As she was about to break the toy’s head off, one of her children entered the room.

  “Mommy?” asked the boy.

  It was Pete, the youngest. When she saw his little face, her head shook as if she had just snapped out of a daze.

  She smiled at her boy. “Yes, sweetie?”

  Pete came up to Pora and put his little fluffy paw on her knee.

  “That toy,” he said, pointing at the plastic puppy in her lap. “Is that for me? Can I play with it?”

  Pora looked down at the toy.

  The toy said, “Free m—”

  Its words were cut short as Pora pulled out the wire in its neck, dismantling its voicebox. The toy dog moved its mouth to speak, but its words were silent.

  “Of course, honey,” Pora said, handing the toy to her child. “I bought it for you. Play with it all you want.”

  The boy smiled brightly as the toy wiggled its legs in his hands. She watched him run upstairs with his new toy, giggling with delight. His joy filled her heart with a glowing warmth that could not be replaced by anything else.

  All she cared about in the world was making her children happy. It was what she lived for.

  She placed her hands on her stomach and closed her eyes, imagining all the happiness she would bring to the new baby inside of her. She didn’t want to stop at four. She wanted to have seven children, like her sister Velvet. She wanted to do what was right for her people. She wanted to help them multiply.

  The glowing smile on her face was still there by the time her husband came home from work. Poro arrived at the door holding flowers.

  “Have you been crying?” he asked, as she took the flowers and kissed him on the nose.

  “No, of course not,” she said, rubbing the water out of her eyes. “Come in the kitchen. I baked you a cake.”

  “Is it chocolate?” he said, almost singing his words.

  “Of course,” she said. “Come have some. I’ve got wonderful news.”

  She was sure the news wouldn’t be quite so wonderful to her husband, but to Pora it was truly the most wonderful news of all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Carlton Mellick III is one of the leading authors of the bizarro fiction subgenre. Since 2001, his books have drawn an international cult following, despite the fact that they have been shunned by most libraries and chain bookstores.

  He won the Wonderland Book Award for his novel, Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland, in 2009. His short fiction has appeared in Vice Magazine, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror #16, The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, and Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead, among others. He is also a graduate of Clarion West, where he studied under the likes of Chuck Palahniuk, Connie Willis, and Cory Doctorow.

  He lives in Portland, OR, the bizarro fiction mecca.

  Visit him online at www.carltonmellick.com

  Table of Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BONUS COMIC

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Table of Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BONUS COMIC

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR