Cuddly Holocaust Page 8

  Smart-morphers were one of the main reasons the toys won the war against the humans. They were based on an old toy line called Transformers, but these toys could transform on their own. They could think and drive and fight bad guys. But it wasn’t until they constructed life-sized smart-morphers that they became really dangerous.

  The giant robot roared like a mechanical gorilla and punched its fist into the ground, creating a crater-sized hole in the street that rumbled the ruins for a mile in every direction. It was a battle cry that all of its friends in the region surely heard.

  “Forget about the Captain,” Velvet yelled from her slinky-spider. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.” Then her slinky legs launched her into the air.

  But the bunny wasn’t fast enough. The robot stomped forward and punched the black sphere out of the sky like a tennis ball, sending her flying over the hospital with a crushed cockpit. If she wasn’t killed on impact the fall would have surely ended her.

  Julie climbed up the ladder to get to her cockpit, but the morpher was too fast. Before she could even get into the driver’s seat, she saw the robot’s ten-ton foot coming down on top of her. Just one stomp and she would be crushed.

  “Over here, fatty!” Pepper cried up at the robot.

  There was an explosion and the morpher tumbled backward, away from Julie.

  “How about another one!”

  Julie looked back to see Pepper launching mortars up at the robot. The flower barely looked like he could lift the rockets with his spindly green limbs, but he was an expert marksman. Every rocket he launched hit the morpher directly in the chest or face.

  Although the blasts were not powerful enough to take down the robot, they were enough to immobilize it. The thing couldn’t retaliate with the explosions pushing it backward into the crumbling buildings across the street.

  “Everyone should start calling me Fire Flower!” Pepper yelled. He cackled at the robot in his high-pitched jittery voice, and then launched another mortar. “I can blow up anything. Anything!” His flower petals flapped wildly as he jittered with psychotic laughter. “I’ll blow up you!”

  While the robot was pressed up against the building, plaster and shrapnel crumbling over its shoulders, Pepper took a moment to get out his big explosive. It was a rocket with ten times as much fire power as the others.

  “I’ll blow you up until you die!” Pepper said, as he loaded the rocket and aimed it directly for the robot’s face.

  As the mortar was launched, the robot’s head folded back into its body. The rocket missed its target, passing through the crumbling building, and exploded in the ruins twenty yards away.

  Regaining itself, the morpher pulled itself from the collapsing building, unfolded its head from its body, and stomped across the street toward the flower.

  “Get out of there,” Julie yelled.

  Pepper squealed, trying to load another rocket, but the robot was faster. Its massive foot came crashing down on top of the flower before the last round could be fired.

  Then it turned toward Julie.

  “Fuck…” Julie said, hopping out of the slinky-spider cockpit.

  As the robot raised its foot to crush her vehicle, Julie looked up at it. She could see Pepper flat against its foot, shaking and squealing. He was still alive, clinging to the metal with his life. The flower had such a thin wiry body that he was able to fit inside the cracks of the robot’s foot without being crushed.

  “Come on,” she yelled at Riley, opening the hatch to his cell.

  She pulled the boy out of the back just as the robot’s foot crushed the black sphere into the ground. They rolled back into the street. There was nothing left of the slinky-spider but a flattened black mass of metal.

  “You saved me?” Riley said.

  A look of surprise was on his face, as if he never expected she would do anything for anybody but herself.

  “I still need you, remember,” she said. But the boy smiled and thanked her anyway.

  When the robot turned to them, Julie saw Pepper crawling up its leg like a fuzzy green spider.

  “What’s he doing?” Riley asked.

  Pepper laughed hysterically as he crawled into the morpher’s torso, through its inside machinery, placing small round disks in all of its vital areas.

  “He’s planting mines,” Julie said. “Run.”

  Julie took off running down the street with the boy, trying to find cover. When she looked back, she saw Pepper crawling up the robot’s face.

  “Boop!” Pepper said, as he planted his last mine on the tip of the robot’s nose.

  The smart-morpher jerked its head, shaking the flower off of its face. Pepper giggled madly as he fell through the air. Then he raised his hand to show the robot the detonator he was holding.

  The machine’s eyes brightened red. It looked at its body, searching for the mines, but there was nothing it could do in time. Pepper pushed the button on his detonator and the robot exploded. Chunks of flaming metal crumbled to the ground.

  Riley and Julie jumped behind a slab of concrete as shrapnel rained from the sky. She wrapped her plushy arms around the boy and held him tightly, protecting him from the falling debris. When it was all over, the robot was nothing but a flaming pile of junk in the road.

  “Are you okay?” Julie asked, helping Riley out from under their cover.

  Riley nodded. Then he smiled at her and rubbed her furry panda belly.

  “You’re soft,” he said.

  She smacked his hand away and stepped forward, pointing at something in the distance.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  Riley squinted his eyes. There were dozens of headlights shining their way.

  “Stomps,” Riley said. “An entire army of them.”

  “It took that much to kill one and now we have to face a dozen more?”

  “It looks like two or three dozen to me,” Riley said.

  They turned and marched back toward the hospital.

  “Wait…” Riley said.

  He paused and listened. There was a sound coming from the distance and it wasn’t just the roaring sounds of engines.

  “It sounds like screaming,” Julie said.

  There were riders inside of the vehicles coming their way, screaming with excitement.

  “It’s not just the Stomps,” Riley said. “The Mad Markers are with them too.”

  He squinted his eyes at the distance.

  “What?” Julie said.

  “It’s almost as if…” He stared at Julie with a terrified expression. “They’ve joined forces.”

  Julie looked back to see the army heading their way. The two most deadly tribes in the badlands were now one. And Julie just happened to be in the center of their territory.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Julie and Riley ran back toward the hospital. Along the way, they came across Pepper who was pulling himself to his feet.

  “I told you I could blow up anything,” he told Julie with a cartoon smile on his face.

  “Can you blow up that?” Julie asked, pointing at the army coming their way.

  The smile fell from the flower’s face. “Oh fuck…”

  He followed them as they went toward the slinky-spiders. Only two of them remained: the medical horse and the one Pepper was riding. Julie looked at the horses, then looked back at the army of smart-morphers, then at Pepper.

  “Should we just run for it?” Julie asked Pepper.

  Pepper nodded ten times rapid-fast.

  “Hell yeah let’s run for it,” he cried. “Let’s get as far as we fucking can and never look back ever again for as long as we live.”

  But even though he said that, Pepper couldn’t move. He just stared at the back of the medical horse, hesitating.

  “Everyone okay down there?” said a voice from the roof.

  Julie looked up to see Velvet up there holding her sniper rifle, standing on top of the hospital as if that’s where she was meant to be.

  “You’re sti
ll alive?” Julie asked.

  Velvet spit over the side. “I jumped out in time with only a few bumps and bruises. Can’t say the same for the human prisoner riding in the back, though. His guts were sprayed halfway across the badlands.”

  “You see what’s coming our way?” Julie asked.

  Velvet looked over her shoulder toward the lights in the distance.

  “Looks like a whole hell of a lot of trouble,” she said.

  “We’re thinking of running,” Julie said.

  “There’s no running from that,” Velvet said.

  Then Captain Caw marched out of the hospital toward them. When Riley saw the kangaroo coming, he ducked behind the flower’s horse.

  “Nobody’s running,” said the Captain.

  “Where the hell were you?” Julie asked him.

  “Finding your equipment,” said the kangaroo. “It’s time you got started.”

  Then he looked up at Velvet.

  “Be ready for them,” he told her. “Hold that position for as long as you can.”

  Then he said, “Here, catch,” as he tossed an ammunition bag up to her. She caught it with her left paw.

  “Explosive rounds?” she asked, when she looked into the bag.

  “You’re going to need them,” he said.

  Then he looked at the flower.

  “Before they get here, I want you to set up a minefield in front of the hospital and a tripwire in the entrance,” he told Pepper. “Then find a safe spot to hit them with rockets. Change your position every two shots you take.”

  He looked at Julie.

  “You just focus on the General,” he told her. “Keep him alive at all costs.”

  “What are you going to do?” Julie asked the Captain.

  “After you take my blood, I’m going to kill every single one of those bastards myself.”

  Then the Captain went to the back of the medical horse to check on the General. The massive teddy bear was still alive back there, gasping for air. Julie wasn’t sure what she should do about the General. Whether she saved him or let him die, they both had unfavorable outcomes.

  There was a sobbing noise in Julie’s ear. She turned to see a figure inside the cell on the back of Pepper’s slinky-spider. Upon closer inspection, Julie noticed the prisoner inside was a young girl no older than six. She had raggedy blonde hair and bloody bandages covering her eye sockets. It was clear the girl had been recently blinded.

  While the others weren’t paying attention, Julie went to Riley and whispered to him, “Once we’re out of sight, I want you to free her from this cell. Then I want you to take her and find a good hiding spot out in the waste. Keep her safe until it’s over.”

  Riley didn’t say anything in response. He just nodded with conviction. He understood perfectly well what he needed to do.

  Julie and Captain Caw wheeled the enormous teddy bear through the moonlit hospital, passing cobwebbed skeletons and dust-caked debris. They took a few ramps up to the third floor, where there was a semi-clean operating room ready for them. The place was lit by a single oil lamp the kangaroo had set up.

  “This far away?” Julie asked. “Couldn’t you have found something closer by?”

  “This place is the most secure,” said the Captain.

  They wheeled him in and Julie went to work immediately.

  “Roll up your sleeve and show me your arm,” she said.

  This was the part she wanted to finish as quickly as possible. Getting blood from Captain Caw wasn’t going to be easy. She didn’t like being that close to him. She wanted him out in the battle.

  The kangaroo glared at her with his red bulging eyes as he rolled up his black leather sleeve. She took his arm and examined it. His meat was so loose and pliable under the fur. She had no idea how she was going to find a vein.

  “What’s taking you so long?” he asked, after five minutes of examining his arm.

  A bomb exploded in the street outside of the window, signaling the start of the battle. The morphers had arrived.

  “I can’t find your vein,” Julie said.

  The kangaroo pulled his arm out of Julie’s hands. He brought it up to his lips and bit into it. Blood splashed at Julie as he ripped open his flesh, opening up the plushy hide of his forearm. When he was through removing his skin, Julie could see the muscles, tendons and veins pulsating before her.

  “Can you find it now?” asked the kangaroo.

  Julie just nodded at him, then stuck the syringe into his vein. Minutes later, she had a full blood pack.

  “That’s it,” she said. “I can take it from here.”

  The Captain dropped a bag of extra ammo by her feet. Shotgun shells.

  “When you’re done with him, guard the hallway,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can to keep them out of the building, but there are a lot of entrances to this place. Some will likely get inside.”

  “Aren’t they too big to get in?” Julie asked.

  “I’m not talking about the big ones,” he said. “The short guys are the ones you’ll have to worry about.”

  Then the Captain drew his samurai swords and took off down the hallway, leaving her alone with the massive red teddy bear.

  Julie went to the window to investigate what the kangaroo meant by the short guys. The Mad Markers was what the boy called them, but she had to see what they were up against for herself.

  Down below, in the streets outside, dozens of cars and trucks were transforming into giant robots, smashing through buildings and piles of rubble, trying to track down the plushy soldier who kept firing bombs at them. But some of them did not transform. They kept their vehicle shape so that they could transport their passengers into the battlefield.

  As a group of crazed warriors jumped out of the back of a truck, Julie got a good look at them. The Mad Markers were only two or three feet high, screaming high-pitched battle cries and waving hand-made axes carved from rusty scrap metal. They wore human skulls for helmets and had chest-armor made of human bones sewn into human flesh hides. But what grabbed Julie’s attention most of all was what was beneath their flesh and bone clothing.

  Their hard plastic bodies were brightly colored. Some green, some blue, some pink, some yellow, but each of them had white bellies containing a unique marking. Julie recognized some of the markings: a heart, a rainbow, a cupcake. Before the war, Julie was very familiar with the toy line that became the Mad Markers.

  “Carebears?” Julie said. “They’re fucking Carebears?”

  She watched in horror as the Carebear warriors charged toward the hospital, growling and shrieking, their eyes glowing bright red as they gnashed their razor sharp metal teeth.

  Julie fell to the floor as the earth shook around her. She staggered into the hallway and saw the entire west wing of the hospital being ripped away.

  Outside, all she saw of what caused the destruction was a metal hand the size of a house brushing past the opening. The sound of its stomping feet thundered through the building. She wasn’t sure what that morpher had been before it transformed into a giant robot, but it must have been an aircraft carrier or a skyscraper. If it wanted to, it probably could take out the whole building itself.

  Luckily, it was not after her yet. It was after Pepper the sunflower. She couldn’t see the flower out in the darkness, but she saw his pyrotechnics. He was lighting up the badlands with flaming robots, transforming them into heaps of fiery scrap metal. The massive skyscraping morpher wasn’t going to be so easy for him, though. He would need a megaton bomb to take that one out.

  Julie decided to forget about the battle being waged outside. She had business to attend to, with the General.

  “Ugly raping motherfucker,” Julie said to the teddy bear as she approached his charred bandaged body. “Now what am I going to do with you?”

  She went to his bed and stared down at him.

  “I really should kill you,” she said. “But that would mean your buddy, Captain Caw, would come after me.”

  She
held up the blood pack. It was still warm and squishy.

  “I could give you this blood as I told the others I would,” she said. “But if you wake up and tell them about me they’ll figure out what I really am.”

  She set the blood pack down and went around to the back of his bed, looking down at his fluffy skull.

  “Maybe there’s a way I can damage your brain,” she said, holding his massive head in her plushy hands. “Not enough to kill you. Just enough so that you’ll never think an intelligent thought ever again. I’m sure the Captain will never know.”

  Julie picked up an old scalpel from the counter and brought it to his skull.

  “I’ll just remove the tiniest piece and see what happens,” she said. “Hopefully, it won’t kill you.”

  As Julie pressed the scalpel against the teddy bear’s head, a deep moan escaped from his lungs. Then she saw movement under his bandages.

  She cut the gauze off of his chest and saw that the movement was underneath his skin. Five little bumps appeared on his torso. Something was crawling inside him.

  “What the fuck?” Julie said.

  She brought the scalpel toward one of the bumps, wondering if she should cut him open to see what was inside. The bump moved across his flesh toward one of the bullet holes on his torso.

  When it arrived at the hole, it disappeared. Julie pulled the scalpel away, wondering what the hell that was all about.

  Then a tiny smart-soldier popped out of his wound and screamed in a high-pitched voice, “Surprise!”

  Julie dropped to the ground as the tiny soldier opened fire. She crawled across the room, covering her head with her paws. Four more tiny green soldiers popped out of his bullet holes and fired at Julie.

  She crawled into the hallway and rolled around the corner, leaning against the wall to catch her breath.

  “What the fuck was that?” she said.

  Now she understood why the Whiners were considered masters of the ambush. All this time, those little fuckers were hiding in the bear’s wounds, waiting for a chance to strike.