Frederick Zebulon was an average man. Well, he wasn't exactly average, or for that matter, anywhere near there, but he was average enough so that absolutely bizarre things could happen to him and the universe would still be all right with it. (See, the universe doesn't allow bizarre things to happen to anyone that's not within a normal quotient range, as they've probably been expecting it all along and therefore are no fun.) He was tall, had brown hair, gray eyes, a small dog, no girlfriend and a rather nasty disposition against rabbits. He absolutely hated the little minions of Satan, with their big fluffy ears and cute little faces and the mouths always working. Frederick was sure that this was all a ruse, to lure people into loving them, and then wham! they strike, and no one expected it until it was too late. In a way, they were like the Spanish Inquisition, but slightly more evil.
One day, as Frederick was on patrol for bunnies on his street, he noticed that there was a large capsule flying through the air. As it gracefully flew through the sky, it left behind a rather nasty smell of smoke, burning and oranges. The capsule ended its majestic flight in the middle of Fred's house, leaving a hole to rival the one in the defense system of the US.
“Oh no,” said Fred. “Oh, no no no not cool! NOT COOL!” He ran to his house, pulling out his bunny-attacking broom handle as he did so. He (forgetting it was his house) kicked down the door and ran in, promptly attacking the capsule with the broom handle as he did it. This was a bad move on his part. The capsule was hard as … well, a giant metal space capsule, and the handle broke off. There was a clicking sound from the inside, and the doors whirred open. In the light shed by the capsule, there stood a reddish-green seven-foot-tall dinosaur.
He stepped outside and intoned in a deep voice, “Frederick Edgar Zebulon, more commonly
known to the world as 'that nutter who hates bunnies' 'Old Freddy', 'Fez', 'Fred', and 'Zeb'. Hello. I am Harold, your dinosaur.”
Fred stood in silence for a minute, then said, “My dinosaur? Since when did I have a dinosaur?”
Harold sighed. “You see, the dinosaurs evacuated the planet after the humans became what we call a disease. A cancer of this planet. We left, taking our superior technology with us, and traveled to a far-away star system. Ever since humanity has achieved levels of intelligence to rival our own, we have assigned individual dinosaurs to watch the ones with the most cause for concern. I was assigned to you.”
“But wait,” said Frederick carefully. “What does this have to do with me? I mean, I'm no one important or special. Why me?”
Harold sighed again, sat down in one of Fred's nice chairs and pulled out a cigar. He lit it, thoughtfully, and said, “You see, Freddy old boy, you are the only person in the world who actually knows.” Seeing the bewildered look on Fred' face, he leaned forward and said menacingly, “The bunnies, Fred. The bunnies.” (It is in fact very hard to say this menacingly, but Harold did it somehow.) He leaned back, and explained further, “Once, during a routine checkup, one of our personnel was a bit intoxicated and crashed into a base somewhere in the 50's. His ship was taken, but he managed to escape, taking the secret power source that powers our machines. Out in the wilderness, he dropped this valuable piece of material on the ground and died. The first creature to come across the source was a rabbit. This very same rabbit took this material back to its lair, where a chemical release mutated it into something cunning and evil that could very well kill you all.”
“I knew it!” shouted Fred excitedly. “This is why-”
“Silence!” overrode Harold with his dinosaur voice. “While most bunnies are cute, friendly and otherwise loveable, these bunnies are terrifying death machines. Yes, I said bunnies plural, because this one rabbit breeded like mad, and then the offspring inherited the mutation that makes them evil.”
“Alright,” said Frederick. “I just have one question.”
“Fire away, captain,” said Harold.
“Why aren't you huge, enormous, full of teeth and other nasty things and wanting to kill me?”
“65 million years of evolution on a foreign totally different planet will do that for you. Did you know that certain species have evolved to be geovores?”
“That's... eating the earth?” said Frederick, confused.
“Good job! This is why you're one of the Chosen, because you're so clever.”
Fred couldn't tell if this was sarcasm or not. Deciding it was all a bit too much for him to take, he walked into his kitchen and opened his cabinet, reaching inside. The door to the mini-fridge (he had placed it there in the event the rabbits destroyed the other one) slid open and he pulled out one of his emergency ham sandwiches. Sitting down, he took an enormous bite out of the top and began to ponder what this meant. His time to do such was short, as Harold burst into the kitchen, shouting “Didn't you have a dog named Scratchy?”
“Yes... why is it 'didn't'?” said Fred, with the really nice feeling that he was going to be very, very mad in a minute.
About twelve hours later, they were in the woods looking for rabbit tracks after dark. Needless to say, it was bothersome and tiring. Fred turned to Harold, saying, “How did my dog get carried by bunnies down an ten hour drive before we noticed?”
Harold muttered something indistinguishable, most likely to make sure the rabbits didn't hear him. Frederick stepped forward and said, “Excuse me, I couldn't hear that.”
The dinosaur turned on him with a velocity unexpected by Frederick. “I said, how do you think they did it? Do you really think a rrraarrrgging rabbit could take your dog in a fight? How stupid are you? Now that we're alone, where's the source? Where is it, you little grarrghRARGHHGHH?” (Harold's implant translator refused to work on the basis that it was set to “polite” mode, which meant that his foul mouth would only be recognizable by other dinosaurs and Bigfoot.)
Fred stammered. “I d-d-don't know wh-wh-what you're t-t-talking about! I thought the rabbit-”
“No, you nimrod! What would a rabbit want with high-technology spaceship power fuel? Your grandfather took it at Area 51, and it has been entrusted with your family since then! Where is it?”
“I don't know, I swear! You can try looking in my house, there's a box in the basement that's never been opened!” This was a downright lie, and he hoped Harold couldn't tell.
“Excellent. I think you've outlived your purpose here,” said Harold.
“Wait! Before you kill me, why did you take me ten hours away from the place where it is? Doesn't that just inconvenience you more?” blustered Frederick, hoping for time.
“In truth, it's because of the fact that the government hasn't put any sensors here. They're too afraid of things that go bumb.” With this, talons burst out of his limbs and he swiped at Fred's chest, knocking him down and causing him to bleed severely.
Faintly, Fred could see a hologram of another dinosaur appear and ask, “Have you secured the location of the goods?”
“Yes sir. They're at Fred's house and I'm going to get them now,” Harold replied smugly.
“Excellent. Secure the antimatter engine, activate the detonation sequence and return home. You'll be a hero, boy. By the way, what of Fred?” the other saur asked.
“Fred's dead, baby. Fred's dead.”
Then all went black for Frederick Edgar Zebulon.
Waking up took a while. The pain in his stomach felt like someone was ripping holes in him with a knife whilst laughing diabolically. Frederick groaned and sat up in the bed he was in, and looked around at the house he was in. The walls were black. The floor was wooden, painted black. The bed was black. The door was green. Fred wasn't quite sure if he was dead or not. He looked at the mostly black but a little red clock on the wall and determined that Harold had left for his house two hours ago, which gave him six hours to find out where this anti-molecule-something was. However, he decided that finding out exactly where he was would be the most economic use of his time right now.
“Dude! Are you alright, man?” said the man who had just walked in the room. He was wearing a black shirt with black pants and black socks. “Cause, I mean, I totally found you in like, the middle of nowhere, like, bleeding, and I was like, 'Oh noes he's gonna die!' Then I took to my house and I like, bandaged you up, dude!” This was true, noticed Fred. There were bandages around his waist. Also present was the lack of a shirt, which bothered him somewhat. The man was still talking, babbling about how he hated to see people in pain and what the world was coming to and...
Fred cut him off before he was ahead. “Hey, where am I? And how far away is Springfield?"
The man blinked in surprise. “Dude, this is like Lake something or other. And Springfield's a couple miles away. Hey, you wanna see my sweet new car?”
Fred nodded in the affirmative, stood up, took the clock off the wall, and followed him. The man's house was a maze of different colors, mostly black, but doors were painted so as to easily be identified as the Green Room, Red Room, etc. Swivels of color spanned the floor, abstract paintings caressed the walls, and harmonious hard rock blasted through a surround system.
When they reached the garage, Fred saw a recently refurbished Pontiac Firebird, sitting there like a dream. Light shone around it as the angels screamed into the air. The strange man was staring at his car, so happy that something like this had happened to him. He never saw the clock coming. It connected with the back of his head with a crack! rather like a gunshot.
Fred jumped in the car, realized he had no keys, got out and took the man's keys from his unconscious body, took the shirt as well, wrote him an I.O.U., and jumped back in the car. He racked his brains nervously. Where would he hide a super-nuclear power source if he wanted no one to find it when he died? Mindlessly, he flipped through the notes in the man's car, reading as they passed. “Get food... get wine... get girlfriend - that's probably out of order... get more paint... get CD's... go to mom's funeral...” He stopped and thought about this last one. “Of course!” he shouted joyfully. “The graveyard! I remember that his funeral was close-casket, so no one could That's exactly what I'd do!” Excitedly, he started the car and drove like a madman towards the highway.
After a long, uneventful drive, Frederick reached his grandfather's graveyard. Stealing a shovel from the shed, he ran towards the grave. He slammed the shovel in the earth and began digging. It was hard work, but he got through it by thinking about the world and how he was responsible for it not blowing up. By the time a hurricane of sweat was dripping down his brow, he had achieved three feet, maybe more. The tiring labor was painful, but he didn’t let that bother him. Eventually, he burrowed down to the casket. Frederick grinned. He pulled it out, then jumped as he felt a talon against his back.
“So, you little rrrrlllarrgghhghg, you thought you could lie to us?” whispered Harold evilly. “Well, I'm going to show you a thing or two.”
Frederick turned around, using his momentum to swing the shovel into the side of Harold's head. Harold let out a startled rraarr and hit the ground. Frederick, not missing a thing, began whacking Harold with the blade of the shovel while he was down. Harold kicked from the ground, hitting Fred in the knee and causing him to crumple in pain. As he went down, Frederick grabbed the dinosaur around the waist, and threw him to one side. The dinosaur immediately began slashing at Fred with his claws. This went on for a few minutes, until Fred got an idea. He freed himself from the grasp of the filthy, bloody dinosaur, standing up as he did so. He screamed at the dinosaur “Get up and let's do this like men!” Harold obliged, roaring and standing to his feet. As he was getting up, Frederick ran and kicked the reptilian bugger into his grandfather's grave. Grabbing his grandfather's coffin, he pushed it into the hole, crushing Harold once and for all.
Frederick let out a weary yelp of triumph. He jumped once on the coffin, just to be safe. Then he pried open the coffin lid, and pulled out the device inside. It was nice and shiny, but it looked like a computer processor, very unimpressive and very anticlimactic. He sighed, and took the thing out to his car.
The Pentagon didn't know what to do with it, Homeland Security didn't want it, the BPRD didn't like technology and the CIA is just a myth, so Frederick took it to Lake something or other. He dropped the car, the keys, and the t-shirt back at the man's house, with $500 and an apology (complete with a picture of a dinosaur). As he descended to the lake, he wondered what had happened to Scratchy. His thoughts stopped as he reached the lake. He realized why no one could remember the name: it was so beautiful, words didn't do it justice. A calm serenity was in the air, a silence formed from the sounds of nature. A cliff faced the lake, steep, rocky, yet beautiful as heaven. The natural beauty impressed on Fred's stressed mind. Frederick tried to clear his head, and gave up. He threw the antimatter device on a bench and ran towards the cliff. The breeze hit him in the face in a pleasant way and he hummed happily. He had nothing to lose, right? Nothing left to live for, right? Anything was possible, right?
And maybe, if you just closed your eyes, you could fly.
Disclaimer(s):
Nothing bad happened to Scratchy. He was adopted by a suburban family with a fair bit of cash and a great deal of love. He lived the rest of his life in complete happiness, although one day of the year he would always leave to go to a wrecked house and sit there for the entire day.
The gravekeeper who found the open grave and the dead dinosaur did not suffer a heart attack, but was used to this sort of this thing by now, and simply gave the dinosaur a decent burial.
The antimatter device was recovered by the dinosaurs and kept safely on their own planet far away.
The man was quite forgiving of this incident, although he learned a valuable lesson: Don't Trust Strangers.
Fred died a happy man, and, no, he was not on drugs.
The rabbits were really nothing more than a plot device.
Enjoy? I thought not. Thanks for wasting your time.
