Cineverse - Bride Of The Slime Monster Part 1

BRIDE OF THE SLIME MONSTER.

by Craig Shaw Gardner.

THIS ONE IS FOR.

CHARLIE,.

A SLIME MONSTER IN HIS OWN WRITE.

^ ^ 1 ^ ^.

"FLAMING DEATH!".

It was the end of the world.

Flying saucers crashed into the Washington Monument. Skysc.r.a.pers caught fire.

Jumbo jets crash-landed in Peru. An immense ocean liner, quite possibly the t.i.tanic, hit an iceberg and sank majestically. Rome burned while Nero fiddled. It was terrible.

And Roger was helpless to stop it.

After that, of course, it got worse.

Newspaper headlines spun toward him, freezing in place with headlines like: "ROGER FAILS!".

"DELORES LOST FOREVER!".

"DOCTOR DREAD TRIUMPHANT!".

"CINEVERSE DOOMED!".

And it didn't stop there. If that had been the extent of things, Roger still might have been able to stand it. After all, he had become inured to hardship and surprise through a life working in public relations. But no!

There had to be those disembodied voices, didn't there?

And what voices! First, there was this maniacal laughter: "Ah hahahaha! Ah hahahaha!"

Roger could imagine the man's bald head, gleaming almost with a light of its own as the man's mouth opened, pencil-thin mustache a-quiver, to pour forth that never- ending stream of triumphant mirth.

"Ah hahahaha! Ah hahahaha!"

That laughter threatened to drive Roger into a frenzy. But the second voice did worse than that.

"Roger," she said, "why did you fail me?"

"Delores!" he called, but she did not answer.

"Roger," she said again, "why did you fail me?"

"I couldn't help it!" he replied. "The ring slipped from my fingers. Big Louie grabbed it from my-"

His voice died as he remembered the last thing he heard as he slipped away from the Cineverse. It had been a gunshot, fired-no doubt-by Doctor Dread or one of his insidious henchpeople. Had that bullet hit someone? What if Roger had escaped, only to have someone else die in his place?"Roger," Delores asked imploringly, "why did you fail me?"

He tried to think of something else he could say, but realized, before he could open his mouth again, that it was no use. Wherever Delores' voice was coming from, she could not, or would not, hear his answers.

He would not accept this! There must be some way- "Delores," he whispered desperately.

The other voice answered: "Ah hahahaha! Ah hahahaha!"

"Roger," Delores' voice followed, "why did you fail me?"

The voices were growing louder, as if they were shouting in his ears: "Roger? Why did you-ah hahahaha!-why did you fail - ah hahahaha! - why did you - hahaha - fail - ha-haha - fail fail fail fail - "

"No! " Roger clamped his hands over his ears. The voices had become too much for him. He couldn't think. He couldn't talk.

He looked wildly about for help - any sort of help. Delores and the villain were nowhere to be seen. He was surrounded by darkness save for a single, distant point of light. Something moved in that faraway illumination, a tall figure, a dark silhouette against the brilliant background. Roger squinted, trying to make some sense of the distant man's movements. He realized at last that the fellow was smoking a cigar - a cigar that produced blue smoke.

Blue smoke?

That's what he needed to get out of here - the blue smoke of a Captain Crusader Decoder Ring! But his ring was gone. How could he ever find another?

Perhaps, Roger realized, the man with the cigar might have the answer. He'd have to call to the stranger to get his attention. Roger took his hands from his ears so that he could cup them around his mouth.

"Fail!" the first voice screamed.

"Ah hahahaha!" the second voice rejoined.

Somehow, the accusing voices had gotten even louder - almost as if they screamed from somewhere deep within Roger's head. He tried to speak, but his own voice was swallowed up in the others' all-consuming cries. He no longer had any hope of calling to the cigar-smoking stranger.

"Fail! - Ah hahahaha! - Fail! - Ah hahahaha!"He had no hope of anything.

He fell to his knees, but there was no floor beneath him. He was falling, turning round and round, tumbling head over heels toward a distant, even darker point, so deep and far away that it was totally beyond light, and warmth, and redemption.

And still the voices were with him.

"Fail!"

"No!" Roger screamed over and over again as his body plummeted toward the pit.

"Ah hahahaha!" "No! No! No! No!"

Roger woke up.

He looked around. He was in his own bedroom, in his own bed. Dim light filtered through his Venetian blinds, throwing bars of yellow-red across the floor. It must be, he thought, close to sunset.

So he wasn't in the Cineverse. Roger sat up. Had it all been a dream, then? Delores hadn't called to him? He wasn't surrounded by evil laughter, forever falling, forever failing?

It had been awfully vivid for a dream. He remembered so many things, so many places and events, marching by him almost like he was watching a movie. But that was it exactly! For how could he have known, when he first fell in love with Delores, that she was an emissary from another dimension?-a dimension that resembled nothing so much as all those films from the thirties, forties, and fifties-all those movies made before the Change. And how could he imagine that you could only visit that other reality, known as the Cineverse, through the use of a small plastic Captain Crusader Secret Decoder Ring, once given away for free in boxes of Nut Crunchies?

He had found so much in the Cineverse, and so many people who had befriended him.

Not only Delores, but Doc, a former town drunk, who-when he stayed moderately sober-was a formidable ally. Then there was Zabana, Prince of the Jungle, and Big Louie, who actually was rather short, a sidekick who always seemed to know what you were going to say next. They had all been there when that gunshot rang out. They had all been alive when Roger had vanished from the Cineverse, menaced by the guns of Doctor Dread and his cohorts. Who could say how many of his friends there were still alive?

It seemed all so fantastic now, back in Roger's bedroom, just waking from sleep. It was difficult to remember the horror he had once felt, when he learned of Doctor Dread's plans for controlling not only the Cine verse, but the Earth as well.

But there was something about that man in Roger's nightmare-something that Roger swore must be very important. Well, he was in the distance in the nightmare, so maybe- working from dream logic-the blue-smoke stranger wasn't important at all. Then why did Roger's stomach lurch when he thought about the man with the cigar?

He shook his head at the impossibility of it all. So much had happened so quickly to Roger, that-especially now that he was back in his old apartment, tangled in his old bedclothes-it all did seem almost like a dream, like the Cineverse was just some figment of his movie-loving imagination. But where did his dreams end and reality begin?

The phone rang.

"h.e.l.lo?" Roger said.

"Ah hahahaha," a voice replied. "Ah hahahaha!"

The reality of it all came crashing down around Roger.

"Mengeles!" he screamed into the receiver. "What do you want?"

"Only to gloat, dear boy," Mengeles replied in an oily voice. "But now that we know the truth about each other, perhaps you should call me by my true name-Menge the Merciless!"

Roger almost dropped the phone. How could he have been so blind? As a child, he had watched that evil fiend- with his bald head and pencil-thin mustache-week after week on TV in that old movie serial Captain Crusader Conquers the Universe.

Each week Menge's twisted plans almost defeated Truth, Justice, and the Universal Way, only to be thwarted at the last instant by Captain Crusader's heroics. And now the evil fiend was here, talking on the phone!

No wonder Roger had always had an odd feeling about the man. Since he had only known Menge the Merciless as his mother's next door neighbor, however, he had never realized the villain's true nature. Roger stared at the receiver in horror. How could he have been such a fool?

"You never had a chance against me, pitiful earthling," Menge gloated. "I'll admit that I've had some trouble in the past, with meddlers like that Captain Crusader! But Doctor Dread's master plan put me beyond that snooping Captain, and every other hero in the Cine verse! Now that I am on Earth, a place where they no longer have heroes, how can I help but triumph?"

"Why, you-'' Roger paused, trying to find just the right words. Why couldn't he think of something n.o.ble and upright to say that didn't sound foolish at the same time?

Menge interrupted Roger's thoughts. "But enough gloating! It's time to plunder, loot, and destroy! But before I go, I must thank you for the four Captain Crusader Rings.

I'm sure they will come in very handy in our conquest of the Cineverse. Ah hahahaha!

Ah hahahaha!"

Menge hung up. Roger listened to the dial tone, then replaced his own receiver.

Depend on a villain like that, he supposed, to not even say goodbye.And Menge had mentioned the rings. Not that Roger needed to be reminded. When he was a boy, he had found seven of them in Nut Crunchies boxes, and kept them all these years, stored along with all his other childhood possessions, at his mother's home. Or so he had thought. When he had been told the true significance of the Captain Crusader Decoder Ring, he had returned to his mother's, only to find all his keepsakes moved, and many of them sold! After a frantic search, he had managed to find one of the rings, but the others seemed to have vanished.

Now, of course, he knew where the rings had gone. Menge had stolen them! Roger had foolishly thought them safe in his mother's bas.e.m.e.nt. But Dread's minion had not only absconded with four of the precious plastic circlets- not to mention starting a romance of some sort with Roger's mother-he had moved all of Roger's things into his mother's garage!

Roger told himself to calm down. It was time for thought, not anger. He had lost his first ring. Menge had claimed four others among his belongings. But, years ago, when he was twelve, Roger distinctly remembered saving seven of those cheap plastic objects. That meant there might still be a ring or two left among Roger's boxes. True, they could have been lost or destroyed. The rings, keys to the universe that they were, were nevertheless small and cheaply made; incredibly breakable. Maybe they were gone. But maybe they were somewhere Menge hadn't thought to look.

Roger had to go to that garage as soon as possible, and look for whatever hiding places his twelve-year-old mind might have imagined. Delores and the others were in deadly danger; he had to find that ring now.

But what would he say to his mother? Roger had no time for explanations, especially for something as complicated and unbelievable as the Cineverse!

Then again, why did he have to explain at all? If he simply walked into the garage, without knocking on his mother's door, he wouldn't have to explain anything, would he? It wasn't as if he were stealing anything-whatever pitifully few boxes were left, they were his things, after all.

That decided it, then-simple, efficient, and completely free of Mother's lectures about his untidiness and the various women in his life. He'd just have to wait for it to be fully dark. His mother would be watching television, if not asleep. He could be in and out of her garage without her ever knowing he was around.

Yes! The plan was foolproof. Roger was surprised for an instant at his new resolve. A few days ago, he would never have dared to do something like this. But that was before he'd survived the Wild West, braved a primitive jungle, and almost been sacrificed to a volcano G.o.d! For good or ill, his experiences in the Cineverse had changed him. He trusted they would pay off in this world as well.

He got out of bed, walked into the kitchen, and methodically began to search the drawers. He knew there was a flashlight in there somewhere.

Roger walked quietly to the door at the side of his mother's garage. He had put on his spare jogging suit, a faded blue with silver stripes down the pants and arms. His newer exercise outfit had been severely damaged by adventures on various movie worlds, but he figured an outfit like this would raise the least suspicion in his mother's suburban neighborhood. Heaven knew, there were joggers up and down these streets at all hours of the day and night.

He tried the door. It opened. His mother never locked it. At least that hadn't changed.

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He flicked on the flashlight. The beam wasn't as strong as it could have been, barely piercing the gloom. Maybe, Roger thought, he should have checked the batteries.

His foot hit something, which in turn hit a trash can. Roger froze, but heard no answering noise from his mother's house. His stomach growled. He ma.s.saged his sneakered foot. What was his mother doing, leaving noisy metal objects on the floor of the garage? After a moment, he moved even more carefully to the shelves in the back of the garage.

Roger's stomach complained again. How long had it been since he'd had something to eat? The last big meal he'd had was the night before he was to be sacrificed to the Volcano G.o.d. He had no idea how long ago that was-time in the Cineverse wasn't like time on Earth; on movie worlds there were all these jump cuts. Roger could taste the saliva in the back of his throat. If only he had a little something to munch on....

There was something in the pocket of his jogging suit. Roger fished it out and shined the flashlight beam on what he'd found: a packet of chewing gum with one stick left.

Well, it was better than nothing. He unwrapped the stick and popped it in his mouth.

Besides, maybe chewing on some gum would calm his nerves.

He turned his light to the storage shelves, and almost immediately found the boxes he was searching for, all stacked neatly on the uppermost shelf. Menge the Merciless might have been a scourge and a villain, but at least he was tidy.

Roger set about methodically exploring the half dozen boxes still left from his childhood, doing his best to keep quiet. The first held only elementary school papers and projects, the second various broken toys he'd been unable to part with. The third box was a bit larger and more interesting. It contained half a dozen figures left over from his Zorro fort, his incomplete set of "Mars Attacks Earth" cards-he was missing Number 22-and a catcher's mitt, which Roger's father had bought in the forlorn hope that his son might take up baseball. Roger smiled when he thought of his father's impossible quest. After all, who needed to take up sports when there were so many good comic books and movies around? Roger hadn't really discovered exercise until sometime after he discovered girls. Except for one or two halfhearted games of catch begun in their backyard on his father's insistence, this glove had never been used.

Except- Roger's heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest. After he'd given up his brief baseball career, this glove had been virtually useless, except as a place to hide things.

Small things in particular-small, round, cheap plastic things, like Captain Crusader Decoder Rings!Roger quickly reached inside the glove, and felt the piece of tissue paper he knew would be there. Perhaps he got a bit too excited, or pulled the paper free a bit too rapidly. Whatever the reason, he lost his grip on the box. It fell to the cement floor with a dull thud. Roger hoped it was too soft a noise for anybody to hear. He pulled the tissue paper from the ring. Yes! He didn't even have to shine the flashlight on it.

He'd know the feel of this cheap plastic anywhere.

It was a genuine (accept no subst.i.tutes) Captain Crusader Decoder Ring!

That's when he heard voices. His fingers went numb. The ring slipped from his hand.

The voices were coming from outside the garage. Roger turned off his flashlight. He strained to hear the words.

"Now, I might just be a foolish old lady, but I swear I heard something."