“Museum Trip”
By RD Rivero
**final version**
Introduction
It was a warm summer day, excellent sun, excellent breeze -- and, to top it all off -- scantily-clad saber-cats! But, alas, not everyone was out staring and salivating. Nope -- no, sir. Instead of going to the beach or to the movies or anywhere else fun and interesting, a group of females and female-like ThunderCats fans decided to a museum a visit.
A museum....
"No, that's not true, you phony!" Spark decried, crossing her arms in a defensive stance. "Ayanna was right; we shouldn't be listening to baldies. I don't care if it is the Panthro look!"
"Yeah, you tell 'im, Spark. I'm no female-like fan," Chanur roared.
"We were headed to the countryside for a venison
picnic, but our car broke down in
"How we ended up going through
"It's the north-east, it's full o'weirdos," Red Lioness added.
"Anyone got more pixie juice?" Zhyan asked, getting up.
Spark sighed and continued: "Anyway, there was a lot of sun -- a lot of heat. HEAT. The only place with shade was this big, strange-looking building. It looked familiar -- the shape of the building, I mean. I couldn't put my finger on it. It was a museum and it seemed open -- so we went in."
"OI!" Salix said, slapping her forehead. "It seemed normal, too, until we passed through the front doors."
Part One
The group of five intrepid scouts pushed their run-down vehicle to the museum's lot -- its empty lot -- and, clearing the sweat from off their brow, collectively-chaotically piled into the very small admittance room.
The room was dark -- except for the open windows it had no light fixtures of any sort. It was cramped with decades-old furniture and bookcases beaten by the unforgiving two-by-four of time. Dust encrusted every surface, from the ceiling to the walls to the floor. Spider webs adorned the windows and shelves; tendrils of shriveled threads hung from the plaster roof like the stalagmites of caves.
"Just what sort of museum is this?" Red asked, covering her face not only for the dust but for the clear and present aroma of formaldehyde.
Chanur recognized the odor, too, and cringed.
"I donno," Spark answered, "but I guess we pay over there."
She pointed to the rear of the chamber where an even tinier box-office was held.
Salix approached the tiger-lamp-lit cubicle and banged on the bell until the attendant appeared.
A thin, pale, nerdy-looking man with thick glasses emerged from under the table.
"Yes? May I help you?" he asked fro
"We'd like to --"
She was interrupted by the speaker that echoed the man's voice in horribly, distorted sonority.
"Sorry about that; the speaker's been on the fritz for years."
He spoke and, sure enough, five seconds later his voice was echoed through that infernal device, garbled and -- even -- perverse.
"Is the museum open?" she asked.
"Most certainly so!" he answered, quite excitedly.
"Hey, hey! We've got visitors, visitors, Smithers!"
They party of five -- that had gathered in a semi-circle before the box-office -- stared at each other rather nervously -- then irately as the speaker transformed the unseen and muffled voice into something that sounded like mouse-squeaks.
"Visitors, Smithers -- any hot and buff male types for my amusement?"
"Err," the man said, his mouth, his lips, barely moving. "Well, now, this isn't the time or place, Mr. Burns." Adjusting his collar and desperately trying to look as un-weird as possible, he continued: "Admissions will be five tiger backs."
"I haven't had any man-meat since that last --"
"Shuddup!" the queer attendant shouted, apparently pounding something just below the table as Salix slid the payment under the glass partition.
"No, no, that's OK," she said, stepping aback. "You can keep the change."
They stepped through the turnstiles from the admittance room to the lobby. It was like going from night into day: clean, fresh and almost new.
"What sort of museum is this?" Chanur asked.
"Didn't I just ask that?" Red asked, again. Or so.
"I donno, ask what?"
"Hmmm, Grune," she said, ogling at a portrait of the saber-tooth that hung on the wall.
Indeed, the lobby was adorned with a lot of Grune mugs.
They continued their trek through the immense room, their path corralled by ropes of red and black stripes. The ceiling was adorned by tasteful fixture of fluorescent exuberance. The marble and wood walls were accented -- dare I say accessorized -- by cheetah prints, white-tiger stripes. The floor was carpeted in a tannish tan rug -- freshly vacuumed.
"Tacky and yet, pimpy. I say this is a sex museum!" Spark said. "Yeah, I just said."
"Look! Pamphlets!" Zhyan sprinted across the lobby to the location of the stairs and elevators. On a stand next to a vined fountain were maps and brochures of the unearthly establishment. "Oh, dear god, no --" his voice trailed into a whisper akin to horror.
"What is it?" Spark rushed to his side and looked aghast as well.
Chanur gulped -- despite his distance from the stand and therefore his inability to read the documents, he already suspected the hand of evil itself.
"We're in the
"The Anti-River Society E," Red read aloud. "You were right, Spark, it is a sex museum!"
Chanur gulped, again!
"Well, since we're already in here and since there's no place else to go --"
"Spark, don't you know what this means?" Chanur's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. "We're all gonna die!"
A depraved sort of wail -- actually, the electrically distorted echo of a depraved sort of wail -- resounded from the other side of the lobby, from the box-office that was suddenly dark and unpopulated....
Salix opened a brochure -- within were the schematics of the facilities: three floors and a basement. The first and third floors looked like R's and the second floor like a D. The basement was square-shaped and, though she skimmed the legend, seemed to her to be concerned with MummRa. The overall shape of the building resembled the genitalia of the typical ThunderCat: a pair of small bulges and not much else.
"OK, this is what we'll do," she said as he gave everyone maps. "We'll take turns exploring this place."
"Are you serious? I mean, we're all gonna die! We're gonna die and end up like those -- those -- accessories!"
He pointed to the mantles of extracted cat coats that dangled upon the Grune-ed walls of the lobby.
Spark gulped; Zhyan slurped a bucket-full of pixie shake.
"Argh!" Red rolled her eyes. "Rivero's been gone for ages, he's dead, dead, DEAD! He can't hurt us no more!"
"This is like a cheap, b-grade horror movie. I bet he's hiding in the shadows with a mask and a really, really, really long knife."
Chanur shouted a quick yelp and jumped almost five feet to the side -- revealing behind him a rather tall, well-built figure clad in bandages except for the crotch area where a large blue rectangle was growing -- and growing!
"Viagra! Viagra muchachas!"
The mummy gyrated its hips and danced in what it was probably thinking was a seductive manner but that was in fact turning everyone's stomach. The blue rectangle kept getting bigger and bigger -- everyone's eyes, as if by design, seemed gravitated toward it -- and just when it was impossible for it to get any bigger it burst short spurts of tiny, blue pills.
A gigantic hook appeared from a niche in the nearest wall and promptly removed the impotence-cure ad.
"So maybe we won't die, maybe we'll wish we were dead."
"Oh, stop it. Red and I will explore the third floor, Spark and Zhy will explore the second floor and you'll explore the first floor."
Red and Salix raced to the stairs. Spark and Zhy walked arm in arm to the escalators. And Chanur -- quivered? -- alone.
Part Two
"So, Salix, what exhibit is this?" Red asked as she explored a display of common house-hold furniture: two chairs, a coffee table and a hanging lamp. "It's actually quite -- tasteful -- I can see why it was put in the back of the museum."
Salix thumbed through the guide book and answered: "It's a sample of Rivero's 2001 Home Collectables, with tail (tm)." Easing past the limp rope barriers, she approached the lioness. "A he and she pair of chairs. Bengali and Tygra variety."
"He and she?" the artist asked mildly surprised. "You mean his and hers?"
"Nope," the nymph replied adamantly. "According to this brochure, the seats come complete with genitals."
Red raised an eyebrow and crouched to see between the chair's legs -- indeed, the furnishings were better hung than Liono.
"Oh, oh, I think
"She'll have to take a number, I think," the red-haired lion complemented the laughter with her own.
"Now this is interesting." She shuffled to scan the table and lamp set with her eyes and fingertips: "Grune bone table and Ayanna lamp shades."
"Grune bone?" She asked, morbidly excited by the possibilities. "Which bone?"
"Donno, it doesn't say."
"Must've been a lot of bones."
"I guess RD must've gone through a lot of Grunes back then -- who'd have thunk it."
Knocking on the table, she returned to the main aisle to explore the next exhibit.
The hall widened and two passages were clear in view: one was the hall of the Evil Twins; the other was the hall of the FLAMES. Of the evil twins, the two could see that it centered on WileyKit entirely: life-sized WileyKits -- wooden, inflatable and waxen -- with the cruelest, eeriest expression immortalized on their faces, some laughing, some sneering and some -- vomiting? And pictures: of WileyKat looking stunned, Alan covering his crotch, of her killing snarves and dumping toasters into bathtubs. The montage of multimedia was completed by a fully-functional, animatronic reenactment of "Thunder Smut."
"Fully functional," Red snorted -- Salix giggled. "That's a first for the Thunder Brats."
"What about the hall of FLAMES?" she asked, mocking an accent of ancient terror.
They came to the very edge of the passage and poked their heads in. It was a tunnel five-feet wide and ten-feet tall. From top to bottom it was colored in a bright, bright red that seared their eyeballs, simulating, as it were, the action of flames. Chained pens dangled along the walls -- some bloodied, some half-bitten. Graffiti sprawled across the hallway painted a makeshift mural of insults, rants and all-out idiocy. "You suck," "You're a loser," "No one likes your "fan" fics," "Ban Rivero, NOW!" and, everyone's favorite: "You need help, dude."
The women covered their noses for only then did they notice a peculiarly strong smell: urine had been sprayed by a dog or a cat -- or a whatever -- on an already damaged portrait of RD Rivero.
Meanwhile, Chanur wandered about the first floor of the museum...dodging the various displays of pointy-things, the cases and cases of Tygra-innards....
"I'm gonna survive this, I'm gonna survive this --"
An arrow shaped like a phallus was shot from an alcove and just missed the felonoid's mane. It embedded itself inches through the stonework. It -- that while-and-black member deflated with a burst of blue pills and a long, low-pitched squeak.
"I'm gonna survive!" he wailed as he ran down the hall -- a garbled echo of laugher reverberated through the corridor.
"Look at that," Zhyan said, pointing to a large mattress on the other side of the velvety ropes. "That looks real comfy."
"Oh, stop it!" Spark playfully slapped his arm. "There could be cameras and do you really want that -- weird -- man downstairs to watch?"
"Err," he rubbed his chin -- and slurped more of the pixie shake. "You could be right -- but still. I always wanted to do something like this!"
He gave his bucket of pixie-juice to Spark to hold and walked up to the barrier of ropes of red-and-black stripes. The flimsy "chains" hung a couple of feet above the carpeted floor -- he side-stepped the barricade in a matter of seconds. No alarms sounded, no lights blinked. Just as he suspected: no one cared enough about the museum and its exhibits to worry about people stealing or breaking its stuff.
Besides, he chuckled, who was going to steal a bed?
He ran a hand across its surface -- it was oddly cool. Why, even, refreshing.
"This is one hell of a bed -- it's like -- almost a water bed only firm. And very, very comfy."
He laid his head back on the pillows that were also cool and watery-like.
"Hmmm," Spark mumbled as she read the note on the display stand. "You might not like it."
"Oh, what is it?" he asked, sitting up.
"According to this note, this was the bed in which Lynxo melted into a puddle of goop."
"Gah!"
He jumped across the bed, past the ropes and back onto the empty "line" of the red carpet. Suddenly it had become obvious why the bed had felt so...so...wet? And as the horror of the realization set in, he began to scratch a phantom itch that had sprung up all over his body.
"Heh heh heh...serves you right. Let's see what else is here."
Meanwhile...Chanur found himself in a lofty room he thought was quite utterly familiar -- although he couldn't say exactly why. Its ceiling was low and composed of metallic tiles crudely welded together. Its floor was a patchwork of terra-cotta tile and rug. White-and-black striped rug. Its walls, covered in putrefied gore, were also adorned by white-and-black accessories. The furniture, the lampshades, the closet doors and appliance sidings, even the barstools at the other end of the chamber what upholstered in the fabric of white-and-black TIGER stripes and gore.
"Oh, oh," he guffawed, covering his gapping mouth with his paws. "I don't think I should be in here!"
Searching through the maps and guides -- the glossy brochures that Salix had thrust upon him -- he could find no scant trace of that room anywhere.
And so it dawned upon him, he had indeed stumbled into a part of the museum that wasn't intended to be seen! The white-and-black-and-gore room!
Walking about the grotesque loft -- pacing amid its singular furnishings, its unparalleled fashions -- he noticed too, too late the presence of an obscure item within the recesses of the chamber. His first impression was that of surprised confusion for it seemed to be a horse -- the type of horse gymnasts used to practice their routines. But no -- it wasn't that at all. It wasn't anything he had dared dream it could be!
"Ahhh!" he screamed but the object of mystery, that thing whatever it was, did not react.
Curious, as all living cats were invariably, he approached very, very tentatively. His every tip-toed step composed a symphony of eerie terror as he came closer and closer. Gradually, the weak ambient light of the phallus-shaped candelabras revealed the dreadful and morbid hints of what the thing was...
"Oh my god! That's what's gonna happen to me if I don't get out!"
He fell to his knees and laughed not in relief but in terror -- for it was the head of ThunderWolf, its mouth perpetually and unnaturally open by networks of wire mesh, attached by staples and thick fibers to a box that was itself lined with furry, tan hides. Arms and legs "grew" out of the sides of the box and lay folded upon the concrete floor. Draped upon its back and sides was a bib with the words 'Out of Order' stenciled in large, red letters.
Etched into the leatherwork of its box-like structure was the graffiti: "Mr. Burns was here." An arrow beneath pointed to the rear.
"Argh!" Chanur wailed, his fingers drumming his clenched teeth.
At once the figure arose -- a column of iron below its frame raised it over the floor and made the whole marionette of a saber lion whirl and "dance" like a mechanical bull out of a Tygra-tripped-out nightmare.
The hani ran out of the room, screaming and hollering, the garbled voice of ThunderWolf taunting....
Part Three
It was a dark and stormy night; thunder crashed and
lightning flashed -- the brittle stonework of the earth split and crack. And
from the murky shadows of the vast and secret
It was a dark room, though, except for the glow of the panel of monitors. Each square-shaped set displayed encapsulated images of the internal security cameras. The main view screen showed the hanister running out of the white-and-black-and-gore room. Unseen voices laughed -- mocked -- as the mechanical TW gyrated wildly in the background. A hand emerged and flipped the channel -- now the main television set showed Red and Salix....
"Oh, this ought to be good!" Salix announced as she led the lioness by the hand into a large, amphitheater-like room. It resembled an ancient Greek temple, with marble columns, marble seating and a marble dais that apparently served as a stage. The light works were a series of torches along the walls and rather tasteful chandeliers.
"Wow, what happened to the pimp-master style?" Red was taken aback by the charming quality of the chamber. "Yeah, it's like...it's like this place just doesn't belong here. Too classy."
"Shhh," the green nymph whispered, "I don't think the scene's finished yet."
The lights flickered three times -- the stillness of the room was interrupted the sudden sonority of an annoying announcer: "And now ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure...presenting the show-stopping hit of 2013...from the Tony-award winning musical, `Puritans in my Pants,' the Undead-Tygras do...'The Tygra Song'!"
"The what?" Salix asked herself aloud, flipping through the guide book.
"I don't think I -- oh, boy!" Red said, covering her mouth.
At once four scantily-clad Tygra entered from stage right: the striped cats were bandaged and stitched, with arms on slings and legs in casts.
"We're running out of Tygra meat,
"It really has been quite a feat,
"A thing that's often to repeat,
"Now go on y'all and take a seat!"
It was rather pathetic to stand and watch the four try to be spry and nimble as their various degrees of injury prevented them expressing the full emotion of the music.
"We're the red and black striped cats,
"Dancing, singing -- heads gone flats?"
Immense baseball bats swooshed down from the ceiling, replicating, as it were, a game of bonk the Tygra.
"No thanks to the bashing-bats....
"A Tygra's been done in -- oh, rats!"
One of the bats invariably struck a head and it and the body attached fell flat on the stage in a pool of blood and brains.
Red and Salix stared at the would-be dead Tygra that remained motionless on the stage -- it seemed to be whispering: "help me, help me."
"We're here to entertain away
"With songs to let you know we're gay
"We're gay and we are here to stay."
Suddenly, a man clad in black with rusty zippers appeared from stage left and rushed to a Tygra with a scalpel.
"Oops! Seems RD has had his way!
"It looks like we're down to two,
"And we're feeling kind-a blue,
"We just don't know what to do.
"Egads! He's coming after you!"
The same strange man rushes the audience -- totally oblivious to the two women.
"In efforts to immortalize,
"He'll chop and slice and poke your eyes,
"He'll stuff you in a case of ice,
"And other things that sure ain't nice!"
Curtains fro
parted to reveal lots more,
racks of severed heads in jugs,
legs and arms and RD mugs.
Evil laughter, wails of pain,
all enough to fry your brain!
And now the Tygras all arose,
alive and dead they struck a pose.
"But little does he understand,
"That we've gathered a mighty band,
"Of fearless leaders who command!
"His witching hour is at hand!"
The entire show, blood and all, vanished as quickly as it had appeared -- all accompanied with the sounds of laughter and applause fed from the amphitheater's speakers.
Salix: "OK. THAT was just wrong."
Red: "Let's go find the others."
Spark was amazed at the level of detail -- the curators of the museum had spared no expense replicating the kitchen from her riff: "What are we cooking Tonight?" But she was bothered by one fact: what did her story have to do with RD? It just didn't seem right so she tried to remain cautious. Although, it was hard to resist seeing all of those fresh ingredients going uncooked.
On the countertop were carded recipes -- one in particular caught her attention.
"Recipe number fourteen," she said aloud -- while Zhyan explored the large ovens. "Baked and sugared undictator." She read through the ingredients and stopped at mustard. It simply called for too much mustard. "It was never too popular. Watcha doing?"
"These are really big ovens. I don't think I've ever seen ovens this big."
"You wanna try it out like you tried the bed?"
The archangel slurped his tub of pixie juice as if to answer -- she smiled and noticed something rather odd.
The oven was in use!
"I donno," she muttered aloud, "I donno if I should open it."
"Oh, come on, what's the worst that can happen?" He put his shake on the countertop. "It's not like it's Rivero in there. It's not like he'll burst into flames -- as if that would be a bad thing."
"Oh...alright."
Tentatively, very tentatively, she reached for the stove-door with a gloved hand. Grasping its warm metal lid, she drew it back -- the rack within drew forward four feet and revealed a large, oval-shaped roasting pan. A roasting pan covered by a thick and heavy lid.
Zhyan laughed as he drew near.
Spark grasped the lid and with one fell swoop unmasked the roast -- of Shark!
"Hiyas!" the auquaman said as he sat up -- marinade and sliced vegetables dripping down his chest and back. "I was wondering when I was done." He smacked his lips as he emerged fully from the oven none the worse for wear. "Now that I'm juicy and tasty, I think I'm ready for my date."
"Date?" Zhyan managed to ask, despite his mouth that was gaping wide. Spark blinked.
"Heh heh heh!" Shark giggled as he sprinted out of the makeshift kitchen, though the empty audience, into the hallway. "Heh heh heh!"
Again the winged-one slurped.
"I donno who's in charge of this museum," Spark said, raising her eyebrow, "but I think it'll be safe standing outside of it."
Two monitors side by side displayed the two groups
frantically running through the halls, trying to return to the main lobby --
trying, desperately, feverishly, to get the hell out of the
"Mwahahahaha!" the voice laughed -- the fists shook.
Another, tinier view screen revealed the aftermath within the white-and-black-and-gore room -- someone new, someone fishy-like now rode upon the thrusting, bucking mechanical TW....
Part Four
Scrambling through the maze of twisted corridors, stumbling across the labyrinth of ghastly exhibits, Red and Salix realized that the guide books and maps suffered from a fatal deficiency that was only then evident. For the brochures failed to note that the floor plans changed, the various arrangements of rooms were shuffled at random. Everything interchanged seamlessly by the aid of mechanisms akin to the gears and sliders of Rubik's cubes.
A mocking form of dark humor awaited them every time they reached the Hall of FLAMES -- for new, more venomous sayings were added to the fiery walls. The pictures in the Hall of the Evil Twin changed, too: a different piece of WileyKat was lopped off each time they caught glimpse of him, Alan's pain seemed to grow increasingly more excruciating. Piles of poop and puddles of pee appeared and disappeared regularly among the upholstery of the furniture with tail (tm) that were evidently still alive in some god-awful way.
And then at last they were met by a pair of doors the like of which they had not seen before. A strange man, dressed in black with rusty zippers waited by the gates. A fluttering cape draped over his left arm covered half his face -- a tilted fedora obscured the rest of his countenance in a sort of eerie shadow. The stranger was still, unnaturally still but for the eyes that followed the pair attentively.
"So...what part is this?" Red Lioness asked, if just to change the subject.
"I donno," Salix replied. "But at this point I'll try anything."
Doors opened to the morbid squeak of rusted hinges. Beyond the entrance was an aisle between two large banks of seats. Cool air and dark shadows prevailed the environment along with the gentle flickering of the silver screen.
It was evidently a theater playing the weirdest sort of cinema -- forty loud speakers providing the necessary surround sound.
As they walked through the aisle, their eyes adjusted to the murky, obscure conditions. They discovered three main tiers of seats, each representing a different level of the museum -- and, to their relief, distant doors marked 'EXIT'. Wide, steep steps led from one level to the next, affording them the possibility of escape from that dreaded establishment.
On the screen a crazed -- and skinned -- Panthro flopped about on the dirt while Tygra and Bengali watched in horror. That scene was quickly replaced by: quick shots of Liono covering his crotch, crazed WileyKat and WileyKit laughing and holding each other, evil-looking Nayda approaching with a long, long butcher's knife and MummRa reveling with the success of yet another master plan.
"The A-R-S of E presents," that same, annoying announcer, well, announced, "the collected works of RD Rivero."
Tygra screamed and burst into pieces -- the words: "Volume 7 -- Vacation" appeared on the screen.
"Now," he continued through the gore, "with commentary by: Cheezey, Fianna and 'Sickened Reader.'"
One by one the different names appeared as stills: Cheezey with Alluro clones, Fianna within a kennel and vague, snarf-like creature amid shadows wagging a bony finger.
Theme music comprised of guttural Tygra sounds and the surprised shouts of various Thundercats played in the foreground.
"Look, it's Red and Salix!" Zhyan shouted, pointing to the tier of seats above him.
"Hey!" Spark followed with glee. "You guys come on down -- we're skeedadling!"
"Wow, you guys lived!" Salix said, rushing to the pair with her arms outstretched.
"You won't believe what we just saw," Red added, shaking her head.
"Do I have stories to tell!" Spark said. Hugging everyone, she added: "Now let's get outta here!"
A puff of smoke plumed up and faded in a haze of gray above an occupied seat in the middle of the theater. Almost at the very front before the silver screen, the visage was cast in perpetual silhouette that persisted even as the four approached and were merely a few feet away from the apparent interloper. The figure was tall and wore an Egyptian-like head-dress of gold and ebony. Its arms were folded upon its chest, one hand held a metal stick-figure, the other a cane. Bare-chested and sporting a tented skirt, it was on the verge of being outright naked.
But there was something else about it that drew the attention of the gathered and disturbed onlookers -- in its lips was the largest cigar they had ever seen. Nearly five feet long and growing with every puff, its color was obscured by the semi-darkness of the movie house. Letters engraved across its rigid length were scantly visible but utterly familiar.
Without warning it let go of the objects in its hands -- that fell with a pair of dull clangs -- grasped the refer. Inhaling loudly, it tipped the ashes off by using its knee; a pile of pills had amassed between its legs. And looking at that nether region, the horrified spectators screamed in unison and fled through the exits.
The seated mummy cackled as it shouted for no one in particular to hear: "Viagra, Viagra muchachas!"
The party of five sans Chanur found itself in the hindquarters of the Rivero Museum and was now face-to-face with its final exhibition: the Chamber of Horrors.
"Haven't we seen this already?" Zhyan asked. "There must be some other way out of here. There just has to be."
"I donno, let's just not press our luck," Spark advised.
"Oh, come on! What's the worst that can happen?" Red prodded. "Haven't we seen it all? Rivero's gone -- there's nothing he can do to us. It seems only cats --"
She paused, suddenly realizing that she was a cat.
Salix raised her eyebrows: "Chanur! Oh, no!"
The smell of formaldehyde filled the air, accompanied by a fit of hideous laughter.
The four huddled together and resigned themselves to move forward, onward, into the great unknown....
Part Five
It was another temple, but not the sort built for a god. Hanging lamps of artificial light replaced torches and candelabras. Columns of steel and riveted pipes stood in the place of marble columns. Eerie timbers of mechanical sounds: swaying cables, sparking electricity and humming. The perpetual drone of ungodly physics.
Well-oiled devices of unspeakable purposes whirled behind tall embankments of un-powered electronics -- smoky, red lights shined between the displays.
Dissected hearts beating by the actions of batteries. Arms and legs twitching and reacting violently under the safety of glass. Heads, severed by various degrees, their eyes following and focusing. It was, in short, the totality of years of unfinished horror.
"Just remember, the doors are on the other side of this exhibit. The doors are on the other side of this exhibit," Spark said, reassuring her companions.
The four were led by the layout of the walls toward the exact center of the chamber. There -- behind a circle of those red-and-black striped ropes -- stood a ten-foot tall display covered by a thick tarp.
Suddenly the lights turned on -- that same figure in black with rusty zippers appeared with a cackle.
"Mwahahahaha!" it laughed as it pulled a lever and the tarp fell back.
"Oh my goodness!" Salix shouted as she saw that behind the tarp, under glass, was Chanur!
"Mwahahahaha!" it continued to laugh, lunging forward.
But Zhyan, still slurping on his pixie shake, extended his right leg and tripped the weirdo. Red was the first to fall upon him. Spark opened her purse and produced spools of thick hemp. In a matter of seconds the stranger was hog tied -- yet continued to laugh.
He was brought up to his feet -- and they could see that the
laughter wasn't really coming from hi
"I thought that laugh sounded familiar," Spark said dryly and she reached into the cape and removed a small, velvet-clad sack. Within was an mp3 player. "RD Rivero, laugh number five," she said, reading the label.
Salix crushed the vile instrument within her grip -- the chamber became quite utterly quiet.
"Now, tell us what you did to Chanur!" Spark shouted, going after the strange man's neck.
"He didn't do anything to Chanur," a voice said from the distance.
All but Spark -- who still had her hands around the stranger's neck -- turned back to see.
Chanur stood under the open doors of the Chamber of Horror, gasping, out of breath and sweating like hell.
"I thought I'd never see you guys again -- oh, boy!"
Red and Salix rushed to him to help him stand and walked him forward to the morbid display.
"Ha," the felinoid fretted smugly. "How could you even think that was me? The, errr, breeches aren't big enough."
"Whoa!" Spark said, pinching the weirdo's nose. "This is no weirdo! This is --" she grasped one of the rusty zippers and peeled it back to reveal -- "RD Rivero!"
"WHAT?" The rest shouted in terror.
"Yes, it is I!" the madman shouted, breaking free of the Mexicana's grasp. "Mwahahahaha!"
"But? But? Why?"
"I just wanted to impress you all for once!"
"HA!" Spark shouted, crossing her arms. "As if that could've happened in this universe!"
"DOUBLE HA! I would've gotten away with it, too! If it weren't for those meddling kids! CURSES! CURSES!"
He pointed to another display case at the rear of the chamber: within was...nothing?
"Huh?"
"Look, he's gone!" Chanur said, turning from the empty glass case to the area where the weirdo had last stood. Nothing but a pile of ash remained. "And look, that's the exit!"
"Let's get the hell out of here!" the women ordered in unison -- the men did not contest the overall sentiment.
"We thought we would never escape that dreadful place," Spark said, turning to Zhyan and hanging onto his arm.
"Ours was still the only car in the parking lot," Salix continued the narrative. "It was fixed. Whatever had happened to it, it was just all fixed."
"I drove out of there like a mad lioness." Red rubbed her chin as she tried to recollect the image forever LFS-ed in her mind. "I can't remember if I saw the museum in the rear-view mirror; I know it wasn't there when we were coming home."
"No, it was still there," Salix corrected her, "but it looked like twenty-years older or something."
"I wonder whatever happened to RD?" Zhyan asked. "And speaking of disappearance, where'd Chanur go?"
At once the room was stormed by four bandaged and casted Tygras, singing and dancing:
"We're running out of Tygra meat,
"It really has been quite a feat,
"A thing that's often to repeat,
"Now go on y'all and take a seat!"
A large, glass case emerged through a wall, knocking bricks and smashing mortar yet it remained intact.
"Get me outta here!" Chanur pounded from within the display.
"Mwahahahaha!!!!"
Within the Chamber of Horrors, the RD figure pressed a blue rectangle to its lips. The mummy figure extended a hand and flicked its fingers. A slight flame was produced and the mother of all 'cigars' was lit -- puffs of smoke filled the air.
Shark and a disfigured, distorted TW emerged through the doors.
"Yikes, that was a close one!" Shark said, rubbing his fins.
"I know," the RD figure spoke. "We'll have to be a little more careful next time." It opened yet another rusty zipper and the RD disguise fell back to reveal -- Smithers with a most extended Mr. Burns. "If only they knew, if only they knew the truth!" His voice broke and crackled with the pitiful excuse of vile laughter. He pushed his glasses back and inhaled once more from the mighty Viagra refer.
"DRRNNWDAABNN?" the mummy tried to ask, leaning over a display case that housed a stuffed and mounted Ayanna.
"Why yes, yes, I know exactly where this reefer’s been," Smithers replied.
"Twist it, Smoke it, Hold it, Pass it," Mr. Burns said, reciting the Thunder Stoner's mantra and reaching his little arms out. "Now let's share!" Eyeing the Chanur under glass, he added, slyly with a licking tongue: "I have a date of my own, mwahahahaha!"
Somewhere, out there, hani uttered a collective gulp!
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