There is a secret empire that rules the world. They feast on their inhabitants without prejuice in secret darkness. It's crafty mercernaries hide in their homes where they slow-kill for the best taste.
When one man encounters one of the faces of the Empire in his home, he must fight and survive to find a way out or stay stuck in the live-stock cycle of death.
ENTER
After a long hard day of work, Willis came home and opened the door.
“There you are. I need more pizza.” A large repulsive ant reclined on his sofa, news on the television going, pizza box empty on the floor.
“Get the fuck out!” Willis rushed to the power outlet behind the television and unplugged everything. “I'm calling the police.”
“Okay, alright, I see how it is.” It snapped together it's jaws as it stood. “Just in case you didn't notice, no one took your shit, it's all here. I kept this place on lock-down son, risked my life, wife and kids, but I'll leave, I'm quite tired of your shit as a matter of fact.”
“Don't give me that bullshit! I don't have any gross ants as friends and you know damn well this ain't yo madafockin' house madafocka!”
“Wow. That one hurt inside. I thought we had a real deep connection, you know? Mano-tu-el-mano. You drop the food around the house, I eat the food, all good all good...I guess you fooled me.”
Willis whipped out his smartphone and called 9-1-1.
“Alright alright damn. I'm going I'm going.” The ant strolled out the front door.
Willis told them about the revolting ant. They said drink water and get sleep mister and hung up.
He called again. Disgusting ant broke into home. No answer, click.
Willis sighed. A vile ant broke into his house, perverted his television, degraded his sofa, ransacked his pizza storage, and the authorities don't give a fuck, not even a single bug-exterminator or mental institution recommendation.
Willis replugged everything and snapped pictures of the crime scene; the befouled sofa, the heartbreaking empty pizza box, and the television with his hand pressing a thermostat against the screen, trying to indicate high heat from usage. He posted the pictures on an online social media outlet.
Comments about attention seeking, pure stupidity, drugs and hallucinations, demons, paranoia and getting incredibly baked came through the screen at an alarming rate.
“Oh my god. These morons don't get it. I don't understand.” He turned off his smartphone, and sat on the floor to sulk. Minutes turned to hours as the day got late.
I went around looking for another place to crash, but I thought, nah, Willis should be the one out here! I will always remember what you've done to me on this day after all I've done for you. The large ant stood outside Willis' house, looking inside through the front window, hidden in the darkness.
I treated you well, protected you with my life. Now I've sent messages to my people about your infractions.
It banged on the glass window. “Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!”
Gebus, Willis cried. He turned on his smartphone.
“We declare war on you!” Hundred of small voices from upstairs in his bedroom.
“They're serious, Willis. They will defeat you if you don't let me in. I can stop them from harming you, but you have to let me in now.”
Willis glared at the window from which the ant spoke, a befuddled face, phone camera recording.
The ant pressed it's horrible head against the window. “Let me in, or they will have you.”
“You tell them to get the fuck out of here, or I'll kill'em, I swear!”
“You don't understand, these guys don't play! Let me in!”
“Where did you all come from? Get away from my house goddamnit! I just want my peace and quiet, fuck!”
“This is our house you ungrateful little shit! We let you live here! Let me in or I'm breaking in!”
A black organic wave washed over the stairs. Willis scrambled into the kitchen, trying to move faster than he could. He grabbed a can of insect-repellent spray from under the sink. “Die!” He sprayed the oncoming wave; he sprayed and sprayed, but they were upon him.
The front window broke and the ant jumped inside. “We could of worked together, you know?” It walked through the kitchen doorway. Moving darkness covered Willis, muffling his screams, squeezing him into a smaller form. His smartphone lay on the tile floor; the ant picked it up. “You just needed to be a little shithead, didn't you? Just couldn't help yourself, so sad. Calling the police, for what? Me? Ha! I was here before you mafacka!”
The darkness transported Willis upstairs, into their secret city under his bed.
To the city center they went to hear Willis' sentence from the Dis-Jud-Fuzz, the ant's queen.
“Seven thousand years of endless labor.”
The ant empire cheered and sung old songs of victory.
Willis kept his head down, eyes on the foul ground. A strange sensation overtook him. At once, a cockroach emerged, busting and ripping, out from the human prison.
“Fuck me! What did I do to deserve all this?” Was there no god to see the great injustice forced down upon him? Willis, the cockroach, studied his true features. He rolled over, legs spazzing out.
They lifted him and sent him to the fields where he would toil, sweat blood tears, day and night, for seven thousand years.
One night, Willis, working the fields by hand, witnessed something far away moving closer to him. No one had talked to him or came to see him, nor did they enjoy his harvest or let him eat it; he simply did back-breaking labor for nothing, for that was all his was worth to the ant empire. Meaningless cockroach.
That something looked familiar as it moved in.
“Hello?”
“Time to pay your taxes.” A dirty disfigured clown toy walked up; burnt soles with eyes devoured by the ants, and his yellow and blue outfit, tattered and oversized for his malnourished body. “The empire has been kind letting you live here for so long without taxes, but now times have changed, and empires are expensive.”
“Where were you?”
“In the city, performing for them. They sent me to you for money, but you don't have any, do you? We can find a way to work things out, I'm positive. I was captured by the ants, and forced to perform over scalding coals forever before the empire because I had no money.” He pointed in the direction he had traveled on. “God knows how long I've been suffering. Now, I can move freely, collecting taxes. You and me are in the golden age of the empire, they have enough power to live as long as they want. They're not going anywhere anytime soon, they'll order me back and ask for the money, so hurry up and pay up or do something amazing!”
“They did that to your eyes?”
The clown's posture slumped as if he had forgotten about his punishment. “Yes, they did. But there was someone before. I was once a prized toy, and he showed me off to the world. We went everywhere together, we were inseparable, and the people were delighted to see our companionship. Then, one day, as he was getting ready to leave the house, he forgot me on the shelf by the door, just like that. I fell into a deep depression, and jumped off the shelf. Broken, alone, and afraid, I stayed on that floor for god knows how long, hoping to be found and reconsidered by my owner. Instead, I was captured by the darkness and brought here to live the rest of my days entertaining the ants.”
Jimmy the clown. Willis' cockroach antennas did circles. I thought you were just a stupid toy, who knew you were alive this whole time? I swear someone had stolen you, I'm so sorry. He moved closer to hug Jimmy the clown.
“I've vowed my soul to get back with him,”
The cockroach hugged the clown, about to cry.
“And kill him for abandoning me.”
The antennas froze. “Why would you want to do that? Don't you think he still loves and misses you?”
“He would have come to save me by now, his fate has been sealed. Look at what has been done to me, is it good? No, dear cockroach, it is a disgrace. I was beautiful, full of light and joy, now I'm dead and I want him to be dead as well.”
Well great, I can't tell it the truth, it'll kill me. It wasn't my fault! It disappeared and I moved on, what else was I supposed to do? It hurt too much to search for it and not find it every time. Now we're both trapped here to suffer. Seven thousand years. How long has it been already? Two thousand? We have to escape, life cannot be like this. “Do you know a way out of here?”
“No, why do you think they do not monitor you? They know you will work because there is no way out, they don't have to worry.”
“Fuck.” Willis twirled in a circle, scanning his surroundings. “You're right, no one is watching us, and there seems to be no exit along the walls.”
“Might as well dig a hole and bury ourselves. It was a foolish mistake to believe I could leave this place and kill the traitor.”
Illness filled Willis' cockroach stomach. “No, that's it. We dig a hole deep enough to escape from the other side, you can still fulfill your dreams.” I know you want me dead, but we need each other to get out of here. I'll give you false hope of accomplishing your goal in order to save us both. “We will get out of here and find that madafocka and kill him.”
“You'll help me do that?”
“Yes, and we won't stop until we kill'm!”
“O goodness me. I haven't felt this happy in so long, it's foreign.”
Willis and Jimmy dug with their hands for months, until they came upon a door and latch at one hundred feet.
“Where do you think it leads to?” Jimmy said.
“To the living room.” Willis pried it opened. A frail roar came from the darkness inside. They looked at each other with wide eyes. Willis extended his head inside. Smells funky.
“Are you insane? Something is in there and it smells like shit! There is no exit!” Jimmy slammed his head against the dirt walls that were closing, inch by inch.
“There's no where else to go. I'm going in.” And like that, he fell head-first into the dark vault.
The clown stared down the darkness, silly smile. “That's one hell of a drop, haven't hear the thud yet...”
A faint smack.
Another frail roar.
“Cockroach?! Are you still alive down there?!I hope not.”
“Who dares speaks around the Almighty without presentation?” A beastly voice said.
“It is I, faithful servant, Jimmy the Clown.”
“Come down and let me see your face, clown, my memory escapes me.”
Don't remember me? Yeah right. Jimmy patted around the edges of the vault door hole, looking for a ladder down. “I don't know how? My friend, the cockroach, is down there with you, is he okay?”
“Cockroach?...You have unusual tastes for friends...I'm afraid I do not see him, he might be dead.”
I have to see. Jimmy dropped in. The fall was great and the thud, greater. Something mushy patted the impact for the clown; he stood up in the darkness, covering his nose. “Where are you?”
“Here.”
“It's too dark in here, I can't see anything!”
“You wouldn't mind the dark if you were strapped and drained. Along the walls there should be a switch just for you.”
Jimmy moved his hands across the faces of the wall. A flip of the switch and overhead lights came on. The sterilized white vault was empty other than a door with the word 'FREEDOM' above it in bright red and the old wizard lion tied down to a bed, tubes running into a SECT-manifold inside his chest to the walls, pumping out a liquid blue substance from the beast. Jimmy nearly fainted; he pressed his back against the wall to stay upright. “Lord have mercy.”
“What?” Lines of drool and snot connected his face with his beloved adopted manifold; the old wizard lion's eyes, milky, and his fur, gray, filthy and coarse; his purple robe, faded and shit-stained. “Ah, Jimmy the Clown, the thorn in the rose, you're a sneaky one eh?”
A twitch from the legs of the cockroach.
“Your friend there, he won't be of much use to you in his condition. You've pushed him too long for too much, did you think he was an immortal slave for you? He may be a cockroach, but he still has a soul.”
Jimmy frowned. “I haven't forced anybody to do anything! I was the one pushed for too long for too much! I'm the victim! My master left me behind and I was brought here to die performing for your masters! I had just met this cockroach a few months ago, and it was his idea to dig.”
“Well, frankly, I'm not surprised. The simpleton cockroach has more brains than you, public puppet. You think you fill your jar in deep waters, but pull out a jar of sand; it may be full, but it is not good to drink. Now, why don't you go further into the waters and swim?”
“You're rambling old feline, you're not even making sense, you just keep yapping. What are you supposed to be here, an energy source?”
“That's right, you don't know how to swim and you tell yourself to wait until you do, yet you stare at the water everyday only with urges to go deeper, walking up and down the shoreline. A sore sight, one of misunderstanding and immaturity.”
Jimmy's frown grew more fierce. “Curse you, you're strapped onto a bed with tubes coming out of you and you shit and piss on yourself. You couldn't help yourself even if you had external need and motivation to! Who are you to judge me? You think you're some kind of all knowing wizard? I see through your shit, it doesn't trouble me one bit. You're a has-been, an ol'crusty raggedy pathetic lion dressed up as a fairy.”
The wizard lion's head moved back. The light revealed the hard truth that was spoken. A tolerate nod, and a tear fell. The swoosh of the blue substance going out now made sense, it had told him the truth since the beginning. “You are right, they're all right, I'm a failure. Stuck here for eternity, feeding imbeciles, shitting and pissing myself...Would you consider doing me a favor and kill me? Please?”
Jimmy grabbed his elbow. “Huh, thought you could stand up there...guess not, oh well, your demons, not mine.”
“You did it, faithful servant Jimmy the Clown, you showed me the truth, and now, would you please have mercy and kill me.”
Jimmy scratched his head, forced a grin and shrugged. “Don't have anything to kill you with. It's time for us to keep going now though, so this was nice and all, but,” He walked over to Willis and threw him over his shoulder. “We have places to be.”
“So you won't kill me with your hands? A quick twist of the neck?”
“No, do it yourself coward. Do you happen to know if this door leads to the living room? I do believe that is where the cockroach would like to be.”
“It leads to freedom, can't you read? Isn't it why you guys dug? If you won't kill me, please take me with you.”
“We have to go now, bye.” Jimmy opened the door, and shut it as he walked in. A narrow corridor with millions of glass doors on both walls. “So this is freedom, huh? Damn that wizard, how will we ever find a way out?” He turned to open the 'freedom' door again, but a pale dark blue wall greeted him. “No! You wretched lying wizard! You lied to my face!” He walked past the first set of doors.
Naked hairless and faceless humanoid creatures raged and held bloody murderous orgies, killing and enjoying each other in unspeakable ways, deep inside the dungeons. Each dungeon had it's guardian goat-women watching over the creatures laughing, performing all inhumane acts the human mind could imagine. They stood by the stairs that led to the glass door, a thousand foot metal spike whip in hand, striking down any creature that would stop and question.
“Do you see the beauty in these full expressions?” A goat-woman said, behind the glass door; eyes lava, and large breasts covered in the rugged black fur coat. “Come join us in our liberation of all your burdens, here you will rediscover yourself. We've been waiting for you all this time, come in, our lost king.”
Eyes frozen on the horror, like watching jumpers fall down stories to spat on the sidewalk, Jimmy did not move.
The goat-women moved through the glass and grabbed the sides of the clown's head and kissed him. Jimmy pushed away, but his hands went through. She laughed and wrapped the metal spike whip around his neck, the spikes piercing flesh.
“You are our king, you belong to us.” A double-edged sword appeared in her hands. “Take this and kill that vicious cockroach on your shoulder, and fulfill your divine duty. Make love to me.” She pushed the sword to his chest.
Still unable to move or speak, Jimmy stared at her; his empty sockets, her lava eyes, melting him in place.
“If you won't, I will.” The goat-women batted Willis off of Jimmy with the sword. He broke through the glass door on the other side.
“No not like this!” Jimmy went after Willis, but the spikes dug in deeper, and he fell to his knees, suffocating.
“Take the sword, and do what is right, finish the roach!” She stabbed the tip into the floor before the clown. “You know it's what you want!”
Willis bounced on the stairs down to the dungeon. The creatures took him in, made love to him while consuming his cockroach body, and brought him back to life, shitting pieces of him and putting them together to tear him apart in an endless cycle. Willis, conscious when put back together with the mending powers of feces, screamed and died a little more each time.
Jimmy clenched his hands around the spiked whip; the distorted image of himself on the sword blade counseled him to remain on his knees. Nowhere to run, whip killing me, what can a sword do for me? My hands went right through her. She wants me to fulfill my divine duty?....Am I really king? I heard I could be. He pulled the sword out from the floor and lunged toward the goat-women. The sword cut through her, and she moaned lovingly, opening her legs as she lay down, bleeding. She chuckled and begged for more with belittling obscenities.
The clown stood, unwrapping the whip from his neck, sword trembling in his hands. It worked, but it didn't? He raised the sword above his head and stood over the beast between his legs.
“Why do you hate me? Your owner abandoned you and left you for dead for all these years, but you can't help but run back to your abusive master with open arms, even though we've waited for you to be our king for so long, you despise us. You're so pathetic, I love it.”
“What? You warped beast, die!” Down the sword went, through the beast's mouth. She laughed out blood.
The creatures inside the dungeons and the other goat-women stopped and walked out to the corridor.
TO BE CONTINUED.....