Young Writers Society

“Oh yes,” Malibu said. “Just spin her once. I know she can do more, but I've never put her to the test, so let's keep things simple.”

I actually paid attention to this warning of his. My grip had grown sweaty and my very thoughts felt dopey.Slothfully, I began to rotate the handle while I braced for any smashup. Forged from thick iron, it was no baby’s rattle. After the completion of one revolution, nothing had happened.

“Try it a little faster.” Batman trained his ignorant sidekick.

“Right,” I said, and gave it another whirl. A literal whirl. I brought the lever to the top of its orbit and flung it down with a good amount of velocity.

A string of, “NoNoNoNo!” could faintly be heard over the cacophony of bullets. Too late. I staggered back at the noise and cupped my hands over my ears.

The expulsion of ammo was far too rapid to discern individual shots. Though the earliest, and not categorized as a semi-automatic, it was a machine gun after all. Where they should have mashed themselves into chump change, the bullets bit pockets into the wall as if it was made of dough, throwing up spherical explosions of acute, green light. I squinted to count off the holes as they spangled. Onetwothreefourfivesixseven, eight-nine-ten-eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen and fifteen. It had spun two and a half times around, losing steam as it neared the end.

From the ground, I looked up at Batman to see what that meant. When he said to go faster, the one-spin instruction had been pushed right out my other ear. Maybe I wasn't so good at retaining information.

Malibu stood there, hands on hips, disquietly marveling at the wounds. “You did it, boy.” He turned to marvel at me. He never called me boy unless he was ashamed of me. “Jolly Roger, you done it. D’you jussdoo what’ver ya want? Your day equal whatyer bowla breakfass tace li’? Orzit whisheverway th’wind blows?”It was rare when he didn’t slow down to take correct breaths between his speech, causing the words to ooze over each other. It was a telltale sign that he was beside himself.

I tried to refute it as I crawled to my feet, but no false claim was going to redeem me. “You could... say that.”

“Stubborn as a sun-baked cow pie,” Gut muttered.

Great, now I’m cow poop. My face did feel a little steamy.

“Huh,” he sighed as I came around the Gatling gun to examine my gaffe. “It probably won’t matter in this case, but do work on getting a hold of yourself. Oh son, there will come a day when the matter of responsibility will make or break you.”

That was starting to penetrate my thick skull. Little did I know, I might as well have been the guy at the helm of the Titanic, for all my narrow mind could register was the tip of the iceberg.

I was so concerned that I happened to blurt aloud, “Um, don’t take the keys away, Batman?”

He looked bewildered about the allusion to Batman, but seemed to catch its essence. “Hey, I’m your pal,” he comforted. “Take heed though,” he winked. “The Jokers out there will lock you up and throw away the key for no reason, other than that it tickles them to life.”

That was a haunting prospect.

I ventured towards the wall, warily, and inspected the craters. There was a pattern. An… impossible pattern.

You see, the Gatling gun was fastened to the floor. It had remained perfectly stationary. So imagine the classic six-bullet chamber, scale it to fit the Heschita, and keep in mind that she doesn't jiggle a hair while she fires.

The resulting pockmarks buried into the wall did not match up with what I had observed. What I expected to see was a simple circle consisting of six holes. Every bullet after the sixth should've restarted the chain, bullet seven passing through the same hole that number one had dug, and so on.

Instead I beheld two concentric circles, each ring of holes still glowing lime green. The inside ring was a matching size of Heschita's nozzle. The second was about twice the size and each hole was spread farther apart.

I then noticed a third, and outermost ring. It was only half-made, and with so much space divorcing the three holes on its circuit, I didn't see it until I took a few steps back from the wall: the addition of the half-ring, leaving the left side of the template heavy. And interspaced along the wall, maybe six feet apart, shone fluctuating crescent moons. They stood in a line, unbroken except for the pattern of bullet-rings: three on the left and two to the right. Each moon was the same height, around seven feet tall from tip to tip, nearly spanning from ceiling to floor.

Five in all. Dead ringers of the sliver in the night sky.

Apparently, three bullets summoned one crescent--nine deep holes to the left, six to the right, if you drew a vertical line through the center of the smallest circle.

It was eerie, like staring into a pool of water in the wilderness on a starry night, moon’s reflection bobbing to the beat of ripples, wandering from an indeterminable point to yet another undetermined outcome.

“How is that possible?” I reflected, mesmerised, eyes returning to the fifteen lesions I had gouged into the surface--not truly of my own will. “The cylinders would have to move, expand, or… or go through a metamorphosis of some kind, during the process of firing.”

“I’m actually not sure how that contraption works,” he admitted. “Besides that it otherwise ignites and spits out rounds the same as any other gun.”

It was as puzzling, as transcendental as how the universe came into being. What had caused these moons to exist; the gun, the object that blasted the rounds forth, or the bullets themselves, creating a reaction as they contacted the wall? Could it be me, the shooter? It would be illogical for the gun to fire itself. Wouldn't it?

And I couldn’t help being a little resentful, almost envious, of my pal. “What the hell did you run into during your stay in the military? In Vietnam particularly?”

“Oh, you dear lamb,” he bemoaned. “It was, is, much larger than Vietnam.”

“Really? I said saucily. “Cause that was a whopper of a war.”

Malibu nodded. “Let’s just say that once upon a time, I was a naive troop. Until I turned over a new leaf with the Big Boys--not to say that that leaf was healthy. Seen my fair share of shit.” He shook his head gravely. “Back then, I was a reckless junkie: a fool to have wanted to see that stuff." One of his grey-white eyebrows strolled over me sardonically. "Like some guy I know now.”

I longed to ask him where he got such tools as that code cracker and this throwback gun imbued with unique powers, and that invisible tarp, who or what the frick he was connected to, if he was conspiring, or worse, if “they” had an ax to grind. Who was running the show, behind it all, and I mean all of this. Just straight up demand some straight answers. I need all the answers! But I had the feeling an inquisition would only lead to more questions.

Who was this guy that acted like Gutterson's younger self anyway? I smirked at my own sarcasm. So despite my basket-case state, I simply asked. “Okay. What’s next on the agenda?”

And I strictly meant our immediate agenda. The one that might end up saving our butts. Because my agenda had been blown out of proportion, probably into the next dimension, and if I tried to entertain it or decrease its swelling, it was going to get us all killed. Hey there, for once you thought!

“We go through.” he said.

I scanned the perimeter. “Go through where?”

He pointed to the moons. “It might be a little tricky, you have...complicated things a bit, but straight ahead.”

“But those are holograms or something, right? Not a passageway.” I thought for a split second and perceived that I had come to a perceivance. But I didn't see how it would help us fight the monster. “Oh. You mean we have to go to the moon?”

“Absolutely not,” he clarified. “It is a passageway. Except that we don’t walk down it.”

What a mind bender.

“Your new name is Crypticson, okay? Okay.” I told him.

He laughed. “The only thing difficult about this concept, is what you,” he said poking me in the chest, “have done to it. However, it shouldn’t be a problem for the first use.”

I was still interested. “And what might that hitch be?”

“Each Spinal Tap, as I call them, can only be accessed one time, from whichever side. Then it swallows itself.” He paused for emphasis. “I told you to spin it once, because I thought that’d be an easy regimen to follow for an inexperienced whippersnapper like you.” He looked at me disdainfully. “If you’d have behaved yourself, only two Spinal Taps would’ve appeared, and we could’ve gone in and out. Together. But since you didn’t, and overspun, we have an odd number. Capiche?”

“That would mean odd portal out. I get it. But hey, we could use two apiece, and the fifth one will fade out over time.” Wait. Only in theory. I looked at him, somewhat anxious. “Just how long do they stick around if you don’t employ their services?”

“Oh.” He scratched his head.

My eyebrows crashed into my hairline. “You mean you don’t know!”

“That’s a real conundrum. I never spawn more than I need. I only keep eighteen shots in that thing at all times, although I almost always go alone and use just two Taps, it never hurts to have a little extra.” The man blew out a long breath. “It doesn’t matter. We have to go through and retrieve the only hope we’ve got of playing competitive with that bird. The time to bluff has passed; our hand is forced to wager.” He stared uneasily at the wavering moons. “But you’ve made it as big a gamble as I’ve ever taken.”

Your mistakes always catch up with you, huh big guy? You should’ve just listened closer, Egghead. Well, he didn't exactly tell me not to let go when I was spinning the handle. I let loose a whistle hoping it might expel that sinking feeling with the air. “Damn. I’m sorry about that.”

The sinking feeling in my lower chambers did not ride the whistle out of my body as instructed.

The Gutter just grunted. “No time for sorry. Over there.” He pointed to a spot beneath the prehistoric machine gun. “Get us some gloves out of that slot.”

I went over to the specified zone, and began searching on my hands and knees. The concrete was no bed of roses. Under the gun was a lid, well-camouflaged as the ground. I mean, I guess all you have to do is paint it matching colors with the floor. It popped open, exposing oodles of white gloves (blinding in contrast to the ground) in a compartment that had a volume of a few cubic inches. I pulled out a clump of four and rose to give Gutterson his pair.

“What?” I joshed. “Gonna burn our hands when we get inside?”

“No,” he said matter-of-factly, “We’d burn for it if they caught our fingerprints on the cookie jar.”

I could only assume he was alluding to the government. But where had assumptions gotten me today? I had thought Dudley a corpse, had believed, before this day, that Pheonix didn’t like me back, had thought it would be cool to try and ruff Squeaky, a.k.a Dallas, had picked up on small interactions between people that I had simply imagined (Malibu gnawing on his lip as I fled to the bathroom? I had only heard a sound because I was chewing my own!). So I left that chapter blank and dis-assumed that “they” were anyone or anything I thought I was familiar with.

“Do I really want to get involved in this shit?” I asked Malibu, almost rhetorically.

He caught on like a frog knows it was born to eat bugs, answering query with query, “Aren’t you already?”

I finished choking my hand with the last glove and said despairingly, “I know. Just let me be in denial for a second."

“You know,” he said giving me a once over. “You’re not going to want to leave hair follicles behind either,” and flicked right underneath my ear at my shoulder-length hair.

I immediately slapped his hand away from my dirty-blonde locks that managed to keep mostly off of my forehead with product, and put up my defenses. “I don’t shed!”

“Whoa horsie,” he took a step back, “just a precaution.”

He may have had gloves-to-go, but something for my head, no way. I looked around and scoffed, “And I suppose you have a hair net readily available?”

“Matter of fact,” he panted through rich peals of thunder, “I do!” He produced two from his back jean’s pocket. “And even though my hair isn't all there, I'll wear the other so you aren't too humiliated.”

My friend knew how much I despised being humiliated.

“Oh the joys of modern entertainment.” I grumbled and snatched at the one he offered me. I wasn’t sure why that was my line of choice. In times like these, all I had to boost morale was my own wise ass.

“Hey, don’t worry, I’m just giving you a hard time about it.” He laughed more heartily. “In the sixties, when I was your age, my hair was so long I could’ve used it as toilet paper.”

Goodness gracious, I couldn’t envision him like that. And he was older than I thought. Good for him; he was spry, came off as younger than his age. Bad for me; another incorrect assumption to add to the list.

Once my net was in place, I griped, “Let’s get this show on the road, Hippie. Just not in your smoke-filled shroom-sniffing lily-toting van.”