Cineverse - Bride Of The Slime Monster Part 9

"I'm afraid I do," she agreed. "I don't think the Slime Monster escaped. I think he was released. And I think someone caused a crisis in the Nucleotron to cover his actions!"

"How clever of you!" a voice called from the doorway. "How fortunate that I decided to stay within earshot of your conversation."

"Professor MacPhee!" Dr. Davenport exclaimed.

The professor stepped into the room, his silver revolver pointed in their direction.

"Or so I have been called around here," MacPhee allowed with the slightest hint of a smile. "But I am sometimes known by another name. Perhaps you've heard of- the Insidious Professor Peril!"

"Professor Peril!" Roger knew that name all too well. Not that he had seen him time and again, as he had with Menge the Merciless. No, but Roger remembered the name from a dozen articles in those nostalgia magazines he used to read about really obscure, grade Z films; articles complete with stills of the professor with Mort the Killer Robot, or Diablo, the Gorilla with the Mind of a Man! Oh, if only Roger had been better versed in minor, extremely low-budget action serials!

"Yes," the poverty-row fiend continued, "I was sent here by Doctor Dread, to make certain that the Inst.i.tute did not interfere with his plans! Now that you have discovered my true purpose, of course, I am afraid that you will have to be eliminated.

But I am not one to talk. I am one to act! If you will come with me?" His pencil-thin mustache twitched as he waved his gun toward the door.

He followed them out into the hall. "If you would please keep on moving. Now, let's see. That's one of the nice things about the Inst.i.tute. There's so many handy ways to die. Ah, the very place! I think that even Doctor Dread would appreciate the drama of this."

He opened the door marked rocket-testing strip.

"Now, if you would precede me?"

Roger and Dee Dee stepped out into what appeared to be a very large backyard.

There, stretching away from him, as far as Roger could see, were rockets of all shapes and sizes, in all stages of a.s.sembly.

Professor Peril glanced around the yard. "Ah, yes. I think this large one over here will do quite nicely. And how providentially coincidental that the workmen have left this large quant.i.ty of steel cable lying about. How ideal for tying the two of you to the instrument of your death."

He instructed his two victims to stand against the rocket, which was bright red and sitting on its side, atop a railroad car that in turn was sitting on a set of tracks.

"Now, to properly secure you," Peril continued matter-of-factly. "To do this, I will, of course, have to put my gun between my teeth. I feel it only fair to warn you, however, that I am an excellent shot with my tongue."

No-nonsense villain that he was, Peril had both of them tied securely to the rocket in a matter of seconds.

"Now, I merely have to press the start b.u.t.ton on this nearby control board, and the rocket engines will fire. Not that you're taking off anywhere-oh, no. The rocket will instead speed down the tracks to a target a mile or so distant, a concrete wall of sufficient thickness to incinerate the warhead mounted atop your very last ride. You will, of course, be instantly incinerated at some thousands of degrees, a temperature so hot that there will be no remains to be identified. And now, I must be going. I'd chat with you longer, but I haven't time."

The professor trotted over to the nearby control board and pressed the b.u.t.ton beneath the large sign that read start. He didn't even wave as he walked smartly back into the Inst.i.tute.

"Roger?" Dr. Davenport cried from where she was tied beside him. "What can we do?"

Roger looked about wildly. Wait a moment! They were not alone. While the rocket- testing grounds stretched out before them, they were bordered on the right by the backyards of the suburban houses on the adjacent street.

There, not twenty yards distant, two men and a woman stared at them over a white picket fence. The men wore gray flannel suits, the woman a starched white blouse and a full navy skirt covered by a gingham ap.r.o.n, "Excuse me?" Roger called. "You there?"

The rocket grumbled to life beneath them.

"There are certain things that man was not meant to know," the first fellow commented to the others.

"We could use some help!" Roger added.

The first flickers of flame erupted beneath Roger's feet.

"Indeed," the second agreed. "Scientists should never experiment with forces beyond their control."

"Are you just going to stand there?" Roger asked in desperation. The rocket began rolling down the tracks.

The woman sighed as she glanced at her companions. "They should have thought twice before tampering with the very fabric of the cosmos."

And with a great roar, the rocket picked up speed, carrying Roger and Dee Dee straight toward the concrete wall.

"Do you think," the woman added as an afterthought, "it would do any good to complain about the noise?"

They would be burned alive in a matter of seconds. There was only one chance.

"Do you still have the ring?" he called out over the rocket's roar.

"Oh, yes!" Dr. Davenport shouted back. "It's still in my pocket!"

"Use it!" Roger yelled.

The wind whistled past their ears.

"Well-" she grunted, "if I can get it-"

Roger felt himself being flattened against the rocket's metal hull. He forced his head up, so that he could look past the rocket's nose. There, in the distance, but approach- ing all too rapidly, was a long gray wall.

They were surrounded by blue smoke.

An instant later, the rocket motors choked off abruptly, replaced by the sound of cras.h.i.+ng waves.

"See, I told you they'd come back!" a voice shouted triumphantly.The smoke cleared, and they were surrounded by sun, and sand, and surf.

"Oh, yeah?" Sneer shot back before the Mad Mumbler could say anything. "Well, this time, they're never going to leave-ever!"

Back on the surfing world? How could this be?

"Oh, no!" Roger shouted from where he was still strapped to the now sand-covered rocket. "Dr. Davenport! What should we do?"

"Tee hee hee," Dr. Davenport replied.

^ ^ 8 ^ ^

"ANIMATED a.s.sAULT!".

"Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!" Doc exclaimed. "Where in tarnation are we?"

"Trust me," Big Louie said rea.s.suringly. "This is where we want to be."

"No!" Dr. Dread shrieked. "Anywhere but here!" "It not look real," Zabana remarked.

"Itlook-drawn." "Exactly," Delores whispered. They were in the middle of a forest somewhere, but no forest that they had ever seen before. Zabana was right. It was as if they had stepped into the middle of a drawing, with the texture of gra.s.s and leaves and the bark of trees suggested by pen strokes, all filled in by colors much too bright to come from nature. And it was worse than that. She looked at all her fellows, then down at her own hands, solid flesh-tones now outlined by deep black borders. Not only had their surroundings changed, but they had changed as well.

"We've come to an animated world," she announced. "And we ourselves are animated!"

"Bark bark yip arf!" the newly drawn Dwight the Wonder Dog suggested.

"Actually," Louie translated, "Dwight thinks we're rotoscoped."

"Look!" a high-pitched voice called from somewhere out among the trees. "We've got visitors!"

"No!" Doctor Dread screamed as he struggled futilely in the grip of the jungle prince.

"Not them! Anything but them!"

Something small and brown and fluffy jumped from behind a bush.

"It bunny rabbit!" Zabana exclaimed.

"How cute!" Delores added, unable to help herself.

"How terrible!" Dread interjected as he stopped struggling and started to shake. "This can't be happening!"

The newcomer wriggled its nose in Dread's direction, then spoke in that same high, clear voice that had come from the trees. "And not just any bunny rabbit. My name's Bigears. I'm the leader of the pack." The rabbit waved an adorable pink paw. "Say, isn't that Dwight the Wonder Dog?"

"Bark bark, yip!" Dwight answered cheerfully.

"Everybody knows Dwight the Wonder Dog!" Officer O'Clanrahan added animatedly.

"Urk-" Dread grimaced as if in pain.

"Hey, maybe some of my buddies would like to meet Dwight the Wonder Dog,"

Bigears suggested. "What do you say, guys?""There even more bunnies?" Zabana inquired.

"Hey, there's rabbits all over the place," Bigears replied proudly. "You've landed in Bunnyland!"

"Gork-" Dread looked as if he might lose his lunch.

Another pair of bunnies, one gray, one white, came hopping out of the woods.

"Here's a couple of my pals," Bigears explained. "Meet Pinknose"-the white rabbit took a hop in their direction- "and Fluffytail!" The gray rabbit followed suit.

"Gurp!'' Dread seemed to be having some sort of spasm.

"Wow," Delores replied, unable to keep the wonder from her voice. "All these bunnies. Is this where-Thumper lives?"

"Nah," the first bunny said deprecatingly. "He's got a contract with another studio.

Got a swelled head, won't even write to his old buddies. We've still got some of his relatives, though." He raised his voice to call back to the bushes. "Hey, is Thumper's cousin around here somewhere?"

"Sure!" a much deeper voice answered. "Be right dere!''

The ground shook as the bushes parted.

"Grork!" Dread remarked. All the other newcomers, Dwight included, gasped collectively as a very, very large rabbit stepped out into the clearing. This new bunny had regular black and white spots all over its body. However, the most outstanding thing about this rabbit was that it stood some six feet six inches tall.

"Dey call me Bouncer," the very large rabbit announced.

"I can-hold it-no longer!" Dread managed between gritted teeth, "Gleep! Nerp!

Gibber!"

The supervillain threw his arms in the air, then fell to his knees. His head jerked back, his shoulders forward. His hands twitched, then his feet, followed by his eyebrows and his ears. His snakeskin cowl fell away from his head, and his slicked-back hair stood straight up from his scalp. His eyes rolled rapidly about in their sockets, as his tongue darted in and out of his mouth. There was also smoke coming from his nostrils and inner ears.

That was only the beginning. Everything that was happening to Dread started to happen faster. One moment, he was a ma.s.s of twitches and spasms, the next he was moving so quickly that those around him could no longer discern any individual features or limbs-only an indistinct metallic green blur."I had no idea it would be this dramatic," Louie whispered.

AH of a sudden, Doctor Dread stopped. Now, however, he didn't quite look like Doctor Dread. Perhaps it was those black wizard robes with the golden runes, robes much like the ones Dread had worn when he was about to sacrifice Delores to the Volcano G.o.d. Except there was a difference: Now, those robes seemed like they belonged.

"Nyahahahl" the reclothed villain remarked.

The rabbits looked up (or, in the case of Bouncer, over) in fright.

"It's Malevelo!" all the bunnies cried together.

The former Doctor Dread whipped something from inside his robes: a foot-long stick with what looked like a cardboard star pasted on the end. At least, Delores thought, that's the way it was drawn.

Dread/Malevelo smiled nastily. "And you'll have to face my Wizard Wand of Wonder! Bunnies, prepare to die!"

The newly created wizard pointed the star-stick at the bunnies. There was an explosion that did not extend as far as the rabbits. When the very dark smoke cleared, black ash covered the wizard's face. He waved the wand again, but it disintegrated in his hand.

"I'll get those dratted rabbits if it's the last thing I do!" Dread/Malevelo shrieked. And with that, the wizard ran off into the forest. As she watched the villain retreat, Delores could swear that the runes across the back of his robes spelled out three words: SOUVENIR OF BUNNYLAND.

The bunnies all laughed merrily.

"Malevelo still hasn't learned!" Bigears exclaimed.

"He keeps trying to get us with his stupid tricks!" Fluffy tail added cheerily.

"And they always blow up in his face!'' Pinknose cheered as she doubled over with laughter.

"Yeah!" Bouncer a.s.serted. "He should know by now- n.o.body wins in Bunnyland but bunnies!"

"I knew he was afraid of this place for some reason," Louie admitted with a s.h.i.+ver. "I sure as heck didn't know it was that."

"Yep," Doc replied. "I don't think any of us would have knowingly condemned even someone as rotten as Dread to a fate like-Bunnyland. I mean, it ain't the hero's way."