“Aggghhhh!”
shrieked an unsuspecting girl as a two thousand pound lizard dropped from the ceiling,
blocking her path. The girl skittered
away rapidly, her screams echoing down the dark hall.
Tank
sniggered to himself. Terrorizing
patrons was almost too easy tonight. God
he loved Halloween.
Stephenie
was having equal success. Every time she
leapt around the corner, customers screamed in horror and reeled at the sight
of her daunting Krogan costume.
Grinning evilly
to herself, Hilary returned from frightening a group of seemingly stalwart boys. Her costume was deceptively clever. Dressed as a normal human, she appeared to be
nothing but a regular spectator attending the haunted house. But as she slowly strode down the strobe-lit
hall, she would turn and rush at the patrons behind her, exposing a mangled and
bloody face while screaming as shrill as a banshee. On a few occasions, she even saw patrons wet themselves.
The
Crabcats could not have wished for a better night to end their time with Mass
Defect. The customers reached new notes
with their high-pitched screams, and their startled jumps nearly put Olympic
athletes to shame.
It was a phenomenal evening, but alas,
the scaring had finally come to a bitter-sweet end. It was all over; the haunted house enthusiasts
had all gone home. All that remained now
was to take down the haunted house one decoration at a time.
The
Crabcats cleaned for several hours before convening on the final box, unloading
their laden arms with the last of the decorations.
“I swear
everyone was freakishly skittish tonight,” Jessica remarked as she dumped the very
last load into the box.
“I noticed
the same thing,” Holly agreed. “There
was something different about tonight.
It was almost as if…” She left
her sentence unfinished, distracted by a peculiar noise humming in her ears.
“Does anyone hear that humming?” she
suddenly asked. She looked around her and
found a strange, blue machine sitting on one of the boxes. It looked like a perpetual motion machine
with a small circle spinning inside a larger one. “What is this thing?”
“My teeth feel like they’re
vibrating,” Jessica complained as she and the Crabcats approached the strange
object.
“I can hear something too,” Hilary
added, looking at the device quizzically.
“I don’t hear anything,” Stephenie
and Tank said in unison. Some couples may
complete each other’s sentences, but Tank and Steph had a gift for saying the very
same thing.
“I definitely hear a buzzing,” Holly
continued. “It’s got to be from that weird
machine.”
Tank examined the device more
closely. “This doesn’t look like an
ordinary gyroscope.” He bent down to get a better look. “There’s definitely something bizarre about
it,” he said, pointing to the strangely glowing blue center.
As the tip of his finger reached
the glimmering center, brilliant blue light poured over him, instantly enveloping
him and his friends.
On that
sacred day of All Hallow’s Eve, through the magic of Halloween and the power of
that peculiar device, a bone-fide Halloween miracle was wrought. Holly, Jessica, Hilary, Stephenie, and Tank
were instantly whisked into a parallel universe far, far away. At that precise moment, a massive effect had occurred that would change
their lives forever.
***
“Where the
hell are we?” Jessica shouted, blinking her eyes from the brightness of the
flash.
Holly
looked around her, dazed, attempting to get her bearings. “We seem to be on some kind of space ship.”
Then she
heard a soul-piercing scream.
“What happened to me?” Stephenie yelled. “I’m…I’m… a lizard!”
“Holy
mother of Cthulu!” Tank shouted, awe
filling his voice. “I’ve got scales too!” He pounded across the spaceship in search of
a mirror to obtain a better look.
The rest of
the group stood gawking at their surroundings.
They were inside a large cockpit, monitors and controls on a silver dashboard
in front of them. Three large chairs were
positioned around the dash with a small plaque positioned near the
ceiling. It bore the name “NorWomandy.”
After absorbing their strange new surroundings,
the crew looked at each other. A few gasped.
“Umm,
Jess,” Stephenie croaked in her reptilian voice. “You should take a look at yourself.”
“What?
Why? Is something wrong?” She started panicked.
Just then Tank returned with a
large round mirror in his clawed hand.
He reluctantly handed the mirror to Jessica, knowing she would not be
pleased.
“Oh my god! My hair!
What happened to my perfectly-styled hair?” she shrieked. “What are these? Tentacles?
On my head?!” Jess screamed, and
screamed again before taking in a deep breath.
“I’m some kind of… squid monster!”
“With blue
skin,” Tank noted.
“Not
helping!” Jessica bellowed angrily. She
took another petrified look in the mirror.
“I’m hideous! There must be
something wrong with this mirror. Tank,
where did you get this?”
“I ripped
it out of the wall from the bathroom,” he responded matter-of-factly. “It’s a normal mirror.”
Jessica
glared at him icily. It couldn’t be
true!
The group took
turns looking at themselves in the mirror and then at each other. They could not believe their eyes were truly
relaying the absurdity they saw before them.
Jessica
finally broke the silence. “How come
nothing happened to you two?” she accused Holly and Hilary angrily. “You look the same, except you have some kind
of futuristic haircut.” She pointed to
Holly’s hair.
Holly had
noticed this fact earlier. While her
A-line cut was more stream-lined, she, for the most part, remained unchanged. The same was true of Hilary, whose only
difference was that her blonde hair was now stylishly pulled up into a sleek bun.
“What are
these suits we have on?” Hilary asked, hoping to change the direction of the
conversation.
“Armor,”
Tank responded. “Mine looks nearly
identical to the costume I wore.”
“Same here,”
Stephenie added. “My face even looks
like the mask I was wearing.”
“This is
going to sound weird,” Tank began, “but you look hot.”
If lizards
could blush, Stephenie’s cheeks would have turned a rosy color. But to her delight, she could now feel
embarrassed and no one need ever know.
“You too,” she replied softly.
“That’s
enough sappiness from you two love lizards,” Jessica ordered, retching a little
inside. “We’ve got to figure out how to
undo this and get back home. I refuse to
look like Medusa for the rest of my life!”
Before she
could continue her angry tirade, an alarm sounded inside the ship. They turned to face a large monitor flashing
the words, “Distress Call.”
“Distress
call?” Tank wondered. “Who could need help
from us?”
“We might
as well answer,” Holly suggested.
“Are you
kidding me, Holly?” Jessica thundered. “We’re
the ones in distress here!”
But Holly
was already reading the details the computer monitor provided. It was an automated distress call—text
only. It said a ship required immediate
assistance and then provided the coordinates.
“They need
our help,” Holly told Jessica. “We can’t
just let them die!”
“Yes we
can!” Jessica retorted.
“Well,
we’re not going to,” Holly told her stubbornly. “Tank, help me fly this thing.”
Tank leapt
to the other side of Holly and began poking around the controls. “This interface is surprisingly simple,” he
said approvingly. “It’s touchscreen, and
fully automated.”
“Can you
fly us to their coordinates?” Holly asked hopefully.
“I think
so,” Tank answered. “If I push this
button here…and then select these coordinates…”
The ship
lurched for just a moment before the inertial stabilizers kicked in. The stars whizzed past the cockpit’s clear
windshield until they could see nothing at all, a clear indication they were now
traveling at FTL (faster than light) speed.
Holly’s
stomach twisted with anxiety. Who they
were rushing to rescue, she could not say.
The only thing the newly transformed friends knew for certain was that wherever
they were headed, they were on their way.
