Craig Shaw Gardner - Cineverse 3 - Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies

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This book is an Ace original edition, and has never been previously published.
REVENGE OF THE FLUFFY BUNNIES
By Craig Shaw Gardner
Reel Three in the Cineverse Cycle
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace edition / October 1990
AH rights reserved. Copyright © 1990 by Craig Shaw Gardner.
Cover art by Walter Velez.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other
means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-71833-7
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue,
New York, New York 10016.
The name "ACE" and the "A" logo are trademarks belonging to Charter
Communications, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Yes, and as yet another trilogy bites the dust, it's time to place the thanks and/or
blame. From my misspent youth, I have to thank Channels 8, 10, and 13 in Rochester,
New York, for Swashbuckler, Chiller, and Son of Hercules Theatres—fine
programming for a growing boy. From my misspent adulthood, I should thank the
fine folks at the Orson Welles, Brattle, •Coolidge Corner, Park Square, and Kenmore
Square Theatres, as well as all the other wonderful repertory houses that have come
and (mostly) gone in the Boston area in the last twenty years. These places made it
possible for me to see a pair of Toshiro Mifune samurai films in the afternoon, a
Marlene Dietrich double bill in the evening, followed by The Night of the Living
Dead at midnight. Wow! What a great way to waste your life. Thanks also go to all
those folks who also made the B-films, especially Samuel Fuller, Ray Harryhausen,
George Pal, Gene Autry, Dorothy Lamour, and Johnny Weismuller, who inspired
some of the worlds herein.
It's also time to once again thank all the usual suspects who helped to make this series
what it is today: Elisabeth, for efforts beyond the call of duty; Jeff, Victoria, Richard,
Mary, Charlotte, and Maggie for their cogent criticism; Tamara, who did the
impossible and kept me organized; Merrilee and all the helpful folks at Writers
House, who keep me in business; and the ever-cooperative crew at Ace (Hi Susan! Hi
Beth! Hi John!), and, of course, the person to whom this book is dedicated:
GINJER
A wonderful editor and a good friend.
^ ^ 1 ^ ^
She felt so peculiar.
"Ah hahahaha!" the man in her life laughed heartily. "Ahhahahaha!"
Mrs. Roger Gordon, Sr. found that she wanted to laugh as well. She wanted to toss
back her head and let the mirth bubble up from her belly. She wanted to hang onto
this dear, silver-suited man by her side until the laughter consumed her. But she
restrained herself. After all, she was a woman of mature years, not some giddy
schoolgirl.
Still, she did feel like a changed woman of mature years. She found she no longer had
any interest in the bridge club, or the Japanese beetles in the back garden, or the fact
that her son, Roger Jr. , never bothered to call her.
Instead, she had this overwhelming urge to destroy.
"Hee," she remarked, quite unintentionally.
"Oh, Mrs. G.!" her suitor enthused. "It will be so wonderful, gaining absolute mastery
of the Cineverse with you by my side!"
"Why, Mr. M.!" she answered coquettishly, even though she really had no idea what
he was talking about. Still, his enthusiasm was so infectious!
"Hee hee," she added.
Perhaps she was being too hard on herself. A widow in her situation tended to get a
bit set in her ways-—she had seen it happen to her friends, and she wanted to guard
against that sort of thing happening to her. Besides, she reminded herself, she wasn't
that old. She had plenty of good years left, years that could be very well spent with
the right sort of man.
The right sort of man squeezed her elbow affectionately.
Mr. M., as she liked to call him, even though her son had informed her that his real
name was Menge the Merciless. Not your usual name, but she thought it had a certain
charm. He smiled at her, displaying his single shining gold-capped tooth among the
pearly white molars. A man of his age, and he still had his own teeth. That certainly
said something about his character. Besides, she always was a sucker for a pencil-thin
mustache.
He leaned close to her.
"Ah hahahaha!" he whispered in her ear.
The way that man laughed sent a chill down her spine.
"Hee hee hee," she replied demurely.
She was certainly glad that Mr. M.—Menge, she reminded herself—was here to help
her get acclimated. Heaven knew, these surroundings would take some getting used
to. She was still a bit disoriented by how fast things had been happening around her.
One minute, she had been at home, looking through her keepsake drawer, and had
stumbled on this cheap plastic ring, one of those prizes her son always used to save
from cereal boxes. The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by thick blue smoke.
And when that smoke disappeared an instant later, Mrs. Gordon discovered she was
no longer standing in her bedroom, but had somehow been transported to a sunny
beach, surrounded by teenagers with surfboards. And her son, Roger—who was far
too old for that sort of thing—had been there, too.
Well, what was she to think? She demanded an explanation, but Roger, as usual,
seemed completely incapable of giving her one. She sometimes wondered what kind
of job her son could do in public relations if he couldn't even communicate with his
own mother.
Fortunately for her, that was when her dear Menge had arrived—also, oddly enough,
in a cloud of blue smoke. And he had, of course, been much more willing than her
own son to explain everything to her, including the workings of that large machine,
the Zeta Ray, which he had brought along with him.
She still wasn't too certain of the exact meaning of the events that immediately
followed. First, Menge had explained that he, regretfully, had brought his machine to
fry her son's brain. She had objected—it was a mother's duty, after all—until Mr. M.
had explained that exposure to the ray would actually make Roger much more polite.
Even a mother couldn't argue with results like that.
Some of the other people on the beach, however, still felt the need to argue, and more
than argue. Roger wasn't too keen on getting his brain fried, and his friends did a lot
of shouting and carrying on.
And then there was this jungle person there—Splabana, Zabana, something like
that—who had physically attacked dear Menge. The machine had gone off as the two
men struggled, the ray shooting out to bathe her in its golden light.
After that, everything had been different.
Not that she had had much of a chance to think about it. Menge had swept her away
almost immediately in another burst of blue smoke.
And they had arrived here, a place that seemed to be the very opposite of the sunny
beach. The sky was heavily overcast, the ground covered by a layer of fog, and before
them was a great building, as colorless as the rest of their surroundings. Mrs. Gordon
found something about the building disturbingly familiar, even though she couldn't
quite place the architecture. Perhaps the huge structure was some sort of fortress,
maybe even a medieval castle. It looked like some odd combination of the two, but
there was something more to the place, something unpleasant. If, she reflected, you
added a bit of the sort of municipal structure where you had to stand in line for hours
to get your registration renewed—yes, that was the building exactly!
Her feeling of unnameable dread identified, Mrs. Gordon somehow felt oddly at
peace with her surroundings. So what if everything here only showed variations on
shades of gray? Menge's silver suit no longer shone. Even the flowered print of her
dress seemed dulled, as if this place wanted to drain the color away. But all this didn't
upset her in the least.
Now, for some reason, the dreariness seemed to cheer her up.
"Hee," she remarked. "Hee hee hee."
"Mrs. G.," Menge announced with a flourish of his cape. "I would like to welcome
you to our secret headquarters."
Secret headquarters? That certainly sounded mysterious—and important! And Menge
was going to share it specially with her? As mature a woman as she was, Mrs. Gordon
was beginning to feel more like that giddy schoolgirl with every passing minute.
"I am quite overwhelmed, Mr. M."
The man in her life took both her shoulders in his strong hands, and gently turned her
to face him. His pencil-thin mustache quivered ever so slightly as he looked into her
eyes.
"Mrs. G.," Menge purred. "We have known each other for some time, but I have
never asked you a very important question."
She stared back at him. Her heart thumped heavily in her chest. What could this
mean?
He took her right hand in his.
"What is your first name?"
"Why, Mr. M.!" She found herself blushing. In the oddest sense, the question seemed
very personal. She hardly ever used her first name—except with her very closest
friends.
"Antoinette," she replied softly.
"Antoinette?" Mr. M. echoed. "It is a lovely name."
She found herself blushing all over again. But she could not let this deeply personal
moment fade away. She and this handsome, bald man in the silver suit were closer
than they had ever been before, but she felt they could be closer still.
She looked deep into Menge's small but sensitive eyes.
"Now that you know my first name," she began, a slight catch in her voice, "I should
ask the same of you."
"Indeed you could," he replied sympathetically, "but I would not answer you. There
are certain things better left buried." He paused for a moment, then added quickly:
"You may call me Mengy, if you wish."
"Mengy?" she asked.
He smiled as she said it, "It's a name they called me on the surfing world. Frankly, it
annoyed me when others used it. But, coming from your lips, the name becomes a
song to my ears."
"Mengy," she repeated in a hoarse half-whisper.
"Antoinette," he answered firmly as he pulled her close. "Ahhahahaha."
He looked down at her, then leaned his head forward, his lips almost touching her
upturned face. His pencil-thin mustache tickled her nose. She closed her eyes in
anticipation as she leaned forward as well.
"Is this how you"—a new voice interrupted—"obey my orders?"
Mengy snapped to attention. Mrs. Gordon opened her eyes as she turned to face the
newcomer, her lips still longing for that kiss that had been only an instant away.
A man in a green snakeskin smoking jacket stared haughtily at them both.
"Doctor Dread!" Menge announced. "I was merely showing the fortress to our newest
recruit."
"Newest recruit?" Dread asked incredulously. "And who gave you"—he paused
ominously—"permission to bring in new recruits? Especially"—he paused again, his
eyes darting critically from Antoinette to Menge and back again—"this kind of
recruit!"
Mrs. Gordon wasn't sure she liked this fellow, even if he was a doctor. This Dread
person was thinner than Menge—too thin, really. Dread also sported a pencil-thin
mustache. Still, Mrs G. thought, such a mustache did not suit the doctor's pinched
face anywhere near as well as it did Menge's more robust, manly looks. And there
was something about the way Dread spoke that she found irritating—maybe it was the
way he paused all the time. Whatever it was, it didn't add up to a very favorable first
impression. In all fairness, she didn't think this so-called doctor was good enough to
shine Mengy's silver shoes.
"No, no, Doctor Dread," Menge added quickly. Did he have to be so obsequious?
This was a side of her man that she had never seen before.
“You don't understand certain important things about our new recruit," Menge
continued, "such as the fact that she has relatives in very high places."
"Relatives?" Dread snapped, as if just the mention of that word was enough to drive
him to fury. "Ever since Big Bertha convinced me to employ her good-for-nothing
brother Louie, I have had enough of"—he paused in order to summon enough venom
for the final word—"relatives!"
"But you haven't heard me out!" Menge insisted. Mrs. G. was glad he was getting a
bit more forceful. This was the Mr. M. she found so attractive, the man equally adept
at building a rec room on Earth or controlling the Zeta Ray in the Cineverse.
Menge put his arm around her.
"This woman is the mother of Roger Gordon."
Dread's mouth opened, his fury forgotten. "Mother?" He paused, so astonished that he
forgot to be sinister. "Roger—Gordon?"
With the mention of her son's name, Antoinette found her anger inexplicably on the
rise, as if Dread's fury had been contagious.
"He's not much of a son!" she spat. "I can't even remember the last time he called!"
"I think it only fair to mention," Menge continued smoothly, "that our new recruit has
also been zapped by the Zeta Ray!"
"The Zeta Ray?" Dread's pinched face broke into a childlike grin, as if he had
suddenly discovered today was Christmas. "Mother? Roger Gordon? Zeta Ray?" He
began to laugh anemically. "Heh. Hehheh. Heh heh heh."
"Ah hahahaha!" Menge answered. "Ah hahahaha!"
The levity was contagious. Antoinette couldn't help but join in. "Hee nee hee hee!
Hee hee hee nee!"
"Menge!" Dread exclaimed. "You are to be—congratulated. With Roger Gordon's
mother at our side, no one will be able to stop the—Change! Heh! Hehhehheh!"
They all laughed some more.
Dread cut the laughter abruptly with a wave of his snake-skin glove.
"Enough frivolity! We need to make"—he hesitated suggestively—"arrangements for
the final stages of the— Change! Meet me in the—throne room in five minutes. And
bring your"—this time, he paused too suggestively for Antoinette's liking—"new
recruit!"
Dread turned with a flurry of his snakeskin cape. He rapidly climbed the slate
staircase leading to the gray edifice before them, disappearing a moment later through
one of a pair of twenty-foot-tall, dull steel doors.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between the two who remained
outside.
"We really know so little about each other," Antoinette sighed at last. "Why, until
now, I didn't even know you were in someone else's employ."
"In someone else's employ?" Her man shook his head firmly. "Not for long, Mrs. G.
Not for long." He once again placed his hands upon her shoulders. "Meeting you on
Earth, helping to build your rec room, the so-called accident with the Zeta Ray—I
realize now that none of these things were mere chance! No, Antoinette Gordon and
Menge the Merciless are two names that together speak of destiny!"
He squeezed her shoulders. She had never seen him look so intense!
"Even Doctor Dread is as nothing before us!" He let go of her to ball both his hands
into fists. "Soon, Menge the Merciless will control the Cineverse, with the lovely An-
toinette by his side!"
He stopped to look up the stairs, his grin of triumph replaced by an uncertain frown.
"But come!" he said as he took her hand. "We cannot be late for the throne room.
Everything must seem normal until we can make our move. Then, after careful
planning— ultimate triumph! Ah hahahaha! Ah hahahaha!"
Antoinette smiled as the Merciless One led her up the stairs. She did like a man who
knew his own mind! With him by her side, she didn't even care about Earth or her
past life. With Menge, her life was all brand new.
She had the feeling that all sorts of interesting things were going to happen!
^ ^ 2 ^ ^
All was darkness—a hot, damp darkness, as if the heat of noon had forgotten to go
away. Delores couldn't see a thing.
Something roared loudly, out there in the still air of the endless night.
Something else screamed.
"Sorry," the voice of Edward the Slime Monster whispered in her ear.
"Sorry?" Delores replied, surprised at the venom in her own voice. "Here I am, one
minute, standing on a sunny beach, directly across from the man I love, and the next, I
am whisked away by a creature made of putrescent muck to a place that would make
the Black Hole of Calcutta look like a vacation resort, and all you can say is—you're
sorry?"
"Um," Edward replied, "how about if I say I'm very sorry?"
"Nope," Delores replied firmly. "It doesn't wash."
"Slime monsters never do," Edward admitted. "If you get us too near water, it can
become very messy."
"Look," Delores interjected as reasonably as she could. "If you're really sorry, why
don't you take me back to the beach?"
Delores felt droplets of slime hit her exposed neck and arm.
"I can't," the Slime Monster admitted with a quaver in his voice. Could that be a
quaver of fear? What, Delores thought with a shiver of her own, could a slime
monster be afraid of?
"It was the Zeta Ray," Edward explained.
"You're afraid of the Zeta Ray?" Delores asked incredulously.
"Slime monsters know no fear," Edward insisted. "Mostly, we know slime. But still,
there is something I cannot place my incredibly slippery finger on, something about
that Zeta Ray, and the Change—"
Edward's voice faltered, as if, despite his protestations, there were certain things even
slime monsters didn't want to think about.
Delores was once again aware of sounds in the darkness. The screams redoubled,
even more bloodcurdling than before. And this time they were accompanied by other,
softer noises, like the tearing of cloth, the rending of flesh, the splintering of bone,
and the clacking of long and pointed teeth—almost as if, Delores reflected, something
was being eaten alive.
Delores decided she didn't want to reflect any more.
"We may not have long before the Change starts all over again," Edward continued,
as if he had finally found the courage to say what was in his heart, or whatever similar
organ beat within the Slime Monster's breast. "And once the Change begins, who
knows what is next? No, we must •be married as soon as possible. And then, of
course, there's the honeymoon to consider. And what about the china and silver
patterns?" The monster sighed. "So much to do, so little time."
China and silver patterns? Delores also decided to put any thoughts of marriage to a
thing made of muck out of her mind. She'd never get out of here if she descended into
despair.
Instead, she asked the first question that had come into her head upon her arrival in
this dreadful place.
"But—why here?"
"Here?" Edward's voice sounded surprised, almost shocked. "Where else could we
go? This is home."
"Home?" Delores asked between the now-faltering screams. "You call a dark, foul-
smelling, noisy and dangerous place like this—home?"
"Yes, it is rather pleasant, isn't it?" Edward agreed. "But I sense you are not entirely
happy with our new surroundings. Probably has something to do with you being used
to sunshine, and all those other nasty bright lights." Edward sighed. "It is true, you
could not know this place the way I do."
The screams ended, and the roaring began again.
"I don't think I want to," Delores admitted.
"If you had only grown up here," Edward insisted, "the way I did. Oh, what happy
childhood memories, rooting in the muck for Tremendofly maggots! You should try
them. They're especially tasty, you know, just before they molt."
Tremendofly maggots? Despite her best efforts, Delores could feel despair seeping
into her soul.
"Now I know I don't want to," she replied sullenly.
Edward made a wet tsking sound with what passed for his mouth. "My dear Delores,
if only you'd give the place a chance. There is beauty here, all around us even now, in
the cry of the dying Razorbird, and the grumbling song of the Gigantasaur as it rends
and tears its evening meal. Or, if you listen carefully, you can hear the musical
bubbling of the distant phosphorescent swamp as it claims another victim.''
Now that Edward mentioned it, she did think she heard a distant bubbling noise,
accompanied by the ever-present distant screams. None of this was making Delores
feel any better. She had to get out of here-—somehow, anyhow. "Uh, Edward? Could
we go somewhere else and talk about this?"
摘要：

ThisbookisanAceoriginaledition,andhasneverbeenpreviouslypublished.REVENGEOFTHEFLUFFYBUNNIESByCraigShawGardnerReelThreeintheCineverseCycleAnAceBook/publishedbyarrangementwiththeauthorPRINTINGHISTORYAceedition/October1990AHrightsreserved.Copyright©1990byCraigShawGardner.CoverartbyWalterVelez.Thisbookm...

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