Upon seeing this giant mechanism of death, I decided to go right back the way I came and find a nice quiet place to await the end of the world. But that's when He came along and made me reconsider humanity’s chances in this conflict. He jumped up on the hood of the Prius and punched his chest, which caused four massive, missile-loaded barrels to protrude from somewhere on his back. He took hold of the two joysticks that extended in front of him, and I heard the precise whistle of warheads singing on their way to a target. I stared at the invading machine through the driver’s side window and laughed in amazement as I saw two bright orange and red blossoms of fire blast huge chunks off of the machine’s torso and arms. The machine looked pissed and extended one coiled arm towards us, but the mystery man let two more missiles loose. They found their target, and the dome-headed machine fizzled, sputtered, and crashed to the ground, consumed in greenish blue flames.
He must not have noticed me, because He jumped off the Prius and started walking back towards the campus.
“Hey!” I yelled, not really knowing how to casually approach a mysterious man who just brought down an alien menace. He stopped, but didn’t completely turn around. I could see that he was wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and a vintage-looking duster. He turned his head back slightly, and I could see that a lit cigarette was dangling from his mouth.
“Who’re you?” He asked, sounding as grizzled and pissed as one would infer from his appearance. I stood up, trying to act like I didn’t just witness a military base get decimated by aliens.
“My name’s Marla. Marla Killian. I study English Lit at the U…well, I studied it, anyway…” He turned to face me, and took a few steps in my direction.
“Why aren’t you dead?”
“Well, I guess it’s because I got knocked out by an errant brain and couldn’t afford a Vonix phone.”
“Makes sense. The part about the phone, anyway. That’s how they’ve infiltrated our planet.” Score one for Jeff.
“Who are you? Where’d you get that four-barreled missile thing? I’ve never seen one of those before.” The man smirked slightly. Now that He was closer, the cigarette lit up his features. I had expected Sawyer from Lost, based on what I’d seen of him so far. However, He was astoundingly average looking; like a greeter at Best Buy. His reply to my question was a shrill whistle. I paused for a moment, not quite understanding how to carry on a conversation that had been derailed by whistling. Suddenly, I heard the faint and obnoxious chime of a cowbell heading our way. A small donkey pulling a cart materialized from the smoke that had begun billowing around us. The cart looked to have been fashioned out of the hindquarters of a circa 1970’s Ford pickup. A tattered American flag struggled to contain several gun barrels of differing lengths and widths. Ammunition belts flopped over the side of the cart like the tongue of a thirsty bulldog. He punched his chest again, and the four barrels retracted back to their hiding place.
“I found it,” he said nonchalantly, “Along with all these. Came in handy though, didn’t it?” I nodded my head in agreement. Despite the deluge of traumatizing shit that I had witnessed over the course of this utterly bizarre day, a cowboy and his ammo-toting donkey weren’t so bad.
“As for my name,” he took a long, dramatic drag on his cigarette, “It’s Max. Max Bodycount.” That pushed me over the edge. In the span of roughly six hours, I’d seen decapitations (plural!), gallons of blood, actual evidence of extra-terrestrial life, and half a military base consumed by lasers. Now, at the end of it all, I was talking to a guy named Max Bodycount in front of his gun-toting jackass. I couldn’t control it any longer, and I let out a torrent of laughter. My knees started to buckle and my ass hit the ground while tears streamed from my bloodshot eyes. The laughter wouldn’t stop, and for a few moments, I was genuinely worried about vomiting.
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