Halloween special of DOOM, part four
I cannot believe this is happening! This is a very new challenge to me and I am honoured to be a part of this BSH/Boosh fandom tradition! Squeeeeee! Beta'd only by a very sleepy, but well read, partner...so I hope I don't offend your eye balls. Also, written by an American-english speaker whose native tongue is not english--I apologize in advance for mutilating British-english terms.
Title: Halloween Special of DOOM 2017, part 4
Word Count: ~1,400
Warnings: My love for Smeg fridge and mentions of artistic integrity.
Charlie was frozen solid, like Han Solo in carbonite, in a gigantic Smeg freezer with a door that was carelessly open.
“Wow...think of the energy bill.” Howard mumbled and looked to Vince, who approached the freezer and gazed sorrowfully at the demise of his favorite character.
Charlie’s face was contorted in rage. Howard shivered.
This underground lair seemed to be a wine cellar...the walls around Charlie’s freezer were lined with bottle racks. And, in the corner was a wooden cupboard door. “Howard! It’s a dumbwaiter! I knew it!” Vince ran to the door and opened it. “We can escape with this! It works! Help me get Charlie warmed up, yeah?” The younger man turned to Howard and asked with urgency the older man had never seen.
“How?” Howard did not want to share his body heat with this bubble gum monster if it meant London flooding.
“I don’t know!” Vince looked extremely distressed.
“Well, it is a wine cellar...perhaps we can make a fire with some wine soaked rags--and die from carbon monoxide poisoning...”
Vince lit up. “Or, we can chop him up, like Eric Phillips did!”
*
“Wait... Vince?” Howard stopped pulling Charlie out of the freezer and questioned the younger man. “Why can’t you just write a new book and let Charlie reappear? Make him beat up Terry?” Howard couldn’t believe they hadn’t thought of this before. If this whole thing was magic--and most things that happened in their lives seemed to be magic--and if Howard, a noted writer and creative genius though he was, was able write out Charlie with stroke of a crayon, then why couldn’t Vince, though inferior in skills of the letter, just write him back in?
Vince was scandalized at Howard’s inference. “It doesn’t work like that, Howard. I’m his scribe, a biographer. I only write what happened to Charlie as Charlie tells it. I have too much respect for the subject’s voice to pull shit like you did.”
That’s a no, then. “That is the most illogically logical thing I have ever heard you say.”
“Shut your gob and help me get Charlie out of this freezer!” Vince snapped. His irritability appeared to be back with the discovery of his hero.
*
So the boys found an axe, conveniently stored in the cellar, and began chipping away at the solid mass of the chewing gum in turns.
“Howard, this part, it won’t break at all.” An area in what could be the midsection of Charlie was not giving way to the heavy whacks. “Well, they’re small enough now to fit into the dumb waiter,” Howard pointed out.
“I’ll go up first.” Howard volunteered. The northerner did not want to be trapped in a cellar with the freaky, albeit frozen, bubble gum monster. He added, “It’s safer down here....I’ll make sure that Terry isn’t lurking upstairs still.”
Howard inspected the first floor, and finding that Terry, indeed, was not lurking about, went to the dustier, stinkier, more hazardous second floor to locate a bath. The layout was similar to the original Nabootique, and upon locating a decaying clawfoot tub, he turned on the hot water. Alas, the water rushed out of the faucet and the bath tub was filling.
Vince packed the dumbwaiter full of as many Charlie chunks as he could.
“Howard! It’s ready!” Vince called out at the top of his lungs.
“Alright! I’m pulling it up!” He heard Howard reply.
*
After three rounds of hauling Charlie chunks, Vince got on the dumbwaiter with the last chunk, the bit that wouldn’t break, and hugged it closely to his chest. “I’m sorry about this Charlie...Howard can be a real tit sometimes. But, he’s not all that bad, you know?” He felt like Charlie was listening. The pink monster was always a good listener, almost a father-like to figure to Vince. The electro poof often spoke to Charlie about matters of the heart.
“Here’s the last bit.” Vince carefully handed Charlie’s tummy chunk to Howard and climbed out himself. He caught his heel on piece of a broken flooring, and as he did, he bumped into Howard who leapt up from the frozen piles to steady him. “All right, little man?”
It was the easiest thing--it was so automatic, all the tension and friction disappeared. Howard’s chest felt so warm, and if it wasn’t for the impending apocalypse, he would have declared undying love for Vince.
Howard Moon never had the right moment to do the right thing, though, did he?
“Thanks, Howard.” A warm smile that quickly turned into a frown, staring at the sweet, defrosting lumps of edible polymer in a tub.
“Now, we wait.”
*
The lumps slowly melted in the hot water, coagulating and taking life as our protagonists looked on. At times a saccharin scented gas erupted out of pink bubbles, as though Charlie was gasping for air. Vince was hopeful.
“Sorry about Charlie.” Howard spoke quietly. He was sitting on the bathroom floor, far away from Vince and Charlie. “I haven’t apologized properly, so...” The northerner licked his lips. He hated apologizing...but there was no escaping it, or pretending nothing had happened. This time, Howard T. J. Moon was going to man up.
Anyways, he better or Vince may sic Charlie on him once he’d melted together.
Vince looked at Howard, and then looked back to Charlie. He wasn’t a grudge holder by any means--he’d always forgiven or forgotten other’s wrong doings--but Charlie was special to him. Just as much as Howard was special to him. Vince sighed and said, “S’alright. Should have known you’d be jealous and pull a stunt like this.” He giggled and snuck a peek at Howard. As he predicted, the older man’s face twisted in shame and indignation. He could never take criticism, could he? Vince thought.
“I suppose...that was well deserved,” Howard harrumphed, “but, I’m not jealous, no sir. Howard Moon cannot be seduced by the green eyed monster.”
“No,” replied the younger man, “you just attract minging purple lumps, with bitey teeth and a nasty sense of fashion.” Vince erupted in a cackle. Howard pretended to be offended, but smiled and took in the sound that always made him happy and giddy.
*
Howard left the bath to look for the magic book. Even if Charlie was resurrected, the magic rain might not stop. Finding the magic book was crucial.
“Howard!” The maverick heard Vince’s squawk and rushed to the bathroom. “What happened!?” He feared, perhaps, that Terry was back.
Instead, what awaited the older man was beaming Vince and half formed Charlie peeking out of the tub.
“Howard! Charlie said! Charlie said he has the book!”
“What! That’s brilliant! Where!?” Howard frantically searches the room.
“No, you berk! He has it! In his belly!”
Howard chewed on to the implications of this revelation as he stared at the sunshine kid and his sticky, half-formed monster.
“Oh, shit.”
*
“This is very disappointing, Naboo” Dennis spoke with his usual calmness and authority as the small shaman braced for tirades from Saboo and Tony Harrison.
“Unspeakably idiotic. He should have been stripped of his shaman’s license a long time ago.” Saboo spat.
“It wasn’t my fault! Howard messed it up!” Naboo contested.
“And you sent that idiot in charge of recovering your magic book? Point made!”
“I call for a swift trial and execution,” Tony piped in with air of smugness and excitement, “the human world is about to be flooded, and we cannot be wasting our time on this knobhead!”
“Shut up, Tony!” The shaman on trial felt like smoking hooka from every orifice.
“Everyone, be quiet!!” The head shaman, flustered, adjusted his cape and lectured, “This is no time for a pointless argument. Naboo’s punishment will be determined after we save London. We need everyone’s help finding Charlie and destroying this ‘Terry’.”
Naboo’s phone interrupted the air of solidarity. The small shaman winced and answered. “Hello?”
“Naboolio! Alright!! It’s Vince!”
“Did you two ball bags find the book?”
“Yeah, yeah! And we found Charlie, too!”
Naboo lit up. “Brilliant!”
“But Naboo-----ry’s c-----t you guys!” A thunder roared over the forest as Vince warned.
“What?” Naboo plugged his open ear and strained to listen to Vince’s voice.
“Terry! He’s coming to get you!” Vince yelled, but the electro poof’s voice was distant as Naboo and the council gaped at the sky.
“....too late.”
Terry and his crew were riding the storm cloud on their Harleys to wreak havoc.