The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island (9 page)

My right fingers met a wetness that was neither syrup nor brine. I jerked my hand away and looked at it. My hand was covered in green blood. Oh my, what had I done? I felt around my head and my fingertips fell into a hole clawed into the back of my skull. As I slept, I'd tried digging a hole to my brain. Why had I done this? What compelled me to tear away my own head? Now that I'd registered it, the wound hurt. Bad. The wound had not hurt before I noticed it.

I put my own pain aside and went to help her. Being soft and round and flat, her body absorbed most of the impact that could potentially result in severe brain trauma, a severed tongue, etc. I decided there was not much for me to do and waited for the fit to take its full course. I sat down beside her quaking body. How did I let this happen? I was unaware that epilepsy was contagious. I pinched myself so as not to retreat back into my own pain.

After a while, she scaled back down from the sulfuric peaks of convulsion. She said that everything glowed.

"I want to be covered in light," she said. "I want to stand in the sun."

"Are you okay to walk? I'll carry you to the roof if you want."

"Don't worry about me. I feel spectacular. Yes, let's go to the rooftop." She looked at me, confused. "Your skull is bleeding. Why is your skull bleeding?"

"I woke up and found it that way. I don't know what happened. It's okay. My skull will feel better when we're in the light."

"Does it hurt?"

"It hurts."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

Hand in hand, we went up the stairs to the roof to stand in the green light.

The air was damp and heavy.

We looked out at the world, and what we witnessed was all wrong.

Fanny let go of my hand.

Thousands of green pancakes swarmed across the island. They shuffled toward the zucchini castle, drooling and moaning.

"What's happened to them?" Fanny said.

"They've been pickled," I said.

I tried to take Fanny's hand, but she pulled away.

The pancakes surrounded the castle. Out in the distance, the sea shimmered. It was as green as the sun. Right beneath us, leading the pancake mob, the door-obsessed pancake stood beside the flattened, rocket-humping pancake boy. The two stared at me with sad, accusing facial expressions. The door-obsessed pancake raised her right hand and pointed at me. "You," she shouted. "You put me in this state.”  She was barely audible over the moaning crowd, but I heard her, and Fanny did as well.

"You've ruined happiness, Gaston Glew," Fanny said. "You've ruined happiness and you've lied to me."

She walked away. She left the roof. I made to follow her, but stopped short. There was nothing I could say or do. I'd pickled her planet and the last of her race. The prospect of a future together was bleak.

I stood on the ledge and peered down at the undead pancakes clawing and moaning at the zucchini door beneath. Fanny Fod was right. I had ruined happiness.

"Oh, Miss Door Lover, Mister Rocket Humper," I called. "I'm sorry for what I've done. I'm sorry. I truly am. Please accept my apology and turn back to your normal, happy selves. You're pancakes, remember? You can't remain dead forever."

But happiness was not eternal, or so the sun had said.

The dead green sun blaring down.

Every pancake in the front yard raised their flats heads to me at once. Their unmoving eyes fixed on me. Although green and sickly, the pancakes did not look depressed. They looked . . . hungry.

Pickle-shaped tongues lolled out of their mouths. The pancakes licked their lips and smacked their rotting gums. Together they moaned, "
Haaaaappppiiiinnnessssss. . . ."

That was when they tore down the door.

I ran to the stairwell and skipped down the steps. The Cuddlywumpus was in danger. I'd infected it, and in turn infected the syrup ocean, ruining everything, but Fanny Fod and I still might escape. With a lot of luck and a little leftover happiness, we could start a new colony somewhere else in the universe. If the last happy place was dead, we were its only shot at harvesting another.

I heard them shuffling around before I reached the ground floor. I stumbled a few steps from the bottom and fell the rest of the way down. I sprang up, ready to defend myself against the pancakes, but they were not coming in my direction. Their pattering steps moved toward the kitchen. They'd broken down the front door in no time at all.

My arms trembled. They were almost too heavy to lift. I balled my hands into fists and tucked them beneath my chin. I felt so scared and alone, but if I didn't rescue Fanny and show these pancakes who was boss, the fright and aloneness would never go away.

I marched down the narrow hall that led from the stairwell to the kitchen. Three pancakes scuffled toward me. I swung my fists at them. Green syrup gushed from their bodies. I punched and punched, crushing them as if they were overgrown garlic spiders. But soon as I'd mowed down the first batch, another came. Simultaneously, a chorus of moans broke out behind me. I flailed my arms, hoping to fight my way into the kitchen and to the dungeon door before the pancakes surrounded me in the hall.

I took down pancake after pancake. Their soggy carcasses piled up as they came into punching range. Soon, I wasn't just punching the brains out of the living pancakes, I was also kicking at the dead ones. I had to in order to keep moving forward. The moaning from behind approached fast.

I thought of the faces. The faces. The faces that would smother. I turned and ran back in the direction of the stairs, because in that moment, my fear of the smothering faces overcame my fear of losing Fanny, and by the time I overcame my own impulsive action, I was already running up the stairs. Pancakes swallowed everything beneath me.

The flapping sea of pancakes continued to rise. I had a clear path to the rooftop, but no way down from there. I'd have to face the smothering. I'd have to face it for real this time. I couldn't let Fanny Fod down anymore. After all that I'd taken, all I'd destroyed, to come all the way from Pickled Planet to find true love and manifest a nightmare, it had to come to this.

The words of the dead sun returned.

It is like being subject and object all at once. The boundaries between your perceptions and the world disintegrate.

That was the way it happened with Fanny and I during our first night together, when our lips met and we shared a yummy dream. We expanded beyond ourselves and swallowed each other. It was the greatest feeling ever.

I dove into the swarm of pickled pancakes. I resisted the initial urge to struggle, to swing my fists. Don't fight, I told myself. Don't fight don't fight don't fight.

I closed my eyes and let the pancakes drag me under. I envisioned their bodies as the molecules of Fanny's peanut butter lips, and that she was swallowing me whole. I sank deeper into the phosphorescent green confusion of bodies. A living lake of syrup and brine.

The pickled pancakes carried me toward the door of the dungeon. I could not see for myself, for the crowd blinded me, but they also propelled me forth. I trusted them now. They did not want to eat me or seek revenge for pickling their island. Maybe they were pickled, but so was I.

Sucking in mouthfuls of maple syrup and pickle brine, I thought how peculiar Fanny's and my children would taste, if we were to ever surface from this mess and she forgave me and we settled down and
WHAM!

I slammed right into the dungeon door. The pancakes cleared a space around me, in which I staggered. No longer buried in pancakes, I was still up to my waist in fluids.

"
Haaaaappppiiiinnnessssss. . . ."
the pancakes moaned.

I tried the door and found it locked. "Fanny, it's me," I called. "Everything is fine. We're safe. The pickled pancakes are our friends."

"Go away, Gaston. You're a disease," Fanny said.

"
Haaaaappppiiiinnnessssss. . . ."
the pancakes moaned, encroaching on the door.

"Everything is fine," I insisted. "How's the Cuddlywumpus?"

"Infected."

"I'm sorry."

"Just go away, and take the pancakes with you."

"Trust me, Fanny. I wouldn't lie to you."

"You already have."

"Well I'm not lying this time. I ruined happiness, I know. But listen, it's not as bad as you think. Trust me on this. I'm from the armpit of the universe. I know how bad things can be. Maybe these aren't the pancakes you're used to. Maybe they're not singing and dancing. Maybe they're less yummy than they used to be, but they're still pancakes. They just have a little of me in them, and don't you love me?"

"You remade my home, my life, everything I've ever known, in your own image."

"Isn't that what love's about?"

"You ruined everything."

"You keep saying that, but you're failing to see that it's not all bad. In fact, it may not be bad at all. These pancakes are spooky, but they're not evil. They're still your kin. Come on, give me a chance. Open the door. I want to see you. I want to hold you. Let me try to fix this."

"Go away, Gaston."

"I can fix the Cuddlywumpus."

The pancakes crowded close to me. I turned and batted them away. I gave them a look that said don't say a word. I hoped their infected brains understood.

On the other side of the door, I heard Fanny speak to the Cuddlywumpus, and the Cuddlywumpus speaking back. At least the damned thing was alive. I pressed the right side of my head to the door. I resolved to be silent and wait for their talk to end.

Nothing doing.

The pancakes around me began to mutter.

"I feel so sad," said a pancake, muffled by the soggy crowd.

"I feel lonely," said another.

"I feel bad about the way I feel," a third said.

"Me too!" said the crowd.

I spun around and raised a finger to my lips. I shushed the pancakes. My hand shook and fell away from my lips when I saw what ailed them. They'd regressed further, into a pickled state so severe that the last of their happiness oozed from their porous flesh. Happiness turned to pus. Yellow and rancid.

"We're dying," they said.

"Be quiet. You're not dying," I said. I guessed the pickling had given them knowledge of a lot of grim stuff they'd been unaware of.

The kitchen and hall were clotted with their disintegrating bodies.

"Gaston, are you there?" Fanny said.

"Yes, I'm here."

"Thank you for your patience."

"Just open the door."

The pancakes were crying softly now.

"Open the door," I said.

The dungeon door swung open. I heard Fanny scuttle down the stairs. I stepped forward and stood on the top step. No glow emanated from the phantom machines. No ear-tipped tentacles writhed curlicues in the air.

"Fanny?" I said.

"Down here."

"Fanny?"

"Shut the door."

"I need a light."

"The Cuddlywumpus needs the dark."

"Can you turn on the syrup machines, just for a moment? When I'm down there, you can turn them off again."