It Began with the Rhinos

by David

Professor Zodiac didn’t mean to reanimate the entire zoo cemetery. He merely needed a couple of dead rhinoceri.

The reanimation, fueled with the pulp of countless PETA tracts, went off without a hitch. At least until the elephants. They broke through the soil, spraying dirt clods everywhere, and posing against the sky.
“Did I order elephants?” The raised eyebrow. Chunk shook his head vehemently and hung his head. He had always loved circus elephants.

“No, Master.”

But then the tapir, the jaguarundi, the koala and the meerkat, the gazelle and even the stately giraffe, broke free of the ground and began staggering about, milky-eyed and trembling. Professor Zodiac launched all of them, the hippopotamus, the red panda, the giant tortoise, and even the penguins against the Witch’s stronghold.

The liches turned out to have capabilities that they could only have dreamed of in their former lives, if they could have dreamed of additional abilities. The hippos could tunnel through wet earth. Pocket gophers could teleport, although only into and out of pockets. The penguins could fly. They were like giant flying fish, whizzing over the walls of the Witch’s castle, crashing through windows, or bouncing off embrasures when they tried to go through arrow slits. Soon, the professor was inside. He confronted the Witch in her audience chamber.

“I want what’s rightfully mine,” he said. “I need the potions from my laboratory.”

“You mean MY laboratory,” she snapped. “It was only your laboratory until I caught you performing late-night experiments with that leggy intern from the University. I have moved the facility to an isolated tower in the Arctic Ocean. The tower is too smooth and too tall for climbing, and is surrounded by hundreds of miles of sea ice. You will never get in. I’ll be wearing the laboratory smock in the family from now on.”

“But I have to finish her transformation,” he protested. “Now she is neither fish nor fowl, when she could be both.” The Witch snorted. “Should’ve thought of that while her pants were still on.”

*

Eventually, the professor’s army returned to the graveyard and he departed. Afterwards, he pulled his assistant aside.

“Chunk?”

“Yes, Master?”

“This is not the end.”

“No, Master.”

He leaned down to whisper in the hunchback’s ear. “We can do this. I have a foolproof plan. But we’ll need more penguins.”

Pelican Boy

by SaraG

Come and see, ladies and gents, come and see, the one and only, the wonderful, the fantaaastic Pelican Boy!

You may think you’ve seen it all, having crossed the Galaxy. You may think nothing can surprise you, after riding the novas, but this, Mr. and Mrs. Alien, my young alienettes, is stranger than quantum physics. Don’t pass it up. The Eiffel Tower is swell, but this, my purple friends, is the dark side of Old Terra. Come and see, come and see: the Human Freak Show!

Pelican Boy started slow, watching the tip grow. He displayed the silver balls, about the size of golf balls and juggled them around as a warm-up. Ostentatiously, he slipped one into his mouth and directed it to the pouch of flesh that Nature had given him as his livelihood. The purplies gasped when they saw his neck bulge.

He smiled; this town was no doniker. The clems were positively bursting to hand over their platinum. Pelican Boy kept the balls going up and down, swallowing them and bringing them back up, showing the audience what he could do with his pelican neck. After fifteen balls, he could hardly breathe, but the marks were ecstatic. There was no doubt they’d shell out to see the whole show.

He ignored their purple faces, which always made him squeamish and their gasps of sympathy, and strained his pouch to the max. The aliens were horrified, and loving it. Human degradation, that’s what they’d crossed the galaxy to see.

Come closer, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you a secret. Mr. and Mrs. Alien, young Mss. Alien, alienboy and alienette, this is not for the faint of heart. What you’ll see today, will curdle your blood. Please sign the discharge before you come on in.

Could we cure him, ladies, gents? Could we snip away his pouch and give him a normal life? Of course we can’t: this is showbiz! Come, ladies and gents, come watch the Human Freak Show!