Travel Bug (15 page)

The great one wasted no time. “Kill the subversive professor, no trial this time. Then bring the pig to me.”

“As you wish, my lord…”

“Go. I hate to wait.”

“It shall be done.”

The gorilla was looking forward to this order so much that he could barely contain his excitement.

“So we can clearly see that our DNA is actually the same as man’s,” said Virgil, the radical teacher. His classroom was filled with inquisitive animals that were fascinated by his controversial and seemingly fearless theories. Yusef burst into the room.

“Come with me, Virgil,” said Yusef.

“Class, we have a visitor and he’s from the government.”

“Yes. Please bring your class with you as well,” said the gorilla.

“Certainly,” said the academic.

“Think of it as a class trip because it’s going to be educational.”

“Where are we going?” Virgil asked.

“We’re going to the furnace room.”

Virgil and the young ones followed the gorilla to the room where man was exterminated after experiments were complete. The owl felt a terrible sense of dread and his heart was racing. He knew that the gorilla wouldn’t dare hurt him in front of so many invited witnesses. That would be too brutal even for the dictator’s regime. That kind of totalitarian fascism could never happen in an animal society where there was still a spark of freedom left.

I’ve looked forward to this for some time,” said Yusef.

“What?” Virgil asked.

“You, my fellow gorilla, light the furnace.”

“Me?” the student asked Yusef.

“Yes.”

“I will do whatever you ask, sir.”

“Excellent, I’m proud of you, son.”

“For what, sir?” he asked.

“For being wise enough to save your own life…”

“I demand to know what’s going on here,” Virgil declared.

“Take this. It’s a copy of the subversive book.”

“Man farm?”

The gorilla grabbed the owl and thrust him deep into the furnace. The entire class heard his screams.

“You can burn with that perverted book that you wrote,” Yusef said tossing the book into the flames.

The young ones were devastated by the violence. Yusef wasn’t sure if this was real or not. He even though he heard the professor deny writing the novel before being eaten alive by live flames in front of his class.

“What do we hate?”

“Subversives,” answered the young gorilla.

“Splendid.”

“Who do we subjugate in hopes of their genocide?” asked another student. He was ironically a young owl.

“Mankind,” screamed all the young ones at once.

“Yes. I believe you are finally learning something worthwhile,” said the gorilla.

“You and the dictator have taught us not to trust in radicals or free thinkers,” said the young gorilla.

“Yes and that’s a fine point, lad.”

“We will forget all our knowledge,” said another student.

“Good. Forgetting free, radical thought is the beginning of all knowledge,” said Yusef with a smile.

“Thank you for teaching us the way,” said another owl.

The gorilla went home a hero after roasting the radical professor. He was delighted in his long journey back to the great dictator. He even stopped in a few bars close to the school and killed a few more outspoken troublemakers. Yusef wasn’t just happy to have killed Virgil. No. There was much, much more to the current joy he felt in his heart. He left that place of so called higher learning feeling a whole lot better about the next generation and their value system.

Now he was on to his next task and it was a pleasurable one. Yusef snatched Roberto and beat him until he was nearly dead. There were no cries or squeals for mercy. How could there be now? He had to make a special delivery to the most important living being on the planet.

“Hello, my good and faithful servant,” the great one said as he greeted Yusef.

“Hello, my lord,” answered Yusef.

“You have done well. Have you brought the pig?”

“Yes, my lord.”

The pathetic and sick pig Roberto stood right beside his abusive master.

“What do you have to say?”

“I killed the professor and I want you to know that your secret is safe.”

“Even David and William like you, my friend. The bloody massacre you did will be covered up by my secret police.”

The pig gasped for air. It wasn’t merely because he was sick and in great pain. He realized he was in the conference room of the great dictator. There was something else.

Roberto had heard his entire life that the great one was a gorilla of almost god like status. There was a gorilla… costume to the right of the most powerful creature in his society.

“I don’t believe he can handle it. Can he?”

“No, my lord,” answered Yusef.

“Only one of my species could be so ruthless. That’s why I have requested now to grant you the one thing you’ve always wanted more than anything.”

The animals were in shock at the true nature of their leader’s identity.

The pig starred at the great one. It was obvious that despite a lifetime of bravery for sticking up for the rights of humans, even Virgil or any professor would not be brave enough to write that book. The book wasn’t written to inspire revolution or understanding. It was written to inspire fear.

“Yes, pig,” said the dictator. “Now you finally see.”

Yusef took out his knife and blinded the pig.

“Your fellow creatures can never know that the great dictator is a man. The last thinking man on the planet is what I am.”

“My lord…” Yusef smiled.

“I am human but you, a gorilla will be the next dictator. I hate my own kind. We blew up the world.”

“You are a credit to your wretched, cursed kind, my lord.”

“All I did was parody a book by a great English writer. I can’t remember his name but what’s left of our history stated it was written roughly in the year 1948 or 1984. He wrote about a farm of animals that rebelled against humans. In the end, they could not tell humans or animals apart. That’s ironic as hell now.”

Yusef was ready to lead in a few years when the great one… he never even learned the man’s name… died. Standing at his side was a blind pig without a tongue. A New World Order…”

The Rapture woman or the white haired witch as we came to know her a little later was almost as sad as she was terrifying. Sorry to repeat myself. In fact, dear reader, she was as clever as she was insane. That’s why she picked the Hollywood fool Ian Flick to be the pawn in her endgame. No doubt about it, her hands had been very busy and the secret was probably with the dictator known as “the people’s” president. I had often wondered why these fools, rich from the profits of their films, television shows or music would support dictators. Even if they were left of center, there is no left or right with a dictator, they are simply evil fascists.

“Isn’t it about time for a trip to one possible present reality, Andrew?”

“I think so.”

“Andrew, you’ve written in your journal or manuscript, all about some fictitious monsters like a vampire and some werewolves, why?”

“I suppose the left over oxygen in my brain produces such images after a bug trip.”

“Andrew, I don’t think that’s really it, I mean it’s part of the reason but there is a better reason for the stories.”

“What would that be?”

“We write about fictitious monsters in order to deal with the real ones.”

“You mean the human ones……”

“Yes, Andrew. The real things that go bump in the night, perhaps even the real devil himself or itself is human, not some clubfooted, red horned boogeyman thing.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I guess it’s all a matter of point of view. Good and evil, they are to… a… degree… a point of view……”

I was starting to see the light but there was also part of this philosophical chat that I didn’t fully understand.

“Now, Harold, I think what you’re saying is that folks might have good intentions like helping the peasants but…”

“They overlook the dictator, they think he is helping, they are misled or they believe the revolution is only in its infancy, where human rights are thrown out the window to maintain control and bloodshed remains a necessary evil.”

“Alright and when things haven’t changed years later for that poor society suffering under their unelected tyrant?”

“They, the fools mostly believe the totalitarian propaganda by then, especially those living in freedom in another land.”

“Such as,” I paused, “the rich elites who have been sheltered from the daily hardships of people who live in the real world.”

“Exactly, son, that’s just what I meant.”

“Okay.”

“You know, son. I’ve watched you grow up over the years… even when you didn’t know I was there. I saw you crying in your crib and playing with your teddy bear, it’s awful… that I took you to watch a man’s head cut off. Evil thing, very evil, son, sorry you had to see it.”

“I know folks of your generation liked to pretend things might get more civilized as world history and life moved on. It didn’t. I wouldn’t want to choose between being decapitated and being burned alive.”

“I understand, Andrew.”

“You know…… I watched you grow up, too. I watched my beloved great grandfather cry in his crib, the year of the Bolshevik revolution! Not many guys whose parents get murdered in the 2000’s can say that.”

“Sorry, they wouldn’t listen to you when you spoke to them after their murder.”

“That sounds impossible,” I said.

“Sorry, son, I didn’t mean…”

“You know Harold, if we could see one another…”

“Our white haired witch could see us and I would bet my life that she has…”

“She just can’t…”

“Andrew, she can’t lay a hand on us in the past or the future. Only right now, the here and now could she do that, only the present. That white trash so called Christian ain’t related to us rich bastards!”

“Thank God,” I said. “Still, she’s watching us, Harold.”

“I agree.”

“She’s insane but she’s not stupid.”

“I agree again.”

“That dictator and that stupid actor are her pawns and I don’t want to see what’s coming but we’re going to have to see.”

“Agreed and ready to eat bug meat, son, whenever you’re ready!”

“Sounds like a plan, old man.”

“Please remember that this is a woman who believes in innate depravity. Only total annihilation will do, I assume to end all lust and depravity. All we would need is a trip to confession and a prayer and if he wasn’t a pedophile, so the penance would count!”

“Harold, you’re so cynical about the Catholic faith.”

We walked together in front of the unnamed species and looked right into its evil red eyes that were both dead and alive at once. I hated that thing’s damned eyes. I really did. The issue of whether or not they were poisonous or not was now a moot point, as far as we were concerned. Its evil eyes killed! Now I gazed into them once more. Then we walked around the corner and turned on one of the machines. I briefly forgot how to do it but then again perhaps I was never very insightful.

“Once the leg is sawed off we are going to have a piece; roughly the size of an
hors d’oeuvre
,” said Harold.

“Let’s eat the bug meat,” I said.

We did.

The “people’s president” was one of the most foul men to rule a country since Hitler or Stalin. It made me immediately hate both shallow actor Ian Flick and the tragic white haired witch who traveled thought time. The beheading of the infidel, the burning of the witch, the murder of my parents and I wasn’t even in my mid twenties yet!

“Christ, these men are butchers, Andrew.”

“The cries of the babies, the starving babies, the ones who aren’t aborted can be heard for miles,” I said.

“They don’t care about human life here, Andrew. They only care about trying to survive and praise the ego of fearless leader.”

“I know.”

Torture was not just something they lied about practicing here under “the people’s president,” it was a daily way of life. No, it was an art form. If I ever meet Ian Flick, I thought, he will get far more than a piece of my mind. He’s a rich actor but my lawyers have a hell of a lot more money and patience then him. I know I can punch that asshole in the face and get away with it!

“I’m very sorry for being such a dirty old man.”

“What do you mean, Harold?”

“Prior to our relationship, I witnessed all the sexual escapades of famous figures in history and more than one Roman orgy.”

I suppose if anyone could get away with it, other than an invisible man, a time traveler would be the best candidate for sexual perversion, even the harmless kind.

“Andrew?”

“Yes?”

“I had an awful lot of fun!”

“I know being a peeping tom is bad but being a dictator is far worse,” I said.

“I agree.”

“Jesus, I hope so,” he said.

We concentrated on the problem at hand and got in with the business of finding Jezebel and discovering the depths of this dictator.

Once I heard the terrible screaming of the babies who were starving, I knew that our official tour of hell had begun. They let out horrifying cries, almost as terrible as the man whose head had been suffered by that deeply religious piece of human garbage. All of my money couldn’t save them any more than it could my own mom and dad. What a tragic waste.

The babies were crying because whole families had been systematically starved to death. This just punishment was due to the fact that someone five, ten, fifteen years ago insulted “the people’s president.” Even if the person was a distant relative, it was like a dark plague, fully contagious and administering extreme guilt by association.

The great one, the people’s leader was talking on television about how turning in traitors and neighbors could earn points with his administration. It would forgive family blasphemy against him by association as far as five years back in the day. It would even mean an extra bag of rice to share with one’s family once a week for the really dedicated folks. There might even be an opportunity to have try outs for the communist party, the party of the people.