Next to the Last time, on the X-Flies...

The kidnapped Chief Scientist, under remote control of the mutated alien electronic spiders from Heck, crashed through the ceiling and began spouting corrupt Shakespeare.  And I mean corrupt!  This meant that the spiders had begun mutating even more insanely than before, and had gained a sick sense of humor in the process.  Mildew blasted the spiders working the joysticks in a Homer Simpson moment of testosterone OD.  This so enraged the spiders (who were busy reproducing like crazy in the air ducts), that they all leapt from the ceiling, screeching like teeny banshees.  Banshettes? bancheetas? ban-cheetos?  Hell, I don't know, but with onion dip, they taste just like chicken!  Hoo-dawgy, I gar-on-tee!

Smoke rises from the building, as all around, emergency vehicles clutter the parking lot.   Military aircraft zoom overhead.  Bleeding and broken bodies, and crushed electronic parts are everywhere.  All the employees who could, have bailed out of the building.  The remaining ones are trapped inside, hostages of the spiders.

Mildew speaks, "Well I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!"

From the building, a chorus of poorly amplified screechily synthetic voices squeak back, "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Mildew swears.  "Hey that's me, Special Agent Mildew, straight man to talking spiders!"

Scuzzy says, "Hey!  'straight man' is MY job, I'm talking to my union rep!"

"Bitch all you want, but those spiders are hacking into the Internet and downloading as many pornographic images as they can!  And it looks like there's more of 'em every minute; that warehouse must have been chock-full of unsold inventory!  I'm tellin' you, Scuzzy, there's a Primordial Repressed Quantum Sexual Energy Feedback Loop in progress.  Pretty soon that building's going to explode with more disgustingly unmentionable sexual energy than you've ever seen!"  Mildew pants with excitement.

Scuzzy pipes up, "You mean even more torrid than the blatant sexual tension between you and me that the X-Flies writers have used as a hackneyed industry-standard plot device for years?"

Mildew winces and peeks at the lines upon his sleeve.  "Uh yeah, uh, that's right, you, uh, hot thing, you."

"Oh, Mi-i-ldew!  sigh," Scuzzy yawns.

A military-looking guy dressed all in black with the bearing of an officer, strides up and says, "You spooks knock it off before I put a hose on ya.   My boys are goin' in to take those stinkin' spider-droids out.  Any objections?"

Scuzzy, horrified, says, "But there are hostages in there!  They might be killed!"

The officer snickers nastily, "Haven't you figgered it out by now?   Ratings, you morons, ratings!  We've got to play on the paranoia of all those conspiracy-happy geeks out there buyin' X-Flies tee shirts and 'Visitor' alien mugs (for just $12.95, cash or credit).  Mr. Neilsen sez, 'Off with their heads', so we're goin' in swingin'.  Just try to stay outta the way Homer, you too Marge."

The assault, of course, is an abysmal defeat for the military.  Each time they approach the building, the X-Flies writers pull another SODOM *, and the now incredibly horned-up mutated alien electronic spiders from Darn wipe out whole battalions in spectacularly cinematic fashion.  Finally the military calls out their big guns.

"Christ, you're gonna nuke 'em?"  Scuzzy gaped.

"Aww, just a teeny one," the officer whines.  "Just enough to zap 'em with EMP.  Stand back, you, uh, (flips through his script), Hot Thang, you.  Massive Primordial Repressed Quantum Sexual Energy is contagious!"  (winks and leers).  "HOO-AHH!!!  All right boys, let 'er rip!"

The spiders are dead, the people are dead, Mildew and Scuzzy are not dead, they're merely in syndication.  The smoking crater from the "teeny" nuke is a mile deep and 3 miles wide.  The fallout renders a large section of New Jersey uninhabitable.   Nobody can tell the difference.

It is the very image of Death.  But what is Life?  There is no Life nowhere!  The point, tell me the point.  Oh God!  Why do we go on?!!

Sorry.  Way too many Nietzche-Pops for breakfast.

Overhead, an alien saucer opens its waste evacuation port and another frozen load of toxic waste from the onboard toilets crashes down into the crater, splashing refuse onto the dead spiders and humans glowing eerily in the night.

They twitch, and start to move...

Read more by Jim Parnell.

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