Lavenny, 49
It was the night of the All-Night Science Fiction Movie Marathon down at The Princess Theater and of course, we had to go. The projectionist told Rosie Greenbaum, who in turn told Carmine, who in turn told Shirley, who then in turn told me... that they were playing a new Toho monster movie, the one with the big robot monster in it! So, of course we went and yeah, okay, I paid for your popcorn and no, I don’t resent ya for it. Weirdest thing, though. The guy who gave us back our stubs gave us somethin’ kinda funny lookin’. You know, like somehow we’d swapped bills. My ticket stub was like some kinda golden, glittering thing. Some kinda gimmick? Maybe I didn’t notice at first.
Three movies later and we were cheering with the rest of the bozos in the theater. We were most of the way into The Mysterians, when I felt somethin’ kinda funny going on. You know, that same glitter and gold kind of funny like those ticket stubs we got back.
Next thing I know, there was an explosion and I thought I couldn’t remember when we put our 3-D glasses on.
Then we were somewhere else. Or, I was. I dunno where you were.
You ever have those kind of dreams where you wake up some place completely new and yet you know exactly who you are and what you’re doing there? I dreamt I was a maid in a big fancy house once, and I had to wait on this crazy old woman, but she had a talking dog. It was a weird dream. Anyway, so when I woke up, I found myself in some kind of saloon. And here’s the thing - I was the good guy in a western but it was set in SPACE. Most of me was covered in a jumpsuit like some Air Force pilot, but there were plates of armor on top of that. Some of it was metal, but some of it was like a thick clear plastic. When I started in my seat, I felt two six-guns on my belt and the brim of my hat, and my “dream memory” suddenly told me I was a BOUNTY HUNTER! Hah! Can you imagine that?!
The next thing I know, I’m paying the bartender with one big glowing eye for the drink and he directs me to the Mad Scientist drinking the most disgusting bottle of Shotz Brew I ever seen in my life, covered in mold and fungus from the cap. Mr. Brainiac there tells me that there’s some guy who’s killing all his experiments whenever he sets them loose in some kind of nature preserve on Venus. I says hey, I got my ship payments (I had a spaceship! Oh boy, I can’t wait to see the look on Shirl’s face when I tell her about this), and so we talk, we negotiate and ya know, come to an understanding.
So, I had the coordinates in some kinda doo-hickey on my arm, some kind of communicator radio that let out a sound that went Ping! when I was close to my prey.
Outside the saloon was like one of those costume dramas or musicals. People were singing and dancing. And even though I knew I was some kinda bounty hunter like the cool guys in the movies... me, Laverne De Fazio, was also aware I was in the movies. I know we read in the magazines that they just put a bunch of actors on a set in front of some cameras, and it’s all plywood and paint, but I always wished getting in the movies meant you were actually inside. Behind the silver screen. This place, it was just like it. It is like that.
When I found my ship down the dirt road, it was this beautiful thing like a series of painted vases with little rockets on the bottom and a gangplank leading up into the hatch. It was wild, I can tell you that, feeling like everything was familiar and yet I was someone completely different. That really messes with your head, y’know?
The little thing on my arm going Ping! about where the bad guy was, it talked to my ship in a little chirpy radio voice. My ship then responded in a bigger one that sounded like a great record player. And they were both women’s voices. Man, some progresses we ladies have made in the 28th century, eh? Take that, Buck Rogers.
I strapped into my cockpit and blast off to adventure, then asked my ship to plot a course for Venus and make it snappy. The ship’s voice said I was sounding kinda wacky, so I gave it a thump like Fonzie does to keep it quiet. Somehow I felt like if I didn’t play my part well enough they were gonna kick me out of the movies. After that, I kept my head down and didn’t say anything until a few minutes later, past some trippy universe stuff out in space (SPACE!), the ship was landing on Venus’ surface. There were Ymirs and giant Carrots everywhere, talking with each other and with tons of people. And there was that handsome guy Steve Zodiac, who I don’t think he really exists but I wanted to talk to him. He looked pretty sweet for a puppet. But, much as I wanted to find out if he was still single, I had to go find whatever was hunting Dr. Crazy Guy’s creations when he was letting them out at a nature park on Venus.
A few miles off from where I landed my ship, I was able to find a ravine. A thick yellow mustardy mist filled the place and I had to step careful down a bunch of rocks into a forest. I could barely see more than a few feet ahead of me and it smelled like a dank room full of moldy wet clothes. The trees were straight outta some creepy scary movie set in some castle in England or Germany, and I thought I heard the wind howl like the wolf.
That’s when I caught sight of the tracks of Dr. Crazy’s newest pet; he called it Triphibia, some kind of walking lizard with a pointy beak and wings. I followed the trail in the mud and walked under the trees. The deeper I went, the stronger that moldy smell got, and I found its source real quick when my next step had me slipping around. It wasn’t the mud, it was one of the thing’s wings. There were holes in it like they’d been blasted by some kind of ray gun, but the place where the wing’d been cut off was raw, bloody. Like a big blade had done it.
I drew my six guns and followed a trail of blood after that.
Another mile into the ravine, I came to a clearing where the yellow miasma (hey, I read Weird Tales, I know those kinda words) was a little less thick. And there I saw beast breathing slow and steady in its last moments.
And there you were, standing above it.
I found you in another universe and immediately could tell. Your hair was in a little bun, like that guy in the Japanese movie we saw last year? And you had on a Bellamy shirt of all things, stained in green and purple monster blood, and a pair of tights wrapped in more armor like mine. You had leather gloved hands clutching two rayguns and a giant Viking sword on your back. Somethin’ about you was fierce, powerful. And dang, I kinda liked it.
But you were also in the way and my little radio on my arm was going nuts, telling me that... well.
You were the target.
Aw heck, Len. What was I gonna do?