NOBODY FRAGS WITH MY HOG

Part I

By Jason McDonald

Al’s Bar

The Not-So-Great Area of the Greater Kattelan Galaxy

Nighttime on Planet Teddy Bear

Al’s Bar.

Favorite watering hole to only the baddest of the bad this side of the Kattelan Galaxy.

The one story shack, if it could be called a shack, stood squat in the worst neighborhood on the worst planet in the worst sector in this unfortunate galaxy. Few people ever survived the trip to planet Teddy Bear, much less the trip to this bar in particular. Those that did, of course, had to deal with the dreaded Mister Sparkles.

Outside, the massive, two-headed bouncer named Mister Sparkles stood in a two piece business suit, frowning at the rocket-launcher battle taking place in the parking lot across the street between two biker gangs. He cracked his neck with a sigh, ignoring the popping of his muscles as they shifted around several other sets of muscles in a vain attempt to stay tucked neatly inside his incredibly-constraining suit. The dreaded bouncer’s bow tie squealed painfully at the movement. He heard the stretching sounds, and tied the bow tie even tighter.

Mister Sparkles harrumphed with annoyance, tilting his curled horns and bloodshot eyes in the direction of the battle. He huffed out a plume of smoke from his wide, flared nostrils. The bouncer cracked his knuckles amidst the sounds of the bombs and bloodshed. Leaning back against the heavy wooden doors of the bar, the beast crossed his colossal arms, deciding which of the survivors he might consider letting into the establishment.

CRUUUUNNNCH!

The heavy decrepit bar doors slammed open suddenly, sweeping the burly bouncer off his feet and sending his body hurtling into the wall at several hundred miles an hour, sending a sickening crunching noise echoing into the street. Wet, squishy sounds accompanied dry, cracking sounds as the door smashed against the brownstone’s outer wall, creating an explosion of meat and bone and blood from all directions that would have left all but the most hard-boiled brawlers in absolute awe.

Exploded pieces of what was once a massive bouncer plopped all over the stoop in red, dripping chunks as they fell off the badly-abused door. A surprised shadow in the now completely-reddened wall was all that remained of Mister Sparkles.

In a final fit of defiance, the door itself burst off its hinges and fell forward into the street, sending shards of wooden shrapnel shooting out in all directions, horribly maiming several bystanders on the street, including two of the surviving members of the biker gang war. The warring gang members barely noticed anything was wrong, and gleefully continued their delightful murder spree.

In the wake of the annihilated door and bouncer, a mean, burly, chalk-white man dressed in biker’s leathers strode out into the middle of the street-turned-warzone. He looked down at the flowing fountain of blood pouring off the bar stoop into the sidewalk and street, which was naturally littered with debris of all kinds, and smiled his yellowed teeth wide. He stretched his arms to the side, listening to the clink-clack of the massive chain wrapped around his right forearm and belched hard before ditching the stoop for the sidewalk.

“Now that was a fraggin’ bar fight!” he yelled, wiping a mess of blood and bone off of his black leather jacket.

The uncouth, smelly, muscular monster of a man was followed by an entourage of three scantily-clad women with varying shades of skin color and in various stages of undress. The girls clamored around him excitedly, giggling as they left the soft groans and wheezes of most of the patrons in Al’s Bar behind them.

“It’s this way, ladies,” the Main Man grinned, pointing into the deadly battle zone across the street toward his space hog, which was sitting quietly in its parking space as indescribable violence and mayhem occurred all around it.

“That doesn’t look too safe over there, Mr. Lobo, sir,” said the green-skinned beauty wearing an extremely low cut mini skirt, black high heels and flowing black hair.

“Relax, Lana, I’m sure Mr. Lobo will keep us safe, right Mr. Lobo?” said her twin sister, Lori, who wore an even lower-cut mini skirt while standing upon blacker, higher heels and had even blacker, flowier hair.

“Hey, isn’t that Mr. Sparkles behind us?” said the red-haired woman said beneath her black snow cap, pointing at the pulpy blood smear and pieces of goo and bone fragments that littered the wall and sidewalk behind them. She was wearing a skin tight black leather dress with neon tattoos that were moving across her slightly-less-black leather skin.

“Safety is my middle name, ladies,” he smiled with sharp yellowed teeth, scratching an itch on his brow with his trusty serrated hunting knife before using it to further sharpen his teeth. He gestured toward the pulpy mound of flesh that was once named Mister Sparkles before jamming the knife back into his belt. ” ‘Sides, that was already there when we came in.”

Lois looked back at the entrails streaming into the gutter, and furrowed her brow disapprovingly in Lobo’s general direction.

Lobo strode calmly through the warzone, continuing to speak to the terrified girls as they ducked and dodged the exchange of rockets, grenades and rocket launchers with chainsaw bayonets between the warring bikers.

“Like I said inside, ladies, these are my pride and joy. Creme de la creme to bikers everywhere! Got these bleached skull hubcaps from my boy Defribkkee from Defribkkee’s Hogs over in the next sector – oh, babe, watch that rocket – before his untimely accidental demise beneath my boot heel. That’s a whole ‘nother story though, so I won’t bore you with any of the– ah, incriminating details.

“He says these bastiches are the real deal, made fresh from four clubbed baby unicorn seals on Omicron Prime, skulls bleached and sharpened by the finest – might want to just step over that land mine there – skull-bleachers and skull-sharpeners in the sector. They don’t make bleached skull hubcaps like these anymore, nosiree Bob. ‘Specially not from baby unicorn seals. Those damn galactic Environmentalists, ya know?

“Had to fork over an arm and a leg to get ’em, though. Well, not my arm and leg, but y’know what I mean. These fragging things ain’t cheap. Used the reward money I got from guttin’ this wussy little bastich named Alabaster Crap…or Cramp…or Clank or somethin’ or other. When you’re a bounty hunter like me, names really don’t stick in your head too well. You know what I mean, Lois?”

He turned to the green-skinned woman behind him mid-stride, who was now literally missing her hand and leg due to weapons fire. She sobbed uncontrollably as she hopped after him on her remaining foot, desperately trying to keep up with the pack. Her twin sister Lori was sobbing as well, staring at the burnt stub where her forearm used to be and brushing her remaining hand through the smoking mound of pulp and skull bone where her flowing black hair used to be. The black-skinned beauty, the only one of the three currently un-maimed, glared angrily at the Main Man.

“I’M Lois, Mr. Lobo. HER name is Lana! Can we just get to someplace safe please?”

“Eh, close enough. ‘Sides, there ain’t no place safer than my hog, Lori!”

Lois growled and slapped her forehead in frustration as the quartet continued to navigate through the warzone/parking lot. Finally they reached it: a single black, disturbingly-shaped vehicle that stood out among all the other half-destroyed wrecks in the lot.

“Here we are, ladies!” Lobo grinned as the women groaned behind him, due in no small part to their mounting bruises and wounds.

He gestured triumphantly toward his space hog – its dark, sleek metallic core was covered in shining chrome and elongated bone fragments welded to the sides. A misshapen alien animal skull mounted to the front seemed to growl in dark defiance despite being completely, irrevocably dead. Dark red headlights shone in the animal skull’s pupilless eyes, giving the vehicle a disturbing, haunted quality which burrowed deep into the very souls of the mutilated women. Amidst the horrible, horrible violence occurring around them in all directions, Lobo lapped up their terror joyfully, his devious smile growing wider.

The handlebars curved upward at an extreme angle, tapering to jagged metal points covered in dried blood, and were outfitted with spiked handlebars that, with a simple twist forward, could rev the engine louder than the death screams of a Tarkalian ox. The seat covers were made from the mangled bronzed hide of the Pleasant Perrywinkle Feathergoose, the most beautiful and serene breed of feathergoose in existence. At least, until its introduction to the extinction-inducing talents of the Main Man of course.

All of this paled in comparison to the vehicle’s bleached skull hubcaps. These polished remnants of four clubbed baby unicorn seals would have beautifully reflected the sparkling light from the devastating explosions behind them — if they weren’t completely and utterly missing.

Lobo’s smile quickly faded. The Main Man’s red, pupilless eyes narrowed as he curled his sharpened teeth into a snarl. He bent down to inspect the tires where the stolen hubcaps once were, staring in utter disbelief.

“Where. The fraggin’ hell. Are my MOTHER-FRAGGING HUBCAPS??”

Lois, Lana and Lori huddled together in terror as the veins in the chalk white stranger’s hulking musculature began to expand and crawl across his already tensed biceps. Lobo clenched his fists amidst the charred landscape that had once been a parking lot, shaking in fury. The three ladies watched his reaction with a palpable fright and jumped – using whatever limbs they had remaining – from the crunching sounds of his leather gloves as he somehow clenched his fists even tighter than before.

“Mr. Lobo–?” Lois said to the shaking white bounty hunter in front of her. He turned around and from his expression, Lois knew he couldn’t hear her anymore. His mind was in a completely different place now. She looked over at Lori and Lana, who were both shaking in fear and completely paralyzed. She couldn’t tell whether they were paralyzed by the battlefield chaos around them or by the homicidal look in his eyes. Nevertheless, she quickly ushered them out of the Main Man’s path. She knew what was coming.

Enraged, the chalk white bounty hunter unraveled the thick, heavy metal chain from around his right forearm, and gripped the curved metal hook that lay at the end of the long chain link. With a mighty bellow, Lobo ran towards one of the warring gang members, tossing the chain at the warrior’s head with reckless abandon. Lobo watched the biker dodge the flying hook at the last second and smiled darkly, watching as it continued behind his back and latched deep into the man’s spine, poking straight through the top of his boxers. With one deft movement, the Main Man yanked at the chain and ripped the man off the ground, giving him a wedgie that absolutely obliterated the man’s pelvis. When the biker finally landed, the broken mound of testosterone and violence was weeping and shaking like a scared little kitten.

“Who stole my hubcaps?” Lobo screamed into the man’s face, the force of the yell creating waves in the man’s pockmarked skin.

“My bleeding pelvis! I’ll kill you, you sodding wanker! I’ll–”

Lobo headbutted the man with a growl, eliciting a sudden crunch from the biker’s now completely flattened nose.

“WHO. STOLE. MY. FRAGGING. HUBCAPS?”

“Go stuff yourself, you chalk-white piece of sod!” the biker screamed through his destroyed face. “Elvis, this bloke’s interruptin’ our fight. Waste him!”

Lobo eyed the crippled biker menacingly until he heard a sudden silence from the arena of death around him. He raised one eyebrow as every rocket launcher, every flesh-stripper, every murder laser, every Gatling gun, every chainsaw launcher and every mine thrower stopped firing at once, and focused all their sights on him.

The three sultry women – who were inexplicably still standing behind the chalk white bounty hunter – cowered in fear. Lobo simply smiled.

“So then, who’s first?” he smiled darkly.

Lobo hefted up the helpless pelvis-broken biker, smiling. He used the broken man as a living shield for the first wave, as the bombs fell upon them all.

Al’s Bar

What Was Once Known as its Parking Lot

Thirteen Minutes Later

The stillness of the parking lot outside of Al’s Bar resembled a graveyard more than it did a parking lot. The once black tarmac was now irreversibly stained with the blood of dozens of bikers from dozens of different races. Motor vehicles lay strewn and demolished over every square inch of the lot, with several engines and bike frames lodged into the adjacent buildings at unnerving angles. A few had even been fused into the pavement, merged with the bodies of several freshly-deceased gang members from a new kind of gravity weapon Lobo had invented and assembled on the spot in-between murders.

The rest of the bikers from both gangs were spread out across the battlefield – their bodies horribly scorched, burnt, melted, welded, crushed, dismantled, maimed, contorted, twisted, crunched, disassembled, exploded, dissected, imploded or otherwise horrifically-mutilated depending on type of species and specific cause of death. Every biker in both gangs had been utterly and totally murdered, save one.

The sole survivor from the gangs laid immobile, squished inside a crater near the center of the battlefield graveyard. As a towering figure strode over to him, he looked up into the cruel, soulless blood red eyes of his enemy.

“That was a hoot!” the Main Man hollered, slapping the man’s chest and collapsing one of his remaining lungs in the process.

“Auuuugh!” he screeched through his badly-worn vocal cords. Lobo silenced him by putting a grenade in his mouth. The man sobbed and wheezed, eyes popping out of his head as he eyed the grenade with sheer terror.

“Ah, quit yer belly-aching, ya pansy. I left the grenade pin in this time, what more do ya want?”

Lobo picked the beaten man out of the crater and dragged him by his leg over to a blackened stump sticking out of the ground. He yanked the man off the ground and threw him down upon the stump. The man looked up at Lobo with confusion, the grenade still in his mouth.

“What’s your name? Quinby? Izzat what I heard them call you?”

Quinby nodded, eyes tearing up in abject fear.

Lobo smiled down at him. “I tell ya, Quinby, that was mighty fun. You guys sure know how to have a good time, let me tell ya.”

Without any warning, the Main Man jumped up and slammed his entire body weight down into a relaxed sitting position – right atop Quinby’s collapsed lung. The sadist chuckled delightedly, slapping his massive skull-embroidered kneepad.

Quinby’s eyes popped out his head, and despite his many broken bones, he squirmed and shook under Lobo’s massive weight in a vain attempt to free himself from the impossible pain shrieking through his nervous system. He tried to scream, but Lobo patted the grenade down even further inside the man’s mouth.

“Hey, no need to be rude, ya bastich! I’m trying t’thank ya for a mighty fun throwdown, is all. Kids, these days. No respect at all.”

Lobo shifted his weight as he sat, and Quinby sobbed in agony, desperately clawing at the Main Man’s back. Lobo pushed his arms away and continued.

“However, now that I got that thirst for murder out of my system, I’m gonna need you to give me some information. You can do that for ol’ Lobo, can’t you?”

The pasty-faced rogue looked down at the hapless survivor, who was turning various shares of red below him. Lobo chuckled as he reclined against his beleaguered victim and pulled a fat Ragelen cigar from his back pocket, lighting a match across his poor captive’s cheek and took a hard drag off his beloved tobacco-filled vice. Blowing a huge mound of smoke into Quinby’s rapidly-swelling face, he continued.

” ‘Course you can,” Lobo smiled through yellowed shark’s teeth. “You’d do anything for yer old pal Lobo, wouldn’t ya? Hell, depending on my mood, I might even let you live afterwards. With an amputation or two, I suppose. What d’ya say?”

Quinby, who was on the verge of passing out from the pain, nodded slightly, the grenade still gagging his mouth. Lobo yanked the grenade from Quinby’s severely-stretched mouth – the action itself ripping out several dozen of Quinby’s teeth – and pulled his captive out from under him in one swift motion. The pasty-faced brawler yanked the poor man up like a rag doll, and brought him in close, so Quinby could see directly into the Main Man’s pupilless eyes. The surging biker’s heart nearly pounded out of his chest as he saw Lobo’s cruel smirk turn into a snarl.

“Who did it?”

Quinby’s eyes winced, and he murmured painfully through his badly-crushed chest. “The–the other gang! The Hitchcock Maulers! They came here and stole your hubcaps!”

“The Hitchcock Maulers?”

“Yes. Our gang, the Hitchcock Manglers, were fighting them,” Quinby said, coughing up one of his smaller organs. He continued fearfully. “We were trying to save your hubcaps.”

“Yer lying,” Lobo growled. “Try again.”

“Err, okay. Okay. We both came for the hubcaps.”

“No fraggin’ shit.”

“So, we got here first, and then we were attacked by the Maulers. I think–I think our leader got the hubcaps off-planet before the fighting started to get bad.”

“Who?”

“His name–ugh, his name is Skinny Mortimer. He’s a mean-ass cyborg.”

” ‘Course he is. Where’s Mr. Mean Ass going with them?”

“Oh, please don’t make me tell you! He’d kill me, I swear he would!”

Lobo smiled cruelly, licking his lips. Quinby saw this, knowing exactly the kinds of horrible thoughts swimming around the Main Man’s mind, and began to hyperventilate.

“Okay, okay! I get the point! Skinny Mortimer’s meeting up with the man who put the bounty out on your hubcaps.”

“There’s a bounty out on my hubcaps?”

“Ugh, yes!” Quinby said, groaning from the pain.

“How much?”

“Two hundred thousand creds.”

“For a set of bleached skull hubcaps?” Lobo slapped his knee with a harrumph. “Feetal’s Gizz! Hell, I’d steal my own hubcaps for that price if I wasn’t so attached to the fraggin’ things. Who drew up the bounty, anyway?”

“Who?”

“The two hundred thousand cred suicide note! Who fragging drew it up?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Lobo, sir!”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t! I swear. The bounty holder only dealt with Skinny Mortimer directly!”

“Huh,” Lobo said, idly breaking one of Quinby’s arms. The man squealed.

“I don’t know who it was! I don’t. I don’t. I swear I don’t! I swear–but, but I–I know where they’re meeting at. Oh God, please don’t kill me. Please don’t–”

“Where are they meeting, fleabag?”

“The Lizard Snitch Hotel, on the International Space Mall near the Fifth Katellan Star.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard.”

“Please, that’s all I know. Please, let me go! For the love of–”

“You want me to let you go?”

“Yes! Please!”

“I’m nothin’ if not a man of my word.”

Lobo grinned and tossed the man into the air, drinking in the fading sounds of Quinby’s terrified screams as the broken biker sailed further and further into the sky. Lobo followed Quinby’s aerial progress with his eyes until the poor biker became a small speck somewhere in the upper stratosphere. The bounty hunter watched, highly entertained, for as long as he could until Quinby was simply too high in the sky for even Lobo to see from the ground.

The pasty-faced rogue strode over to his bike, which was still in pristine condition, and smiled.

“Y’hear that, ladies? We’re gonna go find my missing–”

The Main Man looked behind his bike, and saw the charred, limbless body of Lois, who was missing most of her head. She was surrounded by several other scorched limbs and body parts, which were green instead. Presumably they belonged to Lana and Lori, unconfirmed as he could not locate the rest of their remains.

“Oh,” Lobo said, sweeping the entrails off his hog and sitting down triumphantly. “More fun for me, then.”

Before he took off, he heard a loud thud in the distance.

The Main Man smiled.

Next: The Main Man mangles and mayhems his way through the trail of bloody breadcrumbs, leading him directly to the kind of man that would, in-fact, draw up a two hundred thousand cred bounty for four bleached baby unicorn seal skull hubcaps!

Come back for “Nobody Frags With My Hog – Part 2”, in which Lobo learns the value of peace, finds love in all the right places, and learns what it means to share. Not only that, but ABSOLUTELY NO ONE DIES in the next issue!

You believe me, right?