Clarence and the Hot Dish of Doom

Clarence and the Hot Dish of Doom
By Karl Wolff


“Pass the butter.”

Clarence the gas station attendant did not object to cannibalism on ethical grounds as much as a matter of personal taste. He preferred parboiled armadillo with a cannabis-psilocybin demi-glace. Just like Grandma Rasputina used to make when he lived in the laager of double-wides and mobile howitzers.

He swallowed his pride. Then he swallowed a bite of the hot dish.

“Mrs. Smythe,” He said, a smile beaming across his blood spattered maw.

“This hot dish is wonderful. Where did you get the recipe?”

Mrs. Smythe beamed at Clarence and then to Medea, her golden-haired daughter.

“Well, Clarence, I got the recipe from Mrs. Diblowitz.”

“She tastes wonderful, Mamma.” Medea swooned.

As Clarence chewed on the tender morsels of human flesh, he hoped Mrs. Diblowitz had been murdered in the traditional manner, with the blood drained and the smiley faces tattooed according to the tenets of the Scriptures of Ronnie St. James.

After dinner Clarence experienced the vague pangs of nausea, creeping up his esophagus like a resurrected corpse.

Fine time for this to happen, Clarence thought. I’m trying to make a move.

Clarence and Medea pretended watching the latest extreme sport on the giant television in the living room. The sport involved equal parts sky diving, competitive eating, and public sex. The scoring system continued to confuse Clarence.

“You see, Clarence, if the man fellates a woman, it is three points. If a man fellates another man, it’s negative two points. But only during free fall. The points are reversed during the cabbage speed eating round.” Medea explained the minutiae, but it remained over Clarence’s head.

As Medea continued the explanation, Clarence became more and more sick.
“The hell with it.” He said, clutching his stomach as he ran outside.
He flew out the door and emptied the contents of his stomach on the sun baked landscape.

Then he saw the mutants.

On the horizon, vast hordes of mutants, riding jerry-rigged Winnebagos and Escalades. They headed straight towards the laager.
“Great Jupiter’s ghost! Where did I put my bazooka?” Before he could remember where he placed his weapon, the howitzers ripped the silence with a cataclysmic boom.

Mr. Smythe, a portly fellow with a prosthetic arm and a tail, bounded out the door like a Rottweiler on angel dust.

“Take this and start firing!” He shoved a grenade launcher into Clarence’s sweaty palms. “No mutant horde is going to destroy this community of God-fearing patriotic cannibals!”

The mutant horde was hardly the Smythe’s problem. Thirty thousand miles above them, a lone Wolverton-class space cruiser hovered above the post apocalyptic Branson. Sights were aligned and photon torpedoes were loaded.

The captain of the space cruiser, a cyborg bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jesus Christ, except with hip-mounted missiles and a serious jonesing for Certs, ordered his apostolic minions to fire.
“Time to suck a Certs.” Cyborg-Christ said, popping the tiny white ovoids into his mouth.