A Day at a Disgusting Beach
The three friends stood on a deserted stretch of beach. The murky waters of the Effluvian Ocean, weighed down by a slick of crude oil, lapped sluggishly onto the grey sand. Nearby was the pipeline they had been following. It ran the across the beach and into the ocean before it plunged beneath the water’s dark surface.
“This must be the Very Dead Sea. Feel like a swim Chills?” Ty joked grimly.
“Only if I want to die of an incurable disease. That,” Chilli pointed at the black sludge floating on the waves, “looks as lethal as a heart attack.”
Ty looked at the scene around him and thought of his favourite beach back home. He remembered the barking jackass penguins, the bright sun on the crystal blue waters of the Indian Ocean and the bracing smell of saltwater. Here, the sand was encrusted with thick crude oil that had washed up on the shore. No one had bothered to clear it away, and it had been left to solidify into hard mounds of poison.
But it was what was lying in the oil that Ty found the hardest to deal with. Gulls, fairy terns, albatrosses, penguins and other sea birds lay twisted and imprisoned in the ugly black lumps. Their eyes had long since sunken after the light in them had died. And their beautiful feathers were stained black and stuck out of the deadly crust at grotesque angles.
Fish that had been unlucky enough to swim anywhere near the slick had been coated in the muck, and had either been poisoned or suffocated. Their once-silver bodies lay rotting on the beach, their mouths gaping open in a final gasp for air, their eyes as dead as their bodies.
BOOM!
“Look out there!” Ty exclaimed, pointing at the ocean.
The throb had made a massive ripple in the water, causing a swell that spread out from the pipe, marking its epicentre.
“That’s what we’ve been looking for; the end of the line. It ends somewhere under the Effluvian Ocean.” observed Ty, relieved they could soon be home.
“Great” Chilli remarked wryly, “glad we’ve got that sorted out, but we’ve got a bigger problem. How do we get down there without getting very dead first? That water’s toxic!”
“Oh” said Ty in a small voice, “I didn’t think about that.”
“And we’d better get wherever we’re going fast” Chilli remarked. “I don’t think we’ve got much time left. Morbidius’s heartbeat is very loud and waaay too fast.”
BOOM!
“Well, I suppose we could always catch a turtle,” joked Ty with a grin.
“Funny, reeeally funny” Chilli remarked, giving Ty a scathing look.
“No, seriously. I think we should catch the next turtle,” insisted Ty. “Check it out.” He took his friend by the shoulders and turned her to face the ocean.
Chilli gasped as she stared at a massive turtle covered in crude oil wading through the shallow waters onto the beach. It may have been an oversized turtle about the size of a double-decker bus, but it was definitely a turtle. The turtle slowly dragged its heavy body onto the sand with its front flippers, leaving a trail of sludge in its wake.
“It... it’s shell. It looks like... Is it what I think it is?” asked Chilli, convinced the polluted air had turned her brain to mush.
“It looks like its shell is made of glass!” exclaimed Ty.
The turtle slumped onto the sand with a heavy sigh, exhausted from the effort of moving its hefty bulk on land. As it did so, its glass shell flipped open and a dozen or so red crabs clambered out. Each crab carried a little lunch box and was wearing starched white caps labelled ‘Forward to Progress’.
“Sheesh! That was a tough double shift,” one crab complained to another.
“Yeah” his co-worker answered, “that zero hour deadline is a real killer. If you’ll excuse the pun.” The crabs scuttled over the grimy sand dunes, chuckling at the witty comment.
“So, are you threes comin’ on board, or what? I gotta schedule ta keep here ya know! Can’t stand around all day while youse tourists gawp at da locals!” shouted a squeaky voice.
“Huh? Pardon? Are you talking to us?” asked Chilli, looking up at the turtle’s shell.
“So, do youse sees anyone else round here?” came the curt reply from a large, angry lobster hanging over the edge of the shell.
“Uhm... where are you going?” asked Ty. He felt weird talking to something he normally enjoyed grilled with lemon butter.
“Cheez! Don’t ya know nothin’? Dis here is da No. 1 ferry to da People’s Glorious Power Generator for a Better Life for All. Now, by the looks of ya, youse ain’t locals. So I’m guessin’ youse are tourists. Now, are ya comin’ on board or aintcha?”
“But we’ve got no money” answered Chilli, wondering how they were going to pay the fare.
“No worries. I got a sort of private arrangement wit da comrades down at da People’s Central Bookin’ Office. If ya knose wad I mean” he replied, performing a lobster’s complicated version of the ‘nudge-nudge, wink-wink’ gesture. It involved a lot of waving of feelers and winking. He ended up in a tangle of feelers, stalked eyes and pincers.
“Now are ya coming, or aintcha? Dis here ferry is leavin’ in thoity seconds. Wit, or witoutcha!” said the lobster, untangling his limbs. “Youse tourists better move fast. Old TT here is rarin’ ta go. And time and da Turtle Taxi Express or, as I calls it, da TT, waits for no man, or hairy ape,” remarked the lobster, disappearing back into the turtle’s shell.
“Let’s get on board. C’mon Ty,” shouted Chilli as she ran to the TT. She was just as keen as Ty to sort out Morbidius and go home. And if it meant taking a ride inside a turtle with a side dish of lobster thermidore, then that’s precisely what she would do.
“At last! Some action!” remarked the impatient lobster, poking his head back up again.
“Oubaas, old friend, let’s do this” said Ty. “I promise you you’ll soon be back in Cape Town.”
But even to Ty, his words sounded hollow. How the heck were they going to destroy Morbidius’s heart without the Arrowheart? Pushing that thought to the back of his mind, Ty helped Oubaas clamber up and into the shell.
“Chees! What an ugly critter! Did youse have ta bring da Neanderthal on holiday wid ya?” complained the lobster, backing away from Oubaas with disgust.
“I think we should sit in the front row Chills” suggested Ty, noticing that rows of giant oyster shells had been fixed to the shell floor as seating.
“Good idea. That’ll give us a better view” Chilli agreed.
The three friends each claimed a seat in the front row. Oubaas wasn’t too happy to have to sit in an oversized oyster shell. He was afraid the shell might snap shut and suffocate him. But he nevertheless sat down and kept a wary eye open for any extraordinary oyster activity underneath him.
“Finally, now we’re gettin’ somewheres” said the lobster, closing the glass shell. Then he scuttled around the cabin, fastening the clamps that held the lid in place. Satisfied the shell was secure, he scrambled to the front of the cabin to address his passengers. He straightened his cap and stood to attention.
“Ladiiiies an’ gennelmen and er... monkeys” the lobster announced officiously, “will youse all please strap youse in by using da seat belts provided for yer safety. In da event of an accident, we advise all of youse ta hold ya breath and swim like mad for da soiface. However, please note that dis here ferry line takes no responsibility whatsoever for no deaths or injuries suffered on dis here trip. Youse’re all on your own, basically.”
The lobster straightened his cap and continued his address. “Dis here trip will take approximately ten minutes. Unfortunately, dat means dere ain’t no time to serve youse all snacks and drinks. However, should you require any foider information, please do not hesitate to ask yer guide, namely me, Crusty, and I will answer any questions. Tank youse and enjoys da trip. Oh, and please mind da gap.” With that, he gave a snappy salute and plopped into a seat in the front row. He grabbed a magazine and continued reading an article titled ‘The Benefits of Crude Oil on the Effluvian Environment – A Report sponsored by the People’s Central Committee for Tourism and Ecology’.
“Oof! Aarg! Oof! This is one bumpy ride!” complained Chilli as she tightly hung onto her seat.
They were jerked about in their seats as the turtle turned his body around to face the ocean. Then, puffing and panting, he started to slowly drag himself and his passengers into the ocean. However, the moment the turtle sank beneath the water, the ride smoothed out. Oubaas sat hunched up with his one arm across his body. Sitting inside another living creature just didn’t feel right to the baboon.
“The sea’s too polluted, I can’t see anything” remarked Chilli, squinting through the airtight shell.
BOOM!
The shock waves caused by the heartbeat were so strong underwater that the struggling turtle was pushed backwards a few feet.
Now that they had time on their hands, Chilli wanted to use it to solve their biggest problem. “We’re close to Morbidius’s heart” she said, “but how are we going to destroy it? We don’t have the Arrowheart.”
“I don’t know” Ty answered glumly. It seemed to him he had used those words far too many times lately. But then an idea popped into his head. “What about the stuff Elementia gave us? Maybe there’s something we can use instead. We’ve only used the flintstones and the flute.”
Ty dug the box out of his jeans pocket and and flipped open the lid.
“What’re we supposed to do” Ty muttered, staring at the remaining contents.
“Stop whingeing and think already” said Chilli impatiently. “Try remember what Elementia told us.”
“Weeeell, she did say something about making a new heart” said Ty, scratching his head.
“I remember!” exclaimed Chilli, snapping her fingers. “Elementia said that ‘if there came a time when your heart may shatter, you may craft a new one from cold and clay matter’.”
“Good thinking Chills, but how do we do that?”
“Mmm, the ‘cold and the clay’. Wait, of course... the ‘cold’ must be the snowflake and the ‘clay’ is, well, the clay” she replied.
“So all we have to do is melt the snowflake, wet the clay and ‘craft’ it into a new Arrowheart?” said Ty doubtfully. “Seems like a pretty daft idea to me.”
“Got any better ideas? C’mon let’s try. Let’s both warm the snowflake over the clay and see if it’ll melt.” Having no ideas of his own, Ty joined his hands with Chilli’s, sandwiching the large flake between their palms.
“It’s starting to tingle,” giggled Chilli.
“Awesome Chills! Drops of water are falling onto the clay.”
They watched as droplets of crystal water seeped from between their hands and landed on the lump of clay. It thirstily soaked up the moisture and glistened as it became the mud it once was.
“The snowflake’s completely melted. Now try and make another Arrowheart out of the clay” suggested Chilli.
Ty rolled the lump of damp clay in his palms until it was a smooth, round ball. He flattened it into a sort of fat burger patty, then pinched the corners until it roughly resembled a heart. He gently pushed the shaft of the arrow into the new heart. No sooner had he done that than the clay instantly hardened.
“Look!” gasped Chilli, “it’s turned back to clay again.”
Ty tapped the new heart with his finger. “I still don’t think it’s going to work. We’ll be lucky if it even bruises Morbidius’s heart.”
“It’s all we’ve got, so it’ll have to do” Chilli remarked fiercely.
Was the clay heart strong enough to destroy a madman intent on anihilating the earth? Chilli doubted it, but she wasn’t about to give up hope now. The problem was, they would only find out when it may be too late.
The new heart was their last hope, and Ty wasn’t about to take any chances with it. He put it safely into the crystal box and returned it to his pocket.
BOOM!
The poor tortoise shook his old head as he was bombarded by another shock wave that threw them back another few feet. He gave another desperate burst of energy to recover lost time, his eyes bulging as he strained against the current.
“Look at that!” exclaimed Chilli, pointing the ocean floor. Ty leaned over and pressed his nose up against the glass bubble.
“What is that?” Ty could just make out a large building anchored onto the seabed. It was nestled among long tendrils of a forest of black seaweed swaying sluggishly in the ocean current.
Crusty, who had almost dozed off, scuttled hastily to his feet. “Dat dere is da People’s Glorious Power Generator for a Better Life for All. Dat is to say, our destination. Now, hang on tight, ‘cause here’s where tings gets a little rough.” The lobster flung himself back into his seat, pulled his cap over his head and folded his long eye stalks into its peak. He was keen to catch a last minute’s snooze.
“Crusty wasn’t kidding about a rough ride!” exclaimed Chilli. The turtle took a steep dive towards the Generator. The incline was so sharp they were almost thrown headlong against the glass shell.
BOOM!
The turtle hit the next shock wave at a dangerous angle, sending them into a wild speed wobble. It jiggled them around so violently that Chilli felt sea sick.
Skreee! Oubaas gave a frightened bark and clung miserably onto Ty’s arm. Swimming was not his favourite pastime.
Crusty slipped out of his chair onto the floor with a clatter of lobster shell.
“Oy dere, TT! Takes it easy ole pal! Dis here ain’t no Disney ride ya know!” he yelled. He tapped loudly on the glass dome and shook his claw angrily at the turtle. “Udderwise I’ll have to report youse to da People’s Central Committee for Behaviour Adjustment and Enhancement. And you know how dose boys are!” he yelled.
The turtle swam as if his life depended on it. He stretched his neck out further from his shell and gave more forward thrust with his flippers. He was making a last ditch effort to get into the dome before the next heartbeat. He swung his body from side to side as his flippers pulled them closer to the structure. Finally, he flattened out the angle of approach and they found themselves just a few feet from the building.
“Check that out. It’s awesome!” gasped Chilli.
The Generator’s building looked like a brightly lit football stadium covered with a massive glass shield. In the gloom, Chilli could make out the red pipeline going through its centre and down into the building.
“Check at that, Chills. Doors are opening in front of us” observed Ty.
Two large steel doors slid open and TT swam through them into an airlock. Once they were inside, the doors slid closed behind them.
“What’s happening?” shouted Chilli above a deafening roar of engines thrumming through the building.
“Pumps must be draining the water from the airlock” guessed Ty. He hoped they hadn’t been taken to the People’s Glorious Meat Packing Factory and that they were the meat about to be packed. Crusty wasn’t much help. He was snoring in his seat, having happy lobster dreams.
The roar of the pump engines stopped with a clank.
Crusty leaped to his claws again. “Ladies and gennulman. We have now arrived at our destination. Tank youse all for travelling wit us, namely TT here and myself. We hope youse will make use of our soivices again in da future. Dat’s ta say if dere is a future.” Then he proceeded to scuttle around the cabin unlocking the clasps on the turtle’s shell.
Relieved the bumpy ride was over, Ty untied his safety belt and helped Oubaas undo his. Chilli undid hers, and the trio of friends climbed down from the TT and into the chamber.
“Look at that Chilli!” Ty said under his breath, “it’s amazing!”
The airlock was a vast circular chamber made from a single sheet of stainless steel. Oubaas nearly fainted when he saw his reflection in the polished surface. In the centre of the floor next to TT was the large drainage grid through which the seawater had been pumped.
But Chilli was more interested in saving her own skin than some stupid building. “How do we get out of the airlock?”
“I don’t...” Ty’s words were drowned out by an announcement over the P.A. system. It had all the hallmarks of a public announcement – tinny and officious-sounding.
“The Management and Staff of the People’s Glorious Power Generator for a Better Life for All welcome you to this, the eighth wonder of the world. We are privileged to have you at our facility, and look forward to showing you around Effluvia’s greatest achievement.
“You will have been prepared for your excursion by the Central Booking Office where you will have been provided with the necessary information to make your trip a safe one. Should you require clarification on anything, please do not hesitate to ask your tour guide for assistance. Please note that all visitors are advised that they are strictly forbidden to speak to the workers.
“You will be met by Comrade Factory Manager Boris Leonid Pjotr Ivanovich Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy. He will take you on the officially sanctioned guided tour as prescribed by the Central Committee for the Enhancement of Life. Thank you and enjoy your tour.” A ding-dong signalled the end of the announcement.
BOOM! The heartbeat bounced off the airlock’s steel walls.
The loudspeaker crackled into life again. This time, a deeper voice addressed them. “Attention please! The final countdown to zero hour has officially begun! There are thirty minutes remaining before the People’s Glorious Plan for Total Domination of Planet Earth begins. This is not an exercise. Repeat, this is not an exercise. Thank you.”
“That means that Vida’s only got thirty minutes left to live!” exclaimed Chilli.
“Hey, youse down dere! Pipe down will yas?” shouted a familiar voice. “Yeah, youse! It’s me again, Crusty, youse idiots.” They looked up to see a bright red Crusty hanging over the edge of TT’s shell. His feelers were waving about angrily in the air. This was clearly a lobster that needed anger management.
“Youse’ve gotta use da key youse were given at da Central Bookin’ Office. Youse’re standin’ on the keyhole. Youse can’t even see sometin’ right under yer fat noses. Chees, don’t you know nothin’! Now, will youse please pipe down, down dere! TT and me wants to get some shut eye before zero hour. When da pandaminimonium breaks out, who knows when we’ll be able to catch some zee’s again!” His head disappeared back into the shell.
“But we didn’t go to the Central Booking Office” said Ty in frustration.
“Think Ty! Stop talking and think! Professor Einstein gave us a key, remember? And then he gave us a clue. He said that the answer to our questions are normally at our feet. So that must be the key.”
“Yes, but...”
“Stop arguing and look for a keyhole in the floor.” Chilli bent down to search for an opening.
“There’s something over here!” exclaimed Ty, sinking to his knees. Chilli rushed over and dropped down next to him. On the ground was an irregular-shaped opening. Oubaas bent forward and sniffed it suspiciously.
“See if the key fits.” Ty was keen to get out of a room that could be flooded in seconds.
Chilli pulled out the key and inserted it in the opening.
“It fits!” Chilli carefully twisted the key in the socket, making sure not to break it off in the lock.
“Nothing’s happening” said Chilli, disappointed.
“Wait! What’s that noise?” It was the sound of gears griding, and it was coming from right beneath them. Ty didn’t like the sound of it.
“We better hang onto one another” Ty advised. Still kneeling, Ty wrapped his arms around Chilli and Oubaas, preparing for anything.
“Whoooooaaaa!” Chilli yelped in shock. The section of the floor they were kneeling on suddenly sped straight up into the air and raced towards the ceiling at breakneck speed.
“Don’t look down!” shouted Ty. They were so high that TT was the size of a shoebox below them.
“We’re going to get crushed against the roof!” shrieked Chilli. Horrified, she watched the ceiling come rushing towards them. They were so close she could see her freckles in the reflection.
“Cover your head!” shouted Ty. He put the Ivory Bow across his knees and threw his arms over his head.
“It’s a trap! We’re going to be crushed to death!” screamed Chilli.
“Brace yourself!” Ty closed his eyes tightly. He didn’t want to watch his friends die, especially in a pile of mangled muscles and broken bones.
They gritted their teeth and waited for the cccrrruunch that would come when their bodies were smashed against the steel roof.