Lori says, "I still can't believe you guys did that."
Troll looks up from where he is squatting, and says, "Do you often have this problem accepting reality?"
Lori growls, and goes over to berate Brad. Troll shrugs, and resumes scrubbing the nasty petroleum smell from his hands.
Lori says to Brad, "That was totally unnecessary, you know."
Brad stops painting the Trolls Guild logo on the side of the tanker truck, looks at Lori for a moment, and says, "Oops."
The former driver of the tanker truck playfully tussles with the ropes binding him to the telephone pole, and says, "MMFGGHFT!"
Silently, Troll agrees with him.
Lori, apparently unmollified, rounds back to Troll. "Do you realize that you two nitwits have just wiped out an entire unique ecosystem? You guys are ECO-CRIMINALS!"
Troll and Brad look at each other and simultaneously say, "Cool."
Brad says, "Heh, heh, heheh, heh."
Troll goes back to washing his hands in the puddle.
Once-mighty Mirkwood lies in smoldering ruins -- mute testament to the dread power of twenty thousand gallons of kerosene and a Zippo lighter.
Brad finishes his artistic endeavor and steps back to admire his work. Over the old, boring company logo, he has painted the infamous smiley-face, and the words,
Troll applauds. Lori lunges at Brad. Brad rolls open-ended down and fails to perceive the attack.
Troll finishes his washing-up and says, "Look, Lori, it's not like we just torched the entire Amazon Basin, y'know. That was MIRKWOOD. Easily the most twisted, deranged, and dysfunctional 'eco-system' on Earth."
"Besides," says Brad, "it pissed us off."
Troll says, "Yeah!"
Lori gives up, secretly swearing vile revenge.
After a while, Troll says, "So how much longer do we have?"
Brad considers. "It depends on whether or not she gets distracted by Springfield."
Lori says, "Springfield? What are we talking about, here?"
Troll explains ... er ... sums up, "Apparently, 'Zilla seems to think that Springfield, Illinois bears a certain resemblance to Hokkaido, Japan. There's a chance she might be distracted for a few hours destroying it, before she moves on to 'Tokyo'."
Brad adds, "In case you're not paying attention, 'Tokyo' is us."
Lori gives him a dirty look.
There is a long, 'dramatic' pause.
Lori says, "What time is it, now?"
Troll cocks his ear, and says, "Um, 10AM, the first Tuesday of the month, I guess."
Brad says, "What? Get off it. It's 4:15 AM, Sunday morning."
Troll says, "Listen."
Brad listens for a moment, and says, "Sonofabitch. My watch must be fucked." He removes the offending chronometer and flings it into the embers of Mirkwood.
Troll looks at Lori, and says, "I figure she ought to make it here sometime after 'Noon'."
Lori looks at him, carefully, and says, "So ... a little after dawn, then?"
Troll says, "Yeah, about 1 or 2 o'clock."
Lori says, " ... fine. What do we do until then?"
Brad says, "Do? What is there to do? We're fucked. It's the middle of the night (er, Tuesday Morning), most of our friends are dead, and Dan's house is a giant booby-trap. In short, we have no hope of having a party ready for when 'Zilla gets here. We've had it."
Lori says, "What about the slasher? What happens next?"
Troll replies, "Beats the hell out of me. This is easily the weirdest slasher-flick I've ever SEEN, much less BEEN IN."
Brad says, "Well, lets go watch some videos. Maybe we'll get some ideas on what to do."
By mutual consent, our three remaining heroes start walking towards Troll's place, mainly because Brad's place is currently inimical to humanoid life forms, and Lori lives out on the moon.
As they walk down Clark street, they pass a small, well-maintained home. There are lights on in the house, and the sounds of small children crying can clearly be heard through the windows. Suddenly, the door opens. A young man dressed in olive-drab fatigues steps out, carrying a dufflebag. A young woman, abundantly pregnant, stands at the door in a dressing gown, waving goodbye and crying. Two small children cling to her, also bawling. The man hastily throws his duffle into the back seat of the family car, and, with one last despairing look, drives off quickly into the night.
The woman stands in the doorway for a while, and then gathers up her children and closes the door.
Totally ignoring this heart-rending scene, Brad, Lori, and Troll trudge on.
As they near Wright street, they stop and stare.
Troll says, "I thought all the students went home, already."
Brad says, "Must be some kind of fraternity prank."
The engineering quad in front of Beckman is ablaze with activity. There are HUM-VEE's and camouflage-painted trucks all over the place. Teams of guys in olive-drab outfits are dashing around with sandbags over their shoulders. Big searchlights sweep the southern horizon.
Lori says, "If we ignore them, maybe they'll leave us alone."
Troll says, "Yeah, let's leave them to their little fraternity games."
Our heroes collectively shrug and start making their way through the milling crowd of nervous 'frat boys'.
Over all the activity, someone is playing a radio. It is apparently tuned to some kind of weird talk-radio station. The signal isn't coming in too well -- it keeps fading in and out. The announcer must be doing his first show, because he sounds really nervous, even panicky. Through the static, he is heard saying: "attacki ********** rstrikes useless! **** for reinfor ***************** an't hold out much long ********* capital is burning! We're falling back to **** ***** save us!"
Suddenly, the transmission is cut off with a loud
The frat boys all stand around in shock as the radio dissolves into background static.
Troll nudges the frat-dweeb nearest him, and says, "Maybe you oughta try WPGU."
From out of the blue, Lori says, "HEY!"
Ducking reflexively, Brad says, "WHAT!?"
Lori says, "Somebody threw away a POP CAN!"
Troll, trying to remember if it was him, says, "Where?"
Lori points. "Over there, in that trash can behind those crates of artillery shells." She starts walking towards the ominous pile of boxes, a look of fierce determination on her face.
"NO! WAIT!" Troll shouts.
Brad, being slightly more bent on survival, grabs Troll and quickly drags him into a handy sandbag bunker.
There is an almighty roar, and a blinding flash of light.
After a long, long pause, Troll sticks his head up out of the ruined bunker. He looks around for a while at the wreck of the frat-boy's HQ. There are greeks in green lying all over the place.
A little later, Brad pokes his head out from under the pile of fallen sandbags.
They clamber out of the bunker and survey the blast crater. They look at each other. Troll says, "Well, it's you or me, now."
Brad picks up a fallen 2x4 and says, "Yeah, and I bet I know who it's gonna be, too." He winds up for a swing on Troll's head.
Troll just stands there.
Brad, slightly confused, says, "Aren't you even gonna cringe a little?"
Troll says, "No. Please, continue."
Brad, arm still cocked, starts thinking, furiously. Suddenly, comprehension dawns. He drops the board and says, "FUCK THAT! I know what happens to the bully in these movies."
Troll says, "Shit."
