Getting Scarred for Life in Space

I laid curled up in a ball in the corner of the cold, dark freezer that my brother and I were currently hiding inside. If it wasn't for the space suits we were wearing, we’d have been at risk of hypothermia.

"We're going to die!" I cried as I rocked back and forth.

Randy grabbed me by the helmet and shook my head. "Calm down for a sec, little bro. I'm trying to think."

He wiped the fog off the little window on the freezer door and peered through it. Grumace was still looming around the dining area of the MarkDonald's.

Every few minutes, it would groan, "BORGER!"

I couldn't help, but feel utterly hopeless. To think, I was probably about to perish at the hands of my worst fear... brand mascots! I pulled out my phone in hopes of contacting the space police. Unfortunately, I had no signal on this planet.

Randy rummaged around the freezer. "Maybe there’s something here we can use."

Lining the wall were racks with various metal containers sitting on them. One by one, he yanked them down and pried them open.

He groaned, "Duck, this is useless. It's just a bunch of cryocoolers with ingredients in them."

My stomach was beginning to hurt from all the anxiety. "I-I think I'm going to throw up."

Randy suddenly looked like the gears were grinding in his head. "Say that again, little bro!"

"I think I'm going to throw up." I repeated, confused, as I held back the bile coming up my throat.

"Alright, now say it again, but slower this time." He continued to press me.

"I... think-."

"That's it! We need to ‘think’. What's something that involves thinking?" He began to ponder his own question. "Hm... Reading involves thinking. Little bro, you still got that book the garbage bros gave us, right?"

"Yeah I got it right..." I threw up in my mouth a little. I swallowed and finished my sentence. "...here."

I pulled the "Cooking for Dumbasses" book from my space suit. Immediately, Randy snatched it from my hands.

"There has to be some kind of ancient knowledge in here that can help us defeat that thing." He paged through the book until a certain page caught his attention. "I think I have an idea, but I'm going to need your help."

"What are you planning?"

Judging from the grin on his face, I had a bad feeling.

"It's hard to explain, but I need you to keep that thing distracted."

"No way! Are you insa-!?"

I couldn't finish, since he had already lifted me up by the scruff of my neck and proceeded to open the freezer door. Before I could attempt to put up a struggle, he already shoved me out.

"Make sure you keep it away from the kitchen." Randy ordered me.

The sun was setting and the visibility in the already dim restaurant was decreasing by the minute. Grumace was somewhere lurking in the shadows.

"I-I can't do this, Randy." I hesitated, feeling complete dread.

"Today's the day you get over your fears." He pushed me out from behind the counter and proceeded to shout. "Yo Grumace, I got you a snack!"

"What the heck are you-?"

"BORGER!" Grumace moaned, as the sound of footsteps became increasingly closer.

From behind, I could hear a sizzling noise as my brother fired up the grill in the kitchen. I still had no idea what he was planning, but it seemed like he completely lost his mind.

In front of me, a set of large black pupils inside of two white circles, emerged from the darkness. I felt like peeing myself as a robust pear-shaped outline towered over me. My entire body began to tremble at Grumace's almost demonic aura.

"MOMMY!" I shouted on the top of my lungs, as my body kicked into flight mode and began moving on its own.

As fast as I could run, I rushed past Grumace, screaming like a little girl. In turn, Grumace pursued me, smashing any table or chair that laid in its path.

It gave a terrifying bellow, "BOOOORGER!"

A wooden door came up on my right and I immediately ducked into it. Within the Small room I had entered, there wasn't a single window, which made it even darker than out in the dining room. I was just barely able to make out the silhouette of a urinal and a bathroom stall. I was obviously inside the men's bathroom.

With nowhere else to go, I pushed open the stall door and locked it behind me. To my utter terror, there was a slow creeking noise as the bathroom door opened.

"BORGER!" Grumace moaned, as he began to step one foot at a time.

The sound of his footsteps grew closer until they stopped just in front of the stall door. There was a momentary pause followed by a sniffing sound. The stall door began to jiggle as he tested it. After it didn't open, he aggressively tried to push it open. I sat on the toilet with my feet pressed up against the door, trying to hold it closed with all my strength.

"BOOOOORGEEEEEEER!" Grumace roared.

Who would have thought this was how I was going to die, eaten on a toilet by a fast food mascot...

All of a sudden Grumace abruptly stopped. The smell of fried food filled the air.

"BORGER?" It inquisitively sniffed the air.

The next thing I knew, it left the bathroom and I could hear Randy chant, "Order up!"

Cautiously I left the stall and peaked my head out the bathroom door. Not believing my eyes, there was my brother with a white piece of cloth tied around his head like a headband on the inside of his space helmet. Beside him was a six foot high pile of hamburgers, cooked and ready to go.

"Come at me, bro." Randy confidently taunted Grumace.

Grumace growled, "BORGER!" Before charging with all its might toward my brother.

Balancing a burger on his spatula, he launched it like a catapult directly into Grumace's mouth, which it swallowed whole.

"Listen here monster bro, only one of us is walking away from here... And it's definitely not going to be you." Like a gatling gun, Randy rapidly shot one burger after another at Grumace, all of which it began gulping as it tried to push forward.

Everytime it ate a burger, I noticed it growing larger and fatter. When it was only a foot away from Randy, it eked out one final, "BORG... BOR-."

With a now bloated body, it fell over, dead.

Randy bravely stood on the counter and held his spatula in the air. "That's why I'm the hero of this stor-!"

Before he could finish his sentence, Grumace's corpse suddenly burst, causing chunks of blue slime to shoot off in every direction. Randy was covered head to toe in mascot goo.

Wiping the glass of his helmet with his hand he continued, "well little bro, did you finally get over your fears."

I shook my head unamused. "No, not at all... In fact, I think I'm traumatized."

He just laughed. "I bet you're wondering how your brave and dashing older brother devised all that."

"Not really, but I'm guessing you're going to tell me anyway."

He looked up as he reminisced the last half hour. "You see, after I found a burger recipe in that cook book, I realized that I needed to give that beast exactly what it wanted... Burgers!"

I did have to give it to Randy, it seemed like he surprisingly had a knack for cooking. From what I was aware, he may be the first person to have actually cooked something by hand in hundreds of years.

🍔🍔🍔

Randy kneeled before the Trash Lord, as he presented a pile of blue Grumace slime, as proof of his victory.

The same captain from earlier translated for the potato, "Mine lord doth say thou hast rendered a great service to the Kingdom. He would like to bestow upon thee this medal of honor and the title of 'champion'."

Randy stood as a soup can lid tied to a string was hung around his neck. He turned to the crowd of garbage people who had gathered. "I'm happy to have been able to help, trash bros. Now that that's taken care of, I say we celebrate!"

The crowd cheered as they began to prepare a festival to celebrate Randy's victory.

Excited by his new found cooking abilities, my brother scooped up me and a few other garbage people in our ship and returned to the MarkDonald's. The group of us proceeded to load up the grill, fryer, a soda machine, and a handful of cryocoolers into the ship while he ‘supervised’ from the comfort of the driver's seat. There was an ice cream machine as well, but we left it behind because it ended up being broken.

That night, during the festival, Randy cooked up a feast of burgers for the whole kingdom. He even managed to figure out how to use the fryer and served up a plate of fries (made from potatoes) to the Trash Lord (who was a potato). The concept of cannibalism didn't seem to really dawn on anyone.

The celebration lasted into the wee hours of the night. Finally when dawn hit, it was time for us to depart. I couldn't have been happier to leave this disgusting planet. At the very least, other than being psychologically scarred for life, we finally had the equipment we needed to get our business up and running.