Talking Sucks

"You aliens better start talking or else!" Jethro demanded.

"Can't we deal with your paranoid delusions later. There's still an army of bear people and a t-rex made from cockroaches outside." I responded.

"You guys think this small scratch on my hand is going to get infected? Also I kind of have to pee." Eddy decided to mindlessly chime in.

"When don't you have to pee? Just sit there quietly and hold your bladder. We have more important things to deal with." I reprimanded him.

The three of us were currently squeezed together between two limestone walls in a small confined area just at the base of the pyramid. There was only enough room for a six inch gap between Eddy and Jethro. Luckily, I was fairly compact in size, so I was able to sit relatively comfortably at the base of their feet.

Jethro fumbled around with the waistband of his pants. "Nobody's doing anything until all my questions are answered!" From his pants, he pulled a silver desert eagle pistol and aimed it at us.

"Woah, calm down, Jethro! How about we put the gun down." I attempted to talk him down.

He remained unwavered, as he firmly grasped the gun. "No, I don't think I will. How about you start by telling me why this shapeshifter looks like my nephew."

There was no use arguing, especially considering he was blocking the only way out. I let out a sigh. "Probably because he is your nephew."

He scoffed with skepticism. "Yeah right, if he's really my nephew, then I guess he wouldn't mind answering a few questions."

"I'm still just as confused as everyone else, but go ahead, Uncle Jethro." Eddy nodded, fully willing to cooperate.

Slightly lowering his gun, Jethro fired off his first question. "If you're really my nephew, what did I get you for Christmas last year?"

Eddy tilted his head as he thought. "Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever gotten anything from you for Christmas or any holiday for that matter."

Jethro clicked his tongue unimpressed. "Lucky guess. What's my middle name?"

"I don't know. You told me that was classified information."

"Another fluke." Shaking his head, Jethro continued pressing him. "If you actually are Eddy, what do you do for a living?"

Eddy chuckled a bit at that question. "Nothing of course. I've been living off the inheritance my parents left me, since I've been seventeen."

Jethro's eyes became wide, as he put his gun away. "Well shoot, you actually are Eddy... At least I'm 96 percent sure you are." He looked down at me. "Now the question is, how the heck do you know this alien?"

"Alien?" Eddy scratched his head. "Rom isn't an alien, he's my Romba vacuum that I bought off Amerzom."

"Are you kidding me!?" He glared at me once again. "You could have told me you weren't an alien."

"Oh trust me I did... until you tried waterboarding me."

"So you're telling me that I drove across the state for nothing?" He groaned, as he slapped the stone wall beside him. "I can't believe I got scammed by that cockroach guy!"

Considering you took the word of a crazy guy who renounced his humanity to live with bugs in a sewer, are you really surprised?

"Look on the bright side, Uncle Jethro, thanks to you, I was able to reunite with my best friend, Rom." Eddy attempted to cheer him up.

"That doesn't make me feel better at all." Jethro huffed. "How the heck did you even manage to survive this long anyways? You've been cooped up in that house for years, living off pizza delivery and doing nothing except playing those stupid computer games."

"Well, you know the cellar beneath my house where you keep all your excess prepper supplies because you're too cheap to rent a storage unit? After the water started drying up, the pizza places stopped answering their phones and the power went out, so I decided to just live down there because of the generator and the food and water stash."

"I told you not to touch my stuff..." Jethro shook his head. "How the heck did you even end up all the way in Lincoln anyway?"

"That's kind of a funny and terrifying story. It all started when I ran out of gas for the generator..." Eddy proceeded to recount the events leading up to him getting captured by the Beary Bandits.

Jethro looked at me, intrigued. "I'm almost impressed. You somehow managed to get this deadbeat to go outside. I've been trying to do that for ten years."

"I can't exactly say it was out of selflessness. I had to keep my batteries charged somehow." I turned toward Eddy. "Wait a second, you didn't leave your house for ten years?" It had only been a year and a half since I was purchased by him. I knew he was a shut-in, but I didn't know it was for that long.

Eddy looked down at me with a forced smile. "Believe it or not, but there was a time when I was just like any other teenager. I went to school and had friends and family." He looked at the wall uncomfortably, as if he was reminiscing about something painful. "During my senior year though, my parents passed away in a fatal car crash. Being an only child, I was left with the house and an inheritance from their life insurance. The day they died, I realized just how dangerous the world was, so I decided it would be safer to just never go outside again."

"I'm really sorry about your parents. I had no idea..." Deep down, I genuinely had a sense of guilt for how I'd been treating him.

Reaching down, he patted the top of my GBL speaker. "Don't worry about it, Rom. That was a long time ago." To my surprise he started to chuckle. "I have to admit though the world is even more dangerous than I thought."

"We are pretty much in the middle of the apocalypse, so that's kind of a given." I responded.

Jethro abruptly cut in on our sappy moment. "I think we've done enough sharing. There's still the matter of blowing this pyramid up that we need to attend to."

Out of nowhere, the ground momentarily shook as the sound of rocket fire came from outside.

"Considering there's a full blown war going on out there and we're currently stuck in the pyramid you want to blow up, that doesn't seem like the best idea." I contested.

"You don't think I'm aware of that? I don't even have my detonator, I accidentally left it in my duffel bag, which I accidentally dropped." He got a peculiar smirk on his face as he stared down at me.

"I don't like that look you're giving me..."

🪳🦖🪳

Before I knew it, I was outside of the entrance to our crevice, as Jethro barked orders at me. "Your mission is simple. You just need to go out there and push my bag back here."

"I like how you make it sound like it's that easy... just because I'm a vacuum, doesn't mean I have to obey your every order." I was not amused in the least at being thrust out into danger against my will.

"Technically I bought you after Eddy did, so that makes me your owner too." Jethro clapped back. "That bag is our only chance of getting out of here alive. You're small and inconspicuous, just dodge all the gunfire and explosions and you should be A-okay."

"You can borrow my security blanket if you want to." Eddy chimed in.

"I don't think that will be necessary." Realizing I didn't have a choice, I turned to face the scene that lay before me. The Beary Bandits were advancing in full force. Ground infantry, which consisted of a variety of bear people wearing green Vietnam style helmets and wielding M16s, charged forward, as the tanks from earlier provided artillery fire. The t-roach was still standing, as it viciously ravaged through the hordes of bear soldiers that were assaulting it.

As I scoped out the area, I managed to zero in on his bag and of course it was in the worst possible place... right between the t-roach's feet.

This is going to suck.

Scooting ahead as fast as I could, I made a break for my target, simultaneously a purple attack helicopter with pandas painted on it descended from the sky. It unleashed a barrage of missiles at the roaches. Nearly getting struck by two rockets, I just narrowly managed to avoid them by moving in a zigzag motion.

The helicopter's missiles seemed to be effective, as the t-roach struggled to accumulate new roaches quick enough to maintain its form. Through all the chaos, I managed to make it to the bag. Getting behind it, I pressed myself against it and prepared to push.

Before I could even move an inch, a loud rumbling shook the ground. Without warning, from over a set of buildings, another massive clump of roaches was flung up into air. Striking its rotors, the helicopter lost control, crashing into a nearby building with a violent explosion.

The rumbling became louder and more aggressive. Then, from over the set of buildings between t-roach and the bear army, a flood of roaches flowed over like a waterfall. At the center of the new mass of roaches they carried a large golden throne. As the mass stopped in the center of the battlefield, it was apparent there was a person sitting on the throne they were carrying. That person was of course King Roachard…