We last saw Buck and Nick surviving a vicious inbred mutant hoodie zombie attack in the bowels of the earth. In a sewer. Which they were unwittingly swallowed up by.
Thanks to a fusillade of hot lead from Buck's Colt 45 Navy Special and Nick's .357 Magnum.
As they wade through the ankle deep sewage, with rats scampering all around, Nick taps Buck on the shoulder with some urgency.
"I have a question," Nick says.
"What is it?" Buck asks.
"It's an interrogative defined by the OED as a quest for an answer, but that's not important right now..."
"Jeeze," Buck sighs. "You watched too many of those Airplane movies with Leslie Nielson, Frank Drebbin or that big lanky basketball player, Kareem Abdul Jabaar, who appeared alongside the late kung fu legend Bruce Lee in 'Game Of Death' his final movie."
"And Robert Stack out of 'The Untouchables' He played Eliot Ness..."
Buck pauses, glares at Nick.
"Where is this leading?" he says, scowling. "Is it gonna go on to David Jansson as 'The Fugitive'? Roy Thinnes in 'The Invaders'? Rod 'Bureau' Serling in 'The Twilight Zone'? For God's sake kid, get to the point. We've been attacked by inbred mutant hoody zombie type freaks and all you want to do is go for a verbal fuckin' waltz around the garden! Get to the point, as Trotsky said to the crook with the icepick."
"I was just thinking..." Nick says...
"Wonders never fuckin' cease," Buck says. "You were thinking, and there was me thinking only earthworms could summon the power of thought. So what were you thinking big boy?"
"You sounded like Gordon Ramsay then," Nick says.
"What the hell are you talking about, you idiot?" Buck snarls. Buck is not in the mood to be messed with. He would much prefer to have been shooting turkeys for dinner in Florida rather than be sloshing through a rat infested sewer with a moron.
"Well," Nick says. "Gordon Ramsay often refers to people as 'big boy' on his TV show. You sounded kind of like him."
Buck loses it a little.
He grabs Nick by the throat.
In a vice like grip.
"You had a question. Just ask the question. Don't 'axe' the question because that really annoys me. An axe is a tool for chopping wood and murder victims. You ask. You never axe. Talk proper and spit it out."
"I...can't...breathe...Buck..." says a choking Nick, in an appropriately choking manner.
"Is that a question or a statement of fact, you annoying little shit?" Buck snarls again. But the old warrior relaxes his grip and Nick slumps, rubbing his neck in a relieved way, rather like he imagines the late tyrant Saddam would have liked to have rubbed his neck upon discovering that his execution was merely an elaborate practical joke.
Unlike Saddam, Nick is still alive.
His tongue is still rooted firmly in his mouth, and not lolling about by his collar bone.
"You nearly killed me there Buck, you rascal you," Nick says.
"I'll kill you for real if you don't get to the point," Buck growls. "We've wasted over five hundred and twenty words on this bullshit conversation already. The readers will be getting restless. So, what is it?"
"It's this story," Nick says. "It seems to me that there's a degree of continuity returning to it. Or is that just me?"
"Nah kid," Buck says. "It's probably just the dipshit author got his printer fixed so he can cross-check previous entries. Mark my words, the idiot will be sitting there right now describing our predicament half submerged in a sea of print-outs. Damned story still doesn't make any sense."
"Whoa!" Nick exclaims. Hence the exclamation point.
"Don't stick up for the fucking idiot author of this sack of shit," Buck says. "Otherwise I really will choke you."
"It's not that!" Nick says. "I found a door here! A door in the wall. Maybe we can get out of here!"
"Good idea," Buck says. "I'm pleased to hear it. I love the smell of napalm in the morning, but shit's another kettle of...well, shit really..."
"It's not locked!" Nick says.
"Convenient plot device cop out," Buck mumbles, hardly surprised. "Open the fucking thing then."
Nick opens the door.
To reveal a spotlessly clean industrial corridor. White walls, floors and ceiling.
More trouble, Buck thinks, but does not say.
"Let's do it kid," he says, and they go in...
***********
Frankie the J is a desperate man. There is something he forgot to tell the kids. Being a man of conscience he feels it is his duty to appraise them of the relevant facts.
Before they are all hideously slaughtered.
The thought of young Lola's lascivious mouth spurs him on, a mouth over which he harbours almost (totally) pornographic notions which distinctly don't involve food consumption.
Unless it's meat flavoured and kind of banana shaped.
He runs through the wind and driving rain towards the camper van parked by the lake whilst lightning rips the night sky asunder and rain lashes his face.
Frankie the J will not be denied his moment of truth. The very thought of a Nevada anthropologist spurs him on.
He cannot fail in this most vital mission...
****************************************
"I need to speak with you. Alone. For a few moments. Please." Fran says to Abel 'Zorro' Rodriguez back in the charnel house, where findings have been increasingly disgusting in nature as time passes by.
A jar labelled 'Jimi Hendrix's Pickled Penis' has been discovered. It is a very large jar, containing a wrinkled specimen the size and girth of a grown man's forearm.
"Oh wow!" Madame Bitters says. "I think I need to sit down for a moment or two. That damned thing is making me feel all woozy."
She takes Bear, the ever faithful canine along with her, but warns him not to try licking her nipples. As far as Madame Bitters is concerned her nipples are her business, and her business alone.
Bear doesn't give a flying fuck at a spinning donut. If he can't lick a great top set, the next best thing is to be in close proximity to a nice top set.
"What is it?" Abel "Zorro" Rodriguez asks of Fran.
"It's a pickled penis, purportedly that of a dead rock legend," Fran says. "But that's not important right now."
"Don't tell me," Abel Zorro says. "You watched the 'Airplane' movie too..."
"Come with me," she says.
That would be nice, Abel thinks.
She takes Abel Zorro's hand and leads him into a darkened room.
Abel is forced to tear his gaze from Angie's thrusting nipples covered by damp fabric for the first time in days.
"I can't believe my mother blew you," Angie is saying to Todd. "I still can't get my head around it."
"Your Momma sure managed it," Todd quips.
Meanwhile, in the side room, in the dark, Fran tucks her fingertips into Abel Zorro's waistband and pulls him real close.
She's a babe.
That fact is indisputable.
Abel Zorro can smell her perfume over the overwhelming stench of decay and debauchery. He can feel the swell of her breasts against his manly chest.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," Fran says. Her lips lightly brush his in what could have been simply coincidental contact.
"I can't do this," Abel says with a heavy heart. "I'm so very sorry. You're very attractive, but I'm a happily married man with children..."
"Are you sure there's nothing you'd like?" Fran purrs, minx that she has turned out to be.
"Actually, there is..." Abel Zorro says.
"So pray tell..." Fran licks her lips and her gaze travels south to a midpoint betwixt knee and neck which is the cause of so many problems for the male of the species.
"I'd like to see peace, justice and the American way," Abel says patriotically. "That's all there is to it."
"Then what's...this?" Fran says, her hand going to places where it really shouldn't be going.
"I...I'm not...sure..." Abel gasps.
"I think I know how to deal with this..." Fran says sensually in her best sultry seductive voice...
At which point...
On the grounds of righteous morality...
Todd screams out in absolute panic:
"Lola's disappeared! She's been taken by God knows what or whom!"
Jeeze, that was close, Abel Zorro thinks...
And it could get even closer, the delectable Fran thinks. Just give me time and space...
"What happened?" Abel asks as he emerges, blinking into the light.
"It's Lola. She's just gone..." Todd wails. "First Johnny Boy and now Lola...This story is freaking me out."
"Don't worry about it kid," Abel Zorro Rodriguez says comfortingly. "At least the jerk-off writer off this sack of shit seems to be getting his continuity back together..."
"Is it..." Todd sobs, "Is it down to the printer?"
"I'm afraid so," Abel Zorro says. "It's all down to the printer."
"Can the printer save Lola with the luscious lips? La la la la Lola, who drinks Coca Cola, and sucks popsicles in a really sensual manner?" Todd pleads.
"I dunno kid. I really dunno," Abel Zorro says.
Find out what happened to Lola of the luscious lips in episode 15. And the answers to many other questions, aside from the relevant ones...
