After Snarky Snapdragon figured out how to start the van---most of the buttons and dials seemed to have little purpose other than to tinkle bright melodies and spew candy---he finally pressed a button that started it up.
"Damn van," he grumbled.
The three voyagers were packed tightly into the van, which despite its large size and the exodus of the balloon rats, was still stuffed with all manner of toys and other things. A small flying toy that looked vaguely like a sparrow but with glowing red eyes kept bumping into Snarky's head. He swatted it away but it kept coming back as if lovesick.
"Hey, I think it likes you!" said Stumpy Cucamonga with a leer. Then the toy flew right at Stumpy's nose and he barked out in surprise. The toy began flying erratically around the van and then started banging hard against a window repeatedly. A high-pitched buzzing sound came from it, which really annoyed everyone, so Enver Lovebagge opened a window, grabbed the toy, and tossed it out. It flew behind the van and then exploded with a loud bang and a bright flash, much louder and brighter than would seem possible, considering its small size.
"Man, good thing that didn't happen in here!" said Enver.
Snarky just stared grimly at the streets in front of him as he drove, while Stumpy looked around.
"Hey, there anything to eat in here? I'm starving!"
Enver and Stumpy looked around the van while Snarky gripped the wheel, his stomach grumbling. "If you see anything that looks like normal food, hand me some," he said.
Stumpy picked up something that was blue and soft. "What's this? Can I eat it?" He took a bite without waiting for an answer. The thing he bit squeaked and leaked blue fluid. Then it deflated with a loud whistling sound. Stumpy's face screwed up in confusion, then he took another bite.
"Not bad. A little chewy. Needs salt."
Enver poked at something that had a light on it. The light started to revolved and emit a rainbow of colours. Then the light went out and a brown pellet the size of a golf ball came out one end. He picked it up and sniffed it suspiciously. "Hm, smells like root beer." He licked it. "Tastes like root beer." He nibbled a bit of it. "It is root beer! A blob of root beer." He ate the rest of it. After a few seconds, his face got a little green. Steam started to pour out of his ears and his hair started glowing. The hair whirled around as if alive, tentacles reaching out, searching for things to grasp and maybe strangle. It got more insistent, angrier, waving around in a frenzy, seeking victims blindly. Enver's eyes rolled around in their sockets and his lips rippled. An obnoxious smell filled the vehicle, causing Stumpy to fall back in terror, and making Snarky grip the steering wheel even harder, determined not to crash. Just as suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. The smell disappeared and Enver's hair was normal again. A silence hung heavily.
"I guess it's not root beer, huh?" said Stumpy.
"No," replied Enver. "But it tastes pretty good if you can get over the glowing hair, the smell, and feeling as if you were dead and then reborn in a dimension your brain can't even process."
Stumpy grabbed a handful of the balls and stuffed them in his mouth. He ate them but nothing unusual happened. His face fell.
Enver shrugged. "Guess it was a one-time thing."
"Quit fooling around and find some real food," grumped Snarky. His stomach growled so loud that Stumpy and Enver looked around to find the wild animal that was obviously hiding in the van. When they realized it was Snarky's stomach, they both laughed and tried to find more food.
All they found were more of the root beer balls and some green liquid that smelled vaguely like alcohol, but might have been old lettuce. They did find one other thing, a yellow strip of something sort of like meat. Snarky ate some and pronounced it crappy but edible.
After they had been driving for a while, Snarky looked at the gas gauge.
"Looks like we're going to need gas, or whatever they use to power the engines here. Anyone see a gas station?"
Almost immediately, Stumpy cried out that he did see one.
"Over there, next to the store that looks like an inflated duck!"
What he was looking at was indeed a building that looked like an inflated duck, with big, wide-open eyes and an orange bill. Situated between two normal stone buildings, it looked as if it was trying to escape, about to pop out at any moment and take off for the skies. Various kinds of people were going in and out: tall, short, fat, thin, old, young, one-legged, two-legged, three-legged...Some of the people didn't look human at all. They had blue faces and tentacles coming out where their eyes should be. Some looked human but you felt a strong sense of dread, as if they embodied some ancient evil waiting to burst forth and enslave humanity. Some just looked like idiots. They streamed in and out in two orderly lines.
"Good thing that's not the gas station," said Snarky. "Looks like they'd kill you before they'd feed you." He looked thoughtful. "Hey, that's the first time since all this weirdness started happening that I've seen anything that even looked remotely evil. I think things are, I don't know, kind of falling apart. What do you guys think?"
He parked the van and looked back at the other two.
Enver and Stumpy were nowhere to be found.
...to be continued.
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