This is an amateur, non-commercial story, which is not produced, approved of, or in any way sponsored by the holders of the trademarks/copyrights from which this work is derived, nor is it intended to infringe on the rights of these holders. And so it goes.

GOING STARKERS

A Eureka Tale by Jeff Morris

Co-plotted by Mary Morris

“There are some things Man Was Not Meant To Know.”
Numerous smartass sages over the ages

“Why?”
Every researcher at Global Dynamics


It started with the little things. Indian Summer was abruptly pushed aside by a cold front with a wind that chilled people to the soul. Dogs barked at the darkness. Once-still attics creaked at the stillest times. An intangible unease nagged at people, causing them to snap at one another over the silliest of incidents. Jack Carter and Jo Lupo found their workload increasing by the day.

Children screamed with night terrors. Allison Blake’s son was so terrified within his private universe that he began to lash out in his sleep, sending all his belongings flying and bruising her arm when she tried to soothe him. Cats hissed and spat at the shadows before racing to the haven of the lamps. Henry Deacon spent an entire morning replacing every car battery on Yukawa Court. He had no explanation as to how the cars had turned around 180 degrees in the dead of night.

Families along Fermi Street awoke to find every book they owned stacked neatly one atop the other in perfectly-spaced rows. As the average family in Eureka owned an average of 175.25 books, this was no small event. The Sheriff’s office investigated and, having found no reasonable explanation, assumed that it was the latest in a long line of Tesla student pranks.

After a long sleepless night spent listening to something scratching and rustling in the walls of her house, Anne Young asked James Taggert to investigate. He subsequently tracked down and removed seventy-three rats (“Big bloody ones, about this long,” he informed the Sheriff while holding his hands about fourteen inches apart. “And they had these glowing, bloody eyes, and big long teeth, and smelled like something hell wouldn’t have!”). He had no immediate explanation as to how the rats had gained access.

The Tesla High School Swim Meet was postponed when the pool was found to be filled with blood (“AB negative,” Doctor Henry Deacon reported). Again, the Tesla students were thought to be the instigators of the prank, which irritated the hell out of them partly because they were innocent but mostly because they wanted to know how the hell it had been done.

Douglas Fargo and his girlfriend Julia Golden (known as “Fargette” behind her back) were seen exhibiting odd behavior (even by Eureka standards) at Global Dynamics. Fargo approached several women, inquiring as to whether they were ‘The Gatekeeper’, while Golden made similar inquires to men regarding their status as “The Keymaster”. After about forty-five minutes and the promise of a sexual harassment lawsuit later, Fargo and Golden finally encountered one another and left the premises. They were not seen again for forty-eight hours.

At precisely twelve noon two days later, Fargo and Golden emerged from the Los Alamos No-Tell Motel and were seen walking on either side of Oppenheimer Drive on the outskirts of Eureka. Deputy Jo Lupo attempted to intercept Fargo but found him dazed, unresponsive and quite a bit stronger than she’d anticipated when he brusquely shoved her out of the way. Upon reaching the city limit, the pair stopped, raised their arms, and began to chant in an unknown tongue.

And with that, all hell literally broke loose in Eureka.

***

Once-bright blue skies had darkened, rumbling ominously and spitting out sporadic bursts of lightning. An icy wind roared down Main Street, chilling all it touched to the soul. And to top everything, there was the matter of that portal with the eerie flickering aura slowly spreading out between the ensorcelled figures of Douglas Fargo and Julian Golden. “Okay,” Carter groaned as he surveyed the scene. “What in the hell did he do THIS time?”

“I’ve no idea,” Henry Deacon replied, his eyes fixed on his scanner’s readings. “But somehow those two are enabling a temporal rift. The hyper-spacial readings I’m getting are through the roof.”

“I guess I shouldn’t say anything about those two hooking up causing the end of the world,” said Carter.

Despite the situation, Henry cracked a smile. “No, probably not--at least not until we’ve solved the problem.” A white-hot burst of lightning cascaded from the sky, slamming into Fargo and Julia and driving them to their knees…and one heartbeat later the humans were gone, replaced by the biggest damn pit bulls ever seen. “That can’t be good,” Henry noted after a moment or two.

Allison Blake hurried over to join them, her hair flying backwards as she ran. “Tell me you’ve got a plan,” she pleaded. “We can’t evacuate. There’s some sort of barrier around the entire town.” She looked out at the bizarre tableau. “Damn, those are big dogs.”

“Yeah. We noticed.” Carter bit his lip and tried to come up with something, anything that might save the city…and the world, most likely. At that very instant, Jo’s brand-new Subaru roared around the corner, lights blazing and sirens screaming. “Well,” Carter conceded, “as far as plans go, that’s a start.”

Jo and Zane shot out of the car and raced around to the trunk. “You guys need to come here,” he yelled as they popped it open and reached inside. “I only had time to make four of these things, so you’re both elected, along with me and Jo-Jo.”

Carter peered into the trunk. “And what…are…these…’things’?”

“Particle throwers,” Zane said as he shrugged into the unit Jo was holding up for him. “Dammit, Fargo, I told you not to go there, but you wouldn’t listen…”

“What?” Allison asked. “Explain.”

Zane sighed. “Fargo’s been looking at ‘alternative scientific methods’ to bring Stark back,” he explained. “By which I mean he’s been poking around all the supernatural websites and stuff. I told him that most of it was bull, but he wouldn’t listen. And then he found out about this thing that happened in New York about fifteen years ago.”

“Wait,” Henry said. “I remember that. It was a mass hallucination caused by an experimental Army nerve gas.”

“Nah. I’m a Banzai brat. We heard the full story from the adults and Zeddemore’s book. Trust me, it happened. So anyway, when all this crap started going down around here, I called my dad and he got me the specs for these babies.”

“Those guys keep their tech pretty close to the vest,” Henry said, shaking his head. “Why would your father be able to…”

Zane smiled. “Because he’s perfect.”

“I don’t believe this,” Carter sighed as he picked one of the remaining two units up. “I thought Eureka was beyond this mystical mumbo-jumbo.”

“Nope,” Jo said, grabbing her thrower and firing it up. “But like the man said, when shit happens there’s no substitute for a good blaster at your side.”

***

“My compliments,” Henry said to Zane as the quartet approached the huge dimensional breach. “I’d heard the originals were much heavier than these appear to be.”

“Like I said, I didn’t have much time to fiddle with ‘em, but I managed to tweak a few things, like the power source. Fusion’s much easier to manage.” Zane nodded toward the eerie dimension flickering inside the portal. “According to the story, all we gotta do is wait until the big baddie shows up, then cross the streams at the right moment. Portal goes boom, we save the day, and it’s Miller time.”

“It’s never that easy,” Carter muttered.

Allison pointed into the dimension gate. “Something’s coming.” And true enough, a distinctly feminine shape was striding out of the center doorway, one that grew eerily familiar as it emerged from the shadows.

“That’s…” Zane began, but the combined gasps of his companions made him hesitate. “I was going to say Gozer,” he finished. “But I’m betting Gozer didn’t have ta-tas like that.”

“Is it me,” Henry said, his eyes wide, “or is that Beverly Barlowe?”

“Kill it,” Allison growled under her breath. “Kill it now.”

“She was the town shrink,” Jo explained to Zane. “Before your time.”

“What a pity.” Jo kicked him. “Well,” Zane continued, wincing, “I remember that this Gozer thing could appear in any form it wanted.”

“Obviously it picked the nastiest monster Eureka has ever seen,” Allison snapped.

Carter stepped forward and cleared his throat. Diplomacy first, even if it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. “Excuse me…miss?” The demon-woman turned, regarding him with acute disgust. “Hi,” he continued, raising his hand awkwardly. “I’m Jack Carter, Sheriff of Eureka, and while I know you’re probably really big on this whole end-of-the-word thing, I’ve got to ask you to stop and go back where you came from. Okay?”

She…it…stared at him. “Are you a god?”

Carter hesitated. “Not really.”

The god-shrink nodded. “I see. How does that make you feel?”

“My God,” Henry whispered to Allison. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that was Beverly.”

“Kill it, kill it, kill it!” Allison hissed.

Zane stepped forward. “Hang it up, baby,” he yelled, raising his thrower. “We got the tools, we got the mad skills, and we got the cheat codes. You’re going down, willing or not. And from the look of it, you’d go down real nice…OW!” He winced and rubbed his butt, which had just been introduced to Jo’s boot.

The Beverly-beast regarded them contemptuously. “Do you really believe those things will save you?” she demanded. “Do you think I learned nothing from my previous attempt, or from my minion?” Her fingers stroked the head of the creature that had been Douglas Fargo. “This time Gozer will triumph. Your world will perish and be reborn in my image. Starting now. Minions…KILL!” And with her command, the devil dogs charged forward.

“Uh-oh.” Carter hoisted his thrower into position. “These things better work, Zane.” He opened fire, followed by the others; the dogs howled and retreated a few steps, but charged forward the moment the blasts stopped. But at the last possible second a second Toyota roared directly into their path, lights blazing and horns wailing. The dogs reared back and attempted to circumvent their adversary, but the car adroitly kept itself between them and the heroes.

“Go Tabby!” Jo cheered. “Nail the bitch!” She took careful aim at Beverly-Gozer and fired, but the creature easily eluded the shot and abruptly vanished from sight.

“Uh-oh,” Carter muttered.

“CHOOSE,” came a voice from the sky.

“Okay, okay,” Zane said hurriedly. “Now, the way this goes, this thing is going to rummage through our surface thoughts and see if there’s anything there to use for its final stage manifestation to destroy everything. So what we have to do is clear our minds and…”

“THE CHOICE IS MADE.”

There was a boom of thunder, followed by another…followed by another…and suddenly everyone realized that it wasn’t thunder but footsteps approaching the city in a pair of leather Bruno Magli shoes. A huge shadow eclipsed the city as the final form of Gozer the Gozerian approached, impeccably dressed in an expensive Armani suit…

“Oh my God,” Carter groaned. He turned toward Allison. “You had to think of HIM? Not ME for a change?”

“I’m sorry!” she protested. “It’s just…you know, I just kind of wished he was here right now, that’s all! It was just a brief thought…”

“Isn’t that…Doctor Stark?” Jo asked, squinting. “I mean, it’s kind of hard to tell. The nose makes it hard to identify anything.”

Gozer-Stark’s foot fell directly on Carter’s Jeep, instantly crushing it into a pile of scrap metal and broken glass. “You son of a bitch, you did that deliberately!” Carter yelled. He aimed for the silk necktie and fired. The blast didn’t appear to do more than singe the fabric ever so slightly.

“That’s not Nathan, Jack. It’s a monster that looks like him!” Henry called. At least he hoped that was the case. He’d noticed the oddest smug smile on the creature’s face when it smashed the Jeep up.

The monster’s next step brought in onto a collision course with the Subaru. Jo raised her thrower high and fired…directly into the monster’s crotch. It screamed with pain and drew back just a step. “Hah!” she bellowed into the sky. “You’re all alike!”

“We’re wasting time!” Zane yelled. “Get over here and let’s get this done!” At that moment the devil-dog that had been Fargo leaped over Tabitha and charged straight at Zane. At the last second, however, a Louisville Slugger made contact with the creature’s nose, making it abruptly stop and turn toward the source of its pain.

Allison’s eyes were narrow slits. “Fargo, you knock it off right now,” she ordered, her voice pure steel. She waved the bat in front of its face for emphasis; the monster whined and slowly retreated before assuming a pure submissive posture. “Good boy.”

“This isn’t working,” Henry said as he tried to guide the Stark-creature away from the town with a series of short bursts. “We don’t dare turn our backs on this thing. We need a diversion!” And as if on cue, MARTHA and her sisters descended from the sky in battle formation. They zoomed and swooped around the giant figure, zapping it here and there with their lasers. While the physical effect was minor at best, the aggravation factor was enough to anger the Stark-thing. Its arms slapped at the annoyances, which remained just out of reach. “Ask and ye shall receive,” Henry laughed as he joined his comrades at the battle line.

Zane fired his thrower. “Word of warning, this is going to hurt at the very least,” he said.

“And at most?” Carter asked. He fired and mixed his energy stream with Zane’s.

“Let’s just say we won’t live to worry about it.” Jo and Henry followed suit, gritting their teeth as the energy surged and writhed like an out-of-control fire hose. The entangled streams of energy slammed into the dimensional portal. There was a incredible burst of pure white light, a distant scream…

When Carter’s eyes cleared, the portal was gone, the town was safe, and a very dazed, confused and smoldering Fargo and Julia were staggering blankly about. Jo and Zane were trying to herd them together. Meanwhile, Henry and Allison were standing beside the gooey remains of Gozer’s material form. Henry knelt down and warily dipped his finger in it. He sniffed it curiously. “It’s…melted marshmallow,” he said slowly.

Allison gasped as something or someone slowly sat up in the center of the mess. It definitely looked human…but had one hell of a protruding nose. Ignoring caution, she slogged through the goop and wiped the mess off the newcomer’s face. “NATHAN?”

Nathan Stark blinked and looked around dazedly. “Sumimasen. Bukkake o tanomimasen deshita.” He smiled dumbly at Henry and Carter, who had come running over upon hearing Allison’s cry. “Konnichiwa. Watashi no hobaakurafuto wa unagi ga ippai desu.”

“Oh god, he’s in shock,” Allison said, trying to wipe more of the mess off his suit. “At least I hope that’s all it is…”

“My name is Inigo Montoya,” Stark informed her. “I seek the six-fingered man who killed my father.”

Henry and Carter looked at each other. “How…” Carter asked slowly.

Henry Deacon carefully considered every factor encountered in the last hour. “Beats the hell out of me,” he finally said. “Let’s get him up and out of this. Allison…”

“Med teams are on their way.”

Meanwhile Jo and Zane had finally rounded up Fargo and Julia. “Congratulations,” Zane said. “You actually brought Stark back, guys.”

“And I finally had sex, too!” Fargo declared. Julia smiled and nodded in agreement.

Zane looked at Jo, who was trying hard not to fall over laughing. He looked up at the now-brightening skies and smiled. “I love this town,” he said happily. The GD medical transports were fast approaching and he waved his arms in the air…accidentally triggering his thrower. “Oops…I mean, I meant to do that,” he said to Jo. “Like a flare, you know?”

Carter and Henry carried the dazed Stark to the waiting ambulance. “All’s well that ends well, I suppose,” Henry commented.

“Speak for yourself,” Carter sighed. “I was just getting used to him not being around.” He glanced back at Allison, who was talking to the recovery teams but kept turning to stare at Stark. “Oh well. I guess it’ll be nice to have him back. You think maybe he’ll stay this way?”

“You can only hope,” Henry grinned.

“Who’s up for s’mores?” Nathan yelled happily.