The Scream of the Interlopers: The Final Chapter

"I hear someone coming -- and it's not me!" said the ponderous Boeyle.

"Can you see anything, GTRDR?" I rasped, craning my neck in order to descry our lookout.

"I see someone, all right," whispered GTRDR from his perch up on the boughs of a knotted maple tree.

The resilient watchman lifted a pair of infrared goggles -- one of the many nifty items collected from Leroy's truck -- to his eyes and espied the night-obscured SOK campus. Any minute now, the lush grounds of this once tranquil college prep school would be blasted into a cataclysmic theater of war.

Crouching behind a hastily constructed barricade of lunch tables and vending machines, spread out before the cafeteria, Demi Lee and Boeyle manned the huge, mounted gattling gun with sweaty palms, waiting for the command to unleash the weapon's fury. Boeyle aligned the gun's sights and tickled the trigger while Demi Lee, opposed to warfare from the start, resigned herself to feeding the gattling gun ammunition. That, and helping to keep the massive gun steady in order to prevent any premature discharges.

"Shit!" gasped GTRDR, tossing the IR goggles aside in favor of a scoped rifle. "It must be a thousand people...coming this way."

"This is Blue Leader to Blue Five , do you copy?" I asked of my walkie-talkie -- another device claimed from Leroy's truck.

"I copy," came Grover's voice through the static. He and Stephan Whory-whory-hosbin-cacka-mosis were situated two hundred yards off to the right of the gattling gun emplacement, ducked down in the shadowy eaves of the forest. "A whole bunch of people are coming your way," continued Gro. "Do you want us to open fire on their flanks?"

"Fire at will, Blue Five," I instructed.

Hosbin grunted in the background.

"Yeah, stop calling me that," said Grover. "This isn't the Battle of Yavin! It's much more like the Battle of Hoth, so call me Rogue Leader and you can be Echo Base."

"Whatever," I responded listlessly, switching frequencies.

"Stand by, Ms. Bane."

Snatching up the infrared goggles, I choked at the sight of more than a thousand civilians marching forward with interloper precision. The goose-stepping mass was unarmed, but a menacing infantry nonetheless due to their sheer numbers.

--KAKOOSCH--

Already, Stephan's grenades were hurtling through the night and exploding amidst the coloumns of impending interlopers, leaving fuming craters where only seconds before there had been people. Approximately three hundred offenders, a more than formidable number, detached from the main horde to confront this unanticipated assualt from the forest, forming an arrow headed phalanx.

"Redrum-redrum-redrum!" I could hear Grover screaming as he brandished his oozie.

"The poor fool won't shoot," I sighed, witnessing, through the IR goggles, Gro and Hosbin being tackled by a writhing throng of bodies.

To the cafeteria defenders, I said: "It's too late for them. Remember, all this is only a distraction; you're trying to buy me the time I need to sneak around and get Graeny through the back door. Drive them to the left, and Ms. Bane will finish them off with her speacial surprise. Here they come -- fire way!"

"We'll do our part, so get moving!" said GTRDR, giving me a quick salute. With that, Boeyle squeezed the gattling gun's trigger...

--Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat--

... and sent volley after volley of burning lead streaking through the oncoming interloper army, cutting down their ranks like a scythe through grain.

"I got one!" shouted GTRDR from up in the tree, reloading his scoped 22.

Hoisting an AK47, I sprinted away from my comrades, circumnavigating the cafeteria until I reached the SOK campus back road. My feet clopped rhythmically on the craggy pavement, sending loose bits of rock spiralling in all directions; if not for the saffron gleam of the overhead street lamps, I surely would have taken many a clumsy tumble.

Running alongside the gap between the cafeteria and Flavier Hall, the adjacent edifice, I caught a glimpse of the raging maelstorm. Boeyle and Demi Lee's tenacity with the gattling gun had succeeded in driving the interloper onslaught to the left, wedging them between the two buildings. Ms. Bane, who embodied every stoic interloper aspect except the lack of rage, came to her feet atop her station: the covered walkway that linked Flavier Hall to the cafeteria.

"Feel the wrath of Bane, you miscreant, hell-bound children of whores!" she declared, unsheathing the hose of a World War II flame thrower.

With a ferral howl, Ms. Bane engulfed the interloper swarm with a spray of gaseous fire, and, from my perspective, it seemed as if the whole world had disappeared in a crimson holocaust.

* * *

Edging along the immense fine arts center's wall towards a back door, index finger poised above the trigger of my machine gun, I risked a furtive glance over my shoulder. Nothing. It certainly is quiet out there, I thought to myself. All sounds of combat on the SOK campus had abruptly ceased. Returning my attention to the building's entrance, I staggered back in alarm. Jothaniel, Adimal Scrotum, and Roderick blocked the doorway, standing like adamant sentinels where there had been no one an instant before.

"Eaaaeeeweah!" screamed Jothaniel, pointing a pudgy finger at me.

I whipped out a grenade -- one I had saved for an opportunity such as this -- and casually tossed it into the gaping hole in Jothaniel's face. Two seconds later, the head of the corpulent boy imploded, dousing everyone and everything in a twenty yard radius with blood and chunks of brain tissue -- not to mention flecks of skull.

Adimal rushed me, and, before I could get a shot at him, he yanked the AK47 from my hands with lightning alacrity and shoved me to the ground.

"Remain seated in place until Mr. Graeny arrives," said Adimal Scrotum phlegmatically.

"Don't worry, four eyes," I said, reaching back for the 12 gauge shotgun. "Here's a better gun for you."

--Badoosh--

The shotgun shell sent Adimal sprawling into the night. Cocking the high-powered gun, I addressed Roderick: "Don't make me do this, Rod," I said with genuine anguish. "Let me pass."

"Remain motionless and Mr. Graeny will arrive short--"

--Badoosh--

My face went pallid at the sight of Roderick splattered across the pavement; the shotgun had gone off fortuitously on its own accord, hadn't it? Hadn't it!? No, I realized painfully. I had acted indiscreetly and blasted my inteloper-victimized comrade apart.

"It was an accident!" I said aloud. "Give this damn shotgun a cock and it blows. You will be avenged, Roderick, when I get my hands on Graeny."

Turning my back to the carnage, I fired the 12 gauge a third time and let a shell rip through the fine art center's back door. Stepping through the shattered portal, I was immediately absorbed by pitch blackness and the ear-splitting hum of machinery. The boiler room, no doubt, I perceived. Suddenly, the faint gleam of the outdoor street lamps that emitted through the splintered doorway was obstructed; I shivered at what I might see.

"Eaaaeeeweah!" someone screamed from outside. Whirling around, I beheld Jothaniel, standing impassively beneath the wrecked postern. Straining my eyes through the gloom, I saw, to my utter horror, that Jothaniel had only half a head. Raising his meaty hands, he fitted several plates of skull back in place. It was like a jigsaw puzzle out of some morose nightmare. With the infrastructure of his head thus complete, Jothaniel cringed as tendrils of blood vessels and epidermis snaked over his bare skull, intertwining until he was made whole again.

"That's impossible," I gasped. And then, to add to my astonishment, Roderick and Adimal Scrotum appeared at either side of Jothaniel -- not a single mark on their bodies.

"Eaaaeeeweah!" screamed Rod.

"Ahhh!" I shrieked, scurring away.

Dodging behind a cold, dormant furnace, I peeked around to see the three interlopers stalk by, leaving me unapposed. They're not so clever after all, I thought to myself. Resting my back on the indurate iron furnace, I closed my heavy eye lids. It had been three long, excrutiating days since I had gotten a wink sleep -- or any food, for that matter. Therefore, coalescing physical pains with the bizarre events of the last few days -- all without any explanations -- left me a bit fatigued.

I was jolted awake by a firm hand gripping my shoulder. It was Gaeron. "Your location is know to us," he said sternly in a high, nasal voice. "Come with me."

Coming to my feet, I yanked a Bowe knife from my pants and sent the blade twirling through the air at Gaeron -- who blocked it effortlessly with the palm of his hand. Even with the saw-toothed knife lodged in his wrist, blood gushing about the sharp metal edges profusely, the imperturable Gaeron flinched not an inch.

Without warning, he knocked me on my back, and then threw his body atop mine. Rocking backwards on my spine, I thrusted my knees into Gaeron's stomach and sent him soaring over my head -- right into a boiler room exhaust fan. The razor edged turbine, lying horizontally, gave the interloper a new, three-dimensional outlook on life. First, it sliced cleanly across his neck, severing the head; then the deadly fan carved its way through Gaeron's waist, lacerating bone and innards.

"I don't care if he can rebuild himself or not," I chuckled, "but that's got to of hurt!"

* * *

"It's all over for you now, Graeny," I said, prodding the back of the old man's head with an 8mm. I had been successful at sneaking up from behind -- or so it seemed. Dramatically, after searching the whole fine arts building, I had found Graeny standing alone on the auditorium stage.

"I've been expecting you," he said cryptically without turning around.

Perhaps I hadn't surprised him, afterall. Shrugging, I pulled the trigger, sending a bullet boring through Graeny's silver-maned head at point-blank. With a smoking tunnel that began at the back of his head and ruptured a wide exit between his eyes, Mr. Graeny turned around to face me, unfazed.

"Come, lets talk," he said quietly.

"This fight isn't over yet!" I said, unwilling to surrender. "Perpare to die!"

Unsheathing my second Bowe knife and a machete, I lunged at Mr. Graeny, stabbing and swiping with a blade in either hand. Yawning, the wicked SOK campus president blocked and parried my blows effortlessly -- using his own arms. Growling with a rush of adrenaline, I rammed my body against Graeny's, jostling him to the stage floor. Moving in for the kill, I impaled his right arm -- slightly above the elbow -- to the wooden floor-planking with the knife; then I brought the machete down in a sweeping arc over his brittle shoulder joints, cleaving the arm.

"So, did you have something to say?" I mocked, kicking the old man.

Graeny came to his feet and smacked me smartly across the temple with his left hand; the impact of the blow knocked me off my heels into the ether. Landing a moment later on a second row auditorium chair, I glanced up to see Mr. Graeny reataching his severed arm; the third eye-socket had already regenerated itself. Hence, the fight was over.

Coming down off the stage, the old man helped me to my feet. "Lets take a walk," he said amiably, guiding me up the theatre room aisle, past row after row of vacant seats. "I am a man of my word, and I always keep my promises," he continued. "And I promised you I would explain our 'interloper' origins, so now is the time. But first, I want to show you something."

Mr. Graeny motioned for me to follow him out a side door, and I obliged dociley. The SOK campus president, with a restraining hand on my shoulder, led me down a series of dark corridors until we reached an observatory room I had never noticed before. The far wall of the chamber was dominated by an immense glass window; it gave a panoramic view of the bustling activity taking place in the adjoining atelier. Dozens of interlopers, including the recently enslaved Boyele, Demi Lee, Hosbin, and Ms. Bane, cradled what looked like coconuts and gently secured the objects in incubators.

"What are they doing down there?" I asked.

"You see, young man," said Graeny, crinkling his elderly neck to face me, "whenever an 'interloper' successfully bites down on a person and sucks out there life, they defecate one of those eggs. When those eggs hatch, they'll give birth to a special breed of 'interlopers' that will be able to consume the whole world at my whim. But, in order for those eggs to hatch, I must have you."

"What?" I said, aghast. "You said you'd explain the origins to me--"

"The less you know the better," he said, encroaching upon my proximity with a lecherous glint in his eyes. "So just hold still, and I suggest you behave..."

"Get away from me, you dirty old man!" I shouted, evading his grasping fingers.

I dashed out of the room, retracing my steps down the dark hallways. Mr. Graeny didn't follow; he simply called after me: "It's only a matter of time before I have you! Just a matter of time!"

Somewhere along the way, I took a wrong turn and got hopelessly lost in the fine arts center's disconcerting maze of hallways. Eventually, I deadended in a music room. Pianos, guitars, stand-up basses, drum sets of all proportions, and Grover -- his normally thoughtful expression replaced by a staid countenance -- lined the walls of the euphonic room.

"Stand still. Stand in place," said Gro unflappably. "I will talk to you."

"Are you one of them now, Grover?" I asked hesitantly. "Because if you are, I don't really care for your opinion." Peering around Gro to see a mirror hanging on the wall, my suspicions were confirmed; the inverted, left-handed image cast by the looking glass showed me to be alone in the music room -- except for a shadowy mist where my possessed comrade should have been.

"We are perfect beings," continued Grover insouciantly. "All my life I strived for perfection and omniscience. Now I have found both."

"Well I think you're crazy!" I said.

"I can play the piano but I could not before. Watch me." Grover leaned over a nearby piano and played the Riders on the Storm rain-dripping notes with expertise.

"You see?" he said flatly. "Emotion is a wasteful byproduct of human error. Pure logic is all that is needed. Consent to Mr. Graeny and the world will be perfect."

"What's the good of any of that," I chided, "if you're not capable of enjoying it?"

"Come with me," said Grover, groping with his hands like a zombie.

"Never!" I shouted, raising my arms to ward off the interloper. At that moment, something inexplicable happened: my fingertips, igniting with a brilliant radiance, sent a channel of blue fire lancing into Grover, consuming him in a cloud of azure flame. Then, as brusquely as the blaze had began, it ceased, leaving only a cloud of smoke as evidence such a phenomenon had ever occured. What the hell just happened?! my brain screamed.

Seconds later, when the smoke had subsided and drifted lazily away, I discerned that Grover had been reduced to a pile of inert ash. Expecting the heap of soot to come back to life and rebuild itself, I was relieved when, after waiting tensely for fifteen minutes, the dusty remains of the interloper had stayed immoblie.

"Graeny may have won the first round," I said, elated, "but here I come!"

* * *

Kicking open the door to the presently deserted coconut-egg incubator room, I went strait for a certain fire-emergency box hooked to the wall. Smashing through the protective glass exterior covering with my bare knuckles, I plucked out the fireman's ax and went to work, swinging the mattock lilke a death-machine. I saw to it, in my fit of rage, that not a single interloper egg or incubator was left unmassacred by my rampant path of destruction.

Tossing the ax aside, I took out a hankerchief and wiped the sweat from my brow. Sheesh, what a mess! I thought, surveying the devastation. The incubators, scattered across the floor in sparking heaps of mangled metal, assimilated with the green puss oozing from the pulverized coconut-eggs.

"You are foolish for doing such a thing!" said Mr. Graeny, appearing behind me. "By destroying those eggs you have made yourself useless to me. Now I will kill you!"

I turned about slowly to face him, beaming a grin at him. "Did you notice I've come unarmed, Graendawg?" I began in a derisive tone, "Guns and knives can't hurt you, but I can. I've got the power to destroy you!"

For a moment, the unrelenting self-confidence in the SOK campus president's demeanor faltered; he was obviously intimidated. Graeny cleared his throat, stood up straighter, and the cocky attitude returned. "You offer nothing for me which to fear," he said boldly.

"Oh really?" I jeered. "Well, what would you say if I did this..." I mouthed, raising my hands to fry Mr. Graeny with the blue fire. Nothing happened. "I mean, what would you say if I did this!" Again, not a lick of flame. What was I doing wrong?

With a malicious cackle, Graeny clamped his gnarled fingers about my throat, slowly strangling the life out of me. I clawed and bit at his hands -- to no avail; his grip was unbreakable. Then, in that moment of desperation -- my lungs on the verge of exploding -- the words of a wise Tajikistani salesman came to me: "Do -- do not think." That was the problem; I was racking every cereberal cord in my brain, trying to do it when it was simply a matter of doing it.

"Feel this!" I raved, hammering Graeny across the room with a sheet of cerulean fire -- and right through a concrete wall. The old man was sure to prove more of a challenge than Grover had, but with the fire I felt invincible. Smiling sadistically, I went after him.

"Foolish child," said Mr. Graeny, lying in a heap of rubble, as I hopped through the gaping cavity in the wall to join him outside. "Before you die, you'll see that I have surprises of my own!"

He started to change. Like a snake, he shed his wrinkled layers of human skin -- only to reveal a second skin of green scales over corded muscle. Hooked claws capable of rending stone popped out of his fingers, his dentured teeth were replaced by a set of dagger-like, ivory fangs, and his eyes flared with bloody hatred. Once the metamorphosis was consummated, he attacked.

Blasting the intense, sapphire fury, I aimed a bit to high, resulting in the barrage passing innocuously over the mutated Graeny's head. Before I could bring the fire to bear again, he raked my skin from shoulder to hip with his demonic talons.

"Ahh!" I screamed at the sight of my own blood being spilt. The monster charged me again; this time he would feel true pain. Clenching my fist, I let the power of the blue fire swell until an effulgent sphere had formed about my hand. Then, before Graeny could get those claws on me, I punched him, releasing the immured energy all at once in a blinding conflagration.

Straddling the scorched, reptilian body of Mr. Graeny like a victorious gladiator over a defeated enemy, I prepared to finish him off. "Smile you son of a bitch!" I shouted, prying open his jaws and, with both hands, reaching down his esophagus. Looking as if I were delivering a baby orally, I let all hell loose. The grotesque SOK campus president thrashed about in voilent spasms as he was incinerated from within by my pyro; he most definately had a reason to fear me, afterall. Beams of cobalt fire shot out from seams gashed open all over his coarse body, illuminating the night. Torching Graeny until he was a charred skeleton, I emptied my last reserves of strength, burning the crisp bones down to slag.

"And that's the end of that," I sighed, collapsing on my back in exhaustion. "I've saved the world..."

"We await your command, master," said several thousand voices in mindless unison. Jumping to my feet, I gawked at seeing the entire SOK student and faculty body -- along with eveyone else in the Aenurdtown area -- surrounding me. My first reaction was to give them a taste of the fire, but the sight of their servelity fizzeled out my flame.

"Master?" I gasped. Yes, it all made sense now -- actually, it made no sense, but that was besides the point. I had been the interloper ruler from the genesis; Graeny had simply instigated -- then manipulated -- the horde, thinking that I would be foolish enough to cooperate in unhatching the eggs, which would render me useless -- when all along I had the sole, innate power to destroy, therefore command, the interlopers.

I looked from face to face of the somber assembly, knowing the selfless subservience each and every one proffered me. Such power I felt! Before long, the entire planet would be under my subjugation.

"For your first order," I announced, "I'd like all young and attractive women to step forward for panty inspection."

"Pubert, don't let the interlopers claim you!"

"Huh?! Who said that?" I said, falling to the ground in consternation. It occured to me suddenly that no one had used my name for the past few days -- until now, and GTRDR, materializing out of the darkness, had uttered it.

"I'm an not the interlopers'; the interlopers are mine!" I retorted angrily. That nuisance of a boy was spoiling my moment of glory. "Subjects," I declared, recrudescing my attention the the endless amount of interlopers. "See to it that he is made one of us."

"You bastard!" snapped GTRDR, sidestepping the grasps of Walden, Gaeron, and Dr. Fuach. "Eat this!" he said, pulling out a pistol and shooting me. The bullet snapped my spine, mortally wounding me.

As I lie on the ground, slowly dying, my conscience came back to me. The human race without laughter, fear, sorrow -- and especially happiness, was not worth living for, even if I, Pubert, had irrefutable control over the whole shibang. Scanning the war-torn SOK campus, my last sight was of red-eyed, shadowy wraiths seperating from the bodies of interloper-victimized people, then combusting in coruscating burts -- all under the warm glow of the dawn that brought an end to that long, agonizing night.

"Thank you, GTRDR," were my last words.

THE END