SG: Sporkman #11 - A New Threat

Greg Fishbone greg at gfishbone.com
Thu Dec 20 18:56:24 PST 2007


     Mickey Dunne finished speaking on the airship intercom while
Samuel L. Jackson practiced his lightsaber moves and Courtney from
"Survivor: China" built a shelter out of seat cushions and the bones
of deceased First Class passengers. Mickey hung up the intercom
handset and frowned.

     "Well?" asked Samuel as he spin-kicked down the aisle. "What did
they know in Coach Class about the motherfarkin' lemurs?"

     "It was very strange," said Mickey. "She just kept asking me over
and over again whether we'd tested if Kong's a reader."

     "What? Who does she think we are, King Kong's motherfarkin' third
grade teachers?"

     "It must have been a code!" Courtney dropped to the floor and
began tracing strange symbols with the tip of her bony finger. "If we
can figure it out, maybe we'll win a reward challenge!"

     Mickey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you keep working on that. I'll
call the Luxury Level and make sure they're still safe up there."

* * *

     "...and then I made a humorless DVD of my stand-up comedy routine
in which I continually refer to sandwiches as 'sangwiches'!" Dane Cook
told the assembly. "Get it? Sangwiches? It's as if I'm a grown man
with the vocabulary of a three-year-old!"

     It was O. J. Simpson's turn with the comedian, yet again, and
this time he emptied a clip of bullets directly into the man's head.
"Why... won't... you... die?" he demanded.

     "I get that reaction a lot," said Dane. "I've been abused by so
many displeased audiences that I've become almost entirely immune to
physical injury. By now it would take nothing less than a ravenous
pack of rabid lemurs to do me in." He put a World Series 2007 hat on
his bruised, bloody, and bullet-ridden scalp. "Good night everybody!
Don't forget to tip your flight attendants and tell your friends to
catch me at the Ha-Ha Factory in St. Louis on the 12th, Louie's
Laugh-Riot in Minneapolis on the 16th, or at Busta Gutt in Kansas City
on the 22nd!"

     Dane Cook then stepped off the Luxury Level stage, directly into
a ravenous pack of rabid lemurs who ripped the flesh from his bones.
The VIP audience of politicians and celebrities were so boisterous in
their applause, they didn't even seem to notice when the lemurs
finished their meal and turned on Ann Coulter and Michael Jackson.

     At the back of the stage, Jeanette LeBlanc felt a hand cover her
mouth while an arm wrapped around her torso from behind. A shoulder
pressed against her wetly, like cloth that had been drenched in
burrito-scented drool. "Be still, Jeanette LeBlanc," a voice commanded
in her ear. "My name is Underling Number Thirteen, and I have come a
long way to find you." He loosened his hand, allowing her to speak.

     "Eet is just as I suspected," said Jeanette, her voice barely a
breath. "Zhose lemurs were sent here to kill me, weren't zhey?"

     "No," said Number Thirteen. "They're here to kill me."


*****************************************
**  The Sporkarific Sporkman
**  Episode #11: A New Threat
**  By Greg R. Fishbone
**
** Lemurs on a Dirigible #6 of 10, count 'em, 10
*****************************************


     "Kill them all, my little pets!" exclaimed zombie Bill O'Reilly
as his excited horde of lemurs tore through the ranks of VIPs in the
Luxury Level.

     "Now see, this is what I've been warning about for years," said
Michael Moore. "The outsourcing of American jobs in the automotive
industry created an impoverished economic zone around Flint, Michigan,
which was allowed to fester under a regime of permissive gun laws and
a health system bogged down by corporate interests and lemurs!"

     "Forget the rest of them, my little pets." Bill O'Reilly pointed
a fetid zombie finger at Michael Moore. "Just kill that guy!"

     "Yeah, good luck with that," said Michael Moore, remaining still
even as the lemurs leapt at him. "I've surrounded myself by a
protective layer of fat just for instances like this one!"

     "I'm the one you want, Bill!" shouted Underling Number Thirteen.
He still held Jeanette with an arm around her midsection and a hand on
her windpipe.

     Bill O'Reilly's evil smile widened. "Number Thirteen! How nice of
you to save me the trouble of tearing this airship apart to find you.
And I see that you've got Jeanette LeBlanc with you. How convenient!"

     "It doesn't matter if you kill me, but at least I'll save
Jeanette from your evil cult."

     "Wrong!" Bill exclaimed. "It is I who will save Jeanette from you!"

     "You are both wrong," Jeanette gasped. "My boyfriend will save me
from both of you!"

     Bill O'Reilly and Number Thirteen looked at each other.

     "Boyfriend?" asked Number Thirteen. "Did you know she had a boyfriend?"

     Bill O'Reilly shook his head.

     Jeanette's face turned bright red. "Well, zhat is to say, he's a
boy and he's a friend... I mean we did sleep togezher--but nothing
happened--but it could have, if we hadn't both fallen asleep..." She
took a breath and spoke with newfound strength. "Either way, he's a
superhero and I have a hunch zhat he's going to kick both your
asses... right... about... NOW!"

     Bill O'Reilly and Number Thirteen looked around them for a long
moment. The only sound was the hum of the airship engines and the
continuing gnawing of lemurs working their way through Michael Moore's
protective layers of fat. Then the intercom handset jangled.

     "It seems your boyfriend is phoning this one in," said Bill O'Reilly.

     Number Thirteen shuffled over to the intercom, dragging Jeanette
with him. "Answer it, and tell whoever it is that everything is fine
here."

     Jeanette nodded and reached for the handset. "Allo?"

     "Jeanette? It's Mickey," said the voice on the other end.

     "Allo, Mickey. Did you find zee missing mayor?"

     "Yeah... you could say that. Listen, there are some dangerous
creatures on this flight so I need you to keep everyone calm. Can you
do that?"

     "But of course."

     "Good. Samuel L. Jackson and I will be back as soon as we can--we
just need to check the cockpit to make sure the crew's okay."

     "Somezhing is wrong with zee crew?" asked Jeanette.

     "It could be nothing, but we haven't been able to reach them with
the intercom."

     "But wizhout a crew, who will land zee airship?"

     "We'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I'll
see you soon, Jeanette."

     "See you soon, Mickey. Hurry back!"

     Number Thirteen took the phone from her and hung it up. "It seems
we won't be interrupted for a while after all. Now, let's see what we
can do to resolve this stalemate."

* * *

     "What's wrong?" asked Samuel.

     Mickey frowned. "Jeanette sounded a little off. Like there was
something else she wanted to say but couldn't. Maybe we should check
on the Luxury Level before we tackle the cockpit?"

     "That's not the action hero way," said Samuel.

     "Okay then, what would you do if this were one of your movies?"

     "Ah, well, in an action movie this is the part where I'd make
some dramatic exclamation before scrounging through the cargo hold for
something to turn into a kick-ass flamethrower."

     "A dramatic exclamation?"

     "Yeah. You know, a memorable catch phrase for the trailer and
commercials. Like... let's get these motherfarkin' lemurs off this
motherfarkin' dirigible!"

     "That's not very memorable," Mickey noted.

     Samuel shrugged. "What do you expect with all the motherfarkin'
screenwriters on strike? Let me work on it..."

     "I've got it!" Courtney exclaimed, looking up from her spot on
the floor. "KONG'S A READER is an anagram for A NAKED ROGERS! That
must be the person controlling the killer lemurs!"

     "A naked Rogers?" asked Mickey, doubtfully.

     "Either that or A DANKER GORSE," said Courtney. "Or A DRAGON'S REEK."

     "A Dragon's Reek? Sounds like that could have been Bill
O'Reilly's nickname back in college," said Samuel.

     "Bill O'Reilly?" asked Mickey. "The Fox talk show host?"

     "That does seem pretty unlikely," Samuel admitted. "If one of my
movies had a plot twist that lame, I'd go medieval on the director."

     "How 'bout GEEKS ON RADAR?" asked Courtney. "Or...oh! I have it!
We need to find Jeff Probst right away and choose between risking our
lives or drinking too much rice wine!"

     "Huh?"

     "DANGER OR SAKE!" Courtney exclaimed. "Duh!"

     Samuel gave his head a sad shake. "39 days in the wilderness with
that Probst guy must have really scrambled your motherfarkin' skull."

     "How's the catchphrase coming, Samuel?" asked Mickey.

     "Still working on it. Hey, aren't lemurs some kind of primates?
Like chimpanzees?"

     "I think so."

     "And a dirigible is just a blimp with a rigid structure, right?"

     "Yeah. So what?"

     "So..." Samuel straightened his shoulders and raised his arm in a
dramatic pose. "Let's get these motherfarkin' chimps off this
motherfarkin' blimp!"


PAINFUL, I KNOW, BUT PROBABLY NO WORSE THAN GETTING THE MOTHERFARKIN'
GOATS OFF THE MOTHERFARKIN' BOAT.

OR THE MOTHERFARKIN' CHICAGO CUBS OFF THE MOTHERFARKIN' NUCLEAR SUB.

PROBABLY.

We'll get the motherfarkin' [ANIMALS] off the motherfarkin' [MODE OF
TRANSPORTATION] on the next Sporkarific Sporkman, only on [GUY WHO IS
SUPER]!


AUTHOR'S NOTES:

[1] Thank you, Internet Anagram Server! [http://wordsmith.org/anagram/]

[2] I guess Jeanette's hunches either aren't infallible, or she has
trouble interpreting them while under stress.

[3] Sporkman is on vacation until January 7th, and I am out of here!

-- 
Greg R. Fishbone - http://gfishbone.com
* Author: THE PENGUINS OF DOOM - http://septinanash.com
* President: Class of 2k7 - http://classof2k7.com
* ARA: New England SCBWI - http://nescbwi.org


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