SHORT FAT STUBBY FINGER STORIES PRESENTS:  THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

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EPISODE 97

  Suddenly, a burst of light exploded so hard as Rangor entered the room it threatened to set the fire system off.   The voice screamed out, ‘Now!’, and Professor Robinson shut his mouth and rolled as fast as he could to reach the right end of the lounge and get himself behind it as a burst of energy blasted the leather covering with so much force it split the lounge in half and blasted a hole in the wall behind it.  The professor’s choice of selecting the right end of the lounge to hide behind had been purely co-incidental.  He had been warned to make himself safe, but he had not been mollycoddled and told where to go; he had just been lucky.

   The two men still on their knees opened their eyes at the sound of the explosion, and then saw the smoke that now came out of the wall and spread itself into the room.  They looked at each other in confusion, failing to understand the fog-like atmosphere that was being created in the room, for they had not realised that Rangor had entered the room.  But they quickly became aware of his presence, and his intentions as a thunderbolt hurtled across the room, knocking the unnamed man so hard that he was thrown up against the wall five feet from floor level.  So forceful was the subsequent blast that blood ran freely from where once his eye had been set, and down what remained of his face into his open mouth.  But he had no time to feel the pain.  He somehow got up onto his feet and tried to run, but a volley of white lightning sped through the air, cutting him down like a butterfly caught in the rain.  He was dead, long before his smoking remains floated to the floor below.

   Sharkie was beside himself in fear.  Transfixed, he just stood there, staring, as this incredible disaster took place around him.  The Punjaniti stopped its display of destruction, and turned its gaze to him.  A repulsive odour filled the room, and the face moved within inches of Sharki’s.

   “You were warned,” the voice rasped.  “There was a penalty to pay for the services of the Punjaniti if you got it wrong, and you got it wrong.  You failed me and now you die!”
  “But we did what you asked.”  Sharkie whimpered, “We attached a ruby to every one of them with the exception of Joseph as you told us.”

  “You failed!’ The proxy said, its voice so deep, so guttural, Sharkie suddenly, mentally, felt, rather than recalled, the horror and torment he himself had placed on his victims in their last moments on this mortal coil … and for the first time in his life Sharkie felt the horror of absolute terror; a terror so strong that it brought tears to his eyes.

  Terrified at the thought of his own pending demise, Sharki opened his mouth to scream out his innocence, but no sound emitted.  Flames wide enough to engulf the entire room came out of the creature’s mouth.  So hot, the paint began peeling off the wall and ceiling; liquid paint now dribbling down onto Sharki’s ever reddening scalp.  The sprinklers went off this time, just a split second before the nozzles melted, and the alarms screamed so loudly that they could be heard for miles as Sharki exploded into a thousand boiling pieces that splattered across the entire room before he could get the first note of his intended final scream off the tip of his tongue.