“Do you ever feel like you’re just doing the same thing over and over again?” Straight asked.

“I have never felt like that,” Mulligan said.

Straight gave a little laugh. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dago.

“I don’t know it’s just that lately I’ve felt like we’ve done this all before. Rauzchek, the aliens, all of it. Kind of different, but still the same. Do you know what I mean?”

“Not really, man,” Dago said.

“Ya, okay. I guess I’m just feeling like shit needs to change.”

“I think they’re leaving, man,” Dago said.

Straight let out a sigh. Was anybody even listening to him? He peered out the window toward the aliens. Sure enough, they were headed out. The bigger one had Rauzchek’s torso tucked under his arm as he hopped on his bike and took off. Behind him was the skinnier alien with the long neck who was holding an arm and from Straight’s vantage point what looked like a sausage. The alien looked down at his hover bike, possibly confused about how he was going to carry his cargo. He did a bit of cocking his head from side to side and dancing around, mentally measuring before setting the sausage on the seat. Happy with his decision, he carefully sat on it to secure the load. He then tucked the arm in between the bike and himself so that it reached around with its palm resting in his lap. He rode off with a smile on his face, from his own ingenuity. Following up the rear was the snail who had a foot tucked under each armpit and was dragging the legs behind him. It looked almost like he was dragging an invisible corpse.

“What now?” asked Dago.

Straight shrugged, “Wait for them to leave.” He waggled his finger in the direction of Dago. “Where does it say we need to go next on your map.”

Dago fumbled around in his pockets until he finally pulled out the map. After unfolding it and turning it clock-wise, then counter clock wise and then back again like it was the combination to a gym locker, he was able to decide on a position to hold it.

“I swear to god if you tell me you were wrong again, I’ll kill you,” Straight said.

Mulligan looked at Straight. “I do that sometimes. It’s because I can’t read.”

“No. I’m just trying to orientate myself to it again,” Dago said.

Straight craned his neck around, trying to peer over the map. “So where we going?”

“Looks like we just have to go over the bridge and make our way down to the river and then were there wherever there is.”

“Grouchy want’s to know if the aliens have left yet?” Mulligan asked.

“Who wants to know?” asked Dago.

“Huh?” replied Mulligan.

“You said, ‘Grouchy wants to know,’” said Straight.

“Uh, no I didn’t.”

“You definitely did,” Dago said.

“No. I said, uh, Grouchy wants to know if the aliens are gone yet.”

“That’s what we just said.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Whose Grouchy?” asked Straight.

“I don’t know,” said Mulligan.

“Dude, are you feeling okay?” Dago asked.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Ya, I feel fine.”

“Do you need more meds?” Dago asked.

“No, I just took some?”

“And you haven’t been using your coffee button?”

“Umm, no. But that’s a really good idea.”

“Don’t you dare touch that coffee button? You know how it burns through your meds.”

“I do what I want. I’m a big boy.”

“Fuck you, don’t do it.”

“Fine. I won’t,” Mulligan said, before turning to Grouchy, who was peeking out of a nearby trash can. Mulligan signed to the puppet in their secret language, “I’m totally going to do it.”

Grouchy covered his mouth as he let out a silent giggle, his shoulders heaving with the effort.

“What was that?” Dago asked.

“What was what?” Mulligan said.

“You just made the retard gesture.”

“I did what?”

“You know.” Dago beat his hand off his chest and made a neeeeerr sound.

Mulligan took a step back, offended. “Did you just call me a retard?”

“What? No. I would never call you that,” Dago said.

“Fuck you. You’re retarded!”

“I never called you retarded.”

“Hey, retards,” Straight yelled. “The aliens have left.”

“You’re retarded,” Mulligan whispered.

Dago threw up his hands in disgust. “Ya, okay. I’m the retarded one,” he said, as he turned and walked toward Straight taking a drink of his beer as he went.

Mulligan turned back toward Grouchy and signed with a series of chest beats and a flourish of arms over his head, “Don’t worry, I’ll never let them take you away from me again.”

Grouchy gave him the thumbs up, but what Mulligan didn’t know was that Grouchy had more nefarious plans ahead. The time he had spent as a fuck sock had left his mind clouded and stained.

“You coming?” Straight asked, looking back at Mulligan.

Mulligan nodded and picked up the pace, catching up to Dago and Straight.

Straight thrust out his arm, “Lead the way, Dago.”

“You sure they’re gone?” Dago asked.

“We’ll I don’t see them. Do you?”

“How do you know it’s not a trap?”

“I just saw them head back towards the bridge.”

“Probably trying to set us up with a false sense of security,” Dago said.

“Just get going,” Straight said, waving his hand out the door.

“Okay, but if they open fire, I’m ducking and letting you take the shot,” Dago said, heading out the door.

“Good luck with that. Bullets aren’t rape charges, you can’t dodge them.”

“Fuck you. That chick consented before she died.”

“Pretty sure she didn’t consent to being fucked while she was dead.”

“Hey, I paid for the full hour. I’m sure as hell going to take it. It’s not mu fault she overdosed.

“I feel like I should point out that you never actually paid her.”

“Hey I tried, but she couldn’t exactly take digital currency at the time.”

“What was it like having sex with a dead girl? Was it nice knowing she wasn’t going to laugh at your penis?” Mulligan asked.

“Uhh, there was that,” Dago said, not sure if Mulligan was throwing a jab at him or if it was a serious question. “And she wasn’t dead when we were having sex, just convulsing. Which added to the thrusting. Not to mention every muscle in her body seized up, wrapping that pussy so tight around my dick I thought she was going to give me a circumcision at the hair line. It was crazy, right up until we finished together.”

“She came?” Straight asked, surprised.

“No, she died, I came.”

They came to the intersection where they had encountered the aliens. There was no sign of them in the street or on the bridge. Straight motioned them onward. Their guns had already been drawn but now their fingers poised next to the trigger, ready to strike. It was all for naught. The closer they got to the bridge, the more it became clear that the aliens were gone, but it wasn’t until they crested the precipice of the structure and there was no sign of the alien invaders that they breathed a sigh of relief.

Straight looked back at the part of the city they had just left and then to the part of the city they had yet to enter. It was peaceful in an eerie way. The gunfire that had been echoing throughout the city had died off, and without the normal sounds of traffic and people, there was just a still calm.

Dago stood beside him, taking in the skyline. “All most makes me think we should have taken our vacation right here on this bridge.”

Straight sighed, “We kind of are.”

Dago rested the butt of his rifle on the ground. They were in the open, but they felt safe. It was a dumb mistake, and they knew it, but it didn’t change the way they felt, and that was a hard thing to overcome.

Mulligan came up beside them after holding back to have a conversation with Grouchy. It turns out Grouchy was into some really weird shit. Mulligan tried to shake the images of cardigan sweaters and trans morphed leprechauns out of his head. “You guys ever wonder if all leprechauns just look male but some of them actually have vaginas?”

“Geez man, way to kill the mood,” Dago said.

“Ya. Wow. I expect that stuff from Dago, but not you, Mulligan.”

“I didn’t mean to. It’s just that…” What was he going to say? That a shaggy green trash monster had been speaking about inappropriate sex?

“Well, let’s get going. Moments over,” Straight said.

“I said I was sorry.”

They walked down the bridge, a wide path cut before them from the alien tank. Vehicles that had been bashed and battered were piled along the sides.

“How much further?”

“Jesus, Mulligan. Don’t start that shit,” Dago said.

“I just wanted to know how much farther.”

“We get there, when we get there.”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“I do.”

“Then how much longer?”

“Thirty minutes.”

“You’re lying.”

“I swear if I have to shoot both of you I will,” Straight said, their voices fading into the city.