24 HOURS AGO

Another brutal wave sucker-punched the yacht, sending Russell flying out of the bathroom and into the hallway face-first. He skidded to a stop, half-naked, mascot leggings hiked around his thighs. The piss he hadn’t finished was now decorating his costume and the hallway floor.

“I pissed myself!” he hollered, sprawled out, clutching his bottle of vodka like it was the last thing holding him together.

It had already been one hell of a night, but from the looks of it, things were just getting started. The storm outside was raising hell, the lord of the ocean himself hammering on the hull, demanding to be let in.

Russell and Buzz were throwing the kind of party you only throw when the world’s ending, so it shouldn’t have been a shock when they plowed straight into the mother of all typhoons. Storm-of-the-century? Could be. But that didn’t stop them from cranking the rock music and riding it out while Buzz manned the helm, aiming for the nearest port.

No matter how loud they turned up the tunes, though, it wasn’t enough to drown out the old sea god pounding on their door.

“Buzz!” Russell yelled, his tongue too big for his mouth. “Buzz! I got piss on Blitz!”

“Get in here, goddammit!” Buzz’s voice boomed from somewhere down the galley, fighting to be heard over the yacht’s ship-wide sound system blasting 80s rock at full fucking throttle. Russell knew his captain was calling, but standing wasn’t a skill he seemed to possess anymore. Crawling felt like a safer bet. The yacht pitched hard, and Russell grunted like a wounded animal, slapping the floor to keep from sliding. He managed to get upright for a grand total of two seconds before the sea smacked the boat again, knocking him right back on his ass. It wasn’t a fair fight — he was going toe-to-toe with fucking Poseidon.

“Fuck you, you trident-swinging bitch!” he yelled, swinging a fist at nothing as he clawed his way forward.

Russell finally managed to crawl into the galley, looking up at what it had become. The place was wrecked — but not because of the storm. Weeks of hard living had turned the living space from a shrine to Spazz Energy into a temple of debauchery. The merch that once hung proudly had been torn down and repurposed as makeshift rags or impromptu blankets, while the walls were redecorated with spray-painted dicks and other crude creations of their caveman brains. The upholstery was a Jackson Pollock of spills, stains, and mysteries best left to a black light.

In short, it was fucked.

A shipment of empty liquor bottles rolled back and forth across the floor, clinking softly as the yacht tried its best to ride the waves. To Russell’s vodka-soaked brain, the floor looked alive, writhing and slithering toward him like it wanted to swallow him whole. “Buzz, help me!” he shouted, covering his head as the bottles descended.

Buzz looked up from the galley table, spooked by the creature crawling on the floor. From the look on his twitching face, he didn’t even remember calling for Russell at all. The bear-of-a-man had been nose-deep in a collection of maps and charts, while also nose-deep in the many mountains of Spazz that were piled around him. He was dual-wielding rolled-up hundred-dollar bills, one in each hand, their tips stained purple. And his eyes — Jesus. They were peeled so wide they nearly took over his whole face, and somehow his pupils were even bigger. Sat next to him was the blow-up doll — Rub N’ Tug Rhonda, they’d called her — grinning with that vacant O-shaped mouth of hers.

Russell stared, his drunken mind painting Buzz as the Scarface of Spazz. It fit. God help him, it fit.

“Russell!” Buzz yelled, cracking an unhinged smile as he realized the thing on the floor was his friend. “I think we’re fucked, bud!” He jammed a bill into his nostril for another nosedive of Spazz, then chased it down with a swig of rum, the kind of chug that said he’d long since stopped tasting it.

“It’s nothin!” Russell screamed. “Just fuckin’ rain! Chart a course, or some shit!” With that, Russell had expended the most of his maritime vocabulary and shifted gears, singing into the vodka bottle like it was a microphone. Eddie Van Halen was shredding through the speakers, the riffs cranked so loud it felt like Russell had front-row seats to the apocalypse. He soaked it all in, flat on his belly, a drunken rock star in the middle of a mega-storm.

“Would if I could, good man!” Buzz shouted, rolling with the nonsense. He used his rolled-up bills to pound out an air-drum solo, slapping at the piles of Spazz like they were little cymbals. He was high as a kite and happier than he had any right to be. “It’s just that I ain’t got a clue where we are. Fucked all the way, baby!”

“Wha?” Russell said, lowering his glass microphone. Didn’t know where we are?

As the boat bucked harder, Russell crawled through the galley like a drunk playing Frogger, dodging the rolling bottles and slipping on garbage, before finally reaching the table. He managed to pull himself up halfway, his head flopping onto the tabletop like a dead fish.

“Take a look for yourself,” Buzz said, first sliding a rolled-up bill toward Russell like a priest offering communion. They called it “getting your mind right.” One good line of Spazz down the sniffer could clear the fog, no matter how drunk you were. It wouldn’t make you a genius, but it could make terrible ideas seem like they had potential. Russell didn’t hesitate, snorting a line faster than Buzz could cut the next one.

With his mind “right,” Russell sat up, blinking at the maps Buzz had laid out. Grids, currents, coordinates — it might as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphics. For Russell, no amount of purple powder was going to help him make sense of nautical navigation.

“So, what the fuck?” he asked, looking up, clueless.

Buzz just shook his head, disappointed. He glanced at Rub N’ Tug Rhonda as if to say, Can you believe this guy?

“Well?” Buzz began. “Wasn’t you ever in the Boy Scouts?”

Russell thought over the question. His dad had made him join, hoping it would adjust some of Russell’s behavioral problems, sand down some of those rough adolescent edges. It did not.

“I got kicked out for stealing a jet ski.” Russell said.

Buzz snorted. He threw one of his big paws over the charts. “Take my word for it. We’re off course something awful. We ain’t just fucked — we’re on the far-side of fucked!”

Fueled by a nose-full of Spazz, Russell felt a wave of anger come over him. This was bullshit. An hour ago, Buzz said they’d be drinking Mai Tais in some cabana in no time, surrounded by bikini-clad women who’d do just about anything for a purple-stained hundred.

“What the hell, Buzz?” Russell snapped. “You said you knew how to read this shit!”

Buzz shot him a glare and twisted the volume knob, dialing down Van Halen to a manageable roar.

“We wouldn’t be slummin’ it like Leif Suck-My-Erikson if we still had the damn navigational system, Russ!”

They stared at each other, the kind of stare where both men rehashed the last few weeks in an instant. Right after Hawaii, when the booze came aboard, things devolved quick. Buzz had watched Russell romancing a bottle every night, having himself a grand old time, and Buzz simply cracked. He said the words you don’t come back from: “Just one won’t hurt me.”

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Russell had tried to keep Buzz on the wagon, but there’s only so much one man can do. Buzz didn’t just fall off — he dove headfirst and lit the whole wagon on fire behind him.

From there, chaos was inevitable. Drinking games to kill time morphed into all-night, booze-soaked bacchanals. They’d pound liquor like it was tap water, dream up grand plans they’d never follow through on, dance like idiots, fight over nothing, then hug it out before starting all over again. And somewhere in that loop, something always got broken.

The navigational system was one of the first things to go, smashed to pieces during a drunken fight in the helm over who got to play the love interest in a Spazz video skit with Rub N’ Tug Rhonda. Buzz had claimed he was the obvious choice — more charming, more believable. Russell wasn’t big on mutiny, but the vodka had him feeling like Adonis himself, and Buzz was gonna have to fight him for the honor of swooning the blow-up doll. The system didn’t survive their scuffle.

Since then, Buzz had been steering them by old sea charts, powered by the kind of delusional self-confidence that was his superpower — except when it came to cross-country sailing. They’d been off course for days, drifting deeper into the unknown.

Neither of them had to say it out loud — they both carried the blame, fuck-loads of it. Buzz, playing the bigger man, regrew his smile and tapped his bottle of rum against Russell’s vodka, a silent truce that said, let’s keep on truckin’.

“So what are we gonna do?” Russell said, gripping the edge of the table as another wave hammered the boat. The lights flickered, both of them freezing, thinking God Himself was about to weigh in. When the lights steadied and nothing happened, Buzz turned back, grinning like the lack of divine judgment was proof he was onto something.

“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do, buddy,” he said.

Without taking his massive eyeballs off of Russell, he dug around in the cushions and overturned bottles, finally pulling out the video camera. He slammed it on the table with a solid thunk.

“We’re gonna make a video.”

The thing looked like it had survived a war campaign, but it still worked. Still, Russell frowned, staring at his own fish-eye reflection in the lens.

“What? Why? Why, man?”

“What’dya mean, why? Because then we can send it to the Spazz suits and they’ll come save our asses! It’s perfect!”

Buzz was already on the move, caught up in his own momentum, but Russell wasn’t about to let it slide. “We haven’t sent them anything in weeks, Buzz! Best case, they think we’re dead. Worst case, they figure out we’re alive and completely screwed off with their boat. They’re gonna be pissed. We could probably go to jail!”

Buzz stopped just long enough to flash that unhinged grin of his. “Oh, buddy,” he said, almost laughing. “We’re definitely going to jail. That’s why we’re gonna hit ‘em with something they won’t see coming. The best goddamn video they’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Buzz swept his arms out wide, gesturing to the cathedral of depravity they’d created in the galley. “We’re gonna show them the true power of Spazz — exactly like they’ve been dreaming about. Those lunatics didn’t make some lame-ass study buddy. This shit is the best ride of my life! Weeks of non-stop partying, every day a bottle down the hatch, and I could still run a damn marathon. Buddy, I think they cracked the code on human evolution. And we’re gonna prove it.”

Buzz was breathing hard now, practically vibrating with excitement, every word winding him tighter. “And then,” he said, like an afterthought, “we ask ‘em to come get our asses.” With the booze and the camera still in hand, he hit Russell with his signature double-thumbs-up. The final blow was dealt.

A long time ago, Russell had decided he was in this with Buzz until the end, whatever that end may be. And right now, the end was looking pretty grim. But loyalty meant something to Russell. Who knows — maybe jail time would do him some good. Sand away those rough edges like his dad always wanted. Either way, the Spazz was telling him to do some crazy shit, and this sounded like it fit the bill.

He tipped back the bottle, took a long pull, and wiped his mouth.

“What do you need from me?”

Buzz’s grin stretched wider, the look of a man watching his master plan come together. “Get Blitz ready for a show,” he said, pointing upstairs toward the top deck. “And meet me up top in two minutes.”

He started climbing the stairs, then stopped, turning back like he’d forgotten one small detail. “And put your dick away.”

Russell looked down, disappointed to see he’d been hanging out this whole time. “Aw, shit!”

----------------------------------------

The top deck was a living nightmare. Wind howled like a pack of wolves, rain came down in sheets, and thunder cracked like a bar brawl in the sky. Lightning stewed in dark clouds, each flash revealing mountains of angry water all around them, ready to bury them.

“We’ll make it work!” Buzz yelled over the storm. Russell, hunched over the side of the yacht, was busy unloading days of bad decisions into the ocean, racoon claws gripped to the railing for dear life. He’d shoved the Blitz headpiece up above his own, trying to keep it clean as he hurled. Besides the mascot leggings, the head and those doofy-looking paws were the only parts of the costume he’d managed to grab in the scramble. Rain pelted his exposed chest.

“I need the rest of the get-up!” Russell shouted back, wiping his mouth with the back of his raccoon paw. “I look like an asshole!”

Buzz didn’t miss a beat. “You always have! Let’s get this show on the road!” He stuffed a wad of Spazz into his gums like it was chaw, then got the camera rolling. He raised it, pointed it at Russell. “Alright, Blitz! Tell the good people how you’re feeling!”

Russell heaved again, spilling more of his poisoned guts over the side, but somehow managed to flash a furry thumbs-up toward Buzz. “Million bucks!” he croaked. “Spazz is the shit!”

Buzz lowered the camera, shaking his head all spastic-like. “Buddy, you gotta sell it! Tell ‘em all the amazing shit you’ve done on Spazz!”

Lightning clouds once more lit up the sky, and for a moment, the sail loomed above them like a mighty redwood. Russell’s eyes widened as he took it all in. Lit up in the flash, the sail's slogan burned neon: SPAZZ: JOLT YOUR INSIDES. It seared across the night, etching itself permanently into Russell’s booze-soaked brain. As fucked up as he was, he had to admit, he was starting to appreciate the power of in-your-face marketing. Then again, maybe that was just the Spazz talking.

“Russ!” Buzz shouted, twirling his finger, indicating the camera was filming. Russell tugged the raccoon head down over his own, trying to channel the slick salesman vibe Buzz had drilled into him.

“Thanks to Spazz, there’s nothing I can’t fuckin’ do!” he drunkenly declared, voice full of fake pep.

“Good, real good,” Buzz said, chewing the inside of his gums. “Keep it going.”

Russell struck a ridiculous pose, jazz hands and all. “With Spazz, I can party all night, like all the cool kids! Forget those other drugs — cool kids do Spazz!”

Buzz grinned. “That’s it, baby! Appeal to the youth. Now tell ‘em how you can boof it! Club kids love boofin’ shit.”

Russell hesitated but forced another thumbs-up at the camera. “Spazz! You can boof it!”

Another of Poseidon’s violent waves slammed onto the deck, nearly tossing Russell overboard. He clung to the railing, coughing up seawater through his mascot head.

“Russ, you okay?” Buzz yelled, steadying himself against the rocking deck. “We gotta finish this thing! Don’t forget to tell ‘em we need someone to come save our asses!”

Russell hauled himself upright, soaked, swaying, and numb. Maybe it was the power of seeing Spazz’s slogan branded into the sky, or maybe he’d hit the eye of his own personal drug-fueled storm, but for the first time in weeks, his head felt clear.

“Maybe I should’ve stayed in the Boy Scouts,” he blurted out. Then, quieter, “Buzz, my dad… he thinks I’m a disappointment, man.”

Buzz blinked, caught off guard, but recovered fast. He raised the camera like it was all part of the plan. “Yeah, okay. The family angle, that could work! Tell ‘em you miss ‘em. Give ‘em a reason to come get us.”

Russell kept shouting over the storm, his voice raw and wild. “It’s not just him — everyone thinks I’m a big goddamn failure. A dropout, a quitter, a drunk!” He jammed the vodka bottle into Blitz’s open mouth, chugging the last of it with a vengeance, then hurled the bottle into the raging sea.

“But I’m not a failure!” he screamed. “I’m good at a lot of stuff — just like you said, Buzz! And I’m real good at slinging Spazz. SO LOOK AT ME NOW, DAD!”

He lurched forward, pushing past Buzz and the camera, his steps as unsteady as the deck beneath him. Straight for the mast he went, rain slicking the metal rungs, lightning clouds flashing above like a bad omen. Buzz kept him in the frame, tracking his every move, still trying to salvage the wreck of a pitch.

“Russell, buddy,” he called, “what the hell are you doing?”

Russell didn’t answer. He grabbed hold of the mast’s rungs and started to climb, wind howling in his ears. The steps were slick, but he didn’t slow down. He just kept climbing, higher and higher, like he had a date with destiny at the top.

Buzz kept the camera rolling, but the higher Russell went, the more his bravado slipped. “You sure you’re good, buddy? Be safe and all that shit!”

“Just keep filming!” Russell shouted, his voice muffled by the raccoon head. Whatever plan he had, it was waiting for him at the top, and he wasn’t about to quit now. The Spazz was firing on all cylinders, pushing him up the mast like it was nothing.

When he finally reached the top, mast swaying in the storm, Russell looked down at Buzz. He jabbed a finger straight at the camera, rain dripping off the raccoon’s snout.

“I’m Russell motherfucking Murphy, and there ain’t nothing I can’t do!” With a bit of wind-up flare, he turned his point towards the sail, towards the massive slogan plastered onto the fabric. “Spazz, jolt your motherfucking insides!”

Russell perched himself on the top rungs of the mast, letting go to strike a series of Ironman poses and Herculean flexes. He didn’t have the muscle to sell it, not even close, but you had to admire the sheer balls of the performance. Courageous? Sure. Drug-induced? Absolutely. Buzz couldn’t help but grin behind the camera. The kid had it. Always did. And maybe he was starting to see himself the way Buzz always saw him.

In that moment, Buzz indeed felt a “jolt to his insides”, not the Spazz kind, but something sharper — like the ghost of clarity from his long-gone sober days. He’d screwed up their entire voyage, no question, and dragged Russell down with him. There was no way they weren’t in a world of trouble with the suits back home, but he’d take the fall. All of it. When the smoke cleared, Russell would move on to bigger things. Hell, maybe even great things. And Buzz? He’d haul his ass back to recovery. That is, if they made it out alive.

Buzz let out a roar from below. “Yee-haw! That’s right, baby! Forget Blitz — Russell Murphy is the biggest badass I’ve ever met. And if you wanna party like him, our last known coordinates are—”

“Buzz!” Russell shouted. His high perch gave him a wicked view of something Buzz could not yet see — something that even his Spazz-addled brain told him was bad news. A wave was coming, biggest he’d ever seen.

But Buzz didn’t look. Still too busy telling the camera their last-known position. “Buzz!” Russell yelled again, pointing now, but by the time Buzz caught on, it was already over.

The wave hit hard and mean, like Posideon’s dick flopped onto the top deck. Water slapped the splintering planks, knocking deck chairs into the sea, crashing through with a sound that could split your soul. Buzz went flying, somersaulting ass-over-teakettle into the galley, screaming Russell’s name on his way down.

Russell didn’t get off easy, either. The wave slammed him into the mast with the kind of force that could fold a car. The only thing between his skull and certain death was the stupid raccoon head, which took the brunt of it. Blitz’s face crumpled like a beer can, and Russell was left clinging to both consciousness and the mast as the yacht leaned hard to port, dangling him out over the raging, black waters.

“I’m coming, Buzz!” he yelled, spitting blood, but the wind stole his words and threw them out to sea. Through the busted eye of the raccoon head, Russell caught a glimpse of the sky shifting, twisting, mutating. Lightning cracked the tempest wide open, a thundering roar tore through the void. Poseidon’s brother, it seemed, had joined the fun.

“I’m too drunk for this shit!” Russell shouted to the sky, but Zeus came down anyway, finger-fucking the yacht with a mighty bolt to the mast. The whole yacht groaned, shuddering as the surge ripped through it, and Russell finally experienced a trademark jolt to his own insides, blessed upon him by the God of Lightning himself.

In a blinding explosion, he felt himself blown free — out of the furry gloves, out of Blitz, and straight into the black.

He hit the waves like a stone, the sound of Buzz’s voice disappearing with him.

And that was it. The last thing Russell Murphy remembered before he woke up on the island.