Bum Magic: A Tale of Sludge and Slime

The grenade landed at my feet. I just barely had enough time to jump backwards before it exploded, sending shrapnel in every direction. Shards of metal tore through my pants and sliced my calf.

Mr. Mullet took a bag of white crystals out from his back pocket and threw a handful into his mouth like it was candy, crunching down on it with his mouth open. He spoke so fast that I could barely make out what he was saying.

“You think you’re real fuckin’ tough don’t you yeah fuck you and fuck Mickey too I’m done with all of this magic wizard bullshit I’m gonna blow you up and then I’m gonna go down there to where Mickey is and blow his ass up too!”

“...What?”

He threw another grenade. I was pinned at the end of the hall, my back pressed against the cold metal of the elevator door. I caught the grenade in the air with a blast of slime and knocked it backwards. It slid back to the middle of the hall and exploded. But he threw them too fast; there was no way I was going to get close enough to torch him or flick a booger bomb, and they’d probably destroy the keycard anyway. I pulled out my gun and pulled the trigger.

Click. Click.

Of course. I wasted my last bullets on those medium rare goons. That’s what I get for being nice, I guess. I was at a loss. It seemed like Mr. Mullet had an unlimited supply of grenades in his sack. He was relentless. I’d blast one away, and two more were instantly flying at my head. The middle of the corridor looked like the surface of the moon from all of the deflected blasts.

I deflected another grenade, but not quite far enough, and a spray of hot metal shards stuck into my thigh. Streams of blood trickled onto the floor. I needed to get out of that hallway before Mr. Mullet turned me into a damn pincushion. I slimed an incoming grenade with one hand, dug for gold in my nose with the other, and blew the door to my left open.

“Oh you wanna hide now like a little bitch what happened to all of that big talk huh come and get this keycard I fuckin dare you I fuckin dare you to fuck with Bartholomew Kensington III!”

“Seriously? That’s your name?”

I kept calling him Mr. Mullet in my head.

I limped hastily through the open door and was met with a magnificent kitchen and rows of tables. The counter housed an entire rack of ribs, a bowl of fried chicken, collard greens and mashed potatoes, but there was nobody in the room. It smelled fucking amazing. I was gonna have to come back here on my way out.

Mr. Mullet continued to ramble incoherently and throw grenades, trying to get them through the door. I stood with my back to the wall and pushed out any that came close to hitting their mark. I was still too far away to do anything to him. Even in a kitchen, it felt like I would starve to death before he ran out of explosives — or meth. In a last ditch effort, I held my hand above my head and showered myself with slime. I made sure I was real sloppy, and I hobbled as quickly as I possibly could out of the room. When I had gained enough speed, I flung myself to the ground. I slid down the hall on my belly and held my arms in front of me like I was Superman.

There were explosions coming from every direction, but I was sliding too fast; he couldn’t hit me. My cheek skin started to flap from the sheer speed I had built up. Once or twice, I had to quickly lean on my side to avoid a pothole, but within seconds, I cleared the entire corridor and collided with Mr. Mullet’s legs.

I felt like I’d been kicked in the teeth by an Olympic squatter wearing steel-toed boots. My head rang and sharp pain shot from the top of my head to the end of my spine, but it was nothing compared to what happened to Mr. Mullet. His legs were bent in twelve different directions, and his face was covered in blood from smacking into the wall. He didn’t seem too upset about it, though. There was a smile under the mask of blood. He didn’t have a single tooth in his head, but that might have been the case before he hit the wall. After a moment, he looked up at me and let out a raspy, clicking laugh that turned into a gurgle as his throat filled with blood.

My head stopped ringing and I stood up. I flicked my hands to get the slime off and dug through Mr. Mullet’s pockets for his keycard. I looked at his mangled, useless body and thought about putting him out of his misery. He looked back at me with sleepy eyes and continued to giggle in a disturbing monotone. It was like he was already dead and residual electricity was the only thing stimulating his body. I found the keycard in his back pocket and took it. Before I walked away, I delivered a swift kick to Mr. Mullet’s head and it bounced against the back of the wall. There was a wet crunch and his laughing stopped.

I walked around the craters and made my way down the hall. Thank fuck I didn’t slide into one of those. I would’ve been turned into a goddamn Pez dispenser. With the keycard in front of the scanner, the elevator produced an affirming beep! and its doors opened.

LEVEL 2. GOING DOWN