“I speak…”  The Lorax clicks a magazine into his rifle, sends the bolt home, and settles into a prone firing position.  “…for the motherfucking trees.”

“What the fuck!”  I flinch back in shock.  “Come on, man—you said we were going for a walk in the woods!”

“Goddamn Floridian militia-larper hillbillies,” he mutters, peering into the optic.  “Threatening me with nonconsensual relations involving my face and my butt…think I’m gonna let you just—”

Off in the distance, a hillbilly shouts, “There he is!  Let’s have nonconsensual relations with his face and his butt!” 

A moment later, the grove erupts with automatic fire.  The Lorax empties his mag in a matter of seconds.  “AAAAHHHHHH!!!”  His mustached face contorts with rage. 

I drop to the deck and cover my ears, screaming we need to get the fuck out of here, there’s too damn many of them.  The Lorax slaps a fresh mag into the well, slams the bolt home, and shouts, “Good call!  Back to the ATV!”  I glimpse his spherical body sprinting for the vehicle and scramble up after him. 

Relief floods through me—he’s come to his senses and decided to flee—but it turns to horror as he slaps a button on the dash, transforming the vehicle into a pop-up .50 cal.  He jumps in the turret, clack-clacks the charging handle, then double-fists the grips and lets ’er rip. 

“RUAAAAAHHHHH!  I’LL KILL YOU ALL, YOU SISTER-FUCKING HEATHENS!!!  EAT THE FUR OFF MY SEUSS-DEPICTED SHIT!”  Leaves vanish in stop-motion tics, eaten by a storm of unrelenting metal.

POOM, POOM, POOM.  Cold terror seizes my gut:  the hillbillies are using portable grenade launchers.  I squirt up from the ground, intending to pull the Lorax down behind cover, but the world explodes into dust and sparks and air-warping pressure—

“SHIIIIIIIITTTTT!!!”

—and sends us flying in a 1980s-style, action-movie flame jump. 

I cough and blink away smoke-infused tears.  The Lorax landed on his back—he’s brass-checking the chamber on his rifle.  “Don’t worry.”  He throws me a nod.  “I’ve daisy-chained the grenades on my vest.  There’s no way they’re gonna take us alive.”

“What the FUCK?!?” I sputter.  “I didn’t sign up for this!”

“Wanna take your chances with nonconsensual relations?” he barks.  He one-hands his rifle, pulls the pin on a grenade, and holds the spoon in place with his non-firing hand, effectively creating a dead man’s switch. “Those twisted bastards’ll fuck a goat on a rope!” 

Catchy as that sounds, I have no idea what it means (aside from the purely literal definition).  Regardless, I’d rather not surrender to either fate, whether that’s dying by ka-boom, or getting my holes flooded with 2^nd amendment-tattooed, deep-fried sperm.  So I open my eReader to a Kent Wayne novel, activating its mind-bending reality distortion powers.  Magic flash. 

UFOs swoop in low, dropping their ramps and ejecting a horde of naked Bigfoots; they’re packing three foot dicks that have nasty-looking quills on their shafts and glans.  The hillbillies erupt into panicked gibbers as Sasquatches run through their ranks, booga-booga-booga-ing with their scary-ass penises bobbing and twitching like crude spikey clubs from a nasty post-apocalypse movie.  In less than a minute, they drive off the hillbillies, hop back in their saucers, and zip off to God knows where.

“You ruined my fun,” the Lorax grumbles as he reinserts the pin.  “Asshole.”

I don’t know what to say.  All I can muster is a disbelieving look.

Fucking psycho.

Have you been suckered into a “nature walk” with a storybook creature that neglected to tell you about his war-boner death-wish?  Never fear!  Buy my books, summon a horde of spike-penised Squatches, and scare away your murderous foes!

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