Echo: A Dystopian Science Fiction Novel

Bitefighter—my loyal buddy and 10 lb. Terrier Extraordinaire—stands on his hind legs on the back of my chair, balancing a funnel which is currently inserted into my lips.

“Roof?”

I mumble around the funnel:  “Pour it.”  (It comes out sounding like “Fo ith.”)

He tips a bottle of warm nacho cheese over the funnel.  I recline in my chair and close my eyes, allowing heavenly cheesiness to flood my mouth.  My Adam’s apple gulps up and down as I ride a Velveeta rocket ship straight to heaven.

“Aglaglaglagl….so good….aglaglagl….”

Suddenly, a bitter, chemical taste floods my mouth.  I sit up, sputtering, and blow out a mouthful of nastiness.  It gets all over my stomach, arms and thighs.  Through stinging tears, I raise my hands and see…

Red ink?  What the hell???

I look up and lock eyes with a pasty, bespectacled face, one that’s giving me a malevolent grin.  I turn around—dozens of skinny-limbed beta-males stream into my apartment, flooding it with pedantic nitpickiness.

Grammar Nazis.

Bitefighter is bound and gagged.  He’s squirming in fury, snarling as best he can around the rubber chew toy they’ve secured between his teeth.  They pin me to the chair and tie my wrists and ankles to the armrests and legs.

“What do you want?”  I try to keep my voice from shaking.

The lead Grammar Nazi folds his hands behind his back and begins pacing, that stupid grin still on his face.  “What all Grammar Nazis want, Kent.”  He stops pacing.

“To drown your work in red ink.”

I strain against my bonds and scream, “NEVER!  I’LL NEVER BOW DOWN TO THE LIKES OF—”

“SILENCE!”  He slaps me twice across the face—forehand then backhand.  He takes out a pen and writes something on my forehead.  I look at a mirror mounted on my bathroom door and I see that he’s scribbled “F+” in lurid red ink above my eyes.

He caps the pen and smiles.  “You wouldn’t want that F+ to turn into an F-, would you?”

I can’t help but laugh.  “An F+ from your micro-phallused ass is like scoring a goddamn 50 on a 10-point quiz.”

His face darkens with anger.  “You will see,” he hisses, “that it doesn’t pay to insult Grammar Nazis.  The only writing you’ll be allowed to do from here on out is college essays, or correcting other peoples’ essays with holy red ink.”

My eyes bug out and I start roaring like Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, rocking my chair wildly back and forth.  “I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!  YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME???  TAKE IT, GODDAMMIT!  I’M RIGHT HERE, ASSHOLE—I’M RIGHT HERE!!!”

In the midst of my tantrum, my eReader slips out of my pocket and opens to Echo, activating its reality-distortion powers.  Magic flash.

An interdimensional portal opens in my apartment, connecting my studio to a realm composed of pure novelty.  Tolkien, Hemingway, and Stephen King burst out of the portal, limned by a flutter of comic books.

Tolkien swings a longsword +7, slicing through Grammar Nazis like a hot knife through butter.  Hemingway throws a liter of whiskey down his gullet, then starts punching the fuck out of these nerdy cockfaces, burping loudly between hooks and haymakers.

Stephen King twirls a cloak and spins in place, giggling evilly.  Sickly eldritch light shoots from his eyes and envelops the Grammar Nazis.  They drop to their knees, clutching their heads and screaming in agony.  The top halves of their skulls pop off with a harsh-sounding CRACK, and their brains levitate up into the air.

Stephen King gestures at the brains.  They float toward him and disappear into the folds of his cloak.

“More brains to keep in my basement—AHAHAHAHAHAAA!”

He laughs, twirls again, and disappears in a flutter of bats.

Tolkien takes a running leap back into the portal, and I see him land on the back of a giant flying eagle.  Hemingway cracks two whiskey bottles over his skull, screams in exultation, then follows Tolkien into the extradimensional ether.

At this point, Bitefighter has freed himself from his bonds, and quickly frees me from mine.  He claps me on the shoulder and says:

“Rowf mcbark arf!”  (Let’s clean up this mess—there’s Grammar Nazi corpses all over your apartment.)

I place my hands on the armrests of my chair, ready to push myself up…but then I stop and shake my head.

“There’s still some cheese left.  Get the funnel ready.”

Bitefighter facepalms himself.  “Roof bark mcarf.”

(My human is a fucking idiot.)

Has your orgiastic injection of nacho cheese been interrupted by a hostile mob of Grammar Nazis?  Never fear!  Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here:  Vol. 1 on Kindle.  Vol. 2 on Kindle here:  Vol.2 on Kindle  Vol. 3 on Kindle here:  Vol. 3 on Kindle  #kindle #kindleunlimited #sciencefiction #scifi #books #novel #book