The following was posted by Big Larry (despite being a Beacon of Light), under the title "The Truth About Twinkies." He claims it was disguised as the first chapter of an 'impro' simply because nobody would believe that it was a plausible scenario. Take that for what it's worth.
Only three things are going to survive a nuclear war: cockroaches, Twinkies, and Keith Richards. Keith is gonna come strolling out with his guitar slung on his back. "I saw a bright light. I thought we was on!"
— Bill Hicks, "Just for Laughs" comedy festival, 1990
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[Spengler picks up a Hostess Twinkie from the workbench.]
SPENGLER: Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. According to this morning's PKE sample, the current level in the city would be a Twinkie 35 feet long weighing approximately six hundred pounds.
WINSTON: That's a big Twinkie.
— "Ghostbusters," written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd
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There is always a first moment; this was that first moment, when it was first self-aware, when it first knew life. It found itself in a cocoon of sorts, lying on its side in the floor of some sort of building, large with rows of foodstuffs and tile on the floor, dark except for the glow from the flames of the city burning outside the frames of what used to be large tempered-glass windows at the front of the building.
It wriggled about and with a rustle and pop, it struggled free of that sheath that surrounded it and observed as many of its brothers and sisters did the same. It knew nothing other than the fact that it was alive. It began to move itself slowly along the floor, toward the strange orange glow. It was aware of movement for a long time, and its progress along the linoleum was slow.
It suddenly stopped and quivered, as if sensing the air. It then seemed to make a decision and moved again toward the orange glow coming from the front of the building.
As it moved forward, a pocket-sized poodle entered the building, sniffing the air. The dog padded through the store, up and down several aisles, sniffing at various items on the shelves and on the floor. The dog turned up the aisle where it lay still.
It waited as the dog came and sniffed and licked it. The dog began to nose at it, rolling it over on its back. As the dog attempted to lick the bottom of it, it compressed, spraying white creamy foam into the face of the dog. The dog did not even have a chance to yip before falling over, dead, head dissolving.
It moved into the pool of dissolved flesh and bone, spongy body absorbing the semi-fluid. It grew in size as it soaked up the viscous mess.
And suddenly it knew what was outside the building and knew the dog's name was Fluffy.
And Gregor Mendel and James A. Dewar spun in their graves.
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Absolutely The Very Last Final Post-Apocalypse End-of-the-World Story
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…or so we claim right now until someone writes another one
Chapter 1: The End
by Larry Alton "t.ogre" Garrett
Concept by Larry Alton "t.ogre" Garrett
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Garrick Harcourte ("Gary" to pretty much everyone but his mother) awakened to darkness and what sounded like thunder. He opened his eyes and rolled over to look at the clock, only to find its digital face cold and empty.
"Great. The damn power's out again," he mumbled to himself. Reaching onto the nightstand, he located his cigarettes, his lighter, and his watch. He glanced at the face of his watch, an old mechanical analog Timex. Unfortunately, living in a basement apartment had its drawbacks, one of which was the dearth of windows. He couldn't see a thing.
He slid a cigarette out of the package and into his mouth, then flipped open his Zippo and turned the wheel, or at least tried to turn the wheel. It didn't turn. He had used up the flint.
Gary groaned in frustration and rolled to the edge of the bed. He swung his feet down and sat there for a moment, trying to remember if he had another working lighter. The disposable in his jacket had run out of fluid last week. But he had matches in the pouch, he thought.
Gary reached over toward the foot of the bed and grabbed the handle of his wheelchair. He rolled the chair over to him, leg rests facing away from him so he could more easily access the pouch hanging from the back of the chair. He groped in the pouch momentarily, finally finding the matches within his checkbook.
He struck a match and lit his cigarette. He looked at his watch in the glow of the small flame. The time was 8:17 AM. As he began to shake the match to put it out, he noticed something written inside the cover. He looked closer at the tiny curled handwriting. It was Chandra's penmanship, with her phone number and a request for him to call her, with little Xs and Os and hearts.
As Gary read the text, the match burned down to his fingers.
"Ow! Damnit!"
He reached for his cell phone.
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It moved toward the front of the building, toward the light and flame. It was now eighteen inches long, and it had a goal.
Go through the light. Find human. Human will feed me.
It moved through the shattered remnants of the front windows, tearing chunks of itself away on the broken shards still protruding from the bottom part of the frame. But as soon as those chunks were ripped away, the gaps they left behind were refilled by the spongy exoskeletal surface.
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Chandraleksha Sorana ("Chandra" to pretty much everyone but her parents) awakened to darkness and what sounded like thunder. She opened her eyes and rolled over to look at the clock, only to find its digital face cold and empty.
Chandra was the complete opposite to Gary's blond wiry six foot plain vanilla wheelchair-bound Celticness. She had tawny skin, dark hair and twinkling golden eyes, just over five feet tall, with both Japanese and Indian features, inherited from her father and mother, respectively. Whereas Gary had always been rather sedentary, even before the accident that claimed his legs, Chandra had always been energetic and active, having studied dance in all her formative years. They had been fast and solid friends ever since the month following Gary's accident when Chandra had been assigned as his physical therapist. And sometime in the last six months, Chandra had decided she wanted more than just friendship.
"Great. The damn power's out again," she mumbled to herself. Reaching onto the nightstand, she located her prescription bottle. Shaking it, she could tell she was almost out of her Tegretol, maybe half a dozen pills left. She reached up and got her Amaryl; that bottle was almost full. Removing one pill from each bottle, she dry-swallowed the two pills together so if she went back to sleep, she wouldn't have to remember during her frenetic dash to get ready when she finally got out of bed about twenty minutes before she had to leave for work.
She grabbed her cell phone from the nightstand and flipped it open to check the time. The light did not come on. Chandra growled in frustration and sat up.
She closed her eyes and took three deep breaths to calm herself down. Once she had exhaled the third time, she moved to the edge of the bed and stood. Having covered her windows months ago due to someone watching her from the building across the street, Chandra had to navigate the apartment in total darkness. She slowly inched her way across the room, sliding her feet on each step until she found the bathroom. Unfortunately, she found the doorframe with her toe first, as she had left the door open the night before.
Chandra bit her bottom lip to stifle a scream and hobbled into the bathroom where, standing gingerly, she picked up her watch and pressed the illumination button, to no avail.
She gritted her teeth and took another deep breath to calm herself. Upon exhaling, she carefully moved along the edge of the bathroom counter until she found the toilet.
Once she was done, she slowly maneuvered her way back to the bed. She crawled back in, pulling the covers up over her head and deciding that she would just not go to work that afternoon.
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It continued to perambulate through the burning city, heading toward the parkside apartments East of the store. It still was searching for its master (actually, the dog's master, but it didn't know it wasn't a dog).
As it reached the corner of Park Place and First Street, a building next to the park collapsed, causing flame to shoot out of the wreckage in all directions. It was caught in one of these jets, a blowtorch-like flame from a broken gas line. As it scrambled for safety (as much as something that propels itself in the manner of an earthworm can scramble), it realized something. Although it did become warm and changed color a slight bit, it did not burn.
It began to frolic in the flame and wreckage.
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Gary pressed the power button on his cell phone to no avail. He unplugged the recharging cord from the bottom of the phone, wondering if having the charger plugged in during a power outage was grounding out the battery. Still no lights or power on the phone.
"That figures," he mumbled. "When I want the damn thing to work, it doesn't."
He turned the wheelchair sideways against the bed and lifted himself into it. Being disabled held a few surprising advantages for Gary, one of which was his ability to navigate freely about his house in the dark. For some reason, not being able to walk made his eidetic memory much stronger, and now, even in the oily blackness of his room, he knew the exact location of each piece of furniture, of each picture on the wall, of each doorframe in and out of the room, things he would have formerly needed to see in order to locate.
He rolled across to his closet and retrieved his sticks, the aluminum crutches with the straps for securing the forearm in place. Moving back to the bed, Gary placed his sticks by the pillow and then rapidly transferred himself out of the wheelchair and moved it back out of the way. He strapped himself into the sticks and began his morning ablutions.
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It finally decided to move on from the flame and wriggled out of the wreckage, slightly darker now, its outer layer hardened by the heat into a soft shell, enough to considerably limit its movement. It writhed for a moment, attempting to move as it did before and finding itself unsuccessful.
It sat there for only minutes before an elderly gentleman wearing what appeared to have been at one time a brown business suit wandered up to where it sat and fell to the ground, weeping openly. He laid there, racked with sobs for a brief while until he noticed movement from the corner of his eye.
"What? Who's there?" he queried, sitting up suddenly. He looked around and saw no other living being anywhere in the vicinity. Or so he thought.
What he did see was an eighteen-inch Twinkie lying on the ground mere inches from him.
And once he picked it up, that was the last thing he ever saw.
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The phone rang. The phone rang again. Chandra put the pillow over her head, trying to muffle the sound of hammer striking bells. The phone rang a third time. Chandra threw the pillow onto the floor and sat up with a wordless scream of frustration. She rolled over to the side of the bed by the nightstand and picked up the handset.
"Hello," she gruffly stated.
"Morning, Chan-chan," came the voice on the other end of the line.
"Look, it's much too early for the play on my name. It isn't funny and I really don't appreciate — wait a minute. Who is this?"
"Um…it's Gary. You wrote a —"
"Oh! Hi, Gary!" Chandra exclaimed. Her initial wave of pleasure at hearing from him was immediately followed by a wave of concern. "Is something wrong? Are you okay?"
"Everything's okay," said Gary. "Well, almost everything. The power's off over here. Must've been the storm this morning."
"You heard that, too? The thunder woke me up," replied Chandra.
"Yeah, same here. Anyway, since we have an appointment this afternoon anyway, and I'm your first patient for the day, how about we go get some brunch? I figure we're both awake now, so might as well."
"That's a great idea! Where do you want to go?"
"How about that Tex-Mex place down by the park? It usually doesn't get busy until three in the afternoon, so we could get an early lunch, and probably any table we want."
"Sounds good to me. Give me about…forty-five minutes to get ready."
"Sure thing. I'll see you there, Chan-chan." Click.
"Damnit!" Chandra shouted. Gary had hung up before she could properly chastise him for calling her "Chan-chan" again. That was okay. She'd have plenty of time today to do so.
She hung up the phone and fell back on the bed, a joyous grin on her face in the darkness.
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It knew what had happened. It knew fear and hate and pain. It knew.
But more important than that, it thought. And the thought that came to it now was the beginning of the end.
It turned, its body now three-and-a-half feet long, and headed back to the supermarket. It would lead them.
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[Authors' notes]
Thanks to Christopher Scott Gouge and Todd William Stadler at The TWINKIES Project (http://www.twinkiesproject.com/) for their dedication to science and their website's inestimable value as a resource for this story.
Tegretol is an epileptic anti-seizure medication; Amaryl is for treating type 2 diabetes. And James A. Dewar is credited as the inventor of the Twinkie. You should already know who Gregor Mendel is.
— Larry Alton "t.ogre" Garrett
March 2003
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Keith Richards came wandering out of his London flat, cigarette hanging from his lips, beer bottle in hand, guitar strapped to his back, oblivious to the destruction around him as the city burned to the ground.
"Hey, where is everybody? Where's the stage? I saw a bright light. I don't remember there being a concert today."
An eight-and-one-half foot long cockroach jumped out of the shadows and bit Keith's head clean off, swallowing it whole.
Keith's body dropped to the ground and crumbled into dust.
The cockroach stood there for a bit, savoring the flavor of human flesh and bone before suddenly staggering to one side and rolling over on its back, antennae and legs thrashing in the air. It laid there, kicking, for five minutes or so, before other cockroaches descended upon its prone form and ripped it apart, feeding on its flesh. They in turn ended up on their backs until others came.
Thus was London purged of cockroaches.
