Sheila stared at the napkin clutched in her fist. “You’re excused,” she muttered distractedly. She then looked up at the oozing tower of viscous, dripping muck that was the founder of Bozeman.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, stuffing the napkin into her pocket, turning briskly on her heels and walking away.

“The end!” declared Grandpa Roberts, closing the slim, dogeared book from which he had been reading, and placing it gently in his lap.

“That’s it?” demanded Little Timmy, sitting up in his bed. “She walks away?”

“She walks away, the fate of the future of that city entirely in her control,” said Grandpa Roberts, giving Little Timmy’s hair a patronizing tousle. “Can you tell what the moral of the story was?”

Little Timmy put his 11 year-old brain to work on the problem. After a few seconds he looked up at his grandfather and posited, “The ‘founder’ of Bozeman turned out to be a figurative and literal foundation, right? Only because he was muck, he was untenable as a medium on which to base a city?” Here he paused, sucking lightly on his thumb, a habit he should have given up years ago, his mother would say. Then he continued, “The lack of much direct conflict between the characters (and what conflict there is being conveniently resolved so quickly) is reflected in the constant self-referential prose style and interminable exposition hinting at what actually turned the town into a molten pit of detritus without ever saying WHAT DID HAPPEN. As if the monster of the piece isn’t some deep-rooted philosophical concept or prevailing trend that was topical at the time of writing, but perhaps passive-aggressiveness and irony themselves. One could say that it also hints at Indian mythology with Sheila being the goddess Shiva (even their names are similar), possessed of both the power to destroy and also to create; such urges being inextricably intertwined… But I digress.” Timmy adjusted his Pokemon blanket as he leaned forward, gesturing for emphasis. “Some characters have a past history, and events certainly transpire — but most everyone meets their untimely end in an abrupt, perfunctory fashion. No one is allowed to have any real goals; no essential truths are revealed. They live in a bleak, nihilistic universe; constantly befuddled at seemingly random events, with no resolution offered. Sheila receives her charge much too late for it to resonate with her or the audience. Perhaps this final act of hers is her acknowledgment of the all-too-brief candle that is life on this planet. Sheila walks away because she isn’t sure whether such a town, one of deep, bubbling corrosion and resentment, all the while on the surface both ironic and self-congratulatory, is worth resurrecting — that perhaps, there is a world for her beyond merely restoring the previous, stifling one. And that progress is achieved not through constructing buildings and roads but through personal growth. That ultimately what is past is (extensive) prologue and life is better spent moving forward in great strides than quibbling about minor annoyances that one cannot change.” Little Timmy reached over to his nightstand and took a sip of water from his Batman glass, his face still pensive. “I liked the naughty parts about the monkeys, though. Their onanism is obviously analogous to the writing process itself.” With that, Little Timmy snuggled back under his covers and looked up expectantly at his grandpa.

Grandpa Roberts gently leaned down and whispered in the boy’s ear in his raspy, wise tone, “The moral of the story is: When you fart, say ‘Excuse me,’ you little shit,” giving Timmy a box on the ear for good measure. “Now, go to sleep, or the clowns will eat you.” And with that, he turned out the light and closed the door.

“Ingrate,” it burped. Sheila passed out at the smell of it, waking fifteen minutes later with the taste of rancid marshmallow fluff and burned duct tape in her mouth.

“Apologies,” the sludge said. “Mentos?”

“No, thanks,” Sheila said. She preferred Altoids. “What were you saying?”

“Indeed, you have come to me, priestess, on the anniversary of the ensludgification of this great valley. I, who have been trapped here these 50 years, have awaited one who could set me free, free to restore this once fertile valley to its consumerist, no-longer-a-small-town-but-still-uncomfortable-with-progress-and-big-city-convenience charm.”

“You mean, you want to rebuild?” Sheila was having a really, really hard time picturing the world as it would be with Bozeman in it again. She supposed it would give people who like complaining about big box stores and traffic circles a place to live again. Though greatly reduced in number, a few of them had survived by moving to Livingston.

“Rebuilding is only the beginning,” the sludge said, handing Sheila an incantation written on a surprisingly dry and clean Ted’s Montana Grill napkin.

“You, who outlived all the other characters in the story, deserve the honor of reciting this incantation, which will transform the entire world into Bozeman. Imagine, 19th will run from pole to pole, and Main Street will circle half the globe with Huffine taking the other half. It will be –”

Suddenly, the sludge began to shimmy and quake. An expression seeped onto its face — the kind of expression you only get when you know your latte has hit bottom and you are either going to let loose a tremendous, eight-octave fart or be exploded from the inside out by a major character seemingly returning from the dead.

“Wait. WAIT! You designed Bozeman? You? And you want US to help YOU? Oh, we’ll help you, alright…did you ever try to drive through Bozeman? I mean, 12th Avenue ran from Oak to Juniper, then stopped, then picked back up again off of Chequamegon Village Road (off of West Babcock Street between 11th Avenue and West Babcock Street…naturally) and ran until College, until it –for some reason– picked up 65 feet to the west on the other side of College, where it continued again until Deer Street– where it stopped — only to pick back up again…oh another 400 feet south and 75 feet west or so from where it left off. THEN, it curved back 150 feet east until it mercifully ended at Grant. And tell me-oh great one-why Rouse was Rouse until it was no longer Rouse and was suddenly Bridger Canyon Drive? And why was Durston Durston until it was suddenly Peach? You want OUR help? And South 3rd Avenue suddenly became Wagonwheel until it intersected with…South 3rd Avenue? Are you kidding me? And what was it with Labradors and Subarus? What was so frakking special about Labradors and Subarus? God help the person who wanted, I don’t know, a Honda and a Springer Spaniel or a Ford Focus and a cat. It’s like you created this place so the locals could spend every Saturday afternoon trying to drive through town (on 12th Avenue, of course) in their Subaru, randomly stopping to let a bicyclist cross wherever and whenever they wanted. It always turned out ok, though, because the idiot driver in the Subaru behind them would have no clue because they were idling in the middle of the road finishing their text to their friend at the Co-Op. In this text-novella they would expound on how much better IFC’s Portlandia would have been if it were set in Bozeman and entitled Bozelandia. Meanwhile the Subaru driver behind them managed to avoid the pile-up altogether because they decided they had to get off at Deer Street so they could take 11th to West Grant to South Willson to West, then East Kagy so they could catch Sourdough Road before it became Church to take their Labrador, Bridger, to Peet’s Hill because he hadn’t been able to run free for at least ten minutes. You know what? Here’s our help: raze what’s left, rebuild the town with roads that don’t randomly start and stop or change names, give us an appropriately sized library with parking somewhere within 500 feet of the damned building. Run shuttle buses from the parking garage to the Sweet Pea Festival, change the homecoming parade route so it goes through campus, and bring back Tom’s Green Grill. They had the best ice cream in town and no one can tell me otherwise.”

He turned his back on the bubbling pit. From where they stood it most resembled a cup of espresso: a dark, deep, pervasive brown dotted with dazzling foam along its edges. The scene was almost beautiful until one realized the foam was largely monkey spunk. He counted to three and gave her his most occult glare.

“All materials are connected. Trees, wires, fences, boulders, and even the celebrated flesh-eating statue of Ann Coulter share consciousness.”

But Sheila was staring off into space. Marvin tried desperately to be more interesting.

“They all know how to be a gun, and so it’s just a matter of convincing them ….”

Sheila’s eyes widened; she brought a hand to her mouth. Clearly, he was impressing her. A particularly flatulent belch erupted from the roiling pit; he hoped she wouldn’t blame him for it.

“Well it’s a little more complicated, especially with the rocks. They’re ancient, and they all use different dialects, and shale only answers if you speak in limericks.”

Sheila pointed urgently at Marvin’s shoulder. Had it been soiled by a passing magpie? There was a frantic thrashing from the pit; perhaps one of Percy’s self-abusing simian offspring had blundered over the edge. Then the ground shook, toppling Marvin. The sludge had congealed into a towering homunculus; a great, bristling mustache of brambles sat on its upper lip. Marvin scrambled for his rifle, but Sheila kicked it away.

“I think it wants to talk!” She shrugged. “It’s a priestess thing”

“Indeed I do”, it droned. “It has been a long time since anyone has visited me here in the ruins of my beloved town. Once I was John Bozeman, exiled Primarch of the Venusian Empire, first of our kind to visit Earth.

“It was I who first drew settlers to this valley. It was I who laid its streets and planned its buildings, long after I staged my own demise. It was I who first coaxed the Subaru from its home behind the sun to live here, free of its natural predators. And it was I — regrettably — who failed to protect them on that fateful day in March.

“But enough of this. A priestess and — judging from his pained expression — a man in the horrible throes of constipation have visited me on the anniversary of the Great Ensludgening. This is an omen. I think that perhaps you are meant to help me.”

Suddenly, Marvin noticed another scent on the breeze, one of cordite. It was just enough warning for him to grab Sheila and fling the both of them to the ground before the claymores went off. The rest of the group was not so fast or lucky, and were reduced to their component atoms by the wall of metal balls pushed by massive explosive forces.

It was Shelia-turned-Sheila’s turn to save the pair, rolling them both downhill just as ricochets informed crashed off the ground they had just occupied.

Stopping in a small shallow behind a boulder, Sheila looked at Marvin and marveled. He had pulled a small pile of rocks together and drawn a small circle around them. Marvin whispered some sort of prayer or incantation and the rocks glowed breifly, flashed, and were gone, replaced by a pair of rifles fashioned from brass, iron, and some dark wood. Steam was contained in a clear chamber on the back end, and roiled menacingly.

“Where the hell did those come from?” Sheila demanded.

Picking up one of the rifles and handing the other to Sheila, Marvin responded, “There’s hella things you don’t know about me.” Marvin pulled a lever on the rifle and it started making a mechanical grinding sound, combined with a high pitched whirring. Leaning over the boulder, he unleashed a hellish blast of high powered light that chewed up the ground wherever it touched. Sheila took the cue and added in her fair share of destruction.

The two beams of light left a swath of destruction, dirt scorched and boulders exploded. Methodically tracking up the slope, the pair systematically destroyed any possible hiding place for the ambushers. Several explosions racked the mountainside as unused claymores were brushed by the hard light. The screams of sentient beings echoed out, the ambushers had been struck with their own weapons!

Letting off the triggers, Marvin and Sheila sheltered behind the boulder, waiting for the sounds of return fire. All they heard was the hissing of superheated rock, the creaking of their cooling firearms, and the gurgling of the great pool beneath them…

” ‘ feel s’ck,” a passenger groaned, hands clenched around his waist.

“Everyone, stay calm,” Sheila shouted. “The effects w’ll fade ‘n t’me.” She motioned everyone to gather, a few helping others barely able to stand. “Grab what you can. We have a long way to go before we reach safety.”

For a moment, the group only stood, frozen by fear and confusion. Then they began to move, stumbling about the wreckage of the Plentywood, searching for anything useful that still remained.

To the side, Marvin watched, his eyes following Sheila as she gave orders. Deep inside, a core of rage began to boil. He knelt, one hand wrapping around a shattered branch.

A twig broke beneath his foot as he stepped up behind Sheila.

She turned.

For a moment, they simply stared.

“He had to be stopped,” she whispered.

“You knew,” Marvin said.

“Yes.”

“You knew everything, about Percy, about me. Why else this flight? Why else come here?”

Sheila’s eyes fell to the branch, rose once more to Marvin’s face. “Only a few in the FFP did. Myself and the highest of the priestesses. Do you think we could share that with the order, tell them that their legacy, their heritage, was all a shame? Two men responsible for everything that we held sacred?”

“And what will the order do now?” Marvin asked. “When we stumble our way from this hellhole, will the lies simply continue? Or will I wake one day to find the cloaked faces of the FFP ready to close my gaze forever.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Did you mean to kill us both?”

There was no answer, only a tight smile.

“I’ve walked away from what had happened,” he continued. “I’ve left my crimes behind.”

“Your shadow looms even bigger, Marvin. It’s no longer the FFP anymore. My eyes were not the only ones here today, my ears not the only to hear the truths Percy told.”

Beyond her shoulder, Marvin could see the survivors still searching, the only movement as far as his eyes could see. “I could kill them,” he said.

“And I would not stop you.”

For a moment, his hand clenched tighter about the branch, knuckles white against the blackened wood. A breeze swirled around them, tinted with the smell of smoke and iron.

The rage collapsed, leaving only weariness. The branch fell to the ground.

“Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Marvin said.

But her final words were overwhelmed by a sudden shattering roar of screeching snow monkeys. They could be seen now through all the Plentywood’s windows, surrounding the dirigible, arms waving menacingly.

Percy hung above them, dangling from a tree limb by his metallic claw. His other hand seemed to be busy somewhere inside his monkey suit, but his attention was on the blimp. “Get them, my children!” he screamed, “Take them! With the malevolent muck and the means to maneuver it, this world can be ours!”

“Shoot him!” Shelia cried to the Giant Lizard.

He looked down over his scaled snout at the weapon in his clawed hands. “Couldn’t get the bullets through security.”

Shelia braced her jaw, leaning to look out the window. “We only have one hope then.”

Marvin looked to her – “Shelia, no!”

“Everyone stand close,” she cried out over the monkey’s din. “And try to seem important to the story line.”

Marvin took her hand but still pleaded, “Shelia, please!”

She looked him in the eye. “I am not Shelia,” she intoned, “I am SHEILA!”

Silence–

–and white light.

As the passengers of the blimp began to make out each other’s forms through the white glare, they could hear a rumbling, and the screaming of monkeys.

She had done it again, Marvin knew. Just like that day in 2011, when the town had been abuzz about Muck and Melting Asphalt, but all Sheila could think about was getting Marvin’s Attention. It wasn’t going to happen with a traditional name like Sheila, not in this hotbed of feminist funkiness. And so she made the change. Not knowing what could happen, the energies at her fingertips, she’d made the change. To Shelia.

The i was pried out of its cozy nest between the e and the l, and with that, quantum literary energy was released. The atom that is the name Sheila was split, and a chain reaction broke apart every name or word containing an i for a four-mile radius. Nothing was left of Bozeman. The shockwave was felt in Livingston, which for a brief moment wavered as L’v’ngston.

The only survivors, on that day in 2011, were the women of the FFP that had been standing near Shelia, for – it being a literary explosion – it had spared the main characters.

The same happened now – the passengers of the Plentywood, lead by Sheila, crawled from the smoking wreckage of the dirigible, into the massive crater that was once Flathead Pass.

“I’m up, I’m up. What happened?”

“Well, they were about to reach into your pants when the sludge samples fell out of your pockets. There was lots of screeching and alliteration and they ran off into the woods with the pilot. Do you mind telling me why you keep that stuff on your person?”

The entire airship stared at Martin in disbelief. While the current sludge that pooled in the center of the once thriving town was toxic, it was muddled with snow runoff and mellowed with age. Original samples were not. A pure sample of the sludge was a most perfect biological weapon. A mere drop into a city’s water supply would not only drive the residents mad, but also attract vast hordes of sentient, sex-crazed monkeys. One woman screamed.

“You had that on the ship with us?”

“HE’S A TERRORIST!!!”

SLAP!!! This was to the woman in the third row.

Shelia stood on a seat. “He isn’t a terrorist, he is just an idiot. We are now stranded in the middle of a toxic minefield that’s crawling with dangerous man-monkeys, and we have a bigger problem: now they have the samples.”

Martin, slightly hurt by Shelia’s ability to really bring things into focus, tried to lighten the mood. “But, as you pointed out, we are miles from everything, what does if matter if the monkeys have the samples? They can’t get anywhere from here.”

“You’re forgetting,” said someone who was not quite a man, “they have the pilot and the only thing standing between them and this airship is a handful of mostly flimsy humans.” He cocked his pistol.

“HE’S GOT A GUN!”

“HE’S A GIANT LIZARD!!!”

SLAP!!! SLAP!!!

The scene was pastoral to anyone viewing it from afar. But up close and personal, Marvin could sense something was amiss. For one thing, there was not a single Suburu in all of Bozeman. They all disappeared overnight.

Some blamed the mass exodus of the mighty Suburus on those Venetians, who can never get enough good gas mileage. Some blamed it on the sudden resurgence of the Aztecs, who everyone thought had become extinct along with their Mayan counterparts, but that didn’t stop everyone from trying to channel them through the quartz crystals that were sold all over town. Whatever it was, it was something, something dark and perhaps evil.

Oddly, the Bozeman Chronicle reported a sudden rise in Viagra prescriptions and that weird hot for her cold for him stuff that was all over the airwaves (are they still called airwaves?) that day.

While everyone was busy getting busy, hooking up with their hook ups, making time with their goodtimes, something quite different was oozing up from below. It started at the parking lot on 15th and Main, the only place where speed bumps spontaneously popped up every so often. That might have been the first clue. If anyone had been paying attention.

And, to Marvin, it was obviously the center of the universe.

That day, that April Fool’s Day back in 2011, the black asphalt of the lot began to melt. At first it only swallowed cars and trucks. Soon stores started to fall into the muck. It was like a giant black hole had developed but no one stopped eating their Cold Stone ice cream long enough to notice.

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality was closed that day, so it went undocumented. But Marvin had taken samples.

He still had those samples with him. Right there on the dirigible. And now someone wanted the password that would decipher the genetic code.