Any actual names, non original content, or likenesses of celebrities are used in a fictitious and parodic manner.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: RESSURECTION AND ATTEMPTED ASSIMILATION! OR, IN WHICH KEVIN AND THE BELLUMS TRY TO CLEAN UP THE MESS IN VEGREVILLE BUT ENCOUNTER A NEW THREAT AND NEW FRIENDS!
“Resistance is futile.” - Battle cry of the Borg.
“What do you get for pretending the danger's not real?/Meek and obedient you follow the leader,/down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel./What a surprise; a look of terminal shock in your eyes, /Now things are really what they seem/No, this is not a bad dream.” - Pink Floyd, “Sheep”
“What a mess.” Kevin said as he picked up pieces of shriveled up vines that were once vibrant and full of life but were now brown and decaying since he made the head of Alberta Research Council associate director Julia Katz explode from a paradoxical logic problem he posed to her. Now he, Donnie Bellum and his wife Doctor Sarah Bellum, were left to clean up the mess left by what seemed to be a failed experiment. An experiment that seemed to blend plants with self-aware nanoprobes bent on leading a vegetation revolution.
“This still doesn’t make any sense.” Kevin told Sarah, as she was looking at one of the shriveled up vines, studying it to try and figure out what exactly she witnessed here. “You sure you knew nothing about this at all?” he asked her.
“For the last time, no, nothing at all,” Sarah insisted. “I simply was in charge of plant growth experiments. I had nothing at all do with… whatever this was.”
Kevin studied one of the vines. “Something still seems amiss here. Okay, so if this was only a beta system released does that mean…” Kevin then paused mid-sentence through and went onto an entirely different thought. “Anyone else notice how eerily quiet it’s been since our Poison-Ivy-Meets-The-Borg Queen’s exploded?”
Donnie, who had been rather content playing Mister Mom and keeping his three year old daughter Hailey from sticking the dead vines into her mouth, realized a conversation was going on and decided to add in his two cents. “Wait a minute, if this was like the Borg, does this mean that people here may have been… you know… what is that word?” he asked.
“Assimilated?” Both Kevin and Sarah answered in unison. “That could explain what happened here since we have no one around yet.” Sarah theorized.
“And another thing that has been bugging me,” Kevin went on. “I’m also surprised that whatever basic commands inside Miss Katz were not transferred to another…” Once again, Kevin’s original train of thought was derailed as he heard something in the not too far distant background of the town. It sounded like a well-tuned march of people, moving in a perfect cadence, coming towards where he and the Bellums were at.
“Shit!” Kevin exclaimed. “I should have thought of it myself!”
Donnie looked concerned as he said, “What now?”
“Perhaps whatever was controlling the vines and the now late Julia Katz sensed that her system was in a meltdown process it did in fact transfer over to a new command outlet, and either we’re going to face a united army of plants who will dismiss us as a non-threat, or we’re going to have a bunch of angry soldier bees who know we killed their queen!” Kevin explained as the cadence became louder, indicating whatever it was that was coming that way was in fact getting closer.
“So, who, or what, is now containing this plant takeover program now?” Sarah asked Kevin.
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’re about to find out!” Kevin said. He, Donnie, and Sarah looked around the block and noticed from all four intersections on the main street they were surrounded by people. They recognized them as members of the town, only with what appeared to be the same vines that had the town recently covered on their bodies.
“Identify yourselves.” The group of people spoke in a collective voice.
Donnie was about to say something, but Sarah held her hand up to motion for Donnie not to speak. She however chose to speak, “I am Doctor Sarah.”
Sarah was interrupted by the collective vine/human hybrids. “Bellum, Sarah Rochelle, maiden name – Hendricks. Doctorate degree in plant genetics obtained from the University of Calgary, head of plant research at Vegreville division of the Alberta Research Council. You are to be escorted out of this town and relocated to Calgary for reassignment.”
“And what about me? Do I get to with her too?” Donnie asked, “I’m her husband…”
The collective voice spoke again. “Bellum, Donald Lester. Manager of Movie Gallery Vegreville, one daughter, Hailey Jessica, the daughter is to be sent along with the mother to Calgary and you yourself are deemed unnecessary for our continued progress here and are to be made into one of us.”
Donnie protested this assessment. “You got to be kidding me! I demand to be with my family…”
“Demands are irrelevant. You are irrelevant as an individual.” The collective voice spoke again.
Kevin decided now was as any good time to intervene. “Now just a second here,” Kevin said until he was interrupted by the vine people’s collective voice.
“Brody, Kevin James. Sales Representative for Cargill...”
Kevin decided to correct the collective. “…Assistant Regional Manager!”
“Your position is now irrelevant. You are a nuisance and are to be terminated immediately,” the voice said.
“Please!” Kevin scoffed at their judgment of him. “We dealt with your queen already!”
“We have selected a new single representative and replacement to lead us in the next step of evolution.” The voice said. The group of people standing in front of Kevin and the Bellums began to step aside to make an opening. Just then, a single figure began to walk in the parted sea of vine people. It was Joanne Carlson, district manager of 4192, and now queen of the vine people.
“This isn’t because I abandoned our date, is it?” Kevin asked.
Joanne just coldly looked at Kevin. “On the contrary, while the collective seems to wish for your termination, I wish for something else.”
“But if you are the queen, does that not make your will the same?” Kevin asked.
“Do not try to pose a paradoxical question this time.” Joanne said. “The reason Julia Katz was easily manipulated last time was because of an initial flaw which we have since corrected.”
Kevin looked slightly nervous. “I see,” he went on to ask, “So what is to become of me since you overrode the collective will?”
“You have been selected to be my mate.” Joanne said as she moved closer to Kevin. “Together we will lead the new evolution of life.”
“Really? Well let me think about that.” Kevin said as he discreetly reached into his pant pocket. He walked towards Joanne.
“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Donnie.
“Trust me! I know what I’m doing!” Kevin shouted back as he walked closer towards the new queen of the vine hive mind.
“Yes.” Joanne cooed mechanically. “Join the next step of evolution.”
Kevin just smirked as he looked like he was ready to embrace these new creations of plant and life. However, pretty much unbeknownst to everyone, Kevin had a penknife that was in his pocket and now was in his hand. “Evolve this!” he sneered as he jabbed the knife into the neck of Joanne. Her eyes rolled back as Kevin jumped back to where the Bellums were standing. Donnie looked shocked as he exclaimed “Dude! You killed my boss!”
Kevin looked completely nonchalant as he told Donnie. “Please, I just enacted what forty-five percent of workers dream to do. I know Dean did, or wanted to do something else that he mentioned before I set him and Karen up.”
“I hate to interrupt this little fantasy session,” Sarah said. “But now what is going to happen with the secondary queen now iced?”
Kevin answered “Well my good doctor, either a new queen will be selected by the program, or with the link broken, they’re going to go bananas!”
With the amassed army surrounding the four, a single voice was heard among the group: “Exterminate!”
“Oh just great, now they think they’re fucking Daleks!” Kevin said frustratingly.
Donnie just shook his head and said “Okay, first – language please! I don’t need my three year old girl dropping f-bombs! Second, what are you talking about?”
“Christ, if Dean was here, he would have gotten it” Kevin said under his breath before addressing Donnie. “There isn’t time to explain! Just run!”
“Where are we exactly going to run to?” asked Donnie, who realized quicker than Kevin that they are surrounded completely by a town turned into vine drones who without a single voice are in total anarchy mode. Once Kevin realized this, he rolled up his left pant leg to reveal an eight inch machete. “We’re going out the hard way it looks like,” said Kevin. “Stay close to me and punch, kick or whatever you can do to fight them off!” he said as he went deep into one crowd, slicing and stabbing his way through the mob of drones.
Kevin did his best to fight through the crowd of vine drones, who without any kind of weapons, were easy to fight through. While they lacked weapons, they did their best to try and slow down Kevin by clawing at him and the Bellums as well. That was all the drones could do as Kevin like a man possessed kept on hacking his way. The Bellums did their best to stay close as Kevin cleared a path to what appeared to be an opening. Finally free from the sea of drones, Kevin and the Bellums found themselves standing in the empty parking lot of the town’s Co-Op grocery store.
“Now what?” Donnie asked Kevin.
Kevin looked around. “Well, I would say we get some kind of transportation and get out of here right now!” he said while noticing the drones were once again moving towards them.
“We need to get our van!” exclaimed Sarah.
“It’s all the way back at the lab!” Kevin shouted. “We better run before we’re surrounded again!”
The drones seemed to be moving faster all shouting “Exterminate!” in varying tones and totally out of synch unlike earlier when Joanne Carlson was alive and functioning. It seemed like they had to really run quite the distance until a black Hummer H3 showed out of practically nowhere with a man wearing a ski mask was peering through the top of the backside of the vehicle. The man was brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle and began gunning down the drones.
“Whoo! Come get some ya crazy plant sons of bitches! Whoo!” was the battle cry heard from the man.
“It can’t be him,” Kevin said to himself, as if he recognized the drawl in the voice of one of their potential saviors. “There is no way it could be him.”
The driver of the Hummer made a circle as the gunman kept firing away. The driver rolled down the window and all were shocked to see who was behind the wheel.
“This has to be a dream!” said a shocked Donnie.
“Is that who I think it is?” Sarah said, rubbing her eyes.
“Oi, get in the hummer!” the haggard voice of a British rock legend told them. “We haven’t got all bloody day!”
Kevin looked star struck. “I always told Dean only three things could survive a nuclear holocaust – cockroaches, Keith Richards…”
“You damn right I survived it!” the man identified as one of the Rolling Stones prolific and road-worn members. “Now get in here so we can get the hell out of dodge!” he said in his trademark near incomprehensible English drawl. Everyone shrugged as they hopped in and Mister Richards hit the gas, driving over and through the crowd of drones.
“This is pretty messed up right here.” Donnie concluded as he was sitting back with what appeared to be members of a modern rock band. “Why is Keith Richards driving a Hummer with what looks like half of Nickelback…?”
One of the nameless musicians said “No way, we’re Default!”
Another musician spoke. “Wait, I thought we were Hinder?”
The last member spoke, “According to the drums, we’re supposed to be Theory of a Deadman?”
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” said Keith Richards. “Me and my mate there with the gun were helping shoot a video for these young upstarts when we got the word the Iranians were going to nuke the city we were in.”
“And who is our mystery gunman here?” asked Sarah.
“I think I have a good idea. The third thing that could survive a nuclear attack,” Kevin went onto say. “Is no one else other than the fifteen-time world’s heavyweight wrestling champion…”
The masked man removed the balaclava to reveal the famous platinum blonde coif of…
“The one and only ‘Nature Boy’! Whoo!” exclaimed the man known as Ric Flair.
“This is great!” Kevin exclaimed. “Now I get to cross off two more things on my ‘Things to do before I die’ list!”
“Wait, do I even WANT to know what the two are?” asked Donnie.
“Well, one was to meet a Rolling Stone to find out what REALLY happened on that one night with Margaret Sinclair-Trudeau” Kevin said
“We’ll talk about that one later, mate!” Richards interjected.
“And two was to fight zombie armies with Ric Flair!” added Kevin as he pulled out his cell phone. “Now I got to phone Dean and let him know what we’ve been through. He is going to shit his pants in excitement!”
“This still doesn’t make any sense.” Kevin told Sarah, as she was looking at one of the shriveled up vines, studying it to try and figure out what exactly she witnessed here. “You sure you knew nothing about this at all?” he asked her.
“For the last time, no, nothing at all,” Sarah insisted. “I simply was in charge of plant growth experiments. I had nothing at all do with… whatever this was.”
Kevin studied one of the vines. “Something still seems amiss here. Okay, so if this was only a beta system released does that mean…” Kevin then paused mid-sentence through and went onto an entirely different thought. “Anyone else notice how eerily quiet it’s been since our Poison-Ivy-Meets-The-Borg Queen’s exploded?”
Donnie, who had been rather content playing Mister Mom and keeping his three year old daughter Hailey from sticking the dead vines into her mouth, realized a conversation was going on and decided to add in his two cents. “Wait a minute, if this was like the Borg, does this mean that people here may have been… you know… what is that word?” he asked.
“Assimilated?” Both Kevin and Sarah answered in unison. “That could explain what happened here since we have no one around yet.” Sarah theorized.
“And another thing that has been bugging me,” Kevin went on. “I’m also surprised that whatever basic commands inside Miss Katz were not transferred to another…” Once again, Kevin’s original train of thought was derailed as he heard something in the not too far distant background of the town. It sounded like a well-tuned march of people, moving in a perfect cadence, coming towards where he and the Bellums were at.
“Shit!” Kevin exclaimed. “I should have thought of it myself!”
Donnie looked concerned as he said, “What now?”
“Perhaps whatever was controlling the vines and the now late Julia Katz sensed that her system was in a meltdown process it did in fact transfer over to a new command outlet, and either we’re going to face a united army of plants who will dismiss us as a non-threat, or we’re going to have a bunch of angry soldier bees who know we killed their queen!” Kevin explained as the cadence became louder, indicating whatever it was that was coming that way was in fact getting closer.
“So, who, or what, is now containing this plant takeover program now?” Sarah asked Kevin.
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’re about to find out!” Kevin said. He, Donnie, and Sarah looked around the block and noticed from all four intersections on the main street they were surrounded by people. They recognized them as members of the town, only with what appeared to be the same vines that had the town recently covered on their bodies.
“Identify yourselves.” The group of people spoke in a collective voice.
Donnie was about to say something, but Sarah held her hand up to motion for Donnie not to speak. She however chose to speak, “I am Doctor Sarah.”
Sarah was interrupted by the collective vine/human hybrids. “Bellum, Sarah Rochelle, maiden name – Hendricks. Doctorate degree in plant genetics obtained from the University of Calgary, head of plant research at Vegreville division of the Alberta Research Council. You are to be escorted out of this town and relocated to Calgary for reassignment.”
“And what about me? Do I get to with her too?” Donnie asked, “I’m her husband…”
The collective voice spoke again. “Bellum, Donald Lester. Manager of Movie Gallery Vegreville, one daughter, Hailey Jessica, the daughter is to be sent along with the mother to Calgary and you yourself are deemed unnecessary for our continued progress here and are to be made into one of us.”
Donnie protested this assessment. “You got to be kidding me! I demand to be with my family…”
“Demands are irrelevant. You are irrelevant as an individual.” The collective voice spoke again.
Kevin decided now was as any good time to intervene. “Now just a second here,” Kevin said until he was interrupted by the vine people’s collective voice.
“Brody, Kevin James. Sales Representative for Cargill...”
Kevin decided to correct the collective. “…Assistant Regional Manager!”
“Your position is now irrelevant. You are a nuisance and are to be terminated immediately,” the voice said.
“Please!” Kevin scoffed at their judgment of him. “We dealt with your queen already!”
“We have selected a new single representative and replacement to lead us in the next step of evolution.” The voice said. The group of people standing in front of Kevin and the Bellums began to step aside to make an opening. Just then, a single figure began to walk in the parted sea of vine people. It was Joanne Carlson, district manager of 4192, and now queen of the vine people.
“This isn’t because I abandoned our date, is it?” Kevin asked.
Joanne just coldly looked at Kevin. “On the contrary, while the collective seems to wish for your termination, I wish for something else.”
“But if you are the queen, does that not make your will the same?” Kevin asked.
“Do not try to pose a paradoxical question this time.” Joanne said. “The reason Julia Katz was easily manipulated last time was because of an initial flaw which we have since corrected.”
Kevin looked slightly nervous. “I see,” he went on to ask, “So what is to become of me since you overrode the collective will?”
“You have been selected to be my mate.” Joanne said as she moved closer to Kevin. “Together we will lead the new evolution of life.”
“Really? Well let me think about that.” Kevin said as he discreetly reached into his pant pocket. He walked towards Joanne.
“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Donnie.
“Trust me! I know what I’m doing!” Kevin shouted back as he walked closer towards the new queen of the vine hive mind.
“Yes.” Joanne cooed mechanically. “Join the next step of evolution.”
Kevin just smirked as he looked like he was ready to embrace these new creations of plant and life. However, pretty much unbeknownst to everyone, Kevin had a penknife that was in his pocket and now was in his hand. “Evolve this!” he sneered as he jabbed the knife into the neck of Joanne. Her eyes rolled back as Kevin jumped back to where the Bellums were standing. Donnie looked shocked as he exclaimed “Dude! You killed my boss!”
Kevin looked completely nonchalant as he told Donnie. “Please, I just enacted what forty-five percent of workers dream to do. I know Dean did, or wanted to do something else that he mentioned before I set him and Karen up.”
“I hate to interrupt this little fantasy session,” Sarah said. “But now what is going to happen with the secondary queen now iced?”
Kevin answered “Well my good doctor, either a new queen will be selected by the program, or with the link broken, they’re going to go bananas!”
With the amassed army surrounding the four, a single voice was heard among the group: “Exterminate!”
“Oh just great, now they think they’re fucking Daleks!” Kevin said frustratingly.
Donnie just shook his head and said “Okay, first – language please! I don’t need my three year old girl dropping f-bombs! Second, what are you talking about?”
“Christ, if Dean was here, he would have gotten it” Kevin said under his breath before addressing Donnie. “There isn’t time to explain! Just run!”
“Where are we exactly going to run to?” asked Donnie, who realized quicker than Kevin that they are surrounded completely by a town turned into vine drones who without a single voice are in total anarchy mode. Once Kevin realized this, he rolled up his left pant leg to reveal an eight inch machete. “We’re going out the hard way it looks like,” said Kevin. “Stay close to me and punch, kick or whatever you can do to fight them off!” he said as he went deep into one crowd, slicing and stabbing his way through the mob of drones.
Kevin did his best to fight through the crowd of vine drones, who without any kind of weapons, were easy to fight through. While they lacked weapons, they did their best to try and slow down Kevin by clawing at him and the Bellums as well. That was all the drones could do as Kevin like a man possessed kept on hacking his way. The Bellums did their best to stay close as Kevin cleared a path to what appeared to be an opening. Finally free from the sea of drones, Kevin and the Bellums found themselves standing in the empty parking lot of the town’s Co-Op grocery store.
“Now what?” Donnie asked Kevin.
Kevin looked around. “Well, I would say we get some kind of transportation and get out of here right now!” he said while noticing the drones were once again moving towards them.
“We need to get our van!” exclaimed Sarah.
“It’s all the way back at the lab!” Kevin shouted. “We better run before we’re surrounded again!”
The drones seemed to be moving faster all shouting “Exterminate!” in varying tones and totally out of synch unlike earlier when Joanne Carlson was alive and functioning. It seemed like they had to really run quite the distance until a black Hummer H3 showed out of practically nowhere with a man wearing a ski mask was peering through the top of the backside of the vehicle. The man was brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle and began gunning down the drones.
“Whoo! Come get some ya crazy plant sons of bitches! Whoo!” was the battle cry heard from the man.
“It can’t be him,” Kevin said to himself, as if he recognized the drawl in the voice of one of their potential saviors. “There is no way it could be him.”
The driver of the Hummer made a circle as the gunman kept firing away. The driver rolled down the window and all were shocked to see who was behind the wheel.
“This has to be a dream!” said a shocked Donnie.
“Is that who I think it is?” Sarah said, rubbing her eyes.
“Oi, get in the hummer!” the haggard voice of a British rock legend told them. “We haven’t got all bloody day!”
Kevin looked star struck. “I always told Dean only three things could survive a nuclear holocaust – cockroaches, Keith Richards…”
“You damn right I survived it!” the man identified as one of the Rolling Stones prolific and road-worn members. “Now get in here so we can get the hell out of dodge!” he said in his trademark near incomprehensible English drawl. Everyone shrugged as they hopped in and Mister Richards hit the gas, driving over and through the crowd of drones.
“This is pretty messed up right here.” Donnie concluded as he was sitting back with what appeared to be members of a modern rock band. “Why is Keith Richards driving a Hummer with what looks like half of Nickelback…?”
One of the nameless musicians said “No way, we’re Default!”
Another musician spoke. “Wait, I thought we were Hinder?”
The last member spoke, “According to the drums, we’re supposed to be Theory of a Deadman?”
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” said Keith Richards. “Me and my mate there with the gun were helping shoot a video for these young upstarts when we got the word the Iranians were going to nuke the city we were in.”
“And who is our mystery gunman here?” asked Sarah.
“I think I have a good idea. The third thing that could survive a nuclear attack,” Kevin went onto say. “Is no one else other than the fifteen-time world’s heavyweight wrestling champion…”
The masked man removed the balaclava to reveal the famous platinum blonde coif of…
“The one and only ‘Nature Boy’! Whoo!” exclaimed the man known as Ric Flair.
“This is great!” Kevin exclaimed. “Now I get to cross off two more things on my ‘Things to do before I die’ list!”
“Wait, do I even WANT to know what the two are?” asked Donnie.
“Well, one was to meet a Rolling Stone to find out what REALLY happened on that one night with Margaret Sinclair-Trudeau” Kevin said
“We’ll talk about that one later, mate!” Richards interjected.
“And two was to fight zombie armies with Ric Flair!” added Kevin as he pulled out his cell phone. “Now I got to phone Dean and let him know what we’ve been through. He is going to shit his pants in excitement!”
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