"Help! Help! This is terminus! Terminus!" croaked Qrt Vogelkot the Stinkingo, flying frantically around the brown immobile Spij?kenian nekroklown.

  Dr. Lubricious Slugg oozed up to Poo-go's side.

  "It's thaumaturgy!" gurgled the humanoid-sized slug. "Brown thaumaturgy!"

  "It's Kraka!" groaned Tiny Tirdly. "I guess I'll have to tell you the whole story." The orphan informed his new friends how Kraka, the master of Honkytown, had sent him and Poo-Go to capture Dr. Slugg and of how he had threatened to turn Poo-Go into a poo sculpture if they failed to obey him.

  "But Poo-Go did disobey him," gurgled the slug, impressed. "Even when he knew what would happen, he made no attempt to capture me!" Tears of gratitude rolled down his eyestalks. "You're the bravest nekroklown in Bonertania," he choked miserably to the petrified poop statue, "but look what it has brought you to!"

  The stinkingo held up one dry toe of his smelly foot. "As I understand," croaked the scabby bird, "Kraka has transformed Poo-Go because Poo-go has not captured Dr. Slugg?"

  "That's about it," sniffed Tiny Tirdly.

  "Well, then," said the stinkingo with a little hop, "Why not capture him? Wait, I'll get an intestine." He flew off to the restless Zedarcoaster, then flew back with a length of intestine in his bill. He tied the intestine hastily around Dr. Slugg's neck and placed the end in Poo-go's stiffened hand. And no sooner had he done so than the nekroklown found himself able to move about once more. While Vogelkot, Tiny Tirdly and Dr. Slugg watched anxiously, the offensive brown color (and offensive poop odor) faded out.

  "So long as you keep hold of the intestine everything will be all right," chuckled the stinkingo strutting proudly up and down, "for while you hold the intestine Dr. Slugg is captured."

  Tirdly explained to Poo-Go that he had explained to their new friends the situation with Master Kraka. Poo-Go was embarrassed and thankful Dr. Slugg had forgiven him. Dr. Slugg assured him there were no hard feelings.

  "Tie the intestine 'round your waist, Poo-go, old boy. Then you'll be sure not to lose me," said Dr. Slugg. Rather thoughtfully Poo-go obeyed, but he could not help thinking that being tied to a giant slug might prove awfully awkward at times. Dr. Slugg, however, was in fine spirits. "Now that I'm captured, what next?"

  "Oh, let someone else decide that," yawned the stinky stinkingo. Flopping down in the last seat of the coaster he was soon sound asleep and snoring loudly.

  "Let's find the fairy tremorroid Titiana," shouted Tiny Tirdly. It was necessary to shout, for Vogelkot's snores shattered in their ears like a series of dynamite explosions. Poo-go looked doubtful. He was not sure that Kraka's thaumaturgy would allow them to proceed toward Schmegma City.

  "Well, we'll try it," giggled Poo-go loudly. "Which way is it?"

  "I don't know," roared Dr. Slugg. "Let's fly up and look around until I see a familiar landmark.”

  They piled into the Zedarcoaster, who was excited to get going again, and Poo-go pressed all the buttons necessary to start the coaster, and up they went with a whoosh. Tiny Tirdly put both fingers in his ears, for with Vogelkot's snores and the whir of the coaster wheels the noise was deafening. When they were about a hundred feet above ground, Poo-go slowed the coaster down and ran it gently and evenly over the pleasant fleshy foliage

  "I wish Vogelkot was not such a loud sleeper," growled Dr. Lubricious Slugg. "I can't even hear my own farts. Say, was that last grumble thunder or the stinkingo?"

  "Thunder!," giggled Poo-go anxiously. “You mean an H.I.V. fart!" Coming through the gray clouds was an immense brown hirsute insuffilating viper, whose farts sounded like Earth thunder. Every now and then a shock of lightning would shootout of the beast’s cloaca. Then the hairy sky serpent began spraying huge sheets of thick yellow excretion from between its furry cheeks.

  "See how dark it's growing! Let's go down!" yelled Dr. Slugg.

  "It's raining!" cried Tiny Tirdly in the same breath!”

  Poo-go slammed the button marked "Faster," and was about to press the one marked "Down," when a blinding flash of H.I.V. lightning zig-zagged across their path. Poo-go instead hit the button marked "Turn," so that the Zedarcoaster not only increased its speed but churned around and around till the four passengers were almost knocked senseless. Slugg and Poo-Go fell to the floor of their car. Tiny Tirdly threw up all over himself. To make matters worse, the warm yellow liquid was still coming down in perfect torrents and began to pool up in the coaster cars. Qrt Vogelkot continued to snore contentedly.

  Just beyond a little fringe of fleshtrees they could see a the roofs of a series of tents that formed a little town. Poo-go, tangled up with Dr. Slugg and the line of intestine, struggled to get back to the controls. He managed to stop spinning and head the coaster towards the city. After a few more minutes of torrential urine the H.I.V. flew on and the storm passed, although the normally-pink skies remained grey and murky.

  The Zedarcoaster was bucking and jerking crazily. They lurched forward, and as they came nearer and nearer it became at once apparent that this place was unlike any municipality any of them had ever seen or visited. The Zedarcoaster rushed through a pair of rusty old gates which hung open, barely on their hinges.

  "Hold on to your dentures!" giggled Poo-go, as he tried to keep the Zedarcoaster in the center of the street.

  "I think we had better run straight through," said Dr. Slugg. "I don't like the look of this neighborhood at all."

  "Well, whatever happens, try to remember you're tied to me," giggled Poo-go.

  "Then woe betide us," sighed Dr. Slugg.

  Vogelkot woke up, jumped next to Tiny Tirdly and put his scabby wing around the boy’s shoulder and all of them gazed in bewilderment at this bewildering city.

  "Sydsho," said a large sign just beyond the gates, and over the whole city hung a smoky haze. Enormous yellow-and-red-striped tents lined both the sides of the road, all were dingy and in need of repair. Each tent- none of which had a front wall- had three open plan stories. And on these levels sat jar after jar of pickled kaiju fetuses of all different kinds. Some of the fetuses were reptilian, some were mammalian, some were somewhere in between. The fetus’ heads, somewhat flattened by the glass, had a squashed and sour look. Most of them had trouble opening their eyes the whole way.

  Each greasy glass jar had thin glass arms and legs and glass hands and feet.

  As the Zedarcoaster bounced merrily along the main street, the jars began to climb, jump and tumble off the shelves, exited to closer observe these strange visitors to their tent town. They made no attempt to keep out of the way, so Poo-go hastily tried to stopped the coaster. But even so, one managed to get under the wheels and Tiny Tirdly shivered and covered his eyes as the jar creature splintered to bits on the glass paving stones.

  "Now you've done it," groaned Vogelkot. The jarred populace evidently thought so too, for they began hopping up and down, shouting all sorts of threats and abuse. The four travelers could only hear a dull murmuring, for the voices of the creatures did not carry through their jars, but the visitors could tell from the dreadful faces they were making through the glass that they were being threatened and abused. The heart-rending screams of the unhappy victim under the wheels, however, were quite distinct.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Poo-go was so moved by the evident distress of the kaiju fetus- which had a goat’s head, an iguana’s body, and a mountain lion’s legs- rolling around in the pile of broken glass that he impulsively started to jump out of the coaster, forgetting the tie between himself and Dr. Slugg. The slug therefore got a terrible wrench. Some fetus jars dragged their companion from beneath the wheels, and a simply enormous jar came running down the street with its hairless pig-shaped fetus bobbing and shifting in green preservative. In one glass hand he had a pad and in the other a pencil.

  "You have broken the peace," read Dr. Slugg, as the pickled pig’s fetus held up his pad. His jar had the nicest lid they had seen so far and he was evidently a person of some importance. Like the rest he had been preserved by pickling and looked rather unhealthy.

  While the pig fetus within boobed to and fro the large jar’s hands scratched furiously on his pad, "You are under arrest. Come with me."

  "Let's follow," said Dr. Slugg. "We can fly away at any time, and I'd like to see all the jars of fetuses while I'm about it, for I think Soda will enjoy hearing about them."

  Poo-go climbed back behind the controls and ran the Zedarcoaster slowly and carefully down the street after the solemn fetus jar, the rest of the population following at a safe distance. Tiny Tirdly's large eyes grew larger when a preserved dog-shaped kaiju fetus ran briskly in front of the coaster on four glass legs.

  But right here their guide turned the corner and they found themselves in a litter-strewn park, in the center of which was a grungy tent-shaped gazebo with a large throne under it. On the throne was a jar containing a sort of porcupine/squid kaiju fetius. Poo-go stopped the coaster before the low throne.

  Our friends realized they were in the presence of another queen. They knew she was a queen, for on the pad held up for their inspection the pickled pig’s fetus had written, "Queen Foetussa the Great." on his pad and showed it to wach of our friends. Foetussa reached up and with some difficulty unscrewed her lid, then pushed it up with her moist head so she could address our friends.

  The pig fetus seemed very much alarmed at the queen's action and quickly wrote on his pad, "Shut your lid!" Tiny Tirdly considered this dreadfully disrespectful, and the stinkingo began to chuckle with enjoyment. Foetussa quite meekly obeyed, then her jar pulled out a pad and a pencil of their own.

  Then a rapid exchange ensued between the fetus jars. One would write a message and show it to the other. The other would dash off an answer, and so quickly was it done, the four in the coaster had all they could do to keep up with the conversation. Finally the pickled pig’s fetus held up a scrawled message to Foetussa:

  "Why not preserve them whole for the museum?"

  The queen apparently thought this a good idea and pushed a button on her throne, causing a farty sounding horn to honk. In a few moments they were joined by a huge humanoid, followed by all the jarred fetuses in the city. The jars surrounded the Zedarcoaster. The gargantuan woman was not in a jar. She was, in fact, a huge and towering Pickler with a passion for preserving. She had put up the inhabitants of the entire city and was the real ruler of Sydsho. She wore a lumpy green apron and for some reason carried a large fork in her black-rubber-glove-covered hands.

  "Look at these babies!" shrilled the Pickler, prodding Poo-go with her fork, which was as long as a scumbershoot. "Ah, what an extreme pleasure. I have preserved yokai and humanoids and aliens and jackasses, but never a slug. Or a bird or a nekroklown! And, look, here’s a little brown humanoid!" she chucked Tiny Tirdly familiarly under the chin.

  "Imperial and Imperious Pickler," giggled Poo-go, "why are you so determined to preserve us against our wills, and why have you preserved these others?"

  "Strangers," wheezed the Pickler, "since I am to have the pleasure of putting you up I don't mind explaining my little system. In a jar, barring breaks, you will last for years, and needing neither food nor drink will find it quite unnecessary to work."

  "Put yourselves up to keep from working," gasped Poo-go. "But I love my work!"

  "Then you are very different from most people," observed the Pickler, looking at the nekroklown with great interest. "But, never mind, you will soon be preserved. And this little boy- he will look perfectly handsome in a tiny little jar! Spare the jar and spoil the child," she quoted with a dreadful wink that sent Qrt Vogelkot circling into the air, where he flew uneasily over the heads of his luckless companions.

  "Off to the pickling facility with you!" shrilled the Pickler, and Poo-go, in real alarm, made a dash toward the buttons to start the coaster, but the Pickler brought down her heavy fork, and crushed the entire steering mechanisms.

  Dr. Slugg, cautiously moved his hand toward the only button in the Zedarcoaster that the iron fork had not smashed- the button that said "Up!"

  The pig fetus saw him and made indistinct gurgles of protest under his lid, but before he could warn the Pickler or Foetussa, Poo-go had pressed the button, and the Zedarcoaster, with a jerk that sent dozens of the fetus jars crashing to the pavement and knocked Pickler head over heels, rose into the air. The stinkingo made a flying leap and caught it on the wing, so to speak, and in a flash they were hurtling through the smoky haze of the city and into the pinkish-blue sky.

  Poo-go frantically felt for all the buttons, but they were hopelessly broken by the Pickler’s strike. Up and up they did go, faster and faster, until they lost all track of time and place and had not even breath enough to talk. Then, with a terrific crash, the Zedarcoaster ran into a five-pointed star that was actually a Dribbilian satellite disguised as a star. The Zedarcoaster turned completely over and spilled out the whole company.

  There, caught by its rear axle, it hung on the point of the star, while Poo-go, Tiny Tirdly, Vogelkot and Dr. Slugg fell head over heels through space. Vogelkot caught himself first and, flying after Tiny Tirdly, caught the boy’s shoulders in his greasy, scabby feet. Slowing their descent, the duo watched in horror as Poo-go and Dr. Slugg- still bound by the large intestine- fell together, first one and then the other on top. Vogelkot had to fly rapidly to keep pace with their falling.

  "Oh, my sores and lesions!" spluttered the faithful avian-class yokai, "they'll be shattered to bits!"

  "What shall we do?" yelled Tiny Tirdly up to the stinkingo.

  "You I can save, but that beautiful nekroklown and Dr. Slugg will be splattered to gore!"

  Though falling, as Poo-go explained afterward, did give one a sinking sensation, it was not nearly so unpleasant as he had expected and, when he looked up and saw Tiny Tirdly safely in the stinkingo’s feet, he fell more calmly, trying now and then to do the butterfly stroke and calling encouragement to Dr. Slugg. Dr. Slugg was blubbering and sobbing and pulling on his eyestalks.

  The stinkingo and Krapaterian orphan screamed with fright when they saw the hard nature of the terrain into which their friends were tumbling. The ground was studded with pointy brown mountains. The terrain, both peaks and valleys, was covered in blackish-brown scabs, harder than molybdenum-covered gallstone. To say the least, the view was not very encouraging.

  "Good-bye!" roared Dr. Slugg, looking up mournfully at Poo-go, who was at that minute a little above him. "I'll never forget you!" The nekroklown was too affected by this statement to answer and merely waved to the others and closed his eyes.

  Faster than a Mukuasquad go-cart Vogelkot darted down and set Tiny Tirdly on a huge swollen and cracked but mostly level scab. Tiny Tirdly’s feet sank down a bit into the fresh wound and greenish-yellow pus bubbled around his feet. Then, with his lumpy wings spread, the stinkingo flew up and down, around and around, intending, if possible, to break Poo-go's fall with his own body. But the clown and gastropod never did finish their fall- for as they whizzed past one of the tall brown mountains a large brown hand reached out and miraculously caught the intestine that held the friends together. Slugg and Poo-go abruptly swung in a downward arch and slammed into each other, then dangled from the brown fist. The brown fist was connected to a long brown arm which was connected to a brown mountain, which resembled a dollop of soft-serve ice cream but with the texture of hard-pack ice cream. Unlike the other scab mountains this mountain’s head ended not in a spike but a little curl.

  The mountain rumbled and then stood up, revealing two thin brown legs with large brown feet. The feet shuffled until the mountain had turned around enough degrees for Tiny Tirdly- who struggled to remain upright as the mountain’s machinations were causing a small tremors- to see it had a large friendly smile carved into its face, above which were carved two round eyes- completely black and about thirteen Earth-feet in diameter.

  "Oh my goodness, that mountain is alive!" cried Tiny Tirdly.

  "And its not scabs, it’s a dollop of kaiju poo!" added Vogelkot, landing next to the Krapaterian orphan.

  "I.. AM NOT... POO!" roared the mountain, his friendly smile turning into a savage frown. "AND I HATE WHEN PEOPLE THINK I’M POO!!" it screamed even louder, shaking the hanging slug and clown back and forth while causing massive tremors.

  Vogelkot gulped. Tiny Tirdly gulped. Poo-Go gulped. Dr. Slugg farted, and then gulped.