Secrets of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer Read Free Book Online

said. “That doesn’t sound promising.”
    Swamp Lord took that moment to sublimate as the rest of us scrambled to stay upright. Suddenly, my decision not to bring a jet pack along became fodder for one of those self-assessments that begin with the words, “In hindsight, perhaps I should have...”
    There was the briefest of pauses before the ground next to me erupted in a burst of mud and dirt, tossing me bodily aside.
    Climbing out of the hole in the top of the hill was a dirt covered T-Rex. Shit just got real.
    “What the...” I said, stopping short of saying the “F” word.
    “Shoot it!” The pistol wielding clone shouted. My first thought was run, but his idea wasn’t bad either. In fact, I could probably do both!
    Backpedaling, I cut loose with my pulse pistols, hoping to hit something important, or at least slow it down. I didn’t come all this way to end up as something’s well-balanced breakfast. Plus, I was awfully high in fat content.
    Bluish white needles of energy darted into the beastie. My attack pitted the thing’s chest, and left me with a sudden and horrifying revelation. This wasn’t a dinosaur in stasis that Old Rexxie left taking a dirt nap, this was some kind of stone construct that looked and moved like it belonged in Jurassic Park. It had red glowing eyes that might as well have been a targeting system—locked on me.
    “Help,” I said. The words didn’t leave my throat with any real oomph behind them. Nor did they properly convey my sense of complete and utter panic. So, I returned to my original idea and started running, letting the foul swamp air fill my lungs for a second attempt.
    “Help! Shoot it! Shoot it!” A frightened, young co-ed in a cheap slasher movie couldn’t have done it any better.
    On the plus side, it was made of stone and not terribly fast, but this chase wasn’t exactly taking place over wide open spaces. I had to dodge around fallen trees, rocks, roots and everything else. All it had to do was follow the straightest path to me.
    I ran past one of the clones carrying a plasma rifle who was trying to slow it down. All his high tech weapon did was leave some scorch marks on the surface.
    Worse still, the T-Rex golem ignored him and kept following me. Secretly, I had hope that he’d draw the thing’s attention and it would stop chasing me. For better or worse, the animated creation only had eyes for me.
    “Try explosives!” I yelled, already finding my breath coming out in ragged gasps. Adrenaline and panic were compensating for my poor exercise habits, but the situation was degrading by the second.
    “We didn’t bring any!” The clone answered. “Remember? I said we should, but you said we wouldn’t need any with Swamp Lord here.”
    I suppose I did actually say that , I thought. Still, it’s a dick move to remind me of it!
    Frantically, I looked around for Swamp Lord, however, unless you were within ten feet of him and looking for a distortion pattern in the air, it was like trying to spot the Semi-Transparent Man in a football stadium on game day.
    “Hooch! Save me!” I screamed. This was his home turf. Inside a swamp the dude is damned near invincible.
    A tree near me pulled itself out of the ground and ran toward the thing gaining on me. It fared about as well as a tree would against something that out-massed it by more than ten tons and was made of far denser material. Of course, better the tree than me.
    “Cal,” I heard Hooch say. “I have to go and...”
    “No!” I shrieked. “Don’t leave me.” The words reminded me of the things my teenaged self might have said to any of the number of girls he’d tried to date.
    “Just try not to get eaten,” he said. “I’m going to round up enough swamp gas to do some damage!”
    “Hurry!”
    One of Swamp Lord’s animated trees was excavating a trench—a low point where he could put the methane, I supposed.
    Summing up my situation, I concluded that our weapons were useless and our most