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

powerful member just ran out to get some gas. Things were so messed up right now that it seemed like a civil servant was in charge. Technically, I did work for Uncle Sam. Even if I had the time to rig my pistols to blow up like a grenade, it wouldn’t do nearly enough damage.
    So, I ran. I ran like never before. I ran like Tom Hanks in that one movie, but there was no girl to run to, only a series of desperate sprints and evasions to save my worthless life. I felt like one of the marbles on a life-sized game of Hungry, Hungry, Hippos .
    My only advantage was my mind, I stayed just inside the underbrush and moved through as fast as I could; letting the dinosaur golem behind me clear the path that I’d use on my next lap. I did my best to keep it away from Swamplord’s created monster, which was digging our own version of a tiger trap.
    They sure look bigger on the screen; I muttered and dodged around a collection of trees and bushes. Of course, I was running out of juice fast and it could, and probably would, chase me to the ends of the Earth.
    Time began to lose meaning, and my continued existence was reduced to that of a cornered rat. I’d considered trying to take it back down the hill to see if it would get stuck in the swamp, but that path back down wasn’t for the faint of heart, and there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t get stuck.
    Twice, it had nearly gotten me and I’d scraped up enough adrenaline to skitter away from it, but now my body, less a well-oiled machine and more a sputtering clunker running on vapors, was giving out on me.
    I fell and couldn’t rise. On my hands and knees, I pushed forward another five feet and could only watch as the behemoth approached. There wasn’t enough energy left in me even to scream. Something grabbed me from behind and I barely registered being tossed through the air. For a brief second, I though the T-Rex golem had snatched me from the ground and tossed me upwards to crush me in its jaws on the way down, but instead, I hit the ground and tried to figure out what just happened. It was Hooch’s plant monster, interceding on my behalf and grappling with the behemoth to buy me another twenty seconds.
    “Cal!” One of the clones called, shaking me out of a haze of lactic acid buildup and terror. “Get intto the pit!”
    Stumbling, with a new short-term lease on life, I made my way in the direction he wanted me to go. It was the best I was capable of. The pit was really some kind of sloped trench Hooch’s destroyed tree soldier had dug. I could see the area of distortion that I associated with Swamp Lord, above me, and smelled the awful, rancid, methane pocket the Master of the Marsh held in place down here. The methane itself was odorless; however, all the contaminants were what generated the awful stench. At that moment, I didn’t care. It was the best smell ever as far as I was concerned!
    Another of Hooch’s creations waited for me at the bottom in the hard to breath air, and a plasma-rifle-carrying-José was on the top of the slope I’d need to climb to get out. Hooch’s monster was a long vine anchored into the side of the trench.
    “Wait!” he commanded as I took a couple of steps in his direction. After all the motion I’d put my body through in the past however long it had been, standing still and panting felt strange. Every part of my body screamed that if I stood still much longer, I’d fall to the ground and never get up. Fighting against it, I held my ground, which shook with the approach of my executioner.
    “Now,” the clone commanded and my tired legs gave a half-hearted attempt to follow his directions. A second José appeared and dragged me the last few feet as the golem’s leg stepped down into the trap. The vine snapped out and wrapped around the thing’s ankle.
    Seconds later, there was an eruption behind us. The clone who’d helped me up the slope, pushed me up those last few feet, and dived on top of me. A massive thud came seconds