The return of the Rumpus
Chapter 5: by The Reflex
An Official_Omnipotent_Incorporated_Production
It was a stormy night in the most distant reaches of Suburbia in Alief. The lightening flashed overhead, streaking across the sky to illuminate a lone figure with spiked hair and glasses standing in an empty field. Could this be the one that they had thought was gone from their lives forever? A single bolt of lightening burst from the rain cloud overhead and struck our solitary person briefly lighting up his skeleton before spiking his hair even more. He fell face first into the mud of the field and merely issued an "UNH!" before he passed out. The Rumpus had returned.
The next morning, the rain clouds had briefly dispersed to allow some sunlight to shine on Alief as all of the students started off to high school ready for a Friday of hard work (yeah, right). It was the final year of school for many students that would soon be starting either a career or college. They had many things to consider and plan for over the next few days as they prepared for graduation. The last thing that they believed they would have to worry about managed to infiltrate the student body as they pressed into Elsik Senior High School. Rumpus wore a florescent-orange rain coat with a hood to cover up his hair and adorned sunglasses to avoid drawing attention to himself and being recognized. He would merely be gathering information today to plan for his ultimate revenge. What was he doing here? Why did he return after being gone for so many years? Who or what was he planning revenge against? We will get to these questions soon enough, but meanwhile...
On the north side of the campus, Jason pulled his crappy blue 1982 Mustang in his parking space. He opened the door and got his books out of the back seat. Slamming the door and giving the car a kick for good measure he bounced his way up to the main building running into many of his friends along the way. Out of the corner of his eye, he barely caught his old girlfriend, Jennifer, narrowly jumping out of the way of a big red pickup truck (with tinted windows and white mag wheels) that purposely seemed to be aiming at her. The truck jumped over the drainage ditch and went driving off across the practice football field before disappearing behind the annex building. Jason would have sworn he could hear "Oh L'Amour" playing from the truck even though all of the windows were rolled up on it. "I wonder if that could be who I think it was..." he quietly wondered to himself.
"Hi, Jen," Jason said as he approached Jennifer.
"Oh, hi, Jason," Jennifer replied as she was climbing down off of the telephone pole.
"That truck looked familiar. Something tells me it going to be a weird weekend," Jason mused, "Can I walk you to class?"
"Sure," Jennifer replied in her most natural simple-minded way.
During lunch that day, Jason noticed a short, round person wearing a florescent-orange rain jacket with the hood pulled over his head and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sunglasses in the lunch line. "I swear that guy has been following me all day," Jason thought to himself as he sat down at his lunch table. Rumpus was going through the line picking out food left and right. He spent most of his time hovering over the dessert section. Rumpus walked backwards out the end of the lunch line to avoid having to pay for his food. He balanced both trays on one arm as he pulled a chair out from a table. He set one tray down on the chair as he placed the other one down on the table. All of the sudden, his Rumpus-Sense(tm) started tingling meaning there was danger near. He turned around to see one of his targets walking past him. Rumpus sat down and faced the other direction in a hurry. Luckily, Jeff didn't recognize Rumpus. "That was a close one," Rumpus thought to himself. He chowed down his lunch and sat at his table for a while just perusing the cafeteria for everyone that was in it. "I can't believe nobody here can tell who I am right now...maybe I'm invisible?" he asked himself. He stood up and started walking for the stairwell when he heard a growing noise from the cafeteria. When he turned around he saw that everybody was laughing hysterically. He looked around to find the source of such humor, then he realized everyone was laughing at him. He had forgotten that he set one tray of food on his chair before he sat down in a hurry. He had a tray stuck to his butt with spaghetti and strawberry shortcake oozing out around the edges. "UNNNGGHH! They might recognize me!" Rumpus dashed to the stairwell knocking over small trees in the atrium on his way. After Jason finished laughing, a thought struck him: "Only one person could've done something that stupid, but he's thousands of miles away and nobody's heard from him in years."
After peeling the tray from his posterior, Rumpus left the school and headed over to West Oaks Mall to hang out. He was chased around the mall by security when he mistook "hanging out" as meaning exposing your private parts in public. He warped the minds of many of the children in the toy store after he ran by with genitalia flailing in the breeze. He played some video games reminiscing of the glory days that he would spend playing with his Commodore 64 computer. After school was out for the weekend, many of the students from the school made their way to the mall to do the wanky things that people their age tend to do at such social gatherings. Rumpus followed many other people around the mall, most of it was because he had nothing better to do, but part of it was because he was waiting for the right moment...
Chris -- once a proud 12 year-old member of the exclusive Commodore Kingdom club that Rumpus ruled in the early days, but now just your normal hormonally-active 18 year-old senior in high school -- was checking out the latest CDs that were on sale in Sound Warehouse. He downed the rest of his 32-ounce Coke and tossed the CD that he was going to buy up on the counter.
"'Front 242 Does Elvis'?" asked the young salesgirl.
"Supposed to be a classic," Chris replied.
"Whatever..." the salesgirl said blandly. She rang up the sale and took Chris' $14.99. Chris walked down the mall looking in various windows along the way. He stopped at the pet store to look at the rabbits in the window. He saw a short, round fellow wearing a florescent-orange raincoat and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sunglasses walk past him and into the pet store. This fellow kept looking back at Chris. "I swear that person was looking at me in Sound Warehouse," thought Chris. He walked on. Rumpus stuck two rabbits and a parrot in his jacket and a Guiana pig in his pants for dinner that night.
Chris was walking down the mall when he felt his bladder start to rumble. "Uh-oh! Must've been the Coke. Damn stuff went right through me." He headed for the mall bathrooms. This time, he didn't notice the figure in the orange jacket follow him. He went into one of the stalls and let his pants down to sit on the stool. He was looking at the jacket of his new CD when he noticed the feet of someone walk over to the urinals on the other side of the bathroom. He went back to looking at the CD. All of the sudden he heard a loud, high-pitched, whining, vibrating sound. WHIRRRRRRRRRR! His heart sank down into his stomach as his memory raced to figure out where he had heard that sound before. "NO! It couldn't be...not after all of these years" He remembered a day in the Rumpus Room many years ago when he heard the same noise. It was during that day that Rumpus was actually revealed to be a Rumpuser. The door to the stall was kicked open. Chris was blinded by a bright light behind the short, round figure that was standing there. The figure reached to his head and pulled off two straight, pointed, mousse- hardened locks of hairs and threw them at Chris like spikes. The spikes went through Chris' shirt at the shoulders and pinned him to the wall.
"This will teach you not to moon me in my own backyard!" the figured said. Chris screamed as the last thing he heard before everything went black was a ZIP! then the WHIRRRRRRRRRR!
Moments later, Rumpus made his way to the mall exit just as there were screams and yelling coming from the men's restroom as people made the grisly discovery. Rumpus quietly chuckled to himself. "They'll all be sorry they ever made fun of me..." he mused. Then he threw his head back and started laughing out loud in a long, sinister laugh. He didn't see the ambulance rushing up to the mall entrance when it hit him. The cleaning people mistook him for a florescent-orange garbage bag and threw him in the dumpster where he spent many hours unconscious.
Around nine o' clock that night, the clouds started to gather together again. They opened up on Suburbia Alief with a fierceness not seen in a long time. Rumpus felt the rain on his face and pulled the jacket up around him as he climbed out of the garbage dumpster. He stumbled over to his Rumpus Scooter and rode back to his base of operations: His old house that has been empty for several years now. He parked his scooter in the bushes just inside the gate and went around to the backyard. He opened the big window on the back of the house and climbed in out of the rain. Feeling somewhat tired, he just jumped out of the window sill and onto the now-empty carpet. His heart jumped when he heard a high-pitched voice say, "AAAAUUCK! POLLY WANT THE HELL OUTTA HERE!" He realized the voice was coming from inside his jacket so he pulled the parrot out. The parrot flapped its wings and tried to fly for freedom when Rumpus grabbed it and tied a piece of twine around one of its claws. He tied the other end to the closet doorknob.
"Every good pirate should have a parrot," Rumpus said to Polly. Rumpus rolled up the edge of the carpet and removed a loose floorboard to reveal his pirate flag (the "Jolly Flogger" as he used to call it) and his eye patch. He had hidden them there when he thought he was going to be arrested for illegally copying "Summer Games" for his Commodore 64. He put on his eye patch and hung the flag on the wall like he used to do in his old software pirating days. Rumpus commenced talking like a pirate ("Argh, avast ye scurvy dogs! Prepare to boarded!") until he was thoroughly bored. He then went to the kitchen to fix dinner. He pulled the Guiana pig out of his pants. The Guiana pig was gasping for fresh air when Rumpus stuck it in the oven. Later, as Rumpus was pulling Guiana pig hair out from between his teeth, he flipped on the television that he just happened to bring with him. He tuned in to the news.
"THIS JUST IN!" blared the anchorman, "An eighteen year-old youth identified only as 'Chris' was found unconscious in a stall of the West Oaks Mall men's room. He was covered with a sticky white substance; however, police do not believe it to be a sexually motivated attack. The young man kept mumbling something about the return of the end of humanity. He was quickly tranquilized and taken to the hospital for severe trauma treatment. More news at ten." --CLICK!-- Rumpus turned off the television.
Mike was getting ready to go to a party. He took a shower and did the other things that people normally do when getting ready to go some place. As he was getting dressed, he didn't notice a florescent-orange object streak by his window in his back yard. He had the radio turned up really loud as the thunder outside was almost deafening at times. Little did he realize that prying eyes were squinting at him through the window.
Mike finished getting dressed, grabbed his car keys and headed for the front door grabbing an umbrella along the way. He popped the umbrella open and stepped out into the rain locking the door behind him. He was half-way to his car when he heard a noise behind him. It started growing louder: WHIRRRRRRRRR! He turned around just in time to see Rumpus running towards him. Rumpus reached up and pulled a spike off his head and threw it at Mike. The umbrella snapped in two as the razor-sharp spike pierced the handle. Mike stared at Rumpus in horror then took off running down the street. Rumpus pursued. After several blocks Rumpus realized his short legs were no match for Mike's longer legs. He was falling behind. Rather than let Mike get away and warn the others, Rumpus remembered something. He reached into his florescent-orange camouflage raincoat and pulled out a rabbit he had shoplifted earlier that day. When the incredible strength that Rumpus possessed in his right arm, Rumpus lobbed the rabbit at a mind-numbing speed. The rabbit flew through the air (with the greatest of ease...). It landed square in the middle of Mike's back, knocking the wind out of him. He fell to the ground from the force. The rabbit, slightly stunned, hopped off and got washed into the sewer. Rumpus slowly walked up to Mike and turned him over.
"This will teach you for opening up the bathroom door that day and starting all of this," Rumpus said with a sinister grin on his face. ZIP! WHIRRRRRRRRR! Michael's scream pierced the suburban quiet only for an instant before it was drowned out by the thundering noise from the heavens.
Jennifer jumped as the thunder broke overhead and the lightening illuminated the living room through the skylight on the high overhead ceiling. The electricity flickered off then back on for half a second. Jennifer was talking to her cousin on the phone:
"I don't know, Aida, he's been bugging me all day," she was saying when she heard a noise in the backyard. "Just a second, I heard something out back." She put the phone down and went to the backdoor. She peeked out the backdoor curtains, but couldn't see anything. Jennifer ran back to the phone: "Let me call you right back." She put the receiver in the cradle and grabbed her phone book. She was starting to get frightened since she was all alone in the house. Her mother was out on a date and she had to cancel her plans because of the rain. Hurriedly, she dialed several people, but nobody was home. Reluctantly, she called Jason.
-- RING! -- -- RING! -- "Hello?"
"Jason, this is Jennifer! There's someone in my backyard ... please come over, fast!"
"Okay, I'm on my way. Stay put."
Within few minutes, Jason arrived to play the "the man is here so everything is safe" routine. He checked out back, but could find nothing there. He went back inside and told this to Jennifer. They sat down on the sofa and started talking. They didn't realize that someone was watching them through the skylight. Rumpus stood up and slowly walked down the slant of the roof towards the front of the house for no apparent reason. He looked around to see if anybody else was watching. Rumpus stealthily walked back up the roof. When he reached the peak of the roof, his foot slipped on a loose shingle. He started to lose his balance. He grabbed onto the television antenna with the superhuman strength of his right hand and balanced himself. Just then, a bolt of lightening flashed down and struck the antenna while Rumpus was holding onto it.
Jason and Jennifer watched as the picture on the television went out. "That's funny, the TV antenna is grounded. That shouldn't have happened," Jennifer said. As Jennifer completed her sentence, they heard a noise: WHIRRRRR-- WHIRRR-- WHIRR-- WHIR--. It seemed to sputter out. There was a crashing noise and glass showered down into the living room as a florescent- orange Rumpus fell through the skylight. The smoking Rumpus landed right in front of the sofa with a broken television antenna clutched in his hand. Rumpus appeared to be unconscious.
"What the Hell is that?" Jason said as he got up off the sofa and bent down by Rumpus. "No, it couldn't be...," he pondered upon closer examination, "I didn't even think that he alive anymore. What's he doing here? Jennifer, go call an ambulance." Jason stood up.
Before Jennifer could reach the phone, Rumpus jumped up and grabbed Jason around the throat from behind. Rumpus jumped on Jason's back. Jason couldn't handle the weight as he fell to the floor. As Rumpus was pounding Jason's head into the carpet he was screaming, "And that's for mooning me in my own backyard then taking a crap in it!"
Jennifer grabbed the lamp off the coffee table and took a swing at Rumpus. She caught Rumpus square in the forehead with the end of the lamp. Rumpus went flying through the air and landed against the wall half silly. She helped Jason stand up.
"We've got to get outta here," Jason managed to get out. They started out the door and got in Jason's car. As they were racing off, Rumpus staggered to the doorway. He threw several spikes at them, but missed through all of the rain. Rumpus pulled his Rumpus Scooter out of the Southwestern Bell manhole (excuse, me..."sewer access cover" for you feminists). Rumpus had used the underground telephone tunnels to race around in, but this one called for surface pursuit.
Jason had punched his Mustang as fast as it would go, but there was only so fast that an old 3.8 liter fuel-injected V6 would go. Rumpus spotted them less than half a mile ahead. He reached down onto the side of his scooter. He tossed the Turbo Covers off the sides. He then flipped a switch on the dash that flashed "TURBO SYSTEM ARMED -- NITROUS OXIDE TANKS READY." With the press of a button, the Nitrous Oxide systems fed the gas into the fuel line and flames shot out the back.
Faster than the fastest bullet-bike, the Rumpus Scooter easily caught up with the car by the time they reached the school. Rumpus pulled along the side of Jason's Mustang and threw some hair at the tires. The tires exploded and the car screeched to a stop in the middle of the intersection. Jason and Jennifer got out of the car, but then just stood there in fear as Rumpus circled back around and stopped the scooter just fifteen yards from them. They trembled with dread as Rumpus got off the scooter and started towards them.
"You made fun of me for all of those years...even after I moved across the country you still tormented me. That's all over now..." Rumpus was saying. ZIP! WHIRRRRRRR!
But before Rumpus could take another step, two bright halogen headlights came up behind him with blinding speed. They came right up to Rumpus and hit him with earth-shaking force. Rumpus flew threw the air and stuck head-first into a telephone poll by his spiked hair. The big red truck slid sideways to a stop. The door flew open and out stepped their saviour.
"ROB!" they both shouted in unison.
"Hi! I'd been heading out this way to pick someone up when I saw Rumpus. I knew that he meant trouble. Quick, Jason, help me get him in the back of the truck," Rob said. He opened up his tool box and grabbed some rope and duct tape. They tied Rumpus up and put duct tape around his waist so that he couldn't move; however, they only had four feet of tape left so they could only put it a little more than half way around him.
"Okay, Jason," Rob said, "let's throw Rumpus in the back and take him for a ride. Jennifer, you stay here and change all the flat tires on Jason's car." They got in the truck and started speeding north out of town. Within the hour, they arrived at Intercontinental Airport. They drove the truck through one of the fences and headed for the fueling area. They found a plane headed for Columbia and tossed the unconscious Rumpus onto the baggage loading conveyor belt. Rumpus slid upwards then disappeared into the baggage compartment of the 737 headed for Bogota.
Afterwards, they went up to the restaurant at the airport. Jennifer arrived shortly after she had fixed the tires and drove to the airport. They talked for a while. Right after they finished dinner and were having drinks, they heard a noise that struck fear in their hearts. WHIRRRRRRRR! When they turned around all they saw was a waiter with a small chainsaw trying to cut a tough piece of turkey.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," apologized the waiter.
"No problem," said Jason turning back to the table, "Anyway, all I know is that Rumpus just came back and decided to get even with all of us."
"Kind of scary," replied Rob, "but you know how much of a Rumpus he was anyway. I'm just glad it's over."
Jennifer started up, "Oh, by the way, Rob. I asked my friend Yvette to meet us here...she says she knows you. There she is."
"Ulp!" was all Rob could get out as Heaven came through the doorway. She walked up and sat down next to him.
"Isn't this the cutest face you've ever seen?" Yvette asked Jennifer and Jason as she grabbed Rob's face.
"Ulp!" was all he could still manage to get out.
Meanwhile, some 50,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, there was a 737 Air Columbia airplane flying strong. However, the pressure in the baggage compartment dropped sharply as a long, black spike of mousse-hardened hair pierced the outer hull.
This has been a Tampered-With Production (c) 1990
If you have any suggestions, comments, death threats, etc. directed towards Omnipotent, Inc. or any of it's members, we can be reached via The Dark Side of the Moon...[408] 245-SPAM...account number 27. Or via Internet: reflex@darkside.com
