Barbarian Box Set: Barbarians of Zandipor Books One, Two and Three(2)

The title of the film, Love in all Angles, shows up on the big screen and my heart skips a beat. I can’t hear the nice music that should be playing; all I can hear is horrified screams.

Jake Silverstone’s beautiful face comes on the large screen as the movie starts. I smile as he’s standing in the rain outside of Rachel’s palace. It’s my favorite scene and I must have read it at least a few dozen, uh hundred, times.

Why is he turquoise?

My head tilts as I wonder why the actor’s skin is a Caribbean water blue. He looks so hot in that shade of blue but I still wonder why the director chose to do that.

“Oh frig!”

Just as I realize what’s happening the tractor beam sucks me up.

***

It’s actually pretty pleasant up here. Like a spa.

Ya know, if you can ignore all of the screaming women who are clawing at the walls.

There’s nice piano music playing in the round room with beautiful scenic pictures of rainforests and beaches on the smooth walls.

A short woman rips off the picture of the beach and the image flickers off. I’m trying to figure out if it was a photo, a screen, or a hologram when she smashes it on the ground. “Get me the f*ck out of here!” she screams.

I glance around as a hysterical woman with a crocheted teddy bear on her sweater plows into me as she runs by, nearly knocking me to my feet. She joins a group of three women who are trying to yank off a metal panel. There are only glass tubes filled with that weird purple electricity thing behind it.

There are about twelve or so women in here and more popping in out of thin air every second. There doesn’t seem to be an exit or entrance to the room. It’s like we’re in a metal fishbowl.

“Avery!” Mandy says, rushing over to me. She grabs my arm with her hand and grips me so hard that I let out a yelp, but it doesn’t stop her from squeezing me even harder. “I’m so glad that you’re here!”

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically as I try to pry her fingers off of my burning forearm. “I think they’re trying to bring down the ship,” I say, pointing at the women who are yanking down the panel. I want to go help them instead of standing here like a coward but my feet don’t want to listen.

The frantic woman who nearly knocked me over grabs the glass tube from behind the metal panel and yanks it free. The flowing purple electricity spreads all over her body like it’s alive. She screams and drops to the floor with her mouth frozen open. Her eyes are smoking. Literally freaking smoking.

I guess standing here like a coward has its perks.

“Shit!” Mandy screams as the ship jerks to the side. We grab onto each other and all I want to do is start crying. I’m not in the mood to be a hero, I’m not into fighting aliens. All I want to do is quietly go back into my seat in the theater and watch the movie while devouring my popcorn. And maybe even sneak a few of Mandy’s M&Ms off the floor.

The lights flicker on and off and the ground starts vibrating. Hard and fast.

“We’re moving,” I whisper as the smell of rotten eggs hits my nostrils. The wooshing sound of air flowing in through a jet hits my ears.

“Do you think we’re going t-” Mandy’s eyes close and she drops to the floor, unconscious.

“Mandy,” I whisper as my throat burns. Women start dropping to the floor like Mandy’s M&Ms as the room starts spinning and my vision becomes cloudy. “Are you-”

My eyes are shut before I hit the floor.

***

“Good daytime to you, earthling women,” a trash can with wheels says as he rolls into the room. The door where he came from vanishes back into the smooth wall. There are no lines or anything to suggest that it was ever there in the first place.

“I trust you are having a glorious trip,” the robot spits out with its choppy voice.

“What’s going on?” Mandy asks, rubbing her eyes as she pushes herself up to a sitting position.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, swallowing the bitter taste in my mouth. I feel like I woke up on the floor of a bar in the middle of Spring Break. My head is pounding and that delicious buttery popcorn that I was shoving into my face is about to come back up.

“Congratulations, child-bearing aged females,” the robot says. “You are the fortunate few who have been selected for mating purposes for my fearless leader Rsordan.”

“You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me,” a girl says from beside me. I didn’t even notice that she was there. She’s got arms that are rock hard and she looks like she could take even the toughest trucker on in an arm wrestling match. But she’s got a beautiful face.

“Any fearless leader sticks his dick near me and I’m going to snap it off and shove it up his own ass,” she says in a growl.

The robot rolls over, stopping right in front of her and beeps. Its lights are flashing like a cheap slot machine at a Vegas bowling alley. “I’m not familiar with the word, dick.”

The girl kicks the robot with a thunk and he glides across the floor. I like this chick already. I’m staying close to her.

The other women begin waking up and looking around. Nobody is freaking out like they were before. It must be something in the air. It smells like pineapple mixed with bleach in here. It seems to be calming everybody down somehow.

The woman who got zapped by the purple electricity is missing and the panel is back to normal. She died for nothing. Well, not nothing. At least we all know not to touch that purple shit.