Revenge On The Mega-Nega

Actually, it weren't thinkin' that saved 'im.

It were somethin' quicker, somethin' uncoilin' from a place deep inside Barney he din't really know existed but recognized the moment it showed isself, like his own hairy tentacle hidden mosta the time and now springin' to duty - the first duty, the only duty.

His savior were anger.

The Mega-Nega din't really know what hit it when this gangly, scraggly cowboy nearly jumped outta his boots and britches and jest like it had wanted, into its waiting arms.

'Cept the arms weren't there for long.

Never mind the burnin' hot wellpipe. Never mind the soiled potato chips and their abandoned, emptied bag. Never mind the missin' comics, even.

All Barney needed was his bare hands.

The Mega-Nega lost its left arm first. Barney dug his fingers into the nubby jelly of the thing's shoulder and he found it weren't that strong at all really. He'd been right about the sharp spikes - they was already worn down to tiny prickles like a baby cactus mebbe, and that were nothin' new to Barney, so in he dug and kept on diggin' until he found the Mega-Nega's bone, which under his pryin' hands felt like nothin' more than a thin wafer, a haft of wheat he might lodge between his lips one fine day for some idle chewin'. His rage snapped it in two and it crumbled to dust.

"Er--" gurgled the Mega-Nega, but that were all it got out before Barney rammed his other hand down the raw, sloppy gash it called a mouth. He told hold of the knobby bulb he thought might be its vocal chords (or chord, who knew?) and made that the next rung on a ladder he would climb backwards, down into the foul heart of this sick meatpile that wanted him for a mate, submerged and drowned in its dark pools forever.

"YOU WANNA HUG?!!!" screamed Barney. He knew the Mega-Nega couln't answer him 'cause its vocal chord were already a pulverized lump in his fist, and he were still goin' down, down, right through all its stupid, poorly made guts - everythin' doublin' back in on isself, each intestine and blood vessel a snake devouring its own tail and so destined to die, always die, soon as it finished its vile eating.

Barney's other hand were comin' with 'im, pullin' that useless right arm into the main mass of the Nega now, and without decidin' at all, jest straight off wrappin' it round the thing's neck, pullin' it tighter, almost casual like that's the way it shoulda always been and Barney was only helpin' it achieve its life goals a little sooner.

"Ghlkk--" protested the Nega, but Barney din't hear it. He were already down by that hairy tentacle he'd first seen creepin' toward his prifferal vision ages ago it seemed. And at the bottom here, his tentacle of hate were finishin' its own unfurlin'. He pressed on the fuzzy, bulbous Nega-extension with all the might he could darn well muster.

Well, it exploded in a messy blurt of thick, sticky fluid that roped across this parta the blasted desert and thickened up with blown sand seconds later - and Barney saw millions of tiny black bugs swimmin' in the stuff, clawin' madly for whatever sick air they needed to power their beastly, shriveled lungs and totally failin'...failin'...failin'.

Somehow this finished the Nega. It were collapsin' around him in waves of goopy sludge, soakin' his best gingham shirt and weekend britches right through and grossin' him out somethin' fierce, but Barney let it fall - every last milky membrane of split-apart Mega-Nega, now just messy trash he could clean up with a good broom or let the desert sweep away in its own time, as it did everythin' else.

Includin' his love Agnes, still gone from him now and to where nobody knew.

But the Mega, the Mega-Nega...it were nowhere at all.

Nowhere 'cept dead.