Earl sat in a chair, slumped over, and staring at Calvin, Hobbes, Garfield and Odie with sleepy eyes.
He had been set to guard Calvin, and the three animals, and he was beginning to look drowsy.
"Don't worry." Calvin whispered to the three animals. "I read this in a book. The subconscious mind is usually capable of obeying certain orders!"
"May we have an English translation, please?" Garfield asked.
Calvin glared at him.
"Sleeping people do stuff they don't do when they're awake." He said,
"Yeah, but this is an alien." Hobbes said. "We have no proof that it'll work on him."
"Watch." Calvin said, winking.
Calvin tiptoed over to the steel bars, and stared Earl right into his sleepy eyes.
"Ear-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rl!" Calvin whispered, in a soft, slightly high pitched voice with his lips puckered out. "Come open the cage door, Earl! Come open the ca-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ge!"
Earl blinked.
It was then, that Calvin realized that Earl looked more bored than he did sleepy. But he tried it again, anyway.
"Ear-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rl!" He murmured, holding his hands over his head, and moving his fingers up and down. "Set the prisoners fre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e! Set them free-e-e, Earl-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l!"
Earl gave him a blank stare.
"Many rewards will come your way if you open the stupid ca-a-a-age already-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y!" Calvin muttered, starting to get impatient.
Earl's attention began to wander.
Calvin started getting angry.
"Open the cage or I'll stuff your head in a car engin-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-ne!" Calvin hissed, abandoning his subconscious request thing, but maintaining his slightly high pitched voice.
"Could you please tell me what the heck you're doing?" Earl asked, turning to Calvin.
Calvin muttered and grumbled, and turned back to Hobbes, Garfield and Odie.
Garfield was grinning.
"Well, that didn't work out too well, did it?" He asked.
"Shut up." Calvin muttered.
Just then, Rupert came back into the room.
"Alright." He said. "The device is ready."
"Good." Earl said. "This kid's driving me nuts."
Rupert unlocked the cage and faced Calvin, Hobbes, Garfield and Odie.
"Man this is going to be good." He said.
He led Calvin and the gang out with Earl in the back, making sure none of them would make a break for it.
Rupert and Earl led the four into a circular room.
In the room, there sat a table, with straps on it. And there was a gigantic laser hung above it.
Calvin, Hobbes, Garfield and Odie stared at it.
"Well, that's certainly an original plan." Calvin said, sarcastically. "Strap them to a table, and make a laser slowly move upwards to them! We've seen it all before, Charlie! I thought that advanced alien civilizations were supposed to be able to come up with better torture than this!"
"We can." Rupert said, "We can strap you to a table and make you watch the first two seasons of Dora the Explorer."
Hobbes' eyes crossed, Garfield grabbed his throat, and nearly keeled over backwards, Odie's eyes rolled around in circles, and Calvin screamed, "GOOD GRIEF! That's terrible! You'd actually do that!"
"When we have enough time on our hands." Earl said. "But we're running late. Get on the table."
"Well, I don't particularly enjoy the idea of getting zapped by a laser." Calvin said. "So, if it's all the same to you..."
Earl grabbed Calvin, and shoved him onto the table. Rupert took the straps, and bond him there.
Then, Earl made a grab for Hobbes, and strapped him to second table, with a laser.
Rupert grabbed Garfield and Odie, as they attempted to make a run for it, and threw Garfield on table one with Calvin, and Odie on table two with Hobbes. Both were strapped down.
"Oo-kay." Earl said, as he and Rupert walked out of the room. "Try not to bleed all over the carpet; it'll take me weeks to clean."
And with that, they activated the lasers, and closed the doors behind them.
Red light shot out of the lasers, and hit the bottom of the tables. Smoke rose from them, as they slowly moved upward.
"Did I mention that you're never invited back here, again?" Garfield asked.
"Hobbes?" Calvin asked. "Judging how slow that laser's going, how long do you suppose it'll take until it reaches us?"
"Two minutes."
"Uh huh."
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, my life's flashing before my eyes, and I'm wondering if I have enough time to get some slow motion shots of me slamming a snowball into Susie's head."
Hobbes' eyes squeezed shut.
"Well, there doesn't appear to be any way out of this, is there?" Calvin asked.
"Nope." "Don't think so." "Bark!"
"Well, we better think of something if we want to keep this story going." Calvin observed.
There was a long moment of silence.
"Any suggestions?" Calvin asked.
"Well, perhaps if I can work one of these straps on my arms loose," Hobbes began. "then I can take out some of these wires next to me, and disable the lasers."
"Hmmm..." Calvin thought out loud. "It's worth a shot. Try it."
Hobbes started thrashing his arm about, trying to wear out the belt.
He thrashed, struggled, and battled the strap with no luck.
"Well, this isn't working out, too well." Calvin said.
"Wait," Hobbes started. "I still have another idea."
Hobbes began thrashing, again, until his body was in a upside down U shape. Not a perfect U, but he had curved his body.
Calvin, Garfield and Odie exchanged glances.
Hobbes then stretched his tail out, as far as it would go, and he started touching the giant laser in several places.
"Hobbes, what are you doing?" Calvin asked.
"Observe." Hobbes said.
Hobbes' tail grabbed the bottom of the laser, and yanked.
CRACK! POP! BOOM!
Calvin's eyes bulged.
The laser, hovered above Hobbes' table, had just collapsed to the left, sending up a shower of sparks, and causing the laser to zap Hobbes' strap off his arm before it sizzled out!
"How did you do that!" Calvin spat.
"It's amazing that tails can yank screws out of stuff, isn't it?" Hobbes said, grinning.
"OK, good, fine, whatever. Whoop dee doo, you're safe. Could you save us now?" Garfield snarled.
"Oh very well."
Hobbes turned his head to the mess of wires in front of him.
"Uuuh..."
"It's the red wire!" Calvin called. "It's always the red wire!"
"Are you crazy?" Garfield growled. "It's the blue wire! The red wire will make everything explode!"
"No, that was the yellow wire!" Calvin yelled. "The blue wire causes everything to implode."
"You're insane!" Garfield yelled.
"Everybody shut up!" Hobbes spat.
Hobbes studied the wires in front of him.
Blue, red, yellow, green, purple, orange, white, grey, black. For crying out loud! Why did they have to be color coded!
"HOBBES!" Calvin called. "COULD YOU HURRY, FIRST CHANCE YOU GET!"
"Very well." Hobbes said.
Hobbes drew back his paw, and let it fly.
ZZZZZZZZT!
That probably wasn't the smartest thing Hobbes ever did.
The laser above Calvin and Garfield went out like a dead light bulb.
So did everything else.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
All at once, everybody was plunged into total darkness.
"Great." came Garfield's voice. "So now, we're strapped to a table in the middle of night. Terrific."
Hobbes started cutting the other strap loose on his arm with his claw. Then he worked on his stomach, then his legs.
Then he climbed off the table.
"Calvin, you wouldn't have anything useful for right now, would you?" Hobbes asked, trying to find Odie's straps.
"Hmmm, let me see here. Hobbes, reach into my pocket."
"Calvin, I have no idea where you are. Much less your pocket."
"Mm-hmmm." Calvin said. "Well then in that case, You're going to have to do this on your own."
Hobbes grumbled, and held his hands out in front of him, and searched for Calvin.
Finally, he found Calvin's table, and soon, Calvin.
"Gee, Calvin, When was the last time you got a hair cut?" Hobbes asked. "You feel so hairy."
"Please remove your paw from my face." Garfield growled.
"Sorry." Hobbes said, rolling his eyes.
Hobbes continued to search, and soon found Calvin's spiky hair.
Of corse, that's easy to find, considering that it the spikes are longer than his head.
Hobbes rooted through Calvin' pocket, and pulled out a small box.
"What's this thing, I can't tell." Hobbes said, eying it, through the darkness.
"I do believe it is my Hypercube." Calvin said. "I also do believe I have stored my MTM in there. Somewhere. Just get the MTM out, and activate the flashlight."
Hobbes rooted through all the junk Calvin had stuffed into the Hypercube, and finally pulled out a roundish miniature CD player.
He pressed a button on the MTM, and the Main Menu came up.
Unless you don't know, Calvin's MTM acts as touch screen technology. The hologram that comes out of it is designed for someone to tap the link right there with their hands.
Hobbes pressed his paw into the hologram a couple of times, until he found what he was looking for.
Flashlight Activated
At once, a bright light exploded from the tip of the MTM.
Now light was no longer a problem, and Hobbes could finish untiing everyone.
After the last strap was cut, Hobbes heard a familiar noise.
That small little BEEP from the MTM.
It made the hair on Hobbes' back shoot up.
For you see, whenever the MTM beeps, it means that bad things are to occur.
Calvin, Hobbes, Garfield, and Odie stared at the MTM.
The following is a message of terrible, horrible, fatal news of death
See? I told you.
Calvin, Hobbes, Garfield and Odie's eyes drifted downward to the message.
Underground lab self destruction activated
00:00:59
00:00:58
00:00:57
00:00:56
00:00:55
Calvin, Hobbes and so forth stared at the message.
"Huh." Hobbes said. "Guess I cut to many wires."
"Here's our cue to panic." Calvin said.
There was a moment of silence.
Then,
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! MOMMMMMMMMMY!"
Calvin and Garfield ran into each other, Hobbes hit his head on the ceiling, and Odie ran around in circles.
"THE EXIT!" Calvin screeched. "OUT THE EXIT!"
Calvin, Hobbes, Garfield and Odie exploded out the door, and started running around in circles, again, and running into each other.
00:00:47
00:00:46
00:00:45
Calvin, and everybody else scrambled up the stairs to the elevator.
When they reached the elevator, Calvin slammed his fist into the button.
There was a moment of silence as everyone waited for the elevator.
00:00:26
00:00:25
00:00:24
00:00:23
Finally, the elevator came, and everyone flew onto it, and pressed the TOP FLOOR button.
The elevator started up.
00:00:16
00:00:15
00:00:14
00:00:13
the elevator music started.
00:00:10
00:00:09
00:00:08
00:00:07
00:00:06
The elevator beeped, as it reached ground level, and prepared to open up.
00:00:05
00:00:04
00:00:03
00:00:02
00:00:01
Calvin, Hobbes, Garfield and Odie leaped out of the elevator, and landed in the grass.
BOOM!
Before the ground could close up, the elevator rocketed out of the Earth, and was propelled fifty feet into the air, before crash landing in the neighbor's yard.
Fire also shot straight out of the ground, and spewed straight up for fifty feet.
"This reminds me of when Jon got the barbeque grill out." Garfield observed, watching the explosion.
Calvin was panting, he held onto his side, and continued to breath hard.
Suddenly, he felt a lump in his pocket.
Calvin pulled a small yellow object with a red button on top out of his pocket.
Oops.
Calvin quickly put it back in his pocket, but Hobbes had already seen.
"Calvin, what was that?" He panted, with a scowl on his face.
"It was, uh, a small object. Preferably in the yellow variety, and..."
"Was that your Time Pauser?" Hobbes asked.
"Well..."
"Did you have your Time Pauser with you that entire time?" Hobbes asked.
"Well, probably not the entire time seeing how I didn't stock up until we left the hideout."
"Has anyone ever beat you to death with a baseball bat?" Hobbes asked.
"Not that I could, uh, recall, no."
Calvin then realized that three pairs of eyes were glaring down at him.
Hoo boy.
Suddenly, The glares were interrupted by a yell.
"HEY! What have you done to our hideout!"
Calvin, Hobbes, and so on spun around right to Rupert and Earl who were glaring at them with their ray guns out.
"You know." Hobbes said. "Your hideout wouldn't have exploded if you had told me which wires were the laser ones."
Rupert and Earl fired their ray guns.
BLAST!
Garfield leaped from the way, and the grass exploded.
"Well, I guess we should run again." Calvin said.
In a blur of orange, Hobbes was gone.
And Calvin, uh, followed. So did Garfield and Odie.
Rupert and Earl ran after them, ray guns blasting.
Calvin and the gang rushed into the house, and slammed the door.
Garfield locked it.
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!
Garfield suddenly became aware of three smoking holes in the door, and uh... hmmm.
Calvin and the gang rushed past Jon who was babbling about... Oh forget it, and rushed into the livingroom.
Rupert and Earl rushed into the livingroom, laughing like maniacs.
Calvin, Garfield, Hobbes, and Odie huddled in the corner, shivering.
"Well," Calvin said, as Rupert and Earl advanced. "This is the end. So long, Hobbes! So long Harkfield!"
"It's Garfield you tuna!" Garfield spat.
"Whatever." Calvin said. "Goodbye, cruel world! I hope you get ringworms! Goodbu..."
Before Calvin could finish, there was a loud CRASH!
It shook the whole house, and caused Jon to stop babbling about... nonsense. No kidding, Jon woke up.
Rupert and Earl were knocked off their feet.
"What the heck was that?" Earl demanded.
At that very moment, The door burst open, and a voice rang out through the house!
"FREEZE TURKEYS! ALRIGHT, CHARLIE! Come out with your tentacles up! We have this place surrounded, and we have fifty raging Shadowfax in reserve, just waiting for my order!"
Rupert and Earl exchanged confused glances.
"No result eh? Alright then! MEN! MOVE OUT!"
At that very moment, over a thousand aliens stampeded into the house, yelling, and screaming and carrying on.
Do you know what they were yelling and screaming?
"Frozen turkey! Frozen turkey! Frozen turkey!"
Now the world has heard of dumb, before, but that just takes the medal.
Rupert and Earl stared at the stampede going through the house with petrified expressions.
Jon saw it, and fainted.
Meanwhile, Calvin and Hobbes, and Garfield and Odie tiptoed out of the room.
"I knew we should have left a babysitter." Earl said.
Soon, the house became full, and it was difficult to cram any more aliens in, they crammed in.
Pushing and shoving, and screaming "Frozen Turkey", the aliens invaded the house, looking for something to entertain themselves.
Calvin started rooting through his Hypercube
"Are you sure this'll work?" Hobbes asked.
"Of corse it will." Calvin said. "Just give me a second to find it."
While Rupert and Earl screamed and yelled, and tried to get the crew out of the house, Garfield walked over to the stairs.
He walked down the stairs with a grin on his face, and walked to the bottom, where the sea of aliens screamed and yelled, and tried to help.
Garfield held a small device up, that looked like a horn.
Garfield slowly squeezed the black end of the horn.
OAOOOOOOOAOOOOAOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOAAAAAAAA!
All at once, yellow shockwaves exploded throughout the house, sending aliens tumbling off their feet, and hurling for the door.
Off their tentacles. They didn't have feet.
Calvin stood at the door, grinning.
"Yep." He said. "I knew my Scream Horn would come in handy, someday."
Hobbes and Odie exchanged glances.
The aliens screamed, and hollered "RETREAT! RETREAT! RETREAT!"
And stampeded for the door.
In the process of doing so, the crew overpowered Rupert and Earl, who were screaming and roaring, and banging their heads against walls, and carried them out the door with them, and onto the spaceship.
Before Rupert or Earl could regain themselves, the aliens yanked at the ship controls, and attempted to get it out of the dirt. They had crashed it, see.
"We can't get the ship started!" an alien yelled in horror. "We need a hammer!"
Garfield walked onto the ship, and handed an alien a hammer.
"Ah! Thanks!"
The alien ran over to the ship controls and started whacking it with the hammer.
Garfield calmly walked off the ship with a big grin on his face, as the Hyperdrive kicked in, and started blowing fire out.
Calvin and Hobbes emerged from the house, and watched, as the ship ripped itself out of the dirt, and flew into the sky, with Rupert and Earl at the window. Glaring at Garfield and yelling things they couldn't hear.
Soon, the spaceship vanished into the sky.
"Wow." Calvin said. "That was the second weirdest adventure I've ever been on."
"Well." Garfield said, walking back into the house. "At least my house is alien free."
Calvin and Hobbes followed Garfield into the... oops... house.
Except it didn't really look like a house anymore. It looked more like the back of a garbage truck.
Somebody had turned the house upside down, and shook.
And... uh oh... Jon was waking up, and Calvin's parents were coming back.
"Wha... what happened?" Jon asked, rubbing his head.
Garfield and Calvin exchanged glances.
"Time to bust out the old bambi eyes." Calvin said.
"Oh boy." Garfield sighed.
We needn't go into details.
Calvin was given a stern lecture about hiding in other people's houses, and Garfield was given a stern lecture about good house keeping.
Nothing like, "Thanks for saving the world, Calvin." Or "Thanks for getting rid of the aliens, Garfield." Oh no. THEY DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE!
Jon seemed to just forget Rupert and Earl as if it was a dream, and Calvin's parents eventually got the car up and running again.
Calvin and Garfield had to say their goodbyes.
"Well," Calvin said, shaking Garfield's hands. "It's been fun."
"Too much fun." Garfield sighed.
Hobbes was saying his goodbyes to Odie.
"Hope to see you again, soon." Hobbes said, climbing into the car.
"BARK!" Odie yapped.
"Do you think we'll have another adventure?" Calvin asked.
"Most likely." Garfield said. "We live just a couple of blocks apart."
"Good point."
Odie ran up to Calvin, and delivered a juicy lick onto his face.
SLURP!
"YUCK!" Calvin screeched.
He wiped the slobber off his face, then sighed, and patted Odie on the head.
"See ya later, boy." He said. Then he climbed into the car.
"Do you think we'll hear from Rupert and Earl, again?" Hobbes asked, as Calvin closed the car door.
"Nah." Calvin said, as Mom and Dad finished up their goodbyes to Jon, and got into the car. "They're probably bothering some other planet now."
"Hmm." Hobbes said, skeptically.
Calvin's parents drove the car away as Jon, Garfield and Odie waved goodbye.
High up in the sky, a UFO hovered above the Earth.
Rupert and Earl were staring over it.
Earl had finally shoved the crew away, and they were now alone.
Rupert narrowed his eyes to slits, as he stared over the Earth.
"We will meet, again, Earth Potentate." He said, in a deadly calm. "We will meet again."
The End
Swing123: I hope this ending didn't seem rushed. If it did, let me know, and I'll try to edit the chapter. Thanks for reading!