"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Calvin and Hobbes screamed, throwing their arms in all directions, and trying to run around in circles inside the box.

The hand yanked the box into the inky blackness of the dark. Then, it spoke.

The thing with the hand. Not the hand. Hands can't talk.

Here is a direct quote of what the thing said.

"SHUT UP, ALREADY! THEY'LL HEAR YOU!"

Hobbes was the first one to stop screaming, and roll his eyes around to the thing that had pulled them aside.

"Calvin?" Hobbes asked.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Oh, Calvin? I believe we've found Serious."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Calvin, you're beginning to annoy me."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"For crying out, Calvin, take a breath in before you pass out!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Hobbes slapped Calvin upside the head, and he finally stopped screaming.

He stared at the thing in front of him.

Hmm. It looked a lot like...

"SERIOUS SO FORTH!" Calvin bellowed. "YOU'RE ALIVE! And... hmmm. You looked better in the movie."

Sirius did look a little ragged. On the other hand, who wouldn't if you'd been trapped in some veil for several months?

Sirius was about to say something, when Calvin cut him off.

"Ehp, ehp, ehp!" He yelled. "Before we go ANY farther, I want you to tell us what that M spells! I am SICK of the awkward blanks at the beginning of their names!"

"Huh?" Sirius asked.

"He wants to know who has you trapped here." Hobbes said. "Who smell bad. And eat all the time. Their names begin with M."

Sirius' eyes widened.

"Oh. Those. They're called..."

"WAIT!" Calvin yelled, holding his arms up. "Pause here for dramatic effect!"

There was a moment of silence, in which Sirius and Hobbes stared at Calvin as if he was some kind of lunatic.

Then, Sirius finished his sentence.

"They're called Mack..."

But before he could finish, there was a loud BANG, and footsteps coming towards the door.

Calvin and Hobbes' gaze went from Sirius to the door some fifty feet away, then back to Sirius.

Sirius' eyes were the size of dinner plates.

"They're coming! They're coming to get me!"

"Yes, people usually accuse the bad guys of coming to finish them off, when they've been in dark rooms for months." Calvin said, turning to Hobbes.

Hobbes blinked.

Sirius started to back up into the wall. Once at the wall he... hmm. vanished.

That was odd.

But anyway, the Mack-blank things finally entered the room.

Calvin started searching the Time Machine for his Time Pauser.

Then, there was dry, raspy voice.

"SIRIUS BLACK!"

That did it.

Calvin decided to skip the Time Pauser and just make a new door in the wall.

Yes sir. If Calvin couldn't find help, he'd have to help himself.

Calvin hit full throttle on all engines, and roared for the wall and...

CRASH!

...Nearly broke his neck, without making the slightest impression on the stupid wall.

What was Hobbes doing during all this? To tell you the truth, I have no idea. He just seemed to vanish after the Mack thing entered the room. Calvin has no idea how Hobbes does that. If he did know then he would've... well, tried it himself.

Anyway, the sound made from the impact on the wall drew the attention the whatever, and it began slinking for Calvin.

Calvin sat in the Time Machine, watching the stars and checkers float around his head, until heard the footsteps that the something was coming.

Uh oh.

Calvin leaped to his feet, and started hitting buttons on the Time Machine's control panel.

The motor started humming, and Calvin sailed into the air.

Calvin also turned on the lasers.

Red lights exploded out of the Time Machine as the thrusters propelled Calvin around the room.

As the lasers hit the ground, sending dust flying, the air was suddenly filled with the sound of hissing and screeching.

However, Calvin didn't care what the Macks were doing, he just wanted to find a way out.

He started hitting buttons on the control panel.

Two large ray guns extended themselves from each side of the machine.

Calvin hit a large green button, and the guns started firing thick light blue beams.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZAP!

There was an explosion, and a cloud of dust, and a hole appeared where the lasers had touched down.

Calvin stuck his tongue out at the Macks.

"HA!" He screamed at them. "TAKE THAT! And furthermore, Your mother wore army boots!"

Calvin drew the lasers back into the machine, and tilted it to the side, as he rocketed into the hole in a blast of smoke.

Calvin then found himself in a long tunnel.

He continued flying down it, until he reached another room.

Would you like to guess who he found there?

Sirius and Hobbes, both standing in the room, and staring at Calvin.

"Hi, Calvin." Hobbes said. "Did you beat the Macks?"

"Yes, I'll have you know I did!" Calvin spat. "I used my amazing magic powers to ward them off into the black pit from wherever they came from! No thanks to any of you chickens!"

"No thanks, I'm stuffed." Hobbes said.

"What?"

"I can't remember what I said."

"Then shut up."

At that very moment, the sound of footsteps reached Calvin, Hobbes, and Sirius' ears.

Hobbes gave Calvin a glare.

"I thought you said you warded them off." He said.

"I was misquoted, Hobbes. It happens all the time."

"We have to get rid of them, somehow." Sirius panted.

"I have a suggestion." Calvin grinned.

He fished around through his box through his inventions.

He ripped out his Mini Duplicator.

Hobbes and Sirius stared at it.

"Calvin," Hobbes muttered. "What good is that possibly going to do?"

"Observe." Calvin grinned.

He pointed one end of the pencil at the doorway.

Boink.

Nothing happened.

Hobbes' eyes squeezed shut.

Calvin's grin however, remained.

He pressed the button again, and again, and again.

Boink, boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink boink

Hobbes and Sirius watched.

Do you know what Calvin was doing? HE WAS DUPLICATING THE SAND FLOOR!

The floor, you see, was made of soft sand, and Calvin was using the duplicator to duplicate it.

Soon there was a huge mountain of sand covering the doorway.

Calvin chuckled, and blew smoke off his Mini Duplicator.

"Heh, heh. Let's see the Macks get through that!"

"They have the strength of two hundred Oxen." Sirius said.

"NOW he tells me." Calvin muttered.

At that very moment, the whatevers reached the blocked doorway.

They obviously didn't like that decoration, so they started tearing it down.

The sand was beginning to collapse.

The trio watched.

"Well," Calvin said. "OK, Sirius. You're the survivor expert here. What do we do know?"

Calvin couldn't believe Sirius' answer.

"Well, we're dead. We're finished."

Calvin's head, shot around, and stared at him.

"What do you mean we're finished! What about all your survival technics! What about your stupid wand!"

Sirius gave him a sad stare.

"Wands don't work on them. I used it as a bluff. It works on humans but not on Mackmals. nothing works on Mackmals."

"They're called Mackmals?" Calvin asked.

"You can make a run for it, though." Sirius said. "They wont follow you."

Calvin stared at him.

"Make a... hmmm, that sounds tempting."

Hobbes instantly climbed into the box.

Calvin's eyes shot from Sirius to the ever approaching Mackmals then back to Sirius.

"Well, OK." he said. "I'm sure Harry will disappointed, but the world's full of disappointments. I guess. I have mixed feelings about running out on you like this, Sirius, but I think I can live with my feelings."

Sirius waved goodbye.

Calvin hit the TURBO button, and the box roared away.

They flew for about six seconds until Calvin's TURBO mode turned mush.

He stopped the machine.

"Hobbes, I just can't do it." He said. "Mr Serious needs our help! And I plan to give it to him!"

"Yeah, I kinda figured you'd choose to do it, that way." Hobbes said. "That's why I didn't protest."

Calvin turned the box around, and started streaking back for the Department of Secrets and Mysteries.

He zoomed back through the doors, into the veil, into the room, down the tunnel and into the room where Sirius had, uh, set up his camp.

Calvin's box floated into the room and it was then that he saw...

OH NO!

CALVIN AND HOBBES CAME FACE TO FACE WITH THE MACKMALS!