Sorry for not updating sooner, a storm knocked down a tree onto our apartment and cut off the electricity and internet. Please enjoy! This chapter is cruel.


Chapter 11: Bumping By Compound

The temptation was killing him after he was reminded of a smoking pipe in the picture Dry Bones had showed him. A strong sense of him fell into his past, where he was a hopeless tobacco addict. That was what brought Frank to the deli store on the Tuesday morning.

"That is three bags of chips, four magazines, a toothbrush, tofu hotdog, and a briar pipe kit case," said the clerk lady. "That is sixty coins in total." As Frank got out his money, the lady said something.

"You're going to die."

"Wha…what you say?" said Frank, turning around in surprise.

"My aunt used to always smoke pipe when she young," said the clerk lady, who seemed to be at the age of fifty. "She died at a pretty young age…do you want a little wooden thing to ruin your life? It'll burn through your family." She peered in closer to him, making Frank quiver and run out of the shop with his paid shopping objects.

"Strange old lady," he muttered as he entered the motel. His own private living compartment was behind his front desk, which he unlocked and went into. It was a three room place; a bedroom which was the front room, the bathroom, and a room for guests, which he had stuffed with garbage and trash in the past month, making only two rooms available to survive in. The room had an awful stench of beer and…something else, and there was the smell of dead animal.

"What the fuck?" he yelled lifting up a pillow to reveal a dead squirrel, severely burnt. Frank kicked it against the wall, smearing a horrifying scene of blood and guts along the carpet. He picked up some papers from his desk.

"The bills are due next week," he said to himself. He groaned in misery as he opened his curtains, letting sunlight stream into the room. He despised it, but he knew he couldn't live in darkness for the rest of his living time. He knew that Death struck more in the dark.

Remembering his new smoke kit, he opened the case and saw a briar pipe, polished and new in a plastic container. In the other box were various chemicals used for smoking.

"Let's see," examined Frank, looking at the different chemical containers. "Ashes, tobacco, sulfuric acid, cleaning wax, smoking wax, and other stuff." He picked up the manual from his table and read it out loud.

"Place the cover of the pipe to the position it is able to slide into," he read. "Then place a teaspoon of tobacco in, mix it with ashes." He did the following quickly, then continued.

"Before you put on the mouth piece, you must clean it with the sulfuric acid and cleaning wax. Cover the mouth piece with the two chemicals (three teaspoons each) and submerge in a bowl, with the screen cover, filled with water, then wait exactly twenty minutes. Then pour out the water with the screen cover, and then clean the screen cover thoroughly and carefully. After you take out the pipe mouth piece with the tweezers, you must put 3-5 drops of cleaning wax onto it, then wait for five minutes. Then rinse mouth piece, and put it on the pipe."

Frank opened the drawer next to him and found a large bowl, and went over to his sink to fill it with water.

"Step two," he said. "Was…" He looked over at the instructions.

"Oh yeah, put the sulfuric acid and cleaning wax with the mouthpiece, and put it submerged in the bowl for twenty minutes." He carefully placed two teaspoons of cleaning wax on the metal mouth piece, and added two teaspoons of the dangerous chemical before dropping it into the water. The chemicals started to wander within the bowl, covering the surface and making the mouth piece unseen. Frank chuckled in satisfaction.

"And wait twenty minutes," he said. "That was too easy, wasn't it Frank?" He turned around, peeking a look at the burnt squirrel, and went back outside to take care of his other dealing. He left the room, locking the door behind him.

"Frank?" asked Jill in surprise after Goombella's statement. "Do you actually remember hi being next, or are you guessing?"

"I remember exactly," said Goombella. "I remember Frank's face before you fell out of your chair on the ride."

"There's no hesitation," Jill said in alarm. "We have to go fast and save him. I suppose you guys know where he is?"

"He's the manager of the Motel 6," said Dry Bones. "That's almost twenty minutes away, so let's leave this place now."

"But I can't leave my room because I have to take care of this experiment," said Jill. "But perhaps you two can go and save him."

"We'll do it," promised Dry Bones.

"Please save him," said Jill, almost in a desperate voice. "I want to tell him something important when you bring him back here. It'll make him really blissful." Goombella nodded at the kind toad, but then remembered something.

"You're after Frank," said Goombella, worried. "Will you survive yourself when we're gone? Do you want to keep your picture?"

"No," said Jill, smiling faintly. "I'll be ready to cheat Death once again. Just go on already." Goombella felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Hey, let's go," said Dry Bones. Goombella closed the door and followed Dry Bones to the parking lot, to his car.

Back at the motel, the bowl with the pipe mouth piece and chemicals mixed with water started to steam, which was perfectly ordinary. Because the table was slanted and the condensed steam had also made water drops appear, the bowl inched its way to the right and knocked the glass container of the sulfuric acid over. The bottle slipped down the table at a fast speed, until it crashed into the desk below and shattered, spilling the substance all over the briar pipe which was nestled on a napkin. The acid let out a steam before the tobacco gradually absorbed the sulfuric acid into the pipe, just when Frank entered his room.

"Fifteen minutes is up," he said, peeping over at the dead squirrel before focusing on the bowl. He carried the bowl to the bathroom and poured the water in the sink, then opened the screen cover to take out the mouthpiece, which he then put onto a towel.

"My last step," he said to himself as he squeezed the bottle of cleaning wax over it and delivered three drops onto the object, and realized his broken lampshade on the table besides him. As Frank tried to touch it, it let out a massive spark and knocked Frank to the ground in surprise. The lamp sizzled, before sparking once again and shattering the light bulb onto the carpet.

"Whoa," said Frank. "That reminds me of when I was at Jill's laboratory, where Mush---" He stopped when he remembered the name of his friend who had saved his life numerous times in the past; on the blimp, in the church yard from the weather vane, on the floating tire, and in the burning chest. On the day he died, Frank was supposed to be killed by a flying sign. But he had ducked instead, resulting in the killing of Mush Rumberg.

"Damn you, Death," he muttered out loud, in a voice of frustration.

"Okay, in the clue of his picture," said Goombella, back in the car with Dry Bones. "He was smoking when he swore he wasn't smoking."

"That's right, and there's that fire sign near him," said Dry Bones. "Do you remember that?"

"Shoot," realized Goombella. "I forgot Frank's picture on Jill's desk. That's not good." Dry Bones stepped on the pedal harder, pushing their driving speed faster and more dangerously.

Frank rinsed the mouthpiece of the pipe in a cup, and picked up the pipe from the napkin on the lower table, ignorant of the broken glass covering around it. He placed and twisted the mouthpiece onto the pipe, making sure it was tight and placed at the correct point.

"Now, where's my lighter?" he asked out loud, searching throughout the garbage on the floor.

Dry Bones stopped their car near Frank's motel and went up to the door, trying to turn the knob.

"It's locked," he said, trying to bang on the door. Goombella kicked the door as hard as she could multiple times, but the door remained shut.

"Hello? Frank?" she shouted. "It's us, Goombella and Dry Bones, we're outside!"

Frank lifted a loaf of bread from the ground and found the lighter nestled underneath it. He couldn't hear the two rescuers outside trying to save him from his fate, as he lit his pipe, and then inhaled on it in satisfaction.

"He can't hear us," Dry Bones realized. "We need to get inside somehow." He found a lead pipe on the ground and smashed the closest window to him, breaking it and making his way inside. Goombella followed him immediately, and they found themselves in the main lobby.

"Where is he?" asked Goombella. "Is he here?" They searched around the building, deciding to search through the halls instead.

"Nice, sweet pipe," he sighed, remembering the day he had quit smoking, and felt the sudden emotion that what he was doing was not correct. The acid-soaked tobacco fumes mixed with fire entered the young turtle's mouth, and the victim didn't bother to exhale. After a few seconds he threw the briar pipe onto the floor.

"I can't do it," he sighed in guilt. "I can't---" He let out a wheezing cough, something that he didn't do usually.

Frank felt his tongue stinging in pain. He swirled it around his mouth, trying to ignore the fact that something was wrong with it. But the pain started to spread and raised yet further within his mouth. He seized out a can of coke from his refrigerator and tried taking a small sip, only for a rotten feeling to occur, and he spit the soda back onto the floor.

He sat down on the couch for half a minute, shaking his head in pain as the stinging continued in the roof of his mouth. Taking no hesitation, he made his way to the bathroom.

In unhurried panic, he went up to the mirror and opened up his mouth, only for his eyes to open up in fright. His teeth and gums were bleeding severely, blood dribbling out of his mouth mixed with large amounts of saliva. He opened his cabinet quickly and found a container of cotton pads, which he stuffed into his mouth in alarm.

Not only did the cotton pads soak vast amounts of blood, but Frank felt the burning pain travel its way down his throat. He spat the cotton out onto his bed and saw the briar pipe on the ground, sizzling from sulfuric acid as he happened to see the shattered glass of the chemical container on the desk next to him. He coughed in pained disbelief, coughing up blood onto his hands and shirt as well as he looked at the largest piece of glass among the crushed pieces.

Caution: Causes very serious irritation to skin; Do not put near face, do not inhale, do not

Frank threw the glass down in despair as he felt his throat swelling up, tightening up as if there were a cord wrapped around his neck.

"Haa…ahhh, ahhhhh!" he gasped, a strange muffled wheeze which he had never said before. His nasal passage was reached by the fumes, sending an intense wave of feeling to occur to the unfortunate person, who tried to keep his breathe continuing. Nausea swept over him and he vomited all over himself and the floor, his vomit being thirty-five percent blood as he struggled to keep his balance. He fell to the ground, as he let out another muffled blood cough, but then choked back on it as his eyes filled up with tears of pain and depression. He was going to die; the acid fumes had reached his lungs, and little amounts of steam were being released from his nostrils, which were tearing away by the sulfur. His mouth was filled of blood.

"Frank!" Someone had called his name, as he slowly turned his head to look at Goombella, then Dry Bones entering the room after her. Their face expressions were full of horror.

"Oh no," gasped Goombella, trying to get him up effortlessly, but Dry Bones, or we'll call him Drew by his real name, pulled her away, knowing what was happening to Frank at the moment.

"Some element is taking over him," stuttered Drew, holding Goombella tightly as she found tears coming out from her eyes.

The look of Frank was too horrible to describe, and all I will say right now is that his chest was burning gruesomely as well in a chemical way, and that he had a last thought.

"You know that that pipe will lead you to trouble one day," said Peach.

Frank remembered those words, and Peach had proved herself correct in a prediction. With a last, choked gasp, Frank's life ended.


Thank you for reading.

What will happen next to the remaining survivors? Will they find out the solution soon? Please review kindly, and I may update soon.