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Dusk cooled the empty street Speedy was walking down. He was geared up and ready for action: strapped to his back was a pack bulging with belongings, a sleeping bag reeking of bodily seepage pinned under his arm, from the opposite hand dangled a plastic sack stretching thin under the weight of two giant bottles of atomic soda. His jaw worked hard on some sugary confection. Two of the Moorcoch family cats, Princessa and Queen Beyonce, were in tow. Much of the town accepted that their pets accompanied them throughout the day; when Speedy and his feline entourage arrived at their destination they were admitted without complaint.

Video games and playful arguments electrified the basement. On the TV screen a polygonal man was committing grand theft auto at the behest of the controller-wielder plopped in the plaid couch. Speedy sat at one end, knocking back 2-liters of radioactive refreshment. Beside him sat classmates Justin, Duncan, and Mark; there would not be enough soda to share, he worried. Half of it disappeared gulps ago. The door to the basement opened and an adult emerged.

“Mark, we need a new microwave,” his mom said. “I am going to the Costco to buy a new one. I probably won’t pick one out till after I’ve filled up on samples. Can I pick you up anything?”

Speedy answered for his friend, “AtomiCola!”

“There is more in the fridge! Don’t burn the house down!” The door closed.

In front of the aspiring diabetic were his last 2-liters of his favorite beverage, waiting like a blindfolded man anticipates his firing squad. Queen Beyonce put it out of its misery. Between the soft drink and one of her humans, she stared Speedy in the eye and kicked the soda. It flew across the room, crashing against the concrete wall. Questionably colored fluid rained down on a pile of someone’s stuff.

Speedy’s friends dropped the videogame and stared at his orange cat. Distracted, their digital antihero drove a car into a pedestrian and gained a star at the top corner of the tv. Justin, who had long, curly hair, panicked the most when he saw the damage (Speedy mourned his soda in quiet). The carbonated explosion saturated the wall and everything next to it in sweet nastiness, including a cloth-covered box that Justin was very worried about. Everyone gathered around him and watched as he removed the shroud; it concealed a Mogwai in a cage. They gasped, the cats hissed. Adorably, the critter was on its stomach screeching, wincing in pain, flailing its limbs. Its back swelled, pulsated, then four furry balls popped out. All eyes watched the furballs mature into Mogwai in seconds. More gasps issued from the boys but the spectacle disturbed the feline guardians because they knew the show wasn’t over. Strong metal bars worked to the creatures’ advantage: the lock required thumbs to operate. They would escape at the earliest distraction.

Justin was gleeful that he had four more pets to take home. Giddy, beaming, he told the others what he knew about Mogwai. A very troubling conversation ensued.

“Why would they tell me not to get them wet? This is awesome!” Justin wouldn’t stop. “Now that I have five of them I am going to feed one or two of them after midnight to see what happens!”

Cheers erupted from all but Speedy. He had lost interest and assumed control of the video game. Princessa, who never wavered in her love for Speedy, hovered over him, knowing that trouble would eventually come. Sounds of action and violence drew the children away from the Mogwai and to the tv. Queen Beyonce was ambushed in quiet. One moment she was peering into the cage, the next she was fixated on something new. It was impossible to look away from. Motionless at first, Queen B could feel whatever-it-was staring back at her, challenging her. It was small and without form and was capable of fast, erratic movement. She tried to stop it as it ran around in a tight circle in front of her face but it was somehow too elusive. Beyonce didn’t understand what was happening, this thing wouldn’t stay under her paws. Putting pads on it did nothing. It immediately reappeared on the top of her paw; it stayed there and allowed itself to be inspected. A tiny gremlin made of red light. Powerless to the laser dot’s goading, Queen Beyonce chased it up the stairs and into the kitchen.

Princessa didn’t notice the queen depart. Like the boys she was distracted by the video game, but she didn’t share in their gaiety. The AI at the other end of the controller soared down a polygonal street

in an SUV, ramming into poorly-programmed bystanders while the real humans reveled. On the hood of that fake, blood-stained vehicle was an uncanny graphic. To Princessa, it looked like a gremlin; she didn’t understand how that was possible, but she was sure of it when the anomaly locked eyes with her.

“Mew!” Princessa said, but the boys didn’t listen.

She had to take matters into her own paws. A hop down the couch and a trot behind the entertainment to the valley of cords; they couldn’t be distinguished from each other. Princessa cut the nearest wire with her claws and the television screen went black. Boys despaired, but the noises they produced were different from what the cat expected. They were screaming. An image from the virtual world lingered after the power had been disconnected. It was getting bigger. A proper-sized gremlin climbed out of the flat screen; it was wearing pink jeans, a black t-shirt with a giant cat-face printed on the front, and its head was decorated like a clown. A long, scaled arm extended out with a three-fingered-hand open. Nothing was in it at first, then, out of nowhere, a grenade appeared in the virtual gremlin’s hand; a second later, the explosive was replaced with a sword, then a shotgun. The vice city thug cycled through its arsenal until it was armed with a tennis racket. Princessa had her hind in the air, poised to pounce but Duncan moved first. He threw a glass of AtomiCola at the gremlin. Changing direction on an impulse, the feline guardian leaped and intercepted the would-be accelerant. In turn, the gremlin made a getaway. A wildly swung tennis racket at the end of two rubbery, oblong arms routed the boys, giving the gremlin ample room to dash over the couch and up the stairs. Fear and reluctance lost after a blip of hesitation. The boys ran up after the green escapee, leaving Princessa in the basement with a cage filled with Mogwai, who, at that very instant, had undone the lock. Fastened to Princessa’s neck was a collar, sharing a metal loop with her tags was a cypher disguised as a bell. Standing on her hind legs, she pulled the device away from her body and flung it into their confinement. When the grenade detonated, it did not explode. Still in bars, the furry monsters stopped their exit to point and laugh at what they assumed was a dud. Cackling stopped when the Mogwai noticed a disembodied shadow spread out underneath their cage like water until it approximated the size of a manhole. Out from the umbra reached numerous black hands that latched onto the cage then started the slow work of translating it, pulling it down into the penumbra. Half submerged into the floor, with the door side tilting up, one Mogwai managed to jump out and take shelter between stacks of large tupperware without being noticed. The rest sunk into nothing (the shadow disappeared).

At the top of the stairs Princessa stopped and observed two crises. To the left, in the kitchen was hurried movement, heavy breathing, and the smell of gas; in the other direction she could clearly see that the virtual gremlin shattered the front door in its retreat. Queen Beyonce was nowhere in sight.

Because Queen Beyonce was in the oven, set to bake. She didn’t realize where she was until the door slammed shut. All she remembered was the laser dot gremlin. Staring at the dreadful beacon made the world around it fade to black; it vanished after some chase, that is when she came to her senses. Looking out into the kitchen from a place that she had been before – for reasons only Speedy knew, he had imprisoned her majesty in the oven one time when his parents couldn’t find a babysitter (he thought it was hilarious). Breathable air was burning thin in the rising heat. No amount of pawing about would motivate the jaw of this beast open, it had already eaten its prey, the next step in digestion was imminent.

Duncan and Justin did not waste time. Already they were nailing a large wooden board over the demolished entrance, when that work was over furniture was scooted across the living room and propped high against the door. They did not want to see that thing again.

Speedy opened the refrigerator and dived past anything that threatened to be healthy. Mark’s mom should have waited till after the sleepover to make a trip to Costco; their roundest guest was tucking snacks under his arm then relinquished the goods upon noticing something upsetting. He snatched up a large bottle of soda.

“Who gets Diet AtomiCola? I hate your mom.”

“Dude, who said you could cook anything?” Mark asked, but Speedy would not forgive the injustice in his hands.

“It doesn’t even taste the same,” he mumbled as he struggled to untwist the cap, “what kind of… oh, its really on there… person even buys this shit?” The effort winded Speedy but he finally succeeded. Its seal spun off with a hiss that seduced the young glutton, who then put the mouth of the bottle to his lips and began freeing his friend’s mom of her artificially sweetened sin.

“It’s like, if you think you need diet soda, then why not just stop drinking so… dude, what are you cooking?” Mark opened the oven, then answered his own question. “Your cat is in the oven!”

Her broiled highness flew out, Speedy spit out a plume of atomic drink, spilled the rest of it on the tiling, then caught Queen B in his arms only to drop her in the spillage because she was too hot.

Downstairs in the kid lair, Speedy was tending to his cats while his friends cleaned up the mess he made upstairs. He was shocked that they would bother and he went on to insist that its a mom’s job. Chocolate pudding cups seeped into and mixed with the carbonated puddle, a loaf of banana bread had succumbed to the goop like a dead whale floating in an oil spill. Mark was pretty sure that if Speedy’s mess didn’t put his mom into a frenzy, Speedy’s explanation for why she should have to clean it up definitely would.

Clean-up was quick, possibly quicker without Speedy, and then the boys regrouped in the basement where they set up for a session of Dungeons and Dragons. Speedy watched from the couch as his friends started filling a fold-out table with miniatures, dice, and an elaborate diorama depicting an olden tavern and the surrounding townscape.

“I hope this session has a princess,” said Speedy. Everyone was getting excited, if for different reasons. The other kids reminisced erstwhile nights of valor and magic, the cats listened with all due vigilance. At the top of the stairs was Queen Beyonce curled into herself. She was determined to act as vanguard against would-be intruders and to also take a light nap. Princessa spent her time searching the basement for the Mogwai still amok. Dice hit the table and the boys mourned. A playable character lost hit points but the game continued as Princessa’s snooping stopped suddenly because she thought she heard something peculiar outdoors. Sprinting up the steps, leaping over her restfulness, and slipping through an imperfection in Duncan’s and Justin’s barricade, Princessa was out in the front yard in seconds.

Listing out of the night and up the street was a large, rectangular car; it crossed the yellow dotted line that divided the opposing lanes, heading straight for Mark’s house. Princessa watched as it took a minute to park in the front yard. Nothing could be seen in the cabin except for the ember of a cigarette which was at a lower height than expected. This driver was very short. Padded feet hit the lawn without a sound, Princessa circled the car looking for a way in but never found one.

Blasts issued from the car. The passenger window broke as bullets were sprayed at the house. Gunshots stopped, laughter started, and the engine revved. If there was a positive aspect to the drive-by, it was that a point of egress had been created into the car; Princessa leaped to the opportunity.

Everything around Queen Beyonce exploded. She slept off outside commotion as bad weather, thunder before the storm and then walls and furniture were struck, raining drywall and splintered wood. The short burst of gunfire caused widespread ruin. Cotton bulged out of the sofa like viscera, wisps of the same fluff lingered in the fog of sheet rock dust. Blood dripped from Queen Beyonce’s bullet wound.

Behind the steering wheel of the boat-gone-car the video game gremlin was too busy reveling in its act of terror to notice it suddenly had a passenger. Princessa slapped the cigarette out of the green terrorist’s mouth. A spiral of smoke trailed the cigarette a small distance down to the back of the gremlin’s hand, the lit end touched scales and left a grievous mark. Boils inflated, popped out steam as the burn sizzled and spread with such pain that the gremlin shook, shrieked, then jumped out of the car and bounded down the street away from the cats.

For something that crawled out of a video game, the gremlin was a decent shot. Pain throbbed from the point of impact near her upper left hind leg, making it difficult to move that limb, but the damage wasn’t substantial. The projectile passed anything vital on the way through her body. Ultharian cats proved hardier than most lifeforms, her sense of duty prevailed the shoot-up and so she took a moment to decide where she was needed most. Also, to groom herself (it had been at least thirty minutes since her last cleaning). Ears up scanning the battlefield, she detected Princessa circling the front yard; she would have to deal with that on her own. Screams from the basement demanded immediate attention.

Down the stairs by her next heartbeat, she saw that their game of Dungeons and Dragons had called up a gremlin wizard. It stood on the table where they had been playing, dressed in an engulfing blue robe. Atop the monster’s head was a matching wizard’s cap so tall it bent against the ceiling. From its shoulder hung a leather satchel, out of which it pulled a wad of blue paper. Speedy and his friends were in cover on the couch, using the back as a barrier against the magician. Their reaction to the gremlin’s trash seemed exaggerated. It shouted with surprising clarity, “lightning bolt!” Then lobbed a wad at Speedy. It hit between his eyes and on impact it produced an unexpected effect: webs of electricity spread out from Speedy’s head to catch and electrocute his friends. Coils of thin blue light spiraled around their bodies, surging into their nervous systems and causing them to stiffen and vibrate with pain. They fell in a pile after a few seconds of passing high voltage currents among each other. Kicking with her good hind leg, Queen Beyonce sent a muddy shoe flying at the wizard, hitting it in the chest. The impact set the monster off balance. The table wobbled under its efforts to re-establish its footing and the more it struggled, the unsteadier its platform became until it tipped. This landed the gremlin between a concrete wall and the upturned tabletop. She doubled her offensive, kicking the table again; it broke after squishing the green mage against the wall.

It wasn’t quite dead despite what the crunching of bones should have implied; it was still able to chant as it stood tapping the bottom of a wooden staff to the hard floor. Queen Beyonce moved in to finish the job but was too late. With one last and especially loud tap on the floor, the gremlin stopped its conjuring, cast aside the staff then pulled a knife out from underneath its robe. Claws would have stopped him had it not sacrificed itself first. If there was a heart inside that bizarre anatomy then it was impaled on a blade. Tiny crescent scimitars lacerated green scales to no meaningful extent, blood failed to surface; the thing was dead, its ritual completed. It dropped limp to the ground. Under it, a pool of bright, pink light opened and swallowed the offering whole. Not long after, something much bigger emerged from the portal.

When the digitized abomination was out of sight, Princessa returned to the house and ran down to the basement, worrying about Speedy every step of the way. She saw half of him. His legs were fast at running, sticking out of the unhinged maw of a multicolored gremlin anaconda. Almost 20 feet long, the length of it was covered in barbs all the way up to its hideous, over-sized head. Muffled yelling emanated from deep within that bulging throat. A fluffy, well-groomed tabby cat hanged from there, its fangs and claws harmlessly deep in gremlin-snake meat. Awake and alert, but unable and too afraid to help, Speedy’s friends were hopping up and down in a huddle, peeping.

Princessa lunged and struck the gremlanaconda, piercing its scales and leaving a row of four neat, long paper-cuts. Black tar gushed from the gashes. The gremlanaconda squirmed wildly, losing grip of Speedy, flinging him across the room into his friends like a gratuitous bowling ball rolling over pins.

At the top of the stairs, Mark’s mom appeared.”Mark! I’m back from Costco. Check out our new microwa – uh, what happened to the house? Holy shit, what is that thing!?” In her panic, she dropped the microwave and it tumbled to the bottom of the stairs. The rattling box caught Beyonce’s attention. Claws retracted, she dropped to the ground and hurried to the microwave while Princessa kept the gremlanaconda busy. She picked up the microwave with her paws and hurled it.

Fifty percent of its life bar had recovered and the video game gremlin was back in fighting condition. A neighbor’s truck provided shelter and a view of the house from the rear-view mirror. Vengeance was all it could think about. Tennis rackets had no effect, bullets failed to kill a cat, whatever it did next, it knew it had to be big. The engine was already running. It watched cars drive by the house until one pulled into the driveway and that is when the gremlin became inspired.

It drove the truck straight into the front of the house. Concrete steps lead the truck up to the door like a ramp, it tore through the siding like paper and lost all momentum when it collided with the furniture barricade, coming to a stop in the living room but the gremlin wasn’t satisfied. Refusing to believe it couldn’t keep moving, it continued to apply gas. All wheel drive had the back tires spinning in the air while they hung off the foundation, the front wheels produced smoke as they dug into carpet, desperate to gain traction. The weight was too much. The floor collapsed and the truck followed its own mass into the basement, crushing the gremlanaconda (and the video game gremlin) the exact same second it was struck with a weaponized microwave. Its upper portion exploded in a black tar nova that splattered all over.

After the cats and humans escaped the house, it exploded.