Trumpocalypse

TRUMPOCALYPSE

Where Dystopian Fantasy Meets Reality

Edited

By

Alex S. Johnson

COVER ART

Stephen Cooney

GRAPHICS

Nathan J.D.L. Rowark

First Edition

Horrified Press

© HORRIFIED PRESS

London, England

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

without written permission from the publisher.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

TRUMPOCALYPSE

Ode to Women

Jeffrey Penn May

The Tyrant Craft

Rhys Hughes

Razorbaby Versus ICE

Alex S. Johnson

The Manic Defence

Mawr Gorshin

The Good Lord Shall Provide

Bill McCormick

Dragonoska

G K Murphy

2 + 2 = 5

Mathias Jansson

Washington Witch Burnings

Emery LeeAnn

Trumpkins from Huge Space

S.L. Koch

State Capture

Christina Engela

Heartland

Joey Burneez

Rogue

Mandy White

Gut Punch

Dino Parenti

Have You Seen the Orange Sign?

B. Michael Stevens

Flatus, Imperator

Raven Dane

The Antithesis Project

Kevin Henry

There’s an App for That

Jeff Stevenson

Camp Hollywood

Samantha L. Nocera

Dys-Trump-topia

Norbert Gora

The Curse of the Hoary Lingos

Florence Ann Marlowe

The Ballad of Tiny Hands: The day he got the clap

Pippa Bailey – With bigly help from Leanna Locker

Meet the Authors:

Ode to Women

A found poem using the words of Donald J. Trump

Jeffrey Penn May

I have the best words.

Number One, I have

Great Respect, for women.

I was the One

Who broke the glass ceiling

on behalf of women.

My fingers are long and

Beautiful, and my women

are more Beautiful.

All of the women

flirted with me

Consciously or unconsciously.

That’s to be expected.

Look at those hands?

Are they small hands?

My fingers are long and

Beautiful, I guarantee you.

There’s no problem

I guarantee you.

It really doesn’t matter as

Long as you’ve got a

Young and Beautiful

Piece of Ass.

My daughter, she’s got the best body.

I was the One who broke the glass.

I have so many Fabulous Friends

who happen to be Gay.

I can fully understand

why her husband

Left her for a man.

I’d look her right in that

Fat ugly face of hers

I’d say... the only thing she’s got

Is the woman card, and the

Beautiful thing is

Beautiful women love me

The Beauty of me is that I’m very Rich.

The Tyrant Craft

Rhys Hughes

At last there was a sail on the horizon. A tiny smudge of white, as if an octopus had lifted a tentacle out of the water and was waving a handkerchief. That had happened once or twice in living memory, so it was best not to raise the alarm too soon. It was much better to be absolutely certain.

The city astronomer was called for, and he brought his heavy brass telescope with him, cradling it tenderly in both arms like a baby. His assistant followed, the tripod balanced on his shoulder like a musket. They were a curious pair, threading through the tangled city streets to the harbour.

They made a fuss setting up the telescope and adjusting the screws so that it could be swivelled to point at the shimmering horizon. The astronomer had a large watery eye and he pushed it against the lens of the instrument like a soap bubble that bursts itself on the granite finger of a statue.

He fiddled with the focus control for a moment, then grunted and sighed. At last he stood up straight, adjusted his turban, blinked away the discomfort in his eye and spoke to the mob that surrounded him:

"It's not a handkerchief but a sail, the dreaded sail of the

tyrant craft

foretold long ago

by the prophet who to our loss

we only recently took seriously,

for we thought he was daft.

It's a bigly boat, this tyrant craft, oh woe!

Rowed by autocrats

from world history and today

it's headed our way

and we won't have a say in the matter.

It will dock here for sure

and the crew will swarm out

and splatter our blood on the walls

of our halls.

See if they don't!"

And then he dismantled his telescope and returned with his assistant to where he had come from, wherever that was, probably the observatory on the hill at the heart of the city. The people scratched their heads, but not because his words were mysterious. No, they understood them perfectly well.

Next? the people asked.

It's not a handkerchief. It's a sail.

No doubt about it.

To arms! Man the barricades!

The tyrant craft was real after all, not a myth, not a dream, and it was coming, and it was fortunate that someone had always been in position on the quayside gazing out to sea just in case, even though the prophet who had predicted it was considered to be insane, more insane than a living sock.

So insane that his statue in the square, where all the statues of the great people of the city were arranged, was just a nut, a giant stone nut on a pedestal, and everybody who walked past it nodded and said, That's Zeg, my mother gave me a history book that said his bathroom was full of onions.

I wonder how that occurred?

Probably he collected them and stored them there.

How did he get started?

I guess that first he took a leek...

But Zeg was dead and the city was a fairly peaceful one and it didn't know much about resisting invasion. The people had weapons but lacked the skill at using them. Many of the citizens would probably want to surrender, but that would be a disaster. The tyrant craft was full of vicious rascals.

An emergency meeting was held by the city council, but like all such meetings it soon got bogged down in irrelevant detail, and nothing much was decided. Then one of the councillors, who was sitting in a shaft of sunlight that speared through a thin window, checked his sundial watch and said:

We are wasting time. How much closer is the tyrant craft?

A messenger was sent to find out.

He returned with the answer: Much closer!

Yes, but how much?

He was sent back to ascertain how much, and when he returned he brought the awful news that it was even closer than before, so close it was almost here, and that he didn't want to be sent there a third time. At this news the councillors mumbled and grumbled, and some of them even scoffed:

"What kinds of weaponry do we still have in store or

is the armoury just full of cheese?

Years of peace have made us soft,

the invasion force will bring us to our knees

by chopping our lower legs off."

The messenger was sent down to the cellar under the city hall building and when he came back up he reported that there were swords, spears and daggers, all rusty, but no axes, no bows, no muskets; and that yes, there was some cheese, very mouldy and bright blue. But certainly no heavy artillery.

We are going to lose!

Now that is defeatist talk! Stop it!

In the old days we used a thing called Greek Fire against invasion fleets. It was hurled by catapult out to sea and if it landed on the deck of an enemy vessel it would burn right through down into the hold and keep on burning through the hull, letting the sea pour in and sinking it rapidly.

Do you have the recipe for this marvellous chemical?

I'm afraid that I don't.

Will the Greeks lend us some if we ask?

I am sure they will, but Greece is far away, thousands of miles, and our time is running out. The tyrant craft will be here very soon. Maybe it is already here and the invaders are jumping out of it onto our quayside. We must be more practical! Can we think of nothing to help us to survive?

They racked their brains, but because torture had long been outlawed in the city, they weren't able to rack them very hard. A few wondered if they couldn't dress up as women and thus escape the slaughter, but it was pointed out that savage invaders tend not to spare women but ravish them instead.

Plus at least half the gathered councillors were women, and they objected to such an anachronistic suggestion. What did it mean to dress as a woman anyway? Women dressed in a variety of outfits. Maybe the invaders would know what that meant, but the refined inhabitants of the city wouldn't.

Maybe we should give up?

They won't spare us just because we surrender.

I don't mean that. We should abandon ourselves to destiny and embrace a death that seems inevitable. Be fatalistic about it.

"Do that if you wish; but I am certainly not destined to give up. I am destined to try to fight back and resist somehow. The how is the tricky part. The where and when are easy. And so is the why,

which is that it's not fair

to lie down and die

when the option to try and survive

is still there."

Yes, yes, we must make an effort of some kind, but the practicalities are what we need to discuss and we simply don't have the opportunity to do so. Who is the oldest amongst us? The old are often the wisest...

They all glanced at each other, working out their respective ages. Most of them were of middle age, with a few youngsters scattered about; and the older members of the council tended to be huddled in the shadows. These older members weren't very old anyway, they just had deeper wrinkles.

But it turned out that there was one genuinely ancient fellow. He stirred now and leaned forward on his chair, his beard brushing the floor. Everyone blinked at him as he entered the shaft of mote-filled sunlight. They had no idea who he was. It was as if a stranger had suddenly formed from dust.

That would be me, he said.

Oh yes? And who are you exactly?

You have all forgotten about me, that's not surprising, I was old long before the first stone of the city hall was laid. I am even older than Zeg and I remember him well. I was one of those who mocked him, but I learned my lesson. I consider myself to be wise, at least wise enough for this crisis.

And your name is?

Snoflak. I know it's a strange name, but I was born in a time before things were subdivided into strange and normal. Call me Flak for short. I used to meet Zeg in the waterfront cafes for chess and coffee. He always referred to me as Flak. Most of the time I beat him at the games but I was lucky.

He combed his beard with his fingers and rolled a yellow eye.

They grimaced as he rolled it on the table like a marble, then he put it back in his empty socket, from where it had fallen. A glass eye as birdlike as the real one that saw dimly the world as it was, though his mind was fixed on the distant past. He still toyed with his beard with his other hand.

Does it often fall out?

Yes, I need stronger glue, but it doesn't bother me. It's an old injury. Everything about me is old. It could hardly be otherwise. But I know something so old that it has been forgotten by everyone else, and it is this I wish to speak of now. I believe it may help the city resist the threat of invasion.

They became interested and watched him eagerly.

An unusual kind of weapon, he continued, that was created at great cost in the early days of this city. It is so original that nothing similar has ever appeared on the face of the planet since. It's purely defensive but far more powerful than Greek Fire or anything else you can try to imagine.

That's quite a claim. Will you give us details?

Snoflak nodded and opened his mouth, but he sighed for a long time before words came out of that gnarled throat. It's a transparent ball of vast circumference that has a peculiar magnetic force that is emotional. It repairs damage to minds and hearts and makes enemies adopt your point of view.

And it still exists?

"Yes it does, a magical orb of awesome force

that smooths strife in every life,

erodes hate in any city state,

and brings an end to trouble.

Some call it a progressive sphere

and others know it as a love globe.

I feel it is more witty,

of course,

to regard it as

a liberal bubble."

This sounds magnificent and it is a terrible shame we didn't learn about it before now. A liberal bubble, you say? Perhaps we could roll it against the tyrant craft when it docks at the quayside! But where can we find this miracle weapon? You say it still exists, but do you know how to get hold of it?

Snoflak smiled and with a hand that seemed to be stuck on the end of his doddery arm like a marshmallow on a pointed stick, he indicated a large door at the far end of the room that was almost entirely buried in shadows, an ancient portal to some room that no one present had ever noticed before.

That's very curious.

Not really, it's just inconspicuous. It has been locked for centuries and formed no part of your consciousness simply because there was no need for it to. But beyond it lies the chamber where the liberal bubble was stored safely for times of need. A time of need is here now, so I suggest we unlock it.

But who has the key?

I do, said Snoflak, and he seemed sad.

Why are you gloomy?

Because it's going to hurt, and yet it's my duty.

He stood and hobbled over the cool flagstones of the floor towards the door and without pausing he thrust his arm into the lock beneath the handle. It went deep, that thin arm of his, and then he twisted it. Tumblers inside the lock groaned and turned and Snoflak moaned softly as they did so.

What are you doing?

My hand is the key. It was arranged that way ages ago. But the lock is so stiff and my arm so feeble that I fear it is going to snap off. Ah yes, what did I tell you? It has snapped clean off at the wrist. This is why I felt a reluctance to do this task, but I did anyway, for the greater good of this city!

You are a hero and we will give you a medal if we win.

Snoflak muttered a thank you.

He withdrew his arm and they saw that the hand had come off somewhere inside the mechanism of the lock, but the door could be opened now, and with his free hand he grasped the handle and tugged on it. Slowly the door swung open with a horrible grating noise and then it was gaping wide.

Thank you, Flak.

It's my pleasure, said the old man as he staggered back to his chair. No blood dribbled from his wound because his circulation was too slow to do anything other than sit inside his shrivelled veins as if sitting in a rocker on a porch, going nowhere special, just rocking back and forth, daydreaming

They rose from their seats and approached the open room cautiously. So this was a chamber from the ancient times, from the founding of the city, from the legendary days before strange and normal were separate categories! They were overawed but there was also some urgency in their movements.

We are running short of time.

"Yes we are, the tyrant craft might already be here

and then, oh dear!

our doom will be sealed for sure.

Let's hope this room

contains the cure."

And it did. That was the really marvellous thing about what happened next. The transparent sphere was there in that mysterious chamber, just as Snoflak had said it would be. And it was in perfect condition, clear but with a milky field of energy that was part of its surface, that shimmered softly.

Let's roll it out!

But it might be too heavy for us.

All together we should be able to shift it.

Well, let's try!

It was amazingly light and it rolled smoothly, almost as if it somehow wanted to be trundled into the light of day, as if it felt the call of some mystic duty, a desire to engage with evil, embrace it and convert it, turning hate into love and intolerance into acceptance with the alchemy of its inner spirit.

For it seemed to be alive and sentient on some level, perhaps a level higher than that of mere mortals. It vibrated as well as shimmered and the vibrations made those who touched it feel at peace with themselves, and not only those who actually laid hands on it, but even those who stood by to watch.

Out of the chamber it came, then they rolled it out of city hall; and down the stone steps at the front of the building it bounced, with more grace than one might expect a gigantic ball to possess; and it began to accelerate down the slope of the street, and it was no longer possible for them to keep up with it.

The city hall stood at the highest point of the city, on a mound, and all the streets went down to the harbour. The sphere rolled faster and faster and there was no way it could be stopped now. They watched it vanish down the avenue and then they heard a cry from somewhere near, and they looked around.

It was the official astronomer, standing on the roof of