Max and the Banjo Ferret Read online

  Max and the Banjo Ferret

  Max and the Multiverse, Volume 3

  Zachry Wheeler

  Published by Mayhematic Press, 2018.

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  FREE EBOOK

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ADDITIONAL WORKS

  BEFORE YOU GO

  AND ANOTHER THING

  FREE EBOOK

  This stupid book is dedicated to the almighty Tim, the alpha and omega, yin and yang, regular and unleaded.

  COPYRIGHT

  © 2018 by Zachry Wheeler

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9982049-7-0

  Print: 978-0-9982049-6-3

  Edited by Jennifer Amon

  Published by Mayhematic Press

  FREE EBOOK

  Claim your FREE limited edition copy of The Item of Monumental Importance: a Max and the Multiverse short! Max awakes to a mystic realm and must brave a barrage of fantasy tropes.

  zachrywheeler.com/freebook

  CHAPTER 1

  Life takes an almost hedonistic pleasure in pointing out the things you don’t know. Take peanuts, for instance. Nobody grew up knowing that they were legumes in disguise. And to this day, grown-ass adults will reach for antibiotics when they catch a cold.

  And then there are the big ones.

  Any nerd worth their weight in hexagonal dice knows about the four fundamental forces of nature: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak. However, very few know about the fifth. Yes, fifth. Much like its siblings, the fifth was created during the Great Booyah. (Earth humans call it the Big Bang because they refuse to accept galactic norms, like how Americans insist on using imperial units when the rest of the world uses metric.)

  The fifth’s signature force is that of a goading prick, the cosmic equivalent of a shit-stirring uncle at Thanksgiving. Its overall purpose is to keep the universe guessing. Sometimes it hides car keys or blue-screens a computer. Other times it inflames an interstellar war just to watch the pretty colors. The fifth is an embodiment of astronomic indifference. It just ruffles random feathers and skips away like an incorporeal Bill Murray prancing across the cosmos.

  This was why Max sat upon a log with his face buried in his hands. But not just any log. This log rested on the surface of Yankar, a lush jungle planet located in the Perseus-Pisces Supercluster. An unfortunate shift had stranded him there away from his crewmates, the result of a rousing party and subsequent pass out. A conundrum for sure, but Max didn’t care much at the moment. He was too busy contemplating the most mind-bending nugget of information he had ever received, from his lifelong best friend no less.

  There he sat, slumped and silent with nappy dreadlocks dangling from his head. A thick beard peeked through a set of muscular forearms. Stitched hides, strapped boots, and a claw necklace completed the image of a distraught caveman having lost his favorite rock.

  Ross, currently a large and fearsome saber-toothed tiger, sat across from Max with his head tilted in mild concern. He glanced away and sighed as if to conjure a feckless pep talk, then returned his gaze to the caveman.

  “Oi,” Ross said. “You okay there, mate?”

  Max’s hands dropped to his knees with a limp slap. The sudden reveal of an angered face caught the tiger off-guard. Ross recoiled and cocked an ear back.

  “This is hardly the time or place for one of your cruel jokes,” Max said.

  “Eh?” Ross cocked the other ear back.

  “You’ve done this before. Hell, you’ve been yanking my chain since day one. Remember? Your real name is Reginald, first son of Asshole from the Assholian Galaxy?”

  Ross smirked. “Oh yeah, that was a good one. First son of Hackamore from the Zynfall Galaxy. And mostly true, by the way. There was this crystal planet full of—”

  “Stop. Just, stop.” Max paused to take a needed breath. “You just told me, with a straight face no less, that you are the Fifth Force of Nature, that you were created during Big Ba—the Great Booyah, and that your role in the universe is to fuck with everyone.”

  Ross nodded.

  Max rolled his eyes, palmed the log, and shot to his feet. He grabbed his spear and started to walk away. “I can’t do this right now. I’m stranded on a planet full of giant horror monsters that want to eat my face. I need to gather my wits and figure out how to get back to Zoey and Perra.”

  “I can help with that.”

  “And how can you do that?” Max said without looking back or breaking stride.

  “I know where they are and what they’re doing. Right now. Across all universes.”

  Max stopped, huffed, and bowed his head. After a brief pause to digest the utter frustration of the predicament, he lifted his eyes and surveyed the open field. Waist-high grass swayed in the gentle breeze. Towering trees the size of office buildings lined the far side, shrouding the horizon. His gaze climbed the wooden wall to a blue sun peeking through the clouds. The orb blinked as a giant winged monstrosity sailed overhead. The flap of massive wings drowned out the forest. The creature shrieked, sending a chill down Max’s spine. It banked and glided around the open basin, as if sensing the fear of an Earthling snack.

  “We should probably get out of the valley,” Ross said as he followed the plane-sized beast with widened eyes.

  Max groaned, about-faced, and jogged back to the forest line. Ross spun around and leapt into a trot as Max passed. The pair slipped through a drapery of vines and vanished into the jungle.

  * * *

  On the far side of the universe, Zoey and Perra prepped their boxy freighter for launch after delivering lunch to an asteroid. But not just any lunch. This lunch had contained the roasted flank steak of a burkelbob, one of three known to exist. The creatures were prized for their delectable flesh and ultimate scarcity. They had no lungs, blood, or sensitivity to extreme cold, so they were perfectly content floating around the vacuum of space. Their origin and propagation remained a mystery. In fact, their entire existence was uncovered by a chance encounter. After all, one tends to remember when a space pig smiles at you from a port window.

  Their extreme rarity dictated their extreme price point. Only the wealthiest beings in the universe could afford a burkelbob steak. We’re talking the upper one quadrillionth of the upper one percent. A handful of individuals, four to be exact, one of which had purchased an entire star system in order to convert a prized asteroid into a vacation home. On this day, and in that very home, she joined one of the most exclusive clubs in all existence by tasting a burkelbob steak.

  Zoey and Perra’s ship rested atop a launch pad made of solid diamond. (Don’t get too excited. Diamonds might be precious on Earth, but the universe at large is littered with them. In fact, there are entire planets made of diamond. As with mos
t material goods, rarity and value are intertwined. When the exceedingly wealthy propose to their schmoopsie poos, it’s not with a trashy diamond ring. They use a slice of dried burkelbob intestine.)

  Inside the cockpit, the orange Mulgawats sulked inside their respective pilot seats. They stared out the viewport at a diamond staircase lifting from a diamond landing pad up to a diamond front door encrusted with more diamonds. Zoey rapped her fingers on the crescent control panel. Light pats and random blips needled an idle silence.

  She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I can’t believe we just did that. ‘Precious Cargo Delivery Service, here’s your snack.’ We may as well start delivering pizzas.”

  Perra maintained a blank stare out the viewport.

  Zoey turned to her catatonic lover and waved a hand in front of her face. “You okay there, sweetie?”

  Perra flinched in response. “Sorry. I just have a nagging feeling that we’re forgetting something important.”

  “Like what? This was a one-way trip, no pick-up.”

  “No, nothing like that. Something raw and personal, like a missing limb.”

  Zoey glanced at her arms and legs, then felt moronic for doing so.

  “Ah!” Perra leapt to her feet. “Forgot to lock down the engine room. Be right back.”

  Zoey smirked as Perra tromped down the corridor.

  * * *

  Max crept through the jungle foliage with spear at the ready and a large tiger in tow, as if playing an intense game of Jumanji. Every squawk and snap yanked his focus. Every flinch and flex stretched leather across his chest. His teeth started to chatter, much to the annoyance of Ross.

  “Mind if I take point?” Ross said, then plodded ahead before Max could answer. “You’re under the lower canopy now, no need to freak out. Most of the bigger beasts stick to the valleys and upper canopies.”

  Max softened his shoulders and relaxed a bit. He raised the tip of his spear overhead and used it as a walking stick. “Then why are you in here?”

  “Mate, you watched a dinosaur the size of a building eat a spider the size of a bus. What makes you think that I’m a bigger beast on this planet?”

  Max whimpered and re-gripped his spear.

  “You’re perfectly safe, though. Down here, I’m the King of the Jungle.”

  Max faltered and held his spear at kinda-ready, as if to say that he’s sort of prepared for whatever, or something. He grunted, shook it off, and returned to the casual walk of a forest nomad. “So where are we going?”

  “Your place.”

  “My place? I have a home here?”

  “You have a tree house, in a manner of speaking, which is kind of a requirement. Primitive versions of Yankar aren’t exactly hiker-friendly. At least, not for humans. You figured that out early on, else we wouldn’t be chin wagging.”

  “See, that’s what I don’t understand. How did I—er, this version of me, get here in the first place?”

  “Infinite universes, infinite possibilities.”

  Max grimaced. “Okay, so I was flying around Earth on my jetpack, impressing my supermodel girlfriend, when all the sudden, a portal to Yankar opened up and swallowed me like a fish.”

  “Yup.”

  Max raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “In some universes, sure. But not in this one. You were abducted from Earth and dumped here, probably because of your incessant whinging.”

  “Whin—that’s not a word.”

  “Whinging, as in ‘to whinge.’ To complain in a persistent and annoying way. Or as I shall call it from this day forth, ‘Maxing.’”

  “No need to be a dick.”

  “You mean a Max?”

  Max rolled his eyes. “Or maybe you do. You are Dicky McDickerson after all, the Fifth Force of Nature.” He added air quotes and a mocking tone. “So does that mean the real Ross is back on Earth being a normal house cat?”

  “Yes, and I’m him too.”

  “Huh? How can you be him and you?”

  Ross stopped and turned to Max. “I’m a Force of Nature, you twit. Just like gravity. I’m everywhere, at all times and through all universes. In fact, hold on a sec ...” Ross glanced away for a moment, then returned a cheeky grin. “I just shat in your gaming chair back on Earth.”

  Max grimaced and shook his head. “You really are a big hairy asshole.”

  “Kind of the point, mate. It’s why I love being a house cat. I can break stuff, puke everywhere, howl in the middle of the night like a batshit banshee, and you still feed me. It’s like a free pass for outright douchery.”

  “So every time you scratch the furniture or knock over a vase, it’s just ...”

  “Yup.” Ross turned away and resumed his walk.

  “Wow. That explains so much.” Max paused in thought, then jogged to catch up. “I’m actually kind of impressed, to be honest.”

  “That’s nothing. You should see me work on a planetary scale.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, one of my favorite things to do is start religions in different regions and see how long it takes them to fight. I’ll appear to some barmy schmuck on one side of a planet, then to another schmuck on the other side, then start the clock for a holy war. My record is 26 days.”

  “You mean to tell me that the Crusades, the Inquisition, all of them, were just ...”

  “Yup.”

  “Unreal.”

  “No offense, but Earthlings are some of the most gullible knobs in the universe. Check it, I got piss drunk one day and decided to mess with some random wanker. I appeared to him as a giant purple banjo-playing ferret, called myself Tim the Destroyer of Worlds, and told him that I would destroy the Earth if humans didn’t stop being so goddamn stupid. I thought for sure that he would dismiss me as some sort of hallucination. Nope. Two weeks later, boom! Ferretianism was born. It took less than a decade for it to spread across the galaxy. They have a governance hierarchy, missionary system, the whole enchilada.”

  Max thought for a moment. “That’s why everyone uses Tim for curses and such.”

  “Exactly, and it remains one of my finest works, despite its imprudent creation. A universe-wide religion that traces its roots to an Earthling halfwit. They even have a website. You should check it out. It’s as funny as it is depressing.”

  Max glanced at his leathery duds and spear. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

  Ross strolled to a stop at the base of a colossal tree. Max’s jaw slacked open as he traced a tangled maze of vines up a giant bark wall, each as thick as his leg. He glanced left and right, unable to see the tree’s curvature.

  “You see the vine on the left?” Ross said. “The one with pegs sticking out of it?”

  Max located the vine in question. An alternating pattern of crude wooden stakes protruded from its thick hide. “Yes, I see it.”

  “That’s your home ladder. Just climb until it’s obvious.” Ross crouched, wiggled his bum, and leapt onto the wall of wood, sinking his giant claws into the bark. He climbed up the tree just like any normal feline and disappeared over a hidden ledge.

  Max slipped his spear into a rear belt loop and lifted his gaze to the canopy far above. Dangling vines swayed in the breeze, creaking like trees themselves. Broad leaves the size of cars layered above one another. Beams of sunlight poked through the foliage with every gust of wind. Max drank in the vibrant visual and smiled. “You know, maybe this place isn’t as bad as I thi—” A mystery screech yanked Max from his ponder. Every muscle in his body seized with an influx of panic. He sprinted over to the pegged vine and scrambled up the wall like a caffeinated rock climber. With a final grip and yank, he hurtled over a ledge and flopped onto his back, landing on a bed of spongy moss.

  After a stint of heavy panting with a hand clasped to his chest, Max mustered the courage to peek over the ledge. The forest floor seemed clear, as best as he could tell. Just rocks, dirt, and a creepy critter that one might describe as a hulked out cockroach. Max scratched his beard and climbe
d to his feet, using the wall behind him as leverage. A slow scan of the immediate area uncovered a narrow ledge carved into the tree, similar to a switchback in a mountain pass. Curious eyes traced the path up to a bundle of dangling vines, bound together over a small hollow. Max scrunched his brow and stepped towards the entrance.

  A gentle hook and pull revealed a cave-like area tucked inside the tree. Nothing substantial, just a simple alcove the size of a studio apartment. Slivers of sunlight fell from the knotted ceiling and into a collection of well-placed quartzes, illuminating the space with soft light. Max stepped inside and released his grip on the vines, leaving him to the peace and quiet of his own Yankar abode. It reeked of damp rot and body odor, not that Max could tell in his current state. Off to the side, a curled tiger rested on a bed of twigs and dried moss.

  “So you live here too, then?” Max said.

  “No,” Ross said. “However, this is my territory.”

  “But I made you a bed.”

  “No, this is your bed. But it’s in my territory, so it’s my bed. Standard cat law.”

  Max shook his head and started to examine the hollow. A handful of stumpy logs served as a living room. A cubby in the wall housed a collection of crude tools ripped straight from the Stone Age. Max unhooked his spear and leaned it against a wall knot. Dirty fingers traced an array of carved images, rough stick figures of various animals, each with the standard happy face of a kindergarten art project.

  Below them was a large rectangle chiseled into the wall, about a meter wide and floating above a stone base. A hunk of wood rested on top, resembling a warped shoebox. Max picked the block up and studied the markings etched onto the face. A pair of thin vines connected the box to V-shaped twigs resting on the ground. The realization hit Max like a wet fish across the face. He frowned, expelled a heavy sigh, and returned the block to its stony stand.