Tom Cruise Was Right!

The worst thing about the end of the world isn’t the thick layer of volcanic ash covering everything, or even the pools of alien goo covering parts of the thick layer of volcanic ash. No, the worst thing is my crazy ex-third flatmate Victor Ninox constantly eating the alien goo and telling us endlessly how great it is.

“It’s great,” he says, forty-seven times a day, “it tastes really great.”

“Vic!” I snap, as we trudge through the ash. “We keep telling you, the only reason you like that goo so much is because the aliens put a parasitic spore in your brain, and by eating the goo you’re slowly converting your DNA into alien genetic code and whatever.”

“Like that guy in that South African film,” says Silver, trudging along with us. “The Power of One.”

Vic waves his new tentacle dismissively. “You guys are full of it. Or at least you should be full of it. Alien goo I mean. Because it tastes so good.”

We trudge on: just me and my small group of increasingly filthy friends. It’s been three weeks now, since the volcano. And the release of the ancient alien intelligence trapped in its dark heart. And the subsequent invasion of the earth by self-replicating extraterrestrial biomachines. Although “invasion” is probably technically incorrect since the aliens were here already, and apparently had been for millions of years.

Because this is the apocalypse, there’s a huge pile of televisions in the street. Most are showing snow but a few are tuned to the looped speech the alien overlord gave to the United Nations on Monday.

“You’ve got to see it from our perspective,” the alien is saying. “We arrived on Earth six million years ago, before humans had even evolved. It’s not our fault our alarm didn’t go off and we overslept. This planet is ours by right of prior use.”

“Sleeping inside an Icelandic volcano for six million years doesn’t count as prior use!” screams Robert Mugabe, and then the alien overlord evaporates him with a zap-beam. There’s muted cheering, and the speech loops.

We trudge onward. Cmos is with us too, on crutches and in a neck brace. He survived the initial eruption, the emergence of the alien drones, the Eighteen Seconds War, the reproductive suppression field, the culls, the First, Second and Third Harvests, the leprosy, and then he fell downstairs.

“My neck hurts,” he complains.

“Rub some goo on it,” says Vic, through a mouthful of same. “It’s a great topical anesthetic.”

The Guerrilla Gamer is bringing up the rear and making obscene gestures at Vic.

“I can see you making those gestures man,” says Vic. “I have eyes in the back of my head.”

More ash falls out of the sky. There’s the burning wreckage of a Boeing 737 lying among the ruins of the block of flats on the left of the road, its engines choked with molten glass. The charred logo on the tail reveals it to be the one-time property of a one-time budget carrier that decided the risk of flying through a volcanic cloud outweighed the risk of not flying at all. I reflect that, working the probabilities, one of the passengers probably died in the act of paying a stewardess $2 to use the toilet.

“Tom Cruise told us this would happen,” says Cmos.

“Oh he did not,” snaps the Guerrilla Gamer. We’re all very snappy, which is probably understandable, given the circumstances. “That whole Scientology thing was totally a co-incidence. I blame Obama’s Health Reform. And Rudd’s Health Reform. Health Reform in general actually.”

He pauses, as if waiting for us to challenge this or demand an explanation. But we’re all too exhausted. We’ve been walking for a week and haven’t eaten in three days. Well, except for Vic.

“Why do I blame Health Reform?” the Guerrilla Gamer asks for us. “Because money was diverted to curing smokers who refuse to quit even when the doctor tells them to, instead of being spent on sweet research of alien tech and leveling up the SAS.” He lights a cigar. When there’s still no reply, he uses a terrible sexist swearword and drops back to bring up the rear.

Suddenly a whirling alien ferris wheel construct of laser-spewing doom erupts from the loading dock of a gutted supermarket. It starts making that high-pitched squealing noise that means it’s powering up its main weapon.

“GODDAMNIT!” screams Silver, standing four-square in front of this thing that comes from both an unimaginably distant world and the unimaginably distant past, “We told your guy up the street WE DON’T HAVE ANY PIZZA ROLLS!”

The alien ferris wheel of death thing pauses, seems to turn its hideous alien gaze on each of us in turn, and then wheels away over the broken rooftops, no doubt in search of other refugees to hassle.

“This whole alien invasion hasn’t been anywhere near as good as the one we had when we were kids,” says Vic, several eyes on the horizon. “Remember how cool that one was? Sure, the aliens were more generic, but it was just a purer experience. This one is all about flashy volcanic explosions and survival horror in the ruined streets. The original was way better.”

“Shut up and eat your goo,” I say, because I just can’t take it anymore.