RodWords

Selection From

DARKNETIZED!

The Brilliant Adventures of Captain FlashLight Junior Novel

Self-published on-line with Amazon and Barnes and Noble, 2011

Artwork by Parker Ott

CHAPTER ONE

DarkneBob!

The midnight streets of Filament City stretched out in all directions. Street lamps lined the sidewalks, glowing through the mist, and a neon CLOSED sign flickered in a store window. All was well. But not for long.

The sound of a speeding vehicle grew louder and louder, becoming a full RRROOARRR!

Screeching around a corner came the Broken-Bulb Cycle, a three-wheeled dragster with a cracked light bulb for a cockpit. Rattling and shaking, it sped down the street and off into the darkness.

Around the same corner, a brilliant beam of light came sweeping into the street, followed by the silvery flying flashlight known as the SkyLighter. With a WHOOOOSH it flew past and disappeared into the night, its sharp beam cutting through the fog.

In the Broken-Bulb Cycle, the short, frizzy-haired professor known as Low Voltage gripped a remote control and yelled out commands. “Faster, faster, faster, Bulbus!”

“I could go faster, faster, faster Boss, if I had some pizza, pizza, pizza,” replied Bulbus, Low Voltage's huge henchman and personal driver, his stomach growling in agreement.

“Uungh!” snorted Low Voltage, “Keep driving! We've almost got them now...”

In the sleek SkyLighter, our hero, Captain FlashLight, gripped the wheel. A gleaming CF medallion was centered on the shiny blue vest of his LumaSuit. Around his waist he wore a belt of Lumatronic—but rather normal looking—flashlights.

“We've almost got them now, Blinkie,” he announced to his faithful LumaDog, outfitted with a mini-LumaLight on his helmet and goggles over his doggie eyes.

“Ruff!” replied Blinkie.

“Cap, be careful,” cautioned the pretty, dark-haired girl in the seat next to Blinkie, “it could be a trap.”

“A trap, Neoni?” asked the too-confident hero, “Oh, I'd know if it was a trap. We'd probably come to a sudden dead end or something.”

The SkyLighter whipped around the corner and came to a sudden dead end or something. Mechanical legs slammed down from the underside of the ship, skidded along the pavement and brought them to a halt.

“It's a trap!” the Captain concluded, “Uh, oops.”

“I didn't see this on the charts, Cap,” said Neoni as she studied the dashboard screens. “There's no construction scheduled here, yet we're surrounded by walls of steel girders.”

“There's no wall behind us,” announced the Captain, “we can back out, right NOW!” He looked in the rear-view mirror, and then... KER-SLAMM!

“Bad batteries!" he exclaimed, his way of saying Oh, no! "The final wall ker-slammed into place behind us—we're walled in.”

Blinkie turned to his master and barked, “Ruff-ruff!”

Cap translated: “Big wall?”

“Ruff-ruff!”

He tried again: “Tall wall?”

“Ruff-RUFF!”

“Oh. Let's GO! Good idea, my LumaDoggie!”

Captain FlashLight and Blinkie exited the ship on light-beam elevators and walked into the deserted street. There was no sign of the Broken-Bulb Cycle.

“Dark-doers beware! It is I, Captaaaaaaain FlashLight!”

His words echoed away into the silence.

Hero and dog looked at each other, waiting.

Suddenly, walls of glowing green plasma shot up along the frames of the girders and boxed in the entire block, followed by a plasma-wall ceiling that locked into place high above them.

As Cap glanced around him, he saw the watery shadow of the Broken-Bulb Cycle on the other side of the wall in front of them. The wiry voice of Low Voltage spoke through a megaphone.

“Good evening, Captain FishBite.”

“FlashLight,” our hero responded, unsmiling.

“Allow me to introduce my little friend,” Low Voltage said slowly, “I call him...” He paused for effect. “DarkneBob.”

Slurping through the green plasma goo came a six-inch tall blob-man, made of sparkly purple and black darkness. He walked with slow, squishy footsteps.

Captain FlashLight smiled. “My enemies just keep on getting smaller.”

“Do not judge DarkneBob by his size,” snarled Low Voltage, “he always eats a...light breakfast. It makes him grow big and strong...”

Another voice spoke on the megaphone. “Boss, I eat pizza for breakfast, and I'm really hungry,” said Bulbus.

“Oh, and one more thing,” added Low Voltage, ignoring his henchman's comment, “everything he touches turns to darknesssss!”

Cap grabbed FlashLight #1, his Shine-Shield, then pointed and fired it at the DarkneBob. A glowing sphere of Lumatronic Light formed around the blob-man, locking him in a translucent bubble. Not a problem.

The DarkneBob quickly expanded to a blob-creature over nine feet tall, stretched out his blobby arms and popped the bubble.

“Bawb! Bawwb!” he yelled, then picked up a heavy dumpster and hurled through the air. Cap and Blinkie tumbled out of the way as the darknetized dumpster smashed through a store window.

Next our hero fired FlashLight #5, the Lasso-Light, releasing a rope-like laser beam that wrapped around the creature, tying it up tightly.

“LIGHTastic!” Cap said, flashing a smile.

“BAWWB!” roared the DarkneBob, squeezing through the lines, but suddenly sliced into pieces that fell to the street. Then each piece of Bob slurped and slithered upwards, forming a hundred or more full-sized Bobs standing all around them.

“Bad batteries!” shouted the Captain.

Taking his turn, Blinkie jumped up and turned in circles, firing his LumaLight in every direction, blasting the Bobs to bits, which splattered against the four walls of green plasma.

Slowly, bits of Bob came sliding across the plasma, moving from all directions to form one monstrously huge Bob, a giant with his head almost touching the plasma-ceiling above him. A thundering voice shook the ground:

“BAWWWB!”

“Bob is back, Blinkie,” said Captain FlashLight, “bigger and badder than ever!”

Blinkie barked “Ruff!” to say “Right!”

In a show of power, the DarkneBob reached for an abandoned car, darknetized it, and crushed it into a twisted chunk of metal, which came hurling at Cap and Blinkie.

Our heroes dodged it and ran back toward the SkyLighter as Bob bent down and raised his fists to smash the ship before they could get there.

Inside the ship, Neoni gripped the wheel, hit the power and blasted off. Bob slammed the pavement, just missing the SkyLighter, then stomped down on Cap and Blinkie but they flipped away as the big foot fell and the street around them iced up with black and purple darkness.

Backed up against a window, the Captain turned to his LumaDog. “There's no way to hide from this guy, Blinkie!”

The SkyLighter zoomed past the DarkneBob's face. He swiped at it but slapped his own face, growing even madder.

“BAWWWWWWWB!!!”

Neoni circled down and flew low to the ground, passing over Cap and Blinkie who grabbed the back fins and held on as the SkyLighter soared upward, swinging around behind Bob and heading for the plasma-ceiling at full speed.

She fired the forward LumaBlasters, exploding a circular opening directly in front of them. A perfect shot!

But the ship yanked back as Bob's fingers wrapped around the Captain's boot. Our hero smiled, knowing the LumaSuit could not be darknetized. Then Bob pulled hard, dragging him down, and pulling the ship with him. Cap groped for his Laser-Light, pulled it up and fired directly at Bob's face.

But, since all his FlashLights look identical, he pulled his Rocket-Light by mistake. It rocketed out of his hand and plunged into the DarkneBob, sinking through his face and into his brain (if he has one). The creature toppled backwards as the SkyLighter soared through the opening and into the starry sky.

As the ship flew away, Cap grabbed his Laser-Light and fired a thin, white-hot beam, following along the edges of the topside of the plasma-ceiling. The ceiling ripped free and fell to the street below, landing with a thunderous crash, flattening the DarkneBob and causing the four plasma-walls to collapse, one at a time, into the center.

This exploded the Rocket-Light in the DarkneBob's brain (if he has one), causing the creature, and then the whole structure to implode, explode, and vanish into nothingness.

The SkyLighter zoomed off as the Filament City police sped around the corner and came screeching to a halt in the middle of the street. Two officers with identical Irish accents sat in the front seat and scratched their heads.

“I know I heard a loud explosion, Officer Plank.”

“Aye, and I heard it too, Officer Lipton.”

“Well, something musta' happened here, and no doubt.”

“Aye, and I be a-wonderin', where's Captain FlashLight when ya need him?”