Steve vs the Poisonous Cloud

© Steve’s Short Story™
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Steve vs. the Poisonous Cloud


         Prologue: Have you ever had that one fart that’s literally cleared the room, that one crack of the wind that has everyone in the building asking, “What did you eat?” The one cut of cheese that has people gasping for clean air, having them run for their lives because their afraid they’ll die from the fumes alone. Some scientists claim that our farts can’t kill us, but who have they tested? What if you didn’t test the worst farter out there and his or hers poisonous fumes got released onto the general public?

         One hot summer’s day, the temperature wasn’t too hot, but hot enough to sweat, the kind of heat where you just wanted to sit down, in front of a fan, a cold beer in hand and watch some mind numbing television. No clouds in the sky, a nice blue sky, birds chirping and the sun shining bright. Inside his own home, a man sat in his chair, watching an action movie, that movie, Die Hard. He also had in front of him, a combo from the local taco fast food joint, and just finished his delectable fries and one taco; he was beginning to devour the last one. He took a sip of his cold refreshing Pepsi and then went back to eating the taco.
         He just polished off the delicious taco, the sauce oozing down his chin, licking his fingers. He felt his tummy rubble and remarked on it. “Oh, I feel one brewing.” With a lift of his left leg, forming a clear airway, out came the loudest, wettest, squishiest smelliest thirty second long fart the world had ever seen/heard. During the releasing process, a green cloud exited from his colon and began to slowly make its way over to the open balcony. “That was both awesome and disgusting wrapped in one!” he seemed proud, although I’m sure Guinness would agree, but that had to have been one of the most disturbing scenes one would never need to see again.
         The green cloud was now over by the balcony, where sat some nice beautiful flowers, but once that cloud had them in its reach, the flowers wilted and died within seconds. The man sprung to his feet once he saw what had happened and ran over, making sure he stayed clear of this nasty cloud he had created. “Now that’s just wrong.” He looked at the flowers, figuring out how that could have possibly done that. By this point, the cloud had reached the outside and slowly moving towards some people arguing across the parking lot.
         Before the man could warn them, the green mist reached the humans and once they were inside, they began to choke from the extreme stench this gas had possessed. “Oh my lord, what is that fowl, retched...” Eventually, after only seconds of exposure, the people fell over and stopped breathing, they were dead. The green mist continued on its journey, where, only time could tell at this point.
         The man made haste down the stairs and over to the clouds victims, he checked their vitals, all three of them were gone. “What is going on, this seriously can’t be happening.” He looked towards the direction the cloud was moving, a cab car drove into it, while inside, the cabbie and passenger, began to cough and eventually die from what ever poison that was in this fog, “What is God’s name is that horrid smell?” The cabbie tried to cover his nostril, preventing them from inhaling that toxic mist as he lost control and the vehicle swerved off and crashed into a building wall.
         It appeared, any and all life forms that entered this vapor, ceased to exist. The unstoppable smog continued on as the man hopped in his car and drove around, trying to catch up and hopefully warn others to get away from it. “This can’t be happening, why is this cloud here, was it really because of the fart?” was the man’s only thought, as he tried to find the whereabouts of his fart cloud.
         He turned the corner just in time to see the haze take three more victims as they coughed to death. It was headed for a playground with a dozen kids innocently playing with each other.
         Steve slammed on the gas and swerved around the green venomous vapor and hit hard on the brakes, causing a huge scene, he jumped out, parents screaming, kids stopping and looking as he yelled, “Get away from the playground, some poisonous cloud is on its way!” Now, I don’t know what you would do in that situation besides staring blankly at the individual that just hollered that, but that is exactly what these people did, as the cloud crept closer and closer, ready to exterminate more life.
         Finally, someone asked, to quench their curiosity, “A what cloud, what makes it poisonous?”
         The man huffed, knowing the people wouldn’t believe a word he would say, came up with a better excuse as they were running low on time, “A government failed experiment. But what’s important, it’s already taken lives, you need to stay out of it.” As the cloud reached the man’s car and continued to reach the crowd, panic now ensued. Parents rushed to gather their kids as the cloud reached the edge of the playground. Any children without parents, the man helped gather and took them away from the clouds range.
         “Come on, don’t slow down, we need to find somewhere safe!” Steve took the group off course of the clouds initial movement, hoping that the gas would keep going its way and not put these people in any more danger. But the mist diverted its movement, it began to follow the group and chase after them, its pace also picked up. “Oh come on.” The man witnessed what was happening and looked at the group, “It’s following us; we just have to keep moving.”
         As the group ran, another curious parent asked, “So, who are you, some agent trying to stop the cloud?”
         The man nodded, “yeah, I’m an agent, trying to cover up this event and save lives. I’m Steve by the way.” The group all thanked, told them their names and continued on running, where they were heading, no one knew, where was a great place to hide, somewhere air tight.
         “So, how does a poisonous government cloud escape and get set loose here, I wasn’t aware there was a government lab in this city?” Another parent asked, what was with parents and their annoying questions, this man just saved you, can’t you be thankful and just go along with it.
         “And why would you make such an evil thing?” A mother, obviously with three children of her own, added in.
         “Just experimental biological weaponry, it was on a truck, in a safe container, until some dick cut us off and sent us off the road, we crashed, and the cloud was released.” Steve, who appeared to have expert skills in lying and deception, should have a job with the government.
         “So, I assume you know how to stop it then?”
         “Well, actually, agent Mitchell, who was responsible for the chemical, I’m just the muscle on this trip, was killed in the crash.”
         “Considering you were just in an accident, you don’t have a scratch on you.”
         “Airbags, work wonders, come on, let’s move quicker, that cloud is gaining on us.”
         “How exactly does it know to follow us?”
         “That’s the way they invented it, smart technology.” Steve obviously didn’t know what to say, but the group nodded, like it made sense to them. The cloud was still on their tails as some innocent bystanders were caught in the mist, luckily, it was just a few small trees and plants and not more human life, a squirrel, just out looking for some nuts to eat also saw his fate with the green gas.
         As they were running for their lives, Steve’s stomach was becoming more and more unsettling with the contents that were inside. You should never eat delicious tacos, stuff that belly full of carbohydrates and run a marathon that brews disaster. As he ran, a little fart here, another there; each releasing a tiny little spawns of the greater cloud. These little clouds veered off into their own directions; waiting to devour and kill for themselves.
         “Oh really” Steve muttered noticing what just happened, the funny thing about it was, these farts, that he would have anticipated would reek, didn’t, all the smell was locked inside this cloud and only once inside, did you realize how powerful the fumes really were, but of course, by that point, you were dead. What was he going to do, how do you stop something that’s never happened before, how to you get rid of a poisonous stench cloud constructed by a fart?
         Then, someone in the group just happened to look back and see the little clouds forming and had to yell out, “Oh my, it’s splitting, we’re doomed!” Panicking the rest, everyone decided, every family for itself and split off, thinking they were a heck of a lot better on their own.
         One of the families that ran off, the father tripped, one of the small clouds closed the distance and was up to his knees in it, his son went to go give him aid, but the mother stopped, holding her child back as the father yell, “Save yourselves!” Just as the cloud covered him entirely and he began to cough from the stench and seconds later, fell dead.
         Steve looked at his group and told them, “Just keep running, don’t stop, unless it’s for traffic, I’m going to try something,” He stopped, letting the group he was with to gain some distance and he looked at the cloud, “How to stop you, what to do, would Febreze work?” He then looked around, the clouds were getting further and further from him and themselves, there were a total of five clouds now, one big one and four little ones he just ripped off not too long ago.
         If he didn’t figure out how to stop them soon, who knows where they would end up and how many lives they would take? Off in the distance, near the path of one of the small clouds, there were kids having a water fight, totally unaware of the danger that was closing in on them. Steve didn’t want to see anyone else suffer, so he quickly ran towards them, yelling at the top of his lungs, “Watch out for the deadly cloud!” yeah, because that would sure work. He was able to outrun the slow seeping cloud and get to the kids first with maybe a minute to spare.
         “Hey kids listen, get away from here now!” Just as the cloud was right behind him, the children laughed at the old man.
         “Whatever dude!” One kid replied.
         Then another kid had another thought, “Soak him!” As they all turned to face Steve and began to shoot water at him, he ducked down and the water soared through the air, over top of Steve and piercing the poisonous cloud that was just in reach of the man. It would seem that the water penetrated the cloud and caused it to dissipate into nothing, diluting the poison and the water seeped safely into the ground.
         “That’s it!” Steve’s eye’s lit up with joy; he accidentally found a way to destroy the deadly fog that had killed several people. Steve jumped to his feet, thanked the kids for trying to soak him and ran back to his car. He drove back to his place, grabbed a few buckets, filled them with water, brought them to the car and began his search for the four remaining clouds.
         He began with the closest one, he kind of knew the path it was taking, so he figured it would hurt to go that way, eventually, and hopefully, he’ll reach it before anyone else will die. Soon enough, he had caught up to it, swerve the car so he was now in its path, grabbed a bucket and waited, for when he was about to be devoured, the time came quickly and he tossed the water over the cloud and it worked. The water diluted the cloud and turned it into a harmless vapor that seeped into the ground, never to deal harm to anyone again.
Steve smiled; relieved that this plan was going to work, he jumped back into the vehicle and made his way to the next small cloud he was sure of the location. The other two small clouds were uneventful, Steve pretty much did the same thing as the first one he encountered, and he was now on route to track down the big one.
An hour and five deaths later, Steve had managed to catch up with the big nasty fog that he accidentally created. But it was still further down the road, so he stepped on the gas and accelerated the vehicle to max speed. He maneuvered the car to get ahead of it and when he enough room to prepare his attack, he came to a halt. With the two remaining buckets in hand, he got out and stood there, patiently waiting for the cloud to reach him.
The mist had made its approach onto him and ready to devour his last breath. Wasting no time, Steve held the first bucket and tossed the contents of water over it. But it didn’t take out the whole cloud, just a chunk, roughly a quarter of it. But he knew, since this was the bigger one, he was going to need more water. So after tossing the empty pail to the side and he reached for the other and hurled those contents as well over it, only removing about half of what was left.
Which meant there was still about a ten-foot square cloud of death floating straight for him and was stalking, lurking forward, towards its next victim.
Steve quickly backed off, getting as far away as he could, trying to find another source of water before this cloud took another life. Steve hesitated, he didn’t know what to do, the green cloud now had stopped, and it just grew larger and larger now for no reason. Steve stood there in shock and in awe, “what is happening now?” He froze, as the cloud reached him and began to choke the life within; eventually dropped to his knees, gagging for each breath, inhaling his own foul stench, and not too long after he was exposed to the fumes, he collapsed gasping for a gulp of fresh air...
That was when he woke up, in his chair, near the end of the action movie Die Hard with a funny feeling in his pants, apparently when he had farted; he knocked himself out from the foul smell.
““That’s it; I’m cutting myself off the gassy foods; that was my clear-cut sign right there.” He brought the food and stepped on the can to prop open the lid. But he hesitated, the delicious contents of that gassy food wafted up his nose. Taking a moment to ask himself, “Just one more savory bite wouldn’t hurt… would it?” And with that said, another tiny release of gas from his bowels came. The fumes quickly rose up his nostrils, the stench overbearing. On the brink of vomiting, and without giving it another thought, he tossed the rest of his take-out into the trash.

The End