Ms. Haversham Malloy saves the Ragin' Maccac

The story begins in a penny arcade, when a personal secretary and a starving but enthusiastic student meet because of marriage vows. It is a sports story. The protagonist is not motivated because no one saved them, so they have sworn to save others.

The penny arcade was on fire. Flames, flames of hot hot heat were licking and surging and crackling and purring as they burned the shithole down. Mrs. Pacman was a coruscation of blue and green fire, Double Dragon’s screen had exploded outward in a hail of shattered shuriken stars, and zombies too dumb to die kept on clawing at the screen of Shoot ‘Em Up House of the Dead IV as the plastic blue and red shotguns melted and twisted away.

At the back, where the smoke wasn’t as thick, the toxic fumes less pungent, Ms. Haversham Malloy was wielding a crowbar and trying to save her fiancé. He was a bare knuckle cage fighter, and was trapped in the illegal fightpit that Mr. Bobbalom McGee had setup in order to finance his daughter’s college education. Ragin’ Maccac was trapped in the pit, the trapdoor locked, and hot hot tears were coursing down Ms. Haversham Malloy’s face as she sought to bust open the lock.

“Get out of here, Havvy,” bellowed Ragin’ Maccac, pacing below her in the cool dampness of the pit. “I’ll be fine. Get the firemen to dig me out. And if I die, if it’s my fate to perish, then bury me next to my own sweet ma and weep a tear for me then. But save yourself!”

“Oh shut up,” grunted Havvy, putting her back into ripping the lock. “Shut your trap because you ain’t helping me none.”

“You’ve got a fine life ahead of you,” said Ragin’ Maccac, “A life of tranquil beauties and sweet sweet sorrows. Go back to your CEO, your pens and your Dictaphones, your appointment books and quiet joys.”

Havvy let out a rip of a grunt, and then began to cough into the crook of her elbow. The smoke was thick and fierce, and it was starting to feel like she’d shoved her head into a Christmas sweater and then set it on fire. “What the hell are you down there anyways, Maccac?”

“I was all primed to fight the man who defeated my Master,” he called up, his pug face creased with worry, “The man who stole his owner.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, and began to listlessly thwack at the lock with crowbar as if it were a baseball bat. “Really?”

“Yeah, McGee set it up. If I won, I would win back my Master’s owner, three hundred dollars and two all you can eat coupons at Red Lobster.”

“Look, I could have taken you to Red Lobster myself if that was what you wanted.”

“No,” said Ragin’ Maccac, aping her voice, “That’s not 'what I wanted'. I mean, this revenge thing is pretty much the whole reason I came to Saratoga. It means a lot to me.”

“So where’s the man who defeated your Master? How come he isn’t down there with you?” Havvy took off her glasses and wiped her streaming eyes. The front of the penny arcade collapsed with an awful whoomph.

Ragin’ Maccac looked down sheepishly. “He’s the one who set the fire.”

“Ah,” said Havvy, and then began to whoop and cough again. The ceiling was now obscured by thick smoke, everything lit up in hellish hues and tincts of crimson and clover.

“Leave me!” cried Ragin’ Maccac, leaping up and down in helpless fury.

“I won’t,” said Havvy, falling onto all fours. “Nobody else has ever been there for you. I swore I wouldn’t dessert you. And I shan’t.”

“Look, get the gun from behind McGee’s counter. Shoot the lock off!”

Havvy nodded, and crawled away from the pit and towards the counter, bumping her head into it before pausing, reconnoitering and circling around. The shot gun gleamed and glittered evilly where it hung suspended on tenterhooks beneath the counter, a Decepticon sticker adhered to its stock.

Crawling back, Havvy sat on her ample ass and primed the gun. “Here we go,” she yelled, and pulled the trigger. The recoil knocked her flat on her back, and a spray of sparks were engulfed by the roiling flames that were by now licking their way towards the pit. But the lock blew off, and Ragin’ Maccac was up and out in a moment.

“Come on, sweet Havvy, let’s go.” He swung her up onto his shoulder as if she were a sack of the sweetest potatoes, and turned to search out an exit. There was none. Only raging curtains of smoke and flame. Somewhere zombies were still groaning.

“There’s no way out!” he cried.

“I think the back door was that way,” said Havvy, pointing blearily.

“Ok, here we go.” Ragin’ Maccac lowered his head and then whispered, “I love you, Haversham Malloy.”

“And I love you, Ragin’ Maccac.”

“Let’s do this like Brutus,” he said, and with a cry of rage ran forwards into the flames.