Clifford and the Miscellaneous Narcotics

Written by: Your Antagonist

Giant Red Dog, Pink Elephants, Same Shit, Different Fix

"Clifford! Oh, Clifford!" called the penny whistle voice of the eternally-eight-years-old Emily Elizabeth Howard. In the time since young Emily Elizabeth and her family had moved to Birdwell Island, scores of neighbors, several presidential elections and countless more seasons had come and gone. Regardless of this fact, young Emily had yet to step foot in the 'feminine needs' section of her local drugstore. It was as though the flow of time itself had forsaken the residents of the Howard household, but curiously not the rest of Birdwell Island.

Despite the Howard family's stern refusal to lower the middle finger they had forever risen to the very concepts of puberty and physiological maturation, there was one member of the family who didn't have the luxury of shooting apathy at the flow of time like a hadouken. Because of this he was thusly subjected to the slow, tediously agonizing process of dying that common mortals refer to as "life", while his soulless masters would watch him wither into dust, blink, and find themselves staring into the face of the apocalypse through the kitchen blinds. And yet, despite the normalcy of said family member's biological clock, his very existence did nothing to dispel the belief that he was spawned from a family of unaging warlocks.

Bounding down the street at the speed of an ungiven fuck fueled by the wet dreams of terrified children, was a big red dog, though a more apt description would have been towering, bastard offspring of Cerberus stained in the blood of the Howard's enemies. The massive hound skidded to a stop and immediately began nuzzling into his master, finishing the show of affection with one slow, savory lick, though it wasn't clear at the time whether the hound was expressing his compassion or testing her tender flesh for ripeness.

"Good, boy, Clifford, good boy," Emily Elizabeth praised, fearlessly rubbing the twenty five foot tall murder-machine just under his mammoth mandibles that looked like they could crush a human being—bone, flesh, and soul— in one bite. For this, the behemoth rewarded her with another saliva-heavy lick that her sham-wow like clothing managed to absorb completely, leaving Emily Elizabeth high and dry.

With a firm pat on the nose, Emily Elizabeth pushed Clifford away, the dog instinctively going to his haunches, patiently awaiting further instruction.

"Can you guess what we're going to do today, Clifford?" she asked.

Clifford barked in response as though to say "Of course not, I'm a dog, now feed me bacon, bipedal slave."

"Mom and dad want us to pick up fish for dinner, so we're heading to the supermarket in town. Now, you can come, but you have to promise to be on your best behavior. If you're really, really good, I'll get you a special treat, okay, boy?"

Again, Clifford barked his acknowledgement, and was rewarded with a hug from the emergency meat snack that called itself his caretaker.

"Okay, boy," Emily Elizabeth said as she climbed on Clifford's back and grabbed onto his collar. "Let's go to town!" Clifford took off like a monster-truck, the earth cracking like so many spinal cords under the force of his massive paws. It was only a matter of minutes and cyclist-casualties before Clifford and Emily Elizabeth reached the inner city of Birdwell Island. Graffiti stained apartment complexes and a bustling commute of either stolen or soon to be stolen vehicles greeted the pair as Clifford Godzilla'd his way through the streets, drawing the attention of every wayward, prying eye in the ghetto.

"Stop here, Clifford," Emily Elizabeth said, and by the grace of the satanic voodoo spirits that rendered her capable of breaking a beast of such magnificent size, Clifford stopped. "Be a good boy and wait here, and I'll be back soon. If you're good then I'll even get you a treat from the store, sound good?"

Again, not truly capable of understanding his tiny blonde overlord's speech, Clifford merely barked as Emily Elizabeth tied his leash off to a nearby firehydrant before walking off into the store. Her first and most fatal mistake. Clifford like many of his canine ilk before him, looked at the curious red fire hydrant he'd been bound to and noticed two things in particular about it: 1) it was a fire hydrant, 2) he had not yet bestowed his akrid glory upon said fire hydrant by bathing it in his urine. Now, while he couldn't save the hunk of metal from its damnable fate as an inner city public utility—and what a damnable fate it is— he could certainly coat the thing in his piss. That much he could do.

Lifting his leg up, Clifford released an unreal torrent of urine all over the torrent and— consequently due to the force of the blast— several very angry and very peed on civilians who would be swept away in a white water rapidesque river of gold. As for the fire hydrant itself, because Clifford pissed with such outstanding pressure, the fixture had been uprooted, leaving in its wake a fountain of violently gushing water.

It took Clifford a moment to realise that he'd been liberated from his rather flimsy confines and another to recall that he was in a completely new environment than the cookie-cutter suburbs he was accustomed to. As Clifford to explore his new domain, a rather curious scent hit his massive nostrils. He turned to find the source of it and found a rather scraggly man in a trench coat and flipflops holding an ominous paper bag containing some rather unsavory materials hidden beneath a few alibi hamburgers.

The man scratched him neck and looked at Clifford before turning his attention back to the bag in his hand. "Huh, well shit… big fuckin' red dog, don't see that shit everyday…" he mumbled. "Damn I gotta get rid of this shit before my parole meeting," he said as he fiddled with the suspiciously-scented bag in his hands. It was at this moment the man noticed that the 'big fuckin' red dog' from earlier was ogling his package with a tilted head and curious eyes. But above all the big red dog was salivating which meant that he must've wanted whatever was in the bag. The holder of the bag looked around in a sketchy fashion, before turning back to Clifford. WIth a shrug, he set the bag down and pushed it towards Clifford with his foot.

A second passed. Then two. Clifford eyed the bag, nudged it with his nose and without word or warning wrapped it up with his tongue and brought it to his jaws. The strange onlooker winced at the sound of a resounding "Crunch!" as the monstrous mutt munched the mystery parcel. "Well, any port in a storm I guess. It's gonna take at least three weeks to make another batch" With that the scraggly man dropped his hands in his jacket pockets and strode off; the farmer content to negligently sow a crop that he'd never cultivate.

Still chewing on his reward of hamburger and mystery product, Clifford watched the sketchy guy walk off and pull the collar of his jacket up past his ears, wearing it like a total douche. No longer even the slightest bit curious about the stranger who'd given him the burgers, Clifford swallowed and turned back to the door of the store to see Emily Elizabeth struggling to push her way back outside as her arms were full of groceries. A very kindly policeman just happening by at the moment held the door open for Emily who took the offer without hesitation.

"Thank you, Sheriff Lewis," Emily said.

"No problem, Emily-Elizabeth," The officer nodded to his eight year old master, "but I gotta ask: what're you doing in this part of Birdwell Island? It's not safe you know. Do your parents know you're here?"

"Yes, sir. They sent me to pick up dinner for tonight, and told me to come right back home once I've done so. No dilly-dallying around in the big city and to stay with Clifford so he can keep me safe," she said, gesturing to her maroon hell-beast.

"Is that so?" Sheriff Lewis, scratched his chin and nodded. "Well, I'm gonna have a talk with your parents about sending their little girl to the inner city by herself later, but in the mean time, I think it's best if you skedaddle on home, you hear?"

"Yes, Sheriff Lewis."

"And Clifford," the Sheriff turned to face Emily's escort, "I'm counting on you to get little Ms. Emily Elizabeth home safe and sound. Think you can you do that for me?"

Clifford blinked thrice and stared at the officer as though he had a mutant slong ejaculating out of his forehead, because from Clifford's perspective, he in fact very much did. Clifford blinked three, four, five times, but he still couldn't unsee the Sheriff's head morphing into the shape of a massive phallus. The dog looked around but only saw the street and walls pulsing and shifting as though they were comprised of sand.

"Clifford?" said the literally dick-headed Sheriff Lewis, "You all right?"

"Hey, boy, what's wrong?" called Emily-Elizabeth, but when Clifford looked over all he saw was a pulsating mound of shit. Shit and egg whites. He backed away slowly, whimpering in fear as the mound of turd and embryo with his owner's voice stumbled forth, feigning concern for his well being.

"I wouldn't get too close, Emily," Sheriff Lewis said, stepping forward, pushing Emily-Elizabeth back. "Something's not right with him." He stepped towards Clifford, His hand instinctively going for grip of his simple .38 caliber revolver. In his time on the force, he'd seen enough rabid dog attacks to know all the signs and he wasn't about to chance a bite from a dog Clifford's size.

The world around Clifford continued to morph and mutate, colors, shapes and lights surging across his vision at rapid intervals. It frightened him so greatly that he continued to back away from the giant shouting penis and right into midday traffic. He yelped as a sedan slammed into his massive hindleg, killing the driver instantly, but inflicting minimal damage to Clifford. The driver fortunately wasn't dead, or rather, he wasn't dead yet. See, Clifford didn't see a mangled driver crawling out of the cab of an even more mangled automobile. No, what the doped up murder hound saw was a chew toy crawling out of a massive scarab beetle.

"Oh, my god... are you alright?!" Sheriff Lewis cried as he ran to the injured driver's aid, a path that unfortunately forced him to run directly at Clifford, who saw the sprint as a threat. Feeling cornered, Clifford did what instinct drove him to do against threats and he attacked.

Due to piss poor cardio and a mean muffin-top, Sheriff Lewis found himself physically unable to avoid the lunge, and an instant later felt sharp teeth pierce his sternum and the flesh of his back before he was crushed between Clifford's massive mandibles. Emily Elizabeth watched on in horror as the Sheriff unleashed a blood curdling scream from the pain firing through his every synapse. Clifford began to shake the lawman about like a simple ragdoll before hurling him to the ground, a broken and mutilated shell of his former self.

Clifford, still shaken from the encounter, stumbled about searching for more threats and stepped on the driver of the crashed sedan in his negligence, feeling his spine crack under his paws like so much Purina brand dry dog food before he popped like a wound up ketchup packet.

"Clifford! Please stop!" Emily Elizabeth shouted and for a moment, her words reached him. He could hear the voice of his beloved owner, but his eyes only saw dripping shit and running yolk. Conflicted by his love for his owner and his fear of the monstrosity before him, Clifford turned tail and ran down the street, trampling innocents and knocking over any vehicles that had driven into his wake. All Emily-Elizabeth could do was watch the ensuing carnage and weep as her beloved big red beast tore through Inner City Birdwell Island, summoning every manner of first responder and special forces available to put him down and hopefully minimize property damage and casualties.

Hours Later

Emily Elizabeth shivered and sobbed in the back of a Birdwell City Ambulance, her mind forever scarred by the sight of Clifford in the midst of rampage. She shuddered and shut her eyes, trying to block out the memories, but the damage had been done. There was no unseeing the horrors that she'd seen. There was no unhearing Sheriff Lewis scream like he had, or cries of hundreds as the dog she'd raised since puppyhood devolved into his most feral state and murdered them solely out of fear.

Even now, she could recall the thirty foot corpse as it was airlifted away to be disposed of at a large enough animal shelter. The way his limp body just hung from the massive harness, exposing the shattered bone and grey matter from when the .50 Caliber rifle round penetrated his rather resilient skull.

Dear reader, if you were to take any form of moral from this tale of woe and destruction, let it be this: say no to drugs lest you hurt the ones you love, abide by your cities leash laws and tie your pets up securely as it's for their own safety and last but not least, spay and neuter your pets.

The End.