Epilogue
“Evening, sir,” the motel clerk, Aaron von Wildentooth said. He was a fat yellow dog with red arms and short blue legs.
“Evening,” answered the Toon checking in. He was wearing a long thick coat that covered his whole body, a large red scarf that covered his entire face and a large black hat. Aaron could barely make out any identifying facial features and wasn’t sure what species the Toon was. He guessed monkey or horse due to the bulging head.
“Just a stay for one night, sir?” Aaron asked. The Toon nodded and handed him some dollar bills.
“Alrighty then, sir, here you go. Enjoy your stay!” Aaron handed the Toon a key, and he took it silently, heading to the stairs behind the lobby. Aaron stared after him, an eyebrow raised but then put him out of his mind as a red and blue mouse couple walked into the motel. The Toon walked up the stairs to his room—Room 16A— and stepped silently into the room. A large television was propped up against the wall, with a large black remote control sitting on a table in front of the TV. The room was super small—as expected in a filthily cheap place like this—the TV and bed took up all of the space. The Toon removed his hat, his large scarf, his thick black coat, and a visor that caused his head to appear to bulge when worn underneath everything else. He threw everything onto the bed. He then grabbed the remote from the table, jumped onto the bed and turned on the TV. He flipped through channels absentmindedly, then stopped when he got to a channel called ToonTV. It was relaying interesting news of the day from the local region. The Toon almost flipped the channel anyway—seemed like a boring and stupid concept to him—but then a video played, showing Toons fighting large suited robots of some kind. The video panned across several different Toons, switching views several times as if there’d been several cameras.
“What you’re seeing onscreen now is the footage recorded and broadcasted live during the Toon Council Presidential Elections in the local and upcoming town called Toontown,” the news anchor was saying. “What was supposed to be a fun and Toony, innocent event turned into mass horror when the newly elected President, Slappy Quackintosh, vanished into thin air when these robot invaders attacked him—which I hear are being called “Cogs” by the locals, but we have no confirmation of this yet. Our sources indicate these robots also caused other Toons to vanish as well.” The Toon’s ears perked up. The robots caused this Slappy Quack-en whatever and other Toons to disappear?
“Interesting…,” he mumbled, a smile forming on lips. More footage of Toons throwing pies at the robots played, and he caught a glimpse of a Toon that immediately caught his attention. He quickly hit Rewind on the remote control, hoping the motel’s cable TV had DVR functionality. It did, and the footage went back a couple of seconds. He hit Play and leaned in closer, studying each frame. He hit Pause when the relevant clip came onto the screen. His smile grew into a full-out grin as he stared at the Toon paused on the screen.
“Very interesting,” he said.
End of Book 1
