Review Summary: In a world devastated by the most horrific of apocalyptic tragedies, one man will rise from the ashes to become the savior of mankind and rid the world of the corruption that brought it to its knees. Or will he??
I wiped away the drool covering the small booth at the Taco Bell where I had passed out. The combination of diarrhea-laden formerly-crunchy tacos and Bacardi 151 had taken a toll on my body, and I had no idea how long I had been out. Still reeling from the effects of the alcohol and microwaved food, I stumbled to my feet and headed for the door, nearly tripping over my own two feet in the process. I paid no attention to the fact the once-booming restaurant was now empty and the lights were no longer working. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get home to my bed.
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked myself as I gazed upon the ruined landscape. Gone was the bustling cityscape, full of life, cars zinging left and right, people bustling about, or even city lights. In their stead stood scorched cars, broken streets, bent street lights, and wrecked skyscrapers. What kind of Mad Max apocalyptic nightmare had I walked into?
I spotted movement in the distance. Eager to figure out where the hell I was, I ran towards the lumbering thing in the distance. As we grew closer to one another, I realized the object was a vehicle: a heavily armored tank-like vehicle. The array of machine guns and anti-tank rocket launchers suggested that this was to be no friendly encounter. I immediately turned the other way.
“You there, halt immediately!” a voice from a loudspeaker roared, followed by several gunshots, striking the ground next to me. I stopped and raised my arms in defeat as the vehicle pulled to a stop behind me. Oddly enough, I heard a song playing from the vehicle: Nickelback’s “Something in Your Mouth.”
Three men emerged from the vehicle, clad in heavy armor, face masks, and wielding assault rifles. They aimed their rifles at my chest. “It’s past curfew for you. Let me see your Nickelback fan club Membership Card.”
“I can’t show you that, because I’m not a faggot,” I said, thinking these toughs were joking. They couldn’t seriously be asking me if I liked Nickelback, but apparently they were. The butt of one of their rifles slamming into my gut told me enough. I fell to my knees as I heard the man repeat his query. “I don’t know what the *** you cocksuckers are talking about! I don’t have a ***ing Nickelback fan club card, or whatever!” I spat.
“No card, eh? Must be a member of the Resistance, then,” chimed another guard. All three of them cocked their assault rifles. “You know what we do to Resistance members.”
I didn’t, but I figured they weren’t going to buy me a Baconator. Seconds later, the three rifles’ barrels were aimed at my head. All this is happening because I ate five tacos and drank a fifth of 151? I didn’t even know that was a sin, I said to myself. Gunshots rang in the distance, not from the guards’ rifles thankfully, and I looked up to see one man running towards us firing rapidly from a sub-machine gun. The three guards tried to fire back, but his rounds somehow went through their armor, and the men fell to the ground, crimson running from their fresh wounds.
“You must come with me quickly!” said the man, an older, white guy with a crew cut and a short beard. He looked a bit familiar. “The guards’ armor is just for decoration, but there will be more, and they will have real body armor. We must flee immediately!”
“Hey, you’re James Hetfield, aren’t you? The lead singer and guitarist of Metallica? What the *** is going on?” I spat. The man was taken aback slightly by my declaration, but apparently there were more pressing matters. He told me there was no time to explain, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me into a sewer against my will. After navigating a dozen twists and turns while wading in human excrement, we came upon a chamber that was relatively clean. It contained a pair of desks, an abundance of aging computer equipment, books, and a pair of cots.
“I am indeed Jim Hetfield of Metallica, and you must be the Chosen One. The Oracle told us that one day someone from an alternate universe would venture to our world, ignorant of the atrocities that have befallen us. It will be you who will bring about salvation of our world.”
“I don’t give a *** about some Oracle. I just woke up from being passed out at a Taco Bell. Why did those faggots want me to have a Nickelback Membership Card. Why the *** is Metallica living in a sewer? Did Nickelback take over the world or something?” I asked.
“Exactly,” James Hetfield told me. “After the release of their album ‘Silver Side Up’ there was no stopping them. They sold over 100 billion copies of that album, and the President even made ‘How You Remind Me’ the United States’ National Anthem. No other band could touch them. Hell, the band had the Presidency a year later, and two years after that, Nickelback led us to win the Great Mutant Wars which allowed the United States to emerge as the only world superpower. Drunk with power, the band turned the country into a Totalitarian state, with songs from all their albums playing on loudspeakers 24 hours a day. Everyone must be a member of their Fan club, or they will be executed. Only a few of us were able to form a Resistance movement, but our numbers wane day after day.
“All of our troubles are over now that you have arrived!” Hetfield exclaimed. “Lars Ulrich and I have been working on a time machine that we can use to send someone back to destroy Nickelback before they can take over the world. With you here, we have that person.”
“Wait, why can’t you just send Kirk Hammett or Jason Newsted to do it,” I asked.
“Jason isn’t our bassist, anymore. He hasn’t been for some time. Our bassist is…Robert…Trujillo.”
“Whatever. Why can’t you send one of them back?”
“Kirk Hammett was sent off to Nickelback Retraining by the Nickelback Thought Squad. We haven’t heard from him since. And….Robert……..I can’t….”
I watched the man burst into tears at the thought of their bassist. I could only imagine what horrors they had subjected upon him. They probably made him listen to Bring Me The Horizon’s entire Discography. Just then, Lars Ulrich emerged from an anteroom wearing a white lab coat and goggles on his head. His face was as white as a sheet of paper.
“The NSS troops have found us! We’ve got incoming! We’re doomed!” Lars shouted.
“‘NSS’?” I asked.
“Nickelback Suppression Squadron, their elite guards. We’re ***ed,” Hetfield explained.
An explosion destroyed the heavy door separating the sewers from Metallica’s headquarters. A piece of rebar struck my head, and I fell to the ground. The sounds of gunfire and screaming from Lars and James Hetfield lulled me to sleep.
**********
I awoke in the Court of Nickelback. All four band members were sitting in grand thrones, clad in golden robes. “Never Again” was playing in the background, and the four men eyed me with contempt. Chad Kroeger stood and walked toward me. My eyes met his. The man looked at me as if I were Adolf Hitler. “You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, but because of you, we were able to discern the final location of the Resistance. We could kill you now, and you wouldn’t even be a memory. However, we would like to offer you a job. Decline, and we’ll have no choice but to douse you in acid.”
“Doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice, does it? I accept,” I said with a hint of contempt in my voice.
***********
It’s been three years since I drank that 151 and ate those tacos, and I’ve regretted it ever since. Nickelback appointed me a staff reviewer on one of the many Music magazines they control. It’s now my job to listen to their albums and constantly write how amazing they are, and how lucky the human race is to have a band like Nickelback controlling their every lives. I have been doing this for the past three years: listening to the same bland, bull*** rock riffs, stupid whiny lyrics, and mediocre drumming, but no more.
THE LIES STOP HERE. DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT THEY MAKE US SAY. NICKELBACK IS TERRIBLE. THEIR SONGS MAKE ME WANT TO CLEAN MY CAT’S LITTER BOX WITH MY MOUTH. THEIR LATEST “MASTERPIECE” IS AS LIKE CALLING THE VIOLENT DIARRHEA EPISODE I HAD BREAKFAST. DON’T LISTEN TO THIS BULL***. YOU KNOW THE TR
