TOOTHLESS LION

TOOTHLESS LION

ROAMING THE LANDSCAPE ALONE, HE'S WITHOUT A PRIDE, WITHOUT HOPE OR A FUTURE.....ALL ALONE. HE HASN'T EATEN IN DAYS, HASN'T SLEPT IN A WEEK AND STILL NO SIGN OF ANOTHER....NOT IN THE WIND,NOT ON THE HORIZON, THERE'S NONE OF THEM LEFT........THE ONLY TRACE HIS GREAT RACE EVER LIVED IS NOW THE SMELL OF DEATH .....THE LAUGHING CHATTER OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. THIS KINGDOM ONCE RULED BY, NOT HIM,BUT HIS KIND.....THE MIGHTY LION. DO THEY NOT UNDER STAND THIS GRAND TRAGEDY? HOW THE BALANCE HAS BEEN UPSET FOREVER? IT'S AS THOUGH THEY CELEBRATE HIS LONELINESS, HIS TERROR GLAD THAT HE IS THE LAST.HE IS THIN, TOOTHLESS LOST EVERY CHANCE FOR A MATE, A LOVER, A FAMILY.......OFFSPRING. IN SOME WAYS THE SOLITARY LIFE HE LIVED SAVED HIM FROM THE PLAGUE, THE VIOLENCE WHICH WIPED OUT THE MIGHTY PRIDES. IT STARTED 12 MOONS AGO.....THE FIRST DEATH. HE WATCHED FROM A DISTANCE, THE PRIDE WAS MOURNING THE LOSS OF THE GREAT LEADER TO SOME KIND OF BITE. FOR THE FIRST DAY THE PRIDE SLEPT RIGHT BE HIS SIDE,LICK HIS LIMP BODY, PROTECTING IT FROM THE DOGS AND VULTURES........THEN AFTER A DAY THE YOUNG BECAME VIOLENT FEARLESSLY ATTACKING THE ELDERS. STUPIDLY THE ELDERS LAUGHED OFF THEIR BITES AND SCRATCHES, TILL THE CUBS BEGAN TO TEAR EACH OTHER APART, BUT BY THIS TIME ......IT WAS TOO LATE......IT HAD STARTED. THEY WERE EATING THE FLESH, BABOONS CHEERING, DOGS LAUGHING, ZEBRAS SINGING AND THE ELEPHANTS TAKING MENTAL PICTURES..... THEIR WAS PLENTY OF FOOD. THIS SCARED THE TOOTHLESS LION TO THE BONE, SO HE RAN AND RAN AND RAN, BUT EVERY WHERE HE WENT THAT SAME LEVEL OF CARNAGE FOLLOWED. WHY HAD HIS KIND RESORT TO CANNIBALISM? HE TRAVELED GREAT DISTANCES TO FIND ONE THAT WAS NOT INFECTED BY THIS DUMB LUST FOR FLESH, BUT FINAL REALIZED THAT THE FURTHER HE STAYED AWAY FROM THE INFECTED PRIDES THE BETTER CHANCE TO SURVIVE.

AND NOW, AFTER A GREAT TIME HAS PASSED HE FACES THE JUDGEMENT AND WRATH OF THE KINGDOM. THE FEAR THAT STILL WALKS WITH HIM THE ANIMALS DON'T SEE OR SMELL, THAT SENSE OF DANGER HAS BECOME DORMANT AND DOMINATED WITH A PETTY REVENGE SHARED BY ALL....... THIS IT! HE IS THE LAST OF HIS KIND AND ENEMY NUMBER 1 TO EVERY ANIMAL AT THE WATER HOLE ............ BUT HE NEEDS WATER. SO HE SITS DOWN AND BEGINS TO WONDER HOW THE LION, NOT HIM, NOT THE TOOTHLESS COWARD HE HAS BEEN ALL HIS LIFE, BUT THE GREAT LION, HOW SHOULD THE KINGS BE REMEMBERED? FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER HE STOOD WITH OUT FEAR AND STARTED TOWARDS THE SMALL POLE OF DARK WATER SURROUNDED BY PREY...... TO ATTACK IS SURE DEATH, HE IS NOW OUT NUMBERED, THEY WON'T RUN BUT FIGHT BACK... SO HE CONFIDENTLY STRIDES DOWN THE DRIED DIRT RIGHT TO THE WARM WAKE OF MUD. TAKING A SIP HE DOESN'T MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH ANY OF HIS FELLOW DRINKERS. BUT AFTER A FEW MOMENTS HE REALIZES THAT HE'S THE ONLY ONE SIPPING ,HE LOOKS UP TO SEE THEIR EYES UPON HIM . HE LIFTS HIS HEAD LICKING HIS LIPS AND SAYS "I AM THE LAST KING AND WISH PEACE TO OUR WILD KINGDOM. I'VE SEEN A GREAT DISEASE DESTROY THE PRIDE OF THIS AND MANY OTHER LANDS, I CHASED IT DOWN TRYING TO FIND REASON FOR IT'S TEARANY UPON MY KIND. ALL I FOUND WAS DEATH AND LONELINESS. MY DEATH IS THE DEATH OF MY GLORIOUS RACE AND THE END OF MY REIGN WILL NOT DRAW BLOOD...... WELL NOT BY MY CLAWS THAT I PROMISE. I AM AT THE WILL OF YOUR MERCY AND MY AND MY KINDS FATE HAS BEEN SEALED, I WISH FOR NO MORE VIOLENCE I'VE SEEN TOO MUCH ALREADY............." HE IS THEN INTERRUPTED BY A PACK OF LAUGHING DOGS FROM BEHIND HIM, BUT BEFORE HE COULD TURN ABOUT THE ANIMALS OF THE WATER HOLE SURROUND HIM...IN DEFENCE AND CHASED THE PACK AWAY. WHEN THEY TURNED THEIR ATTENTION BACK TO THE TOOTHLESS LION HE WAS LYING IN THE MUD PANTING. IT WAS APPARENT THAT THE STRAIN OF THE PAST 12 MOONS HAD TAKEN THE LIFE OUT OF HIM AND THAT LITTLE BIT OF RESPECT SHOWN WAS ENOUGH LOVE FOR HIM. HE DIDN'T NEED A MATE OR CUBS THE ANIMALS OF THE KINGDOM WERE HIS CHILDREN, AND A MOMENT LATER AS HE BEGAN TO EXPIRE THE BABOON STARTED DIGGING AND THE ELEPHANT S COLLECTED ROCKS......... AND THAT DAY THEY BURIED THEIR KING. THE KING OF ALL KINGS.

FOUR MORE YEARS

“He should be fine,” Atkins said, “he sort of perked up around noon.”

“Good,” said Harrison, “we can’t exactly cancel the address now, can we?”

“No, sir,” Atkins said.

“So what’s he got,” Harrison inquired, “some kind of bug, or something?”

“Near as well can tell, sir, but no one really knows.”

***

“Stadium’s packed,” Atkins said.

“Wonderful, isn’t he,” Perkins asked.

“Scary,” Atkins answered.

Perkins adjusted her blue skirt, pulling it down to about mid-thigh level, “He plays the game better than anybody. How’s the cleavage? I got a TV thing right after he’s finished.”

Atkins checked double-long just to be sure, then said, “juicy,” in his most uninspired of tones. “Yeah, weird thing is, he’s been bed-ridden all week.”

“Well, the man’s a pro,” Perkins said, distractedly checking her cheek tone in her compact, “he could make speeches in his sleep.”

Atkins gave her a knowing look, peering over his glasses, “he couldn’t keep his lucky charms down. The man lost fifteen pounds.”

“Looks great to me,” Perkins glanced up from her compact and added with a little hook of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth, “could serve as an inspiration to all the fatties watching at home.”

“Yeah,” Atkins said, a thousand miles away, in thought, “it’s almost like …”

Perkins closed her compact with a sharp snap and looked at him, expectantly, “like what? Spit it out.”

“Well,” he began, rubbing his chin, “it’s like, this stuff, the cameras, the speeches, the cheers. It’s his elixir.”

Perkins nodded her head once, disinterested.

“Or,” Atkins continued, “it’s an automatic response.”

Perkins showed signs of that smile again, “what? The president is on autopilot?”

“The man ran a hundred and eight temperature this morning.”

“He got better. Maybe from the crowds and lights and cameras, like you said.”

“Yeah,” Atkins said, rubbing his chin, again, distracted, “yeah. Could be.”

“Alright, perk me up, he’s almost done,” she said.

“Uh ... what?”

“Come on,” she said, pointing at her breasts, “don’t be shy. Be a man about it.”

***

“Did he say what for,” Atkins asked, pacing through the empty hallway in top gear.

“No,” Harrison said, blankly, “only that he wanted to see you.”

“He’s been seeing everybody around here lately hasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been to see him already,” Atkins asked.

“Yes.”

“Not too busy around here today, is it?”

“No.”

“That’s odd. Anyway, the convention went well.”

“Yes.”

“Approval rating is through the roof.”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be re-elected for sure.”

“Yes. Quickly now.”

Atkins charged toward the oval office, nearly out of breath.

“This way,” Harrison said, holding the door to the office open.

“Thank you, sir.”

Harrison shut the door gently behind him.

“Mr. President --,” Atkins charged across the room, and stopped dead in his tracks about halfway through. Strewn about the room were the limp and bloodied forms of his colleagues and co-workers. Wet, red bones exposed on the limbs. Rumpled, smart business suits, caked in dark crust, emitted a foul, dark odor, like something fomenting. Perkins lay face up on a stack of bodies, still wearing a look of surprise, one cheek torn clean off.

“Oh my God,” Atkins brought his hand up to his mouth, trying desperately to keep his breakfast down in his stomach, where it belonged.

“I’m issuing a new policy, when I‘m re-elected,” the president said, voice full of gravel, chin red with blood, which made a stark contrast to his dull yellow pallor, “mandatory tours of the oval office for every man, woman and child in America. Come, let me chew your ear off …”

Atkins vomited. There was no time to scream, and no one left to hear him.

EW! WHAT IF WE HAVE TO REPOPULATE THE EARTH?

“It’s been three months,” she said, “I’m sure it’s safe to come down now.”

“It’s been three and a half months,” he corrected her, “and I’m sure it’s not safe to come down. Ever.”

They sat in their cobbled together tree fort, emaciated, collecting condensed water, one on either side, as it had been for three months and one week, actually.

The fort started as a do-it-yourselfer nightmare, and it had been some time before the effort resembled any kind of shelter. They built it with whatever branches they could find or break off and large stones for hammers. They had found a bucket of rusted nails when it all started and originally meant to use them for self defense.

“We’ve been through this a thousand times,” he said.

“But they must be all gone, now,” she said, “decayed, unable to move. How long can they really last, like that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t know. A thousand times, I don’t know.”

“Well, we haven’t heard any of them go by in the last couple weeks. I think they’re all gone now.”

“They haven’t been by, because we’ve done such a good job of hiding. If we climb back down, we’d just be giving ourselves up.”

He leaned his weary head back against the makeshift wall behind him.

“I wonder what summer was like this year,” he said.

“I wonder what winter will be like,” she responded, with some purpose.

“Well,” he said, all energy drained from his voice, “the only way we’re going to find out is if we stay up here.”

“We’re going to die if we stay up here,” she said.

“We’ll die if we go down there,” he responded, “which way do you think is better, freezing? Or getting clawed and chewed on by those disgusting people?”

Twenty minutes of silence passed. Twenty minutes that seemed like hours. Hours usually felt like days, but the days all ran together. It felt like they‘d been up there for years, or days. There was nothing to contrast the experience of day-to-day life in the tree fort. There wasn’t much to do in the tree fort, except for survive. Which made her think out loud,

“Do you think anybody survived?”

He thought about it for a minute. A smile crept slowly up his face as he said,

“Only if they were smart enough to build a totally fabulous tree fort to survive in.”

They couldn’t figure it out. Those … things. Those dead things would run at you, punch through car windshields and walk up and down stairs but for some reason, they hadn’t yet mastered the difficult concept of climbing trees. Even cats could climb trees. But no cat climbed their tree, which was a real shame. A cat would have been a welcome addition to the ‘family.’ Might even have brought home a bird or two.

“I wonder if they ate them, too,” he said, delirious.

“Who,” she asked.

“The Zombies,” he said.

“No,” she said, “ate who?”

“The cats.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, sadly.

She thought about it for a minute. If felt like a mean thing to say, but she said it anyway,

“I would love to eat a cat right now.”

She put a long emphasis on the ‘o’ in love, “I would loooooove…”

“You’re sick,” he said, trying hard to laugh, but only ending up coughing.

She closed her eyes and smiled wryly, then another long silence ensued. There were so many of those.

“But seriously,” she said, “do you think they’re all gone? The people. The regular people I mean.”

“I don’t know,” he said, despite not wanting to talk anymore.

“What if,” she said, timidly, “what if we have to repopulate the earth?”

“Ew,” he said with newfound energy, “you’re sick.”

They tried to find the energy to laugh some more, but just coughed. If they hadn’t, they might have heard the sound of a siren just barely within earshot. One of the many sounds of society, which had recovered from the strange attacks a couple months before, while they were shacked up in the trees, and continued on without them, just a few miles away.

The Further Adventures of Val Williams # 2 - The Awakening, pt. VI

The kid leads me right to him. A crowd has gathered. The believers. Short of gunning every one of them down where they stand, there’s only one way out of this mess.

I flash Abbott’s badge,

“FBI. Everybody just remain calm, and stay where you are.”

The last thing I need is a panic, or everybody to scatter and run. I can’t let even one of them escape.

Behind me the clouds burst radiate heat. I can feel it all the way down here.

One of the believers asks what’s going on, here.

“Federal business,” I say.

Khaddafiy shuffles slowly towards the crowd, who back away and circle around him. Clutched in his hand (possibly aided by rigor mortis), is the moon rock, the very thing animating his lifeless body. He’s caked in blood, mostly his own. The body of one of the street kids lies crumpled and chewed up on the pavement. Too bad he ain’t got no moon rock for himself.

Some of the believers ask about the sky, behind me.

“Terrorist alert, very high.”

This sends the crowds into a panic. I hate using the line, it was a dirty trick in the early eighties that my predecessor played on the masses of believers. UFO? Lights in the sky? Terrorists. Zombie? Werewolf? Monster? No, terrorist. My predecessor used the excuse so often, the people didn’t believe in monsters anymore, they believed in terrorists. Then the terrorists showed up …

“Did anybody see what happened here?”

A few step all over each other answering about how they saw the zombie munching on the street kid.

I pull out Abbott’s gun.

“Uh huh. Okay, I’m gonna have to ask everybody to step away while I disarm the suspect, please.”

They do. I fire. Miss. Hm, gun‘s got a good kick. I’m not used to this sort of thing.

I fire. Miss.

I wipe beads of sweat from my forehead. A dumpy, bespectacled middle aged woman with short curly brown hair and a white rhine-stoned kitten sweater grimaces and covers both her ears.

I hit him in the forearm. Not good enough.

Once more, right in the wrist.

He drops the moon rock and collapses. I kick the rock away and speak into my jacket collar.

“I’ve disarmed the escaped mental patient. Repeat, I’ve disarmed the escaped mental patient. Over.”

The looks of relief and realization on the faces of the crowd are priceless.

I look back, up at the sky. The orange and red beams swirl and swell around the blue mist raised from the ground like a giant spike. Cosmic forces of light and dark met in a metaphysical arm wrestling match, visible for all to see. The heat from the beams dissipates and dies altogether along with the light. The blue mist peters out and wisps away. A shape flies into the dying red embers of the clouds … one of the street kids?

“Looks like the anti-terrorist jets have been scrambled. You folks better go inside now. Lot of terrorists activity going on tonight.”

And they do.

But my night’s not finished, I’ve got to pick up Abbott and get him out of Victory Square. If I know my eternal battles of light and dark there’s going to be reports of mass grave desecration tomorrow in the papers.

***

KID NOBODY in: HEAD FER THE HILLS! - Pt. IV

Pepper had fought and scrambled her way up the platform and made short work of the knot of rope around Nobody’s wrists. Nobody got his own neck out of the noose.

“Come on,” she said, “we can jump off the back, here!”

“Wait,” he said, and he took in his arms, about to kiss her, “where’s my money?”

“I already spent it,” she said, partially stunned by the question.

He shoved her over the edge of the gallows and into the crowd with all his might. Before he turned and jumped off the back side he snatched a glimpse of her being swallowed up by scampering feet and biting jaws.

He jumped off and landed with a thud. A couple seconds after impact his feet stung. He took a moment to walk it off. The dead Indians regarded him through the support beams of the gallows, but paid little interest. He got the feeling he could have waltzed on through and been untouched, but the Kid wasn’t brave enough in years to find out.

He ran for the hills with no boots, no gun, no money and no horse.

***

Exhausted, he saw a light in one of the caves in the hills and made his way over to it. It was going on nighttime, the indigo sky had nearly sucked all the sun’s deep red blood from the clouds. It had been a long while since he’d last heard the screams of Creighton in his ears, behind him, and even longer since he’d looked back.

Looking back now, from the hill, he saw no movement, no signs of life or struggle. Just an untrustworthy kind of calm.

Even before he was eyelevel with the cave, he heard the pops and cracks of a fire. Sparks floated up and hugged the ceiling of the cave and escape into the night sky as gray smoke against the navy blanket, obscuring stars.

The black outline of a man sat facing the entrance. Kid Nobody’s eyes took a second or two to adjust to the glow of the fire. When they did, he saw a white man eating a tin of beans. He had expected to find an Indian. Off to the side was a mostly air-filled sack, loose and folded atop a stack of damp firewood.

“You from Creighton,” Kid Nobody asked, warily.

“Nope,” the man said, simply, “beans?” and the man offered up his tin.

Kid Nobody grabbed the tin silently, but gratefully, and spooned up a couple mouthfuls in quick succession, which had given the man just enough time to reach around and grab his gun.

“Those are some mighty fine duds you’re sporting there, partner,” the man with beans and the gun said, “I’ve been needing me a brand new wardrobe.”

***

Somehow, and with great effort, the Kid had made it back to Farthing, around San Alberto, over Ha’Penny Hills, and through Merryweather and Golding with no boots, no gun, no money, no horse and no clothes and made it in one piece. Refurbished after a quick stop at his apartment, he met the old wizard outside the train station. When Kid Nobody got there, the old wizard was begging for change and scraps of food, or a quick hit from a flask.

“You did good,” the old wizard said.

“Yup,” Kid Nobody said, not wanting to mention the remaining survivor from the cave. He had failed in all aspects of his job, but somehow, through the wrath of God himself, the town had been all cleaned up. Excepting the man in the cave, the sole survivor. Kid Nobody had a hard time deciding if that was an important detail or not. “I sure did take care of that town for you! Cleaned up that mess real good.”

“So I see,” the old wizard said, “there wasn’t one person left to believe in the zombies.”

“Zombies?” Kid Nobody had never encountered the word before.

“The dead things that eat people,” the old wizard answered.

“Oh,” the Kid said, “yup. I certainly took care of that.”

And Kid Nobody finally knew what his job was.

***

(roll credits)

KID NOBODY in: HEAD FER THE HILLS! - Pt. III

Kid Nobody stood, warily on the gallows, noose around his neck, hands tied behind his back, peering down at the crowd of laughing faces. The man wearing his boots, held them up, lifting his right leg by his right calf, laughing. They were all elbowing and poking each other, having a real good time. The round old man, galloped awkwardly around a corner on Leroy and smiled a broad smile, staring at the Kid. Laughing.

The only face he saw that wasn’t laughing, was the woman who took his money, and she was sneering.

“Do you, Kid Nobody,” the Sheriff stated grandly, from the gallows, “have any last statements or requests you’d like to make to the people of Creighton, before we, the people of the town, execute your sentence for the crime of Stealing the Boots Off a Dead Man? Maybe make an apology?”

Kid Nobody could taste his bile rise, his testicles ascended and shrivelled. He was too scared to be outraged. He did have one request:

“The horse,” he said, through tight vocal chords, “let him go.”

The people of the town began laughing before he could finish.

“Let him run free.”

When everybody gathered had stopped laughing, the Sheriff said, haughtily, “Boy, we’re a hungry town, cut off from our neighbors by the hills. Ain’t a horse that’s left Creighton in the past several months.”

“Don’t I at least get a trial,” Kid Nobody asked desperately.

“No trial,” the Sheriff said, mock surprised, “ain’t no need for a trial. I saw you do it.” He patted his deputy on the chest behind him, “we both saw you do it, didn’t we?”

“Yup,” the deputy said.

“Alright,” the Sheriff said, ushering the deputy down the platform, “let’s get this thing over with. Let's get a fire going, put him on the rotisserie once the hanging's finished.”

The Sheriff ambled, rocking back and forth, down the steps.

From the platform, Kid Nobody saw the shape of a man, stumbling toward the crowd.

“Look,” he cried, “he ain’t dead!”

“You stupid son of a bitch,” the Sheriff said, “I ain’t going to fall for that.”

The Sheriff grabbed the release for the trap door that would kill Kid Nobody, when someone from the back of the crowd shouted, “he’s right.”

The Sheriff made his way through the crowd, bewildered.

“It’s him,” someone else said.

The Sheriff walked right up to the man who’s boots Kid Nobody tried to steal and said, “now how in tarnation--”

And the man bit off the sheriff’s nose. No one moved to try and help him, not even the deputy.

The skinny ranting man, who Kid Nobody had only just realized was not among the crowd, ran top speed around the corner, shouting, “It’s them! They’re here! The Indians!”

The crowd, already shocked, turned to each other, confused.

“The Indians?”

“What, new Indians?”

“I thought we already killed them all.”

The vomiting man continued to tear giant chunks of flesh from the sheriff as he screamed, a high pitched pulse, one short yelp after another, followed by a long sustained one.

***

The vomiting man was just a warm-up, the Indians were in the thick of the crowd, gouging, biting, tearing. They had everybody from the town all gathered up into one neat little crowd, like cattle in a pen. And they were quite dead, too, the Indians. Some of them were missing ears, noses and whole faces. Their sickly bodies had been emaciated and bored through by itchy little maggots and worms. Ribs jutted out of most of their chests, and Kid Nobody was up there on the platform, watching it all go down. He was too frightened to feel a sense of justice, though. His hands were tied behind his back and the noose was still tight around his neck, after all.

The Further Adventures of Val Williams # 2 - The Awakening, pt. V

And there he is, just standing there looking lost. They just dumped him in the middle of Victory Square. Probably hoping someone or some cop would find him and take him home. And now I’ve found him. He looks so scared.

I’ve done some terrible things in this job, but …

I mean, if I had to kill every kid who believed in monsters …

It strikes me. It can’t be the kid’s belief that’s making hell puke down on earth. I never discussed it with the Wizard, but I think kids are supposed to believe. They’re supposed to believe in monsters and villains, because their innocence creates a balance of belief in heroes. Heroes who will stop the bad monsters just in the nick of time. Something else must be causing the disturbance.

I never figured myself as much of a hero, but I ain’t no kid killer either. That rationale is enough for me.

***

Abbott showed his badge to two dirty street kids who had run into the cemetery to catch the light show, one male, one female.

“Stop. Federal agent,” Abbott yelled, muffled by his shirt sleeve, “you can’t be in here. Poison. Very dangerous.”

They paid him no mind, and continued running into the thick of the mist.

“Wait,” Abbott said, running after them, trying not to breathe in the blue mist, “this blue gas is some kind of poison! Maybe some form of methane gas! You have to stop!”

The young man knelt down on one knee and bowed his head reverently when he’d come upon the dead, blue army.

“My liege,” he said to one of the skeletons, whose ethereal mist had appeared to form a crown above his skull. It too had a shield with a cross it.

Abbott finally caught up to them, and saw their attitude toward his hallucinations.

“Don’t tell me,” he said, “you can see them, too.”

“Leave this place,” the young man said, raising himself to his feet, “this is no place for mortals.”

With a gesture of his arm, the young man sent Abbott tumbling through the cemetery, knocking into tombstones, until he was through the iron gates, out on the street.

Abbott noticed Val Williams running up to him.

“Don’t go in there,” Abbott said, voice straining, sore from his tumble, “poison gas. Make you hallucinate. See crazy things. Lots of pretty colors.”

“Your gun,” Williams demanded, “there’s only one way to stop this thing now.”

True little dream

by: benzo369

Little Jessica and Tony raced up the fifth floor hallway like two stockcars finishing the Daytona 500. Their faces were red with enthusiasm and their lungs short on oxygen.

Sometimes Little Jessica wins. Most times it’s Tony. But what do you expect?

“He’s five million-feet tall,” Little Jessica likes to say.

Today Tony wins but it doesn’t matter because no one wants to get to this ending first. The door he stands in front of reads: Room 14 – palliative care. Tony stops in front of the door and he appears to ponder the way the door works...

“Is it a twist or a push?” he seems to say…

and moves slowly back from the door waiting for his little sister, Little Jessica, to catch up.

THUMP!

“Ow you jerk!” Little Jessica screams but immediately backs off for fear of arms that stretch a thousand miles. Like a little energetic mouse that has caught the attention of a big menacing broom, she backs off scurrying away to some corner of the ward, hiding her now white face. Exhausted she begins to count in her head…

1…2…3…4…5…

“Got cha!”

“AAAAAHH!”

“Children!”

Nurse Embers has seen it all and she has had quite enough of the happy little display before her for this is no place of smiles, no house of play. Her deep black eyes stare down upon Little Jessica more stringent then they did upon Tony, who walked away so easily.

“You should show more respect when you are in the company of the sick,” Nurse Embers says to Little Jessica, who then walks away patting Tony lovingly on his head and returning to whatever difficult, mean task she was performing before the kids announced their arrival.

Little Jessica thinks it’s curious how Nurse Embers always uses the word “sick” when she knows very well what is really going on in here. It was an infestation of the worst kind and Little Jessica knows about it and she also knows that Nurse Embers knows it. Little Jessica despises the way Nurse Embers talks to her as if she is a small child, as if she was only “Little” because she wasn’t full grown yet, as if she couldn’t put two-and-two together. She was plenty old enough to tell that the world was full of this infestation and she had read plenty of interesting things to back up her own instincts.

“Why do you think he’s that way?” Tony asks as they walk back towards the door. Tony is only three years older so he don’t know jack more then this little mouse and Little Jessica sets about setting Tony straight about the real reason he was in the ward and not the trumped-up, ballyhoo reason that big nurse bitter beaver says is the reason.

“He’s got the disease,” Little Jessica says.

“I know that, stupid,” Tony says.

Little Jessica blows her falling bangs up in to the stratosphere so that her blues can perform a perfect roll that Tony can see.

“No, jerk, he’ got THE DISEASE.”

Tony thinks about it for a second and then looks at Little Jessica who is standing beside him as if she was waiting for a repetitious cycle to end. She moves away from the door again, this time taking her big brother by the hand, and leads him to one of those uncomfortable chairs hospitals love to offer people who visit the sick.

“You see its been happening all over the ‘hospital’,” Little Jessica is crouching both index and middle fingers when she says the word hospital out of a habit she picked up the first day they visited the ‘hospital’. “The ‘patients’” yup, you guessed it, “are told that they are here for routine check ups and then – POOF! – they are suddenly stuck here moaning around the halls with stupid faces, which look like you when you wake up on Saturday for cartoons… come to think of it…” Little Jessica stands on her toes so that she can see in to Tony’s emerald eyes, “…no, you’re good – for now.”

Tony now has this scrunched-up face that looks like a pumpkin seven days after Halloween and he is some angry but he says nothing, even though he would love to shut his stupid sister up.

“Ever heard of a bokor?”

Tony shakes his head.

“They are like Voldemort but worse and they take control of the dead and sometimes the living. So what I think is going on here is that they are all making the ‘patients’ here sick with a disease that makes them slaves to the ‘hospital’ so that they can perform experiments.”

Tony thinks about it for a second, his face is still that very old pumpkin, and then pushes Little Jessica back.

“That’s stupid. You’re stupid,” he yells, to which Nurse Embers runs over to the two and grabs Little Jessica by her hand and drags her over to the nursing station.

“Listen you, stop bugging your brother.”

“I know what’s going on here.”

“What?”

“You can fool my brother – he might be older but he is stupider – you can’t fool me,” Little Jessica says defiantly and then crosses her arms.

“Listen, it’s all so complicated. You need to talk to your mother,” says Nurse Embers, whose tone changes to kind but Little Jessica sees right through it.

“You are turning the ‘patients’ here in to Zombies, admit it!” Little Jessica finally accuses and a feels a weight lift off her shoulder. Inexplicably tears are rolling down her cheek and she considers running away but Nurse Embers pulls her in close and pats her head lightly.

“Shhh, little one, Shhh.”

Little Jessica doesn’t put up with it and pulls herself from the nurse, the ‘hired help’ but Embers’ grip is tight. She doesn’t let go and she gently throws Little Jessica to a chair.

“Yes, darling. There are zombies. But they are inside your daddy. We didn’t put them there and we did all we could to get them out." Just as inexplicably, Nurse Embers starts to cry.

Having finished their moment, the two return to the door of Room 14-Palliative Care Ward. The door is open.

Inside Tony is standing by his father, whispering something in his ear, though daddy can't respond. On the docket by the foot of the bed reads the name of Little Jessica’s daddy Johnny Vergas, father of two.

“Come here baby,” Mrs. Vergas calls for her daughter. Little Jessica runs to her mother and holds her arm ever so gently, tugging at her hand like a wave that tugs at a loving beach. “I know baby. If you want to say something to your daddy, now’s the time to do it.”


Little Jessica walks over to the side of her daddy’s bed and examining his quiet head, she cups her father’s ear, whispering: “there are zombies eating you.”

KID NOBODY in: HEAD FER THE HILLS! - Pt. II

The woman had a room upstairs from the saloon. Her name was Pepper.

“How come they call you Pepper when your hair’s red,” he asked her.

“Well,” she said, “it’s a better name than Paprika.”

He didn’t understand what she meant and asked, “well, what about Cinnamon? Cinnamon’s a nice name.”

She laughed, one big burst of laughter, like she was getting her day’s supply out in one frantic yelp.

“Now,” she said, leaning back on both elbows on the bed, “put your money on the table.”

“Oh,” he said, pulling out his wad of cash and taking out a couple a crisp ones, “I didn’t think that, uh, you was, you know…”

“What do you think this is Mister,” she asked, “a free ride?”

She carefully removed her gun from her garter belt and said, “uh uh, sweetheart. All of it.”

He hesitated. She sat up and aimed between his eyes, her hand was steady, like a fresh ham in a display case. He did as she asked.

“Now get out of my sight,” she said, “before I change my mind about how cute I think your are.”

“Wait, but I thought we were gonna … well, you know…”

“I’m a business woman.”

“Well, I’ll just be grabbing my money and leaving, then.”

“Now you just forget about that money, Mister,” she said, walking over, slowly to grab the money, never once dropping the gun off target, “you know I’m a straight shot and I don‘t hesitate.”

He left the saloon altogether, without another moment’s hesitation, without his money.

He was still in decent shape though, he had some cash left down in his boots. With luck, the vomiting man’s body would still be in the alley and he could get his gun back.

He checked all around and saw the streets were mostly deserted, anyway nobody took much notice of him and he ducked into the alley. The body was still there. It wasn’t laid out neatly, it was hunched over, face in the dirt, one leg sticking out. Both guns were missing.

That’s when a man stepped out from behind the building and said, “well, look what I found.” He was holding the gun, Kid Nobody’s gun. “Say, those are some nice boots.”

***

Kid Nobody wandered out of the alley, bootless, gunless and moneyless. His head reeled, senses a jumble, his ears buzzed and his vision quaked.

Across the street a round man with glasses waved at him, uncertainly. He hurried over avoiding the mud puddles in the street, luckily there was no horse shit to step in.

“What happened to you, partner,” the kindly old man asked, “seems a fellow like you ought to have a comfortable pair of boots on his feet.”

“They took ‘em,” Kid Nobody answered, through clenched teeth, “took my money, too.” He avoided mentioning the gun. He didn’t want to scare the man.

“Boy, sure are a lot of cheats and crooks in this town. Here, let me fix you up. I run this here store,” the man pointed back grandly at the store with his thumb, “we’ll get some boots on your feet, real quick. Just step inside.”

Kid Nobody walked inside the store. Well stocked, everything a town could need. It was also empty, if he could get the man into a dark corner, he could cold-cock him and knock him flat on his back. Get enough provisions to make it out of town dead even, with no losses. Things were going to turn around real quick.

The storeowner hadn’t followed him in. Where the old coot, Kid Nobody thought and went to check outside. The door closed behind him with a thud.

The blood drained from his face. Across the street, his horse was gone, the old man nowhere in sight. What the hell kind of town was this? They got him again, but that was it. That was the last time. The town itself must be the mess the old wizard had sent him to clean up. Creighton turned out to be, by far, the dirtiest, cheatenest town he ever ran across.

At least, he wouldn’t have to wallop the old man. Well, not yet leastways, not until he found him. He went to get back into the store to grab some boots, steal what he could carry, and grab the money from the register.

He grabbed the handle but the door was locked.

***

Kid Nobody jogged across the street, back toward the alley where the body lay. It wasn’t going to be a total loss, the Kid was resourceful, he wasn’t above pulling the boots of a dead man, if he needed a pair that was. He was still dead broke, without a gun and now without a horse. He hadn’t seen a horse in town, either. He’d have to search the outlying ranches once he made it back over the hills on foot. But at least, he’d have some boots on his feet.
He knelt beside the dead vomiting man in the alley and checked the boots. Same size. He thought that maybe his luck was turning around. Until he heard a voice,

“Well look what he have here, an outta towner stealing the boots off one of our dead citizens.”

Kid Nobody turned around to see two large men with guns trained on him. It was the sheriff and deputy.

“That’s a hangable offense.”

The Further Adventures of Val Williams # 2 - The Awakening, pt. IV

Abbott was in way over his head. The blue mist had turned thick and sticky. He wasn’t sure if it was okay to breathe.

Overhead the sun shone. No, not the sun, orange and red beams of light that poured down slowly and cloudily.

The skeletons were climbing out of the ground.

But that’s impossible, the paranormal investigator from the FBI thought, they have no muscular system. How can they move, they’re just withered old skeletons.

He truly couldn’t believe it was happening.

***

It was a fifteen minute walk to Victory Square, but Dagda and Boann had made it in under ten. All their planning, all their improvising, all their mischief. It was finally going to happen, after all these years, they had opened up the gate of hell and they were finally going to see their friends again. One of their friends was particularly important to Boann: Angus.

Angus had been trapped in hell for more than a few lifetimes with the rest of them. Dagda and Boann had been the only ones to escape. But, Angus might have been Boann’s son, although she couldn’t remember. It had all happened so long ago.

They strolled into the cemetery, out of breath.

***

Abbott put on his glasses, for a better look. They were skeletons all right, the odd shred of dried flesh here or there. The mist was thinning out and taking shape around the skeletons. They were becoming … something, Abbott couldn’t quite tell what.

The mist was providing a kind of ethereal flesh for the dead, and more. Clothing. He saw something begin to extend and take shape from one of the things’ arms. A shield with a cross on it.

I’d better get out of here, Abbott thought, it’s the blue mist. It’s making me hallucinate.

***

Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

Why do I smoke, when I know I’ve got to run occasionally in this line of work.

I see the lights in the sky. I see all the years of work and pain and struggle coming to an end, before my eyes. All the progree in the world, all the hope of society, however ugly it may seem at times, blotted out not by shadow, but by light.

How could I have been so stupid. It’s the kid. The kid believes he’s a werewolf, and he’s found a way to convince the people he’s been attacking that he‘s a werewolf, too. Four victims and the kid himself, that makes five. A perfect number in a perfect pattern to cast the light of hell into the world.

Damn, I should have killed that kid.

Now hell pours down from the sky.

But there’s still a chance. I’ve just got to find him.

KID NOBODY in: HEAD FER THE HILLS! - Pt. I

Kid Nobody rode over the hills and into the isolated town of Creighton on a dusty afternoon to clean up some kind of mess. He didn‘t know what kind of mess it was, but the old wizard had made it sound real important.

“I’ll meet you back in Farthing when it’s over,” the wizard told him, “and I‘ll be most interested to hear the results.” Farthing was five towns over, due north east from Creighton.

In between, he’d grifted his way through Golding, swindled by Merryweather, done a-robbin’ in Ha’penny Hills and got a bad reputation in San Alberto. Bad enough to see wanted posters with his face on them, they even printed his real name, too, instead of his handle, which he preferred to go by. Kid Nobody hadn’t spent a lot of time making friends, excepting his horse, Leroy, who he hitched outside the saloon.

***

The piano was tuneless and the women weren’t much on the eyes, but the place was plenty rowdy and well-stocked, so he sat contentedly with his pint of malt liquor, eyeballing the place, looking for a mark. Couldn’t be more than a couple hours after noon and drunken stumblebums were everywhere, plenty of marks to be found in a place like this.

One of the homelier gals gave him a shy wink from across the room. Maybe, he thought. Didn’t appear to be a lot of options, and a man can‘t be all business and no recreation.

The doors swung open. A skinny man burst in shouting about, “I have seen the face of God, and he is pissed! On account of what we done to the Indians.”

The crowd collectively bowed their heads and muttered guilty capitulations.

“Well…”

“Yeah…”

“Got a point there…”

“God’s fixing to punish us, but good,” the ranting man said. Then he ran out to tell the folks at Tibbett’s, the general store, across the street.

“Seems we’ve all done wrong to an Indian, one time or another, isn’t that right, old timer,” Kid Nobody asked the man at the next table, with a smile.

“Not like we done, stranger,” the man said, gruffly, without making eye contact.

Kid Nobody took a swill of his drink and left a decent tip, by his standards, as he got up to leave. He’d found what he was looking for. A man, stumbling for the exit.

***

Kid Nobody stood nerve steady on the boardwalk, watching the stumbling man vomit into the alley beside the saloon. The man held himself up against the wall with one hand, the other tucked into his wretching belly.

“You okay there, partner,” he asked, approaching the man from behind.

The man stumbled a couple steps into the alley. Too easy, he thought.

“Aw, you just need to find a bed to lie down in,” he said, patting the huddled man down for his wallet, “you’ll be right in no time.” Then he felt the barrel of a gun jab between his ribs.

“Whoo-hoo-hoo, too easy, boy,” the man said, wiping his mouth.

Kid Nobody raised his arms in surrender. He looked down and noticed he was standing in the man’s vomit.

“Old trick I learned,” the man said. He took a big gulp of air, swallowed it, and after a couple second began wretching violently, the vomit splattered thinly. He came up laughing, wiping his mouth.

“Gun,” he said, his free hand outstretched, fingers waving it in, “slow like. Seems you ought to know better than to flash your wad in unfamiliar territory.”

After he handed him the gun, the man said, “cash. Come on, now. Be quick about it.”

A gun cocked behind him, a woman’s voice, “it’s cocked and loaded. You scram, or I put a bullet between your beady eyes. This one‘s mine.”

The man with the gun said, “well I got two guns, n--”

She did it. Right between the eyes. The man fell in a heap. Kid Nobody’s ears rang like church bells. He turned in disbelief, arms still raised.

“You can stop surrendering now, handsome,” the woman said, tucking the gun into her garter belt. It was the woman from the bar, “I ain’t going to shoot you, less I have to.”

Perry Slough-bie FINALE

by: benzo369

Sitting in the jail cell, the Breadman waited for his phone call. A man wacked-out on some sort of freaky moonlight juice kept howling and raving that he was a werewolf.

“SHAAAA-DAAA-UP!” an officer yelled in to the cell.

The Breadman felt very alone and confused. The police had read him his rights and accused him of tampering with evidence of a crime scene. Garry Perry had somehow escaped being charged. They said he was too simple-minded to have committed that kind of crime. But they didn’t know the truth. The Breadman was convinced that Garry Perry had known about his money making plan and had turned himself in to a zombie in order to stop the Breadman from cashing in on finding the real zombie. It made sense to him, anyways.

A new friend named Chad got up and walked over to him and said with contemptuous words: “you better move little man.”

The Breadman did as he asked and moved to the other side of the cell. The third man, the Wolfman, kept near the bars shaking them violently and the Breadman, realising he was not about to get that phone call, laid his head down hoping for a night’s rest.

Morning brought new sense of energy but Chad stood above him smiling, which seemed to pull that energy away.

“Move little man.”

The Breadman moved again and again and again until the Wolfman, having recovered from his night of lunacy but clearly still hungover from his moonlight juice, yelled painfully: “I bit a cop so if you think, Chad, that I am afraid of biting you big boy then you are mistaken.”

These words seemed to have enchanted Chad as he sat down and smiled hoping for more story time.

“I can turn anyone in to a werewolf, I am sure of it.”

The Breadman listened closely to the conversation but did not interrupt for fear for his life. The conversation was weird and surrounded by all sorts of mystic mayhem that the Wolfman had created around town. He claimed that it was in fact the police that were the zombies and not the jailed. So when he finally brought up his biting of the policeman Chad eagerly asked: “did he turn?”

“I ain’t ever gonna know, my good man. He pulled us off the bus that is sure. But whether or not a werewolf can turn a zombie in to a werewolf is unknown. Whether or not a zombie can turn a werewolf in to a zombie is unknown.”

“I knew you da choose,” the Breadman interrupted. Both men looked over to the small man, who then shut his mouth.

“Come now Mr Lowe,” the constable in charge of the gate said politely. “Your friend Garry is here. Time for you to go home.”

*******************

The ride home was quick and silent but once the two men stood outside of Garry Perry’s old truck, they began a short conversation about the night before.

“You no zombe-ya, Garry,” the Breadman said.

“I knew you thinking so bud me not undead, yet.” Garry Perry laughed.

“Whada-time you leave-a Slough?”

“Never can leave da Slough. I think you wana steal Clay’s home.”

“Oh nada-way,” the Breadman said in honest shock. “I wana to steal the zombe-ya, bud no steal Clay’s home.”

“Why da zombe-ya?

The Breadman remained silent for a moment realising that if he wanted to truly know the real zombie he might have looked inside at his soul and found that indeed the zombie lies within. For the zombie is fixed to his way of life, incapable of leaving his everydayness.

“No home in da Slough without you too.”

Garry Perry smiled. That was something Garry Perry had known a long time ago when it was just another day on the Slough where the littlest shit happens but people were very in to it.

Perry Slough-bie part 6

by: benzo369

The walk to Horseshoe Slough was made long and arduous by the sloping march of Garry Perry. The Breadman had to stop himself several times and encouraged Garry Perry to catch up; much like one has to encourage a small dog to do so.

The search in and around Horseshoe Slough had been just as fruitful as the search in the strawberry U-Pick farm, meaning that there was no body and certainly no zombie. The absence of any evidence was also starting to wear on the Breadman but he kept to his nature as Garry Perry or any other man would – he kept on talking and encouraging the search. But no matter how much he talked-up the investigation, Garry Perry would not respond vocally, only letting out depressing grunts and moans.

“Wada ‘bout o’ere?” asked the Breadman.

“Uuuurgh,” Garry Perry responded.

“You lookie to the job-house?”

“Eeehuhgh.”

No matter how non-involved Garry Perry remained in the conversation, the Breadman continued to speak, though eventually he too grew sick of the sound of his own voice and decided that it might have been best if they split up to cover more ground.

Once alone, the feeling of helplessness overtook the Breadman. He wondered why they could find neither the zombie nor Clay Biffley’s body. Char McCool had always been a good source of information over the past year. She could not have been wrong could she? The surroundings were also intimidating as sounds seemed to plip-and-plop, here-and-there. Plip! A sound raced to his ears from the dark woods. Plop! Something had jumped in to the water. Plip! A sound was coming closer. Plop! A sound ran away. Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop! Plip-Plop!!!!!!!!! What was he accomplishing by being here in the darkness of Horseshoe Slough with his heart pumping a million miles-a-minute to the beat of sounds emanating from every corner of this shadowy and wicked territory of the damned? Surely he was mad. No it was a bunny rabbit.


“Ooh fug-a-loo, me a dum-a-lee, too,” he said laughing to himself. He walked over to the bridge ashamed of letting his childish fears get the better of him. He was the Breadman: the traveller of the streets, fearing no new adventure nor afraid of being the first to set upon such an adventure. If they could find the zombie they would make history. He could move out of Finn Slough just as Garry Perry was going to. In fact if he could find the zombie all on his lonesome he could keep the reward to himself, start a new life in a new place and live in an apartment rather than a former Wonderbread delivery truck. The Breadman was the best man and it was time to show it.

A moving thick outline of a man suddenly appeared off the entrance to the bridge. It moved in quick with a deep sigh. The Breadman leaned in to get a better sight of the on coming body.

“Garry Perry? Id ya?”

The body made no acknowledgement of the question and kept it’s pacing slow with intent. The Breadman moved backwards on his heels and felt for the railing which he used to balance himself as he kept the movement up.

“Garry Perry? Id a gotta be ya!”

As the body became more visible, the face that appeared was ancient, sombre and pale. The Breadman thought of what Char McCool said to him and Garry Perry and dropped the fishing net in to the creek below the bridge. As he turned to run, a stubby hand grabbed him firmly by the shoulder. A loud thud rung in his ear and he was sure a sharp bite was clamping down on his shoulder. His face flushed with fear, the Breadman’s eyes jacked wide open so that he might take it in.

“Wada ya do? Ooh nu!” screamed the Breadman. He had found the Zombie in his mist yet he could not have been less able to deal with it. “A Zomb-eya! A darnalee Zomb-eya!”

“This is the police, get down on your knees,” an amped voice called from somewhere in the dark trail towards Shell Rd.

“Ida killy-a-me!”

Perry Slough-bie part 5

by: benzo369

The early night provided just enough light for both Garry Perry and the Breadman to have a look around and see whether or not there were zombies in the strawberry fields. During the whole time the Breadman recollected his voyage from Calgary to the Slough in that white Wonderbread truck, which he calculated to have driven 1,057 km and not a single step more. He recounted his many glorious stops, to which he said the best of the best had to have been Hope for name sake only in that he was starting a new and it represented little of his past.

“And you past?” Garry Perry asked.

“Oh, no-a real interesting,” the Breadman said, “just a different way of talking.” The Breadman had said this in a very clear, upper class tone that bothered Garry Perry due to its foreignness.

The Breadman talked about the troubles of Highway 3, how difficult and sharp the turns were and where the best viewpoints could be taken in by the eye. He also commented on the oddities of life in the Kootneys, how everyone there acted and thought too slow for his liking. He spared little detail of his trip and was even so minute that he could recall the different kinds of toilet paper used in each gas station he stopped at.

“Da badaly one was ‘dis one named da Race Trac… one-a-ply, one-a-thin layer for da butty.”

The story kept going and going until Garry Perry had heard enough and screamed:

“Aight. Stop id or I’ll make-a-you squidealapid!”

Silence was ordered by Garry Perry. The work in the fields had bothered his thoughts very much and he was tiring not from the searching but from the dark field that he now searched. The drowning conversation forced upon him by the Breadman didn’t help much. It had become obvious to him that there were no zombies walking these fields and he secretly questioned whether any zombies existed at all. Red streaks ran over each cheek and a great pulling tugged at his heart to finish up and head home. The investigation with the Breadman, being stuck in the fields with his feet covered in berry mush, surrounded by little more than the dark shadow of gigantic trees and strawberry bushes that ran on forever and the loneliness that creped in his heart had made him furious. He was sure that it was all the Breadman’s fault for leading him on this adventure, that there were actually zombies travelling this field, earth or universe was absolutely a thought of sheer stupidity. Garry Perry felt at that moment it was time to leave the strawberry field, leave Finn Slough on his new boat and get out of the same old Garry Perry way-of-life he had lived for the last 46 years. It was time to shed his skin. It was time to leave.

“Yah, I knew id. All da stops I knew id. Da Slough wad for me,” the Breadman said. “I knew da same ‘bout Char McCool. A good-a girlie.”

The mention of Char McCool’s name was the final straw. She too was to blame for the search and maybe, thought Garry Perry, maybe they were in cahoots. Maybe they had killed Clay Biffley so that they might stake their claim to his home because the Breadman had to be sick of living in a bread delivery truck and Char McCool had to be sick of living in such a small, disgusting shack. No, that was definitely it. As Garry Perry marched over to tackle the would-be villain, he heard a shot in the air:

BLAST!

“You lads don’t look like your buying,” Reggie Firefeather said. “So get off my property.”

Leaving the U-Pick farm Garry Perry told the Breadman that he was tired and then thanked him for the effort. The Breadman asked him not to give up the investigation, that there was still the Horseshoe Slough area, maybe the police had missed something. But Garry Perry kept on walking towards Finn Slough, saying nothing.

He then turned and followed the Breadman’s path.

Dr. Z

The stryker saw cut neatly along the dotted black lines drawn around the crown of the head. R had no idea where Dr. Z had procured a body from, only that he had. Dr. Z cupped his left hand under the skull cap as the saw finished its work. He set it down on the examining table so that it resembled a bowl, or half a black coconut.

“Take this fellow for instance,” Dr. Z continued, “grade school drop out, could barely hold a job, and even then never made a decent living.”

“Is he a patient of yours,” R asked.

“Hm? Oh, yes, yes,” Dr. Z answered, getting back-tracked, “now where was I? Yes, yes, this man was clearly of feeble intelligence and an unworthy specimen as compared to professional men, such as you or I.”

Dr. Z set the electric saw down and grabbed the forceps to peel away and removed the dura mater of the deep pink brain that was now exposed.

“Yet,” Dr. Z continued, studying the forceps very closely, “and yet, this man was learned in at least one important aspect of life. He was good at one thing and one thing only, it appears. This man was married twenty six years to the same woman. And quite a happy union from what I heard. Incredible.”

“Perhaps,” R said, smiling, “he used all ten percent of his brain power on his relationship. The other ninety must have gone to waste, eh?”

“Actually,” Dr. Z said, setting the filmy dura mater inside the skull cap on the table, “that’s a perfect myth. Every part of the brain has a function and every part of the brain is used. Don’t you see, R? This man is no less a master of love as you are of criminal investigation, or I am of medicine.”

“I see.”

Z looked up from his work, “do you think if I were to check inside this man’s pineal gland, I’d find a little Cupid?”

The joke was lost on R, and he was losing his patience, “who authorized this autopsy, Z?”

Z was busy at work inside the man’s head.

“Because, I don’t think the coroner knows about this. I don’t think this man’s wife knows about this either, does she, Z?”

“What’s the name of that worm that eats other worms,” Dr. Z asked, “for the life of me, I can’t remember. It eats the other worm and gains its intelligence. If the one worm had learned a trick, the other will eat it and know the trick without having been taught it, for example. I can’t remember. My mind seems to be going. My God.

“Alright,” R said, “that’s enough. Why don’t you come with me down to the station?”

“I’ve always felt,” Dr. Z went on, “that I was unlucky at love. Dreadfully unlucky at cards too, I’m afraid.”

R brushed his overcoat aside, revealing his gun in its holster, “Z,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Hm?” Z said, looking up from his work, “oh yes, yes, of course. I’ll go with you.”

Dr. Z removed his gloves and smock and walked toward R. R turned toward the door and began leading Z out of the room.

“Tell me, R, what do you know? What information do you have rattling around in that brain of yours, hm?”

Z bashed R across the back of the skull, and the detective fell heavy on the floor. His brow smacked against the ground and bounced once and then there was no movement.

“Hope we didn’t damage that brain of yours. I’ve had a busy day.”

Z dragged R’s limp form beside the operating table and turned the stryker saw back on.

“I wonder,” he said to himself, “if I were to eat a computer, would I gain its stored information. Ah, but I’m no geek. I’ve got my tastes. Where is my mind, these days. What’s the name of that worm again?”

The Further Adventures of Val Williams # 2 - The Awakening, pt. III

“Little Gary’s scared,” Boann said, trying to shield Little Gary from the night, as though the night itself were a thing with claws. “We gotta get him outta here, he’s freaking out.”

“Oh,” said Dagda, “that’s just the thing we need him to be.”

Dagda had received a scare of his own moments earlier when he bent down to pry the moon rock out of Khaddafiy’s cold dead hand. Something puzzling had happened, the hand fought back, and not long after the whole body fought back.

Dagda knelt down beside Little Gary watching the boy’s face with rapt attention. Little Gary was hyperventilating, frightened. He saw Khaddafiy grab Padraic’s head in both clammy hands and with only slight effort had hard bitten right through the skull. He heard Padraic’s choked off cry of agony. Heard the crunchy and slimy sounds of Khaddafiy eating Padraic’s brain. What Little Gary saw, without a doubt, was a real life zombie. Dagda cried out in triumph, “Yes, I say, Yes!”

The sky tore open. Orange and red beams poured down like a viscous ropy liquid and were met halfway to the ground by a pillar of blue mist. It was all happening halfway across town, so they were safe from whatever horror had been unleashed. Khaddafiy didn’t care about the horror, only the brains, if he’d have turned around and looked up at the sky, even he might have been amazed.

Boann took one look at Dagda and said, “now’s our chance, let’s go.”

And the three of them went off towards Victory Square.

***

Ever since cell phones took the cake, you can’t find a payphone in working condition. Most of them have been ripped apart and gutted, receivers missing or whacked off, keys missing or punched in. Only junkies use payphones anyway, I guess. Junkies and guys doing a terrible job of trying to save the planet.

Looks like the job is done though. Must be residual belief from the other four victims of the kid with the moon rock and the man in the trench coat. I can’t even call Abbott to tell him there’s nothing to worry about.

***

Next … what Abbott is so worried about!

Sticking to the Plan
by Alex Lachkevitch


“A what plan?’

“A zombie plan, bro! Oh, you gots to have one! That shit is for true.”

“You’re an idiot. Watch the road.”


Left on Valley Road.


“Naw, dude, seriously. It can happen like, a bajillion ways. Army experiment, alien invasion, asteroid from space, or, uh… just like, no one even knows. But they fuckin’ hungry fo’ brains!”

“Asteroid from space, huh? You’re an asteroid from space. Believe me, we got more serious issues to worry about- Africa is dying from AIDS, China is hosting the Olympics, our government is bombing anyone with a drop of oil, and you’re worried about zombies attacking us. It won‘t happen.“

“Yo, Evan, man? College is making you no fun, dude.”


Right onto Bridgeport.


“…and then you got your ride secured, and then you need to go get a piece. You know, bro? You ever scope out where the gun shops is around town? I have. I’ll get a gat in a hot minute, and start blowing away any evil dead fuck that tries to feast on my dome!”

“Oh, right. And then what, Ty? You’ll shoot every zombie in the world? You know, they taught me in college that you can’t shoot all your problems away.”

“They is stupid. Then I’m going to Wally-Mart, get me some survival supplies, and off to the woods, yo. Live out the invasion.”

“ Tyler, you’re from the suburbs. You cried that one time in grade seven we got lost in the park.”

“Fuck, dude, shut up! I just ran a red. Can’t afford more motha-fucking tickets. No pigs around, right?”

“I haven’t even seen any cars since we left.”


Over the King Street bridge.


“I can’t believe I’m even talking about this. Ughhhh. Well, I guess if there were zombies, I’d try to find out how and why, and see if there were any authority dealing with the threat. They‘re still people, right?”

“Ya, right, bro! You can’t talk to zombies, man, you gotta blast them! They sure as hell won’t talk to you, and if they attack, shit, man, it’s my right to cap bitches for self-protection. And I’m pretty damn sure the government, if they ain’t zombies too, would agree.”

“Alright, just calm down. We’re almost at the spot. I get nervous down here.”

“Chill, man, the ghetto is my second home. And Big E has the best shit down here. I don’t see any one out, though, man, maybe it’s too early morning.”

“It’s two.”

Right onto Morreo Drive, another narrow street between crumbling brick two-stories, and the little red Civic came to a holt, the gearbox making a terrible noise. The police cruiser blocking the street was on fire. One cop lay dead on the hood, the beam of the headlight filtering through the thick reddish-grey goo seeping out from fracture in his skull. Five tall teenagers stood close by, their blank expressions made into terrifying clown masks by the blood around their mouths. Another cop was sprawled out in the street with an old fat woman stabbing him over and over in the stomach with a long kitchen knife. A man was squatting beside her, dipping his hand in the pool of blood and wiping it across his mouth.

Tyler’s hands were frozen to the wheel. The sharp taste of something like cranberry juice hit the back of his throat. He saw Evan fumbling with his seatbelt and the door handle alternatively, with no success. Tyler slammed into reverse, but his feet and hands seemed drunk, and he backed at full speed into, or more under, a parked lifted Tahoe, wedging his tiny hatchback hopelessly.

“Get out! Get out, run! Run! Go!”

Evan wasn’t sure if he was screaming, or some one else. With trembling hands, he shoved the door open and began to run away from the burning cop car with its one bloody eye. He felt tears stream down his face, and wished he had worn runners today. Anything to be faster, to be away. Just as he rounded the corner, he began to hear the yelling behind him.

“Evan, wait! Wait, help!”

Tyler struggled with his door, shouting and crying, and then climbed over and out the passenger door. Falling face first on the pavement, he looked over, and saw the whole group in the street turn to him and start walking. Slowly. Even cautiously. The terror narrowed his vision to a tunnel, and in the end of that tunnel he saw his salvation- the cop’s gun belt had been torn off and thrown aside, and the handle of the revolver was within reach. He grabbed it, shaking loose the holster and belt as he scrambled to his feet. With the gun held in both hands too close to his chest, the barrel swinging nervously, Tyler began stepping backwards and shouting unintelligibly, as if trying to scare off an animal. The group advanced. He retreated, between parked cars, almost tripping over the curb, back, back, the barrel still shaking, still yelling, until his back pressed against a wall. The group advanced. He thought about the six bullets in the gun, stopped shouting, and started to run.

But in a few steps, halted. A tall man with a gold tooth lumbered out from the alley in front of him. Tyler raised the gun, and their eyes met. The barrel started shaking again. In the man’s eyes, he could see sorrow and determination, the eyes of a man who is forced into desperation, the eyes of a man who must do something he wishes he didn’t have to. In a few second, he saw Evan walk out of the alley with the same look, mouth smeared with blood. He put the gun down, and felt hands on his shoulders, and hands on his face, and soon he felt sweet acquiescence.

As the mob shuffled toward downtown, toward all the tall building and the department stores and the government offices, sirens blared. Helicopters circled above, and above them, jets cut the sky. At the bridge, the mob was met by a sandbag barricade, soldiers lined up behind it. As they readied their rifles and the first bullets tore through the crowd, Tyler and Evan and everyone else walked forward. They knew who the enemy was. They all knew to stick to the plan now.

Perry Slough-bie part 4

The sun dipped westerly and a buzzing wind had cut across the sky. A horde of cars and trucks left a dusty cloud on the exit of Reggie Firefeather’s Strawberry U-Pick farm and the Breadman waved his arms wildly in a sort of protest but Garry Perry just walked through it paying it no heed.

Neither Garry Perry nor the Breadman had ever been to Reggie Firefeather’s Strawberry U-Pick. In fact it had been years since Garry Perry had left the Slough area. With the English Emporium warehouse, or the job house as it was known on the Slough, going strong and Clay Biffley offering to do the shopping for the both of them, Garry Perry never saw the need to reach beyond Dyke Rd.

There was also Garry Perry’s dislike of the foreigners. They spoke in a weird language he didn’t completely understand and behaved in a way he did not agree with. He often monitored them from his deck as they would click their cameras at the sight of the wooden sign on the crown of his home. It read “Dinner Plate Island School” and he could not figure why they found it so amusing. If they wanted to know, it was his father who had mounted it on his home when Garry Perry was very young and did it without telling his mother, who then subsequently kicked him out for ten days just for the insensitivity that it showed to good taste. Darny ‘ight too, Garry Perry had always thought. But the foreigners kept coming and clicking and he kept shaking his head at the silly sight.

The clothing they wore sometimes boggled his mind, too.

Some women would walk by in thin black pants made from outer space, as they pushed their three wheeled baby prams with one hand and sipped their Starbucks coffee with another.

The men were no better. They would go by and spit all over the ground as they ran past the homes and would allow their mangy dogs to relieve themselves on any property they could. Often he would hear some men say in disgust, “muddy flatters” as they kept six for their pooches.

Garry Perry never said anything. He just accepted it as foreign behaviour.

“Welcome guys to what I call a little patch of fruit heaven,” Reggie Firefeather as he marched up to Sloughians. Garry Perry and the Breadman were snooping around his car garage. “It’s just about closing time but you got enough time to feed yourselves today and come back tomorrow.”

The U-Pick farm was now completely empty but the farmer appeared to have no problem letting the two Sloughians in for one last pick.

“Ya git Zomb-eyas?” the Breadman asked urgently. “We wanna see Clay Biffley, ya knew.”

Reggie Firefeather rolled his blue eyes and sat down on a stool by his garage door.

“Yeah… we got Strawberries,” said Reggie Firefeather shaking his head.

“Ooh, Fug-A-loo,” Garry Perry said, as the Breadman’s face turned the colour of snow. “Id thar right, huh?”

The farmer put his shovel down and wore a face of confusion.

“Yeah, we got plenty of strawberries; you pick ‘em, you pay for ‘em, you keep ‘em. As simple as that, boys. This Clay Wiffley, I’ve never heard of.”

“Biff,” Garry Perry corrected.

“What?”

“Cana we do a looky-loo?” the Breadman asked, hooking his head around the corner of the garage. Reggie Firefeather watched him closely acting as if he thought they were threats to steal or worse.

“What are you looking for?” Reggie Firefeather asked. “The strawberries are over there and you better get going because I’m not going to keep this farm open much longer.”

“Many?” asked the Breadman scratching under his chin to show he was taking all this investigation business very seriously.

“Yes, it’s a farm.”

“Ooooh, FUG-A-LOO,” Garry Perry said. The shocking admission by Reggie Firefeather made him both excited to be that close to the answer of the whereabouts of his friend Clay Biffley and scared of what lay in the U-Pick fields behind the garage. For if what laid there were a field of Zombies he was no man for the job.

The Breadman kept up his investigation of the farmer’s residence. He swung his fishnet wildly a few times in no particular direction and then began looking first under flower pots, then knocking on the side garage door and then finished by looking in the farmer’s house windows to see if there were any evil beings living under the farmer’s rug.

Reggie Firefeather soon grew tired of the investigation and said: “there is nothing to find up there. Why don’t you get going to the U-Pick or get going home.”

The two Sloughians, detective the Breadman and Garry Perry the Wise got going towards the U-Pick fields as the sun disappeared completely behind the tall hemlocks to the back of the field, moving slowly so that they didn’t miss a clue.

“Flipping muddy flatters,” Reggie Firefeather mouthed under his breath.

The Further Adventures of Val Williams # 2 - The Awakening, pt. II

Wind’s picking up. Hell wind. Cools you to the marrow sometimes, other times it’s an inviting warm breeze, wraps around you like a sorceress, breathes hot on your neck and won’t let go. Summertime’s when the Devil feels right at home. He’s been invited too, by this woman, this … believer!

The streetlights are dim, but there she is, practically running, arms wrapped tightly, staring at the cracked and bumpy pavement.

She’s pretty young, but old enough to know better. The Heights is the poor people district: junkies, winos, indigents, artists. This one looks like an artsy type, usually they‘re pretty practical minded but open to new ideas like werewolves attacking people on city streets. I’m probably going to have to shoot her.

I get her attention, she gives me a dirty look. Tries to act as if guys are always trying to get her attention. Egotistical believer.

“Whoa, there,” I say, “are you alright?”

She mutters something about me being a pervert and how I should get away from her.

“It’s just, you look like you saw a ghost.”

Ignores me. Come on, I’m trying to save the world here.

“Okay, all I’m saying is that I saw something back there, too.”

She glances over, “you got blood on your face, Romeo.” She pulls out her cell and starts dialing.

“Listen,” I say, blocking her way, “I just need to know what you saw. Did you see a werewolf?”

She looks like she’s ready to try out those self defense lessons she took, “are you an idiot?”

I ask what she saw in my most menacing tone. She says she saw a guy getting mugged. I watch her knee the whole time, trying to edge my crotch out of the line of fire.

“So, you don’t believe you saw a werewolf?”

“Get away from me.”

I leave her alone. Seems I wasted my time here. The wisp of belief I thought was coming off of her persists and continues to blow through the unkempt streets, burning with a nightmare wind sent from hell.

TBC ...

Perry Slough-bie part 3

A dark feeling reigned heavily on Garry Perry’s soul. He and the Breadman, with his fishnet in hand, had decided to go on a walk of the Slough area to find out what they could about all this Zombie stuff. But it was not something he could recount as being necessary however much the Breadman insisted it was. He sat on his deck awaiting the Breadman to bring his fishing net that was supposed to be big enough to capture any game and he begun to nervously twiddle his stumpy thumbs. He got up and then turned around to sit doen again. This waltz continued until the light pitter-patter of the Breadman’s feet broke the odd silence ruling over Finn Slough.

“Ya-ago?” the Breadman asked. He was still wearing the confident grin on his face the he had fashioned in Char McCool’s house hours before.

Garry Perry sighed deeply and did not answer but moved slowly off his bottom and nodded. The trouble of where to search for Clay Biffley and the Zombie had not been agreed to and there was much to discuss before they left, but as the Breadman moved his lips, Garry Perry only listened casually, his eyes falling away with each, “Ya me think” that the Breadman spoke of.

The next move was to head down No 4 Rd to check out one of Clay Biffley’s favourite places, the Strawberry U-Pick. The Breadman had told Garry Perry that this was the place to check because if Clay Biffley was picking berries near Horseshoe Slough, then there was a high probability that he was actually stealing from the U-Pick and that the police had not picked up on this factoid yet. Of this he was sure of.

The road was hazy from the summer heat and waves of humidity broke their eye’s focus as they walked down the long route. It was at least 1 kilometre from Finn Slough to ???? Strawberry U-Pick and this gave both men time discuss further investigations should they not find what the Breadman believed to be a sure bet.

“Oh, me thinka-loo that he no run-a-mile to get lost,” the Breadman theorized.

Garry Perry was sharing little of his mind and listened carelessly to the Breadman’s words.

“If ol’ Cliffy-pal make a run-a-mile he not far, ya know.”

The march towards the Strawberry U-Pick the Breadman became stuck on how much had changed for him in the last year, since he had moved in to Finn Slough. He told Gerry Perry that he felt more at ease then ever before in his life and he even said that he would like to get to know about the history of the Slough.

“Naw, ya naw wanna,” Gerry Perry said angrily. “Too much to knew to ya.”

The Breadman kept it up, though and repeated how much he felt there was a lot to learn about the history of his adopted home and how he wished to take that on.

“Budy don’t knew what it is to be Slough,” Garry Perry said wiping his forehead again with his arm.

“Then ‘bout Zomb-eyas? Long story told ‘bout Zomb-eyas in da Slough.”

“Bout?”

“Me hurd da Zomb-eya’s been ‘ere for even longer dan ya,” the Breadman said laughingly.

The Breadman was so enchanted by his own humour that he failed to realize he had passed the farm entrance. If it were not for the sign that read: “REGGIE FIREFEATHER’S STRAWBERRY U-PICK RE-OPENING – DR IVE SLOW: ENTER AT OWN RISK” he would have kept on walking. As he approached the sandy driveway he paused for a second and wore an unconfident look on his face. Finally he joined Garry Perry.

“Ya-ooh Reggie Firefeather, we enter a’ our risk,” the Breadman said in a heroic tone. He then looked over to Garry Perry and said: “But if you the Zomb-eya, then id ya at risk-loo!”

Perry Slough-bie part 2

by: benzo369

“I need to speak to you two for a second,” the constable said in a professional manner.

“We dida not do-do,” The Breadman said defensively.

“Huh?” the officer asked confused by the sudden defence.

“No do,” The Breadman spoke again this time shaking his head in a peculiar motion that made him look like a child.

“Ok, listen. We are investigating the disappearance of a man named… er,” the constable opened his notepad and read the name slowly “er… Clay… Biff… Clay Biffley…” the constable had a look at the neighbourhood and changed his tone very lightly, “… also there have been some different events taking place down here. Possible disturbances taking place at night.”

It was well documented that Finn Slough was home to the odd nightly behaviour of Lulu Island residents, a lot of it based on narcotic abuse and sales. It was usual to see a Cadillac or a pick-up truck roll in and the base of high end stereo equipment blasting away the calm mood of the Slough at night and then to see cigarette cherries and lighter fires appear out of the black inside of the vehicles like tiny evil bonfires.

“Ya we no dig-a-lee-drug,” The Breadman said in a determined voice.

“Huh? Listen we think there has been a murder involving one of your residents in the last month… uh,” the constable looked intensively at his notepad, “… Clay Biffley was his name.”

“Is name,” Garry Perry corrected the constable politely.

“Yes name. Anyhow, Mr Biffley is feared dead and we are no longer treating this as a missing person investigation but as a slaying.”

“Weya, he’s no dead,” Garry Perry said defiantly.

“Huh? What?”

“A-hem, he’s no dead.”

“Uhh… oh, yeah. Well he is not undead,” the constable said with an uncomfortable laugh. “A-hem, well he could be undead but that…”

“We cana do some good-a?”

“Yeah, well here,” the constable handed Garry Perry his business card that Garry Perry examined making his eye big. “If you hear anything, give us a ca… write us an email. We’ll check it out. We know how you people are close.”

The constable got in the car and awkwardly turned around his car. Driving away he could be heard muttering to the radio why he was always the one who had to come down to Finn Slough and talk to the weirdoes.

“Ya think-ee what a do?” Garry Perry asked The Breadman in a fearful voice.

“Druggery-le-lated. Poor Biff,” the Breadman said in a sombre voice.

“Naw, he’d said id ‘self. Undead. No dead. He still kicking.”

“Or he a Zomb-eya, no? He no dead but he not live.”

“Wha?”

“We speake with Char McCool. She know da fo ‘bout Zomb-eya. Freaky-doo ‘fo she know.”

The Breadman moved quickly towards the path that led to Char McCool’s home that he happened to be parked in front of. Garry Perry had not had the time to think through all the possibilities before he rumbled after the Breadman towards Char McCool’s home. Char McCool and the Breadman had become very close lately and the rumours were that they were in fact expecting but that the Breadman stayed in his truck because he did not recognise the joyous event coming.

“Good-e-lay,” Char McCool warmly welcomed the two in to her vile looking home, a home so dark and black and filled with so much dirt that it did the most it could to seem unwelcoming but for the woman who stood in the doorway. A hippo woman, she had dark, flabby skin and wore a mixture of black and blonde hair, and clothed herself in a revealing but strained white dress with black roses across her chest. It reflected the house she inhabited. There was little light in the house and the inside smelled like soiled socks and the television spoke loudly out of one corner and some sort of Haitian music rung from another corner, but it sunk in to the background as if it were contrived to be forgotten about. “Wha be thid-a‘bout,” Char McCool asked curious as to why two grown men ran to her house like little children.

“Id ‘bout Clay Biffley,” Garry Perry said out of breath.

“We think-a he Zomb-eya,” the Breadman announced

“A Zomb-eya?” Char McCool wondered.

“Poli spoke-a-gamb,” the Breadman answered Char McCool’s question quickly.
Both the Breadman and Char McCool were given to believing in ghouls and goblins, it had seemed that’s what had brought them together. But their disposition wasn’t unusual in Finn Slough as the whole neighbourhood was guilty of make-believe. Garry Perry had his own peculiar ideas of what passed as fact so that there was no one who could discount the possibility of a true zombie walking about the area between Horseshoe Slough and Finn Slough.

Char McCool smiled confidently as if it were her time to shine and led both men to her table where of course there had to be a crystal ball centred on the dining table. She waved her hands above it quickly and breathed in deep. The Haitian music rose again and the TV inexplicably turned off. The Breadman turned his head quick to see that the television was indeed off, but was quick to return his attention to the trance Char McCool was stuck in. Her chubby hands seemed glued to the pale orb on her table and her eyes seemed even more glued shut, but she did not pay heed to all the motion made by the Breadman nor the fanatic look that had appeared on the his face.

“Shin-doo-lah, bringing da ha, come-oh-lah, Biffley rah!” she chanted slowly and terrifying in to the air. “Tell me the truth, tell me a Zomb-eya!”

Her eyes opened! She looked directly in to Garry Perry’s eyes and said in a voice not like her own that she knew all.

“A zombie stalks the Sloughs. He searches for greater minds to feed on. Beware the zombie stare. If he sees you, do not capture, only run!” and Char McCool’s head dropped to the table with a thud.

“Ya now know id,” the Breadman said confidently. “The poli and us now know id.”

Garr Perry nodded his head in agreement.

Class-Z-fieds: Zombies seeking Zombie

Hiya,

I'm visiting METRO for a little while this month and next and, not knowing anyone here, I thought I'd throw this out. Looking to get together with a nice zombie for a brain or two at some point.

My observations of your city so far:

1) I was led to believe you had nicer weather
2) I got high on wednesday night merely by eating my way though the crowds at the fireworks
3) It's amusing that the living’s grocery bill contains more line items dedicated to deposits and recycling fees than items of actual food

As for my looks, I'm 5'8", 175lbs, shaved head, quite dead and in (very) bad shape overall. I've been confused for a US Marine a few times in the last year. A girl I ate once told me before I ate her I would make a really ugly man-woman. I'll trade pics. I'm sloppy looking, girls barf to my direction usually (making them less appetizing).

I'm very laid back and like deep cerebral dishes. I'm a very poor listener but good at pretending-to-listen-listener. I don't want to go to a club with you, but a pub/bar/coffee shop/something else would probably be fine. I like zombie stuff. Back home I surround myself with ratty clothes, electric wires, and blood. I'm not at all the hippy metrosexual type that seem to be swarming the streets down here. That being said, I love to have a zombette around... make me balance out.

I'm staying in a dumpster downtown (or at least what I believe to be downtown) and don't have access to a car so if you're in some far off land, like Easter Island for instance, it not work. Feel free to still say "urgh" though.

The Further Adventures of Val Williams # 2 - The Awakening, pt. I

Romero cemetery.

Abbott jogged through the front gate with his gun held tightly in both hands, barrel pointed to the ground. He stopped and ducked behind a tombstone as he saw the murky blue mist swirl about forty yards ahead. He could see it, but it was dark, real dark.

***

My inner thighs are starting to chafe from all this jogging. If I don’t find this crazy chick, we’re all screwed. I don’t know what she thinks she saw, but I can take a wild guess. She thought the kid was a werewolf. Could have fooled me too, way he tore into me. I would have liked to hang on to that moon rock, but this is more important. This woman I’m chasing: is she a believer or did she fall under some spell or suggestion? How could someone mistake a prepubescent boy for a werewolf? Either way, I’d better find her and knock some sense into her. I wish I hung on to that moon rock.

***

“Is he dead,” Padraic asked.

“The kid killed him,” Dagda was crouched down beside the body of Khaddafiy, sprawled on the pavement.

“Tore his throat out,” he said, then swallowed hard.

Boann hugged little Gary and said, “he doesn’t remember.” She wiped away a couple tears and said, “thank God.”

“No,” Dagda said sharply, “this has nothing to do with Him.”

“Who was this guy, anyway,” Padraic asked, digging for Khaddafiy’s wallet, looking for money.

“Whoever he was,” Dagda said, “I guess he got what he was looking for.”

Boann shielded Little Gary from the horror of Khaddafiy lying in the street with the moon rock in his hand.

***

Something stirred in the blue mist. It was all Abbott could do not to turn and run the other way. He tried to read the tombstone over and over again. It was very old and faded, and it was very dark out.

Something, something memory of Thomas Webb, who something suddenly, something, aged 33 years, something, he was something, something, called back to the flock too early. Something - 1769.

Abbott said a silent prayer, and peeked around the side. He saw something on the ground, beneath the mist. It was dark and he was quite far away, but he could see it, definitely. A movement perhaps, or a disturbance of the ground. A twig or branch suddenly perked up from the ground toward the sky, as if pulled by a magnet. There was a cluster of them …

No. It was a hand.

Abbott opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. He turned to run, but when he looked up, the blue mist was everywhere.

To be continued...

Perry Slough-bie part 1

by: benzo369

There was a time when it was just another day on Finn Slough when the littlest shit happened but people were very in to it.

In the elevated box of a home named “Dinner Plate Island School” Garry Perry had awoken and walked out to fill his bird feeder when realised the warm Lulu air had a strong bitter scent to it. He examined the patio as he did every morning and then gave his dog Coloru a hearty pat on the crown of his head. He liked the way it felt on his hand. Over by the front gate was his flower bed, lined up so lovingly on the fence he never missed looking at them before his morning walk. Things weren’t good in the old flower box. His lilies had lost their lives the night before and were now not much more than a wilted rumour of spring

“Whadaya naw, Coloru” he said sadden by his floral failure. He took one quick look at the bed and then clutched one of the dead lilies in his hand to get a sense of the death. “Watered ya un everything.”

People kept walking down Dyke Rd as they did everyday, lost as Clay Biffley used to say before he himself disappeared. The story around the Slough was that poor Clay Biffley was last scene picking berries out of the bushes near Horseshoe Slough, whistling to himself in the middle of night. No one knew what happened to him that evening. Theories abound in Finn Slough that he was murdered for his great Salmon Fishin’ ball cap, or maybe it was for his whale tooth necklace, even though everyone in the Slough knew it was fake maybe the people outside the Slough didn’t know this to be true and wanted it. Sloughians argued loudly about his disappearance but this much was certain: he did not return. Clay Biffley was sorely missed, that much was agreed upon by the people of Finn Slough.

A man walked out of the back of a white delivery truck stuck in a pleasant monologue that was meant only for his own ears but Garry Perry could here it good and clear. Garry Perry had quality ears. The man was thin, had stubble on his chin and wore a t-shirt that was for too big for his non-existent belly. He wore a BC Lions cap that was faded and covered in sweat lines from a wet scalp. The man made heavy breathing noises as he tried to pull the rusted door down quietly and the work made his face scrunch and strain but he did not quit. Garry Perry watched this work go on for ten minutes until and then returned to his flower bed. There was work to do.

“Well, id no a good-ah thinga this,” and he dug the soil out of the bed one slow scoop at a time, dumping each scoop in to the Slough bay.

He became melancholy after scooping the last bit and examined the inside of the box. His forearm grew tired and so he put the wooden box down and sat on his red camping chair and wiped his head. The word in the Slough was that Garry Perry had not been the same since Clay Biffley disappeared. Words were spread about how he had rarely left his deck and when he did he never spoke to anyone. Then again, words were always spread around the Slough for weeks about anything and rarely did the last word correlate to the first one. Whatever the truth was, his pleasant return greetings had covered any deeper understanding about how Clay Biffley’s death had affected him. If it was brought up, he would normally change the subject with a quick, “oh, fuga-loo” turn. He was a brave man this much was known. The incident at Richmond City Hall had spoken highly of his courage and fortitude and he was built broadly with long black hair that was glossy as a horse’s. But no one knew how he was holding up at all.

“And how’s it go Mr. Perry,” the man from the delivery truck asked. The door had finally been shut and his face looked worn but his voice was in strong spirit.

“Spledud Breadman,” Perry said waving his mammoth hand dutifully at his neighbour. “Spledud indeed!”

“I hurd you gonna git that boat next week, true, false?” the Breadman said.

“Naw where did hear ‘dis, huh?”

“Char McCool spoke it de udder day-a,” said the Breadman popping his sluggish shoulders up a minute. “She spoke a good storm ‘bout ‘da 45-footer. You gonna do ‘er?”

Garry Perry grew a smile and bent his head down to his knees. He then slapped his knee cap loudly and shot a look over to the Breadman that asked further information for more answers.

“Yah, I was widi in a pleasing way the udder day-a and we’s been gulping ‘dem ryes when she spoke a little bitty-da-ear. She spoke that you gotta boat coming-a-shore the next week, true, false?”

Garry Perry came over to his deck railing to hear more clearly the Breadman’s own peculiar Slough langue and cupped his ear.

“True, s’pose,” Garry Perry said in a direct voice.

“So ‘dis mean you outta ‘da Slough?”

Garry Perry turned his back on the Breadman and examined his home top-to-bottom. Garry Perry had lived in Finn Slough for his whole life. His family had been stomping in these waters for a century if not more and it had been the only home he knew. He turned around and addressed the question matter-of-fact: “Thing-a –so. Pudding da box on ‘da block, so to speak.”

“Gonna missy ya-old-stink,” the Breadman said.

Garry Perry nodded his head in acknowledgment and smiled. The Breadman was new to the Slough having made the long trip from Calgary with his tired white delivery truck only a year before. When he arrived, Clay Biffley and Garry Perry were standing on Dyke Rd, sipping on a couple of Dude Beers. They did not know exactly what to make of the newcomer or if they were going to let him stay. Since the Biffley and Perry families were the oldest and longest tenured clans from the Slough, it was pretty much up to them to decide who stayed and who didn’t. They were not sure that the Breadman and his funny cowboy hat would fit in but Clay Biffley said he had a good feeling about the new guy and said if it was ok with Garry Perry then it was ok with him. Garry Perry would never shake his thick head in disagreement to Clay Biffley, who was more a big brother to him than a neighbour and friend. His real name was Curtis Lowe but since he arrived no one called him by that name. Clay Biffley named him the Breadman because the brand name and logo of Wonderbread Bread Co. had been weakly painted over with a thin white coat. And with the naming, the Breadman was one of them and soon had gradually learned their language and stories but had yet to create his own.

A loud crank-and-bang reverberated through the Slough. The backdoor of the truck had rolled up before the Breadman could lock it down.

“Heya, leme git down’er and helpalafool,” Garry Perry said and then thundered down the walk-bridge that led from his home to the road.

His thunderous steps sent the sitting ducks scattering for safety in the air. Most birds knew better then to stay near his clumsy steps and especially when Coloru was with him, who might have been the clumsiest the two.

“I gotta id,” the Breadman protested but Garry Perry still made his way to the delivery truck anyhow.

“Oh ya gotta not,” Garry Perry disagreed and marched over to the truck, tripping some.

The Breadman was a skinny little guy who wore many t-shirts that did not address his weight problem. His t-shirts tended to hang off him like shower curtains though he was quite proud of them. His faded blue t-shirt he wore this day skirted his knees giving him a damsel look that encouraged cat calls from passing foreigners. He was often seen in this un-stylish garb and had been encouraged by both Garry Perry and Clay Biffley to change it up a bit, to: “get-a-new.” But he seldom listened to advice for it seemed to him to be useless. He was a man who knew the answer before the question was asked even if the question rarely had anything to with the answer he provided. The Breadman was a resolute man and once his mind was made, it would be many seasons before his wind of thought would change. Oh, he would listen politely to words spoken towards him but he was no listener. When he spoke it was largely his own ideas that he wanted to express about the current events that he took no active part in, nor could he be persuaded to officially take a side in any Slough politics but he would share his opinion loudly in private conversations. He would gesture in a way that suggested it was all so simple.

Garry Perry lent his strong arms to closing the sliding door.

“Naw, id not the good-a-way,” The Breadman said in a teacher-like tone.

The door slammed shut and gave off a secure CLICK. Happy with the result, The Breadman turned to say hello to the passing foreigners with cameras attached to their chests but Gary Perry only brushed his sweaty brow and sighed deeply. Slowly he said to the Breadman:

“Ya sure… wanbe… inda trAc for long?”

The Breadman grimaced and patted his neighbour on the shoulder.

“Id coulda be a granda-lee-doo thought to move to one box,” Garry Perry continued pointing at the for sale signs dotting Dyke Rd.. “Be nice to had a thing.”

The Breadman was about to answer the question when the white sheen of an RCMP squad car rolled up Dyke Rd. and made an abrupt stop in front of the two Sloughians.

“Howdy,” the Constable said stepping controlled out of the car. “Howdy do you two do?”

Neither Garry Perry nor The Breadman made any gesture acknowledging the constable’s arrival.