By the way, this might be a little offensive.
--
Ellsworth Tallyho entered his parlor on a fine Sunday morning, ready to settle in at his breakfast nook in his bay window, enjoy a lovely breakfast, and begin a fine day of working his staff to the bones on the Sabbath. But as he was about to take his seat, he stopped.
By God! What was this on his breakfast table instead of his breakfast! A god-damned newspaper, that's what! Where was his parlor maid Beatrice Mulvaney? That vacuous plebian louse house! How many times had he told her not to bring him the morning newspaper!
"Curse you, Beatrice Mulvaney, and your plump and tempting Irish arse! What is this on my table and where is my breakfast! Hurry it up or it's into the basement with you!"
Of course there was no answer. Beatrice Mulvaney was one of his least unintelligent servants, and wisely kept her mouth shut on most occasions. This made her difficult to find when he was in a foul temper or his cups. He trusted she would find her tongue to give him some fine excuse for this miscalculation, though! Sow! When she entered she had better have some of those little puff pastries he liked! It might curtail the number of times he beat her with the newspaper.
And so Ellsworth Tallyho sat at his breakfast nook without any damn breakfast staring at a cursed newspaper. And there he waited, fuming. His fine Sunday was off to a terrible start!
What was taking so frigging long?
Beatrice was having trouble with the new kitchen help again, he was sure of it. Something would have to be done about this kitchen help situation. Ellsworth wasn't sure what. The last set of kitchen help were still tied up in the basement. Ellsworth could force this new set down with the others but he wasn't sure if it was too soon. He didn't want the old kitchen help getting too excited about new arrivals. He wanted them demoralized as Jews making mud bricks for Pharaoh on a hot day, so they wouldn't make friends with the new set of hapless, doomed kitchen help.
But what could one do? Gone were the days of ill-tempered rotund slave chefs! Those taskmasters were never late with breakfast! Their merciless culinary coercion had been something to admire! Now Ellsworth was forced to deal with self-important slatterns like Beatrice Mulvaney, who wanted to be paid. She never did anything right, but at least she was a hard worker. Ellsworth couldn't tolerate any other Irish for any purpose whatsoever. Mongrels and moochers, the lot of them!
To pass the time without eggs, bacon, sausages, porridge, fresh fruit, toast, a fine blackberry compote, freshly squeezed orange juice or a nicely cooked piece of breakfast veal, he glared at the abhorrent newspaper and stroked his luxurious moustaches. The Great Ozo's Miracle Moustache Wax was worth all and more that shoe shine lad had declared it to be! Why, this very day Ellsworth intended to gift the lad with another visit and allow him to shine his other shoe!
Beatrice Mulvaney bustled in, carrying a tray with his breakfast.
"Top o' the Mornin' to ya, sir!"
"Yes, yes, and all that. And how are you this morning, Beatrice?" Ah, shake the fist at the gods, he'd done it again! He had been trying to make an innocent everyday greeting, after which he intended to launch into her gruesome tongue lashing with vigorous ire! But Beatrice would now waste time telling him 'how she was'. Ellsworth was going to have to stop this business of displaying interest in other people's lives! It was far too time-consuming, as Beatrice was about to prove.
"Faith an' beggorah! Me brother Seamus had another wee accident, this time with a tractor! Took off 'is whole leg, poor lad!"
Ellsworth had no pity for brainless oafs who got themselves caught in machinery. Machinery was a fine example of good old-fashioned hard American labor and Ellsworth believed everyone could learn from it! It worked as long as you told it to, didn't need lunch breaks or end-of-shifts, didn't need to be paid, and when it broke you simply tossed it in the river and accused the neighboring business of sabotaging you. Then, after a lengthy and tiresmone court process, you received obscene sums of money along with a new piece of machinery.
Ellsworth said, "If that fool brother of yours can't even pay attention to where the tractor is going when he's mowing the potatos perhaps he deserves to have been attacked by it! And what the hell is this, you uneducated ninny!" he yelled, flailing the newspaper over his head threateningly.
Mrs. Mulvaney had the decency to look intimidated, but she tried to cover her arse. "Ohhh, I thought ye might be wantin' a paper this mornin' Mr. Tallyho! There's been a big development in Mr. N. Oswald Wellington's oil business--"
"Beatrice Mulvaney, I have told you on at least five dozen different occasions that I disdain newspapers!"
"But Mr. Tallyho, ye're startin' up yer own newspaper business yerself! I just don't understand why it is ye wouldn't be wantin' to read 'em! And it's important fer a businessman such as yerself to be knowin' what's happenin' in the business world! Now, Mr. N. Oswald Wellington--"
"Damn and blast you, Mrs. Mulvaney, do you think I want to support other newspapers when I'm trying to start my own?!"
There was a silence.
"Oh," Beatrice said. "Oh, I didn't think of it quite like that, Mr. Tallyho."
"Of course not!" He hurled the obtrusion at her overly large head and turned his attention to the breakfast she had sat in front of him. "What's this, and if I hear the word 'potato' pass your lips even once I'll flog your arse redder than an Indian's blushing face!"
"But, Mr. Tallyho, yer newspaper isn't quite up an' runnin' yet! There's no money for anything but potatos! And ev'n those I'm gettin' from me own garden!"
Ellsworth didn't know Beatrice Mulvaney kept a garden. When did she have time to do that? He would have to work her harder!
"Beatrice Mulvaney, I am busy. I have a newspaper to run. Talk to Mrs. Tallyho about silly household trifles like money for food."
Beatrice looked very uncomfortable again, her pert little upturned nose reddening, which gave Ellsworth a feeling of satisfaction rather than foreboding. "Mr. Tallyho, I'm afraid I have some bad news."
"Go away."
"Er . . . pardon me, sir?"
"No, stay, but tell me the good news first."
Beatrice looked at a loss. "Mr. Tallyho, I don't believe I remember sayin' anythin' 'bout good news."
Ellsworth glared at his parlor maid with a glare fiercer than the noonday sun glaring off the glaciers of the great Yukon territory, then turned his attention once more to his food and methodically consumed the atrocious dish of potato chunks she had concocted, which tasted suspiciously like The Great Ozo's Miracle Moustache Wax.
After a very long silence in which Ellsworth began plucking out particularly poisonous-looking pieces of the substance and chucking them at Beatrice Mulvaney, she began to speak.
"It's about yer wife, Mr. Tallyho."
"Geraldina? What about her?"
"When was the last time ye saw yer wife, Mr. Tallyho?"
Ellsworth couldn't actually remember. Had Geraldina gone missing? Was there any insurance?
"Don't know. Why? Is she dead?"
"Faith an' begorrah! I sartainly hope not! No, I'm afraid she's run off to one of those banana republic continents with the farmer garden worker, Nigel von Nievengard."
"The farmer garden worker?"
"Yes."
"Well, you daft cow-eyed Irishwoman, was he a farmer or a garden worker! I don't know who to take out insurance on unless you speak like a resident of this country and not some vacuous imported hussey!"
"Faith an' begorrah, Mr. Tallyho! Ye've never employed farmers!"
"Talk sense, you bint!"
"I'm talkin' about the farmer garden worker! Ye know, the strapping lad with the shoulders and the big tools always pokin' around in the hedges!"
What! That brown-skinned bleach-haired smooth-cheeked pansy-boy spy! Ellsworth had always thought he would end up working in the merchant seaman's docking business! The boy was physically unable to keep in a decent state of dress while doing anything! He belonged with the sailors and prostitutes down at the docks!
Well, apparantly he had gone there, and he had taken Geraldina. Hm. That was a development Elsworth had not forseen.
He said, "I ought to have locked that adulterous strumpet up in the attic when I had the inclination on our wedding night!"
Beatrice looked uncomfortable again. She always tried to ignore the nightly wails of Ellsworth's previous wife, Francesca du Montenegro Tallyho, locked away in the attic.
"So, Mr. Tallyho, about the money--"
"The money will come from the newspaper, Mrs. Mulvaney! Now go away so I can consume your slop without the distraction of your speech!"
Beatrice Mulvaney left for her kitchens.
As he attempted to eat, The Great Ozo's Miracle Moustache Wax dripping off his extravagant facial hair onto his plate, Ellsworth plotted the birth of his newspaper. It would be the greatest newspaper in the United States! The most widely-distributed publication (other than the Rifle and Petticoat Pamphlet, of course) in the nation! Then he could buy out every other newspaper in the nation and everyone would be brought around to his views that the filthy Chinese and swarthy stinking Italians were bringing the great nation to her knees, along with the unending boatloads of wretched sickly immigrants from numerous other unsavory locations around the globe, bringing their native diseases and languages so that in time no true-born American would be able to find work or to even understand his neighbor! These late-comers and moochers hadn't fought in the war, that's what! What America should do was round up all these lackadaisical illiterate foreigners and make them fight the civil war all over again between each other, that's what America ought to do! Yes! That would take care of the immigrants' teeming population, give them a sense of what their true-born countrymen had been through, and give the nation another war in which to develop technology to defeat the Frogs when they next attempted invasion (Ellsworth gave it nine years). What America needed was a nice solid wall to keep everyone out, that's what America needed! Maybe Ellsworth would let the Chinese stay long enough to build one. But after that they had to go!
The best way to start his own newspaper would of course be to take over the biggest already published newspaper in existence. That was H. Remond Buckminster's 'Daily Jitterbug.' Ellsworth sniffed. The man had named his newspaper after something that might have been brought over on a hull-packed boat with the flea-bitten Irish! Ellsworth hadn't quite settled on a name for his impending publication yet, but he was sure it would be better than the 'Daily Jitterbug.'
Taking over the operation was certainly the most efficient and economial plan. The building, machines and army of child laborers were already in place.
"Beatrice, bring your fine Irish arse back into the parlor immediately!"
Beatrice did not appear immediately, but took several moments.
"It's about time, you slug! Beatrice, my girl, I have a job for you!" Beatrice's face brightened. Bless her heart, she loved having something productive to do! "Within the next twelve hours I want every employee of the Daily Jitterbug delivered to this doorstep, bound and gagged!"
"Faith an' begorrah! I couldn't do that!"
"Well, get that lad from the soup kitchen to help you! What's his name, the one with the shoulders?"
"Mr. Sinclair, sir?"
"Yes, Sinclair, that's the one! Inform him that he will be paid a half-penny for each hostage he delivers to me in the next twelve hours!"
"Oh, Mr. Tallyho, I couldn't do that! I mean, because it would be wrong, don't ye see?"
"Mrs. Mulvaney, you'll kidnap those people or I'll hire a tractor out on your brother's remaining leg!"
"Faith an' begorrah! But Mr. Tallyho, what are you goin' to do with all those people?"
"Put them in the basement, of course! With the kitchen slaves!"
"But we're runnin' out of room in the basement!"
"Oh, come, Beatrice, they'll be mostly children, they won't take up very much space! Now shoo!"
"But Mr. Tallyho, why are ye havin' me kidnap them?"
"Why? Because you're my servant, you silly woman! I can't very well do it!"
"But Mr. Tallyho!"
"Oh, all right, I'll help!"
He began to hustle her out the door. "But why are we doin' this?"
"Well, it would be hard to take over the building that houses the Daily Jitterbug without an army, wouldn't it? Women! You know nothing of war, politics or business! I'm going to send an army of H. Redmond Buckminster's own workers to attack his business, and he may hold up in there and force us to besiege him, but I'm going to have you bring me his bloody severed head on my breakfast platter before the week is out!"
"Faith an' begorrah!"
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Chapter the Next: The Next Chapter
"If you don't quit being so annoying I'm going to go make out with Dar, Captain."
"No you won't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because if you get anywhere near his fucking mouth I'm gonna knock his fuckin teeth in. With YOUR head."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
Since neither of them could remember who had spoken last Lucy and Cam both fell into silence.
“I want some gum.”
“Shut up.”
There were no more zombies to whale on. The Cleaning Lady was a thing of the past. Even his own body, the only thing Cam had left in life that his mama gave him, had said sianara. The only thing in the world now was a sick-ass stink that wouldn't let up. Cam reached for Lucy’s right tit and squeezed it without thinking (it was sorta nice having these things so handy all the time, kinda stress relieving.) He wanted to kill something. But the only thing in the world left to kill was steering the ship behind where Lucy and Cam sat in the bow. God, how he fuckin’ hated that. Dar, Captain, captaining the ship. All the stupid little fuck needed was a stupid little fucking white hat.
As though he’d known Cam and Lucy were thinking of him, Dar, Captain left the helm and approached. A deep gurgling strangled sound came out of them as Lucy groaned and Cam chuckled. Good! Let the fuck head come forth! Maybe he’d say something stupid and Cam could kill him. They didn’t need him anyway. Cam could drive a freakin ship his own damn self.
Lucy and Cam stood up to greet him. “Well, ma’am, I can’t tell what direction we’re headed,” Dar, Captain said. “The compass is busted.”
The compass is busted? Fucking pansy. Lucy and Cam stared at him a moment, then Cam scrambled to their feet. Cam caught Dar, Captain by the arm with no trouble, then heaved him, with only a little more trouble, over the side of the ship.
“I can’t swiiii. . . .” SPLASH! said Dar, Captain.
“Yo fuckin’ ho!” yelled Cam over the side. He slapped Lucy’s tit in self-congratulations.
“Would you knock that off?” Lucy said. “Just because you can grab my boob anytime you want doesn’t make me a ho.”
Cam wouldn’t even honor that with a reply.
“And what’d you do that for, anyway? He was useful.”
“Useful like a saddle on an atom bomb. Guy was a fuckin’ prick, I did us a favor. I can drive the fuckin’ ship myself.”
“Pilot.”
“Huh?”
“You pilot a ship.”
Cam wouldn’t even honor that with a reply. He got behind the big wheel, grabbed the spokes, and spun it so hard it went around in a blur until it jerked against something and stopped. The ship spun around and faced another direction. Heh, this was easy.
"You don't know which way you're going," Lucy pointed out.
"So?" he said. "What, are we gonna miss the fuckin' turn for McDonald's or something?" Not that Cam ever ate McDonald's. Cam never ate anything but jerky and power bars and whiskey. These things were all in short supply these days. He thought Lucy might have something to say about that diet, anyway.
Lucy knew they were supposed to be going to find Virgil, but damned if she knew which the hell way to go.
'Damned if she knew which the hell way to go'? Wow. Cam was rubbing off on her in more ways than one. She couldn't believe it was her hands that were spinning the wheel this way and that as though it weren't connected to a rudder at all, as though her hands weren't connected to a brain at all - let alone two brains. She didn't have any better ideas at the moment, and she was tired of fighting. What did she care what Cam did?
She ignored him as profoundly as possible for the next two and a half hours.
Then the ship hit something.
"What the fuck was that?" Lucy said, clinging to the helm as she and Cam nearly hit the deck.
"Don't know," Cam said, and whipped the helm around - but it stuck on something and would not budge further either way. "What the . . . ?" Cam said.
They ran to the side, not even arguing about whether it was "port" or "starboard", and peered over.
The zombie goo was solidifying. The ship had grounded on . . . well, on the ground. Lucy had thought that the zombie apocalypse was the most horrifying thing she had ever seen. Then that certainty had been supplanted when the zombies had turned into a gooey necromantic sea. This development had made Lucy wish for the simple days of the zombie apocalypse when the undead had been shambling around the earth looking for flesh to consume. Ahh, those were the days. But what Lucy saw now eclipsed both the days of shambling undeath and the zombie sea, for all the zombie matter was congealing. The parts were coming back together. But they were not congealing in any semblance of anything remotely biologically, or even necromantically, possible.
A giant mutated mass of zombie flesh with human-sized arms connected to human-sized legs, humanoid hands protruding from humanoid heads. Eyes everywhere. Mouths everywhere. Teeth sticking out of hairy unidentifiable patches of hairy places. The giant mutant rose to it's hundreds of feet (and hands and heads) on it's five legs (and arms and pelvises). It's four heads rolled limply on it's six necks. It's eight arms flailed like tentacles. As parts continued to join to it's legs, it rose above Lucy and Cam, silhouetted against the cloudy sky.
Zombie Kong.
For the first time Lucy began to understand that the zombie apocalypse was the end of the fucking world. It hadn't seemed real before. Maybe because she'd been in high school, where it seemed like every day the world died a little more. The zombie apocalypse had, in a way, been the obvious conclusion to high school. But this? She could never have foreseen this.
Then multiple zombie eyes spotted Lucy and Cam and a massive, rumbling groan issued from Zombie Kong out of every mouth all over it's body.
"RUUUUUNNNNN!!!!!" Cam screamed.
"No you won't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because if you get anywhere near his fucking mouth I'm gonna knock his fuckin teeth in. With YOUR head."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
"I hate you."
Since neither of them could remember who had spoken last Lucy and Cam both fell into silence.
“I want some gum.”
“Shut up.”
There were no more zombies to whale on. The Cleaning Lady was a thing of the past. Even his own body, the only thing Cam had left in life that his mama gave him, had said sianara. The only thing in the world now was a sick-ass stink that wouldn't let up. Cam reached for Lucy’s right tit and squeezed it without thinking (it was sorta nice having these things so handy all the time, kinda stress relieving.) He wanted to kill something. But the only thing in the world left to kill was steering the ship behind where Lucy and Cam sat in the bow. God, how he fuckin’ hated that. Dar, Captain, captaining the ship. All the stupid little fuck needed was a stupid little fucking white hat.
As though he’d known Cam and Lucy were thinking of him, Dar, Captain left the helm and approached. A deep gurgling strangled sound came out of them as Lucy groaned and Cam chuckled. Good! Let the fuck head come forth! Maybe he’d say something stupid and Cam could kill him. They didn’t need him anyway. Cam could drive a freakin ship his own damn self.
Lucy and Cam stood up to greet him. “Well, ma’am, I can’t tell what direction we’re headed,” Dar, Captain said. “The compass is busted.”
The compass is busted? Fucking pansy. Lucy and Cam stared at him a moment, then Cam scrambled to their feet. Cam caught Dar, Captain by the arm with no trouble, then heaved him, with only a little more trouble, over the side of the ship.
“I can’t swiiii. . . .” SPLASH! said Dar, Captain.
“Yo fuckin’ ho!” yelled Cam over the side. He slapped Lucy’s tit in self-congratulations.
“Would you knock that off?” Lucy said. “Just because you can grab my boob anytime you want doesn’t make me a ho.”
Cam wouldn’t even honor that with a reply.
“And what’d you do that for, anyway? He was useful.”
“Useful like a saddle on an atom bomb. Guy was a fuckin’ prick, I did us a favor. I can drive the fuckin’ ship myself.”
“Pilot.”
“Huh?”
“You pilot a ship.”
Cam wouldn’t even honor that with a reply. He got behind the big wheel, grabbed the spokes, and spun it so hard it went around in a blur until it jerked against something and stopped. The ship spun around and faced another direction. Heh, this was easy.
"You don't know which way you're going," Lucy pointed out.
"So?" he said. "What, are we gonna miss the fuckin' turn for McDonald's or something?" Not that Cam ever ate McDonald's. Cam never ate anything but jerky and power bars and whiskey. These things were all in short supply these days. He thought Lucy might have something to say about that diet, anyway.
Lucy knew they were supposed to be going to find Virgil, but damned if she knew which the hell way to go.
'Damned if she knew which the hell way to go'? Wow. Cam was rubbing off on her in more ways than one. She couldn't believe it was her hands that were spinning the wheel this way and that as though it weren't connected to a rudder at all, as though her hands weren't connected to a brain at all - let alone two brains. She didn't have any better ideas at the moment, and she was tired of fighting. What did she care what Cam did?
She ignored him as profoundly as possible for the next two and a half hours.
Then the ship hit something.
"What the fuck was that?" Lucy said, clinging to the helm as she and Cam nearly hit the deck.
"Don't know," Cam said, and whipped the helm around - but it stuck on something and would not budge further either way. "What the . . . ?" Cam said.
They ran to the side, not even arguing about whether it was "port" or "starboard", and peered over.
The zombie goo was solidifying. The ship had grounded on . . . well, on the ground. Lucy had thought that the zombie apocalypse was the most horrifying thing she had ever seen. Then that certainty had been supplanted when the zombies had turned into a gooey necromantic sea. This development had made Lucy wish for the simple days of the zombie apocalypse when the undead had been shambling around the earth looking for flesh to consume. Ahh, those were the days. But what Lucy saw now eclipsed both the days of shambling undeath and the zombie sea, for all the zombie matter was congealing. The parts were coming back together. But they were not congealing in any semblance of anything remotely biologically, or even necromantically, possible.
A giant mutated mass of zombie flesh with human-sized arms connected to human-sized legs, humanoid hands protruding from humanoid heads. Eyes everywhere. Mouths everywhere. Teeth sticking out of hairy unidentifiable patches of hairy places. The giant mutant rose to it's hundreds of feet (and hands and heads) on it's five legs (and arms and pelvises). It's four heads rolled limply on it's six necks. It's eight arms flailed like tentacles. As parts continued to join to it's legs, it rose above Lucy and Cam, silhouetted against the cloudy sky.
Zombie Kong.
For the first time Lucy began to understand that the zombie apocalypse was the end of the fucking world. It hadn't seemed real before. Maybe because she'd been in high school, where it seemed like every day the world died a little more. The zombie apocalypse had, in a way, been the obvious conclusion to high school. But this? She could never have foreseen this.
Then multiple zombie eyes spotted Lucy and Cam and a massive, rumbling groan issued from Zombie Kong out of every mouth all over it's body.
"RUUUUUNNNNN!!!!!" Cam screamed.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
ZA 28: The Life of Dar, Captain
Dar Sprinkletoes grew up poor and lonely, his easy-to-tease surname a result of a busy day at Ellis island, a forebear with a swollen tongue, a hard-to-pronounce original surname (Prenklehoff), and four generations of American-born Sprinkletoes men with neither the initiative nor the imagination to correct the error. Up until his twenty-ninth birthday, Dar Sprinkletoes seemed bizarrely luckless. Indeed, if chance ever had even the slightest opportunity to interfere in Dar's life it would do so and with resounding and negative results. For example, Dar learned early not to do anything even slightly risky. If he swung at a baseball pitch, he'd somehow thrust his body into the path of the ball. If he tried to jump over a tiny stream, he'd fall in. If he played pin the tail on the donkey, he'd end up pinning the crotch of a hot-tempered uncle. Nothing was safe. As Dar grew, so too did his foul luck. At 18, Dar bought a scratch lottery ticket, won $500, and then was beaten to within an inch of his life and robbed by a gang of thugs. At 20, Dar finally gathered his courage and tried his luck with a lady of the night. He ended up getting the girl, his long-lost sister, pregnant with conjoined siamese twins. None of which ended well.
All of that changed, however, on Dar's 29th birthday. His mother (his only friend), got Dar a cake with a stripper inside. When the stripper emerged, she turned out to be one of the first zombies. After eating Dar's mother in front of him, the stripper zombie turned on him. While she was chewing on his neck, the police arrived and blasted the hell out of the stripper. They then shot Dar's mother who'd been zombified and then each other as each of them exhibited symptoms. Dar was left alone, a bit nibbled, but otherwise fine. He was, apparently, immune to the zombie virus.
Over the ensuing weeks and months, Dar found himself increasingly in the right places at the right times. Though he lacked any skill or talent whatsoever, he always managed to be the last man standing in a zombie brawl. Before long he joined up with a band of zombie killers and due to a number of strange circumstances (and a rather high death rate) he was eventually made their captain.
From then on, if anyone asked his name, Dar would reply simply: Dar, Captain.
On the evening of the great zombie goo flood, Dar happened to be sitting alone in a small sailboat in the middle of Cherry Creek reservoir. The sailboat was the place he went to get away from it all, to think and ponder his strange luck far from the madding hordes. On that particular night, however, he was planning to kill himself. It was just too much. He was done. As he raised the gun to his mouth and prepared to pull the trigger, his boat was hit by a massive wave of zombie spludge. While the wave knocked the gun out of Dar's hand and overboard, it did not capsize the boat. Before long, Dar, Captain was aloft upon the sea, floating wherever the winds carried him.
I'm still lonely, Dar, Captain thought. And at that precise moment, surfacing off the port bow, a beautiful woman emerged from the spludge.
All of that changed, however, on Dar's 29th birthday. His mother (his only friend), got Dar a cake with a stripper inside. When the stripper emerged, she turned out to be one of the first zombies. After eating Dar's mother in front of him, the stripper zombie turned on him. While she was chewing on his neck, the police arrived and blasted the hell out of the stripper. They then shot Dar's mother who'd been zombified and then each other as each of them exhibited symptoms. Dar was left alone, a bit nibbled, but otherwise fine. He was, apparently, immune to the zombie virus.
Over the ensuing weeks and months, Dar found himself increasingly in the right places at the right times. Though he lacked any skill or talent whatsoever, he always managed to be the last man standing in a zombie brawl. Before long he joined up with a band of zombie killers and due to a number of strange circumstances (and a rather high death rate) he was eventually made their captain.
From then on, if anyone asked his name, Dar would reply simply: Dar, Captain.
On the evening of the great zombie goo flood, Dar happened to be sitting alone in a small sailboat in the middle of Cherry Creek reservoir. The sailboat was the place he went to get away from it all, to think and ponder his strange luck far from the madding hordes. On that particular night, however, he was planning to kill himself. It was just too much. He was done. As he raised the gun to his mouth and prepared to pull the trigger, his boat was hit by a massive wave of zombie spludge. While the wave knocked the gun out of Dar's hand and overboard, it did not capsize the boat. Before long, Dar, Captain was aloft upon the sea, floating wherever the winds carried him.
I'm still lonely, Dar, Captain thought. And at that precise moment, surfacing off the port bow, a beautiful woman emerged from the spludge.
Friday, March 6, 2009
ZA 27: Fuck it. 'bout time someone spoke for Selig, since Selig won't speak for himself.
For a moment, watching Virgil struggle with the decision to shake Selig's hand or reject him, inhaling the smell of Meg's butterscotch-and-human-yearning cookies filling the air, hearing the sound of Cam-zombie noisily licking his lips after consuming a wise-ass fellow mutant, and feeling the rush of Lizzie's magic as--unbeknownst to her--it began flowing out of her and into Selig, Selig felt a curious feeling. It came upon him like a long forgotten lover emerging from a mist. What was it? Something he hadn't felt in years, maybe decades... ...aah. The absence of boredom. How quaint. Virgil spoke. The moment passed.
"You're a vile monster, Selig, but you've done a fair job muscling me into a corner. I'd rather be your slave free than your free slave."
Selig was content to let Virgil have his moment. Meg, however, had less tolerance for overly-cute word play. "That makes no sense at all, Virgil. Cookie?"
"I simply meant that I would rather serve Selig with a free mind, than be free to go my own way with a slave's mind. In other words, no. I would not like a cookie."
"Firstly, Virgil," Selig spoke, beginning to feel a bit awkward with his dragon hand extended but, as yet, ungrasped. "Your mind is not free. Your mind is saddled with an infinitude of tacit agreements about the nature of reality, particularly as it pertains to the human sphere. For example, you still believe in such obviously trite fantasies as temporality, individuality, and--though you will no doubt try to deny it--morality. You believe there is such a thing as past and future, despite the overwhelming and undeniable evidence to the contrary. You believe in the 'you' that sits like a hairshirt over your essential essence--constantly forcing your attention, constantly emphasizing and enhancing your suffering. You believe that there is such a thing as good--regardless of whether you call it aesthetics or moralizing. Indeed, you just betrayed as much with your breathless posturing about free slaves and slaves freed. Your judgment could not have been thicker or more sticky were it the world's largest regurgitated hairy gumwad.”
"Umm...Selig..." interrupted Meg. "Not sure if I’m interpreting the psychic field properly, but I think there’s a problem with the zombie pyramid.”
While Selig appreciated the information--confirming it was so with a quick scan of the psychic field--and while he recognized the great courage it took for Meg to interrupt him, he could not afford to look bad in front of his zombie hordes.
"Button up, cookie witch!" Selig shouted, and slashed Meg's throat open with one of his razor claws. Gasping for air and reeling from sudden blood loss, Meg fell to her knees. In a few moments her wretched invulnerability would kick in and she'd begin to regenerate, but for now, at least, she was humbled.
"Now keep quiet or I'll demote you to zombie washer," Selig snapped.
Meg buttoned up. She no doubt remembered the last time she was assigned to wash the zombies. Alas, the cost of power. Selig truly liked Meg. She was a glorious scoundrel with a heart of coal and one hell of a talent for baking. If only Selig could cast off the mantle of his authority, how much happier he might be. If only Virgil would take his hand...
"We have limited time, Virgil. So I must ask you to make your decision. While you may not fully agree with my methods, you cannot impeach my ends. Humanity was lost and sick. The patient, as it were, was dying. Our reckless and relentless pursuit of that which we could never have—true and lasting control over our own destinies—had all but destroyed the world and ensured humanity’s destruction. It was this" (and Selig waved half-heartedly at the zombies and blood-soaked Meg) "or total system failure. Now, I realize you have a thing for making stands and acting noble, so let me be plain. If you take my hand, your dearest wishes will come true. Indeed, in time you will become so powerful that you will not only be able to depose me, but you will also have the power to reset what I have done, to turn back the clock on my cure and return mankind to the brink of disaster you so quaintly refer to as 'The Time Before.'"
"And if I don't?" Virgil asked.
Selig checked the psychic field once more. A veritable ocean of melted zombie hash was at that moment flooding toward them. In moments, the bunker would be underwater...or rather, undergoo. How could this have happened? As Selig asked the question, he knew the answer. This was Lady M's revenge for the monkey. She'd worked a spell of truly breathtaking magnitude. In that moment, Selig stopped regretting his cruelty to Meg. The witch deserved it.
Selig, meanwhile, might need to expedite things a tad.
"Cam zombie will pop open your skull cap and eat your brains out of your head while you're still alive.”
Selig pushed his hand toward Virgil again. Virgil took it. Outside, the last of Lizzie’s magic left her and she dropped from the air with a screech. Simultaneously, Selig pumped all of his magic, all of his power through the handshake into Virgil. Now Virgil would be the zombie king and Selig could go back to doing the things he liked. Reading, rock climbing, and seducing innocent farmgirls (if there were any left in the world). Of course, he still had to find his damn penis. And escape the goo. Oh well. Selig glanced at Virgil, whose whole body was convulsing with the surge of power flowing into him. There were worse things.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
ZA Chapter 26: Hell's Treadmill
As Lucy leaned close to Blanchett Galadriel, relishing the moment of intimacy in the midst of the chaotic destruction in the high-school-turned-zombie den, Cam could not believe his good luck. A high-school full of zombies to kill, AND the best threesome he’d ever been part of in his life? Fuck yeah!
“Fuck yeah!” he yelled aloud as Lucy leaned into the shimmering vision of the ancient before her.
Blanchett Galadriel grimaced and drew back. “Nice," she said.
“Sorry!” Lucy said. Then she whispered, "Shut up, Cam!"
Cam did.
“Now, where were we?” Blanchett Galadriel leaned in again, fluttering her eyelashes -- for a moment Cam stopped. Was that glitter? Heh, stupid ancient.
Lucy leaned in. Blanchett Galadriel leaned in. Cam leaned in. Blanchett Galadriel’s skin glittered like stars and smelled of the summer wind. Lucy took a deep breath. Cam salivated. They all continued leaning in. They leaned very, very close . . . and Cam and Lucy fell on their face.
“What the--?” Cam spluttered. He looked up from the floor where Blanchett Galadriel stood above them, like an otherworldly smug high-school cheerleader, her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist doing that. You flesh-wads are such suckers, you can’t make out with an ancient! We’re incorporeal! Ha, ha, it was pretty funny, though. You can have my shirt, if you like. Once I cast something away from myself it becomes corporeal.”
Cam didn’t know what corporeal meant. Was it like a corporal? But he kept his mouth shut because Blanchett Galadriel was pulling her gossamer shirt up over her head, revealing breasts more pale and glorious than the moon, with tips like pink roses. The shirt, however, got stuck on her elaborate hair and Lucy and Cam had to help her get it off, which was difficult because Blanchett Galadriel was still incorporeal, as was her shirt, so the most Lucy and Cam could do was stand by and give her helpful advice and encouragement – well, Lucy tried to give helpful advice and encouragement, using the small bits of attention she had left over from what Cam spent trying to touch the ancient-yet-youthful incorporeal breasts. Finally the shirt was freed from the ancient incorporeal bobby pins, and Blanchett Galadriel tossed it at Lucy.
The shirt was softer and more transparent than any Lucy had ever owned. “There you are, my chosen one,” Blanchett Galadriel said in her most ancientest and enticing of voices. “This shirt, though it may appear delicate, is made of the strongest material in the universe. Nothing can destroy it. Not fire, not blades, not the strength of lust trying to rip it from your body. It will keep you warm in winter, cool in summer, and yet will satisfy all who desire to look upon your youthful flesh and bounteous breasts. So you will never have to take it off for any reason whatsoever imaginable.”
Neither Lucy nor Cam knew quite what to say to that.
"What if I want to?" Lucy said.
"If you want to, you can take it off. But you can only take it off and put it back on three times. After that it will either dissolve to ether on your skin, or shrink until it breaks all your ribs, collapses your lungs, and compacts your torso into a tiny torso-shaped brick. I'm not sure which. I kinda just grabbed a shirt on my way out so I'm not sure which one this is. You’d better wake up now. The bars of the cage are nearly crushing you both. They have bent in such a way that you will be able to slip through – once I take care of the zombies obstructing your path. Also, you have about one deep breath of oxygen left.”
“How will you—“Lucy began.
WAKE UP!” Blanchett Galadriel snapped her fingers, and Lucy and Cam awoke in the rank, fetid press of the cage, the bars collapsed so much they were practically pinning Lucy and Cam in place. They couldn’t breath. They were sloshing in some chunky kind of sewage dripping from the top of the cage, puddling in the bottom.
“Sick . . .” Cam growled.
“Take a deep breath and close your eyes!” an incorporeal, tinkling voice demanded.
Lucy and Cam obeyed. No sooner had their eyes closed than the dripping liquid overhead turned to a sudden deluge, crashing down as though a dam had burst above them. Lucy’s first reaction was to freak out – but Cam quickly put a stop to that. He remembered what the hot, half-naked elven chick had said. He hardly ever remembered what naked chicks said. The act of talking while naked didn’t really make sense to Cam – if you were naked you were either sleeping, showering, or fucking – why talk? But when a naked chick was talking about zombies, Cam remembered. The bars would be bent open, for them to get through. He felt around for an opening, ignoring the slime and chunks of not-quite-liquefied bone and glop, and found a big gap between the iron bars. Pinching Lucy’s nipple again to bring her back to her senses, he pushed off the bottom of the cage with all the force his sexy-yet-not-too-strong legs could muster. Then they swam. They forced their body upward with all of Lucy’s physical strength.
Cam! I can’t take it! This stuff is—
Don’t think about it, Lucy!
Ew, sick, that was a leg, I think—
I said don’t think about it!
Oh god oh god oh god oh Cam oh I can’t do this oh my fucking god--!
Lucy! Lucy goddamn it, don’t you lose it on me! Just move for the surface!
She did. When it felt like their lungs were about to burst, they finally crested the surface, and took the deepest, slowest, most audible breath of either of their lives.
There was no getting around opening their eyes, though Cam tried to keep them shut as long as possible -- more to spare Lucy whatever sight awaited them than himself. But opening their eyes was the next awful step on Hell's treadmill. That's what this whole goddamn zombie apocalypse was. Hell's treadmill. It might not get you anywhere, and every step was more horrifying than the last, but you had to keep walking because if you didn't, you'd fall off. That meant the zombies won. YOU couldn't win. But you could lose. Fuck, could you ever lose. So Cam let their eyes open.
What Lucy saw stretching in every direction was a vast sea of putrescence. The goo was basically gray, with brown and black and green streaks and patches and THINGS. Slime covered her face and her hair. The sky was a similar shade as the liquid. Fuck the whole world had gone zombie.
"Now I guess we swim, huh?" she said.
"Unless one of your hot ancient aunts can get us wings or a boat or something."
They treaded goo for a moment. When no boats or giant birds appeared to rescue them, they began to swim, Lucy working her arm and leg, Cam working his. For several moments they just splashed about awkwardly, and then Lucy began to direct them.
"Right, left, right, left -"
"Hang on, Barbie." The left side of their body stopped moving.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, what now?"
"I ain't taking marching orders from a chick."
Lucy sighed. She was all but naked in a sea of liquefied zombie without a shore in sight, half her body was possessed by a rocking hot dude with a rock hard bod and a rock for a brain, and she was about to start her period. She'd had enough. "Yes, you are," she said. "So shut up, suck it up, and deal, Rambo. Right! Left! Right! Left!"
Cam would have continued to protest but he was pretty turned on right now. He concentrated his half a brain on getting them to something solid so he could masturbate her to another hellacious rocking orgasm.
They swam for a length of time that is indefinable, because any length of time spent in a sea of liquid zombie is indefinable. (Especially when some of the not-quite-liquid bits kept twitching and trying to bite.) After this time, though, they spotted something up ahead.
"It's a shore," Lucy said, squinting her eye.
"It's a ship," Cam said, squinting his.
Then they argued for the next two miles about whether the solidness up ahead was a shore-like solidness or a ship-like solidness. Lucy's argument consisted of the questions, "What the fuck would a ship be doing on this necromantic sea?" "Where would it have come from?" and "Who would even be on it?" Also, "You are such a dumb piece of shit." Cam's argument consisted of Cam's belief that everything in the world had turned into zombie versions of itself, and they were simply in what had once been the ocean.
It turned out to be a ship. With big white sails.
"Ha, suck it, Barbie," Cam said.
"Suck what?" Lucy taunted.
As they drew nearer, a voice called down from the ship and interrupted their arguing. "Halt!"
"What?" Lucy and Cam yelled back.
"I said, HALT! Declare yourself!"
"I'm --" Lucy started. "-- Awww, fuck," Cam finished. Just his fucking luck. This sack of horse shit was still alive? Hell's treadmill had just gotten a little more pointless. Cam forced their throat into silence. He was not declaring shit.
But wouldn't you know it - the fuck had binoculars. Of course he did. Standard issue Queller of Hell gear. He saw sweet young Lucy through the binoculars and threw down a rope ladder.
Lucy and Cam climbed the rope ladder, arguing about whether Dar, Captain was "kinda cute" or "a big fucking jackass." They swung themselves over the obscurely old-fashioned wooden railing and were immediately buried under a towel and siezed by the shoulders. "It's okay!" Dar, Captain, was yelling. "It's okay, ma'am, everything's going to be okay! You're safe now!"
"Fuck, okay, I get it!" Lucy squirmed. "Get off me!"
"You are safe now!"
"I told you he was a big fucking jackass," Cam said.
Cam grabbed Dar, Captain's wrist through the towel, and through sheer force of pissed-off-ness, held it still. It had to be pissed-off-ness. Lucy wasn't that strong. She had bird arms. While Cam held Dar, Captain at bay, Lucy toweled the chunks of zombie off herself. The shirt from Blanchett Galadriel was pristine, as was Lucy's body beneath it, so Lucy concentrated on her legs, and Cam focused on cleaning her crotch as thoroughly as possible.
"That's uh . . . that's a lovely garment," Dar, Captain said. Lucy and Cam sneered. "Ma'am, how did you come to be--"
"Listen, dude," Lucy said. "I don't feel like reliving my life story for your benefit, okay? It's past and gone and not very interesting."
"Well, I fail to see how such a lovely young woman in such unwelcome circumstances could have a life story that is dull in any--"
"I just need you to take me somewhere."
Whoa. Cam was impressed. He was starting to get turned on again, actually. His lust went a little slack, though, when Dar, Captain spoke. "Anywhere," Dar, Captain said, smiling cheesily. Shit, is this what guys looked like when they thought they were charming? Cam was glad he had never been charming. Dar, Captain said, "At this point my agenda is virtually . . . well, liquefied. So I'm very open."
Cam sighed and rolled his eyes. Dar, Captain's cheesy smile faltered. "Sorry," he said. "So . . . where to, ma'am?"
"Can it with the ma'am crap," Lucy said. "I just swam an indefinable distance in a necromantic sea of undeath. Could you gimme a minute before you go all sparkly-smiles?" She strode to the bow to collect herself. And have a conversation with her other half.
"So, where to?"
"We gotta get a match."
"A match?"
"Or a lighter. A flare. Something."
"Why?"
"Because the whole world's gone zombie, and that sea is bombie, which means gasoline! I'm making a zombie world pyre!"
"You are such a dumb piece of shit. Will you do me a favor and forget destroying the world for now? We have to get to your body."
"No, we have to get to Virgil," Cam said. Virgil probably wasn't a zombie. V had such crappy luck, he was probably the only other living thing in Zombie World.
"What we should really do is get to Selig . . . Hey, didn't Selig say he was going to see Virgil before he left us?"
"Fuck if I know."
"He did! And if Selig is with Virgil, and if your body is with Selig, then Selig, Virgil, and your body are all in the same place!”
“Kinda narrows down our destinations, don’t it?”
“Fuck yeah!” he yelled aloud as Lucy leaned into the shimmering vision of the ancient before her.
Blanchett Galadriel grimaced and drew back. “Nice," she said.
“Sorry!” Lucy said. Then she whispered, "Shut up, Cam!"
Cam did.
“Now, where were we?” Blanchett Galadriel leaned in again, fluttering her eyelashes -- for a moment Cam stopped. Was that glitter? Heh, stupid ancient.
Lucy leaned in. Blanchett Galadriel leaned in. Cam leaned in. Blanchett Galadriel’s skin glittered like stars and smelled of the summer wind. Lucy took a deep breath. Cam salivated. They all continued leaning in. They leaned very, very close . . . and Cam and Lucy fell on their face.
“What the--?” Cam spluttered. He looked up from the floor where Blanchett Galadriel stood above them, like an otherworldly smug high-school cheerleader, her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist doing that. You flesh-wads are such suckers, you can’t make out with an ancient! We’re incorporeal! Ha, ha, it was pretty funny, though. You can have my shirt, if you like. Once I cast something away from myself it becomes corporeal.”
Cam didn’t know what corporeal meant. Was it like a corporal? But he kept his mouth shut because Blanchett Galadriel was pulling her gossamer shirt up over her head, revealing breasts more pale and glorious than the moon, with tips like pink roses. The shirt, however, got stuck on her elaborate hair and Lucy and Cam had to help her get it off, which was difficult because Blanchett Galadriel was still incorporeal, as was her shirt, so the most Lucy and Cam could do was stand by and give her helpful advice and encouragement – well, Lucy tried to give helpful advice and encouragement, using the small bits of attention she had left over from what Cam spent trying to touch the ancient-yet-youthful incorporeal breasts. Finally the shirt was freed from the ancient incorporeal bobby pins, and Blanchett Galadriel tossed it at Lucy.
The shirt was softer and more transparent than any Lucy had ever owned. “There you are, my chosen one,” Blanchett Galadriel said in her most ancientest and enticing of voices. “This shirt, though it may appear delicate, is made of the strongest material in the universe. Nothing can destroy it. Not fire, not blades, not the strength of lust trying to rip it from your body. It will keep you warm in winter, cool in summer, and yet will satisfy all who desire to look upon your youthful flesh and bounteous breasts. So you will never have to take it off for any reason whatsoever imaginable.”
Neither Lucy nor Cam knew quite what to say to that.
"What if I want to?" Lucy said.
"If you want to, you can take it off. But you can only take it off and put it back on three times. After that it will either dissolve to ether on your skin, or shrink until it breaks all your ribs, collapses your lungs, and compacts your torso into a tiny torso-shaped brick. I'm not sure which. I kinda just grabbed a shirt on my way out so I'm not sure which one this is. You’d better wake up now. The bars of the cage are nearly crushing you both. They have bent in such a way that you will be able to slip through – once I take care of the zombies obstructing your path. Also, you have about one deep breath of oxygen left.”
“How will you—“Lucy began.
WAKE UP!” Blanchett Galadriel snapped her fingers, and Lucy and Cam awoke in the rank, fetid press of the cage, the bars collapsed so much they were practically pinning Lucy and Cam in place. They couldn’t breath. They were sloshing in some chunky kind of sewage dripping from the top of the cage, puddling in the bottom.
“Sick . . .” Cam growled.
“Take a deep breath and close your eyes!” an incorporeal, tinkling voice demanded.
Lucy and Cam obeyed. No sooner had their eyes closed than the dripping liquid overhead turned to a sudden deluge, crashing down as though a dam had burst above them. Lucy’s first reaction was to freak out – but Cam quickly put a stop to that. He remembered what the hot, half-naked elven chick had said. He hardly ever remembered what naked chicks said. The act of talking while naked didn’t really make sense to Cam – if you were naked you were either sleeping, showering, or fucking – why talk? But when a naked chick was talking about zombies, Cam remembered. The bars would be bent open, for them to get through. He felt around for an opening, ignoring the slime and chunks of not-quite-liquefied bone and glop, and found a big gap between the iron bars. Pinching Lucy’s nipple again to bring her back to her senses, he pushed off the bottom of the cage with all the force his sexy-yet-not-too-strong legs could muster. Then they swam. They forced their body upward with all of Lucy’s physical strength.
Cam! I can’t take it! This stuff is—
Don’t think about it, Lucy!
Ew, sick, that was a leg, I think—
I said don’t think about it!
Oh god oh god oh god oh Cam oh I can’t do this oh my fucking god--!
Lucy! Lucy goddamn it, don’t you lose it on me! Just move for the surface!
She did. When it felt like their lungs were about to burst, they finally crested the surface, and took the deepest, slowest, most audible breath of either of their lives.
There was no getting around opening their eyes, though Cam tried to keep them shut as long as possible -- more to spare Lucy whatever sight awaited them than himself. But opening their eyes was the next awful step on Hell's treadmill. That's what this whole goddamn zombie apocalypse was. Hell's treadmill. It might not get you anywhere, and every step was more horrifying than the last, but you had to keep walking because if you didn't, you'd fall off. That meant the zombies won. YOU couldn't win. But you could lose. Fuck, could you ever lose. So Cam let their eyes open.
What Lucy saw stretching in every direction was a vast sea of putrescence. The goo was basically gray, with brown and black and green streaks and patches and THINGS. Slime covered her face and her hair. The sky was a similar shade as the liquid. Fuck the whole world had gone zombie.
"Now I guess we swim, huh?" she said.
"Unless one of your hot ancient aunts can get us wings or a boat or something."
They treaded goo for a moment. When no boats or giant birds appeared to rescue them, they began to swim, Lucy working her arm and leg, Cam working his. For several moments they just splashed about awkwardly, and then Lucy began to direct them.
"Right, left, right, left -"
"Hang on, Barbie." The left side of their body stopped moving.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, what now?"
"I ain't taking marching orders from a chick."
Lucy sighed. She was all but naked in a sea of liquefied zombie without a shore in sight, half her body was possessed by a rocking hot dude with a rock hard bod and a rock for a brain, and she was about to start her period. She'd had enough. "Yes, you are," she said. "So shut up, suck it up, and deal, Rambo. Right! Left! Right! Left!"
Cam would have continued to protest but he was pretty turned on right now. He concentrated his half a brain on getting them to something solid so he could masturbate her to another hellacious rocking orgasm.
They swam for a length of time that is indefinable, because any length of time spent in a sea of liquid zombie is indefinable. (Especially when some of the not-quite-liquid bits kept twitching and trying to bite.) After this time, though, they spotted something up ahead.
"It's a shore," Lucy said, squinting her eye.
"It's a ship," Cam said, squinting his.
Then they argued for the next two miles about whether the solidness up ahead was a shore-like solidness or a ship-like solidness. Lucy's argument consisted of the questions, "What the fuck would a ship be doing on this necromantic sea?" "Where would it have come from?" and "Who would even be on it?" Also, "You are such a dumb piece of shit." Cam's argument consisted of Cam's belief that everything in the world had turned into zombie versions of itself, and they were simply in what had once been the ocean.
It turned out to be a ship. With big white sails.
"Ha, suck it, Barbie," Cam said.
"Suck what?" Lucy taunted.
As they drew nearer, a voice called down from the ship and interrupted their arguing. "Halt!"
"What?" Lucy and Cam yelled back.
"I said, HALT! Declare yourself!"
"I'm --" Lucy started. "-- Awww, fuck," Cam finished. Just his fucking luck. This sack of horse shit was still alive? Hell's treadmill had just gotten a little more pointless. Cam forced their throat into silence. He was not declaring shit.
But wouldn't you know it - the fuck had binoculars. Of course he did. Standard issue Queller of Hell gear. He saw sweet young Lucy through the binoculars and threw down a rope ladder.
Lucy and Cam climbed the rope ladder, arguing about whether Dar, Captain was "kinda cute" or "a big fucking jackass." They swung themselves over the obscurely old-fashioned wooden railing and were immediately buried under a towel and siezed by the shoulders. "It's okay!" Dar, Captain, was yelling. "It's okay, ma'am, everything's going to be okay! You're safe now!"
"Fuck, okay, I get it!" Lucy squirmed. "Get off me!"
"You are safe now!"
"I told you he was a big fucking jackass," Cam said.
Cam grabbed Dar, Captain's wrist through the towel, and through sheer force of pissed-off-ness, held it still. It had to be pissed-off-ness. Lucy wasn't that strong. She had bird arms. While Cam held Dar, Captain at bay, Lucy toweled the chunks of zombie off herself. The shirt from Blanchett Galadriel was pristine, as was Lucy's body beneath it, so Lucy concentrated on her legs, and Cam focused on cleaning her crotch as thoroughly as possible.
"That's uh . . . that's a lovely garment," Dar, Captain said. Lucy and Cam sneered. "Ma'am, how did you come to be--"
"Listen, dude," Lucy said. "I don't feel like reliving my life story for your benefit, okay? It's past and gone and not very interesting."
"Well, I fail to see how such a lovely young woman in such unwelcome circumstances could have a life story that is dull in any--"
"I just need you to take me somewhere."
Whoa. Cam was impressed. He was starting to get turned on again, actually. His lust went a little slack, though, when Dar, Captain spoke. "Anywhere," Dar, Captain said, smiling cheesily. Shit, is this what guys looked like when they thought they were charming? Cam was glad he had never been charming. Dar, Captain said, "At this point my agenda is virtually . . . well, liquefied. So I'm very open."
Cam sighed and rolled his eyes. Dar, Captain's cheesy smile faltered. "Sorry," he said. "So . . . where to, ma'am?"
"Can it with the ma'am crap," Lucy said. "I just swam an indefinable distance in a necromantic sea of undeath. Could you gimme a minute before you go all sparkly-smiles?" She strode to the bow to collect herself. And have a conversation with her other half.
"So, where to?"
"We gotta get a match."
"A match?"
"Or a lighter. A flare. Something."
"Why?"
"Because the whole world's gone zombie, and that sea is bombie, which means gasoline! I'm making a zombie world pyre!"
"You are such a dumb piece of shit. Will you do me a favor and forget destroying the world for now? We have to get to your body."
"No, we have to get to Virgil," Cam said. Virgil probably wasn't a zombie. V had such crappy luck, he was probably the only other living thing in Zombie World.
"What we should really do is get to Selig . . . Hey, didn't Selig say he was going to see Virgil before he left us?"
"Fuck if I know."
"He did! And if Selig is with Virgil, and if your body is with Selig, then Selig, Virgil, and your body are all in the same place!”
“Kinda narrows down our destinations, don’t it?”
Monday, March 2, 2009
ZA25: The Trouble with Pyramid Schemes
At the end of the hallway, Cam turned right. Or at least, the left half of him turned right, whereas the right half of Lucy turned left, thus leading Lucy to collide with herself and go sprawling.
"What the fuck?" Cam started to say as Lucy shouted, "fuckin' testicle jockey, learn to drive!"
"Whoa!" Cam said, lifting Lucy's left arm and grabbing her-and-his right boob. "How come I can't move my other arm?"
"It's not your arm, half wit."
"Listen, babe, if you don't start talking nice to me, things are going to get real ugly."
"As opposed to now, when we're somehow stuck in a hallway of my former school--presently a well known den for zombies--with hundreds of bombies exploding behind us threatening to suffocate us with the noxious smoke from their burning corpses since we can't actually move our body away from said smoke since we can't seem to even walk straight since our minds have now each taken control of one hemisphere of our tragically shared body and your first reaction is to grope my fuckin' boob such that I apparently now have three boobs, one being groped, one inexplicably naked, and one living in my head? You're telling me that despite all that I should worry because you're starting to get your fucking feelings hurt?"
Cam pinched Lucy's nipple. Hard. Unfortunately this had an opposite effect from the one desired and the two halves of Lucy spent a moment reeling from the rush. A swirl of pleasure and pain not unlike that experienced by a homophobe sucking a sour candy from the sweet cleavage of a suddenly revealed transsexual.
"Alright, listen, Cammy," Lucy said when the rush subsided. "I know this place, can you just back off the stick and let mama take us outta here?"
"Whatever, just so long as I get to smash some fucking zombie heads, soon. You make me itchy."
With that, Lucy picked herself up and took the left turn she'd been wanting to take, strode down the hall and was about to turn toward an exit when she heard a voice talking from a nearby classroom. Cautiously, she edged to the door and peeked inside, hoping against hope that Selig Retsuc would be in the midst of some shit-faced discourse to his legions.
Instead, Lucy saw a room full of zombies in varying states of decay looking up at a chalkboard. This might not have been so odd if the zombies weren't all identically dressed in perfectly pressed zombie tuxedoes with red bowties, or if the presenter zombie weren't pointing at a drawing of a triangle and saying in a British accent,
"If any of you has just three friends who'd be interested in not only buying some of these exciting products, but selling them as well, you can go into business for yourself, and before long you'll understand my patented Wealth-o-Rama 5000 system." At which point, the presenter zombie winked, smiled, and gave a thumbs up. And then his eyebrow fell off. And then his left ear. And then his jaw.
And then all the zombies in the room began to melt, oozing out of their tuxedoes and turning into zombie goo. The smell was about what you'd expect from liquefied zombie, which is to say it was the kind of smell you'd expect from an over-felched gerbil, left to stew in the anal canal of an unbathed meth junkie who'd died three days ago whilst pawing around a garbage dump looking for a rat to stick up his ass to get out the other rat he'd stuck up there to get to the gerbil.
Happily, the smell was replaced by a waft of roses as a lovely elven creature in a transparent silk blouse strode down the hall to stand beside Lucy.
"Who are you?" Lucy asked, though she had the squidgiest feeling she somehow already knew.
"I'm an ancient. Name's Blanchett Galadriel. I'm here to tell you to wake up."
"Fuck you talking 'bout?" Cam asked.
"None of this is real. You two are still inside your cage. There's a pyramid of zombies rising above you. You've passed out from the fumes and only imagined you somehow managed to fall through a hole in solid ground and land in the gymnasium of Lucy's old school several miles away. Physics, after all, is not so negotiable as you'd like to think."
"So no hole-in-the-floor trick?"
"No. No hole-in-the-floor trick. It was lame."
"It was a hell of a lot more original than a fucking dream sequence."
"I admit, it would be terribly cliche to just pretend that something that supposedly happened didn't happen because you merely dreamed it. That would be cliche and, truth to tell, rude. That's why this is actually a vision. A vision wrought by bombie fumes. How else do you think your otherwise passably dressed person became naked but for a thong?"
"This vision sucks."
"Would you prefer it if we were making out?"
"No," Cam lied, mostly out of spite.
Lucy, however, didn't hesitate. Between the prospect of waking up in a cage at the bottom of a zombie pyramid and making out with a hot elven-looking chick whilst the two of them were mostly naked, Lucy didn't figure there was much of a contest.
"What the fuck?" Cam started to say as Lucy shouted, "fuckin' testicle jockey, learn to drive!"
"Whoa!" Cam said, lifting Lucy's left arm and grabbing her-and-his right boob. "How come I can't move my other arm?"
"It's not your arm, half wit."
"Listen, babe, if you don't start talking nice to me, things are going to get real ugly."
"As opposed to now, when we're somehow stuck in a hallway of my former school--presently a well known den for zombies--with hundreds of bombies exploding behind us threatening to suffocate us with the noxious smoke from their burning corpses since we can't actually move our body away from said smoke since we can't seem to even walk straight since our minds have now each taken control of one hemisphere of our tragically shared body and your first reaction is to grope my fuckin' boob such that I apparently now have three boobs, one being groped, one inexplicably naked, and one living in my head? You're telling me that despite all that I should worry because you're starting to get your fucking feelings hurt?"
Cam pinched Lucy's nipple. Hard. Unfortunately this had an opposite effect from the one desired and the two halves of Lucy spent a moment reeling from the rush. A swirl of pleasure and pain not unlike that experienced by a homophobe sucking a sour candy from the sweet cleavage of a suddenly revealed transsexual.
"Alright, listen, Cammy," Lucy said when the rush subsided. "I know this place, can you just back off the stick and let mama take us outta here?"
"Whatever, just so long as I get to smash some fucking zombie heads, soon. You make me itchy."
With that, Lucy picked herself up and took the left turn she'd been wanting to take, strode down the hall and was about to turn toward an exit when she heard a voice talking from a nearby classroom. Cautiously, she edged to the door and peeked inside, hoping against hope that Selig Retsuc would be in the midst of some shit-faced discourse to his legions.
Instead, Lucy saw a room full of zombies in varying states of decay looking up at a chalkboard. This might not have been so odd if the zombies weren't all identically dressed in perfectly pressed zombie tuxedoes with red bowties, or if the presenter zombie weren't pointing at a drawing of a triangle and saying in a British accent,
"If any of you has just three friends who'd be interested in not only buying some of these exciting products, but selling them as well, you can go into business for yourself, and before long you'll understand my patented Wealth-o-Rama 5000 system." At which point, the presenter zombie winked, smiled, and gave a thumbs up. And then his eyebrow fell off. And then his left ear. And then his jaw.
And then all the zombies in the room began to melt, oozing out of their tuxedoes and turning into zombie goo. The smell was about what you'd expect from liquefied zombie, which is to say it was the kind of smell you'd expect from an over-felched gerbil, left to stew in the anal canal of an unbathed meth junkie who'd died three days ago whilst pawing around a garbage dump looking for a rat to stick up his ass to get out the other rat he'd stuck up there to get to the gerbil.
Happily, the smell was replaced by a waft of roses as a lovely elven creature in a transparent silk blouse strode down the hall to stand beside Lucy.
"Who are you?" Lucy asked, though she had the squidgiest feeling she somehow already knew.
"I'm an ancient. Name's Blanchett Galadriel. I'm here to tell you to wake up."
"Fuck you talking 'bout?" Cam asked.
"None of this is real. You two are still inside your cage. There's a pyramid of zombies rising above you. You've passed out from the fumes and only imagined you somehow managed to fall through a hole in solid ground and land in the gymnasium of Lucy's old school several miles away. Physics, after all, is not so negotiable as you'd like to think."
"So no hole-in-the-floor trick?"
"No. No hole-in-the-floor trick. It was lame."
"It was a hell of a lot more original than a fucking dream sequence."
"I admit, it would be terribly cliche to just pretend that something that supposedly happened didn't happen because you merely dreamed it. That would be cliche and, truth to tell, rude. That's why this is actually a vision. A vision wrought by bombie fumes. How else do you think your otherwise passably dressed person became naked but for a thong?"
"This vision sucks."
"Would you prefer it if we were making out?"
"No," Cam lied, mostly out of spite.
Lucy, however, didn't hesitate. Between the prospect of waking up in a cage at the bottom of a zombie pyramid and making out with a hot elven-looking chick whilst the two of them were mostly naked, Lucy didn't figure there was much of a contest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)