Digger woke up upside down in a cypress tree branch eighty foot in the air. The tiny armadillo tried to turn over, but when he started to move he fell of the branch. The little armadillo bounced off every branch like a ping pong ball on the way down. It was low tide in the swamp, and Digger hammered into the mud with a deafening thud. The impact left a crater three foot deep that began closing up almost as quickly as it was made. The muck closed up around the small mammal. Two minutes later there wasn’t even the slightest hint that an armadillo had been buried in the swampy mud.
It was Digger’s pink nose that first poked out from his muddy tomb. Three of his legs were broken, but through sheer determination the tiny armadillo dug himself out using his one good leg. After he got the last bit of himself out of the earth, Digger collapsed in exhaustion. It was late that evening before Digger began his slow painful crawl back towards Jessup. One tiny leg kept dragging the rest of his body through the swamp. The tiny albino armadillo moved with single-minded determination.
The first time he reached water, Digger tried to swallow air so that he’d float, but the moment he slipped into the water he heard the bubbles coming out from his side. Digger kept trying to swim across, but he slowly sank as the air escaped from the wound in his side. Digger jerked and flailed underwater as liquid filled his lungs. Only when his lungs were full of the brackish swamp water did the armadillo begin to calm down. Digger started sloshing through the mud as fish and other creatures passed over him. What might have been a twenty minute scramble under normal conditions became a two hour ordeal to get back to Jessup.
Alligators slowly moved through the water in search for food. When they got close, Digger buried himself in the mud and tried his best to look like a rock. It was the snakes that really made things almost impossible. He could hide from the alligators, the fish ignored him, but the snakes were a constant danger. They struck him even when he was buried in the water. The small snakes were more irritating than anything. Their fangs couldn’t get through his shell, but they pestered until they got tired or needed air. The big snakes were something else altogether. Their fangs had trouble puncturing the shell, but it wasn’t impossible. The only advantage Digger had was that the snakes fully expected the venom to do the work for them. So they bit and then wrapped around Digger. The poison was useless on the undead armadillo. So when they wrapped around Digger to devour him, it was the armadillo that started eating. He’d bite and chew whatever part of the snake he could reach until either the snake released him, or died.
As if avoiding the swamp creatures wasn’t hard enough, Digger also had to dodge the growing number of undead zombies that were now walking through the swamp. Most of Livingston Parish was infected, and the first thing they did was start searching for victims amongst their friends and neighbors. Unfortunately for them, all their friends and neighbors were infected as well. The zombies searched from block to block. After most of the day spent wandering the streets for uninfected, the zombies went back home to their cars so that they could drive to other populated areas. By then most of their fine motor skills were gone. Some of the zombies got a few blocks, some barely made it down the street, but most of the undead couldn’t even back their cars out of their driveways. So they did what instinct and common sense told them to do. They walked.
As the temperature rose, the people’s decomposition increased, and so did their hunger. They scavenged throughout Livingston Parish on pets, farm animals, and any wild animals, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The zombies kept all their mental faculties even if their motor skills were fading away. In a cool environment they might have maintained a semblance of normalcy for quite a while. As the temperature became hotter and more humid their physical decline was astonishing. Even their speech skills were slowly slipping as they began to lose the ability to form and shape their mouths properly to make the words. In a day or two they’d be lucky if they could do anything more than grunt and groan.
Hunger dictated where the zombies moved. They needed food. Most of them were smart enough to understand that their best chance was to head for the most crowded city. More people equals more food, and they all knew where to find the most people…New Orleans. Most of the zombies started walking down the streets like they were taking an evening stroll, but as hunger took a greater hold on them they began to veer off the streets, and make a more direct path.
As they moved through the brackish swamp water, cypress trees, brush, and muck it became a war of attrition against Mother Nature. Alligators attacked them as they waded deeper into the murky swamp. One Zombie by could be pulled down into the dark water by a large gator, but if there were two or three zombies together…they easily turned the tables on the alligator. Soon the zombies huddled into groups out of a sense of self-preservation, and the lone zombies shambling through the swamp dwindled.
Digger heard voices as he slid himself past the outhouse. “Asshole? Is that you?” Digger tried to get Jessup’s attention, but there was no response. Digger got closer, and then saw him. Jessup was still naked and impaled on the tree, but now a woman in a wedding dress was trying to tear parts of the man off for food. Digger looked over and saw that most of the scraps of body parts from earlier today were being devoured by a large group of zombies.
“Hold him still so I can get his leg.” Jennifer Scott Williams yelled at a flower girl while she pulled. Bone popped, and there was the sound of meat ripping and giving away. Green blood oozed and dripped. Jessup didn’t even move. He was too tired, and too weakened by his impalement.
“Asshole! Wake up!” Digger snapped.
Jessup’s head rolled as, and he slowly blinked, “Digger? Is that you?”
“Who the hell else would it be? What is there another badass armadillo running around? Maybe some ninja squirrels? A vampire chipmunk? Oh wait no…a turtle pirate! Of course it’s me…Dumbass!” Digger grumbled.
“Digger…you gotta help me. They’re eating me.” Jessup’s voice was slurred, and he was weak.
“Who’s he talking to?” Josie the flower girl asked.
“He’s delirious honey. Don’t pay him any attention.” Jennifer answered.
Digger’s legs were broken, he had a hole punctured through his side, and after all the snake bites he was practically oozing venom. The tiny armadillo just didn’t have the ability to put up much of a fight. So when one of the zombies grabbed him by the tail, all Digger could do was curse at the man. “You inbred motherfucker! I’ll use your butthole for my summer home. I’ll kill you, shit in your mouth, and then wipe my ass with your forehead. Just get a little closer you son of a bitch so I can piss in your eyes.”
Unfortunately the only person that could hear him was Jessup. “Jesus Digger...do you kiss your mom with that mouth.”
“Don’t you ever fucking talk about my mother again…do you hear me Asshole? I still have plenty of whoop-ass to go around!” Digger yelled, but everyone other than Jessup only heard grunts and squeals.
The old man holding Digger grinned. His name was Jebediah Rider. He had three teeth in his mouth, and a scar that went in a large misshapen circle on the back of his bald head from when a hand grenade blew shrapnel into the back of his brain. He’d gotten it in Afghanistan saving his squad. An enemy combatant threw the grenade at some of his men. It landed behind them, and Jebediah tackled them to the ground. He shielded them with this body when it exploded. After thirty hours of surgery, he woke up at Rammstein Air Force Base strapped into a gurney. Serving his country left the man with three teeth and a metal plate the size of a bedpan in his head. “Hehehehe! I didn’t even have to chase this one down.
Digger tried to bite Jebediah, and when that didn’t work he peed. Jebediah just held the armadillo away so that he couldn’t hit him with the urine stream. “Oh he’s a feisty one.” Jebediah laughed as he started walking towards the house. “Maybe we get in there and I can find some beans, and spices. Maybe some armadillo gumbo?”
“Fuck you and your gumbo you toothless asshole!” Digger snapped.
Jebediah shook the grunting armadillo and laughed, “No…better yet armadillo chili. Nothing beats armadillo chili.”
Digger started jerking and flailing around. He grunted and squealed as he frantically threw himself from one side to another. Jebediah shook the armadillo, “Settle down!”
Digger screamed, “Chili! Chili! No! Momma! Momma! Put her down! Don’t put her in the pot! Don’t put her in the pot! Noooooooooooooooooooo!” The change was sudden. Diggers fangs extended out like two daggers. He grew larger and heavier. The bones grew back together, and his injuries healed. Fur ruptured out through the skin, and even exploded out through his shell until Digger looked like a giant cotton ball the size of a large dog.
“What the hell?” Jebediah’s voice was filled with shock as the armadillo weighed his arm down. Digger jerked one more time, and slipped out of the man’s hand.
Digger hit the ground on all four legs and immediately leapt onto the man’s chest. Fangs imbedded into Jebediah’s throat to hold him in place while Digger started churning his legs. Claws slashed and cut through the man’s torso. The albino zombie were armadillo shredded Jebediah’s clothes. Flesh tore away like confetti, and before long blood, bones, and muscle was spraying out from the angry quadruped. “I’ll show you chili! First we need the meat!” Digger howled. His claws kept digging through the man until they ripped through the other side of the man.
Jebediah flopped to the ground, and Digger immediately went for the man’s face. He gnawed and chewed until he popped out the back of the man’s head wearing his metal plate like a hat. There was no hesitation in the armadillo’s next move. He turned and ran at the crowd of zombies. Digger launched himself into the crowd, and started gnawing and biting. The armadillo flashed his claws in all directions as he cut the people to shreds. Zombies fell crippled and bleeding on the ground. In a panic they began crawling away. Digger aimed for whatever orifice he could find, and ran at full speed. His triangular face made for a painful wedge as slammed headlong into whatever unwilling hole had the misfortune of being in his sights. The most painless deaths were when Digger hit their mouths, ears, or nose. The worst deaths came when he found their rectum, or for the unfortunate women that quickly learned the truly unpleasant limits of the female anatomy.
Jennifer and Josie watched as the last of their group, Jerry Jones, crawled across the ground as quickly as possible. Digger dripped with blood. Bits of intestine and pancreas were still clinging to his claws, and he was chewing an eyeball when he turned his attention towards Jerry Jones. There were two things people always said when describing Jerry Jones. Everyone said he was impossibly fat. It actually amazed most people to see the man walk. He was so large that people actually thought he looked like an overfull water balloon. The other thing people said was that he had the highest pitched voice in the parish. It was so high pitched that when he was a child kids used to call him “Whistle” because they all joked that only animals could really hear what he had to say.
“I think that’s enough meat, but where am I going to find the beans? Oh…wait…I know.” Digger slammed into Jerry Jones’ anus with brutal determination. Jerry Jones’ pelvis exploded as the armadillo burrowed into the man. Digger kept pushing forward. Jerry Jones diaphragm burst as the armadillo kept shoving his way towards the man’s mouth. Claws slashed and carved up his liver, kidneys, and appendix. Digger kept rampaging his way through the man. Even Jerry Jones’ heart wasn’t anything more than a brief speedbump on Digger’s journey. Ribs expanded and popped as the armadillo found himself nestled into the man’s chest cavity. One last surge forward, and Digger ruptured out through the man’s throat.
Digger squeezed himself out through the hole. Blood and shit clung to the armadillo,“I didn’t find any beans…but I sure did find some corn.” Digger shook like a dog. Blood and fecal matter went everywhere. His white fur was stained red, brown, and green. “So who’s next?” The armadillo turned his attention to Jennifer Scott Carhart-Williams, and Josie the flower girl.
Jennifer backed away and picked up a part of a tree branch, “Keep your…dog away from us.”
“Dog! Have you seen me chase a ball? Have I once dragged my ass across the ground? Have you seen me lick my balls? I’m gonna enjoy killing you!” Digger growled.
“They can’t understand you…why are you even trying to talk to them?” Jessup groaned.
“That’s not the point! I ain’t no dog!” Digger screamed.
“What’s wrong with being a dog? Everybody likes dogs.” Jessup’s voice was fading in and out, and he slurred all his words.
“Dogs are like the super codependent brownnosers of the animal world. You come home they’re happy to see you. You bring them a treat and you’re the greatest person alive. They’d sell their souls for someone to play ball with them. It’s disgusting to see another animal lower itself like that. No self-respect at all. They worship the ground you assholes walk on. They should be hunting in packs and raising all kinds of hell, instead they’re fat-lazy, and sleeping on your beds. Dogs disgust me.” Digger turned his attention back to the woman, and then ran at her. “Oh this is gonna be fun!”
Digger leapt for the woman’s mouth. Of course what he didn’t know was that Jennnifer was a star softball player in high school. So when Digger leapt for her face, she swung for the fences. The angry armadillo saw the tree branch swinging, and in his mind it was as if everything was moving in slow-motion. “I changed my mind! Not gonna be fun! Not gonna be fun at all!” The tree branch blasted Digger across the yard. He slammed into the wall of the house and crumpled to the ground. “Well that…sucked.”
“Come get some!” Jennifer was in a batting stance now. She was ready for the next time the armadillo came at her. Even Josie the flower girl picked up a branch and readied herself for the next attack.
Digger looked at the two of them and then back to Jessup, “Well Asshole? Are you going to just hang around, or are you going to help me?”
Jessup stared bleary eyed at the giant bloody puffball, “What you want me to do? I can’t even get down.”
“Just change!” Digger snapped.
“And how do I do that exactly?” Jessup mumbled.
Jennifer looked up to the man, “Are you actually talking to that…that thing over there?”
“Yes…”
Josie then asked, “Tell him to go away. He’s ugly and he smells like poo!” Then she ran over to Jessup and started hitting him with the branch. “Make him go away!”
“We just talk…he doesn’t actually listen to me.” Jessup tried to explain, but the girl kept hitting him with the tree branch. Each blow irritated the man more and more, but it was the homerun swing to the testicles that finally drove him over the edge.
Bones shifted, he suddenly began regrowing the leg that Jennifer and Josie had pulled off. Fur ruptured the skin. As he grew, his weight started crack the tree branch he was impaled on. When he completely changed he was too heavy, and the branch broke off. Unfortunately, he still didn’t have control of his body because the branch was puncturing the spine. So he hit the ground, and then the branch’s pointy end stuck in the dirt so that it propped him up. He howled and growled, but he couldn’t move any part of his body.
“Asshole? Asshole? Jessup the Asshole! A little help would be appreciated.” The armadillo screamed into the werewolf’s mind.
Jessup barked and howled some more. Jennifer and Josie watched as the werewolf and the weremadillo seemed to be communicating back and forth. Jennifer couldn’t understand either of them, but she knew whatever they were saying couldn’t be good for her so she began to back away. “Josie sweetie…we need to get out of here.”
Josie shrugged, “But the werewolf is a big stupid-head that can’t move, and we can keep beating the ugly stinky one away.” As if to prove her point, Josie used the stick to poke out Jessup’s eye. Clear fluid oozed down the stick as the eye burst. As soon as she pulled the stick away Jessup’s eye began to repair itself.
Digger ran right for Josie. She screamed and prepared to hit him with her branch. At the last moment the armadillo changed directions, and dove right for Jessup’s head. The impact lifted him up off the ground, and pulled the branch out of the dirt. Digger’s claws worked like mad to pull the branch out, and by the time they landed on the ground Jessup had a hole going cleanly through the werewolf that was closing rapidly.
Jessup stood up. Now it was Jessup and Digger versus Jennifer and Josie. The flower girl had just enough time to turn around to Jennifer and say, “I wanna go home.” Then Jessup clapped both palms together where her head had been. It sounded like thunder. Jennifer had been staring into the girl’s eyes right before her entire head just simply ceased to be. Instead there was just a headless body falling to the ground. Blood and brain matter oozed through Jessup’s clawed hands. Bits of skull punctured his skin, but as he began to open his hands the bone chips were pushed out as he healed.
Jennifer wasn’t going to go without a fight. She raised the tree branch and threatened her two attackers. She watched in horror as the werewolf gave a series of barks and howls, and then the armadillo responded with grunts and squeals. They were planning. She panicked and started running away. Jennifer pumped her legs as fast as they would take her. Meanwhile Digger tucked his legs up and tried to make himself as straight as possible. Jessup picked him up. At diggers current size it looked like the werewolf was holding a large furry football. Jessup took careful aim, and then reared back to throw.
Jennifer had almost made it to the tree line when Digger slammed into her back at almost two hundred miles an hour in a perfect spiral. The combination of his velocity, weight, and the denseness of his leathery shell made the outcome sudden and violent. Her entire torso exploded from the impact. Chunks of her went everywhere. The only things spared were her arms, legs, and head. Digger kept going and only stopped after he struck a tree. The tree broke at the impact point and toppled over. Then the armadillo rolled over to his feet and started trotting back. He was a little wobbly at first from spinning through the air, but he eventually found his balance again. Jessup walked over and scooped up Jennifer’s head. He swallowed it in one bite, and then went back to eat some of Digger’s leftovers.
A few hours later both man and armadillo had changed back to their normal selves. Jessup had no trace of injuries. He didn’t even have a scratch. “I’m surprised you came back for me.” He said.
“Let’s get this straight. I don’t like you…and even though I’m completely amazing in every way I’m willing to accept that you probably don’t like me either. Now pay attention Jessup the Asshole. As much as I hate you…you are the only asshole in this never ending land of assholes that can understand me. That means you can get me back home to Texas so that I can get revenge.” Digger snapped.
“Texas…I’m not going to Texas.” Jessup responded.
“Oh you’re going to Texas, or prepare for me to make my home in your ass until you decide to change your mind. How long do you want to spend with me up your butt? I’m thinking you’ll give in about the time my nose starts puckering that backdoor petunia. What do you think?”
Jessup looked at the carnage left by the little armadillo. Bodies ripped in half as he burrowed his way inside, some of them just exploded from being unable to contain him. Jessup thought about what the angry little armadillo might do to him, and then he shuddered. “Alright…Jesus. I’ll take you to Texas. We just have to get to my truck, and I need some clothes.”
“Yes…a truck would be good, but before we go to this place called Texas. We need to find that asshole that kicked me. I want to wear his balls for a necklace.”
Jessup shook his head, “You mean the guy that nearly killed both of us. You want to go find him? Fuck you!”
“I’m thinking it’ll be a different story now that you and I can change. Besides, I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the habit of letting anyone push me around. So you’re going to help me find him. Then it’s gonna be judgement day for that asshole. Then…and only then…you and me are going to head to Texas so I can get revenge.” Digger said.
“Find some random guy so you can get revenge, and then drive to Texas for more revenge. That’s a lot of revenge. How are we going to even find that guy anyway?” Jessup asked.
“I’m little, but I got big vengeance.” Digger snapped. “Finding that one asshole should be easy. You laughed and he impaled you to a tree. I think it’s a safe bet he’s gonna leave a trail that’s pretty easy to follow. I’m going to make it simple. You can get your ass kicked by him once and maybe die, or I can crawl up in your ass and make you wish you were dead.”
Jessup shrugged, “Not much to think about when you put it that way. Come on…we need to head to my house. So I can get some clothes. I’m not running around butt-naked just so you can kick somebody’s ass.”
Danior stepped out of the bus in the Central City district of New Orleans. He’d ordered Johanna to drive to the worst part of New Orleans. He found it strange that the woman didn’t even have to think about it. Her first thought, and only thought really, was the Central City district. It didn’t seem that bad to him. Sure many of the houses were so close together that one person could reach out and touch both buildings, but Danior’s home growing up had been little more than a wagon pulled by his father’s ox. To Danior these homes were like palaces.
He walked across the street and knocked on the front door. An elderly black woman opened, “I’m sorry, but whatever you’re trying to sell…I’m not buying.” Danior didn’t speak as he evaluated the woman. She was too old to use as one of his soldiers. She might have knowledge of the city, but he could get information from others as he converted them. Really the only value she had to him was the home, and he’d just picked it at random. Danior’s silence unnerved the old woman, and she started to close the door. “Well have a nice d-“
Danior reached up and twisted her head completely around. It was one fluid motion, and lighting quick. There was audible pop as the woman’s vertebrae snapped. She fell to the ground twitching. Danior stepped over her and said, “Bring her in.”
Johanna nodded and pulled the old woman inside. Lula Mae helped with her legs. The others slowly made their way into the house. In the back of the house Danior found an old man connected to an oxygen tank. He gasped and wheezed with every breath. When his eyes met Danior’s, the old man’s face grew terrified, “Where’s Cathy? Where’s my wife?”
Danior looked around the room. The man was sickly….maybe even dying. He lay in an adjustable bed with an end table covered in pill bottles. Danior could smell the sickness rising off the man. It was clear by how clean this room was compared to the rest of the house that his wife had devoted herself to taking care of the man. Danior grinned as he saw a photo just above the bed. It was a young couple. A handsome black man with broad shoulders and a well-trimmed mustache holding a beautiful black woman in front of an old cypress tree surrounded by what Danior could only assume were friends and family. They made a handsome couple. The pack leader walked closer, ignoring the man and his pleading to know what happened to his wife. There was writing on the picture at the bottom:
Mr. and Mrs. Earvin and Cathy Cole
Married January 1st, 1958
Forever
“Please! What did you do with my wi-“ Earvin’s voice was silenced forever as Danior swung one of the heavy oxygen bottles like a club. Earvin’s face was crushed with the first blow. He grabbed at the air blindly as Danior prepared to hit him again. It took three swings, but Earvin finally stopped moving. The man had more life in him than Danior had expected. Danior pulled the oxygen bottle away and tossed it in the corner. Johanna and Lula Mae came in and waited for orders.
Danior looked at Johanna, “Clean this mess up.” Johanna nodded and began looking for cleaning supplies. Danior then looked at Lula Mae and handed her the money they took from the McDonald’s, “Bring me children.”
“Why?” Lula Mae asked.
Danior’s face twisted into a mask of rage. He didn’t like being questioned. He gave one hard kick. It hit her square in the chest and sent her back into the crowded living room. She hit the others and they all fell into a pile. “Never question me again!” Danior bellowed.
“Y-y-yes master.” Lula Mae trembled. Green blood ran down the side of her mouth. “I-I-I’m sorry.”
Danior sighed as he let the rage fade away. He knew he could just force his will onto them all every minute, but it made him feel too much like his father for his own comfort, and it took a lot out of him to control their every movement. Instead he settled for compromise, at least that’s how he viewed it. He’d only use his power to compel them when they refused, or when he just felt the need. He looked down at the terrified girl, “Go get me children, and take one of them with you.”
“Y-yes master.” Lula Mae scrambled out the door. Danior walked to the doorway and saw her talking to the young man Damien Judas Bergloglio. “The m-m-master says we have to go find some kids.”
“Why.” The wheelchair bound young man said mechanically through his speakers.
“I don’t know, but don’t ask him. He might hurt you.” Lula Mae said nervously.
Damon Bergloglio’s face twitched. It was the most the man had moved since Danior had first seen him. It wasn’t an expression, or anything really. It was like his whole face just had one giant spasm. “Fine. We will go.” Damien blew through a tube and the wheelchair turned and started rolling down the road.
Lula Mae skipped around him singing, “Damien and Lula sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love then comes marriage then comes Damien with the-“
“Do not even go there jailbait.” Damien responded.
“Don’t you like me?” The nine year old asked.
“Sure, but I am not even going to go there. Maybe in eight to ten years when I do not have to worry about Chris Hansen showing up to offer me cookies and lemonade. Besides, I left my long coat and white panel van at home.” Damien answered.
“I’m much more mature than I look. Do you think when we’re married you we can have a big family?” Lula Mae questioned.
“Corvette, gopher, bad, airplane, orange, Kelly Clarkson.” Damien was already frustrated by the girl’s persistence, and now he couldn’t even focus on the screen to pick the correct words to answer her.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lula Mae said. “You know if you’re going to be my husband and take care of me then you’re going to have to start to make sense. Dr. Phil says that it’s important to talk about potential problems while we’re in smooth water. He said not to wait until we’re in a crisis to come up with a crisis plan.”
“Doctor Phil. Why are you watching Doctor Phil.” Damien asked as he began to calm down.
“I don’t, but Mamma did. She loved Dr. Phil, but she’s gone now. So I’m the woman of the house, and a woman needs a big strong man to take care of her.” Lula Mae grinned innocently. “So when we’re married…do you want a big wedding or a little wedding? I want a big wedding with lots of ribbons and bows.”
“You are not really listening to anything I am saying at all are you.” Damien questioned.
Lula Mae came to a stop in front of Damien and asked, “Do you think that Master will walk me down the aisle? Papa was supposed to, but he’s dead now.”
“Jailbait, do not make me taze you.” Damien said as his pronged tazer extended out in warning.
Lula Mae started skipping around Damien again, “Damien and Lula sitting in a tree K-I-S-S”
*ZAP*
“Ouch! That really hurt.” Lula Mae cried as she picked herself up off the ground. There was a large hole in her leg where the tazer’s silver hit her. She hopped to the side of Damien and kissed him on the cheek, “It’s okay though. Mamma says we always hurt the ones we love.” Then she started skipping down the street singing again, “Damien and Lula sitting in a tree…”
“Beans, pterodactyl, frankfurter, motorcycle, George Bush, underwear, monkeys.” Damien was so angry that he kept trying to drive hit the girl with his tazer again, but she was smart enough to keep dodging the silver prong. She only infuriated him even more when she kept outmaneuvering him to give the young man kisses on the cheek.
Danior shook his head and turned back to the other handicapped teens in the room. They were all going to be useful for his cause. Tonight they’d go hunting. For Danior’s plan to work they needed many more people, and he was going to use the unseen to do it. Nobody really paid attention to the handicapped. Sure they watched them walk, or in some cases roll by. People only took a passing interest in the handicapped. They only watched closely enough to avoid any real contact, and if they did meet then most people tried to find a way to get out of the conversation as politely and quickly as possible. Most people saw braces, or a wheelchair, but they didn’t actually see the person in the braces and wheelchair. If you don’t really see them, then you don’t really see what they’re doing either. That meant he could use them to walk right up into museums and other places. Then when they started changing, hardly anyone would really notice. They might even just assume it was part of their disability.
The children were going to be just as useful. When Lula Mae brought the kids back, then Danior could change them all. The kids could get to their parents. Parents could get their friends and family. It would spread like wildfire. That’s why he wanted the worst part of town. The chaos would be covered up by the people just assuming it was simply another day in the Central City district of New Orleans.
Danior left them all to clean. He went back into Earvin and Cathy’s bedroom. There was a recliner in the corner that the old woman must have used to rest in while watching her husband. Danior flopped down into it and found the softness very comforting. For most of his life he’d been confined to a cell without anything but a cement floor to sleep on. So whenever he sat down in a chair he thought of it as a real treat. Danior leaned into the soft cushions, and then screamed when the chair reclined.
Johanna ran into the room, “Master? Are you okay.”
He hadn’t expected the chair to do that, and now that he realized nothing was wrong he felt incredibly silly. He looked at the woman and said sheepishly, “I’m still learning. Some of your things…I’m not prepared for.”
Johanna walked closer, “Is there anything I can help with?”
Danior thought about it and then said, “Go sit over there.” Johanna walked over and sat against the wall. She was nervous. The man across from her had a hair-trigger temper, and almost no patience whatsoever. He sat up in the chair and fixed his eyes on her. “Tell me everything you know about this world.”
“Everything?” Johanna asked.
Danior realized the massive task he had set before her, and then clarified, “The technology. Tell me everything you know about technology, and modern conveniences. Tell me about chairs like the one I’m sitting in, tell me about the little rectangles I keep seeing people talking to, music, politics, anything and everything that you think might be useful for me to know.”
“I’ll explain what I can. The little rectangles? Do you mean like this?” Johanna pulled her cellphone out of her pocket. Danior took one look at it and nodded. “It’s a phone. I use it to call people like a regular phone. It also checks my e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and…” It was clear by Danior’s expression that he didn’t understand anything about e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, or really anything. Johanna sighed and realized that she was in for a very long and tedious conversation.
Danior listened to the woman, but as she talked he was focusing his attention on the new pack members being made at the McDonald’s. He stretched his consciousness out to find all the newly minted pack. Everyone that ordered since they left had become infected. He started calling to them. No matter where they were at that point, they dropped everything and started heading towards their master. Cars driving down the highway just slammed on their brakes and skidded into the first off ramp that let them turn back towards New Orleans. People in offices dropped their work and walked out.
***
Emiline Watson was washing her baby when she felt the call. It terrified her when her body just turned away from the sink and her son Connor. Emiline tried to pick the infant up out of the water, but her body was already turning for the door. She even strained in an effort to shut off the water, but her arms refused to reach out. Instead she walked towards the front door. Her whole body a picture of calm, but inside she was screaming as she heard her baby’s cries swallowed up by the rising water.
***
Paulie LeBeau was trying to load a car into his crusher at the junkyard when he got the call. He was driving the forklift with a car loaded when he just stepped off and walked away. Unfortunately for his partner Terri, the forklift kept going. Normally she helped the man line up the forklift before stepping out of the way. Paulie didn’t drive so well after his stroke, but with her help he could still do his job. It would have gone even faster if she just crushed the cars herself, but Paulie owned the junkyard, and his favorite part was crushing the cars so he wasn’t about to give it up.
“Okay stop…stop…STOP…PAULIE STOP!” Terri screamed as the forklift kept coming. The woman’s leathery skin stretched into a mask of terror as she realized the forklift wasn’t going to stop. If she’d have had time to think about it, Terri might have just ducked under the car and ran around the forklift. What she did instead was back all the way into the crusher. The forklift kept coming. It was about to squish her against the back plate when she dropped flat to her stomach. The forklift smashed against the crusher. The car was just inches over Terri. She could see out from under the car, but she didn’t have nearly enough room to crawl out. The forklift’s wheels kept turning as it kept trying to drive through the crusher. The crusher didn’t move, but it the initial impact shook the loose wiring that controlled the hydraulics. The wires hit one another and sparked, and the hydraulic press began descending. “PAULIE! PAULIE HELP! SOMEONE! ANYONE PLEASE!” Terri screamed as the hydraulic lowered onto the car and began pressing it down. The forklift prongs were forced down as the press increased pressure. Metal squealed, and the forklift’s rear wheels lifted up under the pressure. The tip of the prongs pressed to the bottom of the crusher. The steel prongs came to a stop at a slant.
Terri heard the metal above her screaming as it deformed under the press. She stuck her hand out through the tiny crack of space in hopes that someone might see her. “HELP ME PLEASE!” She screamed and cried as the press kept crushing the car above her. Eventually the car started to press through between the prongs. She slid herself as close to the front of the crusher as she could. She tried to press herself through the tiny crack of space.
The hydraulic press on the crusher kept lowering. The steel prongs on the forklift began to give. Terri felt it begin to press down onto her. The steel car lowered down on her outstretched arm. She felt the pressure, and tried to pull her arm back, but it was already pinned between the steel of the car and the cement of the ground. The car kept pressing down, and Terri screamed, “Someone…anyone…PLEASE!”
“Hello?” A voice answered
“Oh thank God…please turn off the machine. I’m about to be crushed alive.” Terri pleaded as the car was starting to crush down onto her body.
“Well we wouldn’t want that.” The man’s voice was strangely chipper, and as much as the woman wanted to yell at him about it…she wanted to survive even more.
“There’s a button on the side of the crusher that retracts the hydraulics.”
“This red one?” The man asked.
“YES!” Terri screamed as the oil pan started to push against her back.
“Found it!” The man said in a sing-song type of voice. Suddenly the crusher stopped pressing down onto the car and started retracting.
“Oh thank you! Thank you! I thought I was a goner. Now can you go to the forklift and raise the car up so I can crawl out?” Terri begged.
“Okee Dokee! Say…what’s your name?” The man asked. Terri peered up through the crack between the car and the cement. She could see black leather dress shoes moving briskly across the ground. It looked like the man was wearing some type of robe, but she couldn’t tell.
“Terri…Terri Hancock.”
The man hopped into the forklift. “Nice to meet you on this fine day, my name is Lankester Merrin, but most people just call me Bubby. So have you worked here long?”
“Listen…I don’t want to be rude, but can we get me out of here first?”
The forklift’s prongs groaned as Bubby tried to move the forklift back. They prongs were lower than the cement and already bent a little from the crusher so they caught on the cement and kept the forklift from moving, “Well certainly. Now just give me a moment to figure out how to get the darn thing to go up. It’s been years since I drove one of these.”
Terri sighed in relief, “Oh thank God. I was worried I’d get accidently crushed trying to explain the controls.”
Lankester laughed as he raised the car just enough for her to start crawling out. “Oh I don’t think that you need to worry about any accidents. I mean sure it’s been awhile, but I drove one of these in a warehouse while I was paying my way through seminary. I’m pretty sure I remember how to do it.”
“You’re a pastor? What’s a pastor doing in a junkyard?” Terri asked.
“Believe it or not, I was hungry.” Bubby answered.
“You’re hungry so you came to a junkyard?”
Bubby laughed, “My car broke down on the way, but everything still worked out. I guess you could say God works in mysterious ways.”
“Damn right…well, if you get me out of here I promise to take you out and get you the biggest steak on the menu. I still can’t believe Paulie just left like that.” Terri laughed with relief as she started crawling out from under the car.
“Oh I don’t think I’ll need to go to any fancy steakhouse. I’m sure I can find something to eat right here.” Bubby laughed, then he seemed to take on a more pastoral tone, “I’m sure he had his reasons.” Bubby said. “We should always try to forgive our enemies, and those that do us wrong like Jesus said.”
Terri rolled her eyes, “Yeah...I’m sure I’ll forgive him later, but at least let me be angry at him right now.” She was almost out of the crusher. Everything from the waist up was out, and she just needed to slide the rest of the way so that she’d be free. That’s when Bubby started lowering the car again. “Hey! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Nobody appreciates potty mouth.” Bubby said sternly.
The car came down, and crushed her hips and legs. Terri was pinned. The added pressure pushed blood up and out of her nose and mouth like she was a toothpaste tube. “Get this fucking thing off me!”
Bubby slipped back out of the forklift, “But why would I do that now that I’ve got you right where I want you?” He walked over to the woman and stared down. She had leathery skin, hair dyed blonde to hide how gray it is. She vomited blood and moaned. Her pelvis and legs were crushed under the cars weight. The pastor knelt down. Terri grabbed weakly at his vestments. She tried to beg for her life, but blood just sputtered out. Bubby grabbed her hair and pulled it back to lift her upper half as far off the cement as possible. Then he stood up, put his shiny leather shoe on the back of her neck, and jumped into the air so that when he came down all his weight would be driven into the back of her neck. There was a heavy crunch as her front teeth, nose, and cheekbones slammed into the pavement. Blood poured out of her face and began forming a puddle as Bubby lifted her head up to do it again. Another sickening crunch echoed through the junkyard as both orbital bones of her eyes shattered. Blood splattered in all directions as her face splashed into the puddle. Her arms flailed weakly as Bubby raised her up for a third time. This time it was just a meaty thump. There weren’t any bones really left to break in her face. Bubby began stomping on the woman’s neck until the spine finally snapped. Then he reached down and tore the head off.
Bubby walked back into the main office of the junkyard and set the head down on the table. He pulled up a chair. “Thank you Lord for this meal I’m about to receive.” He then turned the head over so that the eyes were facing up and the crown of the head faced back to the pastor. Bubby jammed his index and middle finger into Terri’s eyes. Both eyes ruptured, and a clear liquid ran out as his fingers dug deeper. The clear liquid was replaced by blood as curled his fingers back towards the inside of Terri’s skull. Then he gave one sudden yank. The bones from the shattered eye sockets and forehead tore away. He kept pulling. The flesh ripped and split as the top of the skull peeled back like a hardboiled egg.
“Aww…that’s it? I didn’t know I was getting the cheap knockoff diet version.” Bubby grumbled as he pulled out the much smaller than expected brain. Instead of a healthy brain, Bubby was holding a sickly shriveled brain pitted and destroyed by years of drug abuse. “This thing is hardly worth eating.” Then he sighed, “Still be thankful for what the good Lord gives us…I guess.” The pastor started eating, and then looked up at the sky, “Next time…maybe someone with a nice juicy brain? This one is kind of stringy, and puny.”
***
In the next few hours they all came. First Lula Mae and Damien brought the children. Danior was careful with how he infected each of them. A quick scratch with a claw was enough to spread the infection without startling the kids. Then he sent them out to find their parents. As it became evening, the infected from the McDonalds started arriving in cars. He gave them different tasks. The attractive men and women were supposed to lure people somewhere to spread their infection. The less attractive men were to find prostitutes, or go find people alone and defenseless. Anyone that had family nearby was expected to go to them first for the infection. The unattractive or otherwise undesirable zombie werewolves were to stick to the dark alleys and prey on the weak. The rule was simple. Everyone was required to infect at least two humans for every one they killed and ate. Jimbo arrived just as the sun was setting. His leg wound was finally healed.
“What do you want me to do?” Jimbo asked.
“Stay to the shadows. Don’t draw attention to yourself, but bring me more people.” Danior commanded.
Jimbo nodded and wandered out the front door.
Leon stared at the front of the destroyed Livingston Parish police station. “You just know somewhere out there some news agency is gonna blame this all on us when they find out?” The pudgy, balding Secret Service agent asked in frustration as he snapped pictures with his camera phone for the main office. He was one day from retirement, and the last thing he wanted was to have twenty-five years of hard work flushed down the toilet because someone needed a scapegoat.
“Fuck them!” Dave answered. “This isn’t on us. This is on the locals who were probably too busy kissing their sisters to stop whatever happened.”
The two Secret Service agents just stood there staring at the burnt out skeleton of the fire engine, and then the destroyed building, and then the fire engine again. The two men were a study in contrasts. Leon was an older, chubbier, balding man readying for retirement. He was looking forward to spending the rest of his life growing old with his wife of seventeen years. Dave was still a new agent for the Secret Service. When asked about why he left Detroit S.W.A.T. to join the Secret Service, Dave usually said he was tired of chasing gangbangers from one crack house to another. The truth was a lot closer to the fact that his overly literal interpretation of duties, and his extremely bureaucratic approach coupled with his verbally abusive tone towards anyone who wasn’t his superior finally rubbed his peers the wrong way to the point they were starting to fantasize about “accidently” discharging their firearms into the back of Dave’s skull.
Dave’s lieutenant had to eventually put the man on desk duty when the rest of his S.W.A.T. team started to let him go into the houses alone. Dave realized he’d never move up the command chain sitting on a desk so he worked hard to build his resume by working cold cases in his free time. He even went back to college. Unlike Leon, Dave was muscular, fit, with perfectly quaffed hair, and no gravy stains hidden by his tie. Dave was almost insanely driven. He had a five-year plan, a ten-year plan, a twenty-year plan, and if you asked him what he was going to be doing June 22nd eight years from now…he wouldn’t be joking when he said he needed to consult his calendar. His supervisors loved the always prompt, always professional Dave. His coworkers weren’t so glowing in their opinions. They nicknamed him “Weaselly Wesker”, and there were some of the people in the department that didn’t even know his real name was Dave Wesker, they just called him “The Weasel”. After two years the only man willing to work with Dave was the soon to be retiring Leon, and he was only willing to do it if Dave handled the paperwork.
Both men walked inside. “Hello?” Leon asked nervously. “Jesus…what do you think happened here?”
“Our report is that a Coonass Mullins made a threat against the president and then suggested he’d like the president’s wife to perform oral sex on him.” Dave answered almost mechanically.
“I read the report Dave…they were talking about an infection or something prior to that. Something that made people aggressive and dangerous…I thought maybe it was just some sort of prank, but now…”
Dave stepped over a partially eaten arm, “I don’t see what any of that has to do with why we’re here. A man threatened the president. Our job is to investigate the threat, and report back to our superiors.”
Leon rolled his eyes, “Man…you are dense sometime. Don’t you think the guy might have just said that stuff so that we’d have to come out and investigate?”
“It doesn’t matter why he did it. What matters is that he threatened the president of the United States. It is our duty to find this Coonass Mullins and make sure he doesn’t pose any actual threat to our president.” Dave moved through the jail. They checked all the dead bodies. After exploring the jail the men went back out to their car. “Well…nothing to see here.”
“Nothing to see? So all those half-eaten bodies back there are what…decoration?” Leon snapped. Dave ignored the man and slipped into the car. Leon grumbled about the man’s stupidity and stomped his way over to passenger side of the vehicle. He flopped into the passenger seat, “So explain to me how in the hell there isn’t anything to see here.”
“We weren’t sent to investigate dead bodies. We were sent to investigate the threats made by Coonass Mullins. These dead bodies are the jurisdiction of the local authorities.” Dave said matter-of-factly.
“So the possibility that they made the threat because the CDC operator was an insufferable dick that wouldn’t pull his head out of his ass long enough to get the Louisiana National Guard out here to help like the sheriff doesn’t matter at all to you huh?” Leon asked.
“What another agency chooses to do or not do is not our business. We have our own job to do.” Dave answered as he turned on the radio.
“This is KLFB radio. Louisiana’s most trusted channel for news and weather. It’s 6:28 p.m. and I’m Ray Chartreuse for Where Y’at Louisiana. Bringing all the news and weather for Louisianians by Louisianians. Here’s today’s news. LSU campus has been put on lockdown as Baton Rouge police have been in a firefight with an unnamed terrorist organization. Unconfirmed reports have casualties at approximately two thousand students. Police Chief Earl Manley was quoted earlier today as saying that the suspects are an unknown domestic terrorist cell. Later today there were several reports and video from local news showing Chief Earl Manley shooting a six year old boy before turning the gun on the cameraman and reporter. Witnesses say Chief Manley then began eating the cameraman’s brain. Since then the Baton Rouge police department has been unable to comment.” Ray Chartreuse’s voice was calm and soothing considering the current topic. The radio host then began discussing the local weather.
Leon turned off the radio, “Jesus…what’s this world coming to? Maybe we should head to Baton Rouge. This can’t just be a coincidence.”
“I don’t see any connection.”
“Really…really…REALLY?” Leon said incredulously. “The sheriff of this Parish calls in saying the people are going crazy, and it’s spreading. Baton Rouge has people going crazy. You don’t see a connection?”
Dave muttered under his breath and then said, “Of course I see a connection between the sheriff and Baton Rouge. What I don’t see is a connection between that and our case. If they are crazy locals then they are a problem for the FBI and the local police. If they are foreign terrorists pretending to be crazy locals then that’s a problem for the NSA and the CIA. None of that is our problem. So unless these crazy backwoods fucks start threatening the president like Coonass Mullins, or unless they start counterfeiting money, then it really isn’t our problem. Jesus…you’re four hours from retirement and you still haven’t figured out what your job actually is? The problems of a bunch of inbreeders killing one another when they aren’t fucking sheep really doesn’t concern us…JESUS!”
Leon glared at the man, “No wonder nobody wants to work with you. They could probably use our help, and you’re talking about whether we have jurisdiction, and another thing…”
Dave just kept driving. He’d learned to ignore the man’s rants. It kept him from punching the man in the mouth. He would have filed a complaint, but after the fifth complaint he filed on a coworker the head department informed him that all future complaints would result in negative reviews on his annual evaluations. It didn’t seem fair to Dave, but he didn’t really have a lot of options.
“You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying are you?” Leon yelled.
“If it doesn’t have anything to do with the case we’re on then no.” Dave snapped.
Leon grumbled for a while. He wanted to really smack the younger man upside his head, but instead he just kept reminding himself that he only had one more week to go. The muttering man sitting beside Dave had him so distracted that he didn’t see the little white armadillo trying to cross the road.
*Thump-thump*
“Holy Shit!” Jessup screamed as he watched the black Ford Taurus roll over the Digger. The tiny armadillo rolled across the ground and came to a stop at the edge of the road. Jessup ran over to the little armadillo. “Are you okay?”
“Do I look like I’m okay? What the fuck was that?” Digger screamed inside Jessup’s head.
Jessup looked down. Digger’s body was crushed. Blood oozed out of the armadillos mouth. One of his eyes was missing, and an ear was completely torn off. Jessup tried to peel the armadillo off the road, but his guts were already stuck to the pavement, and his spine was peeking out through the damaged shell. “You don’t look so good man.”
“No shit!” Digger screamed. “What the hell was that?”
“You didn’t see the car?” Jessup asked.
“See? I didn’t see shit. That was a car? You people should put bells on those things or something. Now point me in the direction of that motherfucker. It’s time for them to face the wrathful revenge of the ‘dillo!”
“The wrathful revenge of the dildo?” Jessup snickered.
“’Dillo! ‘Dillo! You asshole!” Digger snapped. “Now point me in the right direction.”
“You need some anger management or something.” Jessup grumbled as he pointed the armadillo in the direction of the Secret Service agents. “There…go get yourself some ‘dillo revenge…you grumpy little shit.”
The armadillo started dragging himself down the road with his front two legs. “You know…you could try being just a little bit supportive. I might not be quite so grumpy if you weren’t such a dumbass…maybe warn me next time there’s one of those car thingies.”
“Fine.” Jessup groaned as he watched the armadillo waddle down the road. Digger wasn’t going fast. One of his legs was broken and twisted the wrong direction, and his tail was hanging on by just a thread of skin. Jessup grinned, “Hey Digger?”
“Yes Jessup the Asshole?”
“Car.”
*Thump-thump*
“You motherfucker!” Digger screamed as he rolled and bounced down the road.
“You didn’t see that car either did you?” Jessup asked. “What are you blind?”
“No I didn’t see that fucking car you asshole!” Digger was pissed. The anger started the change. Muscles and bones lengthened and thickened. His shell grew more dense as his fur tore its way through his skin. He kept growing until he grew to the size of a large dog. Digger’s body was healed, and he began running down the road in earnest. “Revenge!” The little armadillo wasn’t so little anymore. He was bigger, and stronger. His pink nose twitched as he chased after the scent of the second car that ran him over. Clawed feet churned like mad as he reached seventy miles an hour. The claws clicked as they scraped across the pavement, and his two large fangs sounded like nails on a chalkboard as they dragged across the road.
“What about me?” Jessup screamed.
“Keep heading to your house. I’ll follow your scent and catch up with you!” Digger screamed into the man’s head. “Revenge!” Digger howled.
A little squirrel bounded merrily across the road. “Ten points!” Remy Lemeux cackled as he veered the big tire on his old Chevy pickup towards the squirrel.
*Thump-thump*
“Damn! He’s still twitching…five point deduction.” Remy laughed as he took a celebratory swig from his beer. “So far it’s Remy forty-five…Mother Nature zero.” He turned the beer bottle up one more time, but there were only a few drops left. Remy saw a black Ford Taurus parked on the side of the road with two men in suits trying to change a tire. He looked at the empty bottle, “You were a good little soldier. Your service will be remembered. I wish you well on all your future endeavors.” He drove past the black Ford Taurus parked on the side of the road and lobbed the empty bottle over the top of his pickup. The brown bottle spun and twisted through the air until it crashed through the rear window of the car. “Steee-rike!” Remy howled. “That’s what you get for driving a piece of shit Ford…found on road dead!” The two men in suits screamed and yelled, but Remy was already too far away to hear them.
“I hate this town…I hate this state…I hate these people…I hate everything about this.” Dave screamed as he stomped both feet and threw the lug wrench down the road at the rapidly shrinking Chevy pickup. “These fucking Cajuns just piss me off.”
“Jesus dude…don’t pop a blood vessel. What’s got you so twisted?” Leon said as he walked down the road after the wrench.
“I just can’t take these Cajuns anymore. I hate the swamps. Mosquitos keep eating me, there’s so many fucking raccoons we might as well rename this shithole Raccoon City, and if I hear one more jackass chanting Who Dat I think I’ll blow my fucking brains out.” Dave leaned against the car.
“Man it isn’t that bad. The people are nice, there’s great fishing, and you can’t say they don’t know how to party. Besides, raccoons are kind of cute.” Leon smiled.
“Fuck raccoons, fuck fishing, and fuck you!”
Leon looked back at the man and then shrugged. There was no point in arguing. He was going to believe what he believed no matter what. He picked up the lug wrench and started walking back when he saw something moving down the road. It was too fast to be an animal, but it was the size of a large dog, and had poofy fur that went everywhere like a giant afro. “What the hell is that thing?”
Dave wouldn’t have looked up if not for the alarm in the other man’s voice. He saw it as well. It had two creepy pink eyes and a pink nose that poked out of the giant white puffball, “Holy shit!” He didn’t even think twice. The man pulled out his Five-seven pistol and started firing rounds into it. “Don’t just stand there you old fucker…shoot that thing!” He screamed.
Leon drew his Sig Sauer P229 and began firing. Bullets from both guns found their mark in the head and body. Chunks of Digger were blown off, and regrew almost immediately. Twice legs were hit, and the armadillo ran on bloody stumps as the legs regrew back. Leon emptied his entire magazine into the armadillo. It didn’t even slow him down. “Oh shit!” Leon tried to move out of the way, but Digger just veered a little left or right depending on where Leon tried to move. It was clear the armadillo had his sights set on the man. With no more bullets, Leon dropped his gun and lifted the lug wrench in a last ditch effort at self-defense. He screamed and tried to hit the armadillo with the wrench, but the armadillo leapt at the man’s stomach at the last possible second. The lug wrench missed completely, and the armadillo blew through the man’s stomach at seventy miles per hour. A trail of blood and internal organs followed the now bloody puffball as he kept running down the road after the Chevy pickup.
Leon’s legs wouldn’t support him, and he collapsed on the ground in a heap. Dave ran over to him and turned him over. The younger man lifted the older man up, “Oh man this is fucked up.”
“One day! One fucking day! Of all the shitty ways to die…I have to die like a fucked up movie stereotype! This is bullshit.” Leon spat as blood bubbled up out of his mouth. He was bleeding out pretty badly. Both men knew he wouldn’t make it. “Tell my wife I love her. Fuck even that sounds like I’m stuck in an eighties action movie…goddammit!”
Dave nodded, “I’ll make sure Jillian…Mrs. Redfield knows, and man…I’m sorry.”
Leon went limp. Dave laid him down gently and stood up. He went to the radio in his car, but it was out of range. With no other alternative he called it in on his cell phone. He gave his superior the details, and then hung up. There wasn’t much left to do but wait the next few hours out for investigators to arrive. He dialed Jill Redfield, “Hey babe…remember how you were wondering how to break our affair to your husband without having him take everything in a divorce…yeah that’s really not so much of a problem now.”
They talked for a while, and he spared her most of the details. By the time they got off the phone Jill was already trying to find a travel agent to book them both a romantic weekend getaway. Dave grinned and looked at his former partner’s limp body and laughed, “Well Leon…it looks like my weekend just got better. Jill and me are gonna hump like teenagers this weekend, but we’ll be back in plenty of time to bury your old, withered ass.”
“Here he is…I found him!” An old man said as he stepped around a building. “I knew if we followed the gunfire we’d find someone.” He started using his walker to slowly make his way towards Dave.
“There’s nothing to see here. Go back inside.” Dave yelled to the old man, but the old man kept coming. A few seconds later almost three dozen elderly men and women rounded the corner. Some of them had canes, some had walkers, some were in wheelchairs, and a couple were even riding their Rascal electric scooters. “Seriously…time to go back to the old folks home people. This is a crime scene, and you can’t be here.”
It was the old people at the back of the crowd that caused Dave to realize this wasn’t just a normal group of old geezers. The ones at the back were crawling across the ground. Their bodies were twisted and mangled as if someone had run them over with a car. Some of them had blood running down their face and chest, and Dave was pretty sure that it wasn’t their blood. He pointed his pistol and then remembered he was out of bullets. Dave turned and ran back to the Taurus hoping he’d be able to get a new magazine out of the glove box. He reached for the door, and a walker imbedded into the side of the car. “Oh shit!” Dave screamed as he turned and ran down the road.
A few of the zombies stopped to eat Leon, but the rest of the elderly zombies shambled off after Dave. He ran towards a strip mall and then ducked into a plant nursery to try and hide from his pursuers. The elderly wandered in and began to spread out through the building in search of the man. An old woman found him hiding behind some Black Eyed Susans. “Are you my grandson?” She asked. Bloody chunks of meat were stuck in her false teeth.
“N-n-n-no.” Dave answered quietly.
“Have I eaten you yet?” She asked with a smile that said she wasn’t quite operating with all her mental faculties.
“Y-y-y-y-yes?” Dave answered.
“Are you sure?” She asked suspiciously.
“Y-yes, and you thought I was delicious.” He responded.
“Okay.” The old woman then turned and walked off. Dave sighed in relief, but he knew he couldn’t hide there anymore. If she found him then the others would find him as well. He only had one option. He was going to have to fight his way out. Unfortunately the only thing he had available to use as a weapon was the hundreds of flowers in their ceramic flower pots. Anything that might have been really useful was on an aisle at the other side of the store. He picked up a ceramic flower pot and aimed for the old woman’s head.
It crashed against the back of her skull, and the old woman fell limp on the floor. The ceramic was heavy and hard enough that it caved her skull in before shattering in a cloud of soil. The Blackberry Lilly fell to the ground beside her. The sound of the shattered flower pot got the attention of every zombie in the place. They turned and began navigating their way towards Dave. Meanwhile Dave was already picking up another flower pot to throw.
It became a war of attrition as the elderly zombies were bombarded by one flower pot after another. Dave Wesker was running out of plants to fight off the zombies with, and meanwhile they just kept coming. The man screamed and threw an ivy plant an old woman. It hit her in the mouth, and her false teeth fell out in pieces. “Those were my good teeth!” She screamed as bits of acrylic fell from her mouth.
“It’s okay Bessie…I liked you better without them.” Her husband said as he pulled up closer in his wheelchair. “Less drag.”
“Oh you dirty old fool…he knocks my teeth out and you start thinking about blowjobs. I don’t know why I even put up with you Donald Joseph Keen.” Bessie grumbled at her husband. “Now are you gonna help me get him, are you just gonna sit there and be lazy all day?”
Donald Keen muttered under his breath and moved around his wife. “Fifty-three years of marriage and you still can’t stop nagging…you know if I killed you when we were young I’d be free by now. Of course then I’d miss Tuesday nights.”
“Tuesday nights…that’s all you care about is Tuesday nights. You dirty old coot. I should have listened to my mother and married Earl Rogers. Now there was a man that knew how to treat a lady.” Bessie snapped.
Donald laughed, “Well he sure as hell should know how to treat a lady. He wanted to be one since he was eight…the little poof.”
“He was not gay! He was sensitive.” Bessie yelled.
“Oh please…I bet his butt whistles during a stiff wind by now.” Donald responded.
Bessie glared at her husband, “You’re just jealous. You never had his style…his class…his…”
“Willingness to take it in the ass?” Donald said in an effort to finish her sentence.
Bessie gasped, “You take that back right now!”
“I will not…he was a poof back then, and I’m sure he’s still a poof now if he’s even alive.” Donald yelled.
“You don’t know that!” Bessie howled with rage.
Donald snapped, “He came to our wedding with another man.”
“That was his cousin!” Bessie screamed in her shrillest voice.
“Earl is white as snow, and the man he brought was a negro.” Donald responded. Some of the elderly black men and women gave him an angry look, but then resumed attacking Dave Wesker.
Bessie looked shocked and then leaned in to whisper, “Donald Keen we don’t use the N word…it offends the colored folk.”
“I’m too old to give a shit about offending anyone…colored or otherwise. Now quit yer yapping…Jesus! It’s like being married to one of those little Mexican wetback dogs…the chalupas.” Donald grumbled, and some of the elderly Hispanic zombies glared at the man.
“Chihuahuas! They’re called Chihuahuas you old fart! Besides…you shouldn’t call wetbacks wetbacks…it’s just as offensive as calling the coloreds the N word.” Bessie said as she glared at her husband.
“Chalupas…Chihuahuas…Chimichongas…what does it matter? The point is that you won’t shut the fuck up!” Donald screamed.
The two married zombies screamed and yelled back and forth at one another until finally one of the other zombies turned and went to the aisle with the gardening equipment. The zombie’s name was Bart and he was a tall black man with strong features. He took a tree pruner on a long reach pole and walked back to Bessie and her husband Donald. One swipe of the pruner and the top half of Bessie’s head lay on the ground. Another long swipe and the top half of Donald’s head twirled through the air leaving a splash of blood and brain matter behind it.
All the zombies turned to look at Bart. He shrugged and said, “I’ve been living in the room across the hallway for ten fucking years…I’ve heard this shit every day for ten years…I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
The other zombies shrugged and turned their attention back to Dave Wesker. Dave kept throwing plants at the zombies, but he was getting tired and running out of plants to throw. “Jesus…this was always so much easier in the game on my kindle.”
Bart dodged a petunia that smashed against a support beam beside his head. “Oh you want to throw stuff. Well shit...maybe it’s time to return fire.” The tall man leaned down and pulled the urine bag from one of the other zombie’s wheelchairs. The man wound up and threw the urine bag. It burst like a water balloon at Dave’s feet.
“Dammit Bart…you’ll ruin the meat!” Silas screamed as he shook his walker.
“Oh shut up you old bastard! I don’t see you trying to do anything.” Bart yelled at the skinny Jewish man wearing a bath robe but no pants.
“I’m working on it.” Silas yelled back.
“Old coot…you been working on something for twenty-three years and ain’t got a damn thing done yet. Now can you close your robe? I’m tired of seeing your schmeckle.” Bart snapped.
Silas shook his fist at Bart, and his penis shook as it peaked out from the open robe as well. It looked like an old mushroom swaying to some unknown song in a patch of gray grass. The man had a ball sack that hung down almost to his knees. It was wrinkled, and so stretched out that it could have been sold as a knockoff version of Stretch Armstrong. He pulled the belt on his robe tight to close the view before returning to his slow plodding walk towards Dave. “Slow and steady!” Silas groaned.
Flower pots kept flying through the air, but the zombies were gaining ground. They were just a few feet away when Dave ran out of flower pots. There was nothing left. He looked for anything that would let him escape. Silas and Bart were the first two to reach him. Dave tried to make one last desperate escape. He ran towards a sliver of an opening between the two men. Silas swung his walker with everything he had. The legs were dull, but they hit with such force that they still cut the man into thirds. Dave fell into three pieces, and Silas glared at his bent and broken walker, “Cheap foreign crap.” He threw it down on the ground and picked up Dave’s head. “This can’t be kosher.” He said sadly as he began to bite a hole through the back of the man’s skull.
***
“Here bunny bunny bunny!” Remy Lemeux said under his breath as he veered the Chevy towards the tiny little floppy eared ball of fur.
*Thump-thump Ka-Thump*
“Yeah! Another ten points, and an extra five for catching him with my truck nuts.” Remy patted his truck like it was a well behaved horse. “I’m going for the record.” Suddenly there was a little black and white kitten moving across the road. Remy stepped on the gas and turned into the cat.
*Thump-thump Ka-BAM*
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” He screamed. The truck came back down on four wheels, and the right front tire popped. It sounded like a gunshot, and the truck slid and skidded all over the road. When it came to a stop Remy was still screaming in terror. His hands were locked around the steering wheel in fear. “Jesus…that had to be the biggest fucking pothole ever.” Remy stepped out to change the flat. “I pay my taxes, and they can’t even fix the goddamn road.” He walked around the truck.
*Scratch-Scratch*
The sound came from under the pickup. “Dammit! Cat must’ve gotten stuck between the radiator and my engine.” Remy leaned over, “Here kitty kitty….kit…OH SHIT!”
Digger’s head poked out from under the pickup. He bit down on Remy’s ankle and yanked the man under the truck. “NOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! N-“ Blood sprayed out from under the pickup. The pickup shook and shimmied as Digger shredded the man to bits under the truck. Chunks of Remy flew out in all directions. Eventually the pickup stopped shaking and Digger changed back from his were form. The tiny white zombie armadillo ran back out from under the car and started making his way towards Jessup.
*Thump-thump*
The armadillo went rolling as a blue Dodge Ram ran over him without even slowing down. By the time he stopped rolling he was already changing so that he could exact his revenge. It was going to be a long night.
***Two Days Later***
*** FRIDAY, JANUARY 25th, 2013 – BAYOU BLACK, LOUISIANA ***
Terence Burnett was a busy man. He still had to unload the liquid fertilizer out of his trunk, he needed to examine the new batch, bring in the mice, and then check the traps he set up to keep people away from his stuff. The man moved into his underground meth lab. It’d taken him almost a year to dig the area out, frame it up, and then camouflage it. He’d come in every day wearing an orange vest and a hardhat, and amazingly nobody even questioned it. They just thought he was a state employee working hard. When he finished he had what amounted to a basement the size of a large swimming pool. The hardest part was keeping it drained until he could build the cinderblock walls, and lay the cement floor. After it was dug he then built a ceiling sturdy enough that he could cover it over with dirt and vegetation so that no could see it. He hid the vents in some strategically placed dead trees. There was even a trapdoor to slip in and out of his meth lab. It was another six months before everything grew well enough that everything looked natural, but now he could come and go as he pleased without worrying about anyone finding his lab.
The trap door was some of his best work. It looked like an old rock, but it lifted up to expose the stairs leading down into the lab. Once he closed it nobody would even know he’d been there. Of course he still put in some “special touches” to make sure people that did show up wouldn’t ever leave. Bear traps were placed in various spots so that anyone trying to sneak up on him would get a surprise of their own. He even ran piano wire between trees for a particularly nasty surprise. He didn’t need any of these traps, and if he was thinking clearly he’d have known that if anything was going to bring attention to his meth lab it would be the traps and defenses he had in place, but all the fumes had begun to make him paranoid.
He set them everywhere, but left himself one path to come in and leave. The bear traps and piano wire weren’t the only surprises he’d put out since paranoia began to reign. As an animal control officer for New Orleans, he got lots of calls about snakes. The constrictors were caught and released in Bayou St. John, but anything venomous got the trip down Old U.S. 51 to Bayou Black between Lake Maurepas and Lake Pontchartrain. When he got them there he had to do a little old school surgery on. Metal spikes were inserted in the ground and a piece of wire was slipped through a hoop on the end of the spikes. The other end of the wire was pushed through the tail of the snake. The pain from the wire made the snake extremely aggressive to anyone that got near it, but it also kept the snakes from roaming more than five feet in any direction. All Terence had to do was remember to bring feeder mice whenever he came in to check on his product.
Terence was starting to think people were spying on him everywhere he went. He was sure everyone knew exactly what he was doing, and they were just waiting for the chance to steal his product when he wasn’t looking. He’d dyed his hair three different colors in the last two months because he wanted to make it more difficult to have a current photo of him. Currently he had jet black hair, but he was already thinking about how blondes have more fun. He’d been clean shaven, had a Vandyke, a goatee, and was currently sporting a jet black mustache that would have impressed Yosemite Sam. He thought about getting contacts to hide his hazel eyes, but he couldn’t stand the idea of sticking his finger in his eye. He’d even taken to wearing long sleeve shirts all year round to hide his tattoos. In January it wasn’t too bad normally. There was the occasional hot days like they had had most of the week, but usually it was nice and cool if not downright cold.
A month ago Terence found a parks and wildlife official dead. One of the snakes had bitten him, and in his effort to get back to his car, the man had tripped and fallen face first into a bear trap. Disposing of the man and his car had been fairly easy. He just loaded the body into the man’s car and pushed it off into the water far away from his lab where it disappeared from sight. He should have been happy that his traps worked, but instead they only made Terence more paranoid. He started nailing the wired snakes up in trees so that the snakes could get people in the face. He began digging spiked pits, deadfall traps, and snares that lifted their victims up and then swung them on a pulley system into well hidden wooden spikes. The hardest part was the deadfall traps. He had to climb up the trees using a ladder, and then set up the large rocks so they fell when someone hit the line attached, and didn’t just fall every time the wind blew.
Terence had every part memorized. There was one safe way in, and only one safe way out. Even if someone had somehow snuck through all the traps in an effort to get to his lab, and if they knew the trapdoor’s location, they still had to know the pass code. There were nozzles pointing back to the door leading into the lab just under each stair step. The nozzles ran to propane tanks, and when the wrong code was entered the unfortunate person would be roasted alive.
Beyond that, Terence had been amassing a cache of weapons that would have put most eighties action heroes to shame. He had one AR-15, an MP5, two Uzis stored in the lab. On top of that he had more handguns and shotguns tucked away in tree hollows than he could count, and of course there was his baby…an M134 Minigun that fired thousands of rounds per minute. He even had hand grenades, and phosphorus grenades. He kept the Minigun inside the lab. It was heavy, but he built it on wheels like a push cart. He could hit a switch and the stairs would lower like in a funhouse so that they became a walkway. It was still hard to get the gun pushed up and out, but it was a lot easier than carrying it. He even built it so that the bullets could be transported with it easily. With the money he was making dealing meth, Terence could retire in five years if he wanted.
He unloaded the fertilizer. He still needed to pick up some other supplies and bring them in this week, but the fertilizer was becoming his biggest problem. Terence didn’t want to buy his fertilizer from the normal suppliers. The amounts he bought would raise suspicion. Instead he always got his second hand from farms. It meant a lot more driving, but it he was sure it kept him off any potential watch lists. Of course now the farmers he was buying the stuff from were getting suspicious. So he’d have to start buying from even farther away. That meant more driving. On a few occasions he’d considered hiring an assistant, but he was absolutely sure they’d either kill him and take over, or just steal his product.
Inside the meth lab were some basic creature comforts. He installed a generator for power that vented out with the meth fumes. Then he put in a refrigerator for cold beer and a few snacks, a recliner when he needed to catch a little rest from all the driving, a television to catch the Saints while he worked, and of course his trusty Fleshlight because the life of a paranoid meth manufacturer can be a lonely one at times. Terence had taken the time to make his lab a very comfy one since he’d be spending so much time in it.
The first thing he did after setting down the fertilizer was check the cinderblock walls for any leaks that needed to be patched. Water constantly tried to seep in, and so he was almost always patching leaks. After checking the walls he was pleasantly surprised that everything was dry. “Guess I finally got them all.” He said optimistically even though he was reasonably sure that he’d be patching another leak in a day or two.
The next thing he did was go out to the car to get the feeder mice. He grabbed his thick snake handling gloves that he used when he worked animal control, and his forty inch metal snake hook. Terence walked carefully around the area. He avoided the snares, the bear traps, and even the piano wire in order to get to the snakes. He took out a mouse for each snake, and tossed it to them. Sometimes he had to hold the snake and dangle the mouse in front until they struck. He had to do that for the ones in the trees that sometimes were just dangling by the wire. The snakes always attacked immediately because they were driven mad by the pain of having a wire through their tails. He never fed more than a few every day. That way he didn’t have to spend more than an hour or two at a time wandering the bayou. If he came across any dead ones then Terence took the snake off the line, and then took it back to the lab. He liked to use the dead snakes venom in his batches to give his meth a little extra kick that the others didn’t have. It was just one of his own little twists on the formula.
Terence then came back in and checked on the meth. It was all doing well. “Oh…damn. I knew that po’boy tasted funny.” Terence groaned as his stomach gurgled. Even though the man had practically built a home underground there was one thing he couldn’t build. He wasn’t able to put in a bathroom. He’d considered having an outhouse, but it would have just drawn attention he didn’t want. After a few weeks of shitting in the woods, Terence finally came up with another solution.
“Nnngh!” Terence grunted as he blew a mostly digested po’boy out his colon right into the meth he was making. It had taken some creative constructing, but eventually Terence turned his lab into his toilet as well. Since approximately six pounds of toxic material is made for every pound of meth he cooked, Terence wasn’t really worried about ruining his supply. In fact the urine and feces had become just another part of the recipe as far as he was concerned. The dealers loved selling his meth, and he was quickly making a name for himself as a manufacturer of the best shit in Louisiana. They just didn’t realize how true that statement was.
Terence worked on it all for a few hours and then made his way back to the surface. It was time to drive home. He walked down the safe path to his car. The moon was already high up in the sky, but he couldn’t see it because of the fog. It had rolled in quietly while he was working so he had to be extra careful where he walked. He couldn’t see anything twenty feet in front of him.
*Clang*
Terence jerked to attention. One of the bear traps had snapped shut, and he could hear groaning. Instead of heading to his car, Terence moved carefully off the safety path toward the sound of the bear trap. He could hear thrashing and groaning. He needed to get to whomever set off his trap before they called for help on a cellphone.
*Clang*
Another bear trap snapped shut.
*Clang*
And another.
*Clang*
And another. Terence froze. That was far too many to be an accident. It had to someone trying to move in on him. If it was the police there’d already be screaming cops and maybe even a helicopter by now. The fact that they weren’t screaming for help meant they didn’t want to give their positions away as far as Terence was concerned. He had two options. Either run for the car, or run back to the lab to defend it. After all the work he put into the lab…it wasn’t much of a choice.
The wily meth manufacturer ran through the bayou like a manic rabbit. He still knew were every trap was, and he was careful to avoid them as best he could, but it was hard to do in the fog. He had no points of reference to go by visually, and a couple of times he nearly stepped into a bear trap. If he hadn’t have been wearing boots he’d have been bit ten times. Lucky for him the snakes he hung in the trees were farther out in the bayou or they’d have definitely gotten him.
He opened the trap door, and then ran down the stairs. After punching the proper keys in, Terence started grabbing his guns. After laying them on the push cart he had the mounted M134 Minigun attached to, he lowered the stairs so that he could push the cart back up and out of the lab. It was hard to get everything up onto the surface, but eventually he did it.
By now he was hearing the bear traps clanking shut from all directions. There had to be hundreds of them surrounding him, and he couldn’t see them at all. All he could see was the fog thickening. He couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of him now. Terence heard movement and groaning. They were moving closer.
*Snap*
One of the snares snapped closed and was followed by a meaty crash as whoever was caught was impaled on the wooden spikes. “Serves you right you fuckers! Nobody fucks with Terence Burnett! Nobody!” The only response he heard was more groaning and the sound of the traps. He never heard a scream. He didn’t hear gunfire. It struck Terence as particularly odd that his attackers didn’t speak, but they weren’t trying to be quiet either because he could easily hear them walking.
“I’ll show them.” Terence muttered as he grabbed the first of his phosphorus grenades. He flung it out, and it exploded beside a cypress tree. As the roots burned they looked like a gnarled old hand clawing at the earth. In the fog it had a strange ghostly quality. Terence threw more of the phosphorus grenades in all directions. Trees and bushes caught on fire all around him. The flames lit up the fog so that it looked as though it was glowing. He still really couldn’t see the people closing in, but now he had glimpses of shadows through the fog. He started tossing his hand grenades at the shadows. They exploded, and he was sure that they had to be hit by the shrapnel, but the shadows kept moving through the fog.
“Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.” A man said. It was the first he’d heard any of them speak. He wasn’t sure what they meant by that but he knew it couldn’t be good. He grabbed for another grenade and realized he was out. So instead he picked up his MP5 and started firing at the shadows.
“Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains!” It was a woman’s voice this time. At least he thought it was. It sounded garbled and there was a slight gurgle as if she was talking with her mouth full of water. Terence heard more of the bear traps slam shut, and even more of the snares. Some for the deadfalls were being triggered, and they crashed down with a distinct thump. He even heard them falling into the spiked pits, but they were still coming.
Once the MP5 was empty he tossed it aside for the AR-15. Terence lined up his holographic sight with the first shadowed figure he saw. The flames on the cypress tree behind the figure made it look like some kind of shadowy demon with wings of fire. Terence aimed for center mass, and squeezed the trigger. The shadow fell, but then stood back up. “What the fuck?”
The AR-15 fires a 5.56 mm bullet that is roughly the size of a AA battery. The bullet is supposed to yaw, fragment, and generally deform. If it performs as designed, the bullet enters the body and then leaves an expanding wound as it progresses through the body. The entry wound is the size of a person’s pinky, but the exit wound might be the size of a large man’s fist. When the bullet doesn’t fragment, deform, or yaw it results in an exit wound that is roughly the size of the entry wound. It’d been a complaint against this bullet since the Vietnam War. So when Terence saw the man stand back up, he just assumed the bullet failed and passed through cleanly.
“Son of a bitch!” Terence growled as he kept pumping rounds into the shadowy figure.
“Myyyyyyyyyyyy moooooooooooother waaaaaaaaaaas aaaaaaaaaaaaa saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaint.” The shadow responded. His voice slurred, and was more of a groan than anything. Bayou around him was on fire, and the fog got brighter as the flames got more intense. He could see the silhouettes of men, women, and children shambling towards him. He could even see the shadows of the snakes that had bitten down and held on even as the wire was pulled out of their tails. They snakes bodies flailed in all directions as they kept trying to pump venom into their victims, but their victims kept walking as if completely unaware of their attackers.
“Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.” It was a little girl’s voice. She was just a few feet from him. Terence pointed the AR-15 and pulled the trigger.
*Click*
It was empty. He threw it at the girl and then grabbed the two Uzis. He squeezed both triggers, and a steady spray of bullets cut the girl in half. He reloaded both Uzis and started to look for another target. That’s when he felt a hand grab his leg.
“Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.” It was the upper torso of the girl. She’d crawled her way to him, and grabbed his leg to devour him. Terence screamed and unloaded both magazines into the back of the girl. The girl’s head rolled away. The Uzi had practically sawed it off. The Uzis were both empty, but as far as he was concerned it was worth it if the girl finally stopped moving. From this distance he could actually see some of her features. Maggots were eating the skin off her face and a crawfish was living inside the empty socket that one of her eyes used to reside in. Her whole body was waterlogged as though she had spent the last day or two in Lake Maurepas. Fish had eaten off her lips, and some of her hair had fallen out in clumps. He stood there fixated on the horror staring up at him. Then her one eye focused back on him, and she started moving her mouth to try to bite him.
The groans and sounds of hundreds more shambling through the bayou towards him snapped him out of it. The head couldn’t move, but he still kicked her head away like a soccer ball. He was desperate. There was really only one option left. Terence manned the M134 Minigun. Thousands of bullets per minute ripped out through the night. The Minigun fired so quickly that Terence could see the fog being blown away from the wind created by the bullets going through the air. The Minigun swiveled and cut down trees. He knew it had to be tearing the people apart. The feel of the Minigun jerking with every bullet gave him a real sense of power, and Terence was howling with laughter by the time he released the trigger. For a moment all he could hear was the ringing in his ears, but then he heard them. Some were crawling, some were limping, and some were just walking towards him. All of them were now moving towards him with one thought in mind.
“Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.” He could hear them groaning that one word like it was their own personal battle cry. He reloaded the Minigun and opened fire again. This time when it was over he listened and hoped that he finally stopped them. Then he heard it again, “Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.”
“Why won’t you fucking die?” He screamed. They kept coming. He could see their maggot infested bodies moving towards him. They were close enough that the fog couldn’t cover up their rotting bodies. Terence panicked and ran towards the safety of his car. He was halfway down the path when one of the zombies reached out. It got his shirt. Terence pulled a Swiss army knife out of his back pocket, and stabbed the zombie in the forehead. It collapsed immediately, but broke off the blade as it fell. “Goddammit!” Terence screamed. He opened the wine bottle opener in case he ran into another undead attacker. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
Terence weaved in and out through the trees, and stayed on the path as best he could. The fog made it practically impossible to navigate the swamp. The only light came from the cypress trees burning. The fire had begun to spread from one tree to the next surprisingly quickly. The burning cypresses looked like the hands of some angry god trying to reach down with gnarled fingers deep into the earth. The fog, the darkness, and the flames changed the scenery, and before he knew it Terence was well off the path.
He stopped and listened for the zombies, but the fire was drowning out their movements. He could still hear them groaning though. Running wasn’t an option. All he could think about was what would happen if he ran into the piano wire. He’d set it up to do one of two things. Either he put it low enough to trip on, or he put it high enough that if you were running through the bayou and ran into it then it would cut your throat. The tripping part was worse because he set other traps up around it so that when you fell either something fell on you, or you landed on something sharp and pointy. So Terence navigated his way very carefully from then on.
He couldn’t tell where he was exactly, but he knew he needed to get back to the lab so that he could try to find his way out again. He’d never find the path if he didn’t start back at the lab. He looked around. The fire was moving through the bayou, and the last thing he wanted was to get trapped in the flames, but at the same time if he headed towards the flames he was pretty sure he’d find his lab again. So he walked carefully.
Twice he nearly stepped on a bear trap, and some of the snakes lunged at him. Thankfully they were the ones on the ground, and so they just struck his boots. If he’d have run across any of the snakes in the trees he’d have been bitten for sure. Meanwhile he could hear more groans as more and more zombies came into the area. Terence kept moving until he tripped over a piano wire and fell hard. He was just able to twist at the last second. Instead of being impaled on a wooden spike, he just had a chunk taken out of his bicep. “Aw Fuck!” He screamed, briefly forgetting that he was surrounded by the undead because of the pain.
The zombies heard the scream, and they all changed direction accordingly. Terence heard the groans. Every now and then he heard more of his traps being sprung. If he stayed there the zombies would find him. He knew it and pushed himself up to his feet. One of the zombies got close enough so that he could see him. Moss had already started growing in his hair. Something had eaten at his face, and maggots were gnawing away at the wounds. One of the bear traps was closed around his leg, and the bone was poking out. The zombie limped at Terence. He could see snakes still clinging to his body. Their fangs imbedded into his face and neck.
“Get away!” Terence screamed. The zombie opened his mouth and more maggots poured out. “Jesus!” Terence gasped. The zombie lunged at him, and he ducked and ran. He was practically blind as he ran through the thick fog. The fires were casting strange shadows in all directions. He couldn’t tell where the zombies were, and it coupled with his own paranoia until he thought every tree branch was a zombie arm reaching out for him. He finally reached his lab, but standing in front of the doorway was the largest, most muscular man he’d ever seen. Huge biceps the size of Terence’s head flexed as the undead monster locked eyes with him. The zombie’s ebony skin was shredded and oozing from gator bites. Some of the spikes from his traps were sticking through his arms, chest, and legs.
Terence turned to run back down the safe path, but he could hear more of the undead moving in. There was only one option left to him. He turned back to the large muscular black man and ran at him screaming. The undead giant lumbered towards Terence with a groan that grew louder and angrier until it sounded more like the roar of some angry beast. Terence raised his fist. Tucked firmly between his fingers like a set of brass knuckles was the wine bottle opener. The zombie tried to grab him in a bear hug, but Terence dropped and rolled at the last second. The zombie roared in anger and flung himself at Terence one more time. This time he hit him with a glancing blow, but it sent Terence sailing almost twenty feet.
By the time Terence got to his feet, the muscular zombie was almost on top of him. The undead monster opened his mouth to bite down, and his cheeks split on both sides exposing even more teeth. Terence jumped out of the way. The zombie’s teeth snapped shut with such force that two of his teeth shattered, and fell to pieces. He then slowly turned his head to look at Terence. The zombie moved after the man. Terence ran to the front of his lab. He scrambled down the walkway to the security door. After punching the code in, he looked back. The large undead man was already blocking the walkway, and now there were other zombies pressing in from behind him. Terence slammed the door shut, and moved across the room to his meth lab.
*Boom*
It was the giant zombie. His heavy arms dented the steel door. Terence smiled, “That’s it you son of a bitch!” The giant hammered against the door again. Terence grinned in anticipation. The impact initiated the nozzles that were supposed to spray fire into the walkway. Unfortunately, he never considered what would happen with the stairs lowered like a walkway. Instead of a stream of flames, he got an explosion that blew the security door back into the room. Chunks of the giant zombie were blown everywhere. Then he saw them.
Zombies were piling into the room. Terence knew there was only one thing left to do. They were going to kill him if they got ahold of him, and he was pretty sure that if he somehow survived he’d end up being just like them. Terence didn’t want that so he went with the only option he had left. He walked over to the wall near the refrigerator, and hit a giant red button. When Terence installed the red button, it had been more as a joke than anything else. He’d been up for three days straight and the idea came to him. It was originally just a red Christmas ornament attached to the wall by duct tape with piece of cardboard below it that said self-destruct. He’d made improvements since then.
Explosives at all four corners of the meth lab detonated. The highly volatile meth exploded shortly afterwards. Terence was killed almost instantly. The underground lab exploded, leaving a huge hole in the earth. Most of the zombies at ground zero were killed instantly. Some of the others were mangled and kept crawling towards New Orleans. Some of the zombies had shrapnel from the explosion imbedded in them. Some had metal from the meth lab, some had chunks of cinderblock, and some even had parts of the refrigerator sticking out of them. One zombie shambled off into the foggy darkness with a half-melted Fleshlight imbedded in his chest.
“This is stupid!” Todd groaned.
“What are you talking about? This story is awesome!” Jimmy said. “It’s way better than any of the stories we would have been hearing from Hempstead the Hamster.”
The other kids laughed and then shot looks over at Ashley to see if she was going to be angry that they were making fun of her boss. She was unreadable for a moment, and then she started to giggle. She tried not to, but the man really did have a rodentlike quality about him. So as much as she didn’t want to, she could see why they’d given him that nickname.
“It isn’t any better. It’s just crap. Complete crap!” Todd snapped. He didn’t want to admit that all the talk of zombies and werewolves had him terrified of sleeping out in the woods. So instead of begging to go back, and being the camp chicken, he decided to rant about how bad it was until Ashley either sent him back to camp, or they changed the story.
Gary eyed the teenagers suspiciously. “Weren’t you the one that started asking for another story to begin with?”
Todd snapped, “Yeah, but I meant a good story. Not this crap your telling. It’s boring. It’s not scary at all, and you keep sticking in these stupid jokes and references to other movies and books and stuff. It’s all just…crap!”
Ashley gasped, “Todd…we don’t talk like that to people.”
“It’s crap! I can’t stand it. Baby bombs, an albino zombie werewolf armadillo, a wheelchair bound zombie werewolf, that terrible clan song…that stuff is just stupid! Plus the story doesn’t even have a plot, and what the hell is going on with that redheaded sheriff? Why does he have a hot wife? Nobody is going to believe a short, obese, little person is going to marry some supermodel. None of this is believable in any way!” Todd’s voice was growing louder. “Plus that armadillo keeps going in people’s butts? That’s pretty sick. This whole story is just…stupid!”
“Shut up Todd!” Jimmy snapped.
“Eat a dick you stupid fuck!” Todd yelled back, and all the other teens gasped. They already knew Todd was in trouble. There were some words you just didn’t say in front of the counselors. Fuck was generally understood to be at the very top of any list.
“Todd Raimi Campbell! That is not acceptable.” Ashley snapped.
Todd winced, he already knew he’d have to get into trouble to get the story stopped, but he still didn’t like knowing Ashley was mad at him. He was almost there. He just needed to push it a little farther, and then he wouldn’t have to hear any more of the story. Todd already knew he was going to have nightmares. “Every part of his story has been done better by other people in other books and movies. You have old people and babies killing people. An armadillo that practically thinks he’s Samuel L. Jackson, and I still say you don’t have any plot. It’s just random crap happening to other random people. It’s fucking stupid!”
“It has a plot!” Polly snapped. The young teen looked at Todd, “All the different stuff is showing how the zombies spread. It’s all leading somewhere. I don’t know where because Uncle Gary hasn’t told us yet, but it definitely does have a plot. Todd…you just have to relax a little. I know it sounds weird coming from me because of how upset I got when he was making fun of Twilight, but other than the part about Twilight…I kind of have been liking the story.”
“But it’s just gore and…and…crap!” Todd snapped.
“It’s just a story. You know…something fun that we can all enjoy and then goof on later. It’s entertainment…or at least that’s what it’s supposed to be.” Polly responded.
Todd looked at them all. He’d been so close to getting the story stopped, but unless he did something dramatic…he’d have to hear the rest. “This story is bullshit! I’m not going to sit here and listen to some old fart talk about air guitars and shitting in meth while his…retarded son shoves his finger up his nose!”
“The snot monsters are trying to get my brain!” John said in a futile attempt at defending himself.
“Todd! You apologize right now!” Ashley snapped.
“No!” Todd yelled, “It’s a stupid story.”
“That’s it mister. I’m taking you back to camp.” Ashley stood up.
The other kids groaned. If Ashley had to take Todd back then they’d have to go back too. That meant they wouldn’t get to hear the end of the story. Some of the teens loved the man’s story, and some of the teens just thought it was okay, but they all thought it was better than the tired old stories they would’ve heard otherwise. Todd however was just happy that he wasn’t going to hear anymore.
Gary put a calming hand on the woman’s shoulder, “There’s no reason for you to have to take that long walk tonight. My boy can go with him. He’ll take good care of him…won’t you boy?”
“Yes Daddy.” John said as he pushed himself up to his feet.
Todd grinned defiantly. He was ready to have everyone angry at him if it meant not hearing the rest of the story, but now the others wouldn’t be nearly as angry with him since they were still going to get to hear it. Sure he might get teased a little, and some of the bigger guys would probably give him a wedgie or two, but it wasn’t going to be anywhere nearly as bad originally thought. Todd pointed towards the darkened path and said, “Let’s go big man. Lead the way.”
“Okay dokay.” John spoke in an odd sing-song voice that made him seem even less intelligent.
John skipped ahead as he moved towards the darkness. Gary called out, “You take good care of him…you hear me boy.”
“Okay Daddy.” John answered as he turned on his flashlight.
Gary smiled as he watched his son lead the other man into the forest, “Good boy.” Then he gave Ashley a grin and let her snuggle in. “Alright let’s get back to the story. Terence was dead. The zombies were still moving in towards New Orleans, and Danior was planning…”
***Meanwhile***
Todd followed the large man as he skipped along. Then after a few minutes John had to stop skipping and just walk. He was breathing hard, and just didn’t have the endurance of a younger, skinnier person. As they walked John sang strange versions of popular songs that almost always involved bodily functions. The longer they walked, the more annoyed Todd got with the man.
“Can you please shut up?” Todd questioned.
“Why you so angry? You gotta go poop?” John asked.
“No I don’t have to poop…I’m angry because I’m stuck out in the woods with a retard, and I’m angry because we’ve been walking for almost an hour and I’m pretty sure we’re lost.”
“We not lost.” John answered in a sing song voice. “Daddy says you ain’t never lost as long as you know where you’re going.”
“Then your Daddy is a fucking moron.” Todd snapped.
The large man stopped beside a barbed wire fence. “You’re a meanie.”
“Yeah…well you’re the retard that got us lost. So fuck you.” Todd snapped. John’s lower lip quivered and his eyes watered. He looked ready to cry. “Aw shit…I’m sorry.” Todd said, but the big man was already sniffling. Todd took one look at the man and then had to look away. He felt like a real heal.
“That okay.” John said, but his voice cracked with sadness. It only served to make Todd feel worse.
The teen stared at his shoes, “No…it’s not okay. I’m sorry I called you retarded. That wasn’t very nice.”
“Are you kidding? It just means I’m a hell of an actor.”
Todd’s eyes shot open with surprise, “Wha-“
*Thump*
The flashlight broke against the young teen’s head, and he crumpled to the ground. “Man this was a long fucking walk.” John laughed. Every hint of mental deficiency was gone. Instead the man had the cold predatory detachment of a rattlesnake as he began going to work on the young man.
“Wh-wh-where am I?” Todd asked as he woke up.
“Do you mean your actual location? That would be near Big Bend park in Texas. To be more specific, it’s where the land for you camp runs up to some farmland. Do you mean where are you specifically in relation to your current circumstances? If so then the answer is fucked.” John answered with a sly grin.
“You…you aren’t retarded?” Todd asked.
“Wow…perceptive aren’t you.” John answered and then pulled a multi-tool out of his pocket. He snapped open the blade on the multi-tool. “So I’ve answered your questions. Now my question is this? Do I let you scream?”
Todd felt pain in his neck, arms, and torso. He looked down, and saw barbed wire wrapped around his body. He was tied to a fence post with barbed wire. “Please let me go. I won’t say anything. I promise.”
John shrugged, “Oh…well okay. Gee, now I feel so silly. Here, hold this while I untie you.” The large man stuck the blade of the multi-tool into the teen’s leg. It tore through the cloth, and then punctured the skin. Todd screamed, and John closed his eyes and savored the sound.
“Why are you doing this?” Todd sobbed.
“You mean why am I killing you now, and not later?” John shrugged, “Dad hates critics. They just drive him fucking nuts. I mean we were going to kill you anyway, but when you started talking smack about his story…well you were pretty much fucked right then. Didn’t your momma ever teach you that if you can’t say something nice…don’t say anything at all?”
“I just wanted to go to the camp.” Todd cried, “The zombie story scared me. I just wanted to be safe in my bunk at the camp.”
John shook his head, “Oh…and a liar too. You’re momma has got to be disappointed in you. Oh well, if it’s any consolation…there isn’t a camp left anyway. I burnt that down after I killed everyone there. Well mostly everywhere. I’m pretty sure a few of the little bastards ran off when I hung Marvin upside down on the flagpole and lit him on fire.” John’s face curled into a smile, “He was a twitcher.”
“OH GOD SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE!” Todd howled.
“Do you really think I’d take you out here to kill you if I wasn’t reasonably sure we wouldn’t be interrupted?” John asked. Todd ignored him and kept screaming. After a few minutes John walked around behind the fence post and grabbed a stick wedged in the barbed wire around Todd’s throat. He started twisting it until the barbed wire tightened enough to finally quiet the teen down. The barbs were poking into his skin, and blood was running down his shirt, but at least he could still breathe…barely.
The barbed wire cut off Todd’s ability to talk, but he still kept mouthing “Help me!” John walked back around.
“Oh…this won’t do at all.” John said as he looked at the one bloody pants leg. He reached down and withdrew the knife. “Don’t worry…I’ll fix it.” Then John slammed the knife into the young man’s other leg. “I fixed it.” John grinned. Now both of the pant legs had bleeding knife wounds. “Nothing makes me crazier than when stuff just doesn’t match.”
Todd could only grunt in pain. His eyes plead for John to show some basic human decency. What he saw in those eyes was anything but human. There was an evil glee burning in John’s green eyes. John pulled the knife out, and then wiped the off the blood from the blade on the man’s shirt. “Man, I could do this all night, but frankly I have to get back so that Dad and me can finish off your friends. So as much as I’d love to spend the rest of the night playing the home version of Saw…I think we’re just going to have to skip ahead to the brutally gruesome death. That is unless you have something to say to change my mind?”
Todd tried to beg for his life, but he couldn’t force enough air out to do anything more than croak. John sighed, “Damn shame…I mean Dad and me have been doing this for years, and in all that time I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting the screamers. You my friend are definitely a screamer.”
John walked around to the back of the fence post. He gave the stick attached to the barbed wire around Todd’s throat one more twist so that now Todd had to strain to get even the slightest bit of oxygen. Then John moved to the barbed wire wrapped around Todd’s body. It went around the young man’s forearms and across his stomach. A thick branch the length of John’s forearm was used to tighten the barbed wire. John began twisting the barbed wire, and it began constricting around Todd. As the barbed wire tightened…it began to cut into his arms, and press in on his stomach.
The radius and ulna on both arms snapped under the pressure. The barbs kept tightening. The veins in Todd’s neck bulged as he tried to scream, and John giggled as he kept twisting. As the pressure on the teen’s midsection increased, the young man felt his bowels trying to loosen. Todd clenched his anus, and John kept tightening the wire. Eventually the wire broke the skin on Todd’s arms, and with each twist the wire started cutting through the flesh. John cranked down on the wire some more, and it eventually cut through both arms. Two hands flopped onto the ground. John laughed, “Oh…we’re about to get to my favorite part.”
The wire was squeezing on all sides of the young man. The barbs poked him on all sides. The blood loss was making Todd weak. He tried to stay conscious, but that got harder and harder as the blood poured out. Eventually he couldn’t clench anymore, and his body started to relax as it weakened.
That’s when Todd farted. It was from all the pressure of the wire. “Oooh…someone’s a stinky boy. Hahaha! Whew! Jesus! Someone’s been holding that one in for the ladies.” John twisted the branch again, and an even louder fart came out. “Damn! We keep this up it’s going to start smelling like a bathroom in a Mexican restaurant.” He twisted again, and another powerful blast of gas erupted out from the teen’s anus. “You know. One time Dad did this, and he set a candle in front of the guy so we could watch his farts shoot flames. Funniest damn thing I ever saw.”
Every new twist pushed out another bit of flatulence, and the wire finally started cutting through the flesh of the stomach. Blood initially seeped out through the slit the wire made in Todd’s stomach, but as it cut deeper the blood flowed even more freely. Todd had found a new world of pain. He started trying to banging his head against the fence post to try and knock himself unconscious, but the barbed wire around his throat kept his head pinned back against the post. John leaned in to whisper in the man’s ear, “You know there’s one thing I’ve learned after all this time. Everyone’s a critic…but some of you are just really full of shit.” John gave another twist, and the wire finally severed the intestines inside the teen. There was a sound like someone letting al the air out of a balloon, and suddenly feces bubbled out from the slit in Todd’s stomach. Todd’s eyes went wide, and he looked out into the night for someone to explain why this was happening.
John stopped twisting the branch and walked around to enjoy his victim’s last few moments. He kneeled down and looked the teen into the eyes, “Tell me how much my Dad’s story sucks now? Tell me how it’s derivative and makes no sense. Tell me how much you hate it. Maybe you’d like to discuss the plot?” Todd’s eyes begged for the man to take some pity. John’s lips curled into a vicious smile as he said, “What? Nothing left to say? You had plenty to say earlier. So do you think the story is scary now?” The only response John got was the bubbling fecal matter oozing from Todd’s stomach. The light was starting to fade from Todd’s eyes. Shit and blood ran out from the man’s stomach as his heart started to fail.
Todd’s eyes were dull, and he wasn’t breathing anymore. John stood up, “Well…time to go be a retard again for a while. Put on my best duh face and let’s roll.” He turned and wandered back towards camp. Instead of the winding path he took Todd on, John walked straight back towards the camp. When he reached the camp he grinned and laid down on the ground while he waited for his father to end the story. It was all part of the tradition for their father and son outings.
*** FRIDAY, JANUARY 25th, 2013 – NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA ***
“Come on people. We have a huge area to cover.” Shirley Chisholm Stone said as they entered the St. Louis cemetery. Eighty five people on two tour buses marched into the cemetery behind the forty year old leggy black woman like sheep following their shepherd. She tried to keep the group together, and used the fact that the crypts were packed so tightly in on all sides in the St. Louis No. 1 cemetery to help control her group.
“Are we going to see Marie Laveau.” One of the tourists, a thirty year old man with glasses asked.
Shirley nodded, “Yes, we always stop by the voodoo queen’s crypt before we leave, but we’ll also see Bernard de Marigny, the man that brought craps to the United States. Homer Plessy, the plaintiff from the Plessy versus Ferguson civil rights case.”
“Yeah, but we definitely are going to see the voodoo queen?” The man asked hopefully. “I brought my chalk to put my three x’s and get a wish.”
Shirley shook her head, “Sir, we try to discourage putting x’s on the crypts. It is really just an old wive’s tale that you get wishes. It’s not actually true. People don’t actually get wishes.” The man looked at her suspiciously like he thought she was lying, but he stayed quiet. They wandered through the crypts. Shirley pointed out some of the more ornate crypts, and took the time to explain how some of the crypts are damaged from people marking them up with x’s and graffiti.
The moon was high in the sky, and cast enough light that she really didn’t need a flashlight to navigate, but she kept it on anyway to show some of the names to the people Most of the group stayed huddled together, but some tried to wander off. Most of the wanderers were couples looking for a dark place to make out. It happened every now and then. A lot of the tourists are newlyweds enjoying their honeymoon in New Orleans, and they just can’t help themselves. She tried to keep the group together, but some always snuck off.
“Remember to stay in a group.” Shirley ordered.
“Why…is some ghost going to sneak out and say boo.” An older woman teased, and her two pimple faced teens giggled.
“No, but sometimes people hide out in the cemetery and look for people all alone to rob. We’re completely safe as a group though.” Shirley answered. It was true. Some of the rough neighborhoods really did have a problem with people being robbed in the cemeteries, but she was really telling them to add to the element of danger. It made them all like the tours even more, and it helped discourage them from wandering away.
Shirley was passing her flashlight between the crypts when she saw something move behind a crypt. “Hello?” She asked. “Excuse me…whoever you are, you need to come back and rejoin the tour.” She sighed shined her light between several crypts to see if she could find where the person had gone.
“Ma’am? Should we be staying here? Is it safe?” A middle-aged man from the tour asked as he instinctively began huddling his family together.
“Yes it’s perfectly safe. I think one of our group just wandered off.” Shirley took a quick head count of the group. After seven years she’d gotten pretty good at counting people in a crowd. She was pretty certain that six were missing. Hopefully they’d catch up after they finished doing…whatever.
“AHHHHH-“ It was a woman’s scream that took the professional courteousness and sunny demeanor out of Shirley’s face. She’d heard a few women screaming in the cemetery before, but it’d always been because of passionate lovemaking by an overly amorous husband or boyfriend. This scream was terrified, and it cut out immediately like someone or something had put a stop to it.
“Okay people. Please move carefully back towards the bus.” Shirley said as she reached for her cell phone. Her plan was simple. Get her people back on the bus for safety, call the police, and after the police investigated she would then finish the tour. It was a good plan.
“I would not do that if I were you.” The mechanical voice tore through the night air.
“Who’s there?” Shirley asked nervously, her hand kept searching her purse for the cell phone, but the only response was the sounds of movement all around her. Whoever they were, there were dozens of them. All of them moved in the shadows behind the crypts. She searched fearfully. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of what she thought was a leg, but she couldn’t really be sure.
One of her clients screamed, “They’ve got us surrounded. RUN!”
It wouldn’t have been a bad idea if they’d all ran in the same direction, but they ran in all directions, and scattered themselves. The only one staying still was Shirley. As they all disappeared behind various crypts, Shirley heard scrambling, and what sounded like claws scraping against cement as whomever or whatever had them surrounded went after the tourists.
Bessie Norton ran with her children Buster and Cindy. They could hear something closing in. Bessie held Boomer’s hand, and he held his sister’s hand as they weaved in and out between the crypts. Bessie felt her arm jerk back. She turned around and looked. Cindy’s pig tail was stuck in a rod iron fence that protected one of the crypts. Bessie heard them getting closer. She reached over and pulled the dark-skinned girl’s pigtail out of the metal fencing. Immediately she began running again. They saw the exit. Bessie ran as hard as she could while still dragging her children along. She felt another tug but it was only brief, and they kept going. There was a second quick tug. “Cindy, be more careful! We have to…” Bessie suddenly became aware that she wasn’t dragging her children behind her anymore. There was no resistance at all, but she was still holding on to Buster. Bessie raised up her hand. “Oh-no-no-no-NO-NO-NO-GOD-NO!” Buster’s tiny ebony hand still clutched hers, but everything past his elbow was missing. Buster was gone. Cindy was gone. Bessie only had another second before three large furry zombie werewolves hit her from all sides. Bessie tore into three equal parts, and they began to eat.
Kyle Wilber ran with his husband Mark into the darkness. The two had come here to celebrate their civil union. Kyle and Mark had promised to love one another “Until death do you part.” They just didn’t realize less than twenty hours later that might be a possibility. Claws scraped across the top of the crypts. Whatever was chasing them was bounding from crypt to crypt. Suddenly it stopped following them and veered off.
“I think we’re going to make it.” Mark smiled one of his beautiful devil-may-care smiles. The man was always the eternal optimist. It was just one of the many reasons Kyle loved him.
“I think you’re wrong.” Johanna laughed as she lead many of her handicapped students out of the shadows. Some moved out on crutches. Some walked clumsily out on leg braces.
“You’ve got to help us!” Mark said. “Something’s chasing us and…” He didn’t finish his statement, because at that moment Johanna and the others began to change.
Kyle had seen some disturbing things in his days as a soldier. He’d seen women’s bodies in Afghanistan after the Taliban finished making an example of them. Their skulls caved in from being stoned. He’d seen children riddled with bullet holes rotting in the sun. He’d even seen a man kill his own daughter to save the family honor after several men raped her. Nothing he’d seen over there prepared him for seeing Johanna and her students changing. As they finished changing they circled the two men. Mark was terrified, and Kyle wrapped his burly arms around the younger man. “It’ll be okay.” He lied. “Just close your eyes.” Tears ran down Mark’s face, and Kyle kissed the man one last time. His lips were soft, and he savored the slight hint of peppermint that still lingered in his husband’s mouth. They held each other closely, Kyle the tall heavily muscled ex-soldier in his forties and Mark the much younger man that had finally gotten Kyle to come out of the closet. For one last moment, in spite of everything, they were happy. Then the zombie werewolves pounced.
In one swipe Johanna took both Kyle and Mark’s head clean off their shoulders. She’d been ordered to kill any that ran, but Danior hadn’t said how. So she made their deaths as painless as possible. Her students crawled around the ground picking the bodies clean. She still had trouble reconciling that the sweet class she’d started with had become flesh hungry monsters. It was almost as difficult as watching some of her people still struggling with their disabilities even after they changed into the zombie werewolves.
“Daddy! Are we going to be okay?” Finnigan asked his father as Jimbo began changing in front of them.
“I will.” Courtland answered, and before the five year old boy could even ask what he meant, Courtland picked up his red headed stepchild and threw him like a lawn dart at the hungry werewolf.
“Daddy why?” Finnigan screamed just before Jimbo’s teeth sank into the boy’s side.
“I ain’t your daddy you little red-headed bastard. I’m just the man that’s been fucking your mom.” Courtland screamed as he ran away. “Besides, your mamma is blonde, and I’m blonde, but the mailman is a redheaded son of a bitch!” Courtland veered down one of the pathways. He started imitating his girlfriend, “Take little Finnigan on the cemetery tour. You two need to bond. What’s the worst that could happen?” He was almost free when Lula Mae and Damien came out of the darkness. “Get out of my way you crippled motherfucker!” Courtland screamed as he tried to run past them.
Lula Mae snatched the much taller man by the throat, “Nobody talks to my man like that!” She flung him backwards, and Courtland slammed against a cement crypt. The girl was pissed, but she just stood there as Damien began rolling forward in his wheelchair.
“Ah…rue.” Damien said as his body started changing. His ears changed to furry wolf ears, one of his eyes turned yellow, his left hand grew claws and fur tore through the skin, and his whole right leg changed until it ripped through his pants. “Ah…rue. Mother Father.”
“Mother Father?” Courtland asked in confusion.
“He’s calling you a dirty word, but his computer thingy won’t say it.” Lula Mae yelled.
“What the fuck are you?” Courtland asked.
“Your worst nightmare. I am a handicapable bad bass.” Damien responded.
“Bad bass?” Courtland asked.
*Zap*
“Bad Bass. Bad Bass.” Damien said as he stunned the man with the stun gun prong on his wheelchair, his face twitched with frustration until he finally just spelled it. “B-A-D-A-S-S.”
“Fucking cripple.” Courtland groaned.
*ZAP*
“MOTHERFUCKER!” Courtland screamed as his body still twitched from the electricity.
Damien tried to zap him one last time, but his chair was out of power, and so he could only sit there helplessly as Courtland stood up. “Oh…not so bad now are we.” Courtland laughed as he punched Damien in the face. Courtland hit him one more time before Lula Mae ran over and punched the man. Bones shattered, and practically exploded from the impact. Courtland landed in a heap on the ground. “Mrrphenburger.” Courtland couldn’t really form anything coherent with his shattered jaw.
“Did he hurt you baby?” Lula Mae asked Damien. He couldn’t move or respond in any way except for a few angry eye blinks and a little twitching. “Come on. Master doesn’t need us anymore tonight. I’ll take you somewhere to recharge your chair, and then we’ll go get something to eat. Maybe a fat hobo…or waffles?” Lula Mae really did love her waffles.
Damien sighed in frustration. He couldn’t say anything, he couldn’t do anything but breathe and blink. So he just resigned himself to the nine year old’s care until he could get recharged. Lula Mae pushed him out, and they began their search for a wall plug.
Courtland pushed himself up. He was terrified. The little girl hit like Mike Tyson swinging a sledgehammer. He’d never been hit so hard in his entire life. Courtland had even peed himself a little when he landed. “Smmnabith.” He tried to curse, but his mouth just wouldn’t move the way he wanted it to. So rather than wait to die, he started moving towards the exit again. That’s when they found him. At first he didn’t know what to think. They were just six tiny infants sitting between him and the exit. Then they started to change. Fur ruptured out through their skin, and fangs ripped out through their gums.
“Waa-OOOOOOOO!” The babies howled as they started crawling towards him. Courtland had already learned his mistake from dealing with the little girl. He began running, but the zombie werewolf babies were gaining. Two of them grabbed his ankles and started biting.
“Ouch! You little bastards! GET OFF!” Courtland kicked and hopped as they kept biting. Eventually one of them bit through his Achilles and Courtland crashed to the ground. He started crawling. Two more of the babies began climbing onto his back. “I said get the fuck off me!” Courtland jerked his elbow back and hammered into the side of one of the furry little werebabies. The infant gave a loud cry as it bounced against a crypt and slid down the side leaving a green blood trail. Almost immediately it started crawling back towards Courtland.
It wasn’t long before all the werebabies had Courtland on the ground. They flipped him over, and started gnawing on him. Two of the youngest babies instinctively searched out his nipples and bit down. Courtland screamed as they began suckling for blood. When nothing happened they started chewing their way into his chest. One of the babies crawled up and sat down on his throat. He put his hands on Courtland’s face, and then started clawing at his eyes. A few seconds later the tiny wereinfant was happily playing with the man’s eyeballs. He put one in his mouth and started suckling on it like it was a pacifier, another baby came up and began sucking on the other. Eventually the babies got bored and crawled up so they could chew into the brain.
“Oh that’s so cute. You’re little Sarah, and my Timmy are sharing.” Belinda said to her newest undead pack mat. The last bits of their werewolf body was sloughing off now that they’d all been fed, and were now gathering their children back up.
“I know…Timmy is such a little gentleman, and he’s so smart.” Megan grinned. The mothers let their kids play with the man’s innards like he was a sandbox before finally gathering their kids.
Shirley stood there trembling as people and creatures began dragging the last few screaming survivors back from the crypts. Men, women, children, and even the elderly were pulled by their hair, or if they didn’t have any hair they were yanked around by a foot. They pulled the victims along until they were all surrounding Shirley.
Danior walked out of the darkness. His eyes were fixed on them. Jimbo walked beside him, “They brought the rest as you requested Master.” Jimbo was eager to please the man since his return. He feared what Danior might do to him if he made him angry again.
Johanna moved through the crowd towards their pack leader. “Sir, after we finish here, if you don’t need us anymore tonight I’d like to take my kids out to the park. Some of them are pretty stressed from this and could use the down time to find something resembling normalcy.” Johanna asked patiently.
“Go.” Danior answered, and Johanna led her group of handicapped undead werewolves away.
“I don’t get why you give them so much leeway Master. Those retards are-“ Jimbo never finished his sentence because Danior backhanded him with such force that he hit one of the crypts and make the wall collapse. Jimbo scrambled back begging for mercy.
Shirley watched in terror as Danior evaluated each and every captive that remained. The first person brought to him was a large Hispanic man. He was heavily muscled, but it only took one of the children to hold him in place. Without any explanation, Danior punched the man in his face. The man’s body fell to the ground, his head was like a smashed jack-o-lantern. Danior kicked the body over to the side and waited. The next person was a woman in her forties. She fell to her knees begging him to let her go. Danior put both hands on her head and gave a quick jerk. She fell forward. Danior kicked her to the side, and then tossed the head to one of the mothers in his pack. Next was a man in his twenties. He didn’t seem to be that different from the first man as far as Shirley could tell, but after Danior evaluated him. Danior’s hand changed and claws extended out from his hand. He gave one quick swipe with the claws, and then the werewolf holding him carried him over to join the pack.
This went on for the better part of an hour. Danior studied each person, and then either killed them or slashed them with his claws. As the group dwindled she noticed that the first few victims weren’t looking so terrified anymore. In fact they looked…hungry. A couple of minutes later the first few new converts were eating from the pile of bodies Danior had left. Husbands ate wives, wives ate their husbands, children ate their parents, parents ate their children, and before long none of the dead were even recognizable any longer.
Shirley saw that the numbers were dwindling down to just a handful. She didn’t have much time left, and so while Danior was busy evaluating a six year old girl she ran for the crypts. “I’ll get her master.” One of the men said as he lumbered off after her.
Shirley ducked in and out between the crypts. She’d jogged almost every day for six years, but the combination of a full run and fear had her panting pretty quickly. She was pulling away until the man changed. Then she could hear him catching up quickly. She knew she’d never make it to the exit, so she instead tried to find some way to lose the werewolf that was now clawing and jumping its way from crypt to crypt as it pursued her with single-minded aggression.
Her hair whipped in all directions as Shirley tried to find a good spot to cut down between crypts. The werewolf leapt at her, but she flopped on the ground, and the werewolf crashed into some steel fencing that surrounded one of the crypts. Shirley was running as fast as she could between cement crypts. She cursed herself for choosing a lacy bra from Victoria’s Secret over her normal sports bra as her large breasts flopped in all directions, and occasionally hit her in the chin.
The werewolf finally got himself off the steel fence and leapt up onto the top of a crypt so that he could see across the entire cemetery. He spotted the top of her head and began leaping from crypt to crypt. His eyes fixed on her like an eagle on a mouse, and he accelerated. He reached out with one fur covered hand, his claws grabbed a handful of her hair and…
*Schlunk*
In the werewolf’s effort to grab the woman, he’d neglected to pay attention to what was in front of him. Instead he’d been running with his eyes completely focused on his prey. So when he ran face first into the decoration on top of the crypt of Bosephus Lee Grant. It came as quite a surprise. Bosephus had been a cowardly man in life, but he’d earned quite a fortune. So rather than just a simple crypt, Bosephus had requested something ornate. Something that made him seem heroic in death in a way that he wasn’t in life, and so on top of his crypt the designers had made a statue of the man in iron holding a sword out as he prepared to fight whatever came. None of the designers could have planned for a large werewolf, and yet the heavy sword served its purpose perfectly. The blade, though not sharp, still went cleanly through the werewolf’s mouth, and out the back of his skull. It severed the spinal cord, and the werewolf dangled in the air helplessly. His claws relaxed, and Shirley literally slipped right through his fingers. Shirley ran and found one of the crypts closest to the cemetery wall. Climbing the crypt wasn’t easy, but she was highly motivated, and once on top she jumped to the wall, and swung herself over. She ran off into the night screaming.
Danior and the others heard the werewolf screaming for help as he hung limply from the sword. Some of the pack started to move to rescue the were. “No.” Danior ordered, and the group stopped in their tracks. Danior was furious. The woman had escaped because of one pack members clumsiness, and so Danior decided to make an example of the man. Until one of the other weres pulled him down, he’d never be able to heal the spinal injury preventing his movement. In another week Danior would have all the people he needed to launch an attack on the city, and in the meantime the undead werewolf could just hang their. There was a possibility that someone might see the man, but it was in the far corner, and not easily seen from the street. Even if they did the man would just heal up and kill the witnesses once they brought him down, and so Danior just ordered the man to be left there.
There was one person left to change. A pretty redhead with a modest bosom. Danior found her particularly attractive. He leaned in and instead of clawing her, he bit her on the shoulder as gently as possible. There was a strange intimacy to it all that Danior found disconcerting, and somehow appealing. After the bite he pulled her to his side to declare her to be his mate to the rest of his pack. The young woman stood there frozen in fear as he asked her for her name.
“Becky…Becky Kelcher.” The woman sputtered.
“Today…you are my bride.” Danior spoke as if it was all decided regardless of what Becky wanted. She screamed in horror before running off to hide in the cemetery, but it wasn’t long before she felt her master calling. His pull was impossible to ignore.
“I’m coming my love.” Her mouth moved, and the words came out in spite of her every effort. Becky’s legs moved her toward the man that had only a short while ago called himself her husband. Danior was smiling, but it was a cruel smile. All she wanted to do was run away and pretend this night never happened, but now she couldn’t even stop her face from smiling. Becky didn’t know how, but somehow this man was controlling her. He pushed his will into her, and she heard herself say, “I love you. My husband…my master.” She wanted to throw up but her own body was betraying her.
“Tonight we’ll be united, and by dawn you will be their queen.” Danior said as he began removing his clothing.
Becky’s fingers removed her blouse, and then started removing her bra. Inside she was screaming for someone to make it stop, but she was trapped inside the shell she’d always considered her body until this moment. Now it was more like some horrible prison. They both kept pulling off their clothing until they were totally nude. Becky stood in front of the man terrified, but looking as calm and serene as Danior willed her to be. Danior looked down at the young woman, and felt himself harden at the sight of her creamy skin, pink nipples, and flaming red bush of pubic hair. There was just one last thing to do before he took her in front of the pack, and so Danior pushed even more of his will into her.
Becky felt her nipples harden, and the distinct ache of need between her thighs as she grew wet. Her body leaned in and kissed the man. As she kissed him, the ache continued to grow. Somehow he made her body want him, but inside she was hysterical. Oh God. Please don’t let this happen. She thought. Please Jesus. Please don’t let me endure this. She begged. She prayed. In her mind she screamed up to the heavens.
The kiss lingered. Danior found the softness of her mouth, and the taste of her tongue absolutely enthralling. When Danior finally allowed her to pull away he couldn’t help but notice her thoughts had changed from complete terror to joy. He couldn’t understand why she suddenly kept thinking that she was going home. Then he saw it.
Becky had two silver hoop earrings that were starting to burn her earlobes, and sitting around Becky’s neck was a silver Saint Rita medal on a silver chain. The moonlight glinted off the metal, and Danior howled with rage. The silver was already starting to burn her skin as the infection continued to spread. The medal was starting to melt through her chest. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Danior roared as he grabbed at the silver chain. He pulled it up for just a second before the chain sliced through his hand. Fingers fell to the ground leaving four knuckles spurting blood.
In his rage, he forgot to hold his control on the woman. Becky spat in his face, “I hope there’s a special place in hell reserved for you whenever you die.” Then she looked up into the sky and smiled, “Thank you Lord. I’m coming home.” Silver rings burned through her fingers like acid. They just slipped through the flesh, and even cut through the bone. Each ring fell to the ground, and a finger flopped down beside it. Becky’s face winced with pain but she also was filled with joy. Her prayers were answered. She didn’t even scream when the medal melted through her flesh, burned through her sternum, and then pierced her heart. The chain then began cutting into her neck like the wire on a cheese slicer. It just slid through cleanly and cut her head off at the neck. Becky’s head thumped onto the ground, and rolled onto its side. Her mouth began moving with laughter even though she couldn’t make a sound. One of the hooped earrings sank through the ear, past the skull, through the brain, and then out the other side. Becky was home.
The necklace burned its way through the body as blood poured out the open neck hole. Danior stared in horror as it burned its way down and eventually came out the woman’s vaginal. The medal and chain clanked on the ground, and he could still hear blood sizzling on the silver. The whole thing took seconds, but for Danior it had seemed like ages.
Danior howled, and for a moment forgot to exert his will on several of the pack. Some of them leapt at him to try and kill him, and others just reached up and with one clean swipe tore their throats out. Danior steeled his will at the last possible second, and his attackers immediately fell back in line. The weres that had attempted to commit suicide however took a little longer. Danior had to strain to force them to change so that they’d heal more quickly. He couldn’t have them walking around with open neck wounds. It would raise too many questions. After they changed he forced them to change back to human. Then he made them change two more times just so he could make them feel the pain as their bones broke and shifted. After they were properly submissive, Danior sent them all out so that he could be alone to mourn the loss of his new bride.
When officers finally caught up to Becky Kelcher she tried to explain what happened. Instead of investigating, they took her directly to the Touro infirmary for a psychological evaluation. The doctors tried to calm her down, but eventually had to sedate her. Even as the medicine was overpowering her she kept screaming about the werewolf killed by a man of steel. When she finally lost consciousness, her doctor looked at the two nurses holding her down and said, “Keep her sedated for as long as possible. Maybe in a couple days she’ll have mellowed out and we can finally start evaluating her.”
Most of the rest of the night was fairly quiet and peaceful. Lula Mae and Damien found a vending machine at an apartment complex that she could use the wall socket to plug the young man’s chair into to recharge. It took a few hours, but eventually he Damien’s chair came back up online. “Is everything okay? I mean that guy hit you pretty hard.” Lula Mae asked.
“I am one tough son of a fish. Ah…rue.” Damien joked.
“Son of a fish?” Lula Mae questioned.
Damien’s face twitched with frustration, “Fish, I mean female dog. You know I really hate not being able to curse. Stupid parental lock.”
“Yeah, I can see why that might be a problem, but I think it makes you sound more…classy. Like a senator, or the ice cream man.”
Damien turned his chair towards Lula Mae, “Thank you Jailbait. I really do appreciate that you took me somewhere to recharge. I would still be stuck there without you.”
“So you don’t hate me?” Lula Mae asked with the giant watery eyes normally only reserved for adorable cartoon kittens.
“No I don’t hate you.” Damien said as he rolled his eyes.
“Then can I ask for a favor?” Lula Mae said with as much sweet innocence as she could muster.
“What is it?”
“Can I…ride on your lap?” Lula Mae asked hopefully. “Just until we get somewhere that serves waffles”
“Get on, but no funny stuff.” Damien answered.
“Yay!” Lula Mae crawled up into Damien’s lap and then pointed down the street, “Avast! Man the poopie deck! Swing the yard arm! Hambone the mizenmast! Davy Jones’ sock drawer!”
“What are you talking about.” Damien asked.
“Oh come on…I’m bored. It’s been nothing but Master this and Master that. I want to do something fun. I want to play pirates.
“You want to play pirates.” Damien asked.
“I love Pirates of the Caribbean. I want to be just like Captain Jack Sparrow when I grow up…after we’re married of course.”
“Whatever.” Damien answered as he sent his wheelchair rolling forward.
“Weeee! Yo-yos and Ho’hos a pirate’s wife I’ll be!” The young girl giggled as Damien picked up speed. Things were going just fine until she leaned over and gave the man a kiss. Immediately the wheelchair came to a stop.
“Get off Jailbait.”
“But…”
“I said off.” Damien’s eyebrows twitched and almost actually furrowed with anger.
The little girl slid down off the chair undaunted. Instead of being disappointed she began skipping around Damien singing, “Damien and Lula sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
*Zap*
“Ouch!” Lula Mae screamed as she rubbed the large wound from Damien’s prong. He’d barely touched her, but she was going to have to change later if she wanted to heal, “You know that hurts right?”
“That is why I do it.” Damien answered.
“Can we still have waffles?” Lula Mae asked.
After a few moments Damien answered, “Yeah.”
Johanna had the rest of her students playing at the park. Most of them were upset, and couldn’t understand why “the bad man” kept making them do such “bad things”. She really couldn’t either. Whatever made Danior tick was something she couldn’t even hope to understand. The man was so angry. There was one thing she did know though. She knew the man didn’t really want to rule the world as much as watch it burn. He didn’t care for any of them as far as she could tell. He seemed to have some grudging respect for Damien, but she couldn’t figure out why. It was all just beyond her. So she focused on the one thing she could control. She focused on trying to soothe her students. She’d taken them to Carousel Gardens at the park so they could try to have at least a little enjoyment. They were scared, and deep down so was she. There wasn’t any way to escape the man. He could make them all do anything he wanted. His displays of power and control over them were growing. Sometimes when he got bored he forced some of the pack to have sex in front of him. Men with women, women with women, and men with men, any combination, and he didn’t care whether they were heterosexual or homosexual. Danior just picked two and made them go at it like rabbits right in front of everyone. Johanna counted herself lucky that so far he hadn’t made her do anything like that. Of course he’d made them all kill, and she couldn’t decide whether murdering someone against her will might send her to hell…or if she was already here.
Jimbo chose to go off somewhere he was fairly sure none of the others would follow. The rest of the pack generally disliked him, and he essentially felt the same way. He wanted to go to City Park at first and see the horses, but then remembered Johanna was taking her students there. He couldn’t stand the way that woman tried to protect her kids from everything that was going on, and she wouldn’t let him near any of the really young ones. It was as if she knew what he was thinking, and on top of that she was so motherly towards them that it just pissed him off. Instead of seeing the horses, he settled on the Audobon zoo. He scaled the fence to the zoo, and moved through the park. He’d always loved animals better than people anyway. From the dogs he used to snuggle with as a child, to the cats he’d pet on his lap, and even the chicken he fingered while watching his mother undress. Jimbo loved animals…and as far as he could tell they seemed to love him too. Of course they might not like him at first, but he won them over with his gentleness, his kindness, and of course almost everything loves peanut butter.
The man meandered his way into the petting zoo, and there he saw a beautiful albino deer. The deer was the petting zoos top draw. Kids everywhere came to see him. He was just majestic. Jimbo was enthralled as he walked towards it. “You’re so beautiful…I think I’ll call you Snowflake.” It wasn’t until Jimbo was standing beside Snowflake that he realized it was a male. The young buck hadn’t yet grown his antlers for the year yet. “Oh Snowflake I’ve never felt this way about another male before. You’re a buck and I’m a man…it’d never work out between us.” Tears started running down Jimbo’s face. The deer was used to being petted by people, and then sometimes receiving a treat. He waited for a moment for the treat to come, and then impatiently nudged the man with his head to get Jimbo to feed him.
Jimbo however interpreted the nudge to mean something else entirely. “Oh! Oh Snowflake! We can’t. It just wouldn’t be right. It’s just unnatural for a man and a buck to have sex…no matter how beautiful you are, and no matter how soft your coat is.” Jimbo was actually crying as he pondered the sinful nature of a man making love to a male deer. Snowflake nudged him again, and Jimbo broke, “Oh Snowflake. I don’t care what they say. It’s love! It has to be. I’ve never felt like this before.”
Snowflake wasn’t paying much attention to the man, in fact he would have completely ignored him if not for the fact he was still holding out hope that Jimbo might have some treats. When Jimbo started kissing Snowflake on the head, Snowflake just tolerated it like he tolerated the thousands of kids that had hugged and kissed him before. It was just one of those things a deer had to endure to get those tasty treats. It was when Jimbo shoved his tongue into Snowflake’s mouth that the deer realized there was a problem. Snowflake did the very thing he’d been taught to do by his mother since he was a fawn. He shot his tail straight up into the air as a warning signal to all the other animals that something wasn’t right. Unfortunately for Snowflake, Jimbo took the sight of the lifted tail as an invitation. “Oh Snowflake!” Jimbo gasped as he stared at his newfound lover. Jimbo didn’t hesitate to start removing his pants. “I promise I’ll respect you in the morning.” What happened next can only be truly described via nursery rhyme.
The night air was cool and sweet.
The moon hung in the air.
All the animals watched in horror, as Jimbo pounded Snowflake’s derriere.
The smell of lust was pungent.
Snowflake bleated in defeat,
As Jimbo gratified his urges, and used him just like meat.
The goats were horrified,
And the rabbits were terribly bothered.
Who knew what kind of evil butt baby Jimbo might have just fathered.
The first time was gentle.
The second time was vile.
Then after the third Jimbo had to rest awhile.
Snowflake tried to run.
The deer tried to hide,
But Jimbo wouldn’t take no. He wanted another ride.
The goats wanted no part of it,
And the rabbits wouldn’t play.
Sadly a sleeping chicken, became part of Jimbo’s three-way.
Somewhere there’s a field where flowers blossom.
There’s a stream where crystal waters flow.
But tonight the zoo’s a tragedy, because Snowflake was raped by a man named Jimbo.
*** SATURDAY MORNING, JANUARY 26th, 2013 – WASHINGTON D.C.***
Classified and Approved
For Release, 26 January 2013
Weaponless Protesters Assault Louisiana
Media reports indicate as many as fifteen thousand weaponless protesters have assaulted LSU campus and Baton Rouge. Local campus police are missing and presumed dead. Attempts at contacting protesters to receive demands have been met with excessive violence. What was initially believed to be a small protest of locals has now grown into a full scale riot. Violence escalated until the governor deployed the Louisiana National Guard. All attempts at a peaceful resolution were unsuccessful. Reports indicate casualties in the thousands. Bodies are lying in the streets. Law enforcement has reported extreme violence and many instances of cannibalism, but so far the news networks have decided to refrain from releasing those stories to prevent panic.
By all accounts the responders have control of the scene at this time, and the governor has chosen to refrain from declaring an evacuation. While the Louisiana National Guard is advising they have the scene under control, it should be noted that several other towns surrounding Baton Rouge have reported pockets of protesters attacking citizens, livestock, pets, and wildlife. At this time there is not an accurate count of casualties, but the attacks seem to be spreading with no discernible pattern.
Destruction is widespread, and several thousand people are missing. An unknown number of Louisiana National Guard, police, and other first responders are either missing, or dead. The governor has refused to send additional National Guardsmen to the area to investigate. State officials seem content with containment, and do not wish to do anything they perceive may have a negative impact on tourism during Mardis Gras. They seem content with taking a wait and see approach.
What is known at this time is that there are massive casualties in Baton Rouge, LSU campus has been a prolonged site of elevated violence, Livingston Parish is completely depopulated, and there has been two large explosions. One explosion was in Bayou Black, and another on a bridge leading to New Orleans. It should be assumed the violence is moving to the city.
The timeline as we know it is thus. Late Tuesday night a man identifying himself as “Coonass” Mullins made a threat against the president using the cell phone of a Sherriff Colton Mudd. “Coonass” Mullins advised to a government official that he was going to kidnap the president, sodomize him with a bowling trophy that he found at a yard sale two years ago, and then beat the president to death with his ex-wife’s crusty old dildo. He also advised that after the president is dead he would dig a hole in the ground, slide the president in, dump his exes collection of Julia Roberts movies in there with him, and then “light that son of a bitch on fire.” He continued his threat by saying that he would like us to notify the president’s wife that “his dick tastes like pink lemonade, and I’m giving out free samples anytime she wants some. Allen Connor received an additional call later that night where “Coonass” Mullins advised that he washes his balls so they won’t taste sweaty or anything. Mr. Mullins then advised that, She’s going to be lonely after he kills her husband, and he wants her to know he’s a real gentleman, and considerate of her needs.
Two secret service agents were sent out to investigate Mr. Mullins threat. David Wesker and Leon Redfield were sent to investigate Livingston Parish. Dave Wesker called in advising that a large animal traveling down the road at a high rate of speed attacked and killed Leon Redfield. When investigators arrived, Leon’s body was stripped to the bone. Dave Wesker was nowhere to be found, and is still at this time missing and unaccounted for.
One day later a Bobby “Coonass” Mullins arrived at a New Orleans Police Department where he advised them that there were “Zombies everywhere.” He was accompanied by the sheriff of Livingston Parish, one Colton Mudd. They were also accompanied by the writer Sarah Mudd, and college student Bobbie Joe Mullins. They informed the local police that there had been a “zombie outbreak” in Livingston Parish. They advised that there had been an infection that was spread to the whole city via the water department, and that the entire city now hungered for brains. “Coonass” Mullins also advised that there was a werewolf roaming the area, and that both the werewolf and zombie had “retard strength”.
The four would have been dismissed by the local P.D. as drunks, or mentally incompetent, but by then there were already reports coming in from Baton Rouge. Further questioning of the four subjects revealed that “Coonass” Mullins and Colton had transported a “zombie head” to LSU campus so that Bobbie Joe Mullins could investigate its origins. Bobbie Joe Mullins confirmed this, and then advised that someone from one of the fraternities stole the “head” and converted it into a device for the consumption of an illicit substance. The device, or “bong”, spread the infection amongst the fraternity. The infection spread from the fraternity to the campus, and from the campus to the city.
The president laid the security brief down onto the oak table and then looked up at his staff in confusion. “You can’t be serious? Is this some kind of joke?” The president said. “Zombies? Werewolves? Seriously, where’s the real security briefing?”
“Mr. President…that is the real security briefing.” The chief of staff answered.
Barry leaned back in his chair and did his best to process what he was being told. He fiddled with his long black fingers. He popped his knuckles nervously, and then tried to ignore the nicotine stains on his fingernails. He’d cut his smoking down, but days like this nearly drove him to two packs a day. All he could think was about how the republicans were going to spin the zombie apocalypse. “Well Denis…what can we do?”
“We can’t evacuate without the governor’s approval, but we can start preparing FEMA for refugees.” The very pale chief of staff answered.
“If this is something that can spread, shouldn’t we contain it?” Barry asked is staff.
“Are you saying you want us to illegally detain American citizens to prevent a massive outbreak that could destroy the country?” Chief of Staff questioned. When the president didn’t respond the Chief of staff grinned, “Well then fuck them. It’ll teach them to vote for Romney.”
“I want the paperwork for me to declare Marshall Law at the first sign this is getting out of hand. Have strike teams ready to go on a moment’s notice. I am not going to go down as an inept president that watched part of his country burn when he could have put a stop to it.” Barry ordered.
“Yeah B. Cuz it’d be wickitty-wickitty-whack yo! You might have Kanye talking how Barry O. don’t care about black people.” The vice president said.
Barry looked at the pale man and said in a voice that was almost a growl, “Joseph? What in the hell do you think you’re doing.”
“Representin’ keepin’ it realsies yo! Like, I gots to role hard for my peeps as vice-black B!” Joseph the vice president answered.
“Vice-black?” Barry said with barely contained anger.
“Yeah! Joey B. representin’ Scranton up in the housizzle!” Joseph began shaking his hands in the air.
Barry covered his face with his hands, “What do you think you’re doing now?”
“I’m throwizzle up gizzle sizzle Bizzle I’m Vizzle-blizzle.” Joseph responded as he crossed his arms around his chest and did his best to look as thuggish as possible.
Barry looked around. “Does anyone here know what he just said?”
Denis slowly raised his hand and said nervously, “He said I’m throwing up gang signs because I’m vice black.”
Joseph held out a fist, “Word Homey!”
“How did you even know that?” Barry asked dumbfounded.
“I listen to a lot of Snoop Dogg.” Denis grinned sheepishly, and then finally gave a gentle fist bump to the vice president.
Barry started to speak, but then Joseph pulled out his cellphone and held it up, “Whassup homeys! This is your boy J comin’ at you on my podcast from the White House briefing room Niggas! I be rollin’ balls deep up in this bee-yotch!”
Barry leaped over the table and snatched the cell phone out of his hand. He shut it off and then tried to calm himself. After counting to ten he said, “Joseph. I know that I’m the one that asked you to try and be more identifiable with the teen vote, and I accept that some of this is my fault.”
“What’s yo fault?”Joseph asked, and then added, “Well whatevs…if you say it’s yo’ fault then it’s all yo’ fault though because I am the shiznit, and no matter what…YOLO!”
“Joseph. When you were brought in, we needed a man that could add experience to my candidacy, and I realize that we asked a lot of you to try and become much more approachable to the teens in the second term, but I really didn’t expect you to become…this.” Barry sighed in frustration.
Joseph “What’s the dealio? C’mon…you know you my nig-“
“Finish that sentence and the senate and house will have to form a caucus to find your teeth.” Barry threatened. “Now let’s get something straight…you’re not black.”
“I’m vice black. In the event you get shot by whitey, I’ll have to assume the power of your blackness and lead the American people.” Joseph said calmly.
“You think that if I die…you become the second black president of the United States? You really think you somehow become black when I die?” Barack sputtered.
“Yeah…like the Highlander.” Joseph explained. “That’s why I’m vice-black now.”
“You’re not vice-black.” Barry groaned.
“Then how come I find fat blonde women attractive?” Joseph asked.
“That has nothing to do with being vice-president, or being black, and you’re not black.” Obama snapped.
“Of course I’m vice black. Every time I think about becoming president my dick gets bigger. Even the thought of being the 2nd black president is enough to make it grow longer.” Joseph said as though it explained everything.
“That’s called an erection! You’re not black!” Barry snapped. His patience was all but gone.
“Of course I’m black, because you’re THE MAN and you’re keeping me down. So I must be vice-black.” Joseph said it all in such a way that he thought it was all perfectly clear.
Barry jumped up and pointed, “YOU ARE NOT BLACK! I give up trying to explain why that’s offensive…so either figure that out, or turn in your resignation.
Joseph sulked in his chair and muttered, “Man’s always keeping me down.”
Barry looked at Denis, “Get me that paperwork.”
Denis nodded and said, “Yes sir. I’ll have teams ready as well.”
“Good man.” Barry nodded. “The meeting is over, and now let’s get to work on that visit with Israel.” Barry and the others stood up and started walking towards the door. Joseph was the first out the door.
Denis stopped the president and said, “You do realize we’re one heartbeat away from having that moron in office.”
Barry shrugged, “Nearly makes me wish Mitt had won the election.”
“What happened to him anyway?” Denis asked, pointing at Joseph as he began flashing gang signs to the secretary of defense.
“We hired him an acting coach.” Barry said.
“Yeah…so?”
Barry sighed, “He was a method acting coach. He taught Joseph to be a method actor, but Joseph went to deep into it and just kind of lost himself. I feel kind of bad about it. I didn’t expect him to commit so thoroughly to the roll.”
“Man that’s too bad.”
“Tell me about it. The first role the acting coach tried to have him learn was to play was the white house dog. It was next to impossible to get him to stop dragging his ass across the White House lawn.”
Denis laughed and said, “I’ll get you the paperwork Mr. President, but what are we going to do if we have to actually act on something there.” Denis asked nervously.
Barry smiled, “Simple. We’ll do what George W. Bush always did. We’ll blame anything bad on our efforts to fight the terrorists. The American people still eat that shit up. Oh and Denis.”
“Yes Mr. President?”
“This Coonass Mullins…make sure he gets audited every year for the rest of his natural life.” Barry grinned malevolently.