by Javan Bonds
Sickened, I closed the door on this horror show and moved to the next closed door. Hopefully, the same scene of utter depravity would not lay behind this door. Surely any enemy remaining would have come out to investigate the explosion and gunshots; I stood to the side and cracked open the heavy swinging door, pistol at the ready.
No one came out or made a sound, but I could sense that there was someone in the room. I spoke in a low voice. “Hello?”
From the blackness, a raspy female voice came back. “Like, who’s that?”
There was no doubt the woman heard the explosion and had a million other questions. It made me glad she was being prudent. “Benjamin Collins. Who are you? Are You Okay?” I responded.
Confident she was alone, I opened the door wider. She cringed at the light entering the room. “Amy. Amy Rice. Like. Where are my mom and sister?” In the small dark room that smelled of urine and shit, chained to the far wall with a shackle around her neck, there was a dirty naked blonde woman. She was trying to cover herself as best she could in the circumstances.
As I was introducing myself to the imprisoned woman, the only other survivor, Eddie, made an angry exclamation. “My sister! My niece!” Having no idea he was related to the bodies he discovered, I stepped closer to Amy.
Perhaps so shaken by discovering what he thought to be the last of his close family butchered, he walked off into the store, alone. Though I didn’t witness it myself, Devin later told me Eddie put his pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. There was no skull left to speak of, according to Landers. I guess the man just saw no hope left in this world. If humans could do that to humans, none of them, including himself, was worth saving.
I wasn’t aware at the time, but that meant we’d only be returning to Guntersville with one survivor. It seemed like a letdown at first. I tossed my jacket to Amy before freeing her. “You ready to get out of here?”
6
Mo Journal Entry 1
Before joining the Viva Ancora crew, I think I remember a discussion on the Tennessee Valley Authority way back from my high school history class. It could be a lapse of memory, but I’m pretty sure I remember that there were only one or two dams on the west end of the Tennessee River, before you crossed the Mississippi State line. There’s no way they could have built so many new dams in just a decade or so. I mean come on, have you ever seen the government move that fast, pre-blue-bastard apocalypse? It would take them ten years just to decide how much money they would need to “appropriate.” Clearly, The Screenwriter can cut through the red tape.
Seriously, I don’t think all of these locks even have fucking names! They must have spontaneously appeared when this screenplay was written. And no, I didn’t fucking look for titles, it just makes sense that they are impulsive inventions of The Screenwriter’s imagination!
☠☠☠
The Cora stopped at another unnecessary block of concrete in the water. I came onto the deck, already suited up in my Battlestar Galactica Cylon armor, carrying my Klingon bat’leth over my shoulder. Why you ask? I knew my name would be chosen to go out, so this just fucking saved me some time. I don’t even know why they keep up the ruse of randomly drawing names.
☠☠☠
“It looks like the lucky winners are Mo and Kumar. Congratulations!” The Expert was delighted to let me be almost killed again.
“Duh. I’m already ready.” It was so exciting to go out and be touched by tiny blue penises. Is that right? Maybe it’s like “index,” “indices.” “Penices.” Or even “peni!” Who knows?
At least I was partnered with one of the physically fit badass Special Forces crewmembers. I still don’t see why Aka doesn’t just fucking demand Easy, Bradley or one of the super soldiers accompany her on every damn dam mission. You know, especially since she thinks I’m a deviant that watches close family members during intercourse. Come on. I only walked in on them one time back at the prison, by accident! I still regret it! Kind of.
Well, it could be worse. I could be partnered with Gene again! I just finished getting the damn blood off the last damn dam mission we did together.
I made my way to the gangplank, which was only lowered before entering each dam; Crow reminded us several times because Aka was going. If it was left up to Crow, I could just pull my motherfucking lazy white ass up the rope ladder and drop it every time we came back. Well, it was comforting to know that at least someone expected us to come back.
As expected, The Phantom walked downstairs, and his armor magically appeared on him. He returned above deck carrying his talwaar and sporting a Clone Trooper battle suit accented with blue.
Kumar Jindal, like all The Phantoms, carried a traditional Indian blade. I had already seen Sanjay Patel’s katar, some kind of badass push daggers similar to Gene’s adamantium claws. The talwaar was a long, curved sword; I would ignorantly confuse with a scimitar. It was nothing like most European swords, it wasn’t really intended to stab or even cleave, but simply to slice and slash. Having no real weight to dismember, the blade is light and fast. It is used traditionally to get inside of heavy armor and reinforced, thick shields of the enemy. Peevies wouldn’t be carrying their wounded from the battlefield, but there would definitely be a lot of blood for them to slip in. Change of scene a bit, blood and shit. It wouldn’t surprise me if I somehow lost my balance in it as well! Oh God, that just sent me images of chunky Hormel chili swimming in tomato soup with sorghum molasses running through it!. Why do I think these things!
It struck me when I learned the HITS all carried unique blades, except for Dr. George, The Medicine Man. I guess he just didn’t have time to go home and pick up his unfathomable awesome, funny named piece of steel before diarrhea hit the fan.
Making our way across the small parking lot to the front door of the dam, I suddenly felt a strange feeling. If you can believe it, I really wasn’t worried about my well-being. I knew I would come out today as clean as usual. There was a sense, a feeling somehow different and yet also a sensation I knew I could instinctively trust. Some other main protagonists would experience a close call today.
Was the Oracle sending me messages? Maybe I was being contacted by The Screenwriter. Only time will tell. What the hell could I do about it anyway? I'm just The Hero, named again by this torturous band of brigands who claim to have only fairness in mind. Even when they keep pulling my name out of the damn dam raiding party hat
☠☠☠
Things were backward in this particular dam. The control room, or whatever you want to call it, was just a few doors down from the entrance. We moved into the room, the Cora made a successful pass through the lock, and we headed toward the door, strangely unmolested.
Of course, before we crossed the entry room, a hissing roar came from within the bowels of the complex. The undead would be coming at us from our six o’clock, inside the dam. That was usually from behind, right?
Why not just make a run for the ship, you ask? Well, I asked the same damn thing. I didn’t even get a fucking response. I think Kumar was having too much fun slicing up the dam zombies.
Whenever using the bat’leth in combat, I feel like Worf, but shit, I’d rather just watch TNG on DVD with Gene instead of almost being devoured by ravenous monsters! Thank the Screenwriter that everything was smoothly paved on our journey of walking backward and there were no missteps. But as slow as we began moving there wouldn’t be even a slight risk of that!
My Mandalorian ally slashed every blunatic that came within reach of his weapon. He slashed open bellies, spilling out stinking guts or undigested raw meat onto the floor. There had to be more blood than I had ever seen flowing out before him.
He brought his blade up and across two of the next attackers with horrifying results. The wound on the peevie to the left started above its left kneecap. Slicing up and over, blood began pouring from the open veins and dissected meat and tissue in the right thigh. Standing on useless legs, the animal collapsed as countless others had before it.
Jindal’s talwaar continued its upward journey right through the erect penis of the next zombie. Ever seen a hamburger bun as it is sliced in two? Well, compare this to a hot dog bun; a really thin hot dog bun. Purée a red velvet cake and inject that into the piece of bread until it’s close to bursting. Now, when you break that tiny, blue, misshapen tubular bread in half, you have a pretty good idea of what I just witnessed. No Men in Black memory eraser device could ever get that image out of my head.
The peevie didn’t start screaming and fall over, putting its hands over the wound. It just fucking stood there in shock, unable to even make a noise. I’m sure it had a look of disgusted terror and pain on its face, I just couldn’t tear my fucking eyes away from the most horrific sight imaginable.
Not really knowing what to expect, I watched as the blue banana split open while still attached at the base. The lower half bounced against the shrunken testicles while the top part of the member did a pirouette and sank into the matted pubic hair above it. There’s got to be something wrong with me because I spent the time describing that to you! At least you have a clear mental image and can experience sleepless nights along with me!
Standing to the right of The Phantom, I did the most merciful thing I could do. The revenant looked from him to me, pleading with its eyes for one of us to end the torment. I brought one end of the bat’leth around and jammed it straight into one of the thing’s yellow eyes. Diarrhea violently shot from its blue asshole, spraying onto the creature directly behind it. The body went momentarily stiff before collapsing. Thankfully, it fell over forward, covering the blooming tulip of an eviscerated penis.
Thank The Screenwriter; I would no longer be forced to stare at John Wayne Gacy's wet dream. I was surprised in the fact I held onto my bat’leth and didn’t just cup both hands over my crotch in knowing sympathy. Have no fear; there would be plenty more penis to view in the next few minutes!
☠☠☠
Aka graciously opened the front door, so we could continue our slower -than -a -snail’s -pace backward trot into the sunlight. I should’ve thrown a grenade up and over the heads of the undead as far back as I could toss it. Knowing my luck, one of them would put their damn hand up and it would bounce back, and blow up at my fucking feet!
Why is it whenever I’m confronted with untold numbers of cannibalistic nudists, they just so happened to be completely fine with the damn sun! They didn’t even squint when stepping out into the blazing Alabama ultraviolet. Not only was I suffering from heat stroke, but I was also getting a damn sunburn while inside my armor. The peevies were soaking up enough sun I could get cancer just from being around them! You’d never believe these things were ever nocturnal.
It amazes me we didn’t just use our fucking firearms from the beginning. It wasn’t like they didn’t know we were here and we needed to be stealthy. That probably wouldn’t be near as enjoyable for the audience, though. Would 300 have been the box office success it was if the Spartans had just used chain fed mini-guns rather than mince enemies up like they were fucking Emeril Lagasse on The Food Network? I guess that’s why Kumar had the talwaar rather than something that would kill instantly. Blood and screams equal a bigger opening-night!
Because I was being attacked constantly by naked monsters from the front, I didn’t get the chance to look behind me and see the fucking gangplank wasn’t lowered as we walked out the door. The rules demand if a peevie is sighted, all access from the ground to the deck must immediately be disconnected. It goes without saying Crow made this rule. Is there even a question it was definitely a relinquishment on her part to ever have the damn gangplank dropped!
So, when I do turn around and see that the gangplank is up, I see Hammer is on the dock, unarmored and now stranded. Don’t ask me why someone like the delusional pawnshop owner would be caught out in the world unprotected when Ruskies and tangos could infiltrate the lines and pull a grassy knoll at any time! I almost forgot what she looked like, when not encased in metal. She took cover behind a parked car and readied her pistol for when we got out of the way. At least she was kind enough to give us a chance to move before she started throwing lead in our direction!
After entirely too long, the rest of the Cora crew started launching rounds at the zombies coming out of the damn dam door. You know, they were just being cautious when we were nearly half a mile away from where they’d be shooting. I glimpsed something the size of a coke can fly over our heads. Upon the explosion, I realized my bodybuilding brother spiraled a grenade towards the door.
A white phosphorus bomb exploded just over the heads of what had to be a thousand blunatics. Incinerating fire rained down, causing a few to look up. The stupid animals unfortunate enough to be curious and gaze skyward received splashes of liquid magma on their faces. Flecks of pain peppered blue cheeks, yellow eyes, gore-matted foreheads, and even burned through teeth and skulls like cotton candy in a raccoon’s water dish. Peevies began to claw at their faces, tearing blue skin down to the bone, attempting to stop the fire from eating at them. Eyeballs popped and exploded like yolks on a fried egg. Sunnyside up!
Tiny balls of fire burned through the front teeth in an instant and were already traveling to the back of the throat before the monsters could look down. They could do nothing but scream and shake their heads as the phosphorus sun-like explosion ate cerebral cortexes. It was sickening to watch naked former humans die, screaming in terror.
However belated, the assistance of the others on the boat quickly shaved the enemy horde down to a manageable number. The number of mobile zombies standing before us became only a few dozen in minutes. This just shows what having more than two bodyguards at a time could accomplish! Better yet, why don’t they just leave me on the damn boat? Then Aka would only need one bodyguard.
Two blunatics came charging from the mass of dying and dead. Gripping my bat’leth in both hands, I pushed the blade straight out in front of me in a 180-degree line. It caught both peevies coming at me simultaneously. The inner points jammed into the monsters’ sides, sliding between their ribs and puncturing lungs. Both animals gasped for breath as I tried to wrench my alien blade from within them. No matter how much I jerked and twisted, the damn thing wouldn’t budge. The peevies were trying to assist me, pushing themselves free. Even our combined efforts still were for naught.
The blue accented Clone Trooper brought his steel up and over, slashing across the monster on my right. His talwaar gashed into the blue throat before him, exposing esophagus, trachea, arteries, and whatever the hell else is within the throat. Blood began pumping from the wound, and all the creature could do was desperately try to free Itself from my Klingon sword. It thrashed and attempted to scream without any air. I had no idea what would kill it first, the lack of oxygen or rocketing blood loss.
Maybe the combination of the mortal injuries and the insane panic combined to make the animal stop thinking or something. It started going slack and lost its footing. The dead weight on one end of the bat’leth caused it to tip and pushed upwards on the other one’s rib. There was nothing I could do as one peevie fell to the ground. The blade pushed against bone until I heard a snapping and then a light pop as the rib broke. My bat’leth was free on that end. Looking down for a second I saw jagged and loose rib bones, now snapped open and leaking chunky marrow to the ground.
I looked in shock at the zombie. “Shit man, I’m sorry!” Even though it was just a revenant; that had to hurt. I didn’t even mean to do it!
Though in extreme pain, the injured reanimant realized it was free at the same time I did. It reached its arms out like a classical zombie and was about to come at me. Just then, the end of the blade that was dragged down by the opposing dying animal suddenly popped loose. I brought it up, and the outer point caught the beast directly in the temple. Recurved steel punctured grey matter and sent the peevie into infinity, but not before it made a final squirt of black diarrhea. The Screenwriter just gives us no breaks!
Well, actually I guess I do get the occasional
reprieve. You know, since I now had my sword. But in the feces department... Yeah, we have to deal with lots of shit. Maybe I'll start a toxic waste cleaning business after this. Our slogan can be; We're number 1, in number 2!
☠☠☠
“Those peevies left living couldn’t even get up,” I spoke over the ragged moans of the dying ex-humans and turned to The Expert, crouching behind a car. “You can come out now, Hammer. Oh, and thanks for the help.”
“I’m not wearing armor. Excuuuuse me!” She was sure to over-enunciate that last part.
“Why the hell were you down here without armor anyway?”
“Rose’s hair bow.”
The question mark on my face let her know that wasn’t explanation enough. She sighed and continued. “A gust of wind came off the water and blew her hair bow down here.“ Shaking a pink hunting camouflage hair bow at me, she continued. “It would just be for a second. Besides, I didn’t expect y’all out so soon.”
She continued to shake the pink hunter camo hair bow as proof. I only have one question: Crow wears fucking hair bows? Actually, I have more questions; they just didn’t come to me until now. Why the hell did she lower the gangplank just for something like that? You know Crow would make my lazy white ass use the dam rope ladder for something so trivial! Why would the paranoid survivalist that is, The Expert, without a thought concerning the enemy, come on land without armor? Maybe love makes everybody do stupid things. Sarah’s still with me. That should tell you how moronic the feeling of love is.
Still a good distance from the Cora, I started walking in that direction. The African Princess and the Indian Special Forces ninja were going through the vast swaths of injured undead, introducing them to true death. Aka stabbed the end of her black halberd into soft points of the infected craniums. Jindal moved through the dying infected, slicing throats and spilling precious lifeblood onto the pavement.
