Copyright 2012 Jesse James Freeman
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Cover Design by Thomas Boatwright
Edited by Jennifer Gracen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.
PRINT ISBN 978-1-935961-74-1
EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-078-8
For further information regarding permissions, please contact
[email protected].
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012915975
THIS BOOK IS
DEDICATED TO THE
BADASSARY OF
KAREN DELABAR
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES IN BOOK 3…
MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Steven Luna, Marni Mann, Micheal Olivares,
Robert Stringer, Shauna Davis, Tess Hardwick,
Tracey Hansen, Joe Schmidt, Robert Pruneda,
Quill Shiv, Glenn Skinner, Stephanie Fuller, and
in loving memory of Stormy The Chicken
Thanks to Jennifer Gracen, Thomas Boatwright,
and everyone at Booktrope
~1~
I SMACKED THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA
“IS THIS UGLY SNAP-TRAPPED, ROTTEN-TOOTH, greasy sack' a guts ever gonna get sick of twirling me around like I'm his date to the ho-down?” Billy Purgatory didn't exactly say those words out loud, or at least he didn't think he had, but he was sure thinking a lot of colorful language just like that as he held onto the vest with the glowing orb strapped onto it.
He was getting sicker than a carny's merry-go-round mule and his eyes were rolling around in his head as fast as everything else was around him. All he could hear was the monster moaning and carrying on, like it was offended that Billy was hitching a ride on it.
Billy Purgatory and the Time Zombie were caught up in a twisted river of black ink and swirling mayhem. Billy gripped his skateboard tight. “This is the greatest trick I've ever done.” Not that Billy was really doing anything. He was still taking all the credit for just how fast the whole world was spinning.
“If I do puke, it's just gonna make this even more badass.” Maybe that'd shut up all its screaming and crying. “You started us up this ramp, zombie. No use in screaming like a city girl on a country roller-coaster.”
“Grrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr'grllll'Rhhrrrrrrrr!”
Billy laughed. “We're riding this wave all the way to the bottom. Come Hell or Hiawatha!” Billy continued to fall with the monster, and even though his stomach felt like it was up between his ears, he was having the time of his life.
Even better than jumping the dumpster out behind the Chinese restaurant.
“Dumpsters will never tickle these heartstrings again.”
Billy Purgatory was in a strange world in which he had never before been. His collapsed widow's peak of black hair sailed in and out of his eyes. Dark shorts of a camouflage styling and T-shirt fluttered like a proud flag. Sneakers held on to his feet for dear sneaking life.
Billy saw its mouth open as he pushed away from it. He saw its jaw snap like an alligator. Infected teeth called out a chorus only the dead can sing.
The face of his foe was rotted and failing, but Billy could see that it had once been a man. This monster had a mother that had birthed and loved it. It had grown with hopes and dreams, which had been surely dashed and forgotten when whatever curse which made it as it was had befallen it. Billy was curious about him, but not so curious that he was sticking with it for any longer than he had to.
It had sad eyes though, which didn't seem to go along with the rest of its homicidal demeanor. You had to look far back into the black ichor vessels that made clouds of the pupils, but there was sadness in there, Billy was certain of it. The teeth and the claws and the metallic probes and electrodes which had sunk into its skull long ago seemed unconnected to the eyes and the sadness.
What had this thing done to itself? What raw deal had it made with the universe which garnered this reward?
Maybe being a zombie was all about having to remain sad and alone forever? Being only able to express your emotions with slashes and trying to speak in puncture wounds to those who got close enough to listen? Maybe being evil was little more than no longer being able to speak the language of the rest of mankind?
It was hard to make friends in this world; harder still when your mauling undead gape tries to swallow them one awkward hello at a time.
Staring up and around the monster, into what had been a void of darkness, there suddenly appeared before Billy's eyes an attic's full of heavenly pinpricks. The light of the stars came back into view, and Billy felt the impact of the thing he was riding on touch down hard. Everything on the monster shook violently, including Billy's handholds, and he fell off and hit the ground with a thud that could be described as not very delicate — which is why Billy called it a thud.
The boy was sliding down a big, stupid rock, kicking up dust and sand all around him as he slid. Rocks were rolling along with him, and he pulled his board to his chest as his body began to slide and then roll. Every turn he took opened a new gash and caused a new bruise.
He was gonna have to make up a very fancy lie when he told Pop about this story. A doozy of a lie, even better than the time he told the lunch lady at the school cafeteria that if he didn't get tacos every day for lunch, his doctor had said all his hair would fall off — like candy spilling out of a piñata.
“Do you see this beautiful head of hair, lunch lady? It cannot be allowed to pass from this world without a fight.” The lunch lady had pointed to her own head and indicated the net she wore over her hair to keep it under control. Billy pointed, unmoved, “Eat more tacos!”
It was his answer to everything, r
eally: Eat More Tacos.
When Billy finally stopped sliding in the dirt, he saw the monster far away and standing on top of that big, stupid rock they'd landed on. It clenched its fists and raised its arms and face to the sky.
“Here we go again.”
“Ghhhr'lllarlllgh'Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'Orrrrl'ghhhhhhhh!”
Billy shook his head and rocks fell out of his beautiful hair-do. “Doesn't that guy know any other songs?”
Then the monster banged on its chest with its fists, there was another one of those bright flashes that made the spots blink around in Billy's eyes, and the monster and all its screaming vanished from the rock and was gone.
Billy pulled himself, and his skateboard, up from the ground. “If I had a cool disappearing light'mah'bob on my chest, and I could do all those tricks like that thing can do, I'd be a lot happier than it and my guidance counselor lady seem to be.” He was pretty sure she drank, and the divorce probably wasn't helping any of that — the guidance counselor lady, that is, not the monster that did the cool tricks.
He was banged up and bloody, but he'd been that way before, so Billy decided to take a walk — but he was cautious, because he didn't know just how far that thing had flipped them into the air, and the baseball field and all those vampires had to be around here somewhere close.
“I'm sneaking past the crypt-cousins this round.”
The more he looked around, the less this was looking like the neighborhood around the old cement factory. He was having trouble finding any landmarks that he recognized and he hadn't seen a street yet. No streets meant no rolling, and his legs were already hurting from walking.
There were no buildings — no wonder he didn't recognize anything. “How the heck am I supposed to find my way home if there ain't any street signs?” Billy walked down from the rocks and boulders into an area of scattered trees and grasslands. The moon was pretty bright, and the noise from all the bugs was pretty loud.
“How far in hillbilly country did that dumb monster toss me?”
Billy stopped when he saw that what he thought was a tree standing next to a tree was really a monster standing next to a tree. A big one.
“A dinosaur? Son of a bitch, I knew that teacher was lying.”
It stood on four long legs like a horse and had an even longer neck. It didn't seem concerned with Billy Purgatory in the least. It was eating the leaves off a tree. “I'm gonna drag everyone out here and show them that dinosaurs are living in the woods right on the edge of town.” Billy decided to make Pop come along too, because if this dinosaur decided to act up, he was pretty sure that his grizzled war hero father could wrestle it to the ground and show it who was boss.
Then Billy would jump it on his board — kinda to show off for the other kids' benefit. Seeing a dinosaur was one thing; seeing Billy jump his skateboard over it was really putting on a show. If he did that though, he was gonna have to figure out how to lure this dinosaur out to the street.
The new monster froze, then craned its neck back to look at Billy. Billy took a couple steps back and raised his board up.
It lowered its neck, sniffing the air in Billy's direction. Billy looked the thing over. Seeing it face to face, it didn't seem as scary as the dinosaurs he'd seen in the movies. The moonlight shone over the dinosaur's skin and he recognized the yellowish and brown splotched pattern. The lady that stood on the corner and always wanted Billy to buy her cigarettes ‘cause she was banned from the liquor store had a purse that was just the same pattern.
“Dammit, this thing's not even a T-Rex.” It had a face and teeth like a horse — all it did was chew leaves. “For a dinosaur, you are a real letdown. You look like a giraffe.”
It sniffed in Billy's direction again, then raised its neck up and turned to trot its high ass through the trees. Billy took this as an invitation to follow. He had a lot better things to do than follow a dinosaur-giraffe, but maybe this thing was headed towards the street.
The dinosaur went into a full trot and began putting distance between it and Billy. “Hold up, dinosaur. This ain't a caveman club, it's a skateboard.” Billy broke through the trees and watched it running down the slope into a valley, towards a big swimming pool that turned out to be more like a lake. There were tons of dinosaurs down there by the water in the moonlight. Some had long necks like it did, some looked like reindeers, and there were fat dinosaurs in the water…
“That's a damn hippopotamus.”
Billy crossed his arms as he looked down over the tall grass swaying in the nighttime breeze. Sure enough, there were hippos in that lake.
Billy watched the interplay of the fantastic creatures milling about in the darkness. Although he didn't know how that zombie-monster had gotten him there, he knew exactly, without a doubt in his mind, where he was.
“Dammit, I hate the zoo.”
If Billy hadn't been so banged up and could feel anything, he'd have picked up on the hairs lifting on the back of his neck sooner. Regardless, he was coming around to the idea that he was being watched.
Billy raised his board, checking the wheels as he did so. The old girl had survived, thankfully, and was no worse for wear other than a dirt bath. Billy thought about his only weapon as he closed both hands on it, in case it would be needed to swing at something.
“I don't do nothing with you lately but beat up stuff.”
His skateboard didn't answer. It must have known better than to run its mouth when there was danger lurking.
“Please, no more vampires. Please, please. No. More. Vampires.”
Billy cut his eyes up to the night sky in a motion of, “Can't a guy catch a break?”
Then, Billy Purgatory spun around.
Mean, dirty dogs. Three of them faced off with him now. They were bigger than the strays that roamed the neighborhoods. And they had nasty grins on their faces, like a fat kid who finds the door to the ice cream truck left open.
They'd come from behind a small group of rocks, and their present course was circling Billy while he tried to follow their snarls and sweating teeth in the dark with his board.
Everything Billy met lately seemed hungry and had the fangs to seal the deal.
Billy knew they were gonna hit him from three sides. He had heard his Pop go on and on about how even a three-peckered goat can't fight a two-front war. That meant three fronts were just ridiculous. Billy was almost too tired to care. His guts still hurt from being so close to that undead maniac. The flash that had brought him here had made time and space ooze over his insides like a melted clock.
He figured this must be the end, but he couldn't wrap his head around having dodged an army of vampires, and then a zombie monster, only to get chomped down on by the mange.
This was when he heard the war cry.
Billy was falling down and blacking out from the strain, but he swore that attached to that high pitched rebel yell was the body of a monkey wearing a necklace made of the teeth of every animal Noah didn't catch. A monkey with two long war spears and a face full of teeth and cool war paint. Monkey screams from a face of white dots and slashes.
The thing was ferocious for a monkey and had fangs of its own. The dogs turned on it and that was their mistake; one of them got the spear, no questions asked, and was reduced to a blood-spraying whimpering call for mercy.
No mercy was shown.
Billy blacked out right after the last dog limped away to hide in the night, tail between its legs.
II.
He awoke, but fought it the whole way. Billy had been having that dream about the Devil Bird again, and he was hoping that this time he would make it to the end to find out exactly what that stupid chicken was talking about.
No answers again.
Billy found himself lying on a mat within a hut. He stared outside and saw tribesmen, tribesladies, and tribeskids milling about a fire. It had become night again.
Billy turned his head to stare up at what he considered would probably be the ceiling of the hut he was in, but instead fo
und the brown eyes and skin of a girl about his age. Maybe a little older, but not much.
Her face was the first forgiving thing he had seen in forever. The side of that face closest to the door was bathed in the warm firelight from outside. He got all caught up in watching the patterns of it change the hue of her soft skin, like a kaleidoscope to his eyes. Her hair was short and he liked how it framed her forehead. She wasn't trying out earrings or lipstick like all the girls from his school, and he liked that, because she didn't need it to be pretty. She simply was pretty.
She had caring and concerned eyes which never left his own. Her mouth tried to smile to reassure him that he was alive and okay, but she wasn't able to trick him into thinking that happiness was something she found easy to come by.
Her hand rubbed a wet cloth over Billy's forehead. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, an open medical kit that lay beside him on the floor mat.
“Is this a dream?” Billy wasn't sure what was really happening anymore. “Where's that stupid chicken?”
“Just rest.” Her voice was soothing and she had an accent Billy had never heard before; very proper, with none of the colorful slang or cutting words short, like his own mouth was so fond of. “Zeus brought you to me. You're safe now.”
Billy tried to rise up, but she was strong and pushed him back down. Then again, maybe he liked the attention more than he let on, and gave in. The cloth-on-the-forehead trick was working its magic.
“Girly, I'm not safe.” Billy tried not to excite his voice, but he could only do so much when wound so tight he might pop a sprocket. “There's zombies and vampires and big dogs after me.”
She gave him a look and then checked his forehead with her hand like she was checking for a fever. The only other person that had ever done that was the nurse lady at school, and she had big man hands with hairy palms.
“Where's my board?” Billy felt like he might go into a panic.
She slowly pointed and Billy's eyes followed her delicate fingers, maybe lingering on them too long, before he noticed the skateboard lying on the mat at his feet.
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 1
