by Bonds, Javan
Our resident nerd converted the spark ignition for the cannon into a computer mouse. Where was the fuel? Fuck it! Mere mortals should not ask how The Screenwriter performs miracles. I was yearning for a secondary fire key to press and look down the iron sights. I pressed the left mouse key once more and received a click, signifying it was empty. Where the hell was the reload key? I was about to just give up and go online to look for some cheat codes when I noticed a crate full of black cylinders to my left. I was going to have to manually reload my weapon? WTF? Adam Sessler was definitely not going to give this one a good rating!
It would clearly not be possible to rapid fire these things, but it wasn’t going to take more than a few seconds to reload if I had a bunch of cannonballs at the ready. I was able to knock four or five of them into the floor. Next, I rolled the damn things up against the cannon. Why were these things here? Did The Tech keep a fucking box full of cannonballs or something? Just as I thought that, I looked down at one of the heavy cylinders. This was comical and I was pretty sure it had been done in some zompocalypse story. The cannonballs each had a three hole grip! Well, I guess I’m not going to get bowling balls filled with explosives or napalm.
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Easy’s story continued.
“Back on the deck we watched the Forever Young continue to burn. Gene looked at me and asked, “What is your kriffing brother doing Easy?” Gene must have forgotten what he had said about the cannon before we left Guntersville.
Gene paused, as if remembering something important, then a look of surprise flashed on his face.
“Big Bertha!” I was expecting him to throw his head back and start laughing like a mad scientist. He went on to explain how he had rigged the cannon to fire projectiles without using any type of fuel. I’m no engineer, but I don’t think what he said he did is technically possible. He boasted that one of his attributes in Fallout was jury rigger. Whatever the hell that means?
After at least half a dozen bowling balls were launched from the Cora, the Forever Young started breaking up. We could see a trash barge beyond the sinking yacht with people running around on it. The boat was peppered with tiny holes, and probably wouldn’t stay afloat long if we kept throwing balls of fury through it. Just as I thought that, our cannon became silent.”
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“Motherfucker! Why?” I kicked the damn cannon and received no answer. Perhaps I could just follow the advice of my mechanic wannabe buddies from high school, if it doesn’t work, look at it. Keep looking at it. Eventually, you can just throw your hat down and yell. “Well damn! I guess I’m not gonna be able to make it work.”
The boat between us, was now sinking. It was no longer a barrier in the enemy’s line of sight. The Pirates jumped behind the shipping containers, or any other random piece of junk on their damn barge to hide behind, and started sending rifle rounds downrange in our direction. I don’t think they would be sinking a caravel anytime soon with small caliber rounds, but they were keeping heads down on our boat. It wasn’t surprising that their vessel turned to face the Viva Ancora and was coming straight at us.
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Easy continued
“We had taken cover on the other side of the poop deck, occasionally peeking to see our approaching enemy. “One barge. Several motorboats approaching. If they are unable to board, they will simply do to us what they did to the Forever Young.” Darth Vader spoke after rising up quickly and dropping back down.
Hammer turned with an insanely giddy giggle. “I’ve got an idea!” She sprinted to the port side of the ship and began heaving on the rope that one of the motorboats was attached to. Her giggling became almost maniacal as Gene and I rushed over to join her.”
☠☠☠
Well, shit. The barge plowed through the burning ashes of the Forever Young and started our way. Several tiny boats broke off and moved at us even faster. The fight was coming to me whether I wanted it or not. I went down to my room to armor up before heading back above deck to defend my home. There was no time to check, but it seemed Sarah had overdosed on sleeping pills, remaining completely dead to the world.
As I came above deck I shouted attempting to berate the Tech. “Hey, MacGyver! Your stupid bowling ball gun broke.”
He didn’t seem to be with the rest of the crew but The Old Friend looked over and motioned for me to join the rest of them cowering behind cover.
“They’re headed this way. Keep down.” Bradley spoke in a low voice. Mary peeked out from behind her master’s head and gave me three quick nods of agreement.
“Okay.” I matched his volume. I shook my head. “Why are we whispering?” I asked as I continued to whisper.
The paraplegic bodybuilder smiled and didn’t bring his voice to any higher of a volume. “I don’t know. It just seems like this is the best thing to do.” Mary again looked out from behind Bradley’s head and put a single finger to her lips.
I looked around and spoke at a more conversational pitch. “Where’s Easy? Did he go back to bed–“
The Medicine Man interrupted. “He went with Captain Sledge and Eugene to take the fight to the enemy.” He pointed to the left side of the boat, to show me where the small motor boat had departed from. Well, I guess they had this covered. That means I could go back to bed!
Attempting to appear nonchalant, I turned around and began my trek to the stairs. Before I got more than a few steps, The Dark Lord of the Sith placed his gloved hand on my shoulder and turned me around. “No, Captain Collins. I am afraid you must remain HERE!”
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17
Wrath
THE TECH SHRUGGED the shotgun from his shoulders, dropping it to the floor of their boat, as it made a wide arc drawing on the leading waterborne vessel. They were approaching completely undetected in the darkness. Gene crouched as he began flexing his fingers, extending his adamantium claws, mentally preparing himself for the fight to come.
One with the Force, I must be.
He then turned to his fellows and in his best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression and said, “I’ll be back.”
The Excelsior Comics’ owner launched himself at the incoming bass boat. An impossible amount of yards were crossed with his Force Leap. He came out of his Superman pose and seemed to land gently on the deck. The four men in the boat had no time to realize they were already boarded. All four men would be annihilated before a shot rang out.
Gene threw his arms forward and in. The man in front of him had just enough time to scream as the razor-sharp claws sliced into his upper back. Before another intake of air could be made, The Tech violently forced his blades back out when they reached the man’s spine. The body collapsed as vital organs were flung asunder.
Victim number two was to Gene’s eight o’clock. The collector of everything fantasy drew back his now crimson coated blades, driving them through the next man’s throat as he turned. The hapless pirate began letting out wet gurgles and frantically trying to call for assistance from his comrade’s only feet away. A forceful back kick sent the poor soul into the black water.
The next closest pirate called out for his comrades that had just died by the blades. It was clear this man knew something had just happened. “Carl? Gary? What the hell was–“
No more sound would be made by a mouth that just received a trio of razors from between the teeth to stab out the back of the head. The eyes looked confusedly through the darkness to see what made this killing blow. Satisfaction would never be met when the eyes rolled back and the body went limp.
The horrid smell excreted as the body voided its bowels caused the next casualty to turn from the controls of the boat. The round, short man stood with a disgusted sniff. He made a rude sound when he heard the body thud against the bottom of the boat. “Motherfucker! Did you just take a shit?” His answer was a swipe across his throat. The impossibly sharp knives ripped through his throat, exposing the spine. He took his last breath as the esophagus, trachea, and jugular were severed. Blood began
gushing freely as he gasped and reached for his pistol.
The Tech simply brought his other hand up and turned his wrist. The claws slashed into the pectoral muscle and destroyed tendons, ensuring the arm couldn't be raised. Gene’s other fist shot forward and drove the daggers into the left side of the chest. The lung was irreparably punctured as the man wheezed.
Slicing and stabbing continued until the body slumped into the chair and fell over onto the floor. “You have no sanctuary. Resistance is futile.” The Tech grinned wickedly and prepared to board the next closest enemy boat.
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“You think I give a mother fuck? Fine then. Motherfucking stay on the motherfucking barge and motherfucking wait for the motherfuckers!” The little man barked in his best attempt to sound like a badass.
Leslie Lindsay was The Dictator.
Because of his first name, his short, wiry, and overall feminine physique, Lindsay habitually tried to make himself sound more masculine. The surefire way to do this in his mind was to use the word “mother fuck” as frequently as possible. A squeaky and nasally voice in no way made his vulgarisms and empty threats seem at all imposing.
Lindsay somehow had controlled this group of marauders from the beginning. Even those giant motherfuckers like Brutus took orders from him. Working at the local marina on the day the world stood still, he discovered the infected feared water and would steer clear of uninfected meat if a large amount of H2O stood between them and their meal.
Because he could captain a waterborne vessel, the pipsqueak rescued quite a few people after the initial outbreak of May Day. The band of survivors started a sort of flotilla. The Dictator often referred to it as “my motherfucking armada.”
Infighting, swaths of deadly sickness that would have only been annoyances a few months ago, and simple wear and tear had sanded his grand fleet down to nothing more than one motherfucking trash barge and a few dinghy yachts. The patchwork fleet used gasoline sparingly but witnessing a powered boat traveling down the river was reason to spend some valuable fuel. These motherfuckers got shit and I’m taking it!
Some of the motorboats had been dispatched when it was obvious the powered yacht was no longer the target. He could just make out a silhouette in the almost total darkness of the river. Barely believing what he thought he was seeing on the other side of the sinking vessel lay something from his dreams. A motherfucking pirate ship! He had to take it, enslave the crew, and make it his motherfucking flagship.
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Gene Stanley took out the next motorboat with as much ease as the first. The pirates couldn’t see in the dark and simply pulled alongside the first boat that stopped. They were only able to see the silhouette of the vessel, not the bloodied, eviscerated bodies strewn across it. The Tech almost chuckled when the boat came within feet and killed its engine.
“Why’d you guys stop? We gotta catch up with that boat!” A wheezing chortle sounded from the recently stopped vessel as the armored nerd extended his claws. “Poindexter told us to–” those were his last words.
The Tech dove at the man with a foot on the edge of the small boat. He drove his blades straight into his throat under the chin. Gravity did the rest of the work. The Wolverine talons sliced down and severed the necessities of life. Blood pumped from the open wound as the man tried to scream out some kind of alarm. Unable to make any kind of recognizable noise, the only thing he could do was collapse in tears and fade away in indescribable pain.
The closest antagonist jumped back when something wet splashed his arm. He clearly thought he had just been spit on. “What the fuck, man?” The offended pirate sniffed and realized it wasn’t a spray of tobacco juice. “Shit! Are you bleeding?”
He immediately grew louder when he heard the body thunk. “Help! We’re under attack here!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, not sure if a sniper bullet had dropped his friend or what was going on.
The yelling marauder fumbled through his pockets for a flashlight. The beam clicked on to shine out into the darkness. His mind could only process a few flashes before most of his organs spilled onto the deck in front of him. There were chrome plated armor, blue gloves, and a set of strange blades slicing into his belly.
Guts spilled onto the bottom of the boat as the man let out a high-pitched scream. His pirate buddies on the other side of the small transport flicked on Maglites to look for their comrade. He was on his knees, pressing his hands to the empty pit of his belly. The screaming became even more frantic when, in the flashlight beams, he could make out his own pancreas in the pile of eviscerated bowels before him.
Beams danced around, no one was sure what happened. Some kind of silver astronaut stood over the dying man, strange daggers dripping with blood extended from his wrists. “What the hell are you?” Pistol rounds started flying with the question.
Sparks came from the armored attacker, giving brief glimpses of approaching death. The closest shooter tried to backpedal when it was clear small caliber rounds were ineffective. His gun hand was brought up to his face, with blades sticking cleanly through his wrist. The pirates grasp finally let loose from the pistol and it flew up to smack him in the face. The bridge of the nose exploded from the impact. Blood, tears, and mucus streamed down his face.
Before the rapid movement could be fully processed, the blades stabbed into the upper cheek, eye and forehead. The body went rigid as gray matter was punctured. Still living, the body went slack and voided its bowels as The Tech lowered it onto the floor.
With shaking hands, the man behind the controls dropped his pistol. “I’ll give up if you–” his surrender came too late.
Steel went into the man's stomach and turned up behind the rib cage. Lungs burst when Gene shook his fist back-and-forth imitating a dog with a chew toy. The pirate’s throat made a sucking sound but would never again draw breath. His eyes streamed as bodily fluid poured onto the deck. The man in Brotherhood of Steel armor threw his bladed hand forward and tossed the fading man into the water.
Gene turned around to see the lights on the third boat coming his way. The buccaneers on this small transport were aware something was wrong and planned to investigate the pair of stopped vessels.
A spotlight on the bow of the incoming boat came on and flicked around until settling on a figure in bloodied armor. The Tech had just been made. There would be no quick loading before the killing blow came. No extra lives. He would need to act fast.
“Shoot him, dammit!” Screams could be heard over the roaring motor. Gene prepared himself to dive into the water. Perhaps the buoyancy devices in the armor had not been damaged during the fight. I’ll find out if I start sinking.
Shots started ringing out across the water. Unexpectedly, The Tech wasn’t being mutilated by high-powered rifle rounds. His allies had indeed come to the rescue. Easy and Hammer sent round after round into the approaching pirates. All The Tech could see was a bright burning phosphorescent white, being blinded by the spotlight. Several cries and dying shouts from the antagonists sounded after a physically hammering cacophony of gunfire exploded in Gene's local space-time. Immediately after, things became disturbingly quiet.
“Was that all of them?” Gene spoke in a conversational pitch, his voice carrying over the still water.
The Expert was more than happy to take the spoils of war. “Looks like it. We got a few boats and some guns out of it!”
The protagonists came up on the other side of Gene’s gore-covered, bass boat. Blood and eviscerated organs were scattered from bow to stern. Large and small chunks of flesh bobbed up and down in the wake zone of Gene’s recent unbridled violence.
As the Tech planted his foot onto the powered vessel, Easy noticed dents and scrapes covering the geek’s armor. Obviously caused by the small caliber shots fired at his friend’s plate; but not appearing to have been punctured. The Tech would surely be sore and bruised tomorrow, but he wouldn’t have lived through it without the reinforced steel. Good thing for him he was a ‘collector nerd�
�.
Knowing their task wasn’t complete, the haggard collector of fantasy memorabilia turned to The Protector. “It’s not over yet. I’m still in the fight.” Gene ran his hand over some of the blemishes in his chest plate. Scowling in the direction of the Pirate Barge with his teeth clenched tight. “Revenge is a dish best served cold! Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows! Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne!
Easy glanced questioningly over at Gene who shrugged in response. “I've always wanted to use both of those quotes together.”
☠☠☠
“Sir, none of the motorboats are answering!” The minions were reporting the fighters were not returning hails. That could only mean one thing. The enemy was coming. War was motherfucking beginning.
Lindsay felt confident his Death Star could repel the pitiful rebels. He spoke with a smirk and a wave of his hand. “We will open our motherfucking doors and let them enter. Then, we will trap the motherfuckers and they will not be able to retreat. The motherfucking line must be motherfucking drawn here!” The Dark Side was strong in The Dictator. Every man is expendable. The Jedi wouldn’t motherfucking overcome! Damn I feel like a motherfucking boss!
☠☠☠
Three suited protagonists clambered onto the back of the small tugboat at the rear of the barge. Their tiny motorboat maneuvered in the dark out of sight of the enemy and with the stealth and agility of a cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey. No ranged weapons would be used. Silent melee attacks would bring down the antagonists before they could sound an alarm.
One man for each of the heroes came around the corner. Cigarettes bounced onto the deck as they took in the shocking site of three metal behemoths coming at them. A Thunder Hammer smashed down squarely onto the head of amigo numero uno. His skull collapsed onto his spine, immediately crashing down into the rib cage as the mallet drove the now powdery calcified chunks downwards. Death came so instantaneously, the pirate doubtfully experienced pain when his cranium merged with his sternum.
