Doomsday Sheriff
Day 2
Michael James Ploof
Doomsday Sheriff
Day 2
Michael James Ploof
Chapter 1
A New Death Dawns
Chapter 2
Come on Baby, Light my Fire
Chapter 3
An Electric Personality
Chapter 4
Long Live Stefan
Chapter 5
Doomsday General Hospital
Chapter 6
The Unholy Dead
Chapter 7
Up Shit Creek Without a Boat
Chapter 8
Into the Great Wide Open
Chapter 9
The King of the Rednecks
Chapter 10
A Rave New World
Chapter 11
All Hail the King
Chapter 12
B-Town
Chapter 13
The Mohawk Militia
Chapter 14
The Land Where the Partridge Drums
Chapter 15
Medicine Man
Chapter 16
The Sacrifice
Chapter 17
The House of a Thousand Guns
Chapter 18
The Queen of the Damned
Chapter 19
Hybrids from Hell
Chapter 20
A Well-Earned Reprieve
Continues in the next volume: The Doomsday Sheriff Day 3
Chapter 1
A New Death Dawns
The new day brought with it pain.
Max awoke sitting slumped in an awkward position. He sat up in his chair with a groan and looked to Piper. Dark circles ringed her eyes, her lips were terribly chapped and cracked, and her hand was still missing, but she was alive. She slept like a baby, softly snoring.
When the smell of coffee hit him, Max felt like a traitor for wanting to go get some, but he cut himself some slack. Piper was safe, she was doing well, and he needed to shit. He followed the smell through the dining room and pushed the doors open, finding nearly fifty very quiet people standing around a long line of tables littered with coffee warmers and baskets of bread and muffins. Max was smart enough to know they were being quiet for a reason, and so he softly walked to the tables and made his coffee, avoiding the terrified stares of those who had been turned, who greatly outnumbered the defenders from the night before. Max noticed that the hockey players stayed to one side of the tables (hell, they even had their own), and the ex-screamers stayed to their side.
Max took up the space between the two groups, refusing to play along with the weird high school clique
“Mornin’, Sheriff. How’s the wife?” said John as he joined Max.
“She’s doing well. Thanks for asking.”
“It’s been on my mind. Been on all our minds.”
“What’s with the segregation?” said Max, nodding toward the two groups.
John shrugged. “Ned wanted you to meet him upstairs when you woke up. He’s up in the widow’s peak.”
“Alright. Should I be concerned about this?” Max eyed the two groups again.
“I don’t know, man. People are worried that the others are…shit, you know how they feel.”
Max nodded, though he didn’t want to admit it. He still had a faint connection to the collective, and he hadn’t been fully taken over. What did these men and women still see? Worse yet, what did the space mother still see through them? He shuddered to think of Piper still being used by the alien invaders, those slugs from the deep dark of space.
He left the people to their worries and took the stairs to the widow’s peak. Ned was there in the small room, looking through a telescope. When Max approached, the big man glanced at him with a strange look. He hadn’t slept, that much was clear, but his bloodshot eyes gave away more than that. Ned was afraid.
“What’s got you so rattled, Ned?”
“Take a look,” said Ned. He cleared his throat and got to his feet.
Max settled in on the instrument and let his eye focus on the image across the lake.
The blood drained from his face. The human pyramid was now completely covered in dark brown vines, which glistened wet in the sunlight. The only flesh to be seen was the closed-eyed faces of hundreds of men and women. He spotted other patches between the vines, and he recoiled from what he saw: arms and legs, torsos and necks, and even faces were merging beneath the dark cocoon. The skin glistened like melting wax, merging the horde into one colossal beast.
“That doesn’t look good,” said Max, rubbing his eyes. “You still smoke?”
Ned produced a pack of Camel non-filters and a zippo. “I thought you quit,” he said, handing Max the pack.
Max peeled a fine Turkish cigarette from the pack and ran it under his nose, enjoying the scent of the blend. “I did,” he said. “But I recently found out I don’t have cancer, and figured I might as well celebrate.”
Ned lit Max’s cigarette, and the sheriff took a long pull and sucked it in, savoring the familiar burn and expansion. He didn’t enjoy so much the head rush that followed.
He flicked the ash.
“So, Ned, what you reckon that is out there?”
“You’d know better than me,” said Ned, lighting his own smoke.
“Humor me.”
Ned let out a cloud of blue smoke and looked to the far shore. “Best way I can explain what I think they’re up to is…well…imagine Voltron, except he’s made up of five hundred human bodies all fused into one. That’s what I think them worms got them doing.”
“You think all those people are screwed?”
Ned shrugged and glanced at Max. “Would you want to be saved after that? Hell, they’re all deformed by now. Best thing to do for them is to put them down.”
“You think this thing is global?” Max asked.
“I don’t know.” The big man shrugged again and scratched his beard. “But there weren’t any planes in the sky yesterday. No emergency radio transmissions, and trust me, I had men on it since the afternoon.”
“I was thinking the same thing. It being worldwide, I mean. And I figure that around twenty percent of the population might have been drunk last night.”
“You think it was that many?” said Ned. “You know, not every country drinks like us Americans.” Ned chuckled. “Or should I say ‘Mericans?”
“That’s true. But this meteor shower was hyped up big time. I imagine that at least twenty percent of ‘Mericans were toasted last night.”
“Yeah, maybe, and probably more than half of them got turned by the screamers yesterday. We’re the only group I know of, and we were less than fifty before we saved the others.”
Max didn’t want to admit it, but Ned was right: humanity was screwed.
“We’ve got to deal with that monstrosity before it does whatever the hell it’s going to do,” said Max.
“I doubt that’s the only one,” Ned warned.
“Well then, we’ll deal with that when we come to it. First things first. We’ve got to burn that thing to the ground.”
Chapter 2
Come on Baby, Light my Fire
Piper was awake when Max returned to the dining room. The doctor was there as well, checking her vitals and bandages. He offered Max a nod, which Max didn’t return. Instead he marched up to the doctor and poked his chest.
“What’s this business about you lying about my cancer?”
“It was all her idea,” said Weinstein as he put up his hands defensively.
Max scowled at him.
&nbs
p; “She gave me a grand, cash. How could I resist?”
Max didn’t let up.
“She said she was going to tell you that night, I swear. Piper, tell him.”
She only giggled groggily.
“I’m just messing with you, doc,” said Max, slapping him on the shoulder a little hard, but still playfully.
Weinstein rubbed his shoulder, shaking his head. “You kids are two peas in a pod, you know that?”
“How’s she doing, doc?”
“Yeah, doc, how am I doing?” said Piper, serious now.
Doctor Weinstein regained his composure. “You’re doing well. Your wounds are clean; I don’t think you have a blood infection. How do you feel?”
Piper shrugged. “Like I was infected by a space worm and turned into a zombie, and then got drunk off my ass and had half my arm removed. Translation, I’m fucking peachy.”
She grinned at Max like a mad puppet, and he studied her pensively.
“I filled her in on your theory,” said the doctor. “She insisted.”
“I remember everything now, Max.”
“Everything?” he said, inwardly cringing.
“Everything. I killed people. The worm…it…it spoke to me. It made me.”
“Piper, you don’t have to talk—”
“The queen, I spoke with her as well. She wanted me to begin the second phase. She wanted us to merge.”
“Merge?” said Ned, whom Max realized had been listening from the shadows. He crept slowly into the light cast by the crack in the curtains.
Piper swallowed hard and nodded. Her eyes stared at someone or something far away. “It has begun, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Max whispered.
“You’ve got to stop it. If the children are allowed to breed…”
“Breed?” said Ned. “I thought they were merging into some kind of colossal beast.”
“No…” Piper looked to Max with fear welling in her eyes. “What they will become is so much worse. You don’t understand. You’ve got to destroy it!”
Max put a soft hand against her shoulders when she began to sit up.
“It’s alright, Pipes. We’re on it.” Max assured her. “I was coming here to tell you that I had to leave to take care of it.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” She was serious, and that rarity filled Max with dread. Whatever it was that she saw coming was indeed terrible. “Get out there and burn that abomination to the ground. Free those poor people.”
“Piper, there’s something you should know. Stefan gave himself so that I could save you. He survived like I did. But they took him. Now he’s in there…he’s one of them.”
“Not Stefan…” she said, her eyes watering. “I’m sorry, Max.”
They hugged, and Piper kissed his cheek.
“Go set him free,” she whispered in his ear before kissing it as well.
Max nodded grimly, choking down his sorrow and rising to his feet. “Let’s go, Ned.”
A half hour later, armed with more Molotov cocktails than any one group of hungover hockey players should handle at a time, the defenders gathered around Max near the shoreline. They were in full garb with super soakers and bladed hockey sticks at the ready.
Max gave the go-ahead, and the group rushed out onto the ice. They skated in stealth-mode across the lake, each with a lighter at the ready. The conglomeration of human parts and brown, oozing vines didn’t move. It didn’t twitch. Instead, it pulsed and swayed like an inchworm at the end of a leaf, seeking the next foothold. A slow moan escaped the mass of deformed bodies. Blood and green ichor wet the base of the hideous tower, bleeding onto the lake and melting the ice with a hiss.
“Light ‘em up!” Max, yelled loud enough for everyone to hear.
The hockey players lit the rags on the bottles as they glided across the lake.
“Aim…” said Max, pulling back his own flaming bottle.
They came to within ten feet of the shoreline, and one of the men threw his cocktail too soon. It sailed through the air, even as Max gave the order to fire. The eager young man’s bottle hit the center of the writhing mass and exploded, and a heartbeat later, the human tower of horror exploded. The rest of the bottles exploded against the formation, which went up in flames like two-year-old dried firewood. The skaters turned from the incredible heat and skated out toward the middle of the lake. Max went with them, spurred by the great heat and instinct, but he caught a few streaks of light and fire as they flew from the now raging formation and hit the ice farther out on the lake.
“Stop!” he told the others. “To me!”
They all grouped around Max as behind them, the screamer pyramid tumbled over, setting fire to Mirror Lake Inn. In front of them, however, a sight far more terrible than the pyre slowly came to life. Whatever had been ejected from the writhing mass was black and shiny, like the carapace of a beetle, and there were thirteen of them.
“If you don’t have a gun, go get one,” said Max, and five of the defenders hurriedly skated back to the lodge on the other side of the lake.
The black shells steamed like fresh dung. They suddenly began to shake in unison, and a low mewling sound joined the sound of the raging pyre behind them. The smell of the fire was terrible, and a couple hockey players bent over and puked. The rest covered their faces with their scarves.
The shells suddenly began to crack, one after another, and Max cocked his shotgun. “I don’t plan on seeing what comes out of there.”
“Attack!” said Ned. He charged across the ice, reminding Max of the powerful forward he had once been.
The other hockey players gave a war cry that would have made Stefan proud and rushed after their leaders, digging into the uneven and notched ice and producing their weapons. There were a few cocktails left among the group, and these were lit and tossed onto the shimmering eggs. Five of the eggs caught fire, but from the other eight, black masses suddenly erupted, shooting into the air and changing shape as they spun.
What landed was something akin to the love child of Frankenstein’s monster and the Kraken. Rather than tentacles with suction cups along the bottom, these creatures had crackling electric appendages that looked like a dozen tails growing out of their backs. They stood on human legs, six of them to be exact, and three heads opened their toothless maws, gurgling and howling like the damned trapped beneath the waters of the River Styx. Six arms hung from the deformed torso of the abominations, some with no fingers, others with ten.
Max unloaded his shotgun in a rage of disgusted curses. The three heads of the closest howler exploded, but the monstrosity didn’t go down. One of the many glowing black appendages lashed out in his direction, hitting him in the chest. Max felt like he had stuck his dick in a light socket. He was thrown back through the air and landed hard twenty feet away, sliding across the ice.
He looked up at the remaining monsters and was helpless but to watch his comrades be torn apart by the newest addition to the nightmare.
Chapter 3
An Electric Personality
Max pulled himself to his feet as the defenders scrambled across the ice to get away from the electric appendages. They were more than eight feet long and lashed out like the whips of slave drivers, shocking the hockey players into submission. Those who couldn’t get away were taken up by crackling tentacles and rolled up like a fly caught in a spider’s web. They were then absorbed by the abominations, melting into the mass of flesh and bone.
A howler came for Max as he reloaded his shotgun and tried to stay on shaky feet. Luckily, he still wore his skates, for if he was left to outrun the demons, he would soon be absorbed. He unloaded three rounds into the approaching howler, which only seemed to piss it off more.
“Get down!” Ned bellowed, and Max instinctively followed the command.
Gunfire split the air as Ned riddled the howler with bullets. One of the heads lost a jaw, another took three slugs in the face that turned it to mush. From his prone position, Max emptied the shotgun
into the howler’s remaining face, but still the monster wouldn’t go down.
Ned grabbed Max under the arms and yanked him up. “We need more fire!” he said.
“We can’t lead them back to the lodge,” said Max.
Five of the hockey players had fallen, and now only ten remained. Max called everyone to him as he headed out toward the middle of the lake. The men and women were shaken, and some were injured. Behind them, the howlers lurched across the ice with startling speed.
“I’ll head them off,” said Ned. “You take the others to—”
“No,” said Max. “I’m faster on the ice. I’ll do it. Get some more cocktails together and bring the team back out.”
“Good luck,” said Ned, and Max broke off from the pack and circled back toward the howlers.
The eight remaining beasts split as well, two going for Max and the other six lurching after the retreating defenders.
“Hey, you ugly bastards! You want me? Here I am!” Max skated by the six who had broken from the group, unloading his pistol into their writhing bodies.
Max caught their attention, but his celebration was short lived as dozens of electric tentacles lashed out for him like reaching fingers, zapping the ice mere feet behind him. He pumped his legs, digging into the ice and trying to stay ahead of the pack. They followed him far out on the ice, and he made a wide turn that brought him heading back toward the now raging pyre that was the Mirror Lake Inn. The defenders had made it back to the lodge, and with any luck they would soon skate back out onto the ice with Molotov cocktails in hand. But Max was getting tired. His pursuers seemed to know no pain, and they never slowed. If anything, their six legs began to work better together, and they came on faster than ever.
His only salvation would be the fire, he knew. But first he had to get there. The burning inn was at least five hundred yards away, and his pursuers were closing in. They fought each other to get ahead, milky eyes glaring at Max with a bloodlust borne in the dark recesses of space. The writhing tentacles reminded Max of Medusa’s head of thrashing snakes, and like a man afraid of being turned to stone, he fled across the ice. His heart hammered in his chest, his legs burned, and he feared that a charley horse might be his doom.
Doomsday Sheriff_Day 2_A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Adventure Page 1
