The Undead Pool

by Derek Ailes

  “You haven’t seen the last of me! Nexxus is dead! Long live Zarathustra!”

  He spotted the briefcase lying on the ground and picked it up. His smile increased as he opened it revealing the vials of Mace’s blood that were safely inside.

  “I have so much work to do! Soon I shall resurrect an army! An evil clown army!”

  He laughed sinisterly for several minutes before leaving the facility.

  “Another day, Mace Murdock!”

  Mace stared out the window as Dr. Kelley examined the professor. Mace was watching one of the female students who was carving something into one of the wooden picnic tables. Her long, dirty blonde hair stood still even in the wind. She wore sunglasses and a black tank top. He could tell she had some sort of military training from her demeanor. With her task completed, she placed her knife back into her uniform and then grabbed her machine gun off the table. She looked over at Mace and nodded before walking out of sight. He looked over at the professor who was resting.

  “Stable, I’ll be right back.”

  Mace walked out of the school and over to the wooden table. The girl had carved a message onto it: NO FATE BUT WHAT WE MAKE. He then knew that their mission would be a success. Fate was on their side. Now all he had to do was somehow stop Trump’s brain from being transported into the orangutan.

  He walked back into the school and sat down next to the professor. She opened her eyes and stared at him.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop her.”

  “Mace, I’ll be ok. You know the person I am in the future. The superheroes need a leader, and I am proud that I can still provide them my leadership even with my handicap. Besides, I have more time to train with not having to go to the bathroom multiple times a day.”

  Mace laughed.

  “Don’t be afraid to embrace who you are.”

  “Professor, do me a favor. Remember these names: Harry, Niall, Liam, Louis and Zayn. Don’t let these guys get together and form a band. You’ll be doing millions of metal heads a favor.”

  “I promise,” she laughed, trying to hide her embarrassment. Her future self had all of One Direction’s albums on her iPod.

  “Goodbye, Charlene.”

  “I’ll see you in the future, Mace Murdock.”

  “Stable, take us to the night the orangutan was taken from the zoo.”

  Before Stable could respond, Mace put his arms around him tightly. “I would have done this even if we weren’t traveling in time. You feel like one big cuddly teddy bear. Yes, I made this weird.”

  A few seconds later they disappeared.

  Mace held on to Stable for dear life. “The spinning sensation is enhanced by all the pretty colors. If you have the song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, now would be the perfect time to play it. I think we’re almost to our destination. I can see a zoo at the end of the tunnel. The way I’m holding Stable right now, it would be fitting if it was the tunnel of love. Right my steed.”

  “I have no objections to letting go of you,” Stable snarled.

  “I love you, too. See everyone on the other side.”

  “He’s all yours, Agent Carlson,” one of the orderlies said to the white agent.

  “Thanks. You two are doing this country a great service. Too bad you guys won’t remember this.” He held up a thin metallic device with a red blinking light toward the two zookeeper’s faces and pressed the button. “You two have no idea of the orangutan’s whereabouts. You were getting drunk in your office when it escaped.” They stood there with blank expressions as the device altered their short-term memories.

  “I love this part,” the other agent said.

  “Agent Smith, we need to get it to the lab. We are running out of time.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  “I’m putting in one of my CDs. I’m getting sick of your DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince CD.”

  Stable and Mace watched the van pull away.

  “Follow them,” Mace ordered. He pulled a chimichanga out of a Scooby Doo lunchbox and stuffed it into his mouth. “Don’t lose them. The fate of the world depends on it.”

  They followed the van down the highway for over an hour before it turned off the ramp leading to an abandoned warehouse.

  “You distract them while I sneak inside.”

  “Mace, I know the drill.”

  Mace looked down at his new transporter. GQ had modified it so he could transport larger distances. He was excited to experience it in action. He pulled out a pair of brass knuckles and placed them on his right hand. While Stable distracted the guards he transported past them straight inside the warehouse.

  The warehouse was smaller than the ones they had already visited recently, but it smelled as bad as the sewage treatment plant. He could see the orangutan strapped to a gurney being pushed into one of the rooms at the end of the hallway up ahead. He quickly followed the two men in black, hoping not to alert anybody to his presence. As he got closer to the room, he was violently slammed through the wall by something behind him.

  Mace tried to stand up, but a tall, muscular creature was on top of him punching him repeatedly. The creature was almost seven feet tall and had long silver hair and dark black eyes that glowed brightly.

  “Hey, Ivan Drago! Beat the living crap out of me all you want; I’ll still get back up! Eventually!”

  “The name is not Ivan; it’s Tyler Karolat!”

  “Apparently, you haven’t seen Rocky IV.”

  “I have and it sucked,” he said as he continued the beat down. “It was no Rocky V!”

  “You preferred V over IV? Now that’s messed up!”

  Mace aimed the brass knuckles toward the creature’s crotch and then hit the transporter. As he was transported forward at the speed of the light, the brass knuckles collided with its crotch sending the creature painfully through the wall on the other side of the warehouse.

  “Now that’s what I call going the distance! I hope you weren’t planning on having children ever!”

  The wall exploded as the creature reappeared. It grabbed a bottle of the green serum out of its shirt pocket and gulped it down. Like Popeye after eating a can of spinach, its arm muscles bulged outward. Its body mutated and it grew several feet high, its head crashing through the ceiling. Its large, muscular hand grabbed Mace and slammed him into the concrete floor, cracking the foundation below.

  “Little man! You will die horribly!”

  Mace attached a bomb to its hand. As it raised its hand upward, it exploded showering Mace and the ground with its blood. The warehouse shook as the creature screamed.

  Mace held his katanas high. As he swung them violently, the energy around them built up. As he aimed them toward the creature, he chanted. “I have the power!” A bolt of energy shot from the katanas engulfing the creature. It screamed one last time before exploding.

  As its blood and guts rained down on him, Mace ran toward the room on the right where the two men in black were watching as the doctor prepared to remove the brain from Trump’s skull. The two men in black turned around each pointing their thin metallic device toward his face. The red blinking light was hypnotic.

  “You will drop your weapons. We are not a threat to you. You will now become the servant to our future leader, Crump,” Agent Carlson said in a slow and calm voice.

  “I will drop my weapons…on second thought, not!”

  He grabbed the devices away from them. They looked at him stunned.

  “It works on the living mind, but as you can tell, I’m not of the living, but of the undead.” Mace pointed the two devices toward the two agents and pressed the activation buttons. “You will no longer serve the Republicans. You are now Democrats.”

  “Global warming does exist,” Agent Carlson stated.

  “Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with Benghazi,” Agent Smith stated.

  “I welcome you two to the good side. Now go forth and spread the Democratic gospel,” Mace instructed.

>   “We will take from the rich and give to the poor,” Agent Carlson said happily.

  “Free medical for everyone,” Agent Smith said as they left the room.

  Mace pointed the devices toward the doctor. “I’d step away from the patient if I were you.”

  “Please let me go with my own freewill. Don’t turn me into a Democrat. It goes against everything I believe in.”

  Mace tilted his head to the left signaling to the doctor to leave. As the doctor passed him, Mace raised his right arm upright and shouted, “Hail, Obama!”

  The doctor gave him a dirty look as he left the room.

  Mace walked over to Trump’s body and stared at his open skull. His stomach growled.

  “I was thinking the same thing. Trump brain tartar. I hope it taste better than his steaks.”

  He grabbed the brain and ripped it out of his skull. He took a huge chunk out of it and chewed it greedily. Nobody’s brain taste better than Trump’s. Mace entered into a trance, and he saw everything evil that Trump had ever done in his life.

  When Stable finally entered the room, he found Mace rocking back and forth in the fetal position repeating, “The horror! The horror! The horror!”

  Sid Caesar sat atop his horse in front of his Ape army as they kneeled before his presence. The dome stood proudly above them. One by one they vanished before his eyes. He looked up in horror as the dome vanished above him revealing the blood moon staring down at him. As the horse disappeared, he crashed to the ground. He tried to stand up, but his legs were gone. He screamed as the rest of his body disappeared into nothingness.

  Marty J. Ape rode his skateboard to Doc Hazel’s house. Doc was going to unveil his new invention to him and he was excited to see it. He entered his house as all fifty of the clocks in the room went off simultaneously.

  “Doc, are you here?”

  “Marty in here quickly!”

  “Doc, what’s wrong?”

  “My dog, Darwin, just vanished before my eyes. Marty, quickly, let me see the photo of your family.”

  Marty pulled the photo out of his red and blue two-tone jean jacket. They both watched in horror as his family disappeared in the photo.

  “Great Scott!” Doc shouted as he disappeared followed by Marty.

  Chapter Seven

  The professor hovered above the platform outside of the school as all the superheroes gathered to honor Mace, Stable, Irene and Tigernaut for their part in stopping Crump and his dome.

  Mace walked up the hundreds of stairs leading to the platform where the professor placed a shiny gold medal around his neck. She smiled as R2-D2 beeped excitedly on the sideline. As the last medal was placed around their necks, Tigernaut growled proudly.

  “Actually reader, that’s how I wish it went down,” Mace said as he sat on his recliner in his living room while wearing a red, grey and white striped robe. “This is how it actually happened.”

  “Mace, great job,” the professor said as she shook his hand. “You did a great service for all mankind.”

  “What? No medal?”

  “We Why-men do this job out of the kindness of our hearts and the desire to protect all of mankind.”

  “No reward?”

  “Greed is a sin.”

  “I’m not a spiritual man.”

  “Fine, I’ll write you a check.”

  “I prefer cash. I also accept PayPal.”

  “Fine, greedy bastard.”

  Stable and Irene walked into the room.

  “Are you going to stay?” Irene asked “We can use somebody with your skills to train the students.”

  “I’m not the teaching type. Besides, there’s plenty of bad guys out there and people willing to pay heavily for me to kill them.”

  “Promise me you’ll help us if somebody like Crump threatens the world again,” Stable pleaded.

  “If that were to happen again, you know where to find me.”

  “We’ll follow the trail of dead bodies,” Irene joked.

  “Or undead bodies,” Stable added.

  The professor handed him a stack of cash.

  “Money, I do love that smell. Until next time,” Mace said as he left the room.

  A few minutes later they heard the sound of one of the ship’s engines.

  “I think he’s stealing the Archie Bunker,” Irene said.

  “Let him take it,” the professor said. “He has an important role to play.”

  “What role?” Stable asked.

  “That’s a story for another time.”

  “Yes, reader, this has been an incredible journey. What’s next on the agenda? Hopefully, there will be a sequel: The Undead Pool 2: The Search For More Money. Just kidding. The sequel will have a much clever name. Is this book done? Not by a longshot. This story has ended but the next one is about to begin. It’s an origin story. Not mine, but Tigernaut’s. Don’t worry, I’m a part of the story too. Tigernaut and I have a long history together, and you’ll get to experience all the humor and excitement that went along with it. Grab a bucket of popcorn or chicken, whichever you prefer. It’s time to experience The Undead Pool Origins: Tigernaut.”

  The Undead Pool Origins: Tigernaut

  Chapter One

  Murotan stared at the large portal standing before him and his wife, Mraka. The light blue liquid portal was encased in a twenty foot high metallic ring with symbols etched into it. Murotan and Mraka were both tall, muscular tiger half-breeds and were members of the Tigernaut clan.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Mraka asked, uncertain that Murotan was making a wise decision.

  “Do you want your unborn child to become a human vessel for those worm-like creatures and servant to Gul’istan?”

  “Why take the stargate? We have a warcraft of our own.”

  “We won’t be able to escape our solar system in our warcraft without being captured. Our only chance to escape Gul’istan is to travel through the portal.”

  Mraka sniffed the air. “Several soldiers are approaching from the south.”

  “We must leave now.” Murotan placed a bomb on the side of the portal. “It’s set to detonate once we travel safely through to the other side.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere where Gul’istan can’t find us.”

  Murotan grabbed her arm and led her through the portal. The two traveled from one side of the universe to the other. As the portal opened, they exited onto an unfamiliar planet. As they moved several feet forward, the portal disappeared stranding them on the planet.

  “There’s no going back,” Mraka said sadly.

  In the distance they could hear a mob shouting “Witch! We found a witch!”

  “They don’t sound friendly,” Mraka said.

  “There’s a sign up ahead,” Murotan said as he approached it. “Salem, Massachusetts. Population 100, now the sign says ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven.”

  “It’s counting down at an alarming rate,” Mraka pointed out.

  “We need to witness what’s transpiring here.”

  They walked through the trees toward the town where they could witness the commotion in the town square from a safe distance. The townsfolk had a woman tied up to a wooden stake and several of the men held torches ready to set her ablaze.

  “How do you know she’s a witch?”

  “If she weighs the same as a duck, then she’s made of wood.”

  “And therefore a witch!”

  “What morons,” Mraka whispered. “Look at the primitive clothing they are wearing. Any weapon could take them down.”

  “They’re burning that poor girl alive.”

  “Are you sure coming to this planet was a good idea?”

  “Mraka, we will have to find a secluded location away from here to raise our child.”

  “Far, far away from here.”

  “We better get moving before we’re spotted.”

 
For several years, they lived in the mountains away from civilization. They had two sons: Vincent, their first born, and Tybalt. Murotan spent a majority of each day hunting and training his sons for combat. Mraka taught them the ways of the Tigernaut clan.

  Murotan watched Vincent and Tybalt practice swinging the metal swords that he had made them several days ago. Tybalt was more skilled with swinging the blade than Vincent while Vincent was more skilled at hand-to-hand combat. They would both make great warriors when they reached adulthood.

  That night, after their sons went to bed, Murotan sat outside watching the stars. Mraka left their cave and sat down beside him.

  “I do miss the sky and the stars of our home world,” Murotan said.

  “Our world was a more beautiful place.”

  “Vincent is almost to the age for his spiritual journey.”

  “This is not our world; we don’t have to honor all of our traditions, especially the dangerous ones.”

  “Mraka, Vincent is at the age of adulthood. We must honor our tradition and let him make the journey.”

  “This world is too dangerous. Even though the people here appear to be civilized, they are still too primitive. I don’t know how they haven’t become extinct. Who knows how they will react if they ever encounter one of us. You remember what they did to all those accused witches years ago.”

  “We witnessed so many horrors on our home world. This world is tame compared to it.”

  “Murotan, I know but…”

  A branch snapping nearby caught both of their attention. Mraka sniffed the air and looked at Murotan who was also concerned. They could hear voices approaching.

  “Get inside. Protect our sons,” Murotan ordered as he grabbed his sword. He ran for the edge of the mountain where he could see several of the townsfolk heading for their cave carrying torches.