by Will Lemen
"Yes, Captain Xarr," Lieutenant Jol answered enthusiastically, as panic and blind fear caused the delusion of wishful thinking to encompass his thoughts, and he now naively anticipated what he believed to be a long overdue promotion.
The smirk quickly left Captain Xarr's face as he abruptly stood up and shouted.
"Guards, take Lieutenant Jol into custody!"
The false enthusiasm quickly drained from the lieutenant's very being, like air being released from an overly inflated balloon.
As quickly as the lieutenant's dreams of promotion were ripped to shreds by his Captain's voice, they were immediately replaced by a queasy feeling in his stomach and visions of the reality of what was to become his very painful future.
As the soon to be former second in command stood quivering and weak-kneed in the firm grasp of the ship's security guards, he could feel his feces liquefy within his small intestine and his sphincter muscle controlling his rectum involuntarily flex several times before relaxing.
The bridge crew grimaced and moaned as they heard gurgling and squirting sounds emanating from the direction of Lieutenant Jol, as diarrhea ran down the inside of both of his legs and quickly filled his boots, in essence, he shit down both legs.
"2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem!" Captain Xarr shouted, as he again sat back in his command seat.
"Yes, Captain Xarr," 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant Zeem answered, springing to attention.
"You are no longer 2nd Under Prime Lieutenant, you will take former Lieutenant Jol's station and rank as 1st Under Prime Lieutenant. Is that clear Lieutenant Zeem?"
"Clear, Captain Xarr," answered the gloating new lieutenant, realizing that his nefarious plan had come to fruition.
Glaring at, and also smelling the now shit stained former number two (no pun intended, of course now he was really #2), the ship's Captain ordered.
"Guards, take Private Jol to the indoctrinating persecution chamber in Bay 5, and inform the persecuting officer in charge that a senior medical aid is to be assigned to him to prevent any premature demise on his behalf. Is my order understood?"
"Indeed Captain Xarr!" the guards answered in unison, as they both snapped to attention as well, still holding the now Private Jol in their iron vise-like grips.
"Then proceed, and get that stinking incompetent out of my sight, unless you would like to join him in the chamber for his indoctrination and persecution?"
"No, Captain Xarr!" the guards replied in unison once more, as they hurriedly escorted the soiled and miasmatic private from the bridge of the mother ship and out of the view of its commander. Being careful to avoid stepping in the puddle of anal expulsion left by the former Lieutenant.
Captain Xarr turned to his still gloating subordinate and gave the newly promoted officer his first order as 1st Under Prime Lieutenant.
"Lieutenant Zeem, recall all of the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures and reset their genetic differentiation chips to the proper settings, and keep them aboard their respective transport ships until further notice.
And keep in mind Lieutenant, the indoctrinating persecution chamber in Bay 5 is our largest chamber, and still has room for several more incompetent crew members if you so choose to join your former superior.
"Yes Captain Xarr!" the newly appointed Lieutenant answered. "I mean no Captain Xarr!"
"And Lieutenant Zeem, get someone up here to clean up that mess, it seems that Private Jol has leaked some of his inner being out of his boots and onto my deck."
"Yes Captain Xarr, I will see to it immediately."
"See to it that you do Lieutenant, Private Jol's miasma is beginning to give me a headache."
"Aye Aye Captain," the new Lieutenant responded.
"Oh, and Lieutenant Zeem!"
"Yes, Captain Xarr?"
"If I hear, or if I hear of, even one of the crew referring to the bridge of my ship as the poop deck, I will have them, one of the gynandromorphs housed on deck 69, and you, drawn and quartered, and I will have all of your spines disassembled geometrically, and not necessarily in that order.
Is that clear Lieutenant Zeem?"
"Perfectly clear Captain Xarr!" the Lieutenant shouted, feeling his own sphincter muscle controlling his own rectum begin to involuntarily pulsate then relax, as he felt the desperate act of unintentional defecation knocking at his back door as well.
"One more thing Lieutenant," Captain Xarr noted, with a solemn stare.
"Yes, Captain Xarr," Lieutenant Zeem answered, feeling his sphincter muscle now beginning to palpitate.
"If you ever find yourself derelict in your duty by not bringing any issue to my attention, you'll find yourself being derelict of everything except for screaming agony for next fifty or so zytor cycles. Do you understand?" the Captain asked, spewing his warning with a maniacal stare.
"Indeed Captain Xarr," Lieutenant Zeem answered in a high-pitched squeaky voice, as he felt the muscles in his throat contract in conjunction with his sphincter, and a small amount of liquefied feces fluxing out of his flexing hemorrhoidal anal canal.
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THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW
"Son-of-a-bitch, another hot day in the Texas panhandle, I need to find a vehicle with working air conditioning," I thought, as I walked at a slower pace down south Georgia St. in Amarillo, sweating like a hundred dollar whore on buck night.
After having lost yet another vehicle in yet another attack from roving road warriors, I again found myself hoofing it along the Texas streets in search of yet another means of transportation.
Seeing a small storefront sign with crossed pistols on it in the distance, I made my way toward the building quickening my pace.
"What have we here? The first gun shop I've encountered that isn't surrounded by a bunch of eaters, I hate those bastards," I whispered to myself. "Now's my big chance to pick up a silencer for my M-4 and maybe a couple of other choice items while I'm at it."
The door to the gun shop had been broken open signaling that I wasn't the first intruder to enter the former business, and it looked like whoever had been here before me wasn't much of a so called "gun-nut".
The shop had been ransacked but most of the inventory was still intact, not on the racks or in the display cases, but scattered all over the floor.
More than likely a few guns were missing and probably some of the ammunition too, but for the most part, it looked as though the business' inventory was still there, it had just been tossed all over the place.
There were still a number of guns lying on the floor, and the original burglars had left many boxes of ammo with them as well, ripe for the taking. You just had to dig through the mess to find what you needed.
My main concern at this time was not to salvage more firearms or ammunition, it was to secure a silencer for my rife, or find a pistol that would accommodate a suppressor, or both if I could manage it.
Kicking aside the abandoned accessories such as holsters, cleaning kits, and other assorted firearm related articles that covered much of the gun shop's floor, I was lucky enough to locate a Beretta 92 with a threaded barrel made for what I was looking for. I crammed the pistol in my belt and continued to search for a silencer for my long gun and my new Beretta.
Beneath a pile of broken glass from one of the display cabinets, I found one of the silencers that I had been searching for.
Before the end of the world as we knew it, the display case had housed several suppressors of different makes and models that were manufactured for a variety of different guns, rifles and pistols alike.
There before me was an M-4 sound suppressor with a dark earth finish. It didn't match the color of my 5.56mm rifle, but color coordination wasn't my highest priority at that moment.
I picked up the newfound asset and stuffed it into my pocket, and continued to dig through the pile of broken glass, which was mixed with other goodies that had little or no interest to me at the time, looking for a silencer for my new 9mm pistol.
As I perused
the stockpile of what would have been ill gotten gains a couple of years ago, I heard a noise coming from outside the front door. I knew that it definitely wasn't the police or a security guard, as the laws that had been legislated regarding looting no longer applied, and even if they did apply, there was nobody around to enforce them, at least nobody that wouldn't get their head blown clean off for trying.
"Probably eaters," I muttered, as I reached for my tomahawk without stopping my search for the elusive 9mm suppressor.
Suddenly, the noise got louder as the door to the shop was pulled open farther; however, I still could not see anyone (or anything) in the doorway.
I was too far from the door for my combat hatchet to be of any use to me if the noise was being made by anything besides eaters, such as someone with a gun.
Quickly, and none to silently, I dropped my tomahawk to the floor and raise my rifle.
I flipped the safety lever onto semi, and I slid my finger onto the trigger of the weapon and gently put pressure on it.
Still crouching down I whispered.
"Who's there?"
Waiting for a reply and not receiving one, I whispered again with more authority.
"Who's there?"
"It's me, don't shoot, or stab, or hit, or whatever, don't hurt me, I'm not dead," a man's voice whispered back.
"You're not dead yet, come out into the open so I can see you or you will be," I answered back, aiming my M-4 at the doorjamb knowing that my rifle could easily shoot through it.
"Ok, I'm coming in there, I don't want any trouble."
"You won't get any if you don't start any," I said. "So let's go, come out where I can see you, and keep your hands where I can see them too."
A shadow cast by the noonday sun first inched its way into the doorway, and then the silhouette of a man holding a rifle in his hand took its place.
The man was holding the gun by the end of its barrel, so there was no need to have him drop it and risk the sound of it hitting the floor, or worse, accidentally discharging, and attracting more unwanted company.
Both of his hands were well away from the weapon's trigger, and I knew I could easily kill him long before he could even get the gun aimed at me.
However, if he had chosen that method of self-destruction, I was willing to risk the sound of an intentional discharging of my firearm attracting that unwanted company that might be in the area.
"Step in here so I can get a better look at you mister," I ordered, still pointing my gun at the man, with the mindset to stitch him up if he even looked sideways at me.
The man took several steps inside the shop and stopped.
"I'm just looking for some ammo, I'll take what I need and leave," he said, as he held up his own M-4 type rifle in his right hand. "Like I said before, I don't want no trouble."
The man looked haggard, and his age seemed to be somewhere around his late fifties, but looking through the dirt and the scruffy salt and pepper beard it was a little hard to tell.
He was dressed in blue jeans with a big rodeo belt buckle and a dirty white Stetson hat. All of which went well with the cowboy shirt he was wearing that was reminiscent of something that Randolph Scott might have worn in one of his western movies.
"Like I said before, don't start any trouble and you won't get any trouble," I reiterated to the man, still slightly pressing on the trigger of my M-4 which was now aimed at the man's head.
I really didn't give a shit about whether or not I needed to kill him. It didn't matter to me if he started trouble or not, I'd just as soon blow his head off his shoulders as look at him.
The only thing that was stopping me at the time was that I didn't want to take the chance of drawing a bunch of zombies into the shop before I had found what I was looking for.
"Are you completely out of ammo?" I asked.
"Totally dry, thought I might find some in here," the man answered.
Well Mama Doom didn't raise a total fool, and I wasn't about to take this man's word for anything at this time. I'd known him for every bit of two minutes and would kill him in a heartbeat if he even looked cross-eyed at me, zombies or not.
"Put your weapon down on the floor and turn around," I ordered. "And do it quietly."
"I told you I'm out of ammo, and this rifle is the only weapon I have," he insisted.
"Shut your trap, drop the gun, and turn around. You've got three seconds before I separate your head from your neck, two... one...
The sound of the man's rifle hitting the floor echoed off the empty back wall of the gun shop as he turned and faced the front door.
"Okay, okay, I'm turning around," he said, as he raised his hands in the air.
"Failure to follow simple directions, strike one," I whispered, glaring at the man. "If that noise draws eater in here, you're the first one I'm going to kill."
"You said to drop the gun," the man retorted, with a look of panic on his face.
"I'm going to come over and search you," I told him. "If you make another sound, or if you as much as even flinch, I'll drop you like third period French, do you get me?"
"Yes sir," the man answered, as he interlocked his fingers on his head.
As I patted him down for any hidden weapons he might have had on his person, I asked him.
"What's your name mister?"
"Jason, my name is Jason Bla..."
I interrupted him.
"Last names don't mean dick anymore, most of the people I've run into don't live long enough for me to bother remembering their last names anyway. So save your breath Jason."
Having Jason at a great disadvantage, and after having found no more weapons on him, and after checking to make sure that his gun was as empty as he claimed, I thought that it might be fun to mess with him a little.
After all, the noise of the dropped rifle had not attracted any eaters, and fun was a commodity that was not very plentiful during these arduous times.
"My name is Jack, Jack Doom!" I said smiling, waiting for his response, given I had just told him that last names didn't mean dick anymore, and then proceeded to tell him mine, well kind of.
His reaction was anything but what I had expected it would be.
"Ja...ack Do...oom?" he stammered, as he turned toward me.
"Yes, Jack Doom," I answered. "Do you have a problem with that?"
"No sir, not at all Mr. Doo...om," he stammered once more.
"Then why are you acting so scared?"
"It's just that I've heard of you, heard about some of the things you've done, some of the things that you might do."
******
Nobody had called him Jack Doom since he was serving overseas in the Marine Corps, so for someone to say that they've heard of him could mean only one thing. Someone he had been in combat with had talked to this man, and that person could only be the Sarge.
******
With the smile now completely gone from my face, I insisted the man give me some answers.
"Where did you hear the name Jack Doom?" I asked, glaring at Jason once more.
"From a man I met a few weeks ago."
"What man?" I demanded.
"Just a man, I run into people every once in a while. I mostly try not to get killed by them, and I try not to have to kill them either, although, it doesn't always work out that way. I mean the part about not having to kill them, not the part about me not getting killed by them." Jason began to meander.
"I figured that out all by myself, I'm kind of smart that way," I told him.
"I'm just trying to be clear Mr. Doom."
"Well Jason, what did this man look like?" I asked, sensing that I had a lead on the ever-elusive Sarge's whereabouts.
"Well, he was kind of stocky, and he had red hair... and he was traveling with a girl," Jason answered.
"What did this girl look like?"
"She was a blonde, nice to look at, even though she had a black eye when I saw her.
I still wouldn't mind wallowing naked on top of her if you kno
w what I mean," Jason said, as he raised his left eyebrow several times in a row.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," I answered, nodding.
"And she carried a .22 rifle, looked almost like our guns, and she called him Ron."
"Did he have a name for her," I asked, now trying to get the vision of what I imagined Beth's naked body to look like out of my mind (but not trying too hard, no pun intended).
Jason put his fingers to his chin and thought about my question for a moment, and then answered.
"He called her Bev, no wait, he called her Beth, that was it, Beth. I mean when he wasn't calling her you little bitch, or you fucking whore."
"When did you run into those two?" I asked.
"It was about a month ago I think, it's a little hard to keep track of time these days, but I think it was four or five weeks ago," Jason answered, feeling a little more relaxed now as I had yet to kill him.
"Where at?" I asked, still glaring at Jason, but now mostly just for show.
"East of here, somewhere in Oklahoma."
"Somewhere in Oklahoma? Where in Oklahoma?" I asked angrily, and not at all just for show.
"It was just outside Oklahoma City, near a little place called Shawnee. There's a compound there made up of a bunch of shipping container stacked on top of each other and laid out in a square so that the guards posted on top can see down on every side," Jason answered, fearing that he'd upset me (and he had).
"Are they still there?"
"Probably not, nobody stays there for very long," Jason answered.
"Did they say where they were going?" I asked, still pointing my weapon at him.
There was no doubt that Jason was afraid of me, so I saw no reason not to exploit his fear for the benefit of what I now saw as my mission in life (the painful death of my old friend the Sarge).
"They didn't say where they were headed and I didn't ask. But my guess is that they were going to go east, because they hung around with a bunch that kept talking about joining a band of survivors that's hold up somewhere they called the Badlands of Indiana, even though people kept telling them to beware of the Indiana Badlands.
