I
intended this to be a longer series of tales but suddenly the started
making STAR WARS reboots and zombie material on their own so I decided
to move on to other ideas for a while. I am sure I am going to come back to them again someday.
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I intended this to be a longer series of tales but suddenly the started making STAR WARS reboots and zombie material on their own so I decided to move on to other ideas.
But the stories are a lot of fun so I thought I would bring them back for you to enjoy.
CORPSE WARS
Attack of the Crones
episode seven
by
Al Bruno III
...bullets rattled against the Hummer. Harry gunned the engine, the vehicle leapt forward. Old ladies and soldiers alike scrambled for safety. The Hummer screeched out of the motor pool, tore through the spaces between the buildings and careened around corners. They crashed through the gallows, splintering wood and sending at least three penitent workers flying over the wall. Gunfire erupted from all sides. Alec, Ken and Mark tried to duck down but Tony was curled into a ball across their laps.
Mark yelled, “Just use the rocket! Get us out of here!”
“Ah-ah-ah.” Pete shook his head and kept his head down.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m all out of hope!” Ken shouted, “One more bad dream could bring a fall!”
Harry shouted, “Firing a LAW rocket is not like playing Nintendo boy! If he misses we’ve lost our one try, and if he fires it while we’re driving it might send the shot wide or knock the back blast right into us!”
The Humvee sped around another turn; they were heading back towards the ruined gallows. Tony looked up, “We just went in a circle! Do you know what you’re doing? Was this trip really necessary?”
“Somebody shut him up.” Harry made another turn and now they were heading back towards the motor pool. The soldiers were helping Miss Blackwood and the other blue hairs back up. They had to dive for cover again but one of the crones was too slow and she bounced over the hood of the vehicle with a sickening crunch.
Mark winced. A pair of yellowed false teeth flew through the shattered passenger side window and landed on Tony. Everyone in the back of the Humvee screamed at once.
The moment they were back in the motor pool Harry hit the brakes but left the vehicle’s engine running.
Harry and Pete dove out of the Hummer and slammed the motor pool’s garage door and other entrances closed before any of their dazed pursuers could react. The two men started trying to barricade the room with anything they could find. “You guys better get out here and help!” Harry shouted.
They all scrambled out, grabbing hold of desks, cabinets and heavy machinery. Tony brought over a wooden stool and an auto parts manual. Alec gave him a glare but Tony just shrugged, “I said I have a bad back.”
“Lord love a duck.” Alec said.
Mark asked, “What about the back door?”
Pete gave him a confused glance, “Hm?”
“There is no back door.” Harry said, they could already hear, pounding, gunshots and angry voices. “Just steel and concrete.”
The garage door began to shudder with the impact of their attackers’ fists and impromptu battering rams. “What happens when they get in here?” Mark asked.
Alec shook his head, “I’d rather not think about that if it is all the same thank you very much.”
“Sheesh.” Pete said.
“Well…” Harry said, “…there is always the option of not being taken alive.”
“We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks!” Ken turned his attention back to the Humvee.
Mark shook his head with disbelief, “Are you saying we should kill ourselves?”
Harry shrugged, “It’s an option.”
“This is our escape plan?” Tony dropped the roll of paper towels he was carrying to barricade the door, “Drive around in circles and then shoot ourselves?”
“Well, that would be an escape wouldn’t it?” Alec said, “In a permanent sense of the word.”
Harry shouted, “What the Hell do you want me to say? It’s not my fault!”
“We’re doomed!” Tony was stumbling in circles like he might faint, no one made a move to catch him, “Doomed!”
There was a deafening explosion. Shards of brick and steel pelted them. Smoke filled the air. Blinking and coughing Mark looked up expecting to see his executioners standing before him, but the barricades were still holding. Groggily he turned to see Ken holding the smoldering LAW rocket and the back wall of the motor pool blasted open. Through the haze he could see the abandoned streets and zombies, some blown to pieces and others just staring emptily at them.
Pete nodded approvingly, “Ha!”
“Genius!” Harry laughed, “Pure genius.”
“Yes I am the warrior!” Ken dropped the spent LAW and pumped his fist, “Victory is mine.”
The surviving zombies were already starting to close in. “Back inside!” Alec clambered into the passenger seat, the rest crammed into the back. Harry got behind the wheel and hit the gas.
As the Humvee sped out into the night Mark glanced back at the zombies wandering in through the hole in the wall. He didn’t want to think about what would happen when Miss Blackwood’s enraged followers forced their way into the motor pool. Would they be able to contain the invasion or would they be overrun?
The thought he was abandoning his parents made him feel a little sick. Without them he wouldn’t have ever been born, he wouldn’t have clothes on his back and he would never have seen his first Star Wars movie.
They might have seen the movies, Mark thought as he hugged his duffel bag close, but they never learned from them did they?
They had never learned that fear led to anger and anger led to hate and hate led to suffering. He could only hope that what he and his friends were doing now would lead to something better, that they might make a heroic stand against a world gone mad.
Or at the very least that they might find another codpiece for his stormtrooper outfit.
The End
CORPSE WARS
Attack of the Crones
episode six
by
Al Bruno III
...the six men stood absolutely still, waiting and listening. Harry had his hand clamped over Tony’s mouth. If they were found out it was all over; at best they would never get another chance to escape, at worst they would end up with nooses around their necks.
After what seemed like an eternity Alec tapped Mark’s shoulder, “Better go check it out.”
“Me?” Mark shrank back.
“Yes you,” Harry said. “Go check it out and maybe I’ll let you bring along your play clothes.”
Mark blushed, “Fine.”
“Hush hush, keep it down now,” Ken warned, “voices carry.”
Pressing into the shadows Mark tip-toed out of the motor pool and peered around the corner; he willed himself to be invisible. There was another pair of soldiers standing between two buildings, they were talking lazily while smoking cigarettes.
One turned to the other and asked, “You see that gallows they’re building?”
“Yeah,” the other shook his head, “some of the other guys were telling me about it. They say it’s quite a thing to see.”
Mark shuddered again. Can’t they realize how crazy this all is? They’re committing murder just because some crazy old lady is saying so! Stephen King should totally sue her ass.
Miss Blackwood had told her captive flock the gallows were a mercy, a sign of Christ’s love. Everyone went along with it, even Mark’s parents. Miss Blackwood’s reign was barely two weeks old but there had already been four purges; anyone and anything that struck her or her fellow crones as ungodly had been consigned to the bonfires. Now however that wasn’t enough, Miss Blackwood wanted a spectacle, a lasting one.
Mark tiptoed back to the others, “Guards.” He said, “They’re gone now.”
“Right” Harry said, “Pete, get the LAW.”
Pete grabbed a stunted metal tube. Alec jumped into the back seat of the four door Hummer, “Here we go.”
Ken grabbed the 12-gauge Smith and Wesson and climbed in beside him, “Hey little sister shotgun!”
“LAW?” Tony spluttered and climbed in next, “Do you just intend to blow a hole in the wall and drive out?”
“Exactly,” Harry said.
“But the zombies will get in.” Tony said, “The people…”
Harry rounded on him, “People? They’re not people after what they did! Those girls were strippers- God’s most innocent creatures!”
Egypt, Candy and the other girls from the Silver Dollar had been burned at the stake, victims of Miss Blackwood’s ongoing righteous fury. Mark could still hear their screams echoing in his head.
“I know…” Tony started to say but then quieted. Mark climbed in the back seat beside him. It wasn’t easy getting the Humvee’s door to close but they managed it.
“Let’s get out of here,” Harry said.
“The more you live, the faster you will die,” Ken said confidently.
The Hummer’s engine roared to life as Harry tightened his hands around the steering wheel. Pete leaned out the rear passenger side window, the LAW rocket cradled against his body. There were butterflies in Mark’s stomach, he couldn’t believe this was really happening. Sometimes he couldn’t believe the last three months had happened.
The first rifle shot nearly took Pete’s head off. “Augh!” he screamed.
A second shot shattered the passenger side window.
“What’s happening?” Mark yelled.
“We’ve got company,” Alec replied.
There was a group of blank-eyed soldiers blocking their way, they had their rifles at the ready. They were led by Miss Blackwood and three of her fellow spinsters. Their ragged clothes and powder blue hair made them almost look like clones.
“Sinners!” Miss Blackwood said, “Sinners with treason and murder in their hearts!”
One of the officers ordered, “Get out of the vehicle Sergeant!”
Harry stayed where he was, gunning the engine, “As a matter of fact we were just coming to see you.”
“We were?” Tony said.
“Let me do the talking here.” Harry whispered.
The officer’s voice became a shout, “I said exit the vehicle Sergeant Shaffer!”
Harry cleared his throat before speaking again, “This is all a big misunderstanding, you see we were going to ask to go outside to look for bibles and canned food.”
“You have to admire initiative like that,” Alec added.
“No helping.”
“Your last name is Shaffer?” Tony asked.
“Don’t. Talk.” Harry whispered again.
Miss Blackwood was ranting now, “Lies. They’re all liars, fornicators, idolaters and sodomites!”
Ken shook his head, “Can you hear them? They talk about us!”
“This is your last chance Sergeant Shaffer,” the soldiers trained their weapons on the vehicle, “if you confess your sins the Lord’s love will redeem you.”
“Uh-oh.” Pete said.
“Now just a minute…” Tony looked around inside of the crowded Humvee, “Which of us does she think is a sodomite?”
Harry turned around in his seat, “Will you be quiet?”
The soldiers opened fire...
