I’ve been trying to think up some lame super-heroes and see what would happen if they were taken serious. For a better explanation of what I mean, have a look at today’s post.

* * * * *

He tore off the last sheet of paper from the tablet. There had been eighty. This time from the farthest corner of his office, Glen crumbled the paper in to a tight ball and faced the wall. He pictured his coffee cup in his mind as it sat on the desk across the room. He whipped the paper ball over his left shoulder. It landed into the cup with a splash.

Glen turned around to face his office: the waste basket overflowed with crumpled paper, his water glass contained three of them, all swollen and limp, his trophy buck mounted above the bookcase had them jammed into both ears. Even the filing cabinet handles had paper wads lodged behind them. “How about Blindshot?” Glenn asked.

“Blindshot? Does the name Alan Moore sound familiar? He already used that name in a comic book years ago. Bob ‘Blindshot’ Booker. A cabbie or something.” Dave wasn’t an expert on many things, but he was a guru when it came to comics. “You’re gonna get sued if you go calling yourself Blindshot.” Dave drained his beer and tossed the can at the overflowing wastebasket. He missed.

“Ok, no Blindshot. But I’ve got to come up with something.”

“Why? Since when is throwing things into other things a super power? You wouldn’t last a day out there with the real bad—” A paper wad landed in Dave’s mouth. He spat it onto the floor. “What the hell!”

“If that was a marble,” Glenn said with a satisfied grin, “you’d have choked.”

∞

* * * * *

All he could do was watch and wait his turn while the wolf slaughtered his friends and dogs right in front of him. He was the last of the hunting party. Davidson, Greene, and Buckley all dead. Their throats torn open before they could mutter a word. Buckley had screamed though. He screamed a lot. Trapped between a long oak table and the wall Josh saw everything. The wolf had Buckley pinned down on the floorboards, taking bites into his face. It swallowed mouthfuls of skin and hair until Buckley’s screams were reduced to a wet gurgle; at last falling silent.

Satisfied, the wolf had turned to a paralyzed Josh and fixed its blue eye on him. While the red one twitched with feral insanity, the blue one was cool and steady. The wolf knew what it was doing. Somehow, it knew him.

Its gaze had snapped to a desk in the corner. In an instant, it rammed the desk, spilling the contents onto the floor. The wolf approached a chipped plaque amid the mess that read Pine Grove Lodge. Under the title read the following:

If We Can’t Shoot The Deer

At Least We’ll Have Our Beer

Ron Davidson

Josh Tyndall

George Greene

Ed Buckley

Simon Marks

What happens at the Pine Grove, stays at the Pine Grove…

The wolf looked up at Josh, waiting for eye contact before lifting its leg and releasing a stream of hot urine onto the plaque.

The wolf began what Josh first thought as a sneezing or coughing fit. Drool and blood flecked spittle sprayed from its snout, until he noticed the slightly upturned mouth and the lunatic gleam in both eyes. The wolf was laughing at him. It was at this moment that Josh first realized that the wolf was Simon Marks. It had come in here and slaughtered everyone and now it would take its time and savor the last kill.

∞

* * * * *

From beneath his feet, Blaine could feel the small creature’s movements. It’s bony back undulated and twitched rhythmically as it impossibly carried him above the jagged canyon surface hundreds of feet below. When Blaine dared to look down, a portion of its pale, fleshy skin could be seen poking out from under his sneakers, but for the most part it remained out of view.

Blaine looked back at his companion, Levy—a squatly little man of ample paunch, stuffed like sausage into what appeared to be an early 1900′s business suit; his jowly neck spilling out of the collar. Levy absently reached into his jacket and produced a gold pocket-watch, checking the time. He looked more like he was waiting for a train, than balanced atop a hairless little monstrosity hundreds of feet in the air. Blaine found himself looking at the creature below Levy and it met his stare. It gnashed its grimy, yellow teeth; flat like those of a human but impossibly large for its fist sized head. Blaine instantly looked away and watched Levy fight for balance, nearly dropping his watch. It dangled from its chain and swung like a pendulum aside his gray trousers.

“I would advise you not to rouse the flier, sir,” he said, nervously reeling up his watch. “It’s not safe. Especially in flight, as you might expect,” he added, sounding rather annoyed.

Blaine quietly grunted to himself and kept his eyes looking forward. Ahead of them, a spire of rock stood. Its flat top was no more than five yards across, Blaine figured, and they were heading right towards it. The surface was littered with sticks and small rocks that reflected whitely in the morning sunlight.

“Why are we headed for that column?” Blaine was careful to look directly at Levy this time.

“That’s the Judgment Stone,” Levy answered with a dismissive flick of his hand. “You were told all of this, yes?”

“Well yeah, I guess I was, but…it’s empty. Where’s the judges?” He was getting nervous now. As innocent as he was, Blaine had figured all this would be a simple formality.

“Oh my…you are a bit…confused, aren’t you, my boy.” Levy looked at him with what appeared to be actual concern. “Once you land, I assure you that I will do my best to make things as clear as I can.”

“That would be nice, Levy…” Blaine’s voice fell away, and he felt all hope follow with it. As they neared the spire, what appeared to be stones revealed empty black sockets as they lay strewn amidst a tangle of bleached and brittle bone.

∞

Who knows, during NaNoWriMo, I may have to change the “is” to “was” for a little while…

Also, I should probably give a little back story here. I wrote a story a while back that I never quite finished. It was about a guy who wrecked his car and got pinned behind the wheel. The car was on its side and his passenger, a lady named Nancy, was killed but also was pinned. She was dangling above him. Of course she comes back to life as a zombie and there’s nothing he can do.

The point of this is, that in the world of this story, the Northeastern US is plagued with the Reanimation Virus, or RAV, with a mass innoculation in the works. As of yet, there are no flesh eating zombies as we are familiar with, just people either laying there moaning and twitching after death or even the more rare Walkers. Life is almost normal, in other words. These 2 posts take place in another town, but still in a place where the RAV is not eradicated, and normal people come face to face with yet another layer of awkwardness that death can put upon us.

* * * * *

When news reached Timmy that Bobby Kane was headed for Millie’s, he went back to her house in spite of his parents.

Timmy ran around to the back door. It was true: Kane and Brock were both there, ready to pound on the door. “Hey!” Timmy yelled, “What’re you doing? Stop it!”

Kane’s wise ass grin was broad beneath his narrow eyes and freckled cheeks. “Daniels! Is it true? Old Lady Bancroft’s a Walker?”

“Millie is dead. Why don’t you show a little respect?” Timmy put himself between them and the door.

Kane’s smile faded and his lips grew thin. His eyes narrowed even more. “Why don’t you step aside, little faggot.” At nearly a foot taller, Kane leaned down, inches from Timmy’s face. “I never seen a Walker, and I ain’t gonna ask twice.” Brock just stood there, blocking Timmy’s sun.

Timmy didn’t back down. “You’ve never came here before, you got no right to come here now.” With defiance that will certainly earn him a beating, Timmy stared right into one of Kane’s best squinty-toughguy faces. “Matter of fact, why don’t you and your lard-ass boyfriend here, step aside instead?”

Brock gulped loudly; buggy-eyed and nearly choked on his Milky Way, while Kane simply flicked out an open fist and thumped Timmy on the forehead. His neck snapped back and pounded on the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. Timmy’s world swam for a moment, darkness encroached on edges of his vision, but slowly faded with the ringing in his ears.

As he tuned back into Kane’s screaming voice, Timmy could feel hot breath and spit pummel his face. “–ass-munch, little faggot! Your mommy’s not here to save you. How ’bout me and Brock beat you to death and see what you do? Maybe you’ll be a Walker like your old dried-up girlfriend in there, or maybe you’ll just come back as a Mumbler or one of those Droolies?”

With his back still to the door, Timmy rubbed his head. “I just want you to–”

A pan dropped somewhere inside the house. All three boys stopped, their little drama put on hold, and cocked their heads, listening. Millie’s chattering started up again, louder than before; sounding frustrated.

Kane stood still, wearing an expression of fascination so severe, that he looked as if his ears were working for the very first time. “That is awesome!” He looked back at Brock, who stood with both his eyes and teeth clenched; either holding his legs back from running or something from running down them. “Brock, don’t be a noob. You don’t see stupid-ass little Daniels here crapping his pants.”

“I’m not crapping, I’m choking…my candy bar…it’s–”

“Whatever,” Kane grabbed Timmy’s shoulder and dug his fingers in as deep as he could. He smiled as Timmy winced. “I just got an idea. How ’bout I don’t break your face, and you just go on inside and pinch your girlfriend on the ass?”

“How ’bout no–”

Still gripping Timmy’s shoulder, Kane gave a shove as his other hand turned the knob and the door swung open. The inside doorknob bit into the plaster wall with a crack and Timmy tumbled in, rolling backward and banging his head on a coat-tree. He lay there in a tangle of raincoats, flannel shirts and shawls, looking up at Kane’s silhouette in the doorway. A rancid-sweet smell descended on Timmy like a thick fog. It became pasted onto his tongue and clogged his nostrils, gagging him.

“Go on, Daniels,” Kane told him.

Brock held out his hand, gesturing with his thumb and forefinger, “Yeah, pinchy pinchy.”

Kane slammed the door shut and shadows filled in the hallway. With no fresh air, the stench grew worse. Timmy’s stomach wretched and his eyes watered–from around the corner, Millie’s chattering resumed. From inside, there was a wetness to it that he hadn’t heard before. A single bare foot, caked with blood and cookie dough slapped onto the wood floor of the hallway, followed by the swishing of a slippered one. The chattering sounded very frustrated now.

∞

* * * * *

“Let me ask Davis.” Jones told Meeks as he stepped towards the CO.

Meeks swept his hand out. “No, you can’t do that–Davis don’t count.”

“Why the hell not?”

“‘Cause he don’t do what we do. He don’t live in our world.”

CO Davis spoke up. “I can imagine it, can’t I?”

“No, that ain’t what I mean. A dude can’t go askin’ a law abiding citizen about snitching, ’cause it’s okay for them to snitch; they follow their own code. But when you be committing crimes, you go by a different code, and snitchin’ ain’t cool. You don’t snitch.”

Jones’ bunkie, Graham, weighed in with his usual wisdom as he walked by, “Hell no. You do…you a punk.” He continued on his way towards the showers.

CO Davis leaned back in his chair, springs popping, and set his feet on the filing cabinet. “Meeks, lemme tell you something. There ain’t no code. I seen it a hundred times. A man gets busted and he’s gonna take you down with him–or instead’a him–and protect his own ass. There ain’t no code, it’s every convict for himself.”

Meeks shook his head with a knowing smile. “Trust me, CO, you don’t know. There’s a code.”

Davis continued. “Now, I can see…like the Mafia, they’re organized. If you f**k up, they’ve got real rules with a real set of consequences. But there’s all kinds a people out there committing all kinds of crimes–I mean, who sets up the rules? Who goes to the meetings? No, there ain’t no honor among thieves. It’s a myth. It ain’t true.”

“It should be.”

“Yeah, in a perfect world, maybe. But look around, Meeks, it ain’t perfect.”

“Back in the day, it wasn’t like that,” Jones piped in, “now kids are taught to tell on ey’body.”

“Good. If kids are taught to snitch instead of committing crimes, then maybe the jails would be emptier.”

“Then you’d be out of a job,” Meeks said.

“Hell, I retire in two years anyway.”

∞

* * * * *

Mugs in hand, father and son sat opposite each other at the family table. As the evening’s candles danced dimly between them, the flickering light softened the years on the elder’s worn features and added them to those of the boy.

Loeph asked, “What do his men look like, Father?”

“Men?” His father’s eyes widened, incredulous. “Being a man still has value in this world, son. Do not further diminish the word by calling them men. They are exactly what they seem. A horde. Nothing more, nothing less.” He brought his mug to his lips. Small droplets of sharptea sputtered onto the oaken table as he continued, “A man only fights when he needs to. He has a cause. These Menoti, this horde, they fight and die without cause. Their lives and deaths hold no meaning for them.”

Loeph thought about that for a moment, then said, “They were once men. That’s true, isn’t it?” Sitting alone at the table with Father, drinking their drinks, talking of such serious matters–they are the men of the house, after all, and men needed to discuss such things–imbued Loeph with not just a feeling of being older, but perhaps a bit more courage than he began the day with.

Jorgan gave his son an appraising look, then answered. “True, Son. They were men. They had families–some of ‘em–but they gave it all away when they joined him. To pledge yourself to him is to gouge your own eyes from their very holes,” he made a clawing gesture across his face, “for they are no longer needed. You see, sight is merely a distraction for the vision that drives the Menoti–his will. It is said, that this is why they can attack in utter blackness. He drives them forward.”

Loeph attempted a steady hand as he sipped his milk. With effort, the wavering of his voice was only slight. “Where are they now?”

“Who knows? Certainly not around here,” Jorgan lifted his arms wide, gesturing to his surroundings and chuckled bitterly, “the Gods have surely forgotten these hills, why should the Devils be any different?”

∞

∞

* * * * *

Firefly was on. Having enjoyed Serenity, Dale found himself understanding why everyone was so upset about the series being canceled. What a good show. And River…he thought it best that he didn’t know how old she was, seeing that–

The phone began ringing. Dale put down his coffee and got up from the table. “Hello?”

“Dale!” A woman yelled. How did this stranger know his name? He was straining to think up something witty. “Dale, are you there? Dale?”

It was his wife. “Yes, I’m here. You okay? I didn’t recog–”

“Is Connie with you?” Her voice was raw and winded, cracking as she spoke.

“Yeah, sure, what’s wrong?”

“No, is she with you? I need to know. Can you see her?”

Dale had never heard Linda like this. “No, but she’s okay, she’s upstairs.”

A shadow skittered past the kitchen window. Somewhere, a dog began barking.

“Dammit! Dale, listen to me. You have to get her right now and you have to leave.” Dale could make out voices in the background. A horn blared and the voices grew louder.

“Leave–why? Where are you?”

“Dale, get Connie and leave now! I’m on my cell, heading north on eighty-one. You need to go south.”

“Why? What is it?” He picked up the remote and clicked channel three. Commercial…must not be too big a deal.

The cracks in her voice gave way. What came over the phone now were wheezy, tear-filled pleas. “I’ll tell you–but first, just get my baby out of there, Dale please–tell me you’ll leave now.”

“Okay honey, everything will be fine. I’ll go upstairs right now and get Connie. I’ll go south on Twelve and I’ll call you in a few minutes. You gonna be alright?”

“I’ll be fine, just call me. Hurry!”

“I will, don’t worry.” He hung up the phone and patted his pockets for the car keys. This was nuts. What the hell was going on? He walked to the kitchen window and looked out at the sky. Clear. A little ruckus from a couple dogs fighting, but that wasn’t too unusual here in town. Better get Connie, he thought. Dale left the kitchen.

From under the kitchen window, a black shape rose. With a faint tearing, it pushed itself through the screen. A long insectile limb, ending with three black fingers groped along the counter-top for purchase. Coarse hair dragged across a wooden cutting board, sweeping breadcrumbs as it went. The pointed tips of its fingers ticked on the formica. They dipped into a half-eaten bowl of Fruit Loops coating themselves with warm, souring milk. Before reaching the edge of the counter, the fingers bumped a coffee cup onto the floor. The shattering porcelain halted Dale at the bottom of the stairs.

Upstairs, Connie screamed.

∞