by Bonds, Javan
Just like The Phantoms, Toro chose not to wield a blade from The Tech’s cornucopia. He carried a samurai sword passed down through his family for generations. Ivory was the sword’s name. The pummel at the end of the hilt was intricately carved. Every inch of the hilt was white and was made from the tusks of elephants. Razor-sharp steel curved slightly to make Ivory nearly forty inches from the tip of the blade to the end of the haft. Blood had been spilled countless times by this weapon throughout the centuries.
Samurai carried a companion to their katana, a tanto. This short sword was the little sister to Ivory. At twenty inches, Ebony was a baby katana. With a blade of the same style, the only difference besides length was that the hilt was hewn from Black Onyx. A gleaming blade protruding from midnight stone, this tanto was just as deadly as her big sister.
☠☠☠
Staff Sergeant Sako instructed Doshi to drive across the southern causeway to the state park lodge. Having been well over a month since May Day, the safe zone had expanded past the boundaries of just the island. Most of the islands to the north of the main city had been reclaimed. Now, especially to the immediate south of the island, things were fairly human friendly. The pontoon bridge remained in place to make the connection of the causeway almost permanent.
Rajesh readied his hands on the mount, but didn’t plan to see enemies. The Humvee passed Little New York gas station to the right at the turn to the lodge. Two sisters had gone missing yesterday. Brother Brown had lead church groups into mostly secured areas to scavenge. Guntersville State Park was the location the group had been salvaging materials in before the girls began to go missing.
Rain came down the day before yesterday, so they were hoping to see clues as to where the children had been before disappearing. They stopped in the parking lot. Hirotoro smiled. He noticed the place to start looking. “Playground!” He pointed to a small recess yard. The three were off.
When they reached the playground, Rorschach paced the area, looking for clues. Muddy scuffs marked the steps of the metal slide. Small feet had been pressed over and over into the ground on either end of the seesaw. The detective then discovered something that gave him pause; larger footprints. An adult in slick bottom boots with sharp pointed toes.
Sako wasn’t sure if he should be happy or sickened and terrified. Did he just find proof that these children weren’t simply missing but actually kidnapped, by a human? He followed the footprints of the adult to take a seat at one of the benches. Two pairs of tiny sneakers came over to the bench. At some point, the adult stood to walk away with a pair of small footprints on either side.
Flanked by a pair of Clone Troopers, the investigator followed the footprints onto the sidewalk. This wasn’t their first rodeo; they had been doing these investigations since the beginning. But they finally had reason to suspect the missing children had actually been taken. Following the fading footprints down the sidewalk they came to stand in front of the main entrance to the Lodge.
The footprints were completely invisible now. There was no way to know if they went into the building or perhaps a vehicle, parked under the portico. Hirotoro Sako was aware that buildings on the mainland full of small rooms were not safe. The scavengers normally only took what they could from outside buildings and remained in the open.
While the main room in the large building was fairly open, and had remained mostly untouched. The smaller rooms had definitely not been looted whereas the cafeterias on the campgrounds had been. Back rooms of these lunch halls were easy to raid, vacuum sealed packages of food meant most of the salvage was safe from the infected. Fresh and frozen foods spoiled long ago, but canned goods were easy pickings.
At this point, reclamation teams had reached out miles past the lodge in all directions. First salvage runs stretched nearly to the point of surrounding counties. The pastor and his church group were only looking for anything initially left behind. It was so safe that scavengers in the groups were encouraged to bring their children.
As they approached the lodge a child’s sneaker lay just outside door near the curb. Not knowing if this was the missing child's shoe they had to investigate. The Rorschach dressed detective wasn’t worried about being safe. His Mask went over his head and katana slid out of the scabbard from over his shoulder. They were going in. Investigation came first. Consequences be damned!
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“Sure is funny how all the doors to these abandoned buildings were never locked. Convenient.” Hirotoro’s smile could be heard through the mask when he spoke over his shoulder to the HITs.
One of the Mandalorians responded jokingly. “They wanted to make it easy for us to walk in to our deaths.”
All three chuckled. Sako continued the banter with one of Rorschach’s creepy lines. “Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.” Upon being met with silence, he realized the line might have been too disturbing. Either that or Doshi and Mattu just weren’t secret geeks.
It would have been strange to most to see three grown men cracking jokes while searching for possibly dead children. After conducting such investigations for weeks, the situation didn’t seem striking to them. When the current job requires investigators to search through the madness and depravity of possible kidnappers, one had to keep his sanity. In a mad world, only the mad are sane, Staff Sergeant Sako thought grimly.
Dark and expansive, the main room echoed. Worthless computers and phones still sat on the long desk to the left. Sako scanned the immediate area for recent foot traffic. There! Bare, bloodied footprints led down the hallway to the smaller suites. The Phantoms and others told him stories of peevies caring living humans to their nests where they would slowly slaughter the victims. Maybe it wasn’t too late for these girls.
Charging ahead, the HITs began readying their blades. The detective outfitted as Rorschach already had his katana primed to let blood. Bare footprints doubtfully suggested a human kidnapper. Regardless, whatever type of enemy presented itself, cold justice will be its end.
Mahatma smacked the Haft of his bhuj against his left palm. Accented with green, Rajesh rotated the trishula, psyching himself up for battle. Staff Sergeant Hirotoro Sako led the surging protagonists to stand in front of the door; the only door that appeared to have been in recent use. Bloody fingerprints were smeared around the knob. He thrust his leg forward and kicked the door in.
So far down a darkened hall, natural light was dimly weak. Beams from the sun only allowed a gloomy hint of sight into the room. The smell of a torn and decomposing body was evident, and eventually was seen in the corner of the enclosure. All three heroes tensed and readied for an attack. For shame, Toro thought, the hood doesn’t provide a de-sensitivity to smell.
Stepping further into the room, it was apparent this corpse was not human. They wouldn’t have been sorry to find that it was. But it wasn’t the body of a peevie. Stinky entrails dangled from strips of ripped hide. A maggot infested deer carcass welcomed them to a disgusting room of nightmares.
Just realizing the floor under their feet seemed tacky, the trio shuffled on the thick, wet carpet with a sickly grayish-green tone. Blood from what had to be every type of creature soaked the plush rug covering the floor. Manure turned the bloody carpet into a slimy sludge. Guts and feces mixed to give the air a tangy sweet scent.
Scattered around the suite, beneath the masses of flies, were bones from many kinds of woodland creatures. Raccoon skulls, the remains of possums, and even a twelve point set of antlers from a whitetail buck stared at them with empty eyes from across the room.
Hirotoro whistled from beneath his blotted hood. He pointed to the massive rack. “Damn! I wish I could’ve met that fella before May Day.”
Staff Sergeant Sako could detect no human bones with several sweeps of his eyes.
The children were not here.
Maybe they were in another room or maybe they never came into the lodge. The trio would have to check that portico. Perhaps there were clues showing they got into a vehicl
e.
The Phantoms turned to follow their leader out of the room. Mahatma decided he was going to slam his bhuj into the door after it closed. He wanted to break the knob, making this room inaccessible. The disgusting animals wouldn't get what little meat remained on the bones of the poor deer. Just as they stepped out into the hall, a keening screech could be heard.
“Company!” Rajesh sounded as he turned his wrists over on the trishula. It would now be used to slam the blades down on enemies.
The first peevie came around the corner, accelerating as it took in the sight of three fresh humans. Spreading its arms, the beast let out a long screech. Mahatma could be heard cracking his neck. He and Doshi turned to watch for enemies coming from the other end of the hall. Ivory extended, Sako moved forward to the advancing enemy.
Hirotoro walked with shoulders forward; Ivory’s tip pointing at the blunatic in his sight. They drew within yards of each other and he raised his blade. Peevies obviously had a hard time understanding the gleaming sticks some humans carried were quite pointy and slashy. Before the day was through, any surviving revenant’s taking part in this battle would have a better understanding of just that.
The first reanimated corpse lunged at the hero with arms outstretched. It didn’t register the katana slicing cleanly through its torso below the belly button. The momentum carried the body forward as gravity began sliding it apart. Its rectum spontaneously drizzled its final farewell. Organs spilled out as the lower extremities came away from the upper half.
Arms became useless and lost their rigidity, after receiving damage to the spinal cord. No longer having control of its extremities, numb fingers crumpled against his leather trench coat. Yellow eyes grew wide, realizing all feeling vanished. The beast slammed into Rorschach and collapsed in a heap on the floor. Just before true death overtook it, Sako ran the razor-sharp katana across its neck.
Two more sexually aroused peevies charged the underdog hero of The Watchmen. He forced his blade between one’s legs and sliced up. He caught the inside of the thigh and tore open the femoral artery. The momentum of his swing forced the blade to slash back out into the ball sack, splitting the left testicle cleanly in two. Jism and blood ran out of the open scrotum and mixed with the arterial blood on the floor. The katana effortlessly chopped through its flaccid, blue penis and eventually lodged against pelvic bone. Hirotoro wrenched the blade free to watch pounds of guts slapping to the floor.
The mortally injured zombie fell back in shock and immense torture. Its companion continued forward, not realizing the fate that lay before it. The Staff Sergeant swung Ivory from right to left, slicing completely through the neck.
The monster couldn’t register that it had just been beheaded. Its body abruptly stopped while the head continued forward. Panic briefly crossed its features before the chin toppled over and the body collapsed. The bodiless head rolled, landing upright against the opposing wall with its yellow eyes still staring out. Sako could've sworn the eyes blinked twice in seeming disbelief as blood rocketed from the still beating heart of the headless body. Gallons of the crimson fluid, or so it appeared, poured onto the floor, along with large amounts of runny black diarrhea. Initial attackers down, only a hundred to go.
☠☠☠
“Six o’clock!” the HIT with green accents shouted to his brother as he turned. The enemy was charging down the stairs at the other end of the hall.
It was morbidly funny to watch the blunatics rush down the flight of stairs. At least half a dozen made up the first wave. The three at the front were taking two or three steps with every stride, making it easier. Their clumsy nudist companion to the rear tripped from about halfway up the flight.
The male peevie toppled at a high rate of speed and was airborne for several feet. It impacted one step with the erect head of its penis. The unfortunate member doubled over, with the tip now laid over the top and touching the base. Testicles flattened and surely ruptured when they slammed against the wood. Now rolling, the re-animate bowled into the three unfortunate enough to be below it on the stairs.
Surprised sprays of diarrhea squirted out and mostly onto the peevie taking their legs out from under them. Similarly tumbling their bones fractured and completely shattered with every crushing blow on the hardwood. Blackened hearts slowly stilled as destroyed bodies came to rest on solid ground.
Only two of the initial surge of infected remained and tried to come down the stairs at a calmer pace. The Phantoms stood with weapons ready and made their own charge at the beasts. Good and evil collided with devastating results.
Well, at least, devastating for evil. Rajesh slammed his trishula into the monster before him. It impacted the sternum and stabbed through the solar plexus. Bowels of the starving creature voided one last time when the cardiac muscle and airways were punctured. The Phantom began dragging the body along the floor to him until it came off his weapon.
Mahatma’s opponent didn’t receive the same quickness in death. The sharpened point of the ax knife penetrated just under the rib cage. Digging into vital organs before impacting bone, The Phantom tore the blue free, making a wide slice. A rainbow of colors poured out of the doomed peevie.
Driven by hunger, it still reached up, uselessly trying to get through the armor. Doshi brought his blade down repeatedly on the thing’s collarbone, causing a crimson spray with each smash. In a few swings, bones cracked. Arteries ruptured by the time he ended the onslaught.
More revenants charged down the stairs with only the occasional trip. The horrendous scene was repeated numerous times. Neither of The Phantoms bothered drawing their ranged weapons. Slicing enemies to ribbons was too much fun! No gym today.
☠☠☠
Ivory fell out of his fingers and clanged on the floor. Sako was completely spent. Dozens if not over a hundred of truly dead corpses littered the hall. Running blood covered nearly every visible surface between the walls. Some would find it remarkable that the hero, though exhausted, remained unscathed. He didn’t. Deep down, Hirotoro understood he was to play a more important role in this script.
Unmarked by even a speck of blood were his white and black mask and trench coat. Ivory sported a coating of every kind of body fluid. Staff Sergeants Sako turned to see The Phantoms finishing up their final attackers. Their hard armor had hints of crimson over it, but soft areas like joints and hands remained completely clean. After a good washing, the armor would appear off the rack.
Mahatma had unscrewed the ornate elephant head from the handle of his ax knife. He unceremoniously jammed the stiletto into the top of the head of his last opponent. It went rigid and emptied its bowels of its final disgusting meal. Rajesh twisted his trishula in the belly of a downed peevie. A ragged circle was left as he tore the blades free.
“I’ve had some time to think about it, and I don’t think the girls are here.” Sako approached their rear. This has been a complete waste of time.
“What do we do now?” a Clone Trooper asked.
Sako removed his bloodied leather gloves.
The Rorschach dressed detective scratched his chin and mused. “There’s got to be more evidence to be found outside. We just didn’t look close enough. Let us go!”
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Under the portico, the pink Reebok lay haphazardly against the curb. Upon closer inspection, the investigator noticed a splotch on the ground behind where a vehicle would be parked squarely under the eave. He took a knee to re-examine the dry puddle. It wasn’t the remains of infected feces, he was certain. Bean juice? Fingers came up, markedly brownish. Sako noticed the liquid had pooled around what had to be a tire. In his mind, he could picture an abduction.
Trying to think of any islander that wore pointed toe, smooth bottomed footwear, he was only able to visualize one man. It couldn’t be... But what if?... The Staff Sergeant would have to do some snooping around a certain preacher’s HOME.
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Postlude
We sat around the table, waiting for my father to b
uzz the radio. I was uncharacteristically excited to give him news of what had been going on. All the shit with Festus would need to be discussed, the pirates and how we dealt with them, and of course, I would have to inform him I’m now a badass that shot a fucking cannon. I was itching to tell everyone that would listen about my new mad skills.
I guesstimated it was at least a minute past the scheduled time. Hesitating, I decided to speak into the radio. “Daddy?” There was no way in hell I would use his call sign if that’s what he was waiting for.
“Elmo?” a teary female voice came from the other end.
I was confused. “Mama? Where’s Daddy?” I didn’t want to seem like an asshole and quickly made an addition. “And what’s wrong?”
I was beyond surprised my mom was even able to use the radio. She cannot use any kind of technology even though she claims to be a computer whiz at least when she is not around me. She turns into a blind and illiterate old lady when she gets on the computer in front of me. It’s immeasurably painful to watch her try and load up a Word document or, God forbid, pay a fucking bill online. I would rather kill myself than try to convince my mother that there is a big, flashing button in the middle of the screen. Even though it was there when I looked at the computer five seconds ago, she will swear that “it’s not there now.”
She sniffled. “He’s down at the police station being questioned.”
I waited for more of an explanation and received nothing. “Questioned for?”
It must have been the emotions breaking her train of thought. “He’s a suspect.”
I was shocked. “Suspect of what?”
She seemed disjointed as if she wasn’t thinking clearly. “Where is Eugene?”