by Wiles, David
“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!” Washington exclaimed, still held immobile in the painful martial arts wrist hold.
“There will be NO touching your Sensei,” Jefferson said softly. “Sensei means teacher, and you have much to learn.”
“OK-ok-ok-ok-ok-ok-ok!” Washington said in severe discomfort, before Jefferson released the wristlock, allowing Washington to stand up straight and rub his sore wrist.
“Fuck,” Washington said. “I apologize… Sensei.”
“Good. Now cut down all the cherry trees,” Jefferson repeated. “I will return when you are done,” Jefferson added, before walking away.
George Washington knew that further discussion or argument was pointless. Picking up the axe, he began chopping at the trunk of the closest cherry tree. And he continued to chop down the cherry trees well into the evening, until at last all 18 trees had gone from vertical to horizontal, and not a single cherry tree remained standing.
Jefferson returned, as yesterday, to find George Washington working by torchlight, and again handed him a ham sandwich.
“Eat this, and go to bed,” Jefferson said matter-of-factly as Washington ate his sandwich. “We have a full day of training tomorrow,” he added, before leaving to return to his guest quarters. Washington was frustrated, to say the least.
When Washington returned to his house, sweat-stained and exhausted, Martha Washington was waiting up for him and was shocked at his disheveled appearance.
“Mister Washington!” she exclaimed upon seeing her haggard husband. “Whatsoever have you been doing that you are thus conditioned?’ She took a cool, wet wash cloth and wiped his brow of sweat and dirt.
“Sensei Jefferson has had me chopping down trees, lots and lots of trees,” Washington said as he slumped into the La-Z Boy recliner in the corner of the room as Martha continued to clean his face.
“What trees?” she asked, and could see her husband closed his eyes as if in pain.
“Well..um…” he stammered, not wanting to tell her.
“Oh, NO!” she remarked. “Not some of the trees in my favorite cherry tree grove!”
“I cannot tell a lie,” George Washington replied to his wife. Jefferson had me cut down every single god damn cherry tree in the grove.”
“You fucking assholes!” Martha Washington shouted. “Two fucking assholes, the both of you!” she continued angrily.
“I know, I know, Honey,” George replied. “But he’s training me to be a Ninja.”
“Oh, a Ninja!” Martha shot back. “A Ninja! Well that’s just what we all need, a pot smoking, carriage waxing , cherry-tree-chopping NINJA!” She flung the dirty wash cloth into the wash basin with an angry splash.
“First of all,” George relied calmly, “I only smoke weed because it helps with my rheumatism.” He sat up straight in the recliner. “And secondly,” he continued, “Sensei says that I am not permitted to question the methods of my training.”
“Well that’s just great!” Martha chastised. “You’re not permitted to question your training!” she repeated sarcastically. “What will he have you doing next for your Ninja training, pissing in a tea kettle and fucking the goats?”
“Now sweetie-pie,” George implored.
“Don’t sweetie-pie, me, god dammit,” Martha replied, leaving the bedroom and slamming the door behind her. George knew that Martha Washington was a loving wife, and would forgive him, in time. But exhausted as he was, George Washington could only slump back into his recliner where he fell quickly to sleep before his next morning’s training.
And so it was that George Washington’s Ninja training continued day after day, week after week, for months in a row. Each day the two men would rise at dawn and Washington would be given some physically laborious task to complete alone. Some days he would paint the fence while on other days he would stomp the wine grapes. His training had him chasing the greyhounds, climbing trees, swimming the Potomac and many, many other tasks. He would retire each evening sore, hungry and exhausted.
After many months of training, the two men stood along the banks of the Potomac river after Washington had completed a 25 mile swim. Although he was tired, Washington did not find himself as previously exhausted as he used to be by such a task. Many of the tasks he now accomplished no longer tired him at all.
“May I respectfully ask,” Washington began, “if you might possibly be able to explain to me how these activities will make me a Ninja warrior, Sensei?”
With that question, respectfully posed as it was after so many months of successful training, Jefferson knew that his student was ready to enter the next phase of his training. And he was also ready for the answer to his question.
“Show me wax the carriage,” Jefferson said simply.
Washington made a circular clockwise motion in the air in front of him with his right hand, and a counterclockwise with his left.
Without warning, Jefferson then swung a single, straight punch with his right fist at Washington’s head, which Washington immediately blocked. Jefferson then threw a single left, which was also blocked. Jefferson then threw a series of blindingly fast punches at his student, all of which were deflected and blocked by George Washington. The repetition of the “waxing” motion had made this blocking movement natural for Washington, almost instinctual.
“Months ago,” Jefferson observed, “you would have been on your ass.” Jefferson then moved to the side of his student. “Show me paint the fence,” he said, throwing a punch at Washington from beside him. As before, Washington deflected the blow, this time using the much repeated “painting” motion, which was also now instinctive.
“Show me kick the slave in the ass,” Jefferson ordered, before sending a low kick towards his student. But Washington’s leg kicked forward first, blocking the kick with a kick of his own. Repeated kicks by Jefferson were all blocked by kicks from Washington.
“Do you now understand?” Jefferson asked.
“I do, Sensei, Washington replied. “All of these tasks have been training me in the motions of combat and defense through repetition. And building my endurance.”
“Correct,” Jefferson replied. “And you are now ready to enter the final phase of your training in combat, stealth and concealment. This is the heart of Ninjitsu. You will be taught to …embrace the darkness.” Jefferson handed his student and friend a package wrapped in brown paper tied with string.
Washington took the package and opened it immediately, finding inside a tight black bodysuit with a black hood where only the eyes were visible.
“By day, you may dress as a soldier or statesman,” Jefferson stated. “But this, this is the clothing you shall wear at night. This is the uniform of the shadow, of the darkness. This… is the uniform of the Ninja. Though it does tend to be a bit snug in the crotch.”
Chapter 24
George Washington: Ninja
The large, lonely covered wagon moved slowly by torchlight along the winding road in the darkness of the tree-shrouded Virginia hillside. The uniformed British soldier driving the wagon was sullen, unnerved by the cargo of 24 zombies which were shackled securely behind him, or so he hoped. He was also upset by the fact several of these new zombie soldiers were once living soldiers in his own regiment, men he once knew, condemned for dereliction of duty and then executed, only to be reborn as these vile creatures.
As the wagon passed a slight dip in the road beside a large, overhanging tree branch, a single sword-blade gently descended from the leafy shroud and made contact with the canvas top of the covered wagon, piercing the surface in silence. And as the wagon rolled forward, the blade slid all the way across the top of the wagon, and its canvas hood was cut in two, bisected by its own forward motion.
Once it passed the tree, the canvas covering of the wagon dropped away and two black-clad ninja dropped into the midst of the chained zombies in the back of the formerly-covered wagon. One of the black-clad men stood and did nothing. The other drew his sword and swung it expertly at the chained c
reatures, immediately decapitating twenty three of them in mere seconds. The last remaining zombie, its throat only nicked by the blade, began to gurgle and choke, causing the driver to turn around, just as George Washington removed that zombie’s head with a smooth, second stroke.
“Hey there!” said the British officer, turning from the driver’s bench and cocking a small pistol. As he took aim, Washington swung his sword in an impossibly swift arc and cut the pistol in two just as the soldier pulled the trigger. There was a large flash of smoke and flame as the pistol exploded in the British officer’s hand. Spinning the man about with his free hand, George Washington gave the startled British officer a swift kick in the ass, which ejected the poor lad from the wagon where he landed face first and unconscious in the dirt of the road.
“You missed that one zombie,” Jefferson said, standing there in the back of the rolling, driverless wagon. Jefferson stepped onto the front of the wagon and pulled the reigns hard, drawing the wagon to a stop.
The scene was almost surreal. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, in their black ninja uniforms, stood upon a wagon of twenty four headless zombie torsos, with the back of the wagon now filling with blood, and a trail of zombie heads littering the road behind them.
“Well I got twenty three out of twenty four zombies before the driver turned around,” Washington boasted. “And I got the last one on the second try. I’d say that’s pretty good. And I noticed YOU were a big help,” Washington added sarcastically.
“I am here only to observe.” Jefferson stated. “Not to fight. And the driver nearly shot you! Your sword shattered the gun just as he pulled the trigger.”
“Before he pulled the trigger,” Washington corrected.
“It was too close, in any case,” Jefferson added. “You were nearly shot. You will need to do better.”
“Yes, Sensei,” Washington replied. The two men stepped off of the wagon and inspected the corpses as blood now poured from the cracks in the wagon’s wooden floorboards, pooling in the road below. “Twenty four less zombies in the American Colonies,” Washington stated. “A fine night’s work. But what do we do with the wagon?”
From the top of the hill where they stood with the wagonload of headless ex-zombies, the two men could see the flickering lights of the British zombie training encampment in the distance below, down the road which led to the bottom of the hill.
“I think maybe we should send General Cornwallis a message or two,” Jefferson suggested as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vial of whale oil, which he sprinkled liberally over the zombie corpses in the back of the wagon. He then unhitched the two horses from the wagon and handed the reins of one horse to Washington, while he tied the other to the back of his own horse’s saddle, which stood waiting behind a roadside shrub.
“We’ll take these two horses as compensation for expenses related to the fight against British zombie incursions in the American Colonies,” Jefferson said.
Thomas Jefferson reached into the concealed pocket of his black ninja outfit again and pulled out a single match, which he struck with his thumbnail and ignited it. Touching it to the back of the wagon, the zombie carcasses burst into flame, a luminous bonfire of the undead atop the rear of the wagon.
“Help me give it a push,” Jefferson said, pressing his hands to the rear of the wagon and moving it towards the downward incline of the hill. When Washington joined in, the strength of the two men rolled the wagon up and over the crest where it slowly began to roll on its own down the road towards the bottom of the hill. They could hear sentry bugles blowing the alert in the British encampment below, undoubtedly in observation of the huge, flaming wagon which now began its steady acceleration down the hillside.
Pushing a horseless, driverless, flaming wagon filled with zombie carcasses down the hillside towards General Cornwallis was an act that was designed more for show than for actual attack or damage. At best, Jefferson and Washington had hoped that the wagon might actually make it to the bottom of the hill before overturning and crashing and tumbling into flames. But what actually happened was far more dramatic.
The flaming wagon, perhaps following in the tracks of other wagons that had preceded it, or perhaps guided by the unseen hand of a providential God that supported the fight for American freedom, travelled as if piloted down the road and accelerated towards the British encampment. The wagon raced along as a blazing, flaming comet, perfectly navigating the sharp turn at the bottom of the hill, which sent it speeding directly through the front gate of the British encampment.
Several of the frightened British sentries, thinking the flaming conveyance must have a driver, fired useless musket shots in an effort to slow it down. The wagon, now entirely engulfed in flame, veered sharply to the right and headed directly for one of the barracks holding several hundred imprisoned zombies.
The wagon struck a hard blow along the corner of the first barracks, ejecting the flaming corpses of seven or eight zombies and smashing them into the roof and sides of the wooden building, starting it on fire. Still careening onward and left after glancing off the first building, the wagon then ran over one poor, hapless sentry, smashed through and destroyed the officers’ privy, and finally slammed to a stop by exploding against the headquarters of General Cornwallis himself!
From the top of the hill where they watched the fiery spectacle, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson laughed like a couple of schoolboys. They would have laughed even harder if they had seen Cornwallis himself running from the flaming bedroom of his headquarters, clad only in his silk Scooby-Doo jammies and matching slippers.
The headquarters of Cornwallis was fully engulfed in flame in under three minutes, as was the zombie-filled barracks beside it. The zombies inside the barracks, two hundred and fifty six creatures, were mainly chained immobile inside and were helpless to avoid the flames. All they could to was to stand helpless, grunting and growling while being incinerated into ashes. The few flaming zombie stragglers that managed to emerge from the inferno wandered about the camp, sightless, with melted eyes before the British sentries shot them.
“I would say that was far more effective than we could have hoped for,” Washington said, wiping a tear from laughter from his cheek. “Oh, that was fucking PRICELESS!”
“I am both shocked and awed,” Jefferson said, coining the phrase for all time. “I think we have only one more task before us,” Jefferson said as he picked up one of the zombie heads and handed it to Washington. “I think we will send a few personal messages to General Cornwallis.”
Chapter 25
Messages for General Cornwallis
Charles Lord Cornwallis was shaken as he was stirred from his peaceful slumber by the thundering crash of the flaming wagon through the front door of his headquarters. After making a tactical withdrawl from the burning building in his jammies, he now sat at a small desk in the visitors’ quarters, sipping a small cup of tea, as various British sentries and soldiers worked to extinguish the flames of the two burning buildings.
“The flames have been extinguished, General,” said Lieutenant Smithers after knocking and entering the room with a large sack about an hour after the attack. Cornwallis glanced out the window at the pile of ash that was once a barracks holding hundreds of zombies. The building had been entirely burned away, although the corpses of many of the zombies lay in the ash, twisted and charred by the flames, some not quite dead.
The British sentries strode carefully through the ruins of the barracks, finding the occasional “surviving” zombie torso and stabbing it in the head with a merciful bayonet thrust.
“Barracks number three was a total loss with all zombies terminated,” Smithers continued. “And three living British soldiers were killed as well.”
Cornwallis showed no emotion and only stared intently out his window while sipping his tea and contemplating the recent attack.
“We found these zombie heads stacked at the top of the hill,” Smithers continued, setting the large sa
ck on the floor. “We believe they were the zombies from tonight’s patrol that were due back last hour.” Smithers reached into the sack and pulled out a neatly severed zombie head, with a small piece of rolled parchment in its mouth. He reached into the lifeless mouth and removed the paper, handing it to Cornwallis, who unrolled it across his desk.
The words “BRITISH GO HOME!” were written in dark black ink across the parchment. The general could feel his blood pressure rising, and his face reddening in anger.
“All of the heads have a piece of parchment in their mouths,” Smithers explained, removing another head and handing Cornwallis the parchment from its mouth.
“CORNWALLIS IS A FUCKING PUSSY!” was written boldly across the second parchment, which Cornwallis read with rising fury. Cornwallis began to breathe heavily and to show a most ungentlemanly perspiration as he read more of the messages scrawled on the scrolls. Each message showed a disrespect and vulgarity to which Cornwallis was unaccustomed. He laid out all of the scrolls upon his table and read the inscriptions on each carefully.
“SCREW THE KING!”
“RED COATS ARE FOR FAIRY-BOYS”
“CORNWALLIS’ NUTSACK SMELLS LIKE TACOS”
“BRITISH OFFICERS EAT HORSE DUNG”
“GENERAL CORNWALLIS IS A SHITBURGER”
Cornwallis continued to read the messages until he was red-faced and shamed. But there was little he could do at the moment but sip his tea angrily and contemplate his future plans against the colonial riff-raff that now mocked him openly.
“TACOS!” Cornwallis exclaimed. “This is slanderous, to say that my nutsack smells like tacos! And I’m sure they mean the hot and spicy ones and not just normal tacos!”