by Mike Ashley
Even the driver was not exempt, though he kept pleading that he supported Man U. Lucky for him the pneumatic doors worked quickly. He threw his Van Hool into reverse and scarpered. The coach turned into a little white dot at the crest of the pass then vanished forever down the other side. The hapless visitors were stranded.
Except just then the moon rose over the mountains, fat and white and full.
As one, the surviving opposition howled. Claws burst out from their boots. Shirts ripped apart as hairy chests boiled out of them. Their faces grimaced into lupine masks with dentistry that blinded Sleepless with envy. With several mighty bounds, they were free. Sleepless was glad he was under cover in the pinewood.
The Transylvanian Werewolves thought it was all over, but the Carps fought back. Finally, the survivors were thrashed to a standstill. In the first grey light of pre-dawn, the whole lot of them were panting helplessly, some with their tongues out further than others.
Stalemate.
Igor and Toe Knee both held the other’s gaze.
“We won,” Igor said thickly.
Toe Knee cracked his knuckles. “Yeah, but you’re still stuck in the valley. Without the coach, none of us can get out of here. Didn’t you notice the pain when your coach crossed the river?”
The Werewolf captain stood on the penalty spot and shrugged all four of his shoulders hopelessly. He nodded. It hurt. “What are we going to do? What are we going to eat?”
Slumped on the grass, Mack the Fang groaned and turned towards them. “’S’all right,” he said. “No problem. It was all Sleepless’s fault so I . . . I thought up this Cunning Plan . . .”
As the moon eavesdropped on his tale, Toe Knee smiled for the first time since his cat had been nailed up behind the bar. Slowly he peered out into the trees, where he could just make out the flash of dancing teeth.
“Sleepless,” he crooned. “Oh, Sleepless . . .”
WAR OF THE DOOM ZOMBIES
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Lupoff (b. 1935) is another of those writers whose work is so diverse that he defies categorization. Most of it is probably best defined as science fantasy rather than science fiction, including Into the Aether (1974), Sword of the Demon (1978), Space War Blues (1978), The Crack in the Sky (1976), Lisa Kane (1976), Circumpolar! (1984) and its companion Countersolar! (1986), and Lovecraft’s Book (1985). He has since moved into the mystery field, starting with The Comic Book Killer (1988), the first of his series featuring insurance investigator Hobart Lindsey. Comic books are a special enthusiasm of Lupoff’s and one on which he wrote extensively in All in Color for a Dime (1970), and which also feature in the psychological thriller The Triune Man (1976). In the 1970s Lupoff produced a series of parodies under the alias of Ova Hamlet, lampooning various sf and fantasy writers; some of these were collected as The Ova Hamlet Papers (1979). Incidentally, the title “War of the Doom Zombies” was dreamed up by Lupoff in the 1960s as the ideal (if rather tongue-in-cheek) title for a science-fiction novel for Ace Books, at the time the most prolific publisher of space adventure novels. The outline he wrote for that book eventually surfaced as One Million Centuries (1967), but the title stayed with him and later re-emerged with this story.
Aye, men call me Upchuck and tremble. Upchuck the Barbarian I am, am I, and my fame is spread from the ancient lands of the Delwara Basin to the Valley of the Terraplane, and rare it is for the immortal Upchuck to flee from any foe, be he man or beastie.
But flee I did, I, Upchuck, tumbling and panting down the face of Pappalardi Mountain, scrambling before the broken pottery and dirty water flung after me by yon harridans in the Cave of Women high on the western face of the mountain. “Out, amscray!” their shrill voices rang yet in mine beet-colored ears, “come back when you get some meat on your scrawny frame and some hair on your pimply cheeks!”
Shaking my fist at the Cave I vaulted upon the splendid shanks of my she-horse Heroine and spurred away from this place of shame and wickedness. Aha, though, laughed I to myself, taunt me though they may for my seeming youth, yet will those wenches grow feeble with age, their magnificent breasts (O, slobber!) withered and their voluptuous hips (aye, grind and grimace!) softened and spread ere grow locks upon the cheeks (or the belly!) of Upchuck!
Such be’s my secret, and secret ’twill remain, mine only and thine, thou reader of mine screed!
As Heroine carried me sedately along the rock-bestrewn path leading away from Pappalardi I stopped to pop a particularly noisome carbuncle from between my eyes, listing with glee to the merry sound as pus parted from Upchuck and sailed to land with a tiny plop in the dirt beside Heroine’s ill-shod hoof. I dug spurry heels into Heroine’s bony flanks and proceeded to check my accouterment as the gallant mare advanced from her plodding walk into an exhilarating trot.
Atop my somewhat dusty pate perched my ancient peaked cap Skullwarmer. About my splendid torso there hung limply my ancient leather jerkin Lotion. Athwart my fine legs there clung my ancient trousers Gravyshedder. Upon my athlete’s feet were snugly laced my ancient boots, upon the left foot Ed and upon the right Fred.
I was well satisfied with the completeness and good condition of my garb, and had nigh begun to burst into a song of my own improvisation when there appeared before me on the trail a sight of such imposing mien as to make me rein in and reach for my trusty weapons, survivors both of the ancient times before the unspeakable cataclysm of which we moderns are wont so often to speak. Gladly felt I Hoodsticker my ancient gravity knife and Punkzapper my ancient zip gun!
“Ho, fellow!” challenged I, backwards speaking ever as. “Thy garb marks thee a sorcerer as! Be’est though one of white or of black sorcery?”
“Tell I not the color of my tricks till I see the color of thy stash, youngun,” rejoined the mage, nodding his peaked cap and gesturing significantly at the cashpurse (Ari) which dangled from my leathern belt (Hickock). A crafty one, this could I detect at once!
“I hie Upchuck,” told I the necromancer, and “Upchuck hie I,” repeated I, performing a courtesy in case he be hard of hearing and completing a palindrome into the bargain, a little trick which it pleases me occasionally to perform.
“That be no palindrome,” challenged the stranger. “Madam, I’m Adam, that be such, or Sam, no toot-toot on Mas, though I admit I ken not the meaning of such.”
“Ay, well,” quoth I, demolishing his feeble argument, “ ’tmay be as ’tis, ’tis still as ’twas!” This logic have I found ever proof against the sophistry of wise and pseudo-wise disputers.
“Seemst troubled, youth,” mumbled yon mage. “Mayhap can I aid thee in thy need, canst but pay some modest price to sustain an ancient wise man. Tax deductible as well, be I non-prophet as I be.”
“Well, tell who arst,” quoth I.
“I heit Mus Domesticus, once apprentice now sorcerer in full,” he proclaimed. “Philtres and spells deal I to all and sundry, aye, with quantity discounts and student’s specials. Looketh to me as if thou couldst use a magicke of pimple cream, lad, following which I swow as thy lady love may look upon thy suit more kindly than she has.”
Now we were to serious business, but evening as well was in its approach, and dark clouds too seemed to be bellying up from the Bay of the Jam-makers, so I courteously suggested that Master Mus and I dismount and make camp beneath a sheltering rock which I noticed conveniently beside our trail. We dislodged a nesting firedrake and roasted her eggs for dinner while we bargained over Mus’s services.
“You be a mere lad seeking the pleasures of manhood, be you not?” quoth the sorcerer.
“Nay, O wizened one,” rejoined I. “Stranger than that be my tale, nor could seer’s potion give you vision of my truth. What number of summers think you I have seen?”
Deep peered he into my eyes, his own blazing with a strange and sinister inner flame. “Some fifteen summers,” quoth he, “since first peeped thine orbs at thy dam’s adoring phiz, and fifteen winters since thy lips sought warm and nourishing pap.”
Roaring with laughter and pulling another roasted egg from the campfire I clapped the ancient on the shoulder and wiped my tear-wettened eyes with my other hand, while rubbing my belly merrily with the other and loosening my jerkin Lotion for greater comfort. With singed fingers I proceeded to peel away the shell of my roast egg, reaching for Mus’s generously proffered wineskin with my free hand and pointing gleefully at his astounded countenance with the other.
“Eh, that be a neat trick with thy hands,” he said. “Wouldst teach it to an old man in need of every shtick he can learn?”
“For a price, mayhap,” intimated I, “but first my tale, and to see what canst do to aid my need.”
Now launched I into mine standard autobiography, which manufacture I an excuse to cram into every Upchuck story, which the experienced reader will skip over with a groan but which the neophyte will devour with incredible enrapturement.
“Men think me a stripling youth of fifteen, and so seem I to all. And yet for as long as memory serveth have I looked as I look now. My skin as ever marked with the eczema, my voice as ever cracking and high, my cheeks sprouting irregular patches of fuzz and my pubes giving forth a call which no wench has yet deigned to satisfy.
“Fifteen, am I? I, Upchuck, was fifteen when thou, ancient sorcerer, were but a pewling tad. I was fifteen when thy pa was a tad. I was fifteen, by the god Yogh-Iberra, when the ancient crone Doris Day was a fleshy and well-juiced maid of but forty-five or fifty.”
“’Ware blasphemy!” shouted Mus Domesticus. “The Madonna Day hath been a virginal twenty-one for sixty years or more.”
Angrily I leaped to my feet, prepared to draw my ancient gravity knife Hoodsticker, only I cracked my pate upon the overhanging rock and avoided a real ear-ringer only through the good services of Skullwarmer my woolen cap. Calming myself I reverted to iron-clad logic once again.
“Isn’t!” I shouted at the sorcerer.
“Is too!” he countered.
“Isn’t!”
“Is!”
“Isn’t!”
“Is!”
Thus we struggled, our brilliant arguments and counterarguments continuing far into the night, and would have gone on far longer had not a voice thundered from on high, “Two cents a word is two cents a word, but get moving quick or giffs der dejection shlipp!”
“Well then,” the ancient one murmured, “sip a few drops of this and you shall awaken in the morning an older man indeed.” Saying this he reached into his saddle bag and drew forth a vial of greenish, glittering liquid.
I reached eagerly and took the vial from him. I held it before my eye, studying it in the light of the campfire that crackled and sputtered between the magician and myself. Through the liquid the flames seemed living things and Mus Domesticus seemed to waver and reform into a strange creature with huge, round black ears, a mouth all on one side of his face, and three fingers on each hand. “Drink it,” he said in a mild, tenor voice.
I unstoppered the vial and tilted back my head, swirling the greenish contents around in my mouth before swallowing. “Umm,” I said, “tastes like toothpaste,” and collapsed into the campfire.
Mus Domesticus must have been less than a total villain, for he pulled my unconscious head back out of the campfire before robbing me of Punkzapper, Hoodsticker, Ed, Fred, and my stash. He left me Heroine, Skullwarmer, Lotion and Gravyshedder.
I awakened with an angry firedrake kicking embers in my face, rose chagrined and began to make my way after the charlatan. Which way would the wily sorcerer Mus Domesticus head? He was riding toward Pappalardi Mountain when first we encountered. Would he proceed now, or, being wily, would he expect me to remember his original direction and follow, and would he instead double back across the Plain of Euclid whence he had come? Or, expecting me to second-guess his intention thusly, would he third-guess me and head toward Pappalardi Mountain? Or, expecting me to fathom his intention to third-guess me . . .
On and on it went, until I decided to assume a more powerful strategy and flip a coin. With my purse gone I was unable to do this, so instead placed one hand over my eyes, turned widdershins three times, staggered about a bit, and then opened my eyes to see which way the God Yogh-Iberra directed me.
Twas across the barren Plain of Euclid, toward the dire and malign and ill-famed, infamous and despised Dukedom of Poughkeepsie.
I climbed once more aboard Heroine’s brawny withers and slapped her flank affectionately, whispering sweetly in her soft ear, “Move along, O noble she-horse, or to knackers you’ll go.”
Heroine, as ever, responded to kindness and persuasion, and soon we found ourselves gazing upward at the blazing orb that illuminated the Plain of Euclid.
O ye who read this chronicle, if yet in yon distant day men know the Plain of Euclid no more needst I say, but if it be sealed off and forgotten, read ye of that place of desolation. Flat it is as the face of a pond, its smooth surface broken only by the occasional rippling of the dreaded sine waves. Deadly tribes of isoceles and secants struggle endlessly for possession of the Obtuse and the Acute.
Terrifying tangents accompanied as ever by their cotangents drop perpendiculars at a moment’s warning, impaling unwary tribesmen of the Geometers and Trigonometers amidships.
Far, far across the Plain saw I Mus Domesticus, or anyway a tiny black dot silhouetted against the blinding white of the Plain which I took to be the traitorous sorcerer. Onward urged I my faithful horse Heroine, she crying and moaning in her thirst as my eyes alternately scanned the Plain in search of drink and sought ever to keep visual touch with Mus.
At last there rose on the edge of the Plain greener woodlands and the towering towers of ill-starred Poughkeepsie. Long before Heroine and I could reach the city’s walls the tiny dot that was Mus Domesticus disappeared, swallowed up into that city of darkness and sin.
Shades of evening were falling and the cool of that country’s far-famed night had begun to descend ere my faithful mare and I reached the far edge of the Plain of Euclid. Approaching the city gate of towering and mystery-shrouded Poughkeepsie I drew back the mighty right fist that had been so oft the despair of foeman and friend alike and pounded thrice upon the city gate, hurling a resounding bell-like challenge through the guard posts and alleyways of Poughkeepsie.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
From within the wall there came a scurrying and mumbling as of many hoofs and mouths, then opened there a peephole in the wall and down peered a baleful eye at me, balefully.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” it demanded.
“I be Upchuck the Barbarian,” I responded. “Warlock of Secaucus, Master of the Galloping Pack and Champion of the Annual Intramural Track Meet. I seek a foully treacherous conjurer, the evil and ill-visaged Mus Domesticus.”
“Very well,” quoth the baleful eye. “Pay the toll and what you do inside is your own business.”
“Listen fellow,” bellowed I crisply, “the traitor Mus Domesticus hath drugged and robbed me of mine all, and made away with mine stash. Admit me to Poughkeepsie and once I capture the foul Mus pay I your Duke threefold his customed tribute, um, shall, uh, I, uh, I shall.” Fough, how I hate these convoluted sentences. But, then, heroic chronicles are heroic chronicles and one must observe the customs of the trade.
The eye was withdrawn, the peephole slammed shut, then a door was opened in the city wall. “I’ve heard ’em all, a hundred times,” the guardsman grumbled. “Look, buster, if you don’t have the loot to pay the toll just sign this form FT37–6, Temporary Waiver of City Toll, in sextuplicate, explaining fully your reason for not paying the toll, retain one copy for your own records and come on in. I don’t suppose that walking gluepot’s registered either.” He gestured meanly at Heroine, who ignored the impertinence.
As did I. I signed the waiver and entered ill-famed Poughkeepsie, seeking directions from this passerby and that until an ancient crone directed my path down a dark and foul-
smelling alleyway off the Street of the Systems Programmers. At the end of the alley a dim-lit and dirt-encrusted sign proclaimed the Stagger Inn.
Taking care to tether and booby-trap Heroine in the manner long known to the members of my guild, I boldly thrust open the door of the Stagger Inn, finding it less securely bolted than I had anticipated, and stumbled into a smoky and alcoholic tavern populated by brawling townsmen, drunken visitors, loose wenches and long-fingered cutpurses.
I found a newly vacated table and, when a serving-maid clad in low-cut blouse and well-filled dirndl approached to ask my will, I grasped her fleshy wrist in an inconspicuous but painful grip known well to members of my guild and shot at her but three words: “Where be he?”
“Where be who?” she responded. O clever slut!
“The evil sorcerer Mus Domesticus,” saith I.
“Oh, ah, aye, sir,” wheedled the serving-maid, squirming in my iron-like grasp so as to give mine orbs a breathtaking tumble twixt her jollying twin knockers (as we call ’em in the guild). “Aye, oh, ah, well, ooh, aiie, if you don’t let go my wrist, you squirt, I’ll bash in your bloody skull like a grackle’s egg!”
With that the high-spirited darling took her free hand and clouted me on the ear so that my head felt as it had the time Heroine accidentally stepped on it whilst I slumbered.
“Well, maid, no need for me to hurt thee if thee’ll just answer my questions,” I told the lass.
“Thou,” she said.
“Thou what?” I asked.
“Thou’ll answer, not thee, thou knot-head,” she chirped.