took off.
“I’m so sick of fish.” Perry complained as they left Camp Rawk.
“Maybe those cannibals can hook you up with some Rocky Mountain Oysters.” Tony laughed. “I’d eat a ball right now. As long as it wasn’t a fish ball.” Perry laughed back.
“Do fish have balls?”
17
PERRY X2
After a few hours of hiking they reached a good vantage point over the camp. There were makeshift lean-tos, what looked like a long term fire, it was near a river. The camp was almost fully encircled by the reaching hills of the valley. Open to the river on one side and the mountain to their back on the other, it was a nice camping spot. Besides the fact that their campfire was visible for miles at night.
They were humans down there. About 30 or 40 of them. Most were clothed in
a grey yellow, hospital-like robe. Many were bald.
“Looks like a bunch of cancer patients.” Perry wondered.
“That’s a lot of em.” L noted.
“They don’t look violent or dangerous… Do they?” Tony questioned. “Should we go down there?”
“I don’t know. It’s kind of creepy down there.” L wasn’t sure. “Look at that
one!” She pointed at a man, he seemed to be wearing a tuxedo. It was dirty and ripped, but it was a tux.
“What the shit?” Perry was confused. Not confused enough though, “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” Tony wasn’t sure.
Perry got up and started walking. “Don’t worry, it’s cool.” He said. They all followed. Perry walked in front, L, Tony and Foz a few steps behind him.
Tony whispered over to L,”Your gun is loaded, right?” She nodded yes. “Keep
it ready.”
The camp noticed the small group approaching but hardly reacted. Perry was walking with his hands up, in an I-come-in-peace gesture, but no one seemed to care. He looked back with a questioning look and put his hands down.
“Hello?” He asked questioning. No one responded right away.
There were 12 or 15 people gathered around the large fire pit, the rest were scattered around the camp area. Some were sitting in small groups, others alone, some talking to themselves. A few slept near the bottom of the hill, a few were playing in the river. Small clumps of clothing and other random items were scattered around everywhere. It seemed like a child’s room who never cleaned up.
One of the girls in a hospital robe near them finally responded and looked over. “Hello.”
Perry looked over, she was pretty hot for a bald chick. She either had a giant beer belly or was pregnant, Perry learned the hard way to not ask if a woman was pregnant unless he knew for sure.
When talking to women, Perry’s jokester personality was always turned up to 10. He went through his repertoire of lines, none of them fit this situation. He was speechless for once.
“Uhhm.. Hi, How’s it going?”
She looked at him with lazy eyes. “Do you have food?”
“Um, yea.” He took off his pack, looking around to make sure it was ok. Hardly anyone noticed they were here. He took out a Slim Jim, snapped it in half and gave her half. She put it in her mouth, wrapper and all and began chewing.
“Um, wait, you’re not..” He sputtered.
She gnawed on the plastic and fake meat with an absent look on her face, chewing it with wide open bites and talking with her mouth open, she slowly turned to Perry, “So good.”
She swallowed with much effort and a loud gulping sound of her throat, looking
like it kind of hurt.
She grabbed Perry’s hand and started walking towards the bottom of the hill. Which was about 20 yards away. Perry motioned to Tony and L to watch his pack and made a swirling gesture with his finger around the side of his head like “She’s crazy.” It was unsaid that they would cover him as his shotgun was on his pack. She didn’t look capable of violence.
The reached the bottom of the hill, which was a bit darker and had some sort of
privacy. She swept at the back of her robe, exposing her rear and poked it at the air near Perry, offering it to him. Perry looked back at Tony and L, questioning. She looked down at Perry’s crotch, he wasn’t ready. She proceeded to unbutton his pants and get him ready. Perry wasn’t stopping her.
Tony and L tried not to look.
“He really would do anything with a pulse, wouldn’t he?” L asked.
“Yep. What the hell. This place was strange before that, now it’s crazy strange.” Tony replied. He quickly looked over, Perry was having sex with her. “Something’s not right.” L stated. A guy in nothing but ripped and brown stained underwear slowly walked in front of them. L looked closely at him. “That guy looked familiar.” Tony looked at him, there was something familiar about him. Tony had a unique ability to spot someone’s face. If someone he knew was sitting in Dodger Stadium during a sold out game, Tony could sit at the edge of the field and pick them out. He was scanning the crowd intently.
They took a little stroll around the camp, always keeping an eye on Perry’s pack
laying there. All the while trying not to watch Perry have sex with that pregnant woman. They noticed there were a bunch of other women who looked pregnant, Tony eyeing everyone intensely. It finally hit Tony, “It’s like an insane asylum.”
“An outdoor insane asylum with a bunch of pregnant chicks.” L added.
“With no doctors or anyone in charge.” Tony continued, walking looking around in amazement.
They slowly strolled around and made it all the way around the camp, a few
minutes later were back near Perry’s backpack. Perry was there with a big smile on his face.
“I love this place!” He had a million dollar smile.
“You fucked that thing?” Tony asked.
“What do you mean? She would be like an 8 if she took a shower and had hair,” He thought out loud,”and shaved, and wasn’t pregnant, and did her hair, and,” He paused.
“...and wiped her ass.”
“Ohh God!” L let out.
“Nasty! Why’d you have to say that.” Tony agreed.
“Hey man, you asked.” Perry laughed.
“No we didn’t!”
“Hey man, she put out for half a Slim Jim, she’s cool.” “She’s a zombie” L added.
“What do you mean?”
“I just mean these people look like they’re being pumped full of Xanax or something.” L explained.
“That guy!” Tony said, like he figured something out. He was pointing at a man
standing across the fire, in a robe with a hood partially covering his face. Tony walked over to the guy he was pointing at and looked closely at his face for a few moments, then grabbed his shoulder. He started walking back with him, smiling and shaking his head. When they reached L and Perry, Tony pulled back the guy’s hood, revealing a bald, hairless face.
“Well?” Tony questioned.
“Well what?”
“You don’t see the resemblance?” Tony questioned. They didn’t. “It’s you,
you jackass!” He said to Perry.
Perry jumped to his feet, looking. “Not even.”
“With no hair, no eyebrows, it’s you.” Tony knew. He pushed the guy next to Perry. as a comparison. After a few moments L’s face changed.
“Ohh my God!” She said.
Perry turned to the guy, squinted and looked at him. “No way!”
L kept going,”Look at his nose and chin.”
He took a step back and tilted his head sideways. “Sweet!”, he yelled out and grabbed him in a big bear hug, “I’ve always wanted a brother!”
Perry’s double smiled ignorantly, and as monotonously as anyone ever could said, ”Sweet.”
Perry pulled the guys pants out and looked down the front, checking out the
guy’s junk. “Yep, that’s me.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” L questioned, not keeping her cool. “Who is that? A
brother? A
clone? I don’t get this, I don’t like this!”
“I don’t know, but he’s cool.” Perry stated. Then Perry’s eyes opened wide like
he had a great idea, “Hey, let’s get stoned buddy.” Perry took his new brother/friend by the shoulder “I have so many stories to tell you and things to ask. Does your butt itch after you…” Perry trailed off. They sat next to his pack, grabbing his drug suitcase. He began rolling.
“He doesn’t even care that we’re most likely sitting in the middle of a bunch of
clones.” Tony went on,”I’m not sure we should care, but I feel like we need to be on the defense around here.”
“Yea, creepy vibe.”
The pregnant lady came up to them. “Do you have any food?” She asked.
Tony looked around and grabbed at the ground frantically,”Where are the Slim Jims?!” He said obviously joking. L looked at him, unimpressed.
Fozzie was mingling. She was walking around, going up to the scattered lumps
of trash and clothing and picking stuff out of them, eating whatever it was. Tony wasn’t sure she should be eating whatever it was, but he had too much on his mind to care.
An extremely loud coughing came from where Perry and Perry were sitting. The cloned Perry was coughing his brains out, barely able to breathe. Perry was smiling, patting him on the back. He looked over, like a proud father getting his son stoned for the first time.
Some other other people came over, they weren’t sure they should call them people, but it was close enough. Perry had rolled a Cheech & Chong joint and started passing it to whoever walked up. Soon the entire camp was coughing. After a few minutes of this, they started getting stoned.
The clone Perry stood up like a tired baby, flapped his arms and laughed. He
fell over in the dirt and continued laughing and flapping his arms, his laughing escalated until he was in hysterics, kicking his feet. He started full on screaming. This set another clone off screaming. In a chain reaction, many of clones took off running. One ran into the fire and tripped, stumbling through the fire pit, kicking pieces of orange burning particles into the air. L almost stood up to help out, but it looked like he was ok and she sat back down.
Soon the whole camp was stoned beyond stoned. Like a bunch of children who had no idea what drugs were, given extremely strong marijuana. They were acting drunk, trying to fly. Some were breaking down into tears, a few breaking into screaming panic. One woman thought she couldn’t breathe, another guy was drawing in the sand, amazed that he could draw on the ground. Two ran off flailing their arms and crashed in the river. Perry was laughing his ass off, pointing at one, then laughing harder, pointing to the next hilarious thing happening and then laughing even harder. Perry’s clone was still laughing in hysterics. Perry was like one of them.
The Sun was going down, it was late enough, L and Tony decided they would
stay here tonight, even though they weren’t sure if they should.
“What’s that?” Tony asked looking at the top of the hill to the North that
connected with the river. A silhouette stood at the top. It was just standing there. “Is that one of the clones?” L wasn’t sure.
The silhouette on the hill took off, sprinting down the hill towards the camp. Many silhouettes followed him over the hill. Their outlines showed a few were holding spears, reaching in the air. They started yelling. At first it was hard to distinguish between the screaming stoned clones in camp and the people rushing over the hill. Soon the only thing being heard was the battle cry of the incoming group of people.
Tony got to his knees, and started loading his guns. L followed suit. They both didn’t know who it was, but they both knew it was probably not a welcoming party.
“Perry!” L yelled to him and nodded in the direction when he looked. He
stumbled to his feet quickly and ran over to them.
“Who?”
No one answered. Perry began loading shells into his shotgun.
“Fozzie!” L called out. Then looked behind her, Fozzie was already there.
They watched as the incoming group reached the first few oblivious stoned clones on the edge of camp. There was stabbing and the clone dropped. They surrounded him like hungry zombies and began ripping at his flesh like hungry animals while he was still alive. Chunks of flesh flew. They bit into him, the clone disappeared into the group, being torn to pieces. There were an equal number of the bad guys as clones in the camp, but the clones weren’t fighting back.
Perry yelled to clone Perry. He didn’t listen, real Perry ran over and grabbed clone Perry and pulled him to L and Tony.
“C’mon!” He yelled out to the rest of his new friends. His new girlfriend heard and stumbled towards them, a few others did the same. On the outskirts of the camp, there was a slaughter. The first of the new group emerged out of the shadows, they were dressed like aboriginal, tribal people. Loincloths and face paint, jewelry made of bones.
“It’s the fucking cannibals!”
They were human, but they weren’t. One of them had a smaller 3rd arm
sticking out of his rib cage. Another had 2 heads, one bigger than the other. One crawled into view, it had no legs but it growled, looking as vicious as the others. Most looked white, but the cannibals had representatives from all races. They were covered in layers of dirt and all looked pretty much brown.
“Grab your shit, lets go!” Tony yelled. They all tried to do that, cannibals killing their way towards them. L stumbled, Tony helped her up. Perry was pulling on his clone, the clone was laughing like a baby still, screaming his head off and falling over and over. Perry’s girlfriend shambled towards them, bending over and exposing her ass again. As the cannibals killed the clones, sometimes a few would stay and eat at the corpse. They weren’t zombies, they were just really hungry cannibals.
“Let’s go Perry! Fuck that clone.” Tony thought about shooting it to end the
conversation, but Tony had no idea what it was like to meet a clone of yourself and didn’t shoot.
“He’s coming with!” Perry yelled over to them, struggling.
“It’ll get us all killed!” Tony looked at L, his face asking “Should we go without him?” They both thought about it.
The front running cannibals jumped the fire, they were right on top of them.
Perry broke the sound of the one sided slaughter and fired his shotgun in the air. BOOM.
Everything and everyone stopped. There was a moment of silence, except the Perry clone, who was still laughing wildly, face down in the dirt, mouth open and full of dirt. Off in the distance the 2 clones in the river splashed, maybe playing, more likely drowning. The silence ended with every cannibal turning towards Perry, then running and screaming towards him. The cannibals were now completely ignoring the clones. They were coming at Perry, L and Tony from every direction, they were almost surrounded, except they could run South, it was the only path not full of spear wielding cannibals.
They might be able to outrun them for a while, but not with Perry’s clone and
girlfriend. But they tried anyways. Perry got his clone moving finally, but his girlfriend was falling behind. A few other clones were following them, the dirty underwear guy , the tux guy and another pregnant lady.
The three armed cannibal jumped on the back of the underwear guy, other cannibals quickly surrounded him, he fell to his knees, bloody spears stabbing through his body until he fell face first in the dirt. They kept coming, the other pregnant woman turned to face them and a spear went through her belly. Black and red pasta-looking innards shot and wiggled out of the side of her belly. Another spear went through her chest, then another through her belly, this time baby parts spilled out. Hands grabbed at the gore and shoved it into their mouths. She was trampled a second later.
Perry was struggling to move quickly, finally he tripped and fell. That was it, they were on him in a second. Tony and L stopped, trying to process what to do, both pulling out their guns but not firing.
Perry was on the ground face down for a second.
“Ball 3 baby. Make it count!”
In one motion Perry rolled over onto his back and knocked his girlfriend out of the way. His newly trusty shotgun thundered and 2 cannibals who were in a full run flew back from the force. Blood silhouettes spraying into the dusk air. The wall of incoming cannibals barely stuttered. With rapid KABOOMs he mowed down a section of the cannibal wall that was closing in on him.
Tony and L’s guns went off cracking in rapid succession. L was dual wielding,
firing like a gangsta to Tony’s surprise. She even let out her own battle cry no one had seen before. Tony let his brain watch her in slow motion for a millisecond, her hair in her face, mouth open yelling, eyes with rage filled determination, delivering death to her enemies. He saved that image in his brain forever, to him it was super hot, but he couldn’t think about that now. With their glocks, most shots weren’t getting kills, but it would still usually drop them. Tony was trying to go for headshots when he could. He saw an ear explode. “Boom, headshot!” He thought. He saw the 2 headed cannibal, for a second he wasn’t sure which head to shoot at, he tagged the big head and dropped him.
For a few seconds they all fired, the cannibal wall dropping but still coming, cannibals in the back stumbling over dead bodies in front of them. Tony and Perry had to reload at the same time. L took a bit longer because she was shooting both guns and kept firing. A Kuato-looking cannibal stumbled into view, L blasted the Kuato face on his chest and he folded over into the dirt. An even more ugly looking cannibal took his place, his face so burned he looked like a Lord of the Rings Orc. No matter how many they killed, more just seemed to take their place. The wall closed in on them from all sides. L’s guns stopped firing and started clicking. She hadn’t thought about reloading and for a second was confused about how she would reload with a gun in each hand. She dropped one gun and went for ammo. Tony’s gloc took over the killing duties for a second. From the left a really fat cannibal waddled into view, he looked like a Left 4 Dead Boomer. Perry finished loading his shotgun and blasted a hole in half of the Boomer’s belly. That didn’t stop the Boomer and it closed in, reaching for L and making Boomer noises. From its belly hole, chunks of fat and black blood oozed and plopped out into the dirt. Her guns came back to life and with 4 or 5 loud cracks, she turned its face into lasagna. It fell dead, face first right in front of her.
The Search for Ball Zero Page 11