Choice of Slaughter

He looked back at me.  There was pain in his face.  Even he had to face the cold hard truth, just as I had to.  No other option.  No other way.

The ashes rained down and settled softly upon the ground like new fallen snow.  It was almost beautiful, but when you walked it didn't have that lovely new snow crunch, and the smell...you were instantly reminded what the reality was.  Fire, destruction, death...everything so far from beauty.  I wasn't even sure I knew what beauty was anymore. 

"Addie, look alive," said Dave quietly pointing towards a building off in the distance.

"What do you reckon is in there?"  I asked him, knowing what the answer was.

"Let's check it out, keep on your toes."

We moved slowly and cautiously towards the run down barn, rifles aimed at the ready...for anything.  As we got closer we began to hear the noises.  The raspy, heavy breathing.  The shambling of feet.  Then the smell of rot and decay began floating out towards us.  Sickening.  Saddening.  I knew what we were about to see.  It was all I could do to hold back the tears.  So many people.  So many innocent lives ruined, corrupted, destroyed.  All in a single night.

We approached the door, one of us on each side.  Dave looked at me, and I looked back.  Our eyes met.  He nodded and we both rushed in.  It was over quickly.  A few ringing gunshots, a couple of shrieks and cries, and it was done.  Dave went outside to radio HQ a status report.  I was glued where I was.  I had killed so many.  So many before.  But this was...different.  It was a family.  Or so it seemed.  What appeared to be a mother and father...and a child.  A small, weak child, couldn't have been more than six or seven years old.  I couldn't hold it in.  A single tear rolled down my cheek and I choked slightly as I began to sob. 

"Addie, let's roll."

"I just need a minute, Dave." 

He nodded and walked out. 

This was it.  All the training, the boot camp, even the two deployments...none of them were close to this.  This was in her own town.  Her own town, ravaged by by a chemical attack.  It had made everyone sick.  It had made them rabid.  So her she was, with Dave, and the other squads hunting them down and slaughtering them.  They didn't have a choice. 

There was no other choice...

True Story

Once I was wearing a coat and I punched a goat in the throat on a boat that was afloat in the middle of a moat where a beautiful maiden wrote a beautiful note that described a coyote that didn't want to vote because he was missing the antidote to the poison that was made of an oat that everyone had once seen swimming in the local lake.

Passage For The Deaf

Who cannot hear what is being spoken with words not meant for our ears
Yet time and time again our thoughts have swayed towards the later years
Passage for the deaf and no realizations for the weak
Passing from time to time they crawl, they find, they seek
Although we cannot hear your dying words
Although we do not see your frantic fears
We pass through this life mourning the dead
When the dead are those truly set free

So my heart aches as the anvil is hammered yet again
Shaping of the people they know nothing about
And here we are, led by children with foolish hearts and greedy minds
But we're forced to pay homage and pay our respects
We have no passage, not without a sacrifice
No one is here to save us and we are just patiently waiting, waiting for the next mistake
That's all we can do, and all we can feel, and all we can hear with deaf ears
Time and time again our minds have been broken, countless times past, present, future years

RuDe PeRsOn

"He suffers from a new illness called Narcissisticism."

"That's not really new is it?  I mean lots of people are narcissistic..."

"Yes, but this is a much more serious case, that doctors have finally decided to label.  You see what happens with Narcissisticism is the person suffers from the delusion that they are the most important person in the world. What makes it sad is that the poor people who suffer from this are fully aware of it, it must be so painful for them."

"Wait...so they think they're the most important person in the world...but they know that they aren't?"

"No, they think they are, they're just self-aware that they think they're the most important person, and so they're stuck in an endless cycle of narcissism that they know they have but can't help."

"Ok...not totally following you...but umm....well, what are the symptoms of it?"

"Well people who suffer from this disease typically interrupt people frequently, they'll often cut people off on the road while driving, or even cut in line at a store.  They tend to complain to managers about anything and everything when they go out.  They never hold the door open for other people, and they never, EVER say bless you if someone sneezes.  Also if you ever do anything nice for them they'll very rarely say thank you, and in the near impossible event that they've done something for you in which you thank them, there is about a 98.7% chance that they will not say you're welcome.  Not the LAST, but the last major symptom at least, is that they literally will act like everyone works specifically and only for them.  So yeah, there's a lot more symptoms but those are the major ones."

"......that just sounds like a rude person."

Another Zombie Story

Another Zombie Story

It was a typical cliche beginning to his horror story.  Jim had been rollerblading with Tina when he had tripped on a rock and hit his head.  He was not sure how long he had been out, but he woke up in an empty hospital.  He opened his eyes and looked around the room, his vision blurry.  He reached around on the bed-side table and found his glasses and put them on.  Now he could see.  The room was empty.  Sunlight poured in through the window, but he heard nothing.  No voices, no birds chirping, no sounds of cars.  It was all quiet.  He slowly climbed out of his bed, his muscles stiff and sore from not being used for who knew how long.  There was a vase of dead flowers on his bed-side table.  Classic.  It was a tell-tale sign that he had been out for a while, because no one had been in to replace them or even water them.  The vase was dry.  His mouth was dry, he needed water, or something to drink.

He left the room and wandered the empty halls.  The lack of presence of people worried him.  But what worried him even more were the messaged graffiti on the walls, obviously left by people who happened to have spray paint on them during the evacuation, and decided to take time to write all over the hallways.  The messages said things like "Hell has been unleashed!" and "The dead walk!"  or  "No hope left."  The one that frequented the walls the most was "George Bush Sucks," though those were probably done before whatever had happened.  Jim guessed that the walking dead that the messages referred to meant that society had finally collapsed and been overrun by robots.  It was the most obvious explanation.  After all, he was now seeing blood splattered all over the floor.  The robots had clearly massacred the humans.  How he had been over-looked, he didn't know.  But he knew now what he must do.  It was up to him to destroy the robots, find some brawd and reestablish the population.  It was not going to be easy, but he was up to the task.

He made his way to the waiting room and found a soda machine that had been busted open, most likely by the robots thinking it was some sort of mechanical machine...which it was...but that didn't matter, it had drink.  Jim grabbed a can and barbarically opened it and began gulping down the fizzy, sugary beverage.  He then grabbed a grocery bag with a smiley face on it from the floor and filled it with cans of soda.  He found some nurse scrubs and changed from his hospital gown into those.  As he made his way towards the exit he saw a door at the end of the hall.  It had been chained shut and someone had spray-painted the word "Poop" across the front.  But what really caught his attention was the fact that the door was moving back and forth, as if something...or someone was pushing on it from the other side.

"Hey!"  he shouted running down the hall.  "Don't worry I'll get you out of there!"  He grabbed a crowbar from the ground (because those are everywhere in the apocalypse) and used it to pry the chains off the door.  "There, now you're free, come on out!"

The door was slowly pushed open and out walked Sylvester Stallone, but not the normal one.  No, this Stallone had been turned into (GASP!) a zombie.  Jim's first reaction was scream like a girl, fling the crowbar at the undead movie star who had once been his hero, and then run away.  His second reaction was to continue running, and he kept on screaming for good measure.  Stallone was followed by a large group of zombies, only a handful of which were previously famous stars, including Shia LaBeouf, Donald Trump, and Shirley Temple (WTH?).  Jim made it to the exit and rushed out side.  He ran and hid under a car.  The mob of zombies rushed out of the hospital after him, but not seeing him decided to just stand around aimlessly staring at nothing.  Jim's fear turned to pity.  Those poor creatures...turned to zombies by the robots, left to do totally nothing, or to eat other living human beings.

I wish I could help them.  He said to himself.  Maybe if I figure out how the robots turned them into zombies then I can reverse the effect.

Jim quietly and carefully crawled our from under the car and sneaked away from the hospital.  He made his way into the suburbs where he passed a church.  Since it was the robot apocalypse and the world was ending, he figured he should go in and maybe pray or something.  People usually seemed to ask God for help if they were in trouble.  But only when they were in trouble, if things were going alright then they didn't need God.  But Jim thought this constituted as a good time to need God.  He opened the doors and walked inside.  He had never been in a church before, so he decided to just climb to the top of the bell tower, figuring God would hear him better if he was up higher.

As he was climbing he remembered Tina.  He wondered what had happened to her.  Tina, the love of his life.  Oh well, crap happens.

He got to the top of the tower and looked out over the neighborhood.  It was then that he realized he had been mistaken.  Robots could not possibly be involved because robots ran on power and there was NO power.  DUN DUN DUN.  He also began spotting more and more zombies wandering around throughout the suburbs.  He had been utterly mistaken.  It was not a robot apocalypse, it was a zombie apocalypse.

"This just got real."  he said aloud to himself.

He knelt down to pray but he heard a noise from below.  Something...or someone, was climbing the tower steps.  He grabbed his bag of soda and crouched next to the door.  The door flew open and Jim swung his bag of soda cans.

"DOH!"  said the woman falling down.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, I thought you were a zombie!"  The woman's nose was bleeding badly and she glared at him.

"You jerk, what the heck is wrong with you?"

"Well hey, I'm really sorry!"

"Yeah?  Well I'm sorry too!" she said pulling a gun from behind her.

"Where in the heck did you pull that from," asked Jim staring down the barrel.

"Who the heck are you, and how did you find my hideout up here?" asked the woman.

"My name is Jim, and this is Wilson," he said waving the grocery bag with the smiley face on it.

"Cute...I'm Tara," said the woman.

"You're also hot, we should repopulate the earth."

"What the heck is wrong with you?  Don't you realize how serious this situation is?"

"Yes, it's seriously hot.  Don't tell me you've never thought about making love in a zombie apocalypse before?"

"Oh my gosh...of course, of all the survivors I find I would have to find some idiot of a guy.  Why couldn't I find the perfect companion like in the movies?"

"Babe, we are perfect companions..."  He winked at her and she rolled her eyes.

"Goodbye dick," she said walking away.

"My name isn't Dick, it's Jim!" he said running after her.

"Would you just leave me alone?"

"But what about the sex?"

"I'M NOT HAVING SEX WITH YOU!"  she yelled in his face.

"You're even hotter when you're angry you know."  He said.  She spit in his face and stormed off.

"Wait, come back!"

"Leave off," she said.

"Please!"

"Shush," she said stopping suddenly.

"What is it?"

"I said shut up...there's zombies coming, they must have heard you yammering up there.  Good job idiot."  She began walking away.

"Wait we should stick together right?  Power in numbers right?"  She ignored him and kept walking.

He stood there staring after her.  He could hear the infected coming.  But he didn't run.  He didn't hide.  He let the zombies eat him.  Why?  Because Jim was an idiot.

Moral of the story.  Don't be an idiot.

Utter Nonsense

Twenty plus five is the letter A
Purple plus a bushel of hens is a good stew
Micro clouds rain down a plethora of forks
But the intro to the book is sung as an opera

Fashion says a lot about what you say
Ugly isn't a statement but a type of shoe
Hippos fly much like average storks
And the intro to my book is thrown away like the opera

Happiness abounds in the midst of natures sway
It tastes so good if you step on it with your crew
And then the explosions shutter thousands of corks
So then the intro to your book is shattered like the opera

Vengeance

Swift and abrupt was his justice
True we his marks and sudden were their deaths
Brutal was the word to describe his punishment
His vengeance was bloody and graphic
That was how he was known
He was sent to destroy evil, and to punish
None could oppose him or stand in his way
All who did were obliterated
He was death