The Fuckno Wars TFW CH 23 SVEN AWAKENS

Opportunities appear even when a man may not know the rules, but he can navigate the course.  –Minister Glinty McFlintock, ca. 1880’s.

SVEN

OPENS

HIS

EYES

Into The Void   by NIN  

When you awaken with a new set of eyes, the worst thing to do is to scream in horror.  Do Not Panic.  Instead, the best thing to do is to assess your condition, your surroundings, what weapons are available, and also where the nearest exit is and how to get to it.

After that, there other things you need to do.

Sven whispered, “Aargh.  Farr degrader.”   He searched the garments lying about that might be useful and he stuffed them into a backpack near the lit candle.

He found wallets, knives, old school metal lighters with some sort of insignia on them, a bottle of lighter fluid for them, and even a small pistol.  He snatched purses and watches and other jewelry from the hands and fingers of his unconscious room-mates.

He had no idea who they were and yet it was a freeing sensation that flowed over his skin.  He was awake, while they were not.

The urge to use a knife on all of them, on some of them, on even one of them was quite powerful, but he realized that he would need to leave soon, to escape.  But you should know that there is no escape.  There is only forward motion, and such a thing can dig one deeper into a hole.

He knew that he would not get far once these young folks awakened.  He would have to keep them where they were, for as long as possible.

And that, my friend, meant they would have to remain at that Heroin Hotel.

Forever.

Indeed, the Walkin set about cooking up a new batch in the spoon, using the tiny bags of yellow powder he found near the candle.  He clicked the tiny butane torch and filled the needle to the brim.

Then he went to each sleeping body and inserted the tip directly into their fresh tracks.  He filled them with their pleasure and their destiny.

When he was done he shrank back into the shadows and watched.

In a few minutes, they began to awaken, one by one, starting with the first one he had injected with his own sort of love.

Their eyes fluttered, there were moans joy and even a small whimper of happiness from one in particular.  She was quite pretty with her face all dolled up in the style of the time back then.

And then each of them began to tremble, and wriggle, and then convulse.

The contents of their stomachs dripped out of their mouths, except for the pretty one:  She leaned to the right and coughed and her eyes fluttered open in a panicked state, and she could not catch her breath.

She saw him.

She saw Sven, but it was not Sven, to her.

It was her friend.  She reached to him, trying to call for his assistance, but he shrank away, back into the shadows.

She reached as she coughed, but then she fell back.  She, too shrank back into the shadow.

She slunk into the spinning world of the over-inebriated, the overcome, the over-dosed, and her lungs filled with her own bile as she choked and inhaled, trying to catch her breath. Her heart tried to speed up and slow down at the same time. 

She dissipated.

These young folks would return as new Walkins, each with the need to torture others.  They would need to inhabit an unconscious person.

And, you know, there were many to be found on the south side of Fuckno.

Sven’s teeth gleamed from the shadows.  The candle flickered in his eyes.  He had never felt such joy from such a little amount of work. He savored the moment, but he didn’t know that the last view of him was seen by that pretty soul who could come back to fight him, joining another that we know as Sherry.

He simply knew that he needed to cover his tracks.

And that was why he went back to them dying, choking drug addicts and squirted the lighter fluid all over the table near the candle.  He set the plastic bottle on its side so it appeared to have been knocked over.

He pulled one young man’s leg over and placed his tennis shoe on top of the pool of spilled fluid and got the pant leg all wet in the puddle.

He set the candle down on its side and the puddle ignited.

Next thing you know, the leg was on fire, and so was the table.  He used the fiery leg to kick the tiny table around and then over, and the puddle spread under the legs of them other young folks.

He stepped back again.

He admired his work.  He hefted up the backpack into his shoulder and smiled.  It began to smell like burning hair and barbecue in the small room.

He knew that he could drive off in a car that belonged to one of these kids, but for the moment, he enjoyed himself.

He was glad to be alive.

Again.

Swim In The Ocean   by The Call

I had no clue.

But that was just about right.  I never knew the rules, but boy could I navigate.  Well, at least that was what it looks like now in hindsight.

Other people call it blind luck.

And some call it destiny, which can’t be denied.  You might be dragged to your destination screaming, blubbering and scrambling to get away.

And then once you arrive, you stand up, you wipe your tears from your muddy face and you say, “I meant to come here all along.”

Yeah, right.

I saw those boys lying on the ground after the cold air brought them down.  The screaming girl evaporated into a cloud of snow and the only thing awake back there behind the mansion was a small blue ghost girl crouched over Tellesco’s head and the red moon above. 

Big Bryan lied off down in the midst of them purple robes, and they all looked to be dead.

The rest of them blue ghosts were gone, baby, gone.

I fell back into the shadows.  I was going, baby, going.


I stepped back into someone standing behind me.


My skin crawled.


I was about to die, I was sure of it.  I held no weapons and I had dropped the smashed bag of talismans inside the mansion.

And then I smelled her perfume. 

Perfume from a dead girl under the ocean five thousand miles away.  Her body was still strapped into the aircraft seat, and she was watching an in-flight movie the likes of which you nor I would ever see, but it had no ending for her.

Lorelei whispered in my ear.  She said, “Hold steady, Weeeeee-ill.  We need to get those guys awakened.  That Brian lying over there is OK.  He will take us from here.  You can be safe and sound.”

I whispered back, without turning around.  I said, “Then what happens?”

She said, “That is something you don’t need to think about now. At this moment, we just need to focus on the work at hand. We have to go and collect some bones.”

Hah?

What the hell was she talking about?

Collect bones?

From where?

Of course, you know that she meant we would have to go back inside and down under the mansion and do some digging.

Holy shit.

Indeed.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

Dannemora Blues   by  The Pack A.D.

.

TFW CH 23 BETA

Plaster   by  Beast Patrol

TFW CH 23 


HOURS 

TO ALL OUT WAR

Tellesco was the savior.

Big Bryan was the Truth Seeker.

Little Joey was getting a clue.

Me?  I had no clue.

Sven was getting a clue.

The southside of Fuckno became infected by Walkins.

But, the old drunk man infected by the new Walkin we now know as Sherry would become the leader of the besotted and smoked.  She would lead to Sven’s downfall.

Ya got all that?

 Good.

Here we go.

SVEN

He woke up in the body of one of them Purple Robes.  Of course, the young man whose body he took over was not wearing a purple anything.  But he was one of them, and he was the son of someone high up in the ranks of them Armedmenia.

Sven looked down at his velvet track suit and frowned.

He spoke in his native tongue, “Arrr, Farr Degrader.”

This meant, to him, from the times of old, this:  “It’s become much worse.”

He would need to figure this out,.

TFW CH 22 GOT A CLUE

The Sea   By Exitmusic

JOEY 

GOT 

A 

CLUE

Lion Man, I mean, Joey, …well, he pulled himself up by the boot straps.  His ears rang from the icy screech of Katheena, and it woke him the fuck up.  He was in driving mode.

He looked over at the damage he had caused with the big truck.

The cement block structure glowed with flames and sizzled and sparked.  He rubbed his jaw.  He made sense of his shituation.  His mind reminded him of his mindlessness.

He had left his two buddies alone in an abandoned mansion, and he felt kind of bad about that.  Joey wished that the impact amnesia would return, but it didn’t. 

He looked at the ghost girl standing before him for a clue. 

Her icy glare frosted his balls.

Joey got a clue.

He headed to the little truck that purred, awaiting the next direction.

AVISON

The little girl with the deep blue eyes looked down at her king.

Such a sad thing for a girl to do.

One must never look down upon a regent, a sovereign, a savior.

No One, I mean, Tellesco,  …well, he was kind of fucked up.  You recall, he had followed Big Bryan into the fight with them Purple Robes.

You should also know these three things:

1. Them Purple Robes at this First Engagement at the destroyed mansion were very low on their totem pole of power and ability.  All that they truly held was a belief in their armament; their guns.  And this had not served them well.
2. There was a Walkin, an evil dude from a foreign country, one who liked to torture people, and he had Walked-in to one of them Purple Robes, higher up on the totem pole.  He would rise and do you know,  he would take over.  His name was Sven Slindlivrenn.
3. There were now 10 hours to all-out war.

Avison bent down and kissed his cheek.  No One’s eyelids fluttered, and he looked about. He had felt the cool breeze on his cheek, and he saw the red moon rising.  He touched his cheek.  It felt as cold as the breath from a grave.

Avison whispered into his ear, and he heard her.  She said, “Mister King, you need to rise up.”

No One shook his head to clear things up.  The scent of the cornflower blossom entered his nose from nearby, but it was mixed with the earthy smell of a long-forgotten grave.

He remembered where he was, what he was supposed to do, and this occurred in a moment.  Such a hard way to wake up. This brought tears to his eyes. 

He saw her now, knelt beside him, bent over him, with her blonde hair hanging down and brushing his face. She was looking right into his eyes.  She was awaiting his next response.

He gritted his teeth.

Of course he would lead.

It was in his blood. 

He simply did not know that he was a blood relative to the evil man called Sven, down from the ages.

He also did not know that he was a relative to another leader, one called The Glinty.

That old cowboy preacher, Glinty,   well, he would be showing up soon.

Tellesco put his hands to the ground behind him, and he began to rise.


He said, "Little girl you make me cry."



Avison said, "You sure do cry a lot for a King."



Tellesco got up and put her up on his back.

He whispered back to her as he looked around at the broken bodies of them weak Purple Robes with their guns all skittered about.


He said, "I ain't no king.  I don't have a clue about that."


He looked up at the red moon almost over head, and he frowned.  The little girl was waiting for something, and he finally got a clue.


Tellesco McFlintlock whispered back to her, "I do what I say I will."



And that, my friend, 


well,   



...That is what it's all about, isn't it?

S H E R R Y

The infection of the Walkins grew in an exponential way.  One fresh victim of an infected Walkin passed on the infection to five more.

Five times five times five times five…  Well, you get the idea.  Do the math, baby.

Sherry found the exit and she staggered down the dark stairwell and tripped.  She fell head long down the rest of the steps and landed at the next turn below.

Her face hurt.  Warm fluid dripped from her nose down over her lips, and she licked them.  It tasted like metal, like rust. Her tongue ran over her front teeth, and these came away and fell out onto the steps.

Blood dribbled out of her mouth.  She vomited again.  She was not used to this new way of living.  It was different.

Sherry felt the sharp pain of broken roots in her upper jaw as she sucked in a deep breath.  It was the raw nerves in her broken teeth that caused this to make her feel such pain.

She did not like this new body.

She did not know that she could find another one to inhabit.

A Walkin can do what a Walkin wants.

The Walkins would.






See you next time, my friend.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

TFW CH 21: LION WITH A BIT OF SHERRY

A Quitter Never Wins

Lotta music here baby.  No apologies.  Let's go.

You drive.  To truly connect with your vehicle, you may choose to drive bare-footed. Other times, you need to wear them black boots.

Always mind your leather, baby.

Them Shoes   by Patrick Sweany

L I O N

Them Purple Robes from Armed-men-ia fixed themselves in the middle of the desert with nothing to lose, but everything to gain.  They rose into power from investing in two things:  Electricity and water.

Folks will always need water to drink and to grow food, and they also like their power.

The dam and its irrigation canals and the electrical generators that fed the ugly king of the desert with water and electrical power gave them Purple Robes control of Fuckno.

The man in the power truck was a Purple Robe, but quite low on the scale of their totem pole.

Both he and Joey lied unconscious on the tar beside the demolished power plant structure.

But one had a powerful ally.

The ghost of Katheena had come to his aid.

Katheena looked down at the young man before her.  She looked over at the man who lied by the tiny truck that still purred in the darkness, lit only by the red light of the moon rising up in the east.

She knew that he was one of the evil people.  She turned and knelt by Joey.  She screamed into his ear.

Joey awoke with his ears ringing.  His jaw hurt.  His shoulders felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to them.  His knees were numb.  His hands bled at the knuckles, and they held the grit embedded in them that one gets from taking a dive out of the door of a fast moving vehicle before it crashes into a building and cuts off the power to a huge city.

He looked up and saw Katheena.

He about shit his pants.

Walk Idiot Walk    by The Hives

S H E R R Y

The old man wiped his foul tasting mouth on the arm of his nasty overcoat.  He pulled strings of thick drool from his beard and flung them to the floor.

He staggered up from his knees and felt the place spin a bit.  The plastic bottle of vodka fell to the floor and rolled, leaving a trail of clear liquid, to join the drool and the vomitus pile.  He needed to rinse his mouth, and there was only one thing he could see that would do the job.

He lurched forward and gabbed the bottle up and put it to his mouth.  He tilted his head back, and the liquid filled his mouth.  Oddly enough, it tasted sweet to his white-film-coated tongue.  His liver shrank back, but his gullet called for this nectar.

He closed his eyes as they rolled back into his head, and he swallowed.

The heat in his belly exploded out to his arms and legs, and he grinned.  He felt really fucking good.

Sherry was victim number two, and she had walked-in to this old drunk man who lived in a condemned building.

And now, she had his addiction to drive her, as well as those of the man who had killed her.

God Help Her.

She stuffed the bottle into the big side pocket of her trenchcoat and looked around on the floor.

A Walkin will do what a Walkin will.

Walk The Walk    by Poe

S V E N

T U R N S

Sven Slindlivrenn looked down at his hands.

He was a Walk-In, and he had simply followed the light.  He was in a new body now.

The hint, the whisper of an eternity spent in the fires of Hell evaporated before his eyes.  Sven saw that his hands were not without their skins on them.  He’d witnessed their removal from his hands, but now, he was simply amazed.

Perhaps he had somehow become immortal though such an event?

He did not know that he had indeed become timeless, but he missed the mark by a hundred years.

You see, he did not understand that he was a Walkin.  He did not know anything at all.

He thought that he was invincible.

That would be his downfall.

He looked about the room and saw young people all lying about, in sleep.

In front of him sat a candle, and beside it, butane torch lighters and spoons and arm wraps and needles and small plastic bags of yellow powder.

He had awakened in a decrepit room in a forgotten building on the asshole end of the ugly king of the desert, and he did not know what the fuck.

As he stood, he looked down at himself.  He was dressed in the clothing of folks who lived a life of leisure.  God Help you if you laugh at this following description: it was the 80’s.

Sven found himself wearing a velvet track suit and tennis shoes.

He shook his head and swore under his breath.  “Arrrgh, farr degrader…”

He kicked the feet of those around him, but they did not stir.  They were in another place.

Sven assessed his situation.

These were rich druggies, probably spending the wealth of their parents, and they were completely vulnerable to any intruder at all.

This revealed to him two things, which were these:  

He was in a place of trust, without any protection at all. They were out for the count.

He could do as he pleased with them.

Sven smiled.  This did not bode well for his new friends.  He began to search for their weapons.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

Soothing long time song for you as antidote.

Misty’s Nightmares 1 & 2   

by Father John Misty 

The Fuckno Wars Beta CH 21 Sherry

Hello there.  For those of you who have been following my tale, I say thank you.

I apologize to you, my friend, for I have been called away on travel, and there is only the remnant of a story left here and now for you.  I’ve been doing the busy practice of memorizing ppts, and that pays the bills.

My work supports my writing habit.

When I return, it will be something that you might wish to see.

For now, here are the bare bones.

Going.

VICTIM No. 2 

WAS SHERRY

Howl   by Beware of Darkness

The old man wiped his foul tasting mouth on the arm of his nasty overcoat.  He pulled strings of thick drool from his beard and flung them to the floor.

He staggered up from his knees and felt the place spin a bit.  The plastic bottle of vodka fell to the floor and rolled, leaving a trail of clear liquid, to join the drool and the vomitus pile.  He needed to rinse his mouth, and there was only one thing he could see that would do the job.

He lurched forward and gabbed the bottle up and put it to his mouth.  He tilted his head back, and the liquid filled his mouth.  Oddly enough, it tasted sweet to his white-film-coated tongue.  His liver shrank back, but his gullet called for this nectar.

He closed his eyes as they rolled back into his head, and he swallowed.

The heat in his belly exploded out to his arms and legs, and he grinned.  He felt really fucking good.

Sherry was victim number two, and she had walked-in to this old drunk man who lived in a condemned building.

And now, she had his addiction to drive her, as well as those of the man who had killed her.

God Help Her.

She stuffed the bottle into the big side pocket of her trenchcoat and looked around on the floor.

(Here we go back onto the southside of Fuckno.)

Dead Man’s Shoes   by The Virginmarys

(Here is where the description of Sven’s Walkin-into them Purple Robes, the Armedmenia.  This is what it’s all about, my friend.)

And then, when we see how the golden car that had some secrets in it was pulled out of the desert after having been drowned, we would see the return of the blue ghost man with one and a half eye-shades. 

The Glinty.

And Mayhem would ensue.

See you next time, my friend.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---traveling willies out.

B3     by Placebo

The Fuckno Wars CH 20 Never Leave Behind Again

The girl in the leather jacket ran to me.  She was spray-painted red on one side from the marker dye of an old fire-alarm trigger pulled by me long ago, just before this mansion beside us got baptized in the desert.  The other half of her was a white mist of ice cold anger and vehemence.

Katheena had some books hidden in her car, and Big Bryan had brought a big rig to pull it out of the desert silt, after he kicked himself some ass.

All The Sand In All The Seas   by DeVotchKa  

YOU NEVER

LEAVE A

FRIEND

BEHIND

EVER

AGAIN

I got up from my hands and knees at the corner of the mansion as she reached me.  I was about to wipe my hands off on my pants but she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed the breath out of my lungs, and I fell back on the ground with her on top.

She whispered in my ear.  She said, “I came back to save you.”

I shivered from her cold breath, but I felt warm inside, and oddly enough, down below.

How odd indeed, for that to firm things up, being all afraid of ghosts and all.

I whispered back, “Joey was supposed to save you.”

She said, “He did his best.  Don’t blame him for what these bastards did to me.”

I exhaled. 

It was all of the weight I’d carried for so long that escaped in that breath.

Splotches of coffee on the floor.

Ya know.

+   +   +   +   +   +   +

Tellesco ran over to us and he started to cry again.  Jeebus in a reed basket, what the hell?  He didn’t have the little girl on his back anymore.

He said, “They coming for us!”

Big Bryan rounded the corner with his heavy, metal rod hanging down from his hand.  His silhouette from the light behind him must have shocked Tellesco, because he sought to defend us at a moment’s notice. Friggin guy.

Tellesco charged forth and tackled Big Bryan, and they punched at each other and landed on the ground and wrestled.

Great.  Now there were two of us couples showing love to each other on the ground with the blue ghosts and them purple robes fighting back around the other corner.

The little girl with the bright blue eyes stood before us as I let go of Katheena and got up.  She said, “Leave my king alone!”

Big Bryan just about shit his pants, but maybe it was the mud from the ground.  He pushed Tellesco away and got to his knees.  He said, “Ghost!”

Tellesco crawled over to the little girl and got up in front of her and he stood ready to fight again.  He was going to protect her as well.   Frigging guy.

Well, that says something about a person, doesn’t it? 

But then the anger in his eyes dissipated.  We could see it in the light from the temporary lamp posts from the front of the mansion.  He recognized Big Bryan.

He smiled.

And then he began to cry again.

Oh, for the love of---

Katheena shouted, and that made the air grow cold around us all.

She said, “ENOUGH!”

The wall beside me grew frost on its surface.  She seemed kinda pissed about something, so we listened to her.

She said, “There are more coming!  We need to get the fuck out of here.  NOW!”

My leather jacket crinkled as it froze, and I just nodded my head.

The little girl looked at Katheena and said, “That is what I was trying to tell you folks.  You don’t have to be so mean about it, lady.”

Katheena frowned and looked down.  She said, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to hurt your ears, little lady.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but when a couple of dead folks are having a conversation in front of me, it creeps the hell out of me.

Not that it’s a regular occurrence…

The little girl stood before Katheena with her hand outstretched, with a wall of blue flashes erupting in the night air.  She said, “Hello, ma’am, I am Avison Talon.  What is your name?”

I could see Katheena just about melt.  She smiled and grasped the little girls hand in her own, and she said, “ I am Katheena.  Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Avison Talon said, “Your hand is cold.”

Katheena said, “So is yours.”

Enough already.  Time to get the hell out of there.  I said, “Bryan, it’s really good to see you here and now.  I don’t know how you got here, but do you have a way to take us out of here, and fast?”

Bryan shook his head to clear out the muddled confusion of the situation, but as you might recall, they guy could turn on a dime.  He assessed the needs, and he delivered the answer.

He said, “I got this big rig with cars all smashed up into it, but I think it’s still drivable.”  He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the big pile of smashed up cars.

I looked beyond him and saw the roof of a gleaming black semi-rig.

I said, “Will it take us far?”

He said, “Far enough.”

I said, “We need to find Joey.”

You never leave a man behind.

God Help You.

God...













OK, sorry.  This is about Big Bryan kicking ass.

Outta My Life    

This is DeadMau5 with Billy Newton

Big Bryan shook his head.  He looked at me, and he frowned. 

I had no idea about what the fuck. 

Bryan said, “We gotta finish up here.”

Tellesco grinned.

Hah?

The little girl behind him got big eyes, and she stepped back.

She said, “No, Mr. King.  We have to leave.  Please, let us follow this man here.”

Tellesco turned around and spoke to her in soft tones, and Katheena grabbed my arm.  My leather froze again, under her icy grip.  She said, “He’s right.  That is why I came here.  We have to make a stand.”

I looked down into her face and I just nodded.

I would follow her wherever she went.  You know, I had always been amazed by her, even after Lorelei went away.

Yup.  Pussy whipped by two ladies on either side of the ocean.

None of us would ever take the easy way out.

Damn.

Big Bryan grabbed the heavy tire iron from the ground and ran towards the flashes of blue light from behind the mansion.

He didn’t even know what was going on back there.  Can you imagine doing that?  He disappeared into the fight.

Huh.

Tellesco followed, and so did Katheena and the little girl, Avison.

I was left standing there, looking about at the mess of cars before me.  There was a tractor for a trailer behind the piled-up cars all wrecked and broken, and I felt like I was broken as well.

What would you have done?

You would have run off into the night to look for Joey, and I would have followed you, my friend.  No harsh, no blame.

But we, you and me, well, we would have to face each other in the morning light, and it would be a harsh light.

OK, let’s go.

I knew you would follow.

I ran back there and turned the corner and saw a war going on.

I stopped and looked.

This is what I saw:

Them purple robes were firing their guns at the blue ghosts, and some of them were shooting at the half-red girl in the leather jacket. 

The blue ghosts were joining together in small groups and flinging each purple robe up into the air and then smashing them down on the cement.  Others grabbed whatever was nearby and using them as weapons.  Metal chairs were flung, and other things flushed from the mansion during its baptism became projectiles.

The whole back yard was frosty with the presence of all those ghosts, and the heat of gunfire from them purple robes.

I looked down at the ground and saw the bodies of those who had been broken by the blue ghosts underneath their flashes of evaporation.

These ghosts fought: not for their lives which had ended a hundred years ago and more, but for their escape.

They fought to protect their king, because that was their redemption.  They could finally leave this trap, if they gave up the ghost.

Big Bryan swung his metal tire iron at the heads and bodies of those holding their guns, and he connected with each one.

Tellesco used his fists and his knees.  He swept like he was a charger without rules, to open a hole for the QB.

Katheena stood straight up and she took a deep breath in.

She screamed.

It hurt my ears.

The air dropped its temperature down to below freezing and snow fell from the air itself.

I fell back, and the purple robes fell down as well.

All of the blue lightening strikes stopped.

Big Bryan hopped about, collecting pistols, and he put as many as he could into into his pockets.

Tellesco saw him do this, and he followed along, doing the same.

But do you know, Katheena disappeared.

I was about to join in, but everything was already done.

Go figure.

Don’t look at me that way.  

.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---weak willies out.

If You Know Love   by Molly Johnson

The Fuckno Wars CH 19 Katheena Returns

I did not know about anything that was happening on the south end of that awful city.

I didn’t know anything at all.

But I began to learn.

Too Late   by John Hiatt

Lorelei led me into the hallway and grabbed my hand in her icy grip.  She pulled me along to the next entrance, and I stumbled.  The sounds of boots upon floor rumbled along the hallway from both ends, and they were coming closer.  Those purple robes knew the entrance to their chapel.   They were coming for me.  They didn’t know about Lorelei.

They didn’t know about Tellesco’s blue army.


They didn’t know anything.

Either.

THE

RETURN

OF

KATHEENA

Lorelei grabbed my hand again and pulled me up.  She dragged me along and then when we got to the place in the wall from which I’d busted through earlier, she slammed me into that hole and I thrusted deep.  I tumbled a bit and stopped sliding.  She put her hand over my mouth to stop my moans and then them boots went by. I heard the loud whispers of angry, panicked conversation as them purple robes met from both ends at the middle, and she pointed further down the stairs upon which I lied upside down.

I looked down, into the darkness, and I trusted.

Quietly, stealthily, secretly, I turned and got onto my hands and knees.  I shook my head to get her cold hand from my mouth.  My lips tasted like saltwater.

She went down the stairs, winding to the left, and I followed on my hands and knees.  You see, the old desert-dried wooden steps might not creak if my weight was dispersed across four limbs instead of two.  When you crawl, three limbs is the least weight.  When you walk, all of your weight will be on one limb for the next step.  It’s like being on broken ice.  Always crawl when you are about to fall through into the water.

I crawled down, and I could smell the dust of a hundred years rising up from my palms, but I was careful not to let my boots drag across the steps above, behind me.  I was prostrate, hands and knees, like in a church, sprawled for my confirmation.

It was a church in reverse, upside down; beautiful on the outside, but ugly within.

We reached the room that would lead to the hallway, and the library behind another door, beyond.

We did not know it, but Tellesco was coming up from the cellar with his army of blue ghosts.

I rose up and wiped my hands on my pants and Lorelei looked back at me and put her finger to her lips.  “Shhhhhhh….  Someone is here.”

I nodded. I whispered, “Yeah, them purple robes are gonna be coming along in a minute. Let’s go!”

She shook her head.  She said, “It’s Her.”

I felt the shivers.   I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but the way she said it made me feel like the broken china splinters and crystal goblet shards in the bag I’d left in the hidden stairwell behind me.

She turned back at the hallway before us, out the open door, and then we heard a chorus of loud shouts.  They were hollering this: “Onward To The West!  Onward To The New Life!”

It shook the old, water-torn mansion to the foundations.  The loud smack of a cellar door being kicked open and slammed against the wall echoed throughout the hallway beyond, and then the chorus of fealty filled the first floor with energy.

I peeked around the edge of the doorway, down the hall, and saw Tellesco come stomping along with a little girl on his back.  He had tears streaming down over a big shit-eating grin on his muddy face.

What the fuck was going on?

He saw my face and shouted, “Mr. Will!  Let’s get the heck out of here!”

Well, I don’t know about you, but that was the best fucking idea I’d heard all night.

The rumbly-bumpity sound of boots upon floor echoed down each end of this hallway, and they were joined by the ones climbing up from the huge front entrance alcove which held the grand staircase and the ballroom off to the side.

Them purple robes were coming for us.

I looked past Tellesco and saw a bright blue line of ghosts filing out of the door to the cellar behind him and I about shit my pants.

They were in various states of decay and murdered-ness, and Tellesco didn’t even seem to mind that shit.

But it gave me the fucking willies. I hate ghosts.

I held back and wanted to turn tail, but Lorelei’s ghost grabbed me by the leather and yanked me straight up.  She looked me in the eyes.  She said, “It’s now or never.  You have to do this.  This is your only chance.”

Holy fuck.  

I felt weak at the knees because I was a weak bastard.

Lorelei said, “Keep your trust.”

It helped a little, but not much.

I got back up, but my tie was nowhere to be found.

I peeked back around the doorway as them boots came thumping down the hallway from both ends and I saw Tellesco enter the doorway to the library.  A mile-long stream of blue ghosts followed him, and I would have to join in their ranks to follow him.

Rurrrrgh.

That was the sound I made.  It was the sound I made whenever I had to do something highly unpleasant or really fucking gross and scary.

Rurrrgh.

I ran down the hallway to the library entrance and heard the sounds of gunfire behind me.

Them purple robes were shooting at me.

I made it inside the library and the gunfire stopped, but the boot-falls upon floor did not.

They were coming closer, fast.

Inside the library, I saw Tellesco standing by the window with the hanging sheet of plywood over it, and he was lit by an almost blinding blue light of hundreds of ghosts crowded in there.  It was like they were without boundaries.  They were superimposed upon each other like a slideshow of old photographic images all shown at once.

He smiled at me and said, “Watch out for the nails on the sides of this sheet.  They could mess you up.”

I plowed through the mists and decrepit visages of people who had been dead for a hundred years, and as I did, I slinted through each one in my path.

It overwhelmed me.

I was filled with their experiences, their happiness in another life, their pain, and their stories, and also, how they ended.

I would never be the same again.

In that old, empty library of forgotten secrets, some of which had been stolen by a golden crow lady, I learned.

Tellesco patted me on the back and pushed that old plywood cover up, and I slid through and out.  Then he joined me. 

We were outside, in the fresh night air.

It never smelled sweeter.

He grabbed me by the leather, but I felt numb from the slinting through them dead folks.

I tried to push it all away from my head.  That’s how I dealt with shit.  I didn't.

He said, “Mr. Will.  We gotta run.  But I don’t know where we hafta go?  I got all these dead people depending on me.  But you and me are the only ones alive besides them angry men coming for us!  What do we do now?”

What do we do?

Now?

Hah?

I stiffened up my knees and tried to recover.  The slinting had been quite a lot.  But I didn’t want to die.  I was not a hero to face a hail of bullets like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Fuck that.  Nope. Not for me.

At that moment, we heard the boots reach the library and they started shooting.  Bullets ripped through the plywood and echoed off into the clear desert air.

Time slowed down, as it does when your heart and your mind speeds up from adrenaline.

Your have a moment’s notice for how to react, and hopefully, you make the best decision.  Sometimes, you need to panic.

I grabbed Tellesco and shouted, “Stable!  Horses!”  I wasn’t making sense, but my intention was clear.

(Do Not Panic.)

The men in the room shot their guns as we ran off to the horse stable in the corral nearby, and then we heard them creak the plywood cover open and slide through.

Then we heard them scream in pain.

Watch out for them side nails, they could fuck you up.

Then we heard the sound of the plywood sheet hit the concrete paver stones on the ground below, and more of them purple robes jumped out and they tripped over the bodies of the ones rolling around in pain from slices across their face, their nose, and their eyes.

More hopped out, avoiding the pile of men on the ground lying about, writhing, and some of them started to shoot at me and Tellesco.

That was when the blue ones got their shit together.

I think it must have been Lorelei, because earlier, she had coalesced them blue ghosts in the hallway above, and they did some serious damage to the first purple robes who'd been shooting at me.

There were blue flashes of light and sounds of smacking and slamming, and that made the night air glow like lightning strikes.

As we ran to the closest edge of the long palace, we saw headlights flash from the other side, and then there was the most ungodly sound of glass exploding, tires shrieking, and metal ripping apart over and over again.

It kept rumbling along, as we ran, and we were followed by gun shots and flashes of them blue ghosts giving up their time here this little blue marble in their attack upon the purple robes.

We reached the corner of the building and Tellesco charged forth to the stables.  I grabbed him by the arm of this burnt leather and he fell down, but the little girl never let go of his neck. 

He slid and scrambled, and he got back up. He said, “Mr. Will?”

I said, “Tellesco, what the fuck is that shit out front?”

I crept along the side of the mansion to head to the front to see, and Tellesco waited, looking back over at the fight going on behind him. 

He said, “Mr. Will, come on, let’s get out of here now!”

I paid him no mind.  I was drawn.

I looked around the edge of the mansion into the light of the temporary lamp posts and saw a sleek, black semi-rig with cars all smashed up into it. 

A young man climbed over the heap of fucked up cars and he wielded a heavy, metal rod.

Holy shit.

It was Big Bryan.

But,

there was something else.

There was Someone Else.

I felt drawn to her.

She was a ghost.

Except for one thing.

She was not blue.

She was half white, and half red.

I knew who She was.

When Lorelei had said, “She’s here,” I had no clue.  I was a clueless bastard who didn’t know anything.



Until I did.

(I fell to my knees.)  

I had lost Her. 

I had pulled her from her vehicle, when she was dead and limp as a rag doll.

She had regurgitated mud and rainwater over my shoulder as I carried her body back to my stolen car in the desert deluge.

As I placed her into the passenger seat, Joey had arrived, in an older car.

(The world began to spin.)

Joey had said he would take her to safety in that new, fast car, but then he’d told me later that she hadn’t "made" it.

"She didn't make it."

Did

Not

Make

It.

(On my knees, I felt dizzy, and I fell down on my elbows.  I held my head in my hands as my mind began to spin.)

Fucking Joey had not delivered her in time to the hostibal.  I had told him to get her there as soon as he could, because her lungs were filled with desert rain and mud and silt because she had drowned in a desert arroyo and you could drown in the desert if the rain fell and you were driving at a high rate of speed and then you tried to save everyone so you sacrificed your mighty vehicle but you ended up sacrificing your own life and then fucking Joey was supposed to get you to the hostibal and save you so that it would not all end in vain and wait, what the fuck are you doing running with Big Bryan and right now outside of this fucked up place that ended up killing you---

Rurrrrgghh.

I shook my head.

Rurrrghh.

Fuck.

Time to wake the fuck up, no splotches of coffee on the floor in my bedroom in my home.

I crawled forth and looked around the corner and saw that Big Bryan was coming over this way.

He had seen the eruptions of blue light from behind the stately mansion.

I yelled out.

I said, “KATHEENA!”

Big Bryan stopped, but the One beside him did not.

She kept running towards me.

It was Her.

She had come to try and save me.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.