The Interim Adventure (Or, Episode IV.V) Part Four

Beneath a small, brightly focused winter moon, two warriors battled against impossible odds. The clanging of their weapons and their grunts of exertion rose above the eerie, undead dirge of the zombie horde they were facing. The dead grass around them was smeared with the ghouls’ congealed blood and strewn with severed body parts. For what seemed like hours they had been fighting, and still the weight of the undead army pressed upon them. Countless as the leaves in an autumn gale they surged forward, clawing with rotting fingers and gnashing with jagged teeth.
Tony nimbly ducked the swipe of a zombie’s tattered arm and swung upward with his katana, cleaving the monster in half. He spun in an elegant circle, lobbing off the heads of three approaching fiends. Fatigue was taking its toll. At the conclusion of the spin he toppled backward, blinking dazedly. An undead hand grasped his sword and wrenched it from his grip. Another zombie struck him from behind, its talon-like fingernails digging furrows into his narrow back. A third ghoul delivered a heavy blow to his shoulder, and he fell to his knees with a gasp of pain. His sword gone, Tony grabbed two daggers from his belt, spun them expertly in his hands, and leapt forward. He drove the blades into two rotting skulls, twisted, and stabbed two decaying spinal columns.
"I think we’re lookin’ at the end here, Jake," he remarked to his comrade.
Beside him, Jake was fairing no better. He used his bulk to knock zombies left and right, chopping them to bits with swings of his cutlass. He also made good use of his right hand, infused as it was by malleable nanobots. It changed from bludgeon to scythe to axe in seconds, as determined by his need and will power.
"This’ll be a good death," he said reassuringly to Tony.
Tony cocked his head to one side.
"Being ripped to shreds by a pack of slavering corpses and eaten? That’s a good death?"
"Indeed."
Tony nodded, seeing the truth in this.
Jake skewered a zombie on his sword then, turning his hand into a bear trap, snapped off its head.
Tony threw dozens of knives into the fray, each one thudding into necks, skulls, or eyes . . . or empty sockets.
"Tony!" yelled Jake over the unholy howl of their enemies.
"Yes?" Tony called back sweetly.
"I have an idea!" he stopped there to cut off an arm or two. "If we can lead the zombies back toward the main doors we can force them into a bottleneck on the bridge."
"That’s a great idea! You think it’ll mean survival?"
"Hell no! We’re still very much going to die."
"Well, then . . . what have we got to lose?"

The Ninja Pirate Headquarters building is composed of a single, towering main structure and three wings. The front of the main structure, the most impressive and primary entrance, is on the banks of a small lake, which stretches the length of the facade, like a one-sided moat. There is a sturdy stone bridge which leads up to the front doors, and it is this to which the heroes were trying to get.
Slowly, the two friends backed toward the lake, taking swift glances behind them as they fended off the undead horde.
Finally, they reached the bridge, which was wide enough for seven men to stand uopn it abreast. Once they had stepped onto the reassuringly solid stones of this bridge, they turned and ran like mad for the front doors.
Tony immediately tried to open them. He pulled and tugged like a caged lemur. He gripped the door handle and placed both feet upon the opposite door, straining with all his might.
"Won’t work," Jake said, calmly surveying the advancing zombies. "You ordered the gates sealed to protect those inside when we first stepped out to battle, remember?"
Tony let himself slide to the ground.
"Seemed like a bright idea at the time," he said sheepishly.
"It still is," muttered Jake, nervous now. "It’ll save scores of lives. Sadly, not ours."
The zombies were clambering over each other, some tipping off the sides of the bridge, in an effort to get at their prey. The change in required pack movement had temporarily confused them, and they were slowed.
Tony stood and brushed himself off. He drew his two remaining daggers and took a deep breath.
He and Jake stood stoically watching the mass of walking corpses squeezing slowly toward them.
The two friends were quiet, each alone with his thoughts.
Tony lowered his knives for a moment. He turned to his life-long comrade.
"Jake I . . ." he paused. "If this is the end I just wanted to say . . . you . . .," Tony’s voice broke. A tear rolled down his cheek.
Jake pulled his friend into a crushing hug.
"I know, buddy," he whispered in Tony’s ear, "I know."
And then the zombies were upon them, all red eyes and yellowed teeth and ravenous hunger.
Tony stabbed and sliced heroically, calling his every skill into play.
He groaned in dismay as a zombie he had stabbed through the eye toppled off of the bridge and into the icy black lake below, taking his knife with it.
Tony had one dagger left.

Jake swung doggedly on with his cutlass, leaving piles of zombie bits in his wake. He was using the sword more like a bludgeon than a blade now, so dulled was it from the night’s battle. He gave one mighty chop, hacking through two ghouls, and connected with the wall of the bridge. His blade snapped in two and dropped from his throbbing hands.
In a flash, a half dozen zombies were on him, ripping and tearing.
He threw two from him, decapitated a third with his nano-hand, now a machete blade, and knocked a fourth of the bridge. He was grappling with the fifth zombie when the sixth rose behind him, about to pounce. Jake felt something whir by his left ear very fast and turned to see the sixth zombie collapse in a heap, Tony’s last blade buried in its skull.
Tony was now unarmed.
He was, however, still very dangerous.
Using his immense vampric strength and blinding speed, he darted from ghoul to ghoul, tearing them apart with his bare hands.
But he was fighting a losing battle. The zombies kept coming. They crawled over and around each other like ants, eyes glowing in the moonlight.
Tony was eventually overpowered. He and Jake were piled on by scores of ghouls.
Tony’s world went dark. He closed his eyes.
Lucky Jake, he thought to himself. He doesn’t have rapid healing. It will take a while for the zombies to finally tear me apart, he reflected. He had just let the last threads of hope blow away in the wind when something miraculous happened.
Cutting through the cold night air came the most beautiful words he had ever heard.
"Fucking monkey whore cock shit!" cried a drunken-sounding voice.
And suddenly, the zombies were driven back.
Tony’s red eyes snapped open.
His heart leapt at what he saw.
Sam had opened the front doors and charged out swinging twin hammers with reckless fury. Zombies were pulped before him. He laughed insanely.
"Tony, get up, ya fuckin’ Jew!" he yelled.
Tony looked around. Sam was not alone.
Pounding across the lawns came Steve. He was in full bestial form, his red, shaggy coat shining, his blue eyes wild. Steam shot from his nostrils. Foam flecked his jaws. He reached the end of the zombie horde and began ripping the fiends to pieces without hesitation. He roared something the sounded to Tony mysteriously like "I love lamp," and waded into the mass of walking corpses, a furry engine of destruction.
Tony turned his attention to the center of the army, over which a green mist had appeared and with it, Amy. She stole Tony’s breath, so beautiful was she. Her green eyes sparked dangerously. She licked her fangs with a long red tongue.
Amy was still and serene for a moment, as even the zombies were frozen by her captivating presence. Then, in a blur of speed, she drew two swords, long, slender, glinting silver blades, and began to slice her way through the packed ghouls in graceful twirls.
A zombie grabbed Tony by the arm and attempted to sink its teeth into his neck when there was a flash of light and searing heat and the creature’s head was suddenly missing.
Tony looked up.
His secretary, Veronica, was firing into the monstrous ranks with a laser rifle. Her hair was tousled, her voluptuous breasts heaving.
"You leave my boss alone!" she screamed.
Tony smiled.
Then, for some reason, various parts of the zombie army started to explode in flashes of technicolor flame.
Tony craned his head backwards and looked up into the sky.
Dr. Bartholomew J. Sprockets thrummed by in what appeared to be an upside down beanie cap, a solid metal bowl with a propeller on the bottom. He was dropping plugged beakers of glowing liquid onto the zombies with a manic gleam in his eye.
"Here’s some tuti-fruti for ya, ya goddamn undead pricks!" he yelled madly.

Tony had performed on stage enough to know a cue when he saw one.
He hefted Jake up and joined the fray with a smile.
The air hummed with the clamor of battle. The friends fought with renewed hope and unquenchable courage. Soon the zombie horde was genuinely finished.

Sam ran around beating things with his hammers for good measure.

Tony, Jake, Amy, and Sprockets regrouped near the front door.
Amy immediately pulled Tony into a hug which lifted him off the ground. He grimaced, still sore from the fight.
"Easy, Ames," he breathed.
She appeared not to have heard him, and, instead, squeezed tighter.
"What the hell were you thinking?" she hollered.
"I was trying to be heroic . . ." Tony mumbled.
"Well, whatever your reasoning, I’d say I’ve paid you pack for that dock rescue."
Tony nodded.
Sprockets turned to Jake.
"Good to see ya, Karl. Looks like those nano-bots are coming in handy."
"Handy? I get it, Doc!" Jake laughed.
Sprockets raised a bushy eyebrow.
"I wasn’t making a pun, you dumb fuck."
Jake shook his head.

Meanwhile Steve was busy down by the shore of the lake, fishing corpses out of the water. His lupine visage contorted with disgust as he pulled a particularly revolting ghoul, dripping and oozing, onto the sandy beach.
He was so distracted by the gruesome task at hand, his sense so assaulted by the stench of decay, that he failed to notice the dark figure behind him until it was too late.
His blue eyes widened in shock as the needle punctured his thick hide. With a gasp of pain he tumbled to the ground in a furry heap.
The dark figure dragged itself slowly away into the shadows with a pleased gurgle.

"So, by the time we realized what was happening," Amy explained, "you guys were already alone in the fight. Then we had to get the door unlocked because you insisted on sealing us in."
Tony shrugged.
"And then you were across the bridge." She lit a cigarette and took a satisfied drag. "Sprockets took off from the roof. Steve had the bright idea to try a tunnel exit. That’s how he managed to come from behind."
She paused and looked around.
"Has anyone seen Steve?"
"He was near the water last I saw," said Jake.
Awww, what a cutie," cooed Amy. "I’ll go get him."
She strutted off down the bridge.
Tony turned back to Dr. Sprockets.
"What exactly was in those beakers?"
Sprockets then began to rant for ten minutes about the poor quality of the Ninja Pirate Incorporated cafeteria muffins.

Amy walked along the bank of the lake, smiling and calling sweetly to Steve.
"Stevie . . ." she trilled, "Stevie?"
Then she stumbled upon his limp form, no longer a monstrous, red-haired beast but a sad, limp, nude bundle of teenage boy. Hids pale skin was covered in cuts and bruises.
"Oh, no!" she cried, "Stevie," And before she got any further in her lamenting, a needle was rammed into he delicate neck and emptied of an acrid smelling, burning liquid.
Amy collapsed, nerveless, to the ground.
The shadowy horror moved away again.

"Well," said Tony, holding up a hand to restrain Sprockets, "I’ll see if we can hire some better bakers."
"You do that, Lankaster! You do that!" bellowed the deranged old man, "or so help me I’ll ram a goat up your ass!"
"Hey," interrupted Jake, "Is it just me or is Amy missing now, too?"
Tony and Sprockets looked around.
"The rodeo clown’s right," said Sprockets.
Tony frowned.
"Normally I’d tolerate them having an intimate moonlit stroll along the banks of a zombie-choked lake. ‘A l’amour,’ I would have said with a shrug and an indulgent smile, but there’s still work to be done. Dr. Sprockets."
"Eh?"
"Would you be so kind as to hop in your hover beanie and scan the area? Embarrass them if you want."
"If they’re naked, can I take pictures?"
"Why not?"
"Blue bottle!" ejaculated the doctor with gusto, and waddled off to his awkward craft.
Tony and Jake began to collect weapons from the carnage, chatting amiably. Occasionally Sam would pass them, smashing things.
In the distance, the shrill thrum of Sprockets craft could be heard.

Suddenly, they heard Sprockets call out.
"Aw, fuck!"
Tony and Jake turned to the sound like startled prairie dogs.
"There’s something here you guys should see." Sprockets called, hovering above the ground, his searchlight peeking through the darkness.
"Oh no!" he added. "No . . . it can’t be! You’re— aaarggh!"
Sprockets’ vehicle burst into flame and rocked violently, struck by a thunderous force. It fluttered weakly in the air and then crashed to the ground, tearing clumps of the earth and leaving a long scar in the lawn.
Sprockets was thrown from the wreckage. He rolled along the ground like a plaid potato.
"Dick screw!" he yelled. And then he passed out.

Tony, Jake, and Sam started forward.
Out of nowhere, another explosion rocked the bridge.
The heroes were thrown backward. Sam and Jake collided with the wall of Ninja Pirate Incorporated’s main building and were knocked unconscious.

Tony struggled to stand. His legs were both broken.
Then, out of the shadows, came a horror which nearly drove him mad.
Slowly, with great effort, the thing dragged itself, dripping, toward Tony. It was a bloody, charred, and ruined mess. An ungainly heap of limbs. It looked to be in various stages of completion, like medical diagram. Muscle, exposed bone, flayed skin. A burnt and mangled wreck which might have at one point resembled something human.
"Hello again, vampire," said Gits.
The giant zombie’s bazooka fell from his hand.
He stared at Tony for a while. The one eye he had left was hidden by a cracked sunglass lense that had melted to his face.
Tony’s stomach gave an unpleasant lurch as he witnessed the torn muscles of Gits’ ‘face" tighten in a smile. The agent’s teeth were all still intact and perfectly white. Gits licked the spot where his lips used to be with three quarters of a tongue.
"I told you I was hard to kill. Neigh unstoppable. This would have been so much easier if you had just played along."
Tony reached desperately for a knife. His fingers closed upon one a few feet away. He could feel his bones mending.
Not long now and I’ll be able to stand, he thought. Just gotta hold him off until then.
He hurled the knife at his gory foe. It buried itself up to the hilt in Gits’ forehead. The fiend kept coming. He did not even slow.
"That wasn’t nice," scolded Gits. He let out a wet, rasping cough which Tony guessed was supposed to be a laugh. When he did this, fluid spurted from the hole in his forehead where Tony’s knife was currently located.
"It’s going to take a few days to heal after that incident with the grenade. That makes me mad."
Gits was very near Tony now. He kicked at the poor ninja’s still-broken legs savagely.
Tony cried out in pain.
"Now, I believe we can conclude our business here."
Gits drew a third syringe from the tatters of his black jacket.
"This may sting a bit. Don’t worry, though, you’ll be dead by the time it really takes effect."
He lunged forward and rammed the needle into Tony’s heart. The caustic fluid seared Tony's lungs and cardiac tissue. It felt as though his chest were melting from the inside out.
Tony tried to yell, but found to his chagrin that he could not. His last vision before the blackness overtook him was of Gits ruin of a face, peering down at him with a satisfied smile.

Gits took a deep, rattling breath and tried to stand a little straighter. Several ligaments snapped, so he gave that up. He adjusted the shreds of his tie. Then he spoke into the Umbrella Corporation pin on his lapel.
"Gits here."
The voice of Dr. Thaddeus Trans came through from several thousand miles away.
"You sound as if you’ve been stuffed into a blender. Was the mission a success?"
"All three resisted capture. There was quite the battle."
"How many zombies remain?"
Gits took a quick head count.
"None."
"None?"
"Not even the Nemesis prototype?" demanded Trans, slightly aghast.
"Unfortunately he was blown up. I hope you have a warranty."
"Was the mission a success?"
"All three threats have been eliminated."
"Good, report back to the Boston headquarters immediately."
"Do you want any trophies?"
"No. There is much work to be done."
"Are you sure?" persisted Gits eagerly. "Heads? Hearts? Eyes, perhaps?"
"No."
"Shall I demolish the building?"
"No. I plan on reacquiring Ninja Pirate Incorporated. Do not perpetrate and more damage than you already have."
Gits sighed.
"Very well, then. Gits out."
He looked around wistfully at the destruction. He smiled broadly, turned, and limped away into the night.


Sam and Jake slowly regained consciousness to the sound of Veronica pounding frantically on the glass doors. They immediately wished they hadn’t. They moaned, rolled over, and rubbed their throbbing heads. Finally, Sam, hauled himself up and, with a rueful cuss, opened the door.
Veronica bolted out shrieking wildly.
"The monster! The monster killed Tony! Oh, my sweet Tony!"
She was positively wailing, and the two warriors felt as though their skulls were splitting apart at the seams.
"Lady!" Jake bellowed, "if you don’t shut your nosie hole I will drown you in the lake!"
"But Tone-nee-hee-hee-hee-hee!"
"Gah! What about him?" Sam groaned.
"He’s dead! That monster blew up Sprockets, then you guys, then he killed Tony!"
Sam and Jake finally got around to noticing Tony’s broken body on the ground.
"Sweet Jesus," Jake said.
"No! No, Tony!" cried Sam.
"What the hell are we going to do?" Jake wondered aloud.
"Sprockets!" Sam yelped. "He’ll know what to do."

They made their way across the ruins of the bridge. Upon reaching the opposite bank, they saw Steve and Amy.
"Boo hoo," said Sam, marching on to the wreckage of Sprocket’s vehicle. They found the doctor trapped under the debris, muttering to himself in an annoyed manner and drinking from a beaker.
Jake and Sam stepped forward and helped the doctor to his feet.
"What can I do for you?" hiccupped Sprockets.
"There are casualties," Jake said.
Veronica sniffed loudly, threatening to burst into tears again.
Sprockets took one last swing from his beaker and tossed it into the field, where it exploded in a ball of green flame.
"I’ll do what I can. Lead me to ‘em."

The crazy old bastard first looked as Amy and Steve. He checked for every vital sign he could think of. Finding no trace of any of them, he groped Amy pensively while whispering to himself.
"Carry them to the doors," he said at last.
Sam and Jake hauled the limp forms, vampire and werewolf, across the bridge and gently laid them next to Tony.
Sprockets performed a similar series of tests on the Italian ninja, scratched his be-stubbled chin, stole twenty bucks from Tony’s wallet, and then stood up.
"They’re dead," he explained, as if this cleared matters up to some degree.
Veronica fainted.
Well, is there anything you can do for them?" asked Sam, exasperated.
Sprockets thought for a moment.
"Well, Pete," he responded, "There is one treatment I have at my disposal that does not involve hideous black magic."
Sprockets punched a series of buttons on a wrist computer.
Within seconds, a small hatch opened on the side of the building and three robotic hover-gurneys flew out.
Sam and Jake placed their currently deceased friends upon these and then followed anxiously as Sprockets led them to his laboratory.


All mad scientists need to have their offices as close to the roof as possible, for obvious meteorological reasons. Sprockets’ was on the second-to-top floor, directly below the avionics department, which was directly below to roof.
The crazy old codger had the most state-of-the-art technology available, partly because NP Inc realized what a valuable, if tipsy, asset he was, and thus gave him whatever he asked for, and partly because he designed most of the world’s state-of-the-art technology himself.
The lab took up almost the entire floor, with a fifth or so of the square footage closed off as his office and personal lounge.
Stretching away into the cluttered distance were tables covered in sparking electrodes, diodes, and wires. Strange robots trundled around, sifting through piles or whizzed by through the air. Stools were tipped over, glass broken, porn everywhere. His vast legion of file cabinets looked like they had been violently ill and vomited papers across the room. Machines of indistinguishable purpose stood at intervals around the lab, in states of varying completion. The place smelled of ozone, burning plastic, cheap cologne, pipe smoke, and Scotch.
In the far corner were three blue, egg-shaped structures. It was to these that Sprockets directed them and the robo-gurneys.

Sam, Jake, and Veronica stared apprehensively at the three ovular pods standing against the wall. They were ungainly and dangerous-looking, with large patches of inner circuits and diodes exposed, wires trailing in all directions.
"All right," said Sprockets. "Get ‘em in there."
Three doors sprung open with a collective hiss and a release of a pungent smelling fog.
Sam, Jake, and Veronica eased the bodies as gently as they could into the cushioned interior of the pods. They quietly closed the lids, as if afraid their friends might awake in a temper, and looked sadly at the three warriors through the glass panels on the front of the machines.
Tony, Amy, and Steve.
They all looked so still and lifeless.
This was probably because they were clinically dead.
Sam turned to Dr. Sprockets.
"This will bring them back to life?"
He nodded. "That’s the plan, Stan."
Sam frowned.
"How?"
"Well," said Sprockets, fiddling with some switches, "I’m not exactly sure how they works, myself, as I was plastered when I designed the things."
He paused and chuckled to himself, recalling good times.
"But I think it works like this: I discovered sometime ago that there is a sixth force which governs the Universe."
"You mean fifth?" asked Sam.
"No, putz, I do not mean fifth. There’s gravity, electro-magnetism, a strong nuclear force, and a weak nuclear force. The fifth force is of course Love, but that’s too abstract to get into now. The sixth force, though, which I discovered, is a Life Force. It is present in all living things. Well, after death, an organism’s body begins to shut down, but retains a gradually dwindling supply of this life-force. Now what these machines do is draw out all a' that life-force they can and pool it in one compound supply. They then focus this and deliver three successively large blasts of it to the organism, in effect jump-starting the life systems. The result is similar to rebooting a computer. The systems start again from scratch. Temporary amnesia is a common problem. But, the blasts will hopefully rekindle some spark of life and bring the organism back from the dead."
"A bit like a defibrulator?" suggested Jake.
"Goddammit, son!," Sprockets roared, "don’t talk to me about none of that mumbo-jumbo witch doctor shit! Defibrulator? Ha!"
After an odd silence, Sam spoke up.
"But, what about the Afterlife?"
Sprockets smiled.
"I am given to understand that there is a considerable waiting and processing period before one’s soul is assigned to its next location. They haven’t transcended yet, don’t worry."
"Have you had any success with these before, doctor?" asked Veronica, trembling slightly.
"Nope," said Sprockets, busying himself with some dials, "I never tried ‘em before."
Before any of the friends could protest, Sprockets nodded authoritatively, leaned forward, and pressed a large, green button.
"Initiating life systems restart . . . now," spoke a soothing female voice.
There was a sound like a drain being unplugged. Then a tremor and a flash of light. The machines sparked and fizzled, hummed, and, finally, whooshed.
Everyone froze.
Then the lights went out.


Okay, so not exactly a concluding conclusion, per se. More of a cheap cliff-hanger, when you come right down to it. There is, in fact, at least one more chapter of this installment left to go. Obviously, as Tony has yet to get off his clinically dead, zombie-slaying ass and save me. I'm being sexually tortured, for Pete's sake! (Not that I'm really complaing, mind you, but anything gets tiresome in large doses.)

But, what a place to leave off, eh?
Do you think Tony will be revived?
(Well, he is with us today, so that's a bit of a no-brainer)

And what about Gits' return? Creepy, no?

Alright, you mugs, get lost. If you wanna see what happens to me, and, indeed, what's in store for all of you, be sure to read the next installment of The Interim Adventure!

Tune in next time for Becky's write-up, and, of course, some Preliminaries.

Current Mood: Oddly satisfied.
Current Music: Barenaked Ladies, Maroon