“Nutter. Fucking nutter,” Goatboy grins. “I like you!”
“Look, boss, you got a fan now!” the toy pipes up.
“Everyone hold on. We’re leaving.”
Edwina shakes her head. She looks around the tiny truck and finds a spot that is relatively clear of syrups and sundae toppings. She sits and slides her backpack into her lap. The rest watch her in silence as she extracts clips and bullets, a couple of handguns and various items designed to screw up someone’s day.
“What are you looking at?” she barks.
“Yeah, you tossers. Leave her alone.”
Edwina glares daggers at the goat. She pulls out a very large knife and studies the blade.
“Oh, I get ya. I’ll just fuck off for a bit then,” Goatboy says and finds a nice quiet corner to sit in. Phil wanders over and falls down next to the goat. He lays his head on the creature’s soft side and closes his eyes. Goatboy is quiet for exactly two minutes and twelve seconds.
“I notice you ’ave a lot of guns. I ’ope you don’t plan to shoot me. Not old Goatboy. I’m as soft as a lamb and as smooth as the runs.”
Silence for a few more seconds before Goatboy pops his head up one more time.
“So. Two ’ookers were on a street corner. They started discussing business, and one of the ’ookers said, ‘Gonna be a good night. I smell cock in the air.’ The other ’ooker looked at her and said, ‘No, I just burped.’”
“Have you ever had goat curry?” Edwina asks quietly.
“Eep!”
Never Steal a General’s One-Legged Whore
Spittle slips from Pestilence’s lip into a small puddle on his lap. His hood covers his face except for his thin-lipped mouth and his pointy chin. A thick gray hand reaches up and gives his skinny shoulder a shake.
Pestilence stirs and mumbles, “Weed ain’t a drug,” before nodding right back out.
General O’Coddle looks at the zombie soldiers loitering around them. They appear to be eager for more flesh to feast upon. He turns his attention back to Pestilence, who is hunched over his steed. O’Coddle reaches up and gives the Horseman a second shake, firmer than before. Pestilence’s head bobbles and rolls, flinging spit and snot, but he still doesn’t stir.
The soldier zombies groan in impatient unison behind General O’Coddle. He turns his dead eyes on them and stares each one down in turn. He says nothing, but his furious dead eyes promise Hell sandwiches with a side order of shattered bones, and agony sauce for dipping. The zombies quit groaning and mill discontentedly about amongst the bloodstained rubble.
General O’Coddle grunts his approval of their show of weakness and reaches up to shake Pestilence twice as hard. Pestilence’s left arm flies up, slapping the general’s hand away. In the same instant, Pestilence pulls a curved blade from his robe and holds it to the general’s gray throat. The deathly sharp blade comes to a stop a quarter of an inch into General O’Coddle’s neck skin. If the general’s heart was were still pumping blood through his hardened arteries and veins, the general’s chest would be quite a mess.
Pestilence’s thin lips curl back, and he growls, “What the fuck, O’Fondle?”
General O’Coddle cocks one bushy white eyebrow and asks, “What in the cheerleader skid-mark fuck are we doing next?”
Pestilence gives the blade in O’Coddle’s throat a slight twitch, and his skinny frame rocks with an involuntary tic to match it. The blade sinks another quarter inch into the general’s throat.
“I mean awaiting orders, sir,” O’Coddle tells the shaking Horseman.
“Better,” Pestilence nods sloppily. “I don’t fucking know what we are doing next. I just woke up.”
Pestilence pulls his blade away from the general’s throat, wipes the black sludge covering it onto O’Coddle’s barrel chest, and slips it back into his robe. He rolls his head from side to side, and it cracks like gunfire. He smiles his graveyard grin and stretches. Muffled crunches sound from beneath his robe.
“What’s your fucking rush, General? It’s the end of the world.” He waves his slender hands in the air at as though conducting the sounds of chaos all around them. He wonders how he slept through the racket. Demons are screeching, zombies are groaning, and humans are screaming.
General O’Coddle holds up his hands and waves them at the soldiers. “We all will rot and fall apart where we stand if we don’t get the bored zombie fuck out of here.”
“Fine,” Pestilence huffs. “I smell tweek in the air anyway.” He tilts his head back and breathes deep. “Yup, just a few blocks that way.” He points in the direction of Jerome’s Sex Shop. “Good shit too.”
He wraps the reins around his fists, gives his steed a soft heel to the ribs, and tells the general, “We are going wherever that smell is coming from. Rally the troops.”
General O’Coddle grunts and addresses the soldier zombies. “All right, you rotting fuck rags, move out!”
Pestilence leads his pale horse away from the ruins of the church and toward the smell of meth. The street is clogged with vehicles, and Pestilence opts to lead his well-fed horde down an alley rather than through the maze of unmoving metal. He stops a half a block away from the sex shop and holds up his hand to General O’Coddle. The general stops and holds up his hand to the horde behind him. Pestilence presses one long finger to his thin lips, and General O’Coddle turns around to the zombie army and repeats the gesture.
Pestilence leans toward the general and asks, “Do you smell that, O’Fondle?”
“I don’t smell shit,” O’Coddle grumbles back, “because I’m fucking dead.”
“Well, be glad,” Pestilence says, waving his hand in front of his nose. “Because shit is what I smell. Nasty shit. And I think our tweekers are this way. The same way as the shit, unfortunately.”
Pestilence’s steed trots proudly from the alley into the street, its hooves making great clop-clop noises that echo off the remains of the casinos. General O’Coddle strides to his left with the zombie horde stumbling behind him. A few random screams sound in the distance, and they are met with terrifying howls and cackles. The zombie horde pays the screams little attention. They stagger after their general, knowing he will find them more flesh.
Pestilence eyes the pickup full of shit topped by the obese demon corpse and shakes his head. Rows of headless bodies are piled high in the sex shop parking lot. Most wear the desert camouflage of their earlier deserters, and he reaches down and slaps General O’Coddle’s shoulder to show the dead officer.
“Serves the chicken-shit douche eaters right,” the general grumbles. He looks away from them quickly. They are not worthy of his time.
Somewhere behind the shit-filled pickup, a high voice gurgles, “Death? Is that you? I’m not dead; I just lost my head during a shit. Put me back and I’ll be fine.”
Pestilence follows the voice and finds a fat horned demon’s head lying with its forehead against a tire. The head rolls, and tiny beady eyes squint to see the man under the hood. The decapitated head whimpers, “Oh, shit, it really is you. Please have mercy!”
Pestilence swings his legs over his steed and drops to the concrete. His legs buckle, and he grabs the reins to steady himself, then leans down to the demon head. He wraps one long-fingered hand around each horn, and with some effort, he hefts the big demon head. He nearly drops it once, then he shoves it at General O’Coddle. The general holds the head by its chin so the horns rest against his broad chest. Pestilence cracks his neck and asks the demon head, “Who is smoking tweek? And where are they?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been staring at the weak fucking tread of a tire for the better part of the afternoon,” the head chortles.