Chapter Four: Du Riechst So Gut

Real MFG's original story by Max Gardner and Travis Taylor

“Rhymes come stinkin’ like a girl’s poo-poo.”

            --Ol’ Dirty Bastard

            The town was dilapidated, surpassing even Alcotown, the degenerate town where he had first encountered the dread Bumpy, who had apparently become something akin to an arm attachment at this point. He perched atop the Gangsta Truck like a spider on the web, his benign smile no longer so benign. The sign alongside the path proclaimed this town to be “Raccoon Village.” No population was given, and the sign looked, oddly enough, as if it had been chewed on by multiple sets of teeth. Although the sun had not yet set, the buildings were dark and ominous, all harsh angles and brick, and the occasional dark shape could be seen in the windows. The streets were littered with dead cats and dogs, one of which Miles tried to collect for Crackhorn’s benefit. He twitched as the departed kitty did its damndest to bite off one of his fingers.

            “Got it.” Nasty Bitch expertly shot it in the temple with her crossbow.

            From somewhere off in the depths of the ghost town, a human scream sounded.

            “What...is it?” Miles was too alarmed to be disgusted. Dead cats had a funny tendency to not try and bite people.

            “Miles, something’s wrong here.”

            “Really?” He looked over and saw Crackhorn grazing on the dead animals in the street. One of them yowled before surrendering to his mighty beak.

            “Maybe those things aren’t good for Crackhorn,” Nasty Bitch said.

            “Yeah. Too late now though. Let’s take a look around.”

            “Budddiiiiieeeesssss!” Bumpy fell from the sky, landing at Miles’ feet with an audible thud.

            “That was messy.”

            “Miles! Over there!” He turned in the direction that Nasty was pointing.

            “Hm.” He saw a little man clad in black with some sort of blotchy white paint applied to his face. Between his jaws was what looked to be a spatula. He looked around before darting off into an alley. “Dammit. It’s the Rammstein Clan.”

            “What? Rammstein killed off an entire town and made the cats into zombies?”

            “Uh...I don’t know. They usually scare the hell out of people, or just plain annoy them. This is a bit beyond even their capabilities. Let’s take a look around.”

            Miles walked up the main street of the town with Bizkicka in hand. He heard the occasional shuffling or groan, but nothing long or common enough to discern its source. He finally saw someone sitting on a curb.

            The closer he got, the more confused he became. It looked like a man doing his best impression of a piece of rotten steak. It had a fairly large head and thick shoulders, but its arms and legs were bony and mottled. Above a prominent chin sat a small, seemingly lipless mouth. It had a shriveled nose, and extremely heavy lidded, black on black eyes. It was casually dressed, to say the least, in that it was clad in nothing more than heart patterned boxer shorts and a t-shirt with a large exclamation point on it.

            “Excuse me sir...” It looked at him for a moment, and spoke a single word from around its cigarette.

            “Word.”

            “Hm. Zombies.”

            “Word.”

            “This is pretty weird.”

            “Word.”

            “What’s your...er...name?”

            “Word.”

            “Ah. Er...”

            Word shrugged. Miles concluded that such a being couldn’t have been all that bad.

            “Take it easy, Word.”

            “Word.” He left the strange being sitting on the curb. Word produced another cigarette and sat with it in his mouth, unlit.

            Miles continued up the street, before briefly seeing the man with the spatula in his mouth dart from one building into another.

            “Hey! Rammsteiner! Wait!”

            Miles started to give chase, until he heard a series of groans from an alley to his right. He turned and saw a group of half decomposed men crouched around the body of a small child, each of them hungrily devouring its flesh. One of them turned around to look at him, a piece of as yet unchewed flesh embedded in its beard.

            He wasn’t quite sure why, but Miles felt a sudden flash of terror as the group, five in all, all started shambling toward him. He had faced more powerful foes, ones that didn’t keep tripping over their own feet, for starters, but still...something about being chased by dead people unsettled him deeply.  He nervously reached for Bizkicka, and lunged into the fray.

            He elbowed one in the face, which sent him sprawling, before ducking a bite from another. He embedded Bizkicka’s nail into the sternum of another, and used leverage to flip him over Miles’ shoulder. Another grabbed his leg, soon followed by another reaching for his throat...

            Miles’ panic and terror gave way to a distant feeling. All he could think of was destroying everything around him, with a calm frenzy which only people who had been in battles would understand. A few minutes later he sat in a pile of rotting offal, holding Bizkicka in one hand, and the head of one of the undead creatures in the other.

            Calm down. Calm down.  His attempts at refocusing himself were interrupted by an undead midget shambling towards him. An unbalanced grin spread across his face, as he readied himself.

            “Get ready for the hose, shorty!” he laughed, his grin becoming slightly maniacal in nature.  He undid the knot on his belt as the midget stumbled across the street, its short legs barely clearing the raised curb.  His focus was averted by another scream, this one from the direction of the Gangsta Truck, and he remembered Bumpy and Nasty.  Hefound the former standing atop the Gangsta Truck, his entire body laden with crossbows, and explosives, straps of ammunition crossed over his malnourished chest.  The latter was writhing on the ground, shrieking in pain, and for a moment Miles thought with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that one of the zombies had taken a piece out of her before she could scramble to the safety of the roof, until he saw the razor-sharp, six-inch-long claws which had burst through the skin of her right hand.  Miles glanced up at the huge clock face atop the tower in the center of the town square.

            Shit.  Twelve o’clock.

            “Kick ass!” Bumpy yelled triumphantly as another gaggle of zombies approached the Gangsta Truck, staggering drunkenly.  He raised his bowgun and fired, burying three bolts in the forehead of the first zombie.  “Let’s get ‘em, buddies!”

            “Uh...Bumpy?”

            “Woo-hoo! I’m a killing machine!”

            “Bumpy! Demon Beast! Behind you!” Bumpy turned around, only to find himself facing several rows of teeth.

            Miles shrugged at Bumpy’s death shriek. The Demon Beast jumped into the midst of the mob of zombies, placing about twenty of them between she and Crackhorn. Crackhorn was shredding zombie after zombie, but something about him didn’t look right.

            Shit. Crackhorn’s one of them now.

            Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, Miles turned around and sauntered off down the street. The silhouette of a lone figure stood against the side of a building.

            “Word.” Word gestured vaguely toward the town square. Miles could barely make out another Rammsteiner, this time with something metal hooked onto his face.

            “Hey! Get your dimpled ass back here, Rammstein!” He took off after the black clad little man.

            The Rammsteiner tripped over a cobblestone, delaying him long enough for Miles to overtake him. Miles placed a boot at his throat and held Bizkicka’s nail to his forehead.

            “What in the name of Wendt have you done to this town?” Miles noticed that the metal contraption on this one’s head was actually two intertwined forks. Goofy, he decided, but still damn creepy.

            “Alles ist gestorben!”

            Miles shook his head angrily. The Rammstein Clan spoke a different language, a guttural and ugly one that made every sentence sound like “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

            “How?” The Rammsteiner reached into his pocket and pulled out a small glass vial. He quickly swallowed it whole, and started turning a sickly green hue before Miles’ eyes.

            “Schting,” was all the Rammsteiner said before starting to gnaw on Miles’ leg.

            “Shit!” Miles stomped the zombie Rammsteiner’s head into a gooey paste.

            Schting. Could that be... Miles turned around just in time to see Sting running at him before he felt a sharp blow to his head. Miles fell across the Rammsteiner’s corpse. He woke a few seconds later to find Sting leering at him, his entire body glistening with sweat.

            “Fuck off, Sting.”         

            “Good trick, isn’t it? Paul trades this chemical to the Rammsteiners in return for their cooperation. And you find yourself in the middle of it. I can’t kill you right now, but Paul said absolutely nothing about wounding you.” A veiny, sweaty fist came crashing into Miles’ head.

            All went dark, and when he next awoke, he found that dawn was close at hand and that he had been surrounded by the remaining members of the Rammstein Clan, five men each with gardening tools and kitchen utensils attatched to their faces in some manner or another.  While small in stature, they had the advantage for the moment so far as numbers were concerned, and Miles realized with dismay as he glanced up that the group had taken Bumpy and Nasty prisoner.  The two of them had been tied securely and thrown like sacks of grain across the back of something that may have once been a horse, which stood in the narrow alley stomping its feet and snorting angrily.  The Rammsteiners crossed their arms and parted to either side of the alley as a particularly large figure approached from the direction of the town square.  The man was imposingly tall and bald, and half his body had been turned into a kind of living armor.  One arm had been replaced by a morning star on a long chain which dragged along the cobblestone with an ominous grating sound.  The zombies had apparently deserted the streets, although Miles imagined most had been destroyed by the demon beast and Crackhorn, and even Bumpy had managed to take out a few with the bowgun.

            “Zirkus!” the bald man with the chain said, his voice recalling that of the Tang Clan member he’d seen running from Blacklodge and later in possession of the collection bowl from the Church of the Great Wendt.  The Rammstein champion raised his mace arm and smashed a nearby block of stone into pieces.  “Zirkus Affe!”

            “Don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Mister,” Miles muttered groggily, staggering to his feet, “but my bat is just so attracted to your fugly head.”

            “Affe!” the champion retorted.

            The two combatants circled one another, Miles hefting Bizkicka in both arms--he had found that a two-handed swing could decapitate a foe as well as bury the nail in his head, when timed well--the bald, armored man swinging his mace with a sound like wind whistling through the head of a senile old man.  The Rammsteiners began a low chant in support of their champion, and Nasty and Bumpy let out a cheer as Miles’ bat connected with the bald man’s armor, creating a sizeable dent.  The bald man grunted and took a clumsy swing with his mace.

            “Zirkus Affe!” he uttered.

            Miles swung again and cursed vehemently as the nail broke off, sticking fast in the Rammsteiner’s armor.  The champion retaliated with another whip from his chain, which swiftly entangled Bizkicka and began to wrench it away from him.  Miles swore again and yanked on his weapon as hard as he could.  The bald man’s chain ripped from its socket and the momentum sent Miles staggering back into a pile of stinking garbage.  The bald man swung again, as he apparently hadn’t noticed the absence of his arm.

            “You loser,” Miles laughed, leaping forward and burying Bizkicka’s blunted business end in his skull, swinging again and again as that killing rage returned: rage against the Rammstein Clan for its sheer existence, against Sting for the blow to the head he’d given Miles, and against Paul for making this situation possible.

            “Zirkus...”

            “You losers gonna give us any trouble?” Miles wheezed, clutching a bleeding wound on his arm as he looked up from the pulp which had been the Rammstein Clan’s champion.

            “Ja!” the man with the spatula replied angrily.  Miles brandished his bat and the Rammsteiner recoiled, cowering.  “Ich denke NEIN!”

            The entire group fell to their knees, their hands held before them in prayer.

            “Bestrafe unst!” they begged in unison.

            Miles shrugged and used the broken point of the nail to slit the cords which bound Nasty’s hands and feet, and then, after a moment of careful consideration, cut Bumpy’s as well.  Nasty stood shakily, nursing the various wounds she had received during her earlier rampage through the streets of Raccoon Village, and the boy leaped to his feet cheerily as though his legs contained springs rather than bones.  The rising sun, as if on cue, had banished the darkness which had plagued the streets of this odd little town, and the Rammsteiners, eager to escape the light, retreated through the buildings and doors, leaping from roof to roof like a troupe of small and anorexic ninja.  While Miles typically would have prefered the night to go on forever--the moonlight, he had often noticed, made his hair and scarf appear rather more ominous than did the sunlight--he found himself grateful for the change of scenery.

            “Guess we should get goin’ before the zombies come out again, huh Miles?” Bumpy deftly twirled his bowgun on his finger and dropped it.  Upon contact with the ground the firing mechanism released, sending a trio of bolts into his heart.  He staggered a few steps before collapsing against the time-eaten brick wall, a good-natured smile on his face.  “Now even I gotta admit, that was pretty darn funny.”

            Leaving his corpse in the alley, Miles and Nasty worked their way through the complex network of alleys and eventually found themselves at the intersection which led to the village limits.  Miles felt a tightening in his stomach as he thought of Crackhorn, and what had become of him--it was not the complete lack of effect Bizkicka would doubtlessly have against a lion-sized zombie penguin which worried him so much as the knowledge that he might not have the heart to put his own steed out of his misery.  He had known Crackhorn longer than he had known either Nasty or Bumpy, and had grown quite fond of the penguin.

            “By the Great Wendt, Miles, that looks bad!” Nasty darted to his side with a concerned look on her face as she examined the wide gash he had received while fighting the scary bald man--Bizkicka’s nail had caught him across the arm as it had broken off.  The Atlantean carefully tore a strip of white fabric from the sleeve of her robe, gently pressing it against the wound and soaking up a little of the blood before tying it tightly around the arm to prevent further bleeding.  She smiled as Miles shrank back reflexively, scratching his head.  “I won’t bite.”

            “I think we might have to put Crackhorn down for good,” Miles sighed.  “Those things you two were fighting got him, he’s one of them.”

            “I’m sorry,” Nasty said quietly, her glassy eyes downcast.  “I know you two had a...a bond, I could see it in your eyes when you were feeding him yesterday morning.”

            “I--these things happen,” Miles shrugged awkwardly, and prepared himself for the grim task ahead as the two of them approached the town limits.  The Gangsta Truck, he saw, had taken a considerable beating, both from the attacking zombies and the marauding demon beast when she had leaped onto the roof to get at Bumpy.  One wheel had been knocked crooked, the back had received numerous dents, and Crackhorn’s harness was bent out of shape.  Crackhorn himself still sat placidly beside the truck, waiting for his master--or for food.  Perhaps, now, there was no difference.  Miles sighed, retrieving Bizkicka from its sheath along his back.

            “Listen, Crackhorn, I don’t...I didn’t want it to end like this.”

            Crackhorn sniffed the air, snorted, and let out a contented fart, ruffling his feathers, which had become an unhealthy shade of green.  Miles’ jaw dropped beneath his scarf, and, forgetting himself for a moment, he threw his arms around the penguin’s neck.  Nasty breathed a sigh of relief.

            “Guess everything’s okay then?” Bumpy inquired, plucking bowgun bolts from his chest.

            “How the hell do you do that?” Nasty demanded, snatching one of the bolts from him and throwing it to the ground in exasperation.

            “I’m extremely cunning,” Bumpy nodded with a knowing smile.

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Chapter Five: Not Only Am I The President Of The Saxon Chain-Mail Hair Club For Men...