Muffin Mage
10-08-2006, 02:13 AM
Yeah, so I started writing this on a whim in July, but never finished it. Should I? I think it has potential.
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The Many and Varied Adventures of Alberto Zimino, Professional Zombie Slayer
Chapter One: The stage is shamelessly set!
Dawn, ordinarily a shamelessly voyeuristic wench, was always afraid to peek into a certain apartment at 10X Broad Street in San Francisco. Granted, she was accustomed to some level of nastiness and filth, but what she shuddered to think of what her rosy fingers might encounter in such a place, and what had been there before her.
Amid the squalor and destitution expected of such a cramped domicile- abandoned dishes with half-eaten meals, dead rodents and other pests, clothing cast aside and serving as the cradle for some newly spawned life forms- a single jarring note stood out: the frenzied, rhythmic clanking of a chain on a steel pole.
If Dawn had been less fastidious, we would by now have seen that the source of this clanking. However, she isn’t and we can’t. Fortunately, we can make out several other unusual features in this apartment.
Hanging on the wall is a sword rack, beautifully ornamented with carved flourishes and gilding. It is truly a masterpiece for something of its kind, and one should expect a masterpiece of a blade to grace it and complement it as a decoration. The notched, battered machete that lies there instead seems almost like an affront to the creator of the beautiful furniture on which it slouches.
Moving on, we find the fireplace. Over it are mounted a high-powered rifle, the kind used to put holes in tanks at five hundred feet, and a ten gauge double barrel shotgun. Both are scarred and battered from heavy use, which is surprising, as their owner is neither a game hunter nor a soldier.
The kitchen table is covered in a variety of test tubes and Bunsen burners and various other chemical and medical trappings. Not to mention several weeks worth of leftovers in various states of fungal consumption. However, the battered Venetian blinds have finally allowed enough light to cast aside the shadowy curtains that covered the source of the strange sounds, so let us redirect our attention.
A slack jawed head greets us first, with empty, unseeing eyes and hair falling out in patches. The lips are cracked and foul, part of an ear has been torn off, and the skin as a whole looks splotched and unhealthy. In fact, the whole figure looks unhealthy. It was once a man, it seems, slightly less than six feet tall, muscular and thin. But also, to the more astute, unmistakably dead. A rag has been stuffed in his (its?) mouth to muffle the incessant moaning, to little avail.
Just as Dawn brought herself to the filthy, unwashed feet of the figure chained to the pole in the middle of the room, a rather more alive man shambled onto the scene. He sported a three day growth of beard and ragged, unkempt hair. His stained and rumpled robe dragged on the floor behind him. He vigorously scratched his rump and swayed a few times before making his way into the kitchen.
There, a parrot roosted in a rusty, dilapidated cage on a small table. She creaked back and forth on the crooked swing and croaked in a frightfully skilled imitation of the faint moans from the other room. As our hero shuffled over to the refrigerator, she turned her head and cocked her plumage questioningly.
“Mrfl,” he answered, pulling out a carton of eggs only slightly past the best if used by date. He discarded the green and puffy cheese, but scraped some mold off a hunk of two week old ham and began, very carefully, to dice it.
In this room, a frying pan dangled on the wall over the stove, along with a small collection of pots. All had seen better days, dinged and scuffed to one degree or another. A small pile of relatively clean plates stood near the stainless steel sink.
Just as the potential of those foodstuffs for an omlette was to be realized, the phone rang. A frying pan and a half empty carton of eggs were dropped in quick succession, each flying true and wounding a toe. “Flrgl!” our friend yelled, hopping around. “Mrpl drgl blrgn!” he screamed as he lunged for the phone.
“Is this the residence of Alberto Zimino, Professional Zombie Slayer?”
Chapter Two: There be zombies afoot!
Given the early hour, Alberto was tempted to say that he was actually Pizza Hut, and would the caller like to try a new pan crust pizza? But people only mentioned the professional part of his title, or any of it, really, when they had a paying gig for him. “This is he,” he replied, “Alberto Bartolomeo Camino Detrojo Emmanuel Francisco Guadalupe Hirmano Ibrahim Jose Kilagi Lopez Martinez Nepalo Ornio Phillipe Quexedo Romano Silvestre Teremenoso Unuevo Villanueva Wutare Xavier Yakote Zimino. For a mere $45.00 an hour, I’ll slay your zombies, cleanse your wounds and wash your car, although cleansing your wounds generally involves killing you, I’m sad to say. Gratuities are accepted.”
The young woman at the other end of the line coughed. “Yes. Well, I’ve got a bit of a problem…”
“Hold on for a second,” Alberto cried out, rushing around. He found a battered notebook with what looked like a collection of faded price sheets inside. Maybe closer to bills? It’s hard to tell at the moment. Next, he found a pen and a timer. “Sorry about that ma’am. Just so you know, I charge two dollars flat or twenty five cents a minute for sob stories, whichever is more. Anyway, continue, if you like.”
“No, no, I’ll just say that there seems to be a zombie attacking the gate to my lawn. My daughter is playing outside at the moment, and I guess it’s whipping the thing into a frenzy. Can you help?”
“Of course I can, my dear woman. For a simple job like that, I charge a flat fee of $70 plus transportation.”
“Oh, of course!” The woman sighed with relief. “I’m at 576 L- Street.”
“I shall arrive in twenty minutes.” He’d hung up before she could thank him.
Chapter Three: A daring battle!
Mrs. A. L. Dorson, of 575 L- Street, peered between her lacy white curtains at the scene across the street.. “Oh dear,” she said, “it’s another one of those zombies we’ve been hearing about. There goes the neighborhood.” Silence for a time, interrupted by the occasional clink of fork on plate or rustle of a turning page. “MYSTERIOUS ATTACKS OF THE UNDEAD” the headline screamed, but Mr. F. R. Dorson was lost in the rising price of sheep spit on the commodity market.
“Oh, Frank,” Mrs. Dorson cried, “will you put that down for a moment.” With a gruff “harrumph,” a thickly mustachioed face appeared where the paper once was. “Look out there. See that?”
Across the way, a partially clothed, partially eaten woman was battering at a wrought iron fence. It was held fast with a heavy padlock and thick chain, but this did not seem to deter the woman in the slightest. A little girl sat calmly within, wandering about as her fancies took her, playing with dolls or sitting under the tree and talking to imaginary friends. The woman seemed particularly attracted to the little girl’s movement, her head moving to follow the little girl in her capricious path.
“Frank, that’s Winifred Owen’s girl.” Mrs. Dorson said, pointing. “Look at her, the filthy thing. You’d think she’d at least have the decency to put some clothes on. But no, the hussy is walking around breasts bare for all the world to see! It’s shameful. It’s positively shameful!”
“Now now, Agnes,” Frank answered with a few conciliatory gestures. “I think there’s a good reason for it. I was reading in the paper the other day-“
A gunshot cut off what Frank saw in the paper. Agnes screamed. The former Miss Owen had been blown back a good twenty feet, but her left arm flew through the air and landed in the Dorsons’ flower garden. Agnes screamed again. The little girl picked a dandelion and blew the seeds into the wind.
A strange man walked up the street. He had what looked like a powerful rifle in his hand, and something flapped against his left leg as he walked. He had a bandolier lined with bullets strapped across his chest. A great sombrero obscured his face, but not his aim.
Miss Owen let out an angry moan and pushed herself to her feet. The mysterious stranger cast his rifle aside and drew a machete from his hip (Now do you know who I’m talking about? Just remember that the Dorsons don’t and we’ll be fine.)
The stranger took a few loose swings to limber his arm up as he approached. The former Miss Owen growled and shambled forwards. He broke into a trot, and the zombie followed suit. Soon, he was running flat out (this was a very long street, you see), and as the background music crescendos, the two bodies collide. Agnes faints with a sigh.
Miss Owen falls to the ground, headless, and her angry head rolls to the mysterious man’s foot. With a contemptuous snort, he takes his blade in both hands and plunges it downward. Frank looks away, torn between sadness and loathing.
(Text continued in next post, mods permitting)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Many and Varied Adventures of Alberto Zimino, Professional Zombie Slayer
Chapter One: The stage is shamelessly set!
Dawn, ordinarily a shamelessly voyeuristic wench, was always afraid to peek into a certain apartment at 10X Broad Street in San Francisco. Granted, she was accustomed to some level of nastiness and filth, but what she shuddered to think of what her rosy fingers might encounter in such a place, and what had been there before her.
Amid the squalor and destitution expected of such a cramped domicile- abandoned dishes with half-eaten meals, dead rodents and other pests, clothing cast aside and serving as the cradle for some newly spawned life forms- a single jarring note stood out: the frenzied, rhythmic clanking of a chain on a steel pole.
If Dawn had been less fastidious, we would by now have seen that the source of this clanking. However, she isn’t and we can’t. Fortunately, we can make out several other unusual features in this apartment.
Hanging on the wall is a sword rack, beautifully ornamented with carved flourishes and gilding. It is truly a masterpiece for something of its kind, and one should expect a masterpiece of a blade to grace it and complement it as a decoration. The notched, battered machete that lies there instead seems almost like an affront to the creator of the beautiful furniture on which it slouches.
Moving on, we find the fireplace. Over it are mounted a high-powered rifle, the kind used to put holes in tanks at five hundred feet, and a ten gauge double barrel shotgun. Both are scarred and battered from heavy use, which is surprising, as their owner is neither a game hunter nor a soldier.
The kitchen table is covered in a variety of test tubes and Bunsen burners and various other chemical and medical trappings. Not to mention several weeks worth of leftovers in various states of fungal consumption. However, the battered Venetian blinds have finally allowed enough light to cast aside the shadowy curtains that covered the source of the strange sounds, so let us redirect our attention.
A slack jawed head greets us first, with empty, unseeing eyes and hair falling out in patches. The lips are cracked and foul, part of an ear has been torn off, and the skin as a whole looks splotched and unhealthy. In fact, the whole figure looks unhealthy. It was once a man, it seems, slightly less than six feet tall, muscular and thin. But also, to the more astute, unmistakably dead. A rag has been stuffed in his (its?) mouth to muffle the incessant moaning, to little avail.
Just as Dawn brought herself to the filthy, unwashed feet of the figure chained to the pole in the middle of the room, a rather more alive man shambled onto the scene. He sported a three day growth of beard and ragged, unkempt hair. His stained and rumpled robe dragged on the floor behind him. He vigorously scratched his rump and swayed a few times before making his way into the kitchen.
There, a parrot roosted in a rusty, dilapidated cage on a small table. She creaked back and forth on the crooked swing and croaked in a frightfully skilled imitation of the faint moans from the other room. As our hero shuffled over to the refrigerator, she turned her head and cocked her plumage questioningly.
“Mrfl,” he answered, pulling out a carton of eggs only slightly past the best if used by date. He discarded the green and puffy cheese, but scraped some mold off a hunk of two week old ham and began, very carefully, to dice it.
In this room, a frying pan dangled on the wall over the stove, along with a small collection of pots. All had seen better days, dinged and scuffed to one degree or another. A small pile of relatively clean plates stood near the stainless steel sink.
Just as the potential of those foodstuffs for an omlette was to be realized, the phone rang. A frying pan and a half empty carton of eggs were dropped in quick succession, each flying true and wounding a toe. “Flrgl!” our friend yelled, hopping around. “Mrpl drgl blrgn!” he screamed as he lunged for the phone.
“Is this the residence of Alberto Zimino, Professional Zombie Slayer?”
Chapter Two: There be zombies afoot!
Given the early hour, Alberto was tempted to say that he was actually Pizza Hut, and would the caller like to try a new pan crust pizza? But people only mentioned the professional part of his title, or any of it, really, when they had a paying gig for him. “This is he,” he replied, “Alberto Bartolomeo Camino Detrojo Emmanuel Francisco Guadalupe Hirmano Ibrahim Jose Kilagi Lopez Martinez Nepalo Ornio Phillipe Quexedo Romano Silvestre Teremenoso Unuevo Villanueva Wutare Xavier Yakote Zimino. For a mere $45.00 an hour, I’ll slay your zombies, cleanse your wounds and wash your car, although cleansing your wounds generally involves killing you, I’m sad to say. Gratuities are accepted.”
The young woman at the other end of the line coughed. “Yes. Well, I’ve got a bit of a problem…”
“Hold on for a second,” Alberto cried out, rushing around. He found a battered notebook with what looked like a collection of faded price sheets inside. Maybe closer to bills? It’s hard to tell at the moment. Next, he found a pen and a timer. “Sorry about that ma’am. Just so you know, I charge two dollars flat or twenty five cents a minute for sob stories, whichever is more. Anyway, continue, if you like.”
“No, no, I’ll just say that there seems to be a zombie attacking the gate to my lawn. My daughter is playing outside at the moment, and I guess it’s whipping the thing into a frenzy. Can you help?”
“Of course I can, my dear woman. For a simple job like that, I charge a flat fee of $70 plus transportation.”
“Oh, of course!” The woman sighed with relief. “I’m at 576 L- Street.”
“I shall arrive in twenty minutes.” He’d hung up before she could thank him.
Chapter Three: A daring battle!
Mrs. A. L. Dorson, of 575 L- Street, peered between her lacy white curtains at the scene across the street.. “Oh dear,” she said, “it’s another one of those zombies we’ve been hearing about. There goes the neighborhood.” Silence for a time, interrupted by the occasional clink of fork on plate or rustle of a turning page. “MYSTERIOUS ATTACKS OF THE UNDEAD” the headline screamed, but Mr. F. R. Dorson was lost in the rising price of sheep spit on the commodity market.
“Oh, Frank,” Mrs. Dorson cried, “will you put that down for a moment.” With a gruff “harrumph,” a thickly mustachioed face appeared where the paper once was. “Look out there. See that?”
Across the way, a partially clothed, partially eaten woman was battering at a wrought iron fence. It was held fast with a heavy padlock and thick chain, but this did not seem to deter the woman in the slightest. A little girl sat calmly within, wandering about as her fancies took her, playing with dolls or sitting under the tree and talking to imaginary friends. The woman seemed particularly attracted to the little girl’s movement, her head moving to follow the little girl in her capricious path.
“Frank, that’s Winifred Owen’s girl.” Mrs. Dorson said, pointing. “Look at her, the filthy thing. You’d think she’d at least have the decency to put some clothes on. But no, the hussy is walking around breasts bare for all the world to see! It’s shameful. It’s positively shameful!”
“Now now, Agnes,” Frank answered with a few conciliatory gestures. “I think there’s a good reason for it. I was reading in the paper the other day-“
A gunshot cut off what Frank saw in the paper. Agnes screamed. The former Miss Owen had been blown back a good twenty feet, but her left arm flew through the air and landed in the Dorsons’ flower garden. Agnes screamed again. The little girl picked a dandelion and blew the seeds into the wind.
A strange man walked up the street. He had what looked like a powerful rifle in his hand, and something flapped against his left leg as he walked. He had a bandolier lined with bullets strapped across his chest. A great sombrero obscured his face, but not his aim.
Miss Owen let out an angry moan and pushed herself to her feet. The mysterious stranger cast his rifle aside and drew a machete from his hip (Now do you know who I’m talking about? Just remember that the Dorsons don’t and we’ll be fine.)
The stranger took a few loose swings to limber his arm up as he approached. The former Miss Owen growled and shambled forwards. He broke into a trot, and the zombie followed suit. Soon, he was running flat out (this was a very long street, you see), and as the background music crescendos, the two bodies collide. Agnes faints with a sigh.
Miss Owen falls to the ground, headless, and her angry head rolls to the mysterious man’s foot. With a contemptuous snort, he takes his blade in both hands and plunges it downward. Frank looks away, torn between sadness and loathing.
(Text continued in next post, mods permitting)