Come Hell or High Heels ch1 NSFW violence, cussin'

[Jim Halisstrad]

So, here is a story I am working on.
I might not be able to ever get it done what with Collage starting tomorrow.
so.... here it is.
(I'm never writing in first person again.)

Criticism is welcome and encouraged.  Be warned however, I HATE my own writings.

Come Hell or High Heels

Prolouge

   As I run through the forest that spans Northwest Arkansas I can't help but repeat the same line to myself over and over again.  Stupid fucking brainless monkies!  It's Halloween night, our night, and here I am being chased by the spook patrol.  A somewhat masculine voice that wasn't quite past puberty rang out through the forest, letting me know that my pursuers were right on my tail.
   "Hey Jerrad, I can see that monster that done attacked May!"  This very educated man was Bobby Heckler.  Despite being in peek physical condition (much to my dismay) and well up into his late twenties, his throat produced the most irritatingly high pitched crackling noise; peppered with what I can only assume to be an inbreeding twang.
   Whatever gun he held in his hands however more then made up for his lack of manhood.  A fledgling oak tree had it's poor life snuffed out in a flash of splinters and sparks.  Much better then the tree though then my handsome face.
   "Damn it Bobby, you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn two feet away from you with a shotgun!"  Recently mentioned Jarred spoke up in a deep rumbling voice.  The Identical twin to Captain Crackle, save for there oral tones.
   Another act of deforestation was perpetrated.  Karma isn't going to be to pleased with them and they probably should stock up on that anti-fungal cream.  Normally at this point I would glance back at my attackers and give them the ole Larry Snarl.  Unfortunately I think I overstayed my welcome at the Heckler farm; one chick over the line I guess.
   Speaking of which, when the Heckler brothers found me with May, who is in no way related to my two favorite Nimrods, I wasn't actually attacking her.  If you can catch my drift.  What can I say, I'm a real ladies Monster.
   A bullet whizzed by my leg, close enough to leave a bleeding cut.  "Hey!  If you would quit eating your mom's rotten tuna factory out all the time your vision would be better!"  I roared out.  Partially because that stung, mostly because I'm an asshole.  This broke several rules my people have layed out for me.  Eh.
   "Jumping Jesus that thing can talk!"  There's that Bobby again, such an observant fellow.
   "Let's see if it can die then."  Muttered Jarred.
   This prompted me to take a sudden change in direction and put on some speed.  I know for a fact that once the smarter half of the pair gets adjusted he can, to quote the proud parents, shoot a 'skeeter off a dogs nose two miles away.  I hear the bang, I can hear the bullet whistle through the air.  Yeah, if I didn't know these two boys so well this would have been a really anti-climactic chase right now.  Well, for me at least.
   "Golly.  Didja see how that thing moved."  The lesser twin whispered at a hundred and fifty decibels.
   "No Bobby, I was busy noticing how beautiful the moon was tonight.  Now shut your pie-hole and lets get this sonuvabitch."  If he wasn't doing his best to kill me, pull my guts out, stuff me, and mount me above the fireplace, I would get this guy some Shiner Bock.  It's a beer for you mouth breathers who don't drink.
   I decide to speed up and make myself scarce.  Murdering two farmers just really wasn't my idea of a good time.  Plus, ever since May spotted and took an  interest in me, I've been stalking her employers.  Besides the tendency to fly into a homicidal rage at the sign of a trespasser, they seem to be good people.  So, they totally earned at least one free escape.
   A lot of sentient beings would lose themselves in this forest, possibly never to return to civilization.  Not me.  I could run through this place with my eyes closed and both legs chained together.  Darting through the forest on almost nothing but pure instinct, May starts taking up more and more of my thoughts.  I am convinced that once someone meets her, they have a hard time thinking of anything else.  Well, if they can call themselves a man at any rate.  Her skin is milky white and smooth as silk.  Her bleach blond hair twirls about her as if it had a life of its own.  Her eyes puffy and pink, accented with  beautiful blood red streaks.  And for a human she has a pretty decent sized rack.
   I figure that she will be ok on her own.  If nothing else I've seen her verbally run circles around the twins.  'Sides, this is Halloween,  tomorrow they'll just think they never noticed the zipper.
   Guess it's time to head back to her place.
   
   An hour later after the Hecklers ate my proverbial dust,  the smell of the city was getting closer by the second, but so was something else.  Something not of this world.  I raise my fists in case things start to get ugly, and with my constant stream of luck, it always does.
   "All right, what ever hideous Niflheim beast better step it's ass forward or the beating is just going to be worst."  It has to be a creature from Niflheim, there's just no mistaking their sent;  It smells like a glacier.
   "'Ello. 'Ello.  Govna."  The voice sounded like icicles breaking off of a tree.  Cold, disjointed, and unexpectedly sharp.  A small dark form stepped out from behind a tree, it's face covered in a blue frosty beard.  It's dimly glowing yellow eyes lacking any defining features like an Iris or a pupal.  The creature's leathery gray skin was glisting with sweat.  It wasn't alone either as at least five more stepped out from behind other trees, all of them armed with a single axe.  My kind calls them Dwarves, dangerous beings with surprisingly hot tempers.  They were all wearing red shorts and red shirts.  The later having some sort of strange rune in ink over their heart.
   "Hey shorties.  You minuscule terrors need anything or are you ladies out for a late night picnic?" 
   My humor was rewarded with an axe barreling towards my face.  I was ready though, the blade only nicked my nose and the attacker was rewarded with an open palm strike that sent him tumbling backwards.  He didn't get up, but dwarves are tough and this one should live. 
   I grin my lopsided smile and look up at the remaining group.  Their eyes were wide open with shock.  I wipe the blood off of my nose and address the lot.  "Well, his chest will probably be sore for a week or so.  Now what do you say I go one way, and you go the other."  Mother always told me when talking to a group of Dwarves, take out the leader.  The rest will listen to you with respect and you'll always get out with your skin still attached.

   ...

   As I run through the forest that spans Northwest Arkansas I can't help but repeat the same line to myself over and over again.  Stupid fucking brainless Dwarves!  It's Halloween night, our night, and here I am being chased by the vertically challenged lynch mob.  I keep forgetting that my mom lives in an insane asylum for many, many good reasons.
   An axe spiraled magnificently into a fledgling oak tree.
   I sigh, put on more speed and do my juke and jive thing.  After this merry jog through the woods I'm going to head to May's house, spend a half hour or so apologizing and end up sleeping on the couch any way.
   Oh well.  At least this week can't get any worse.

[Jim Halisstrad]

Chapter 1

Raze the dead.

   Near dawn I make it back to the clearing that May's cabin is nestled within.  It's not much, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a tiny closet of a kitchen, and a cramped living room is all that the shack is composed of.  But I call it my home away from home.  Yawning as I open the front door I get a mouth full of greasy air, letting me know that Gad is home and abusing the kitchen again.
   The sloth king of the pixies was currently sprawled out across the couch, flicking through satellite channel after satellite channel, a huge plate of fried chicken resting on his bony chest.   Shaking my head in disgust I flop down in the recliner and start to drift off to sleep.
   When the beast was just at the cusp of dreamland he was brought back by Gad's monotone voice.  "May called before you got back.  She says she's going to rip out your spine and skip rope with it."
   I flutter one of my eyes open and glance over at him.  I will never understand why he paints his, lips, nails, wings, anything thats not skin that awful charcoal black. "Oh?"
   "Yep."  The pixie replies before chowing down on his artery clogging feast.
   About twenty minutes pass and I start to succumb to the sandman's special brew when Gad's flat voice grates on my ears once more.  "Your leg bled all over May's recliner, you might want to do something about that."
   This gets me up and out of the chair.  "Ah son of a bitch!"  I roar before I rampage through the house looking for a bottle of spray cleaner.  Several minutes later the search proves to be fruitless, and I'm left standing in the living room gazing at the destruction I have wrought upon May's house.  Why did I search the bookcase I start to wonder when the Fae spoke up again.
   I start to cringe even before the first word leaves his thin lips.  "We used up all the cleaning supplies after your fight with the troll last week, remember?"
   "Why didn't you tell me that before I thrashed the place looking for some then?" I shout accusingly at Gad.  "Now I have to clean this place up and figure out a way to get blood out of the chair!"
   "Dude, quiet.  I'm watching Oprah."
   No jury on this plane or any other would have the balls to convict me.  Taking a deep breath, counting to one hundred, and running out side to bash a tree with my fists till it topples over, I calm down.  Sighing, I head back inside and proceed to get to work.  It only takes me an hour or three to clean the house speck and span.  I couldn't get the blood out of the chair, but maybe the extra work I put in will make up for it.  Exhausted I shower and then crash on May's bed.

   "Ok, talk to you later Spooky." Are the words that arouse the monster from his slumber.  I take stock of my surroundings.  I was laying in May's large bed, velvet pillows scattered around haphazardly on it.  Besides the odd collection of pillows May, or Spooky as some call her, keeps a fairly functional room.  The only decoration being a picture hidden by the darkness.
   "That was May, she left like an hour ago.  You were out for about fifteen hours this time."  Suddenly I noticed that Gad was in the room looking at the picture as well.
   "Huh."  I Stood up to stretch and noticed that my leg was bandaged up.
   "Yeah, I didn't want you bleeding over anything else so I patched your leg.  May says thanks by the way for cleaning the house.  And I got the blood stain out before she got home, so she doesn't even know about that."
   "Huh.  Thanks Gad.  I owe you one."  One thing about Gad, he's very unpredictable.
   "Eh."
   "Is she still pissed at me for sneaking out to see her?"
   "Yeah, she says your grounded."  Chuckling at this we move the conversation into the living room.  The pixie flutters his wings for a few seconds and then sits back down on the couch before picking up a video game controller.
   "Don't you ever get tired of sitting in front of that idiot box?"  Maybe it was my aversion to technology speaking, but sitting in front of a glowing screen all day can not be healthy.
   Gad picked up a bottle of Shiner and sipped at it.  "Could always go back to pranks."
   "Never mind." 
   About this time I noticed that it was unnaturally quiet; only the wind and the sound of Fragfest 2000 was auidiable.  Straining my ear to listen I walk over to the window and look outside.  There was one Dwarf, standing at the edge of the clearing in the light of the full moon.  Grinning at me sadistically he holds up a syringe containing a brightly glowing green liquid.  His yellow eyes flare and maniacle laughter echoes across the landscape.  "Shit, incoming zombies!"  I shout as I run back to May's room, and retrieve my weapons of choice from under the bed. 
   "Try not to wreck Spooky's house this time."  Gad mumbled just loud enough to be understandable.
   I walk to the door and turn to face Gad holding up Daisy and Duke, two flails forged out of Gremlin steel.  The chain was roughly three and a half feet long, spikes starting up the chain a foot away from the end.  Two Gargoyle heads covered in spikes served as the ball for the flail, one smiling, the other grimacing.  "Don't worry, they're not going to set one rotting foot inside this house."
   Thats when the bull busted through the front door, knocking me up into the air, knocking the flails from my hands.  Fortunately I landed on my back and was able to grab it by the horns before it could gore me to death. 
   While I was struggling Gad stood up and started to walk back to his room.  "Whoa boy, the irony is staggering.  I'm going to go to my room and take a nap. Wake me when you've cleaned up this mess."
   One headbutt and a caved in skull later, this beast was ready to rock and roll.  Standing up I notice that Daisy and Duke are missing.  They would have been really useful right now as the hoards of the undead start filling the room.  They surround me in a circle staring at me with glazed expressions.  An eye ball rolled out of a rotting socket and hung, connected to nerves coated in congealing fluid.  And they just sat there.  Staring.
   Finally a different one that had a lot of it's insides on it's outsides pointed at me.  "Braaaaaaaaaaiiiiins?"  The zombies started looking at each other.  Occasionally pointing at me and muttering about brains.  Eventually dead guy whose skin was all but missing from it's face shook it's head and turned around.  The hoard followed suit and slowly shuffled out the front door.
   My mouth agape I stood there.  I just got dissed.   I got dissed by zombies.  Looking down at the bull my temper flares.  Breaking off the bulls horns to use as weapons, cursing to my self loudly, my vision turns to red.
   "Hey, you zombies dissing me?"  I shout across the clearing raising my bloody weapons in a defiant challenge.
   The one with the dangly eye points and shakes it's head.  "No Braaaaaaaaaaiiiiins!"  It yells back.
   My pride took a fatal wound.  "Fuck you guys!"  I yell, charging the hoard.  A quick strike and a zombie falls backwards, coagulating blood splattering from a freshly carved head wound.   The decided mass turns to wards me, finally taking notice of me as I finally take notice of them.
   It look liked about a hundred to one.
   My kind of odds.

   Exhausted I drop my improvised weapons to the blood soaked ground.  There wasn't an inch of fur that wasn't coated in gore, fortunately most of it wasn't mine.  I took a nasty bite on the shoulder, but contrary to zombie movies everywhere the most you have to worry about is natural infection.  Not the kind that makes you go crazy for brains.
   Freshly reminded of what started this whole battle I mutter out a few curse words and look around for the Dwarf responsible.  Nothing, the clearing was completely empty.  Well, empty besides seventy eight de-animated corpses, mostly humans and one chicken.  The front of the house was a wreck, the battle waged a little to close and a few zombies got flung through some windows and walls.  Not to mention the large crater where the bull burst through.  Nothing I can't fix though.
   Thud, thud, thud... The ground started to shake and rumble.  "What now."  I sighed and turned around.
   Every once in a while you see something that makes you wish that the day had a do over button.  Like betting on the wrong sports team, or say a blind date that turns out to have a little something extra under the skirt.  An an undead cyclops will make you wish that you had slept in every time, especially when he is flinging a boulder at you that is easily twice your size.  Yours truly flings himself to the ground and avoids a painful end.  The kitchen wasn't so lucky.
   "Damnit!" I yell, thinking for a second I see the bright side of the situation.  "Well at least Gad won't be cooking any more."  Getting up off the ground I gage my opponent.  Twelve feet tall and wearing nothing but a loincloth, it's muscular form is covered in gashes, cuts, burns, and puncture wounds.  They only hair it has stems from a long filthy pony tail from back of it's head.  The single, baleful eye stares at me with an intensity that is unusual for the undead.  There is a familiar dwarf sitting on it's wide shoulder.
   "'Ello.  'Ello.  Govna'.  We.  Improved.  The.  Formula."  He whispers something into the giants ear.  The huge creature picks the midget up and gently sets him on the ground.  Without warning the cyclops roars and charges.
   "Fine fugly, lets dance!"  I roar back and bolt towards the huge form.
   When we close it swings a giant meaty fist down towards me.  I leap to the side and it punches ground; grass and dirt erupt around the things fist and it leaves a sizeable crater in the earth.  Another swing is met with another dodge.  It finally rears back and brings it's hands togeather to try smash me with all its might.
   Finally, it was my turn to press the attack.  As it brings it's hands down I dive between the thing's legs, spin around, and leap onto its back.   As it starts to  upright itself again I grab it's hair and bound up the length of its back where I hold on to the base of the grimy strings for dear life.  It does the sterotypical look-around-everywhere-thing that giant monsters seem to always do when a small creature  uses it for a hinding spot.  Using my left arm to hold on the other hand feircly pounds away at the back of it's skull.  It screams in anger and brings both hands behind it's head, then it brings them forward as hard as it can.  I push myself towards the ground as bones crack and gore flies from the back of it's skull as it's own strentgh caves it in.  One eye stands there for a moment before topling face forward, shattering the ground around it's collapse.  Groaning I stand up, clucthing my wounded shoulder, which was now sore from trying to punch through bone and being landed on.  Dusting my self off I wait and see if it gets back up.
   It doesn't.
   "HAH!  The bigger they are, the more ass I get to kick!"  I gloat while making my way to the front of the giant.  The view from the back was going to give me nightmares for years to come.  Looking at the house revilles a scene of terror.  There was no quick fixing now, the place was absolutly trashed.  When May gets home she is going to skin me alive, at  the very least.  At this point the best thing is to pray for a quick death.
   Thats when a mighty blow from behind made the world go black.

   My entire body felt like it had been hit by a semi.  I hear a large thud and my eyes open as quick as they can, one eye doesn't quite make all the way up.   Several things were noticed at once: I was upside down resting against some part of the house that was still standing,  the cyclops was still alive, and finaly he was right in front of me.  "Oh boy, prayers granted."  I might be able to move, but there is no way that I was dodging him now.  My eyes close and I get ready to have a short trip to the great beyond.
   BANG. BANG.
   Not meat hands, gunshots!  I do my best to roll to the side and get out of the way.   A concophany of crashes ring out across the clearing.  Shakely making it to my feet, my eyes open and I gaze upon my saviour.
   There was May, her buetiful bloodshot eyes staring at me with a look of pure rage that only she can pull off.  Her Revolver smoking and down at her side.  The black, low cut evening dress hugging her tightly.  Wait, what?  "That must have been one hell of a shot..."  I stamer off, trying not to think about her outfit.
   May's impressive chest swells as she inhales for a sigh.  "My shot missed."  I didn't like where this conversation was going.  "Jarred's went right through the hole in it's skull and bounced around it's head."
   "Ya know, I always thought something like you would be a lot taller."  There over to the side of May was Jarred Heckler wearing a nice, expensive suit. 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Did you want someone to spellcheck your work before postage? :-)

[Jim Halisstrad]

Spell check is for weak children with soft heads.

Srlsly though, I tought I posted the version that was spellchecked.  (I keep copies)  My bad.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

There's also issues like "raze" which is fine, if you're talking about cutting them down like grass.

If you're thinking about bringing them back to life, you'd be looking for "raise", which, while it sounds the same, isn't precisely the same meaning.... :-)

[Jim Halisstrad]

It was kind of a play on words, what with all the zombie killing and all ;]




For those interested it was also going to be a while before anymore combat showed up in the story.  I had a lot (A LOT) of talking planned for the next few chapters.  I'll get around to spell checking when I get back home or tommorrow, but for those who could stomach to read it, any advice?  Keep in mind this was originally written for http://www.nanowrimo.org/ but got canceled due to familly issues.