The Pallbearer: The Barter System Part 2

Mercy Killing

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t really want to pull the trigger. Killing angels was starting to bore me. Particularly when they weren’t that angelic to begin with. This one was all quivering and shaking beneath the couple layers of bravado topsoil he had planted. Too bad I’d had plenty of time sifting through bullshit. “Cassie, could you just, I don’t know, break his legs or something?” “I’m better at pushing stuff and bursting internal organs.”

The Pallbearer: The Barter System Part 1

Incubii

Waking up is closer to death than any other part of life. You thrash and twitch as you come to, your eyes starting to open. That crusty shit gets in the way though and keeps them mostly shut, only letting light barely peep under the lid. Finally, when you do get them all the way open, the world isn’t half what you were expecting. At this point, you’d rather just roll over and forget it. You can’t though. You can’t sleep any more now than you could if a tiger was standing on your chest.

In my case, one was.

The Pallbearer: Honeymoon Blues Part 4

Rising

The sun was rising when Cassie and I reached the outside. I had never been one that watched sunrises much before Chrysalis. I was too busy watching strange things happening around me to be bothered. This one though, this particular sunrise, got watched.

It was worth it.

Cassie saw it first as we came up the incline leading out of the tunnel we had walked for over thirty hours. Her head tilted to the right as she saw the sky. She stood that way for a moment, even as I kept walking, my eyes on the ground, trying to tug her forward. Then, just as my eyes started to tilt up and look at the thing pouring light across my toes, even as my Brute’s optics were finally deciding to come out of night vision mode, Cassie ran.

The Pallbearer: Honeymoon Blues Part 3

Reverant

I have always been accused as having a lack of proper respect for the important things in life. I think that got started the first time I put my gum in the collection plate. Nobody seemed very amused. I figured Jesus could use some gum. Must suck being stuck on that cross all the time. Y’know, the way I figured it, if his death was stopping us from being in hell, he must be there too. And you know, that only pissed off the priest all the more.

That was fine too though. I quite liked the idea that I wasn’t well liked. Never really felt like polishing the holy pole myself.

But here, here, I think they’d all have to shut their fucking mouths.

The Pallbearer: Honeymoon Blues Part 2

Tunnel of Love

Talking had somehow become a festival of stumbling words and bumbling sentiments. When had I become a tangled mess? When had I become a garbage pile of broken ideas and half-finished thoughts? As Cassie and I made our way down the recently cleared road to the Gray Pack village at the entrance to the tunnel they had come through, we spoke little. I had been fighting for the better part of a year to be with her and now that I had her, I had my tongue cut out?

How goddamned stupid.

The Pallbearer: Honeymoon Blues Part 1

Forté

The walls of my new junkyard district were overrun with refugees. They were rats fleeing a sinking ship for another one that had only begun its descent. Bellmaker’s Errata were almost back to full strength with only two hundred memory chips left to implant into a functioning robot but it wasn’t enough. Even up to the original six thousand they had been before West Worthington’s purges, they had to stop all construction in order to simply monitor the tide of immigrants. Alithea and her mate Nar had their thousands working to try and build shelters for themselves AND the refugees. They too were swamped under our new popularity. That was something to this empire running that I hadn’t considered.

That people would want in.

Pallbearer: Wedding Dirge

Wedding Dirge

It has always struck me just how similar the wedding song and the funeral march are. Don’t worry too much about that to death ‘til us part bit; it won’t be that long until you’re both in the ground anyway. Some people say pomp and circumstance is like that too. I don’t know, never heard it. It wouldn’t surprise me though. Between stunted imaginations and the normal tongue-in-cheek crap, it’d be just about par.

The Pallbearer: War Part 6

Coalition Forces

I have to say I was beginning to become impressed with the way Mr. Anderson had handled everything. None of our creators had understood that we had emotions. That wasn’t supposed to be a product of our artificial intelligence. We were supposed to be reasoning, not feeling. There was a fine line between the two, truthfully. What else would you call the signal relaying damage to my CPU but pain? Honestly, these humanoids were baffling.

All of them except for Mr. Anderson, of course. The fox woman, Alithea, was less than impressed. She had been shouting for most of the last three days about his idiotic methods. I supposed she was shouting mainly because we were all expecting to be destroyed. Even Bellmaker was willing to accept this.

The Pallbearer: War Part 5

One Man Army

My nightmares walked with me as I made the long haul towards the oncoming Disciples. It was hard to tell apart the nightmares from the dreams. With at least one clone of Arlee having been kicking around, it wasn’t that hard to imagine more. That’s all I needed, an army of Arlee; barking orders and whimpering dinner instructions to their long gone wife in their sleep.

I had stumbled through this junkyard before on my way out of Gravesite. I had gunned down phantoms then too. It had been my prisoner disposal unit. I had blown apart their memories and put them to bed. They weren’t haunting me this time. No. This time, it was everyone else.

The Pallbearer: War Part 4

Fishing With Dynamite

I cried for joy as the air was painted with the screams of the dying and the lamentations of those who would soon join them. St. George was far too strong a beast to cry, but it roared its appreciation of the carnage with volley after volley of high explosive. The ground erupted angrily, spewing shards of old car and apartment windows into the Judge army.

It had been beautifully text book. The Judges had made their encampment in a sloping valley of garbage. They had no cover barring the old husks of long dead cars. The Sleepers had held back in reserve as those Errata with long-range rifles came to the fore. The tank-treaded Errata retrofit their grenade launchers to volley fire and positioned themselves as our artillery. Well out of range of the few Repentant pistols, the massacre had begun.

The Pallbearer: War Part 3

Conscripts

The first time I had come through this district, I had had the dead following me. I had put down every one of my companions. At the very least, I put away their bloody memories. This time, I had an army of machines out to help me slaughter a massive raiding party of animal men. Except things were more complicated than that. Weren’t they always?

My Errata pushed forward relentlessly. It was beautiful. St. George sought out the largest mounds of trash and blew them apart with high explosives. The Sleepers that broke from cover died, gunned down by the treaded Errata leading the charge. Hardly any bothered to try and charge us. It was appalling to me.

The Pallbearer: War Part 2

Outnumbered

Cassie’s ring had never shone more butter gold than when I had slipped it on her finger on Bellmaker’s operating table. She was not awake. I hadn’t been able to stay that long. The Errata were already on the march. Landon, the little Dr. Steel fan, had been busy. After the initial intrusion, he had rounded up the other scouts and sent them searching for signs of invasion. What they found distressed the Errata.

The Pallbearer: War Part 1

Casualties

There wasn’t a mop big enough to clean up the shit storm that the Errata and I had started. That’s what it looked like anyway, when West Worthington failed to send any troops to reclaim The Junkyard after a week and a half. I was vaguely amused. It must have taken them completely off guard to have their operations effectively neutered. There were corporate stragglers still wandering back from failed patrols deep into The Junkyard only to find that it wasn’t a safe house for them any further. Those that wanted to fight were cut down without regret, but those smart enough to surrender were spared. It seemed the fair way to handle things.

The Pallbearer: Bad Blood Part 4

Swallowed Whole

It's kind of funny.  I think me and the old man are the only two people I know of who could spill their guts on all their devious little activities while chasing each other around an office that had been torn to hell.  I'd gone charging after him, shotgun in hand, as he bounded away.  He was giggling as he had told me about my parents' death and his occult associations.  He had stopped dead in his tracks when the last word spilled from his mouth, caught my shotgun, and bent it in two.  He had stared into my eyes with a bit of sadistic glee then.

"Your turn boy."

The Pallbearer: Bad Blood Part 3

 Retelling

Somehow, I expected the story of my birth parents' death to be more exciting, particularly seeing as their lives were sacrificed to a dark god by my inhuman (non)grandfather.  I had been looking forward to finding out all the juicy details when I finally died and was burning in Hell.  Unfortunately, it was boring and trite.  Oh no, there was a car wreck due to failed brakes.  Tragedy, the occupants were robbed and their throats cut.  That was it.  That was all the old bastard had done.  He cut their brakes and their throats, drank some blood, and bailed.  He took some back to grandma (who was not my grandma either) and she drank some too.  He killed her six months down the road because he was bored with her and wanted all the power to himself.  The only thing of faint amusement to me was that he claimed to worship Jack of the Lantern, and that he had taken to calling himself Mobius.  Whoop de freakin' doo.

My story was much better.  And it went something like this...

The Pallbearer: Bad Blood Part 2

On The Rise

You never expect to see those you bury ambling around again later. You especially don't expect to see them slowly eating their secretary, waiting for you to get wasted by a shotgun blast to the head. I suppose it was my own damn fault for putting him in the ground still breathing.

He had tried to cut my throat, like he had cut my parents', and consume every bit of life I had in me. Papa was a bitch that way. I remembered little of my real parents. They had died when I was six, and for four years, my Papa had watched over me. It turns out he was just fattening me up for sacrifice. Clean the soul for a couple years with meditation and a little bit of religion, and you've got yourself a tasty snack. Fucker.

The Pallbearer: Bad Blood Part 1

Emergence

On the twentieth floor of the West Worthington Headquarters overseeing the Jeng District, a quiet man in his late sixties stood motionless. He was watching out the great window walls that made up his building. Down far below him, people scrambled around the feet of the great structure. They were his security forces and they were preparing themselves.

Neil Anderson had been found. Rather, Neil Anderson had found them.

His powered suit, a Brute model, was marching towards the front gate as the quiet man watched. Several Fafnir class helicopters had already been shot down by its mammoth rifle. The quiet man was uncomfortable.

The Pallbearer: Fevers In Berlin Part 5

Perpetual Motion

I was living in the belly of a dragon when I first met Cassie. I was its weapon system and she was the navigator. Captain Chris Grant was in charge. Our heli was the only one to escape the quarantine of Gravesite when the wall fell. The rest were either shot down or grounded themselves and swore allegience to The Commandant.

We were put on death row for escaping. Like most executions, ours was to be televised. Death coming to you, live from The Hill.

As far as most people knew, we died. It was an asphyxiation night. If we'd have left Grant alive, he'd have been pissed to learn it was just another pair of prisoners made up to look like us that they strapped the choke collars on. But we didn't.

The Pallbearer: Fevers In Berlin Part 4

Declaration Of Intent

Cassie always hated red roses. She preferred the fake ones, painted neon blue or lemon yellow. Never thirteen. Always one at a time.

A rose every Sunday and Wednesday, her worst days. The day before the work week and the never-ending halfway day.

I tore the rod out of The Conductor's leg and tried to stand. He grabbed me by the collarbone and squeezed, bones cracking, pain on intravenous drip through my veins.

I drove the steel rod into The Conductor's stomach about an inch before he caught the rod and flung me over his shoulder.

The Pallbearer: Fevers In Berlin Part 3

Cause

Everyone has something they're fighting for. I'm fighting for Cassie. For my future. For three children not born yet. For a nice house I've never seen. For a city where you have a better chance of living through the night.

I had a witty line for Grendel. I always seem to have smart-assed comments when it looks like I'm about to die.

It went something like:

"You're not really Grendel."

"Yes I am. Why would you say otherwise?"

"Because you've still got both arms."

(And right here, I'd rip off the arm that held me up by the head and beat him with it.)

"Oh, my mistake, maybe you are Grendel."