Terror at Lost Goblins by David Anderson (Random Title #18)

Frederick looked down at the letters, and the stories contained therein. He missed receiving them, even though he was sure old Tobias was crazy. Around the middle of every month he’d open an envelope containing a cordial letter along with the manuscript for a short story, and sometimes even poetry. Frederick was sure Tobias was mentally ill, or at least suffered from some kind of high stress or anxiety. Although, Frederick thought, anyone could go crazy out there at the Lost Goblins Motor Home Park in Death Valley. Of all the places to go in California, he certainly chose one of the worst.

It had been a few months since he had heard from Tobias, and Frederick was getting worried. The old man was near eighty years old, and drank plenty enough for a twenty year old, let alone someone his age. He should have been dead a long time ago, but something worried Frederick. The last letter contained only a blank piece of paper with I’VE DISCOVERED SOMETHING BIG scrawled on it in pencil.

The fiction that Tobias wrote was unusual, and even for a well-read man like Frederick, it came off as incredibly odd. Frederick read Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, Jeffrey Thomas, and other authors of the weird. Still, the strange world of the undead battling each other with laser guns and horses that were also called cheetahs, it baffled Frederick. The prose was only okay, and a lot of the ideas had been used before, but there was something oozing from it, a creepy feeling that invaded the author’s mind while consuming the subpar text of the story.

He missed those shitty manuscripts, with the bad titles. Sometimes he thought old Tobias just mixed random words around in a hat and came up with a story based on whatever nonsensical title he came up with. Frederick guessed the old coot didn’t have anything better to do, and that wasn’t so bad because the old man seemed happy. Still, he felt the urge to try and investigate the old man’s fate.

***

The road to the mobile home area was incredibly rough, even by desert standards. Once Frederick was off the highway, it was nothing but bumpy dirt stretches with giant, cat sized rocks, in random placement, and nothing that resembled a traversable stretch of sane road.

Finally, he came to a dirty white sign, made of long wooden boards that read LOST GOLBINS, YOU’RE HOME! The text was painted on with green and pink paint, and it looked like, by the style of font, it had been created in the 1950’s.

As Frederick drove into the park, a sick knot formed in his stomach. The place had been abandoned for at least a decade, probably around the time Frederick had first met the old man. Tobias was a friend of Frederick’s late father, in fact his dying wish was that Frederick look after the old man. His father had passed ten years prior, and Tobias had been living in the guest house on his Dad’s estate.

Tobias supposedly moved to Lost Goblins after his father passed and the estate was sold, and Frederick kept up with him via letters. He had never actually met the old coot in person, but he still felt like he knew the crazy son of a bitch. In the age of technology it was strange to not at least see what someone looks like when exchanging over social media or some other platform, but it added a bit of mystery to Tobias that Frederick liked. It was endearing that the letters were hand-written, a nice touch.

Unit 6 was Tobias’ mobile home number, and he pulled in the makeshift driveway that was really just a car sized clearing amongst the trash and debris of the mobile home park. There weren’t any fresh tire tracks, so it probably hadn’t been used in a long time, the two foot weeds growing around sporadically in the clearing confirming that story.

Clumps of dust and small twigs caked the screen door of the unit, which sent a bolt of rage through Frederick. He had come all this way for nothing, no one had opened that door for years. Still, he needed a peek inside to search for any kind of clue as to what was going on. He opened the screen door, which was practically glued to the frame form years of grime. Frederick decided he should get a flashlight, as the sun was setting, so he grabbed one from his car. He ran back to the entrance, the screen door now hanging open, and tried the main door. It was unlocked, so he let himself in.

All the windows were boarded up, and Frederick had his confirmation that no one was living there, and had not for a long time. The letters still had this address on them, and they had to be coming from somewhere. But they could have been mailed from anywhere in Death Valley and still have the right post mark. A fake return address was hardly a new thing.

Frederick was about to consider the mystery solved, or at least partially solved, when he heard a curious noise emanating from the back room. It sounded like a ribbed vacuum hose being pulled across the floor, along with what he could only describe as ‘something wet’. The sun was fully set now, and the inside of the unit was pitch black. He shined his flashlight down the narrow corridor of the mobile home hallway, and the light splashed against a cheap faux wood door. As Frederick crept forward, the intensity of the noise increased.

Frederick, feeling a surge of courage rush through him, turned the knob and flung the door open. Sitting in a chair, placed in front of a worn down bed, was the old man. He had been dead for many years, now a cobwebbed adorned, withered corpse. A pile of paper along with pencils and envelopes, including a stack of recently purchased stamps, resided in front of Tobias. Something stirred from beneath the bed, but instead of aim the light beneath to see what was there, Frederick ran with a speed he thought was only capable for Olympic athletes and dove into his car, shooting rocks around the mobile home park as he peeled out, motoring away from the horrible place as fast as he could.

Finally, Frederick made it home to his apartment in Los Angeles, relaxed that he was finally on familiar turf. On the way to his apartment room he decided to stop by the mailbox, unlocking the small metal door and pulling out the mail, which consisted of only one item. It was a new letter from Tobias.

-----

DAVID ANDERSON lives and writes in Mesa, Arizona. His work has appeared in Surreal Grotesque's online magazine, and other ezines like Bizarro Central, Garden Gnome Pulbications, and The Rot Gut County Blog. He can be found in print in 50 Secret Tales of the Whispering Gash: A Queefrotica and Witch!, an anthology from Dynatox Ministries.

The Vampire of the Muddy Atomic Zombie By David Anderson (Random Title #13)

“Y’all’s types ain’t welcome ‘round here,” said the Skeleton Sherriff, his star pinned to the vest that hung around his sun bleached bones.

“We don’t want any trouble, mister lawman,” said Mathias, but he was of course lying. Mathias was one of the Knight Riders, a group of rogue vampires that rode mechanical horses across the countryside, raiding ghoul and skeleton towns alike.

“I don’t care what y’all want, get the hell outta my town!” the lawman said, the near-midnight moon functioning like a spotlight, illuminating the affair.

“Very well, at the stroke of midnight we draw, sheriff,” Mathias said, casting a humorous gaze towards his companions. The old clock of the town square made a faint clicking noise as the hand rolled over to the twelve, and the lightning fast reflexes of Mathias gave him the upper hand as his gat was out and fired before the lawman could even reach for his piece. A crackle of anti-energy forever rendered the lawman an inert pile of bones, and some of the skeletal townfolk shuttered their windows as the Knight Riders made their way to the local town generator to charge their weapons and horses. Gats were great weapons, small and handled like a pistol. Unlike generator based weapons that could fire for long periods of time, Gats used a battery and only had six shots.

The Knight Riders rode mechanical horses called Land Cheetahs, the fastest form of transportation that existed short of a restored vehicle, which was rare outside of the army, who rarely used them anyway. Land Cheetahs were made from the scraps of cars built during “The Old Age” by living humans.

Once the mechanical horse is assembled, the re-animated brain of a ghoul horse is placed inside the artificial horse, and the horse essentially becomes ‘alive’. If a ghoul or skeleton is dismembered, they continue to live on, but their energy is usually collected into the brain or skull cavity. This essence brings to life the mechanical construct, letting it think and act like the horse its brain once was.

Mathias built his Land Cheetah from the remains of a great car called a ‘Ferrari’. This legendary car once belonged to the celebrity Justin Bieber, so he decided to name his horse Biebs. Land Cheetahs were called horses as slang, because they looked the part and performed the same tasks.

“Easy Biebs,” Mathias said as the horse looked to the west, towards The Black Mesa. It neighed and snorted, mirroring the actions of the horse on the Ferrari emblem that adorned its forehead. The sickening chunk of mountainous terrain hung black and rotten in the distance, reaching toward the desert sky with a rage.

“Gentleman, let’s get a move on,” signaling to the other riders that it was time to disembark. “If we ride all night we can make the Black Mesa before dawn.”

“We finally made it,” said Rudy, one of the other riders. He spoke of the long quest from Europe to New Mexico in search of answers, answers to questions that had been hanging in the air for over a hundred years.

In 2050, a peculiar meteorite struck the Earth. It was curious in the fact that it had the politeness to slow down before impact, which is usually a particularly hard feat for an inanimate object. The meteorite did however hit with enough force to lodge itself deep within the ground, the black rock it consisted of forming a small mountain. When it arrived, it triggered the arrival of the undead. Anything that had ever died rose, creating massive, previously buried armies that assaulted the living. The Black Mesa, as the meteorite is called, somehow lets the spiritual, psychic energy of a dead organism reanimate said organism; the only way they can find death again is through an anti- corporeal weapon or anti-weapon.

Vampires, however, existed before The Black Mesa came to Earth. Once the meteorite struck the planet, the vampires became ‘deaders’, the species own term for the affliction they suffered. Sunlight, wooden stakes, dismemberment; these methods of killing a vampire no longer worked as vampires obtained a kind of super immortality. Vampires also lost the need to feed on blood, another way a vampire can become weak and eventually perish.

Without the need for blood, the hunt, some vampires went crazy, laying down on the desert floor, waiting for dawn and the cleansing power of the sun to end their desperate lives. They still burnt, but remained alive, turned into horrifying living statues until the merciful day that an anti-gun takes them out.

“Yes, Rudy, we did. Like all of you, the lack of the hunt, of feeding, has left me feeling empty inside, hollow. But this quest has renewed us, given us purpose. We must find out the secrets of The Black Mesa, find out a way to reverse its effects. Maybe life can spring forth again, and we will finally get to drink the warm fluids of life.”

The men all tipped their hats to their leader, and Mathias turned his view to The Black Mesa.

***

It was an hour until dawn, and the men started digging their grave holes to bed down for the night. The Black Mesa was only two hours ride away, at least on their blazing fast Land Cheetahs. They parked the mechanical horses and dug in for the evening.

Mathias was awakened a few hours later by the muffled speech of a heated exchange happening above, on the ground. “What exactly you boys doin’ out here at The Black Mesa?” said a voice Mathias didn’t recognize, as one he did chimed in.

“Please, don’t do it, don’t let the sun hit me,” but before Rudy could finish his sentence, Mathias heard the familiar and haunting sound of a vampire turning to ash. He knew Rudy was still alive, but a prisoner encased forever in stone.

“Let’s dig up the rest of these batwinged sons a bicthes while the gettins’ good, boys!” said the same voice that questioned Rudy. Mathias made a mental note of the voice, vowing to destroy the undead bastard that spoke it. The sound of explosions above indicated that the steam-cores of the Land Cheetahs were being overloaded, and Mathias suddenly feared for Biebs.

The carnage continued throughout the day, as Knight Riders were dug up, briefly questioned, and then turned into living statues. As the day went on, they moved closer to Mathias with each screaming body they dug up. Mathias, being a Vampire, was very in-tune with the cycle of the Earth, and sensed night falling. Just as they broke ground over his grave site, his body gave him the cue that lethal doses of light had faded.

Mathias exploded out of the ground, pulling out his two Gats and unloading them on the skeleton men who were unearthing him for his sunlit interrogation. As soon as they were out, he dropped them and picked up two more from a nearby body, firing them into the group of seven men that remained. Everyone ducked for cover, including Mathias who found shelter by a boulder near the campsite.

“Come out with yer hand up, Vampir’” said a skeleton with a voice that matched Rudy’s killer.

“And just who am I surrendering to, Skeleton Man?” Mathias said, trying to buy himself some time.

“I’m Boss Bones and this here is my posse, The Bone Boys,” said the skeleton, dressed in western style clothing, including a cowboy hat.

Mathias took advantage of the brief cease fire and made use of his lightning fast reflexes, a well-aimed pot-shot taking out one of the bone boys as Boss Bones ducked behind a cactus. It was enough of a distraction to enable Mathias to get to Biebs, who was luckily still alive and kicking.

“Well, we should go after him, huh boss?” said one of the Bone Boys.

Boss Bones stared out after the dust cloud left by the speeding mechanical horse. “Yep, I reckon we do, only one place he could be going. Only one place close enough to travel to by dawn.”

Just as the Bone Boys saddled up, Rudy’s ashy tomb began to crack open. Before Boss Bones could react, a glowing, molten hand of some kind of muddy, goopy looking zombie-vampire raked against the boss’ face, ripping the bone clean off. With half of his face missing, Boss Bones rasped orders to his men but it was too late – more glowing zompires emerged from their statue like forms and attacked his men.

Boss Bones and two men that had survived hopped onto their horses and rode west, rode on to find and execute the vampire that had escaped them.

-------

DAVID ANDERSON lives and writes in Mesa, Arizona. His work has appeared in Surreal Grotesque's online magazine, and other ezines like Bizarro Central, Garden Gnome Pulbications, and The Rot Gut County Blog. He can be found in print in 50 Secret Tales of the Whispering Gash: A Queefrotica and Witch!, an anthology from Dynatox Ministries.

Frankenstein Had the Jenny Everywhere by David Anderson (Random Title #8)

“Damn you, I need a jenny here now!” screamed the Ghoul Sergeant into the mic as he talked to Central Ghoul Command. Another patch of dirt exploded nearby, the electric sizzle of an anti-mortar tickling the hairs on the Sergeant’s body as he ducked into the trench. “We need support, now!” he demanded as he watched three ghoul soldiers get electrocuted by another mortar blast, their essence vanishing and their bodies falling slack to the floor.

A shadow appeared on the field and the Sergeant looked up at the undead condor carrying his new generator. The bird was thoroughly rotted, and chunks of flesh rained down in a stream of carrion as ghoul soldiers ran to meet the beast as it landed, delivering the goods.

“Men, we need to get this generator set up right away. Intel says something big is headed our way. Attach one generator line to the anti-mortar unit and the rest to the large caliber anti-turrets.”

The men obeyed, and the ghouls moved like a perfect unit, seeming to accept the barking of orders far better now than when they were alive. Each wore a red helmet with the insignia a rotting hand holing a moldy wheat stalk on it, and of course had the standard anti-rifle, its blue cord twisting its way to the ghouls’ backs where a mini-solar powered generator was attached with shoulder straps.

Anti-guns were the only weapons the undead could use against each other, the blasts they emitted de-organizing the psychic aura that held the dead flesh or bones together. Standard firearms produced little damage to the undead, because unlike the movies, even headshots or complete dismemberment didn’t stop them. The Skeleton Army, run by the skeletal remains of a Kodiak bear, where a prime example of that fact – they didn’t even have brains or other organs meaning conventional weapons were nuisance rather than lethal. Anti-weapons where extremely energy consuming, and usually needed something that generated power instead of just storing it, like a generator and not a battery.

Central Ghoul Command and Skeleton Army had been warring for over one hundred years. Initially they were united as one, purging the world of the armies of the living. Once every living being had been converted to the undead, deep divisions grew in the legions of the undead as they fought to control the planet.

“Sir, we have incoming!” yelled a ghoul soldier right before the static-infused crackling ball of energy hit him, the mortar almost catching him on fire as the anti-energy pulsed through him. His body fell to the ground, a soft, hazy hint of smoke rising up from the body. His death was permanent.

The Sergeant passed angrily in the trench bunker as he fingered through maps and intel reports with grey, rotten fingers. He stopped at one map labeled FRANKENSTEIN LOCATIONS, KNOWN and spread it out on the war-room table. His cracked lips pursed tightly on his cigar as he puffed away on it, hands free, while studying the map’s every detail. Frankenstein was a walking generator; at the start of the war Central Ghoul Command installed a Big Block V-8 engine in the lumbering ghoul’s chest, in addition to covering his massive shoulders with solar panels. Frankenstein was the world’s largest, mobile generator, capable of aiding in combat and self-repair. He was the biggest hero of the war.

“Son of a bitch, if I could get a mobile jenny like that, we might stand a chance,” said the Sergeant to himself, intently starring at the map and cross-referencing it with the map of the bunker’s location. “That bastard is close, too.”

The Sergeant called together his finest men and sent them on a mission to beg Frankenstein’s assistance, since the 8-Foot monstrosity rarely answered radio requests. He knew the intel had to be right, as the skeleton lines wouldn’t be so fortified here unless they were securing a path for something. Word was that something was a mastodon.

There were only a few mastodon skeletons in the world, mostly in old museums frequented by the living, back when they had the planet for themselves and the dead were just oddities. The Skeleton Armies greatest weapon, it seemed, was giant animals. At the Battle of Skull Creek a skeletal blue whale proved to be too much for the ghouls, and not a single fleshy corpse walked away, the giant whale crushing them with its mass, crippling ghoul soldiers until skeleton snipers picked them off one by one.

The aura of the undead was calculated by size. The larger the mass of whatever was reanimated, the more aura it had and the more anti-energy it required to dissipate the psychic force. This made large skeletal creatures the ‘tanks’ of undead warfare.

Frankenstein, lumbering far above your average ghoul, required more anti-energy to take down than a ghoul soldier. This was a combination of size and the fact that he was sown together from multiple bodies, each containing their own aura that stacked on top of the other auras. Frankenstein, essentially, was the ghoul’s version of a tank.

The search team had been dispatched, and the ghoul soldiers remaining in the trenches readied their weaponry. “I think I can see something!” one of them shouted as the Sergeant climbed the watchtower and looked through a scope with his one good eye. Surely enough, on the horizon, formations of skeleton soldiers could be seen marching towards the front lines.

“Look alive gents!” shouted the Sergeant as he ran the outer walls, calling his men to arms and preparing them for defense against the siege.

A distant moan, followed by a faint tremble in the earth, signaled the worst fears of the ghouls – a mastodon was here. Rumored to have been unearthed from the ruins of the Smithsonian, it was probably the last functioning one on the planet. It slowly emerged from the haze of the horizon and appeared to be in the middle of the army, protected on all sides.

A flash of metal about a hundred yards to the east of the skeleton army caused the Sergeant to turn his scope towards the source. If he still had a beating heart, it would have fluttered at the sight of Frankenstein barreling down the field, acting as a moving shield for the Special Forces ghouls behind him.

Frankenstein stormed the skeleton lines, his V-8 engine roaring in his chest, the exhaust flowing out of his mouth in angry black puffs. Fused into his back were four electrical plugs, and blue cords trailed back to the ghoul warriors as they powered up high caliber anti-guns. Frankenstein was continuing to act like a shield, sheltering the men for the small anti-arms fire. The army started to move forward, charging the trenches of the ghoul army.

The towering, stitched ghoul and his team managed to break off an entire unit from the skeleton army, the large caliber guns cutting swaths through their skeletal tanks. Up ahead, the generator in the trench, and its large weaponry, begin to hammer the skeleton army hard from the front, mortars clearing a line of fire to the mastodon.

“Men, fire at the beast, we must take it down!” screamed the Sergeant as a blast of anti-fire screamed through the lines, skewering him in the chest and silencing his orders forever. The men fought on, firing bursts of turret fire into the behemoth, eliciting a bassy moan.

Frankenstein and his men finally caught up to the main fight, and the ghoulish creation grabbed a mastodon leg, ripping it clean off, causing the hulking creature to fall on its rear. Now a stationary target, the mastodon was easy pickings for mortar fire. The skeleton army, now confused, split up, and without their superweapon, either retreated of stormed forward to the lines, meeting their undeath.

With the battle over, the mournful and large ghoul started walking to the west, towards the next battle, without so much as a goodbye. The men watched, red helmets held over their unbeating hearts in salute, as the creature moved on, a walking generator and hero of the ghoul army.

_____

DAVID ANDERSON lives and writes in Mesa, Arizona. His work has appeared in Surreal Grotesque's online magazine, and other ezines like Bizarro Central, Garden Gnome Pulbications, and The Rot Gut County Blog. He can be found in print in 50 Secret Tales of the Whispering Gash: A Queefrotica and Witch!, an anthology from Dynatox Ministries.