Everyone thought it was just an earthquake...

Eliot was only just holding off the intruding beef people with a large stick. The blasted wall of the sand castle was teeming with the greasy foe, and Eliot knew he wouldn’t last much longer. Surrendering his doorway in a momentary break of the enemy drive, Eliot rushed down the gritty sand hallway on his own beefy legs. He and his comrades, however, were raw beef, exuding a golden hue from years of sand mixing in their red hides. The intruders, on the other hand, were cooked nasty messes. They blew through multiple points of the sand castle at once, and were gaining ground fast.

Eliot caught sight of light down the hall. Suicidal berserkers had lit themselves aflame and were attempting to cook the residents out of the castle, thrashing through masses of soldiers, walls, and air alike. Unfortunately, the coupling of damp air and moisture in the walls seemed to be abolishing the fires with little effort from the defenders.

Surviving the trip to a stable roof, Eliot saw the entire scene. His allies defending their home with the basest of tools available to them: sticks, stones, bits of shell. The enemy boasted superior weaponry, the majority of them swinging long, weathered handles topped with gnarly hooks, caked in rust and grease. Some bore sharpened bones. Still others simply set themselves on fire and ran for a crowd.

And of course, they wielded the Nercobos: a colossal cow carcass that towered stories above the sand castle.

Eliot had never seen a more disgusting object in his life. The Necrobos was pulled toward him on a cart by an army of grease slaves. Hundreds more climbed about the decaying corpse itself, throwing various bits of vulgar and flaming debris towards the castle.

Movement on the staircase. Eliot poised to attack, but some of his own men ascended the stairs. Roger was in the lead, followed by Monty and another raw boy Eliot did not recognize. Behind them was a swinging hook, attached to an attacker around the corner. Monty tore at the ceiling from his elevated position on the staircase, and the ceiling dropped down on anyone in the hallway with the hook bearer. Eliot saw the section of roof fall victim to gravity from his vantage point.

The Necrobos loomed ever nearer. Eliot and his gang retreated further from the hulking corpse, past a toppled tower of muddy sand. Hooks and meaty limbs poked through the wreckage, but the group didn’t stop to identify the victims as friend or foe.

As the last of the standing walls and ceilings dropped, the shadow of the Necrobos passed overhead. Darkness was cast across the gritty rubble, save for the pockets of fire not yet extinguished by the exposed mud strewn about, as well as the glowing eyes of the Necrobos. The real eyes had been plucked out by some scavenger long ago, but ghostly energy still glowed from the sockets. Wretched forms amassed around the necrotic utter and dug their hooks into its taut skin as the monstrosity centered over Eliot’s crew of survivors like a UFO ready for abduction or destruction. The utter maggots screeched with laughter audible hundreds of feet down. They danced. They laughed. They pulled.

And a bombardment of rancid milk surged from the sky above Eliot’s head. The stench alone struck many of the riders clear off the Necrobos. The milk was gelatinous as it fell and exploded into a grotesque concoction resembling chunky chowder with bits of amoebic fat floating about. The mixture dissolved Eliot and his crew in seconds as they simultaneously choked on the thousand year old milk remains.

And only seconds after that, an even larger shadow was cast across Necrobos itself. A tsunami propelled by the earthquake that morning surged forward and tore the shore asunder. The Necrobos was flung across the sandy expanse then ripped back into the sea among assorted beefy debris. The initial force ripped its crispy head clean from its flanks, but the glowing in its eyes remained.

"Battle at Beef Beach"

Copyright: © 2011 Joseph Bouthiette, Jr.

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Joseph Bouthiette, Jr. eats food and poops poop. His work has appeared online at The New Flesh, Staring At the Walls and In Between Altered States.

“Shit man, why’s the money bleeding?

Gold stuttered, clearly embarrassed. “I, uhh... it’s the only shit I could snag.”

“You’re telling me that menstrual fucking money is the only shit you could get your filthy fucking hands on?” Frankincense threw down his cards. “Fuck this. I ain’t playing for no bleeding money.”

Gold got a hold of his stack of soggy, pungent bills. Myrrh sat there, cards still in his hand. His smooth, featureless face could show no sign of understanding the card game was over, but he must have heard the bickering. He still had ears. Frankincense popped the cooler across the dim room open and removed a forest green syringe. The smell of sulfur dominated that of menstrual blood as Frankincense pumped the Nitro into his veins. The rush dilated his pupils. Myrrh turned his face towards the commotion.

“Ohhhh shit, I need to get moving now!”

Frankincense kicked the door down, and ran outside. He tackled a car door, broke the window. Gold watched from his busted door, leaning against the non-jagged side of the frame. Myrrh continued sitting at the card table, but he put his hand; a straight flush stared at the ceiling.

Frankincense ran back onto Gold’s porch panting. “Shit, I got the craziest idea ever. Let’s shoot up a school. Let’s shoot up a fucking school.”

Gold looked over his shoulder to Myrrh, who gave no response, nor any sign of hearing the statement whatsoever. He turned back to Frankincense’s grinning face. Gold sighed, then smiled back.

It was decided. They would shoot up a fucking school.

*   *   *

Frankincense’s Nitro-fueled ass brought down the front door of Stanley Timpleton Memorial High School. His rifle swung in arcs as he belted out screaming laughter from behind his Spider Man mask. Gold, always more serious and somber, donned a killer clown mask and jumped into the turmoil as they both shot panicking teenagers. Even Myrrh wore a mask, a rendition of an anime school girl. Gold would never admit it, but he thought Myrrh looked kind of cute with it on.

The bullets tore through the crowd, and each student struck shattered into thousands of fragments. The shards created even more wounds among the students, these ones burping blood. The crowd quickly lessened, leaving behind a casserole of broken glass and liquid rubies.

Gold flew up the stairs, picking out stragglers. He was thankful that the rubbery mask deflected most of the debris from his victims.

Frankincense shot up with some more Nitro, then ripped through the cafeteria, where much of the student body thought they could find shelter under the tables and in the kitchens. Automatic fire made quick work of them. A cornered lunch lady screamed when his gaze fell on her.

“That’s right, squeal like a piggy!”

He squealed in ecstasy himself as he blew her fragile brains into the wall behind her. Growing tired of the glass rounds, Frankincense loaded his rifle with jelly shots. He raced towards the window, and unleashed squishy hell on the runners. Soon, the back lawn of Timpleton High was smothered with mounds of red jelly.

Ninety seconds into the assault, and Myrrh had not fired a single shot. Standing just inside the front door, he was the first to hear sirens.

Gold’s boots crunched over remains while he looked for survivors. Around a corner, he saw Frankincense; he was pumping in more Nitro. He caught sight of Gold.

“Ha! You think you’re really fucking funny, huh? Really fucking funny?! I’ll show you funny!” He brandished a large bolt in his hand. “I call this one the motherfucking Midas touch! Think you’re real funny, fucking clown, fucking funny... You’re not fucking funny!”

Gold was shot dead center in the back in his attempt to flee. His second to last thought was how the fuck Frankincense loaded the gun so fast. His last thought was of cats in Myrrh’s sexy mask licking bloody glass clean. Before he hit the ground, he froze solid. Gold returned to his namesake.

*   *   *

Evidence of a fire alongside the shooting was what called the fire engine to Timpleton. Myrrh sat in the driver seat of the truck, precisely steering it away from the massacre. Reports from the radio informed him that the first responders found one shooter dead, the other idly screaming obscenities and kicking doors down. His gun was discarded, useless after a large caliber shot wrecked the barrel. The next report stated that the second shooter was shot dead after he turned on an officer screaming, “You’re a fucking joke!” and attempting to grab him. No word yet on the number of casualties, but it was believed that there were no more shooters.

Myrrh drove silently away, the thought of the menstrual money he was about to pick up for seeing those two bottom feeders dead arousing him immensely.

"Frankincense, Gold & Myrrh"

Copyright: © 2011 Joseph M. Bouthiette, Jr.

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Joseph M. Bouthiette, Jr. is a young writer of surreal and bizarre tales, previously published on Staring At the Walls ezine.