The monsters had attacked earlier, a sign of the impending apocalypse, but were largely ignored by the smart people, while the simple-minded loaded their rifles and let fly at anything that appeared suspect. Smart people are stupid like that.
Peter's life choices had been generally poor in the past, but deciding to always carry a rifle everywhere had been a spectacularly good one. Not only was it handy for shooting ATF agents and endangered species, it was also good for shooting zombies and monsters.
He spit a wad of chew into the bushes and squeezed off another shot, blasting a fountain of gore into the air.
"Eat that, ya dirty zombie" he quipped.
* * *
Above the burning apocalypse hovered a lonely spacecraft, a classic rocketship with big fins and lots of chrome, the kind that cool people fly. This little baby went completely unnoticed, as most of the people and institutions responsible for noticing these things were either zombified or on fire.
Inside was a really cool cat, the man who had stolen this sexy spacecraft from Ferris Aeronautics himself, Jordan Stuart. He chomped on a cigar, poured another shot of whiskey, and stared at the amber Earth below through his sunglasses.
"Dunno," he said to his amazingly beautiful girlfriend who sat next to him, "Think we should stick around?"
"Blow this joint." She responded. He flipped a switch, grasped the controls in his big manly hands, and stomped on something on the floor which sent them hurtling into the nether.
* * *
Below them, the Earth consumed itself. Ragtag teams of misfits and solitary heroes fought bravely, a few big budget explosions wiped out major cities, but the survivors didn't have a chance.
* * *
Aboard the Earth's only known rocketship, Jordan and his girlfriend Zoe poured over a bunch of charts and shopping catalogs. They sipped the drinks they poured, and relaxed in comfy chairs when they weren't in the control room pushing buttons and reading control screens. The life support systems would last indefinitely, and the chances of getting bit by a zombie were slim to none. Infomercials were a thing of the past.
Day after whatever you could call a day in space passed, as they rocketed through the empty night. Through the chaos, and past the edges of our known solar system, Earth's coolest couple flew. Where, they knew not. But they didn't care. Anywhere was better than the hell-hole they had left.
* * *
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
* * *
While Jordan and Zoe slept, the ships computer recorded a signal emanating from a standard galactic navigational beacon. These were installed throughout the galaxy when super-high speed travel hit the mainstream, as normal dead reckoning methods were obsoleted, and new methods were required.
With no way to know this, our heroes continued to shoot through space, leaving the beacon far behind them.
Their passage was not completely without incident however, as the beacon relayed all relevant information regarding their passage to the Galaxy Travel Board (a now defunct agency), and a small device taped to the side of the beacon sent the same information to a dark and jagged ship orbiting a large asteroid nearby.
The jagged ship was crewed by a nasty band of outlaws, escaped convicts, tax collectors, the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal world, and general riff-raff of space. These turned to piracy as their main revenue source, and hid from the authorities in the far reaches of the galaxy, waiting on the signal from a hijacked beacon to launch them into action.
* * *
The Pirate Captain leered into his readout screen and tugged his beard thoughtfully.
"Unknown craft, probably a small private vessel." A nearby crewman read out, his tentacles waving around, pushing buttons and moving food in and out his various food orifices.
The Captain nodded, "We need the practice anyway."
He gave the order to attack.
2 comments:
So when are you going to try to get published?
I have no idea.
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