The Search for Ball Zero (16 page)

“
He’s coming with!” Perry
yelled over to them, struggling.

“
It’ll get us all killed!”
Tony looked at L, his face asking “Should we go without him?” They
both thought about it.

The front running cannibals jumped the fire,
they were right on top of them.

Perry broke the sound of the one sided
slaughter and fired his shotgun in the air. BOOM.

Everything and everyone stopped. There was a
moment of silence, except the Perry clone, who was still laughing
wildly, face down in the dirt, mouth open and full of dirt. Off in
the distance the 2 clones in the river splashed, maybe playing,
more likely drowning. The silence ended with every cannibal turning
towards Perry, then running and screaming towards him. The
cannibals were now completely ignoring the clones. They were coming
at Perry, L and Tony from every direction, they were almost
surrounded, except they could run South, it was the only path not
full of spear wielding cannibals.

They might be able to outrun them for a
while, but not with Perry’s clone and

girlfriend. But they tried anyways. Perry
got his clone moving finally, but his girlfriend was falling
behind. A few other clones were following them, the dirty underwear
guy , the tux guy and another pregnant lady.

The three armed cannibal jumped on the back
of the underwear guy, other cannibals quickly surrounded him, he
fell to his knees, bloody spears stabbing through his body until he
fell face first in the dirt. They kept coming, the other pregnant
woman turned to face them and a spear went through her belly. Black
and red pasta-looking innards shot and wiggled out of the side of
her belly. Another spear went through her chest, then another
through her belly, this time baby parts spilled out. Hands grabbed
at the gore and shoved it into their mouths. She was trampled a
second later.

Perry was struggling to move quickly,
finally he tripped and fell. That was it, they were on him in a
second. Tony and L stopped, trying to process what to do, both
pulling out their guns but not firing. Perry was on the ground face
down for a second.

“
Ball 3 baby. Make it
count!”

In one motion Perry rolled over onto his
back and knocked his girlfriend out of the way. His newly trusty
shotgun thundered and 2 cannibals who were in a full run flew back
from the force. Blood silhouettes spraying into the dusk air. The
wall of incoming cannibals barely stuttered. With rapid KABOOMs he
mowed down a section of the cannibal wall that was closing in on
him.

Tony and L’s guns went off cracking in
rapid succession. L was dual wielding,

firing like a gangsta to Tony’s surprise.
She even let out her own battle cry no one had seen before. Tony
let his brain watch her in slow motion for a millisecond, her hair
in her face, mouth open yelling, eyes with rage filled
determination, delivering death to her enemies. He saved that image
in his brain forever, to him it was super hot, but he couldn’t
think about that now. With their glocks, most shots weren’t getting
kills, but it would still usually drop them. Tony was trying to go
for headshots when he could. He saw an ear explode. “Boom,
headshot!” He thought. He saw the 2 headed cannibal, for a second
he wasn’t sure which head to shoot at, he tagged the big head and
dropped him.

For a few seconds they all fired, the
cannibal wall dropping but still coming, cannibals in the back
stumbling over dead bodies in front of them. Tony and Perry had to
reload at the same time. L took a bit longer because she was
shooting both guns and kept firing. A Kuato-looking cannibal
stumbled into view, L blasted the Kuato face on his chest and he
folded over into the dirt. An even more ugly looking cannibal took
his place, his face so burned he looked like a Lord of the Rings
Orc. No matter how many they killed, more just seemed to take their
place. The wall closed in on them from all sides. L’s guns stopped
firing and started clicking. She hadn’t thought about reloading and
for a second was confused about how she would reload with a gun in
each hand. She dropped one gun and went for ammo. Tony’s gloc took
over the killing duties for a second. From the left a really fat
cannibal waddled into view, he looked like a Left 4 Dead Boomer.
Perry finished loading his shotgun and blasted a hole in half of
the Boomer’s belly. That didn’t stop the Boomer and it closed in,
reaching for L and making Boomer noises. From its belly hole,
chunks of fat and black blood oozed and plopped out into the dirt.
Her guns came back to life and with 4 or 5 loud cracks, she turned
its face into lasagna. It fell dead, face first right in front of
her.

The front line of cannibals was only a few
steps away and they kept coming.

They killed cannibals as fast as they could,
but others just filled in the gaps. Perry and Tony had to reload
again. They were so close Tony wasn’t sure if had time to reload
and thought about turning to run.

The front runner held up his spear,
approaching Perry, ready to stab. Perry had

time to load one shell and shot from the
hip, hitting the cannibal with a shotgun blast in the neck and
chest. The cannibal’s face turned and grimaced as his neck was
ripped to shreds, his collar bone exposed and shattered in multiple
places. It died mid stride. The cannibal was so close and running
so fast, Perry had to sidestep to avoid the flying dead body. They
were so close he could only load one shot at a time before needing
to fire again. His right hand darted back and forth to his pocket
for more shells.

Tony and L unloaded their clips again,
dropping another line of twitching

cannibals in the dirt. Their ranks were
finally thinning. The tide of the battle might be turning. They
switched from retreating and held their ground as they killed their
way to the end of the cannibal wall. The last few cannibals sensed
the momentum change and ran for the hills. Tony dropped a few from
a long distance. He saw another 2 headed cannibal running away and
this time he shot the small head, which still dropped it.

One mortally wounded cannibal twichingly
reached for Perry’s leg. He put his shotgun up to the thing’s face.
He thought he should probably conserve ammo. L ran up to him with a
spear and handed it to him.

“
Here. Put him out of his
misery.” She jabbed, reminding him of what he wanted to do to
Garfield.

He dropped his blood drenched shotgun, took
the spear and in one motion nailed

the cannibal’s head into the dirt.

They looked around, there were a lot of
bodies. A lot of squirming.

Tony saw what they were doing, thought it
was a good idea and picked up his

own spear. “We should finish em all off.” He
yelled over to L and Perry. They did. It was a dirty job but
someone’s gotta do it. It took a while, some scrambled for their
lives.

A few weren’t mortally wounded and looked
like they could’ve talked if they wanted. But none of them did.
They didn’t scream or beg for their lives or anything. Tony thought
he hadn’t heard any of them speak. Tony almost felt bad, then one
grabbed at his leg and bit him hard, ripping at his calf. He didn’t
feel bad after that.

Clone Perry survived the battle, he was
sitting near the real Perry with a shit

eating grin on his face. Perry’s pregnant
hairless girlfriend also made it, she walked up to clone Perry, “Do
you have any food?”

Perry looked over at Tony and L, his face
and body spattered in blood. “I think

I’m in love.”

There were a few clone survivors, but Perry,
L and Tony didn’t want to stay at the camp. There were roughly 50
dead bodies scattered around. Vultures began circling pretty
quickly and it smelled like shit.

“
Predators and hunters use
vultures to find prey.” Perry noted, he had watched a lot of animal
shows, “More cannibals might show up, or the drones, or some other
crazy fantastic monster we haven’t seen yet.”

They kind of offered to take the remaining
clones, but they just grunted and

stood there.

“
Hey, the tux guy made
it.” L saw.

His pants were ripped off and shredded below
the crotch, and his legs were bloody. He was shambling behind them,
the group heading off North again. Now the group had 2 more
official members of their Ka-tet, the Perry clone and Perry’s new
girlfriend. The tux guy following behind.

“
On the road again.” Tony
sang.

THE NEVERENDING FOREST?

They hiked North.

L said something she was thinking about for
a while, “Ok, so we’ve been out

here about 10 days, I think. If we walked an
average of five miles a day.”

Tony was in Cross Country and Track, “I’d
say it’s more like 8 miles a day,

even with the rest days.”

L continued,”Ok, but just say even five. Ten
days and five miles a day is fifty

miles. Weren’t we thinking this forest was a
fifty by fifty mile square? Seems like we would’ve crossed the
whole thing, we’ve been heading one direction the whole time. Or at
least seen a glimpse of this Elohssa headquarters building?”

“
Yeaaa” Perry trailed off
thinking. “Maybe it’s underground?”

“
An underground
skyscraper?” Tony questioned. “Maybe the estimates were
wrong?”

“
Maybe we’re in an
alternate dimension and Skynet is sending a Terminator

back to kill your unborn child Perry.” L
joked, nodding at his pregnant girlfriend. Perry laughed, “That’s
not my baby. I demand a DNA test on Maury.” They all laughed.

Another day of hiking, they set up another
new Camp Rawk and decided to stay

for a while. After the cannibal slaughter,
they needed another resting day. They set up for an hour or two,
Tony caught some fish and brought them back for dinner. When they
were cooking the fish, Tuxedo Guy shambled up.

“
Wow, he finally caught
up. He can follow pretty good.”

Sitting around the fire, they attempted
talking to the clones. They were slow and sometimes didn’t respond,
when they did it was with short, strange answers, Neither of them
remember more than a few months in the past. The clone Perry
obviously did not have the memories of the real Perry. They didn’t
seem to know about the outside world.

The tux guy slurred the word,“Married.” more
than a few times.

They relaxed and slept.

The morning was a beautiful clear day. They
woke up and shared their last can

of corn beef hash. Their supplies were
running low, even though they ate a lot of trout. Perry went to
take a piss.

He came back in a hurry, he didn’t say
anything, just waved his arms like “Come over here.”

Tony and L’s adrenaline started pumping. Any
time they saw something out

here it was never good news. They passed the
bushes and were near the top of a hill, looking North. There it
was, A thin, tall structure that went up as high as they could see.
It was many miles away, but it existed. Elohssa Corporation HQ.

“
Woah, it really does go
high. I can’t tell if that’s space, but it’s fucking close!” Tony
noted.

“
Now what?” L
asked.

“
We go to it.” Perry
replied.

“
And what, knock on the
front door?” Tony asked.

“
Infiltrate it like the
ninjas we are and slit the CEO’s throat?” Perry said.

“
That’s the best plan I’ve
heard.” Tony agreed.

From the pace they were setting it would be
another few days before reaching it. Probably just in time for the
third warstore to be released.

They hiked. Each day tux guy would fall
behind and then catch up when they

set up camp. It was a fun little game they
played.

On the 2nd day, L, Perry and Tony took
Fozzie for a morning walk, to bathe,

fish and get high, not necessarily in that
order. After they finished their business, they were packing up to
head back to camp and Perry saw something on the other side of the
river, it looked like an old abandoned outhouse. They hadn’t seen
anything like that out here in the Elohssa Forest. That alone was
worth investigating. The river was pretty easy to cross, but they
had to swim. Everyone left their stuff on their side of the river,
except Tony, he swam, holding his glock above his head. Fozzie swam
uncomfortably, she looked like a surfaced submarine, mostly
submerged, gliding uneasily through the water.

The outhouse was mostly destroyed. You
couldn’t even tell it was an outhouse,

it looked more like a cluster of broken
wooden planks sticking into the ground. Grass was growing around
and inside of it. They looked closer, there was a tiny hole in the
center.
“
The shit hole is still here.” Perry said
smiling, pointing towards the tiny hole. As he was pointing at the
hole and they all were looking, a tiny puff of smoke rose from the
hole. “What the fuck?” Perry stepped back cautiously. Then slowly
leaned forward and began sniffing. His eye’s perked up. “Weed!”

Perry clawed at the hole. The fragile
surface broke apart and fell easily to

ground below. It was about a 6 or 7 foot
drop. But the ground below looked like a layer of crap, they
couldn’t tell if it was hard or not. There was the faint smell of
smoking pot.

“
I’m going.” Perry had
accepted a side quest and he was determined to do it.

“
We could get Fozzie out
if we take her, right?” L asked.

“
Yea, we can just throw
her.” Perry said.

“
We’re not throwing her.”
L told him.
“
We can get her out of there if we need L,
don't worry.” Tony reassured her. “Should we bring her?”