The bayonet went through my armpit and up through the back of my shoulder. The thing that stabbed me hissed at me. It looked like the illegitimate step child of Ken Burns and Ray Harryhausen. Confederate grays hung off its skeleton frame in tatters. The fact that I wore blue when last we may have met probably had nothing to do with it running me through, but the irony was not lost on me.
At any rate, I had only been asleep 20 minutes and I planned on waking up in 4 hours next to the goddess I went to bed with, then grabbing brunch at the Red Rock just before they stopped serving it at 3PM.
I'm generally excited to see our fearless leader Donna Matrix’s name on my caller ID, but not at 6AM the morning after a legendary date night.
"Rise and shine, buttercup," she said coldly.
"What?" I said, but it came out more like "warrggglr?"
"I need you to relearn English, get dressed, and get down to the hanger." She hung up without another word.
And while I hated her for it, I did just that.
15 minutes and one mortal wound later here I was.
I saw the rest of the team fighting other undead soldiers from other wars. Oracle reckoned it was a spell gone wrong, since the shambling Ken Burns film just stood on in the parking lot across from That's Entertainment until someone walked off the sidewalk and into the Lot.
Then they did what most reanimated Skeleton Soldiers do.
It felt like it took a week to raise my revolver aim it and fire.
The shot blew the Bonney jerk back. Then the weirdest thing happened. I blinked, and the sun was replaced with fluorescent lights; the raging battle was replaced with the dull pink and light blue walls of the infirmary.
Then sleep again.
"Rise and shine, buttercup"
Visions of Bill Murray being serenaded by Sonny and Cher spun through my head before my eyes defied me and pried themselves open.
This was the 2nd time in as many wake ups I had been arisen by a women 100% of the male population would give a limb to wake up to. But I was not pleased. She looked calm, clean, neat, and composed. Not like someone who had gone ten rounds in all the World Wars. It was not so much that I had been out long enough for her to shower and change that had me worried, but the fact she had gotten a haircut that bothered me. My brain got hung up on "how long I've been out" just long enough to roll a bit too far into my mental intersection where it got T-boned by a speeding "what happened?"
Something to the effect of "I got stabbed" and "this is what happened" skidded into the debris. The flaming wreck of words was just too much to push out through the the overpass tunnel I call my face. All that I could squeeze out was a little bit of go-cart that said:
"I like your hair."
Then sleep.
Next, I woke up in my clothes. Sitting in my room on the edge of the bed.
Tiny ran by, then put the brakes on, sliding to a comedic stop.
"There you are, dude."
My face must have said, "What the holy fuck?"
"The dead army guys had a some sorta poison on their gear. It killed the civilians it hit instantly."
Tiny was pretty good at reading me.
"We’re all good. No one else was slow enough to get hit."
"I was immune?"
"I wouldn't say immune. You sat in the sick bay for 3 days..."
My change in posture stopped Tiny in his tracks before I got the words out.
"I was out for three days?" I knew I wasn't going to like the answer even before Tiny said it.
Tiny took a deep breath.
"It's the 27th. You went down the 20th."
I think I said, “Shit.”
"You sat in the Infirmary until Wednesday."
"Then they moved me here?"
I could see Tiny grin through his mask.
"Theeeeennn you got up and did Trick or Treat Radio."
"I did?"
"Yeah."
"Was I a mess?"
At that, Tiny beamed like a proud poppa!
"You were great! Great review, concise and insightful."
"I should get poisoned by Civil War skeletons more often."
"I wouldn't say no. It's been quiet - no police all week."
I couldn't remember doing the radio show or coming down to my room. I remembered waking up to Matrix a few times, but I was not 100% sure that was real. You would think time would mean nothing to someone like me. I've had and wasted more time than any 20 fellas. But this last time was bothering me.
"Don't be worried. Silica pretty much swapped out your blood. You lost a lot of blood before that. Skip 13 said the poison was a mix of classic European alchemy and plain ol’ American mad science. One of it's tricks is that it keeps you dehydrated to stifle your immune system..."
"... Since most folks die right quick..."
" ..... It was made for people like us."
"Well, people like me any way."
I was sick of traps. And vendettas. I'm just a dude tryin’ to do my job. Like a plumber or an electrician. ‘Cept clogged pipes seldom come back for revenge, and if that was even a thing the ones in my bathroom would be on a watch list for sure.
Tiny was saying something about not worrying about lost time, and that the blackouts were probably natural. I was about to ask if Matrix had got a haircut when something Tiny said cut my pity party short.
"Rehearsal" I said.
"When I came by, and you weren't here, I thought you’d went down to rehearsal." A lot of folks think Tiny sounds like Christopher Walken. I think he sounds like the voice in a dubbed kung fu movie. Right then, Tiny was not ANY making sense.
"Show?”
The next few minutes made zero sense. We had booked a last minute show, but I had no recollection of it. Worse still, I had lost valuable promo time. My brain scrambled to make some sense of this crazy situation. The company was in no position to have a loss. We were so far in debt that one show - not even a really successful one - would make much difference. But a bad one, a loss, could shut us down. You hear a lot of dumb expressions like:
"Can't get blood from a stone."
"I have nothing to give."
Well, I reckon those creditors aren't cosmic warlords or crazy time displaced wizards. Two long goes by without a check and the situation escalates quickly.
"Don't worry man, you're sick. Ravenshadow and the Ketchum's will pick up the slack.”
Our manager Jack Ketchum, his assistant Michael Ravenshadow, and his ditzy artist son Jack Jr. were supposed to be in charge of promoting us. As you may be able to guess from our current financial situation, they don't. And when they did it might be better if they didn't. Tiny's suggestion was equivocal to telling a new mother to leave her newborn in the care of Jason, Freddy, and Leatherface. In reality, our career would be safer in the hands of fictional serial killers.
"Sooooo," he said, and the “s” came out more like a whistle. "Looks like you're on the clock then."
"Looks like," I answered. "When is it?” Not that it mattered - anything less than 6 months was not enough lead time to do it right.
"Next Saturday, May 2nd."
That day sounded familiar, but he didn't give me a chance to ask why.
"Free comic book day, and the Fight of the Century - not much competition there."
"No pressure!" he added.
I'm not sure if the levity was for his benefit or mine. Sure didn't help ME any.
We sat for a few minutes and made more small talk. A few jokes and a borrowed PWG disc later, he was gone, and I was left to put myself together.
In what felt like one long lousy morning. I'd been stabbed, poisoned, my brain compromised, and left with a oppressive amount of work.
Never did make it to Red Rock.
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