Chapter 5 – Florida Sucks
It was shortly after three in the morning when the intrepid three finally hit Orange Blossom Trail at the outskirts of Orlando.
“Shit!” Nursie said. “I need to call Karl.”
She hit “1” on her speed-dial.
“Hey, babydoll!”
“Hi, Danielle,” Ultraklystron said. “How are you?”
“I’m good. But I miss that big ass…brain of yours. Meet me in Orlando.”
“Come on. You know I have a show. Hold on…”
He came back on. “Uh, it looks like Queefy just cancelled.”
“Then just come to Florida. It’s a surprise. We’ll do a show here.”
“Okay, honeybutt,” he said. “I will.”
“Love you,” she said, and hung up.
“Karl’s down!”
“Yay!” Myf said.
“I like him best in small doses,” High said.
“Fuck you, High-C,” Nursie said.
“Better copyright that phrase, chick,” he told her.
Router’s army was terrorizing Dallas. Most of them were nightbreed, but every thirtieth or so was a daywalker. And each of them were spawning more followers. Children and young women were disappearing from the area at an alarming rate. After only one day, the police were overwhelmed. Any female deemed a threat to her rule was quietly disposed of. The men were willing pawns.
Router, now queen of the dead, had nothing to lose. She controlled them via thought alone, so she couldn’t be implicated physically. And if by some chance she was caught, the being that possessed her would defend her. The human part of her, now buried, understood that she, too, was a pawn in the scheme of things, but she was making the most of it while her power lasted. In a worst-case scenario, she would abandon her meatspace component entirely.
Zealous1 dropped a dime, and mad hoods converged on the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Most of them were locos who were anxious to squeeze the trigger anyway. Once he hipped them to the scenario, guns blazed day and night. But Router’s forces were growing faster than they could be disposed of.
Nursie needed to visit a bathroom.
“Can’t you do it while we’re driving?” High asked her.
“Eww, no!” she said. “You just want to see my pussy.”
“I’ve seen them before, dear. It’s just that we’re twenty minutes from E.P.P.’s house. Although I must confess, it would be highly erotically charged. Whoever conceived of perfumed inserts for bloody pussies was a genius. Your aroma is intoxicating.”
“Fuck you, High-C.”
“See?” he said. “Put it on a t-shirt.”
MC Wreckshin got a call and gave them directions. Thankfully, he had stayed up and waited for them, but he was dog-tired. When they pulled up, Nursie ran into the house.
“Hey, Wreckshin! Gotta pee!” She pecked him on the cheek and ran into the bathroom.
Myf carried her bags in, ever the gentleman.
“Howdy, pard,” he said.
High-C walked in. “Hello, Mike,” he said.
“Fuck you, High-C.”
High smiled.
They were slow to react, but the feds finally caught wind of what was going on. The alphabet soup of agencies was arriving by the van full. Naturally, they were clueless. They had two tactics, brute force and subterfuge. The psychic nature of the zombies made force next to impossible, as they simply didn’t reveal themselves in the presence of law enforcement personnel.
Covert action fared little better. By luck, the FBI managed to capture one of Router’s minions. They were unable to do more than film it, and it eventually forced them to shoot it. It then of course reverted back to human form, and they had a new mess on their hands. They had killed the mayor of Dallas. Eventually, in desperation, an NSA hipster contacted YTCracker for help.
MC Inadequate and Chozo Ninpo weren’t formally invited, but they received word via the quantum grapevine, so they scrounged tickets for themselves and Veeps and caught the red-eye to Orlando.
Myf, Wreckshin and Nursehella passed out. Before High-C went to sleep, he called his Usenet friends Soapy and Dean and told them to come to Orlando for the morning. Dean, because he was hyper and full of ideas, and Soapy because she needed excitement in her life. Plus, he needed a non-nerdcore perspective.
Finally, he got some much-needed rest.