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Monthly Archives: July 2016
How the West Was Zombed is over 100,000 Words
Hey 3.5 Readers.
Amazing! How the West Was Zombed, as of the last chapter, is at 102,397 words.
I have never focused that much effort one idea before.
It feels pretty good to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Still so much to go but it’s great to be getting there.
And earlier than I thought. I should be done with this rough draft by July, then that gives me the rest of the year to rewrite.
I might even take a little break and start working on the sequel.
Dun…dun…dun…I’m already a sell-out. Bring on the sequel.
How the West Was Zombed – Chapter 129
Slade had been using his regular voice for a year, but now the rasp was back with a vengeance.
“Who the fuck are you?” Sawbuck asked.
It’d been twenty years since Slade had last seen Sawbuck. The outlaw’s hair had turned gray. His face was wrinkled and leathery, but Slade still recognized him.
Slade puffed on his cigar. “I’m the man that’s going to kill you.”
“Is that so?” Sawbuck asked.
“Yup,” Slade replied.
Clovis and Slim wrenched their hooks out of the zombie, allowing it to drop to the ground. They stepped aside.
“Do I know you, bushwacker?” Sawbuck asked.
“Nope,” Slade replied. “But I know you.”
Sawbuck sneered and tossed Tobias aside. “Lots of people know me. You a bounty hunter?”
“Nope,” Slade replied.
“The law?”
“Nope,” Slade said.
“Then who the hell are you?” Sawbuck asked.
“An interested party,” Slade said.
“Huh,” Sawbuck said. “Well, Mr. Interested Party, if you want to challenge me, it’s your funeral. Here are the rules. You step back fifty paces that-a-way. I’ll step fifty paces back and on the count of three we…”
“Draw,” Slade said as he raised his rifle and shot Sawbuck right through the throat. The outlaw’s face could not contain his shock as he collapsed.
Along his journey, Slade managed to find two Colt pistols to replace the one he’d lost. He dropped his rifle, then drew one of the pistols and walked over to Sawbuck’s carcass and kicked him over onto his back.
Sawbuck clutched his throat as blood sprayed out of it.
“The…rules!”
The last thing Sawbuck ever saw was Slade pointing his Colt at his face.
The last thing Sawbuck ever heard?
“You don’t get rules.”
One…two…three…four…five…six.
Sawbuck was beyond dead and his face was the same consistency of raw hamburger.
“Hey!” Clovis yelled.
Annoyed, Slade holstered his empty pistol, then drew a fully loaded one and pointed it at Clovis and Slim, who instantly threw their hands up.
“Oh shit!” Clovis shouted as he and his hefty accomplice beat a trail out of town.
Slade holstered his pistol and stared down at Sawbuck’s corpse until Miss Bonnie joined him.
“Feel any better?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Did you think you would?”
“Kinda.”
“I’m sorry,” Miss Bonnie said.
“It’s ok.”
“I thought you weren’t going to use that dumb raspy voice anymore,” Miss Bonnie said.
Slade returned to his regular tone. “Oh. Right.”
Tobias dusted himself off. “Holy shit, Mister! I never thought I’d see the day that someone stood up to Sawbuck Sam. Thank you.”
The young mayor stretched out his hand. Slade took it and tried not to stare at top of Tobias’ ridiculous hat as it flopped up and down during the handshake.
“You travelers or something?” Tobias asked.
“Traveled all the way to be here,” Slade said.
Tobias smiled. “More people? This town sure could use them.”
“Good,” Slade said as he picked up his rifle.
“What’s your name, friend?” Tobias asked.
“Slade. Rainer Slade.”
Tobias didn’t just smile. He glowed. He wrapped his arms around Slade and attached himself to his new hero like a barnacle.
Slade and Bonnie traded confused looks.
“Welcome home, brother!” Tobias cried.
How the West Was Zombed – Chapter 128
“You stupid hayseeds have no idea how much you need me, do you?” Sawbuck asked the townsfolk.
“Thirty years,” Sawbuck said. “Three decades I’ve been volunteering my protection for you pathetic suckers and this is how I am repaid.”
The outlaw kicked Tobias in the gut, knocking him onto his back in the dirt.
“Sawbuck,” Tobias said as he stared up at the sky. “It was all my idea. Just let everyone go and let me have it.”
“That’d be too easy,” Sawbuck said. He turned to his lackies. “Bring it out, boys.”
Clovis and Slim went to the back of the wagon and before long they were carrying out a rolled up blanket, roughly six feet in length. On top of the blanket were two long wooden poles with sharp metal hooks on the end.
And it was groaning.
Tobias attempted to lift himself up to see what was going on, but felt down and landed on his side.
Clovis and Slim rolled out the blanket to reveal a restrained zombie. It was a male about thirty years old, dead at least six months. His arms had been hacked off, but his legs still worked. His mouth had a thick piece of rope in it, keeping him from biting, which from the growls he was making, he clearly wanted to bite someone badly.
“You know folks,” Sawbuck said. “For the longest time, I’ve been asking myself, ‘What can I do to make those stupid fucks in Fiddler’s Gulch take me seriously?’”
Clovis and Slim picked the zombie up. Clovis picked up a pole, stabbed it into the zombie’s back and caught his ribs with the hook. Slim did the same.
“I’ve shot so many of you that I lost count,” Sawbuck said. “Shooting you dummies just isn’t doing the trick anymore. So I thought about it. What can I do to impress upon you morons that I’m the boss and I am not to be fucked with?”
Sawbuck grabbed Tobias and lifted him up on his feet.
“And then I met my new friend here,” Sawbuck said as he pointed to the zombie. “And I knew I’d come up with a better way to convince you hicks to do your duty.”
The chains around his legs kept the zombie from walking. It writhed and struggled, but Clovis and Slim held on with their hooks.
“Jesus, Sawbuck,” Tobias said. “Can I pick getting trampled by your horse, instead?”
“That’d be too good for you,” Sawbuck said. “I…”
The sound of wagon wheels and galloping horses interrupted Sawbuck’s words. The outlaw looked down the road to see a wagon train entering town. In the lead wagon sat a redhead and a man with a beard.
“This some kind of trick, boy?” Sawbuck asked.
“No,” Tobias said.
“What is this?”
“I don’t know,” Tobias said. “I swear!”
“Listen up, rubes!” Sawbuck shouted. “From now on, anyone who is man enough to challenge me should challenge me. And if you’re too yellow, then shut the fuck up and start doing what I tell you or be ready to get eaten up and shit out by my pet!”
Sawbuck gripped Tobias’ arm tightly then walked toward the zombie. Clovis undid the rope and the zombie’s teeth chomped up and down until…
Pow. A bullet opened up the back of the zombie’s head. It fell dead, slumping like an unused puppet on the poles held by Clovis and Slim.
Slade slang racked up another bullet in his rifle, then slang it over his shoulder.
“I challenge you.”
How the West Was Zombed – Chapter 127
The top of Tobias’ hat flapped up and down as he dragged a bag of grain behind him. Arnold and the rest of the townsfolk helped, while Eleanor, too frail to drag anything but herself, came along for moral support.
Legend has it that there was no act too evil, vile, or immoral that Sawbuck Sam Duncan wouldn’t have done for a ten dollar bill, hence his infamous nickname. But on top of his killing and thieving, he’d been treating the Gulch like his own personal bank, making withdrawals from the citizenry in exchange for protection…from himself, naturally.
He rode into town with his two lackies, Clovis and Slim. Clovis had a pair of buckteeth, so prominent you didn’t know whether to stare at them or use them to open your beer. He manned the reigns of a wagon, ready to pick up Sawbuck’s loot.
Slim was an ironic nickname because he was, in fact, very fat. So fat that if horses could talk, his probably would have asked him to skip a meal or two, or seventy-five.
“Everyone stay calm,” Tobias whispered.
“I am,” Arnold whispered back.
“Good,” Tobias said.
“The Mayor usually gets it first,” Arnold noted.
“God damn it, Arn.”
Sawbuck reached the welcoming party and hopped off his horse, his spurs jangling with each step. The shotgun toting Clovis wasn’t far behind. Slim joined his compatriots, and while no one could be sure, historical accounts quote witnesses noting that his horse breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well you didn’t make me wait,” Sawbuck said as he counted the bags.
“No sir,” Tobias said.
“And you brought all ten.”
“Yes sir.”
“What a surprise,” Sawbuck said as he chewed on a toothpick. “You shit brains are finally paying attention. Load it up.”
Tobias didn’t need to be asked twice. He felt relief but refused to show it. He grabbed a bag and hucked it into the wagon. Arnold and the other townsfolk joined in.
Sawbuck stepped up to Tobias and stuck his finger into a hole in the middle of Tobias’ hat.
“That’s from when I shot Mayor Finley as I recall,” Sawbuck said.
Tobias nodded, forcing the top flap of his hat to bob up and down.
“Pumped him full of lead,” Sawbuck said as he pointed to a second hole in the hat. “Just like Mayor Benton.”
“Sure enough,” Tobias said.
“Oh,” Sawbuck said as he lifted the top flap of Tobias’ hat up, then let it flop back down. “That must be from when I trampled Mayor Bratton with my horse. Sure was a lot of fun. His oily hide laying in the dirt, hoof prints all over his ass.”
Tobias stayed quiet as Sawbuck leaned in to study the latest Mayor’s face.
“Can’t say he didn’t deserve it though,” Sawbuck said. “He fucked me over and no one fucks over Sawbuck Sam.”
Tobias nodded.
Sawbuck squinted his left eye shut and looked at Tobias with his right. “You’d never fuck me over, would you boy?”
Tobias shook his head. “No sir.”
“Good,” Sawbuck said as he smacked Tobias in the back so hard he almost knocked him over. “Keep it that way and you’ll be wearing that hat a good long time.”
“Hey Sawbuck!”
Sawbuck turned around to find Clovis standing in the back of the wagon, holding up a brick.
The outlaw erupted into a rage. He grabbed Tobias by his collar.
“You fucking me, boy?!”
“What?” Tobias asked as he eeked out a chuckle. “No. Didn’t you ask for grain and bricks?”
Sawbuck backhanded Tobias across the face, knocking him to the ground.
“I swear I thought you asked for grain AND bricks,” Tobias said. “None of my business. I assumed you were building an outhouse or something.”
Sawbuck slapped Tobias again.
“Come on, Sawbuck,” Tobias said as blood trickled out of his mouth. “Just a big misunderstanding. Didn’t you all think he asked for grain and bricks?”
Arnold was nervously shaking as he stepped up. “I thought he asked for grain and bricks.”
Sawbuck wasn’t up for a discussion. Instead, he pulled his pistol and shot Arnold in the head, then pressed the hot barrel against Tobias’ forehead.
“Anyone else think I asked for grain AND bricks?”
Movie Review – The Shallows (2016)
A shark takes a bite out of Blake Lively’s phat ass and comes back for more.
BQB here with a review of The Shallows.
SPOILERS.
OK, so the shark doesn’t take a bite out of Blake’s bodacious booty though let’s be honest, could anyone have blamed him? I mean not an actual “bite” bite but still.
Hmm…that joke didn’t land? That’s ok. Nothing new for the Bookshelf Battle Blog.
The set-up? Nancy (Blake), depressed over the loss of her mother to cancer, takes a sojourn from medical school to do some surfing in a shallow cove.
A shark bites her leg and then from thereon it’s about two hours of Blake swimming from rock to rock, trying to think up ways to outfox the finned freak.
I knew very little of this film going into it but it was an enjoyable surprise. I assume it was low budget and if so, it is an example of a lot being done with very little. A cove. Special shark effects. A hot, scantily clad chick.
I liked it. And though the Blakester never gets totally nekkid, she’s in a bikini throughout.
Oh wait. I’m not supposed to notice those things.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy and worth a trip to the theater, not just for wide-screened shots of Blake’s badonka donk but also for scary shark attacks!
Happy 4th of July 3.5 Readers
Happy 4th of July, 3.5 Readers.
Feel free to tell me your favorite patriotic book in the comments.
How the West Was Zombed – Chapter 126
In the history of the West, there wasn’t a job less thankless than that of Mayor of Fiddler’s Gulch. The last three holders of this less than esteemed position had been shot dead.
Even so, Tobias, the current office holder, at the ripe age of twenty, made due. As a sign of his status, he wore a black stovepipe hat. The circle of felt at the top had ripped long ago so it flapped up and down whenever he walked. No suit. Just a plain blue shirt and trousers, both in need of a good washing.
The town was just a small collection of houses and run down stores along a dirt road. Much of the population had either died, been zombified, murdered, or dispersed. Twenty souls were left under the Mayor’s watch.
Tobias strained under the weight of the bricks he was carrying. When he reached the road, he dumped them on the ground, then proceeded to put one in each of the bags of grain that had been lined up.
Arnold Watson had once been a shopkeeper, back when there were people to sell things to.
“What are you doing?” Arnold asked.
“Sam wants ten bags,” Tobias said. “We only got seven so I’m improvising.”
“He’ll check,” Arnold said. “You know he will.”
Tobias put a brick into another bag, then used his hand to scoop grain over it. “Maybe he won’t.”
“He will,” Arnold said. “And then he’ll shoot one of us as an example. He always does.”
The Mayor stood up and threw up his hands. “Well I don’t know what else to do, Arn. Ole Sawbuck ain’t exactly reasonable. He’s taken everything we have and keeps demanding more.”
“Lying to him is a good way to get one of us killed,” Arnold said.
“What do you think will happen when he shows up and we only have seven bags?” Arnold asked. “We apologize and he tells us that’s ok? He’ll give us more time and come back for the other three later? No. We know he’ll definitely shoot one of us if we only have seven. At least this way there’s a chance, a small chance that he might not and by the time he figures it out, we’ll have hightailed it out of here.”
“We’re just supposed to leave?” Arnold asked. “Where to?”
“Hell if I know,” Tobias replied. “But we can’t stay here. Sawbuck’s cleaned us out but he keeps trying to squeeze blood out of a stone.”
Eleanor Stuckey, an old gal who’d been a school marm in a previous life, sat on her porch knitting.
“Listen to the Mayor, Arnold,” she said. “You know he’s right.”
“Damn it,” Arnold said as he grabbed a brick and shoved it deep down into a bag. “Fine. But take that stupid hat off.”
“I like it,” Tobias said. “No one told Mayor Bratton to take it off.”
“He wore it well,” Arnold said. “You look like a jackass.”
“Eleanor,” Tobias said. “Does this hat make me look like a jackass?”
The old lady looked up from her yarn and squinted at the Mayor through her spectacles.
“Nope. You look all kinds of regal.”
Tobias opened up an empty bag, tossed a brick into it, then pored some grain out of another bag onto that. “You hear that, Arn? I’m regal.”
Movie Review – Central Intelligence (2016)
Kevin Hart. The Rock. 1990’s nostalgia.
Let’s do this.
I’ll tell you what I want, want I really really want…SPOILERS!
Back in 1996, Robbie Wierdick (no I’m sure no kids made fun of that name) was an overweight nerd with no friends. But when big man on campus Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart) showed him a kindness that no one else would, he never forgot it.
Flashforward twenty years and Robbie is now Bob Stone (the Rock). There’s been a total role reversal. Bob’s whipped himself into shape and has become a badass CIA agent whereas Cal, once voted most likely to succeed, now lives the boring life of an accountant.
Blah blah blah…through a hilarious sequence of events, Bob and Cal end up working together on a mission to save the world.
It’s your typical Kevin Hart film. Kevin gets thrust into a dangerous situation and then hilariously whines and tries to wiggle his way out.
The running joke of the film is that Bob (again, remember, he’s played by the Rock), despite having become a ripped secret agent, still pretty much acts like his old nerdy self.
In other words, there was probably a contest in the writer’s room to see how many dorky things they could get the Rock to say. (Highlights – he loves unicorns, can’t get enough of Molly Ringwald, and his voicemail message plays the Spice Girls.)
Speaking of the Spice Girls, there’s a whole plethora of 1990’s references as the action circles around Bob and Cal trying to save the day in time to get to their twentieth high school reunion.
Sheesh. Was 1996 really 20 years ago?
Damn it. That means Bob and Cal saw Independence Day after they graduated, with no idea that twenty years later there’d be a ridiculous sequel.
Hollywood, why are you insisting on reminding me that 1996 was twenty years ago? Boo!
STATUS: Shelf-worthy, but again, follows the pretty standard Kevin Hart film formula. No need to rush out to the theater for it, but worth a rental for the laughs and 90’s flashbacks.
Happy 3rd of July
Happy 3rd of July 3.5 Readers.
Here’s my grill at BQB HQ:
What’s on your grill, 3.5?
Share with BQB in the comments.
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