Holy Crap 3.5 Readers.
I walk away from my magic bookshelf for 3.5 seconds and this happens:
Enough you two! Settle your differences and get down to the important business of punching Lex Luthor in the face.
Is there a battle on your bookshelf? Tweet the photographic evidence to @bookshelfbattle #bookshelfbattle and I might just share it with my 3.5 readers.
And now from BQB HQ in East Randomtown…the Top Ten Signs You Are One of BQB’s 3.5 Readers
10. You continue to keep the faith that one day BQB will actually review a book.
9. You even keep the faith that one day BQB will finish writing a book he has started.
8. You wish you could have Scandal nights with Alien Jones and the Yeti.
7. Uncle Hardass is starting to sound more and more reasonable.
6. You check BQB’s movie reviews before you decide to see a movie.
5. You’ve done the math to determine whether or not it is statistically possible to have .5th of a reader.
4. You look at toaster pastries and toilets differently…especially on stormy nights.
3. It concerns you that BQB doesn’t write more in order to appease the Mighty Potentate.
2. A two-player game of Car Thief Mayhem with Video Game Rack Fighter sounds like a fun evening as long as you don’t try to beat her high score
And the number 1 reason why you might be one of BQB’s 3.5 readers…
“Simmer down, Martin.”
Inside the church, Blake ignored Gunther and rested his hands on his big brass belt buckle. “You two shit heels knew this was coming and you didn’t warn anyone.”
“No one knew anything,” Gunther said.
“Oh, I see,” Blake said. “Go on, old man. Keep telling me I didn’t hear what I just heard and act like I’m stupid.”
“It wouldn’t be much of an act,” Gunther replied. He pointed out the broken window. More and more of the undead were congregating in the road, bumping into one another, searching for flesh to devour.
“Do you really think there was any way that either of us could have predicted THAT?” Gunther asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Blake said. “You two knew something bad was coming…”
“We were told by the government that it was bullshit,” Gunther interrupted.
Blake poked a finger into Gunther’s chest. In his youth, Gunther would have laid Blake out on the floor for doing that, but the old man took it.
“You knew the government was full of shit,” Blake said.
“What does it matter now?” Gunther asked. “You want to blame us?”
“Yeah I do!” Blake shouted.
“That makes you feel like a big man?” Gunther asked.
“Yeah it does!” Blake replied.
Slade heard some strange noises coming from outside. He looked through the broken window only to be amazed by the sight of a large wolf man barreling through the undead, flinging them out of his way as if they were rag dolls.
And behind him?
“Bonnie,” Slade said.
Gunther and Blake were too busy exchanging unpleasantries to notice.
“Son, if it makes you think you got a big swinging dick to point out other people’s mistakes then go right ahead,” the old man said.
“Don’t think I won’t,” Blake said.
“Just finish up quick because we all need you to get the fuck over yourself, man the fuck up, and stop running your mouth,” Gunther said.
“Don’t turn this around on me, Grandpa,” Blake said. “You two idiots have killed us all.”
“We all look pretty damn alive to me,” Gunther said. “Maybe if you shut up and stop being a jackass we’ll get out of this alive.”
“I’m the jackass?” Blake said.
“Yeah you are,” Gunther said.
A fist pounded on the door. Slade heard Miss Bonnie’s muffled voice coming from outside.
“Rain!”
“You had no right to keep this shit to yourself,” Blake said.
“Oh and you’re just so perfect, aren’t you?” Gunther asked. “You just know everything, don’t you?”
Blake thumped a fist on his chest. “I do!”
Slade fished through the drunken reverend’s pockets and found an iron key. He shoved it into the lock.
Bonnie pounded on the door again.
“Rain open up the door and get the hell out of the way!”
Blake and Gunther were oblivious.
“You really think you could have done any better than we did?” Gunther asked.
“Yeah I do!” Blake hollered. “I’m not some dumb son of a bitch who can’t tell when danger is headed right at him!”
Slade turned the key and opened the door. Miss Bonnie fired her shot.
Now noble reader, perhaps you’ve heard of Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion. In case you haven’t, it goes like this:
An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Miss Bonnie had fired true and a silver tipped bullet was lodged in Becker’s brain. In the last few moments of his life, the beast, or rather, the object, kept running anyway.
Slade acted quickly enough to grab Miss Bonnie and pull her out of the way. Even old, worn out Gunther looked up in time to dive out out of the aisle.
Blake, on the other hand, an unbalanced force if there ever was one, was slammed by an oncoming furry freight train, only to have each and every one of his bones crack under Becker’s gargantuan weight.
Doc, who had been resting in a pew at the front of the church, stood and walked over to survey the damage. He wasn’t feeling very steady on his feet, so he leaned on Annabelle.
The only part of Blake that remained visible was his head. The rest was pinned underneath the hairy corpse.
To Doc’s surprise, Blake was gasping for breath.
The physician’s nausea was getting worse. He coughed as he leaned down and pulled a bottle of his Miracle Cure-All out of his pocket.
“Take this,” Doc said as he poured a few drops into Blake’s open mouth.
“Will he make it?” Annabelle asked.
“Doubtful,” Doc replied. “I fear even the mighty power of cocaine mixed with spider eggs for texture will not be enough to save him.”
Slade and Miss Bonnie, the Good Reverend, and Gunther all gathered around. Even Sarah timidly walked over.
Blake’s face turned purple. “Tell…”
“Hush my good man,” Doc said. “Conserve your strength.”
“Tell Gunth…”
Gunther knelt down and brushed his wrinkled hand over Blake’s hair.
“It’s ok, son,” Gunther said. “No need to tell me you’re sorry. You’re…”
The old man wasn’t big on emotion, nor was he even sure he believed what he was about to say, but under the circumstances, he felt it was appropriate.
“You’re my friend and I love you,” Gunther said.
Blake’s eyes looked toward Doc. “Tell Gunther…to go…fuck himself.”
And with that, the victim drew his last breath and his eyes rolled back into his head.
The group of survivors remained quiet for a few moments until Doc broke the silence.
“Deputy,” Doc said. “This man wished for me to tell you…”
“I know!” Gunther said as he stood up.
“Well, it was his last wish,” Doc said as Annabelle helped him up to his feet.
Speaking of feet, a pair of two very large ones entered the church and creaked across the floor boards. Slade turned around to see another werewolf.
This one wasn’t acting very dangerous. He was nonchalantly walking in on two feet, carrying another Winchester, and a shotgun, and a bag of ammo in his paws.
Instinctively, Slade yanked the rifle out of Miss Bonnie’s hands and took aim.
The redhead jumped in front of the werewolf and put her hands up.
“Don’t shoot! He’s really just a nice little negro boy!”
Hey 3.5 readers.
BQB here.
How the West Was Zombed is currently ranked #218 in Horror Fiction on Wattpad.
Check it:
That’s the highest one of my stories has ever ranked before.
If you’re a Wattpadder, I’d appreciate it if you’d give it a read, a vote, a comment…any little bit you can do can help it climb the charts.
The more eyes, the more feedback, the more feedback motivates me to keep going.
I hate to admit it, but I have a hard time sometimes.
I want to start my own self-publishing business so badly, but I feel life has it out for me. Things constantly go wrong. Ridiculous nonsense constantly gets in my way. There’s always something that’s immediately pressing.
I get to write when I “steal my time back.” I get up a little earlier. I stay up a little later. I stop watching TV. I stop doing fun things.
That’s all admirable but it does take a toll. Sometimes you do need to unwind. Sometimes you do need to be unproductive, even if it is for twenty minutes.
Like this site’s name, it just seems like it is a constant battle. Sometimes I get frustrated. Whenever I think I have a nice free night of writing ahead of me and some nonsense gets in the way, I feel like banging my head against the wall.
Sometimes I think about giving up. If the gods, or karma, or the powers that be or whatever wanted me to write, they would stop allowing so many time sucking curveballs to be sent my way.
Your comments help. Even if your comment is “this sucks” it helps me because, hey, last year I didn’t even have half of a rough draft written for someone to tell me it sucks so…improvement!
You keep reading and commenting, I’ll keep finding ways to squeeze writing in.
Thank you, 3.5 readers. You are by far the best 3.5 readers a magical bookshelf caretaker/alien friend/zombie fighter/town mayor could ask for
Happy St. Patrick’s Day 3.5 readers.
What is your favorite Irish book/movie/or other Irish person or thing?
Hey 3.5 Readers,
Here’s some questions I have for you:
Doc Faraday vs. Doc Holliday
If I get through How the West Was Zombed and the tentative sequel I’m currently referring to as “Calamity Jane vs. Zombies,” I foresee a third – Wyatt Earp vs. Zombies.
Wyatt Earp’s best friend, of course, was Doc Holliday.
This is probably thinking too far into the future but if I get through all three books, will you, the noble reader, be upset that there are two doctors with last names involving “day?”
My gut tells me to leave it. I actually chose Faraday because it kind of felt like a small tribute to Doc Holliday. Future books will take place in a zombified west (i.e. you’re about to learn How the West Was Zombed)…with at least two actual Western folk heroes responding to the zombie crisis (Jane in #2 and Wyatt in #3).
So I’m probably just going to leave Doc Faraday’s name as is. But I’d like your input.
Old vs. Young Points of View
Gunther at the beginning always wants Slade to back down. He’s old. He’s seen the result of not backing down too many times. Slade’s young. Younger people have this sense of “the world should be X and if it isn’t everything must stop until it is fixed!”
Slade adopts Gunther’s “f%&k it” strategy toward the middle of the book where he quits.
But as things start to become more ominous…Gunther begins to snap Slade out of his teachings – i.e. he’s old enough to know when to back down and when to fight.
Make sense?
The Impending Zombie Apocalypse
Pretty soon the book is going to turn into The Walking Dead Meets Gunsmoke. I foresee Slade and Co. fighting their way through town for survival.
Should we put Miss Bonnie in his group to keep things interesting as she and the Widow Farquhar cat fight it out over their man in the midst of zombie mayhem?
Probably worth a laugh or two but…I’m leaning toward things working out for Miss Bonnie to become a bit of a hero in her own right.
By the way, this is actually going to require me to draw a rudimentary map of Highwater just to make sure I keep it straight where everyone’s going so…stay tuned for that.
It’s definitely going to look like a 5 year old drew it with crayon but it will get the job done.
Standing Eagle’s Tribe
I believe I will rewrite the curse in the beginning to be a general curse of “Bad stuff will happen to you Slade” rather than leave it as it is, “The dead will rise from the grave!”
The problem is if you go back and read the beginning, you, the reader, find out there’s a zombie attack making its way across the West on its way to Highwater before Slade and Friends figure it out.
So really, the curse, meant as a red herring until its eventually discovered the Miracle Cure All was the culprit, doesn’t work.
But, in theory, you might wonder if the tribe’s curse of “bad things will happen” (will be worded better than that) might not have invited – all this bad stuff to happen.
It doesn’t. Standing Eagle just wanted to save face with a curse is all. I believe he will return. He was too good of a character not to and there needs to be some zombie scalping.
The author of To Kill a Mockingbird has passed away at age 89. She gave us Atticus Finch, a sequel that came out last year, and she was Truman Capote’s homie.
What say you, 3.5 readers?
1870
History has an uncanny way in which it repeats itself. Eleven years had passed since Joe discovered the monster that dwelled within him. For a time, he found money. Happiness. Success. A wife. A son. A home.
Alas, when he found himself in the middle of a dank, dark dungeon, his hands and feet bound to a stone table by silver chains, he began to realize that compared to his new master, Lorante had been a teetotaler.
An iron door opened and two werewolves lumbered in, their heads just barely scraping the ceiling. Blythe stepped into the room as merry as could be, as if he were off to a stroll in a park and not a torture session.
Joe struggled but the silver burned his skin. The more he moved, the worse it got.
Blythe looked down and wagged a finger in his captive’s face. “Bad dog. Bad, bad dog.”
The counselor turned to one of his wolves. “Mr. Hewett, have at it.”
Hewett dragged his claws across Joe’s chest, forcing the prisoner to cry out in pain. Then as quickly as Joe’s wound was made, it was gone. Nothing but bare skin remained.
“Joseph, I had a soul once,” Blythe said. “I can remember what it was like to be in the terrible position of caring. ‘Waah I want love. Waah I don’t like being sad. Waah I don’t want to kill anyone.’”
Blythe nodded at Hewett. A hot blast of air shot out of Hewett’s snout as he slashed Joe’s stomach again, producing even more agony.
“I blame myself for this, Joseph,” Blythe said. “Really, I do. I trained you poorly. Somehow, you thought the only thing your new position required of you was to just stand around and keep me safe.”
Blythe chucked. “And somehow…you got the silly idea in your head that my orders are optional. Again, Mr. Hewett.”
Another slash. Another scream.
“Would you like to tell me what you were thinking?” Blythe asked.
“They were just…people. Innocent people,” Joe said.
Another wag of the finger from Blythe. “That’s that pesky soul of yours talking. You see them as people and I see them as blood bags. And not just any blood bags. Excellent physical specimens. Good health and breeding. Procured at some expense for the board of directors’ pleasure and you just opened up their cell doors and let them walk away.”
Splat. A giant loogie hit Blythe right in the face. Hewett took that as an invitation to slash the prisoner again.
“Just kill me and get it over with,” Joe said.
Blythe wiped the spit off his face with a handkerchief. “If it were up to me I would let you off so easily but I have a board of directors to answer to and our chairman is a real bastard in particular. Mr. Becker, if you please.”
Becker ducked his furry head under the door frame and left the room.
“Have you ever read the works of Plato, Joseph?” Blythe asked.
“Is that a trick question?” Joe replied.
“Not at all,” Blythe said. “I never read them myself but that’s only because I had the chance to listen to him speak about them in person. He theorized that there were three classes of people: gold, silver, and bronze.”
Hewett, used to his boss’s tendency to prattle on, leaned up against the wall to rest.
“The gold class, they’re the thinkers. The politicians. The business tycoons. The big picture people,” Blythe said. “The silver class, they protect the world that the golds create and the bronze? They’re the lowly grunts who do the work that’s beneath the silver and gold.”
“I wish I could kill myself just so I wouldn’t have to listen to you anymore,” Joe said.
“The humans follow this system,” Blythe said. “And evil follows this system as well. At the very bottom of our food chain is the pathetic zombie. No soul. No brains. Mindless instruments of destruction who just bite and eat and destroy whatever is in their way. They’re ultimately useless until given some direction.”
Blythe pointed to the silver chains. “You’re a silver, Joseph. An unfortunate analogy seeing as what silver actually does to beings like us but an apt one just the same. Werewolves have been tasked with the noble duty of guarding the property of vampires since the dawn of time. We don’t ask you to think. We just ask you to do.”
The counselor stroked his hand through Joe’s hair just as one would a well-behaved puppy.
“Did I not take care of you, Joseph?” Blythe asked. “Provide you with a generous wage? Raise you to a higher station in life? And did I not protect you from those humans who’d protest that your shade of color disqualifies you from either? There is no one else on this planet who could have offered you the life I did and you thanked me by making me look like a fool in front of the board.”
Joe stared at the ceiling, praying for a swift resolution.
Becker returned with Lydia slung over his shoulder. He set her down. This time around, she was very, very scared.
Joe wrenched at the chains but that only made him scream. “HOW?!”
Blythe grinned. “Thought you hid her from me did you? Oh Joseph, the eyes, as they say, truly are the window to the soul and once you allowed me to look into yours I knew your achilles’ heal was your family.”
Lydia shrieked as Blythe pulled her body close to his. The counselor opened his mouth and hissed like a snake as two sharp fangs popped out. He used them to bite open a vein in his wrist.
“Henry, please,” Joe said. “This is between us. She did nothing to you. Let her go.”
“The board has already made a ruling, Joseph,” Blythe said as his blood dripped all over Lydia’s dress. “I am but a cog in a greater machine.”
The vampire wrapped his hand around Lydia’s mouth.
“Open,” Blythe said.
Lydia struggled and then relented. Drip…drip…drip went the vampire blood down her throat.
Joe lost control and yanked at the chains with all his might, the silver searing into his flesh.
“Your love and I are bonded now,” Blythe said. “A greater connection exists between us for my blood flows in her veins. It calls out to me, yearning for my guidance. My direction. My control.”
Joe’s eyes turned yellow. The beast fought to take over his body but the silver chains held it at bay.
“Of course,” Blythe said. “She’s burdened by that pesky soul of hers that tells her not to listen to me so let’s relieve her of that, shall we?”
A shot rang out, smashing its way through Lydia’s heart. Once she fell to the ground, Blythe set a smoking revolver down on a small table.
Had any humans been in the room, Joe’s roar would have popped their eardrums.
“Oh enough of the theatrics,” Blythe said. “Her soul’s in a much better place.”
Joe couldn’t see it but he could hear Lydia grown. Then she snarled. Ever so slowly, she rose to her feet. Her eyes were blank white, the retinas completely gone. Her movements were mechanical. She had become a gruesome automaton.
Unsure of her steps, Lydia walked like a toddler towards Joe, then sunk her teeth into her husband’s shoulder. She snapped off a piece of flesh and devoured it, blood dripping from her lips. Joe’s flesh grew back immediately.
“I can’t be damned twice,” Joe said. “You killed her for nothing! NOTHING!”
“Did I?” Joe asked. “Mr. Becker.”
The werewolf henchman exited the room. Lydia moved into Joe’s neck for another bite but Blythe stretched out his hand in a “stop” motion.
“Down girl,” Blythe commanded.
Lydia instantly complied and stood quietly, staring at the wall.
Becker returned with little Miles wrapped up in his paw. The boy was merely five years old and petrified for his life. He was set on the floor and he immediately scurried underneath the table his father was laid out on.
“Please,” Joe said, reduced to sobbing. “Just kill me.”
“If I had any emotions I’d sympathize with you Joseph,” Blythe said. “I truly would.”
Blythe stared at the bullet in his hand. It was remarkably shiny. A glint of candlelight bounced off of it. The vampire loaded it into the pistol then set it on the smaller table by the door.
“I’ll let you figure this out,” Blythe said. “The bullet’s silver in case you’d like to take personal responsibility for what you’ve done and call it quits. If not, well, you know what to do. The board has declared that either your head or hers will be sufficient to consider your debt repaid.”
Hewett and Becker got in front of their boss and formed one gigantic hairy wall of protection. Blythe reached for a lever on the wall, yanked it down, and Joe was released.
Joe lept from the table and charged at his captors.
Blythe snapped his fingers. “Feed at will, dear,” was his last order to Lydia.
Hewett backhanded Joe to the ground and the trio escaped, locking the iron door behind them.
Joe stood up to find the undead body of the woman he loved on the floor, desperately clawing her hand underneath the table, attempting to snatch a crying Miles.
“Lydia,” Joe said.
Lydia waved her arm under the table furiously.
“Miles,” Joe said.
“Papa?”
“Stop…” Joe caught his breathe. “Stop that crying now. Mama’s just playing a game with you.”
“She is?” Miles asked.
“Yes,” Joe said.
“Silly Mama,” Miles said. The boy sniffed and the crying stopped. “What are we playing?”
Joe grabbed Lydia by the waist and pulled her away from the table but like a wild animal she kicked and growled.
“LYDIA STOP!”
It was no use. She wrestled herself out of Joe’s grip and dove to the bottom of the table again, the boy’s delicious flesh the only thing on her mind.
Joe grabbed the revolver. “Hide and seek,” Joe told Miles.
“I’m losing,” Miles said. “Mama keeps finding me.”
“I know,” Joe said as he pulled Lydia away again. She shrieked and waled, digging her nails into Joe’s sides and ripping her teeth into the arm he used to hold her with.
“You just have to try harder,” Joe said. “Close your eyes and count to ten.”
The little boy’s voice counted. “One…two…three…”
“Stick your fingers in your ears and sing a song,” Joe said.
Lydia’s teeth cut Joe’s arm all the way to the bone. He fought through it as he raised the revolver to his wife’s temple.
“Then she’ll hear me and find me!” Miles said.
“Nah,” Joe replied. “Mama’s sneaky. She’ll ask you where you are and if you can’t hear then you can’t tell her.”
“Oh,” Miles said. “Row row row your boat…”
Joe kissed his wife on the cheek. She snapped her teeth at his face.
“I love you,” Joe said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Joe pulled the trigger. The shot tore through Lydia’s brain and her undead body went limp. Gently, Joe laid her down on the table he’d been held on. He wolfed out, punched the iron door off its hinges, then morphed back into human form.
Miles was still singing. “…merrily merrily merrily…”
Joe picked up Lydia and carried her in his arms. He walked out of the room, down a dimly lit hallway, and found another cell. He laid his wife down again, then returned to collect his son.
He reached under the table and pulled Miles out.
“Where’s Mama?” Miles asked as Joe grabbed the boy by the hand and led him down the hallway.
“Her turn to hide now,” Joe said. “She’s hiding pretty good so I think it’ll be awhile before we find her.”
“Oh,” Miles said. “Why are you naked?”
“Lost my pants,” Joe said.
“I lose mine sometimes too,” Miles said. “Mama always finds ‘em for me. She’s a good Mama.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Yeah she is.”
Hey 3.5 Readers,
BQB here. How the West Was Zombed has gone up and down the Wattpad horror charts. It’s currently #610. Comments, reads, votes, they all factor in to moving it up the charts and the higher it goes the more readers it gets so feel free to follow me @bookshelfbattle and give me your feedback.
Not on Wattpad? You can still read it and my other stuff here at bookshelfbattle.com
Bookshelf Battle 