All New Wholesome Tales

An Erumas zombie tale!

I always knew that jelly couldn't be anything good.

You know you sound a mite zombophobic, Eldorado. Just sayiing...

I certainly apologize for any offense caused to our zombie members, Orlando.

we have zombie members?

Does Orleans's peeled off face look alive to you?

Who the Morgoth is Orleans???

Who is Eldorado?

WTF ?

Yeah!

Orwell wrote:You know you sound a mite zombophobic, Eldorado. Just sayiing...

.

Azrelderino, it's obvious!

Durrrrrrrrrrrr !

Eldorion wrote:Does Orleans's peeled off face look alive to you?

um now that you mention it

What is this Orleans thing?

Since you misspelled my name as the name of a mythical city (possibly due to autocorrect?), I figured I'd have a little fun and misspell your name as those of cities too.

THE PREPPERSHIRE CHRONICLE

2


As Odo lead them down several steel spiral stairways, and through paintings that were secret doors, and beer barrels that were secret windows, and chimneys that were secret lifts, and naked women statues that were secret portals, and naked male statues that cocealed sausage like tunnels (large), and mezzanine floors parts of which were secret trapdoors, his two intrepid assistants barraged him with anxious questions, to which Odo answered with retorts like: "All in good time, fellows!", or "These things always seem bigger than they are!", and "Flesh eating zombies are just a state of mind unless you're eaten by one!"; none of these responses satisfying Halfwise or Petty.

At last, they came to Odo's Prepper Bastion which was a strange room lined with what looked like steel cladding and shelves stacked neatly with cans and packets and water drums and loaded blunderbusses and a sign over the door which said: "Odo's Prepper Bastion."  

On entering via the bastion door - which became invisible again once closed behind them - Halfwise and Petty fell silent for a moment or two.

Then Petty expostulated: "Wot tha fook iz this my mun?" as he spun around the room looking like a Scotshobbit in a swirling kilt who has found himself unexpectedly in  a futuristic Prepper Bastion chamber, a place well beyond the ken of your average kilt swirling Scotshobbit.  

"Take a seat," Odo instructed them as he wiped his sweaty brow witth a handerkerchief. "I'll uncork a bottle of Old Wynyard I think. What a distressing day this has been..."

"Distressing?" Halwise got out in a voice choking with incredularity. "The world's going all zombie and you say it's been a 'distressing' day!"

"Well, what would you call it, a Forumshire pickanick, Boo Boo?" Odo said with suave disdain.

"Wot are zeze seats anyhoo?" Petty asked as he lowered himself into what might have been a chair but actually might have been a futuristic chair from the future. They were chairs of an indescribable nature.

Halfwise took one too. His chair was indescribale too, but he too felt it looked (and felt) incredibly futuristic, especially the inbuilt cigarette holder and gold lighter.

The cool feel of the seat cover of Petty's chair felt like nothing Petty's bare arse had ever sat on, and he asumed it was furturistic too - the seat cover not his arse - and he decided he had never experienced such softness in a chair, futuristic or not.

Petty looked around the room again in total stunnishment and his eyes fell on a large blue box with the word 'Police' on it. "Wot the fook is that?" he wanted know.

"Never you mind," Odo said archly and poured the two of them a large dram of Old Wynyard. Odo sat down on another indescribable futuristic chair - this one blue while Halwise and Petty's were yellow and green in that order. "There are some secrets I prefer to keep to myself."

"What! In your encycolopedia of secrets do you mean!" Halfwise commented with sarcastic irritability.

"Just so," Odo smiled thinly, wondering how Halwise knew about his encyclopedia, all twelve volumes having been one of Odo's closest secrets. "Now, I'm guessing you people want an explanation of all this silly zombie business. First things first - fear not Petty - lose no sleep about the fate of the Bankses upstairs, for even now they will have been spirited away on my Secret Eagle and will be heading to another of my Prepper Bastions in a secret location in Ozhobbitstan. They know the drill about potential zombie emergencies. I did forewarn them that something of an unplanned zombie nature may occur one day, it being something that even the best Risk Management may not avert when you have a mad scientist in your employ."

"I'm not mad!" Halfwise cried. "Are you talking about me? Because if you are, I'm not mad!"

"No, no - perish the thought. Anyway, with all your.. err... scientific experiments, especially, as it turns out, into you finding a way to make raspberry jelly turn Scotshobbits into Scotshobbit-eating zombies, I always felt something could just remotely possibly go wrong at some stage... Now I'm not being critical, Halfy, honestly...."

"Scootsobbit-etting zoombies!" Petty burst out in shock. "Wot tha fook!"

"Steady on, my good Scotshobbit," Odo said calmly as he sipped his Old Wynyard, looking quite relaxed now that he was in a safe place protected by six foot thick future-steel walls. "Halfwise was just operating under a brief from me. It's all quite innocent really, in the end, considering. You see, I thought, if for some reason in a future time all you Scotshobbits become crazed with ideas of forming a self-determined nation free of the Forumshiran yoke, well, then it might be useful to have some nice Raspberry Jelly on hand to give your nation that would cause you all to become Scotzombies who only eat each other and thus avert a potential economic catastrophe, what with all my towns, villages, and coal mines in Scottshobbitland..."

"Youuuu..wooot!"

"It would only be used as jelly of the most urgent sort. Unfortunately, we hadn't got far with the project. Halfwise had made his first batch and we needed to try it out so I employed you as my Science Student with the view to letting you try it. I had a series of questions I'd ask you before and after the jelly... For instance: 'Petty, would you eat another Scotshobbit if the mood came upon you?"'  Now if you had have answered 'Ov corse noot! Do yoo thunk Ime a ravin' noot!' and then - after the raspbery jelly: "Ide vury mooch lik too eat anudder Scootsobbit, yoom yoom!', then Halfwise and I would have some idea the jelly was working."

"Yes," Halfwise agreed, taking on a disinterested researcher tone. "We had it all worked out. It was going to be a proper experiment, not your stab in the dark kind of thing."

"Sighunce stoodent! Yoo meen - goonie pug!" Petty accused them with some passion. "Yoo wonted mee to bee yor goonie pug! I waz nefer yor sighunce stoodent, wozeye!"

Odo smirked. "No, no, not all Petty - I employed you as a science student, hoping you'd learn something - of science...."

"Thun why are yoo smurkin'?"

"Come now, you must admit 'goonie pug' is quite funny."

Halfwise suppressed a giggle. But then he became serious. "Hey, none of that explains how those Gondorians and Ithiliens became infected!"

"And all those Bree folk, don't forget," Odo said inclusively. "It's not all that hard to explain, actually.  Remember how you left me a bowl of your Scotszombie Raspbery Jelly Powder, Batch #1 on a shelf in Cellar 6 last Wednesday for adding to Petty's Jelly Surprise for next Tuesday's employee morning tea. Well, Halfwise, when I went to get it to put in Petty's Raspberry Surprise, I accidentally spilt some in a batch of my best Nerve Jelly which Mirabella was getting ready to pack and send out to some of my stores throughout Forumshire that very day and so beat the Erumas rush..."

"Sweet Eru!" Halfwise exclaimed. "You spilled my protypical Scotshobbit Zombie Jelly Powder in that Nerve Jelly and still sent it out! I can't believe it!"

"I didn't want to waste it," Odo said on his dignity, not liking Halfwise's tone. "As you know very well it is one of my bests sellers in the Adults Only market."

"Noove Jully?" Petty mused aloud.      

"Never you mind," Odo said. "The point is, Halfwise, it is your faulty Scotshobbit Zombie Jelly Powder that is at the heart of the problem. If it had worked as it was intended no one would have been turned into flesh eating zombies."

"Excupt for wee Scootsobbits!" Petty hissed.    

"No, not all," Odo shot back. "Only my Science Student - you, Petty - would have been infected as no one invites Scotshobbits to their Adults Only Jelly Parties anymore. And we had every plan to cudgel you into unconciousness and sequester you in a steel cage before ever the jelly could take effect. That way no one could be hurt, except you if there was an adverse affect. Be positive, though, if you had become a Scotshobbit-eating zombie you may have found Scotshobbit delicious - or as you might put it: 'yoomy'. Now now - get that fury out of your eyes! Look, we would never have let it happen. We'd have kept you in the cage until you recovered or expired, whichever came first."  

"I wood huv becoom a flush ettin' zoombie either way!" Petty thought aloud in horror, his anger receding as his face drained of all colour.  

"True enough - and you would have enjoyed Scotshobbit flesh, that's true, but with broadened range of prey on the menu. But only if we had let you out of the cage, remember," Odo said, trying to strike a positive tone.

"Butt woot noo? Wot abbut all thum eenfucted eehubitoonts ov Foroomshire?"    

Odo reclined back comfortably in his chair. "Luckilly, I always have plans prepared for when any one of my many business deals or public schemes go wrong."

And he gave his two companions his best most encouraging and trustful grin, which gave neither of them a jot of confidence.


to be continued....