Flash Story: Lady in Black in the Bucolic Battle

Lady in Black: The Bucolic Battle

There’s an old saying, “You can’t walk through hell without getting poked in the ass by a few demons.” I’ve never met any demons but I have gotten poked by a few fools who regretted it when I cracked their skulls (A big part of my job).

Zombie Knight and Mr. Doorman came deep into the woods on this mission with me. Zombie had to be convinced. She was all for saving the world but preferred to do it in places that didn’t have insects.

Invaders don’t always attack cities and monsters don’t always stomp the coast. Sometimes they tear through the fabric of reality in the middle of an isolated forest. It wasn’t environmentally friendly but it was cheaper due to the lack of buildings and cars and there were fewer people to get killed in the crossfire (the more important part). So long as we could keep them from getting out of the forest, we were fine.

Zombie and Door were enjoying the fight with the horde. But they kept coming and they all wanted to kill us.

“Lady, dammit. It’s a flood.” Doorman screamed over the radio. When he was upset, he always forgot he didn’t have to scream.

“Give Zee time.”

Zombie said she had a way to cut off the flow. We had to let her work.

I couldn’t think about Zombie or Door at that moment. My over-sized, Cro-magnon problem swung the girl in his fist like a ragdoll. She had the same pink glow as the rest of them. She came with them (that was obvious). Without that glow, the girl would have just looked like a baby hero running into a firefight.

“Who’s side is she on?” and “What is she?” were irrelevant. Someone twice her size was crushing her throat. I fired three shots into the giant. He flinched and held her out as a human shield.

“I don’t think she’s going to run. Maybe I should crush her.” He smiled at the girl in his fist. He had nice teeth (nicer than mine).

I had seen the girl before the giant. She had gestured at me to run. She had tried to warn me. I knew it.

“Thus to heroes.” He shook her again. A guppy in the jaws of a shark. Her head would soon would be without her body. He was getting frustrated by her unwillingness to die.

The seconds flowed like frozen molasses while I aimed. The girl’s legs dangled. The megalithic man smirked. With one hand, she held on for dear life. She pulled a rock out of her pocket and threw it. Her attempt impressed me. She still had the strength to fight.

“Missed me.” He taunted. A plated monster with nails galloped into him.

The noises were terrible. Clang, clang, clang. Nails shredding flesh. Teeth buried into his butt. He screamed. Her bones against stone.

The girl crawled to get away. She strobed, bright and dim.

“I get to kill her. You don’t get to kill her. I get to kill her.” The plated monster screamed.

The giant laid on the ground. Blood spilled everywhere. The plated monster ran in the direction I assumed the guppy went. I followed. She hadn’t missed at all. She had hit the plated monster with the stone to draw the attention of the monster that wanted to kill her to distract the one that was killing her.

The light of the machine vanished. New monsters stopped coming.

“Zombie did it.” Door grabbed my arm.

“I know. The girl...did you see her?”

“I saw a giant sharp thing run past. We’ll probably--”

“--they’re after her.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I kinda do.”

“Where are you going?”

“To save the guppy.” I ran after them.