(The Neebs Gaming Inspired Monster Hunting Web Series)
Chapter 1: Small Town Big Problems
Cruising down the empty highways of the midwest, a dark blue 1965 Plymouth Barracuda hums. The land is flat, with sporadic trees and billboards along the road. The sun beats down, as it does for most of the year. The Plymouth passes a sign that says “11 Miles to Chillicothe.”
Inside the car sit two men: one is a well-groomed man in his 40’s, rocking a young Col. Sanders look. While the other is in his late 50’s with a horseshoe mustache and curly, balding hair. The older man looks out the window with a bored expression, whilst munching on a large sub-sandwich. The younger man peers at his ride-along who is quickly filling the otherwise clean car with hordes of crumbs.
“Pete can you please, fucking, not fill my car with the debris of your goddamn sandwich?”
Pete quickly turns his head, with the ingredients of the sub filling his facial hair. “What?!” Pete shouts, defensively, spraying the other man with chewed food particles.
The car veers slightly, before quickly correcting itself.
“Ah! God, what the fuck Pete? If I wasn’t wearing these sunglasses I’d be fucking blind!”
“I’m just eating my sammich!”
“Can you not wait till after the job? Or at least not while you’re in my car! I swear I always have to clean up after you ride with me.”
Pete continues eating his sandwich and rests back in his seat, facing away from the annoyed driver. “So, what’s this place called again, the town we’re going to?” Pete asks while making chewing noises.
The driver, giving up on the argument, says, “Some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. You know, where old people go to die. Hey, maybe we should drop you off there, Pete.” The driver glances at his companion with a shit-eating grin.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’m old, haha.” Pete continues to look out the window, resisting the goad.
Silence passes through the car for only a moment before Pete speaks up again. “So Jed, remind me what the job is supposed to be here again?”
Jed stares at Pete, almost dumbfounded. “I swear to god, Pete, you have Alzheimers.”
“No! I just don’t fucking listen!”
“That’s not better, you old asshole!”
“Can’t you just tell me what it is without crawling up my ass?!”
“Why should I, how am I supposed to know if you’re paying attention this time or not?!”
As the two argue, a blue flip phone rings from a cupholder in the car.
Jed grabs the phone, and answers it, “Yo.”
A man with a high-pitched voice and a thick southern accent comes through the phone. “Hey, Jed, I got you on speaker.” Another voice comes through, a soothing deep voice with an accent that is hard to pin down. “Heyo, how you doin’?”
“Hey, guys what’s up? Hope your ride is going better than mine,” Jed says whilst glaring at Pete.
The man with the thick southern accent says, “Yeah all good under the hood. We’re just letting you know to turn off at this next exit.”
“Alllrighty,” Jed says.
The Plymouth turns off at the exit, followed by a white 1996 Dodge 2500 Passenger Van and another man driving a 2001 Harley Davidson with a side car attachment. The small caravan of vehicles all stop at the entrance of the small town that looks as if it was under attack by a group of pyromaniacs.
The men all start exiting their vehicles and gathering their gear. Pete and Jed walk up to the two other men whom they were speaking with over the phone, who were driving the van. The van doors swing open. From the driver’s side stands a tall lanky man with a green tank top that once held the name of a band, but is now too worn to recognize. On the other side of the van a large, muscly, ethnically ambiguous man with drowsy eyes, slowly hops out of the passenger seat. He sees his compatriots approach and waves a large hand.
Jed walks up to the two, “Hey Aut, I got a question for you. Why is it that whenever we get to some place for a job it’s always on fire? Like it doesn’t even matter what the issue is. Does some guy just feel the need to start lighting shit on fire?”
Aut looks to the town ahead of them, seeing no one in sight, with looted buildings and several fires indiscriminately across the ruined town. “I don’t know, my first instinct would be to hotwire some car, and get the heck out.”
The large man looks at the town as well. “Maybe they were cold,” he says trying to hold back a laugh from his own joke.
Meanwhile, in the background, Pete takes a piss right next to the Harley motorcycle.
The young man who was driving the bike immediately starts yelling at Pete. “Why, Pete? Go piss somewhere else!”
“What the hell do you want me to do, walk into one of the gas stations that are on fire?!”
“No, just don’t piss right next to my bike!”
The German Shepard that was riding in the sidecar hops out, and lifts its leg right against the bike, almost as if following Pete’s lead.
The biker says almost defeated, “oh…just magical, thanks for teaching Caine a new trick Pete.”
Pete, continuing to pee, says, “Yeah, don’t mention it, kid.”
As the group continues its banter, a lone, shambling man, walks toward the group. His eyes are blood-red, with limbs just barely holding on. The man lets out an inhuman wailing moan.
Pete looking over his shoulder, while continuing to use the restroom says, “Ooohh, it’s zombies.”
Jed calls out to the group, “Alright everyone, let’s gear up, it seems like it’s just the slow ones, so no hurry.”
The zombie meanders towards the group as they gather their weapons and ammo. Aut walks up to his large ride-along, “Hey Em, have you seen my machete? I swear I had it next to Damion’s shotgun in the van but I didn’t see it.”
Emory gestures over to the Plymouth, “Yeah, remember you put it in Jed’s car after the werewolf job?”
“Oh shit, you’re right! Good lookin’ out!”
The zombie, now closer to the group, starts flailing its more attached arm towards the gang. The group almost ignoring the very slow threat continues gathering their gear.
The biker walks up to Aut and Emory, followed by Caine. “Why do these towns even end up like this? Like, I would understand if it was the fast ones or the abnormals, but these Romero zoms are just laughable.”
Aut actually ponders the question and starts to give a genuine response, but is cut off by Jed, who shouts: “It’s ‘cause people are idiots!”
The zombie is now within 10 feet of the group, the biker quickly takes out a revolver and fires off two rounds into its head, turning the zombie’s face into a spaghetti-like substance.
Emory looks at the dead ghoul with a queasy face, “Why do you always shoot twice, Damion?”
Damion, reloading the used shots, says, “What, never heard of double-tap?”
Emory looks back at the creature with nearly no head. “I don’t know, seems a bit like overkill is all.”
The shot, echoing through the town, starts to bring the rest of the zombies out of the woodwork.
The group all line up and draw their guns. Jed looks to his compatriots, “Alright everybody, time your shots, and make sure they hit… ammo’s ‘spensive.”
Over the next ten minutes, the group stays in formation and lights up the town with shotgun, sniper, and rifle shots, obliterating any zombie that crawls out of any hide. At some point, Aut had turned on one of the car radios to play Let’s Stick Together, by Bryan Ferry.
The poor townspeople who have now turned into the walking dead, crawl from under cars, bash through windows, and some fall from rooftops. Each zombie tries to limp towards their next meal, but those far off from their target, get snipped from Emory’s McMillan TAC-50. The main mass of the creatures staggering towards the gang quickly get turned into swiss cheese from Jed’s HK33 and Pete’s Smith & Wesson Model 29. The lucky few, who manage to get within 10 feet of them are hit by Damion’s Mossberg Maverick 88 Pump-Action Shotgun and Aut’s custom pipe gun.
As the noise of the guns start to die down, and the last zombie wails its final moan, the group stands victories over several mounds of still warm ammo. Damion immediately starts looking around the town and looting the bodies of the recently re-deceased.
Aut, calls out to his younger friend, “Hey! Stop takin’ stuff ‘till we find out if there’s any survivors!”
Damion with his motorcycle helmet still on, quickly looks to his left and right, and then immediately goes back to rummaging through coat pockets. “Nope, no survivors.”
“What if your stealin’ from someone’s gran-gran?!”
“Nope, this one’s a guy.”
“You know that’s not what I mean!”
Meanwhile, Jed walks through the town streets with the rest of the group following behind him. “Hey, if anyone’s still alive out there, you should make yourself known, otherwise the kid’s gonna start hauling off everything not bolted down.”
An older man emerges from a small fortified auto shop. “Where did you all come from? D-did the government send you?”
Jed lowers his eyelids and holds back from rebuffing such a stupid question. Most of his group look like they just came back from some kind of trucker convention. “Dude, do we seriously look like we’re one of those M.I.B. motherfuckers?”
The old man takes another good look at his odd saviors, “I, uh, I guess not.”
“You all there is? Got a ride? If not we can take you to the next town over, but I would advise against staying here.”
“W-why is that?”
“‘Cause those M.I.B. guys I just mentioned usually don’t treat lone survivors the nicest. Let’s just say they don’t usually pay people for their silence.”
Pete chimes in from behind Jed, “Usually just send them to the great big farm in the sky.”
Emory looks dryly at Pete, “Wow, man.”
“What?!”
The old man looks down, with a slightly tired and nervous expression. “I-I’ve got a car, t-thank you again.”
The old man walks back into his auto shop, seemingly packing his bags. The rest of the group follow Damion’s lead and start gathering cash and supplies from the now ghost town.
Emory walks up to Jed, with the slight grin he makes right before telling a joke. “Hey Jed, guess what the name of this place is.”
Jed looks up for a second, presumingly trying to explore his imagination. “Burny town?”
Emory chuckles slightly still trying to hold in his joke. “N-no, i-its Mass-evil.”
Jed looks to Emory, obviously not buying the bullshit that he just spewed. “No fucking way this place is called Mass-evil.”
The two walk over to the nearby sign that shows the name of the town, Massieville.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Slade Von Parade 
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